Christy English - [Shakespeare in Love 02]

by Love on a Midsummer Night

  Arabella stared at him, his wide shoulders ramrod straight, his graying hair the color of polished pewter. His light blue eyes held her still, like a bug under a pin, impaled and dying. For a moment, Arabella was sure that she could not move, could not breathe. Only when he looked away could she take a breath.

  She did not try to run then, when she might have gotten away. Instead, she followed her father into the house to the front parlor that had not been used since her mother died. An old man sat by the fire there though it was midsummer and warm.

  The house as always was dark and cold, the fire meager, only three candles lit by the hearth. The old man did not seem to mind but stood as her father did, his cool gray eyes assessing her as she had once seen a horse assessed at the fair in the village.

  “This is His Grace, the Duke of Hawthorne. Come and greet him, daughter.”

  Arabella flinched. He only called her daughter when he thought to beat her. She felt the sting of old wounds on her shoulders as she stepped forward to take the old duke’s hand.

  Hawthorne bowed as if they met in a ballroom, surrounded by bright lights and soft laughter, dancing and merriment. He kissed her fingertips, his lips leaving a trace of spittle on the back of her hand.

  She felt her dread rising. Her father had never brought anyone home before. She curtsied, her eyes cast down to hide her fear. She knew her father could smell it on her, but she might escape a beating if he did not see it in her eyes.

  “The duke has graciously condescended to marry you on the morrow. You may hold your tongue. I can only imagine how pleased you must be to become a peer of the realm, the wife of such a man. I have no doubt that you are grateful that we have arranged such a stellar match for the likes of you.”

  Arabella stepped away from the two old men, her mind whirling. She had never seen this man before in her life. She would not marry him, tomorrow or ever.

  She knew then that she would have no time to pack a bag. The fragments of her mother’s memory and of her old life would have to be left behind. If she could get to Pembroke, if she could reach him, she would be safe, no matter what her father said, no matter what bargains he had made.

  She still wore her cloak of dark blue wool. She murmured something polite and curtsied again, drawing her cloak close about her. She stepped into the hall as if to go to her room, but her father must have seen some hint of defiance in her face. When she turned not toward the staircase, but to the back door of the house, her father caught her arm. He dragged her up the stairs himself, while the old butler stood looking on, silent and dour.

  As always, the house was ill lit. Her father carried a lamp in one hand, gripping her thin arm in the other. She had never fought him in her life, but she fought him then, desperately trying to tear herself away, as she would have torn away from a bear trap if caught in the woods. She could not think of failure, only of escape.

  “I know you’ve been sneaking around with the earl’s son,” her father said. “That’s all well and good for childish pleasures, but you will be a woman on the morrow and you will obey me every moment until then. You will marry the Duke of Hawthorne as I bid you. You will put a smile on your face tomorrow morning, and you will swear to obey him for the rest of your life.”

  Arabella saw the key in his hand and knew that he meant to lock her in. Despite the years she had lived with him, in spite of the beatings she had received at his hands since her mother’s death, for the first time she stopped struggling and asked for mercy.

  “Father, I love him.”

  He did not hesitate. She wondered for a moment if he had even heard her speak. He pushed her into her bedroom, the cold hearth filled with ash.

  Her father struck her once, raising a welt on her cheek. “Love is just a pretty word. You will marry where I bid you.”

  He slammed the door to her room, locking it behind him. Arabella could not take those words as her epitaph. She hammered her hands bloody against that door, hoping some servant would hear, take pity, and set her free. But the entire household was as afraid of her father as she was, and no one came.

  He heard her though, and he came back with a supple willow wand, a wand she had not seen since she was a girl, since he had taken to beating her with his riding crop.

  “Take off your shoes,” he said.

  “I will not.”

  So he called in his valet to hold her down and he took her shoes off himself and beat the soles of her feet as his man kept her pressed into the threadbare carpet. It was not a bad beating as some of them went. He stopped after ten strokes. She knew then that he was serious about making her marry on the morrow. There would be no time to escape.

  Arabella sat up all night, alone in the dark. Just before dawn an upstairs maid came to dress her hair and to help her into her wedding gown, a blue silk gown of her mother’s that now fit.

  She slipped a letter to Raymond into the basket that had held the remains of her breakfast bread, asking the girl to hand the letter to the cook. Mrs. Fielding would see that Pembroke received it.

  In an hour, Arabella’s father came to take her downstairs to be wed. He drew out the letter she had written, telling Pembroke why she had not come to him.

  “You cannot defy me, Arabella. I am your father, and I hold your life, such as it is, in my hands. You will obey me as God has ordained. You will come downstairs now and take an oath to obey your husband for the rest of your life. Forget this boy. He is dead to you, or I will make him so.”

  Arabella could not be certain he truly meant that he would kill him, but in that moment, she believed him. She watched as he burned her letter to Pembroke. He drew a flint from his pocket and struck a spark that ignited the small blaze. When it was gone, with all her hope, he took up the fire tongs and scattered the ashes before he led her down to the drawing room to marry the Duke of Hawthorne.

  ***

  Pembroke pressed his hand to hers. He felt his mind wheeling in circles like a great bird, looking down on that long-ago day. He saw her father as he had once seen him, a huge, imposing man whose ambition burned like a brand, raising blisters on all it touched. He saw her face as he had seen it on her wedding day, thin, pale, and drawn, her eyes downcast except when she had looked at him.

  That day he had been so filled with pain, so overcome by anger and despair that he had not truly seen her, not really. He had seen only a woman who had betrayed him, an avaricious woman who had played him for a fool, lying to him one night only to marry another man the next day. He had been a boy of eighteen, unable to see past his own wounded pride and his own pain. But now Pembroke looked back down the corridor of years and saw Arabella as she truly had been. A seventeen-year-old girl, lost and alone, with no man to defend her, not even him.

  Pembroke wept, pressing his hands to his face. He knelt beside her chair and laid his head in her lap, his tears staining the linen of her napkin. Arabella pressed her fingers into the softness of his hair. He felt her soothing touch like a balm on his soul. He raised his head and wiped away the last of his tears.

  “I have always loved you,” he said. “I never stopped, not for one moment, from that day to this.”

  The silence stretched between them as he looked into her light blue eyes that matched the room around them, the room he had designed just for her, when he had been certain that she would never see it.

  Arabella pressed her lips to his forehead. Pembroke felt the last of the open wound on his heart heal.

  “I love you, Raymond. I always loved you, even when it was no longer my right.”

  She stood as if to run from him, and he rose to his feet with her, still not letting go of her hand. Pembroke pulled her to him, holding her within the prison of his arms. He did not tighten his grip, he did not try to distract her with desire, with the press of his lips on hers. He wrapped his arms around her but gave her room to move, room to breathe. He would not smother her, but h
e also knew that he would never let her go.

  Arabella stopped fighting him and leaned against his chest. She rested her head just above his heart. He could feel her breath and her heartbeat, like the wings of a tiny bird, frantic to be free. Finally, her heart slowed and her breathing became even. He wondered for a moment if she had fallen asleep, she was so quiet as she leaned against him.

  “Marry me, Arabella.”

  She shook in his arms, and when he looked down at her face, he saw that she was not weeping but laughing, the light of joy on her face.

  “I cannot marry you,” she said. “I will never belong to a man again. And Hawthorne is coming. I cannot be here when he arrives. But thank you for asking me.”

  “I will protect you from Hawthorne.”

  “And who will protect you? From a duke of the realm? From a friend of the Prince Regent?”

  “I’ll call him out. I’ll kill him for touching you.”

  “He would kill you.”

  “No, he won’t.”

  Arabella knew Hawthorne too well to believe that. No matter how mad he might be, he was a crack shot. Hawthorne had killed at least one man in cold blood on the dueling field, and she knew it would not trouble him to shoot one more. It might even give him pleasure.

  “No,” she said. “I will not marry again. I must be gone.”

  “If you think I am letting you go now that I’ve found you again, you are lying to yourself.”

  She laughed louder then, her old, free laugh from her belly. He held her close and felt the vibration of her laughter through his own body, coaxing out his own.

  “I love you, Arabella.” He needed to say those words again and to have her hear them.

  “I love you, Raymond. And I am still leaving.”

  He pressed her lips closed with his own, knowing that he did not have the strength to argue with her anymore.

  He had waited for her ten years already. He would keep waiting for as long as it took. Now that he had her back, he felt as if his heart had grown large enough to encompass the whole world. She would marry him, no matter what she said. He would see to it.

  He kissed her until she was leaning full against him, soft and pliant. When he drew back from her far enough to look down into her eyes, she sighed and smiled at him.

  “Be my mistress then,” he teased. “Live with me in sin. Let us have twenty bastard children together and be the talk of the ton.”

  Arabella laughed, raising her head. He saw the light in her soft blue eyes. “Twenty children?”

  “Too few?” He smiled down at her, smoothing her caramel hair back from her face where it had come loose from its ribbon. “We can compromise on the number of children,” he said. “I want only to be with you.”

  She did not speak at once but lay her head back down on his chest. Her breathing was even and calm, her body warm and soft against his. Pembroke took the moment in, giving thanks for it even as it passed.

  This moment was what he had waited for all his life. This moment was why he had not died in Spain, or Italy, or Belgium. He had lived so that he might one day stand with her like this.

  Arabella pulled back a little so that she might look up at him again. This time her eyes were clear. They bore no tears and held no fear. Only her love shone on him, reflected in the ghost of a smile that touched her lips.

  Nineteen

  Pembroke kissed her again, his touch as soft as a butterfly’s wing. Arabella sighed and opened her lips beneath his, so that his tongue might enter.

  The kiss began soft but did not stay that way. In the next breath, Pembroke’s hand moved up her back and into her hair, drawing the ribbon out, her hair soft between his fingers.

  Arabella moaned at the feel of his hands in her hair, pressing close to his hard body that she might take in all of him at once. She knew that no matter how long she was given to be with him, she would never be able to get close enough.

  Her fingers rose between them, running over the muscles of his chest. His waistcoat and linen shirt blocked her touch, but she could still feel the heat of him rising through the layers of his clothes. When she reached up to touch his cheek, his cravat got in her way. She drew back a little so that she could see to begin to unravel it.

  Pembroke laughed, his breath gone. He took her hands gently in one of his and drew them away from the linen at his throat.

  “Arabella, I was joking when I said I would take you as my mistress. You will be my wife.”

  “And I told you that I will never marry again. Why don’t we save this argument for another time, and let this night be what it will?”

  She smiled up at him, knowing that he fought with himself over his rediscovered honor. She saw his desire for her in the heat of his eyes. She felt it along the palm of his hand where he held her by the waist, as if wanting to draw her close and push her back all at once.

  Arabella pressed herself against Pembroke without warning, wrapping her arms around his neck, her fingers in the soft blond of his hair. The nape of his neck was bare, his blond mane close cropped for war, but she found a few curls buried in the military style that he had not given up in all his years of debauchery.

  Pembroke moved to pull away from her, and she clung to him as a burr might to his clothes. Her hands were tenacious as she wrapped her arms around him tighter. She had spent all her life alone. She wanted this night.

  He stopped trying to pull away.

  She saw a look of hunger cross his face, but she knew that it was not food he wanted. She pressed herself against him, suddenly remembering how her husband had mounted her in their marriage bed. She shuddered inwardly and pushed all thoughts of the old duke away.

  “I love you, Raymond,” was all she said. Then she raised her lips to his and opened her mouth over his.

  The sound of his name on her lips worked like the incantation of a spell, for he responded, sliding his tongue over her lips until she opened her mouth and let him devour her. His palms ran down her back and over the curve of her hips, pressing her thighs into the hardness of his body.

  She felt his manhood high and hard against her belly, and instead of making her retreat, the feel of him against her made her want to get closer. With her husband, she had wanted to flee, but with Pembroke, even knowing the pain that was to come, she wanted to be nowhere but in his arms.

  She drew back to take a breath and Pembroke met her eyes, his blue gaze dark with desire. Even then he tried to rein himself in, to retreat, to withdraw from her. She saw his honor war with his desire. She fought on the side of his desire, for it matched her own.

  She felt heat in her belly and in her chest, expanding like a tide coming in to shore. She moved against him, not knowing what she wanted, knowing only that if any man could give it to her, that man was Pembroke.

  “Do not leave me tonight,” Arabella said. Her voice sounded like another’s, some other wanton woman, a woman Pembroke might have taken into his bed on any night before this. But she was not any other woman. She was the woman he loved. She was the woman who loved him.

  She pressed herself to him, letting her body move as it wanted to, as if she had never known another man, as if she was free to love him alone.

  “Stay,” she said.

  Pembroke stopped fighting himself and his own desire, turning the force of that desire on her. His hands moved over her again, smoothing down the soft silk of her new gown. He pressed against her slender form, drawing her close to the fire.

  The sun had long since set, and the fire and candles were all they had to light their way. Pembroke could not seem to get enough of touching her. He raised her in his arms, carrying her to the bed. The fire still burned in the hearth behind them, but it gave no light where the bed lay in its alcove of blue silk. Pembroke laid her body down on the soft feather bed, and pressed a kiss first to her forehead, then to her lips. “Stay here,” he sai
d.

  He rose and looked down at her, his hair wild from where she had mussed it, his eyes consumed with wanting. His hand shook as he brought a candle close to the bedside. The long taper burned bright, casting a deep yellow light across the counterpane, across her body, across the blue of her silk gown. Shadows stretched as she did, and she saw her shadow as another creature, something outside herself that reflected her desire.

  She stretched again, languidly, and watched as Pembroke’s eyes caught fire. Arabella felt her own power then, for the first time in her life. With Pembroke, she was safe to feel it, to savor it, the joy of her own need for him, and joy of the need she inspired in him. She spread herself out along the soft contours of the feather bed then raised one hand, beckoning him to lie down beside her.

  Pembroke did not move to join her at once, but stood staring. She saw in his eyes that he hesitated not because he doubted her desire but because he was drinking in the sight of it. Arabella raised herself on one elbow, patting the bed beside her. “Come here, Raymond. I have need of you.”

  He laughed then, and she shivered at the sound. It was not mocking laughter, but a surrender. He laughed not at her, but at himself.

  He took off his coat and tossed it behind him on a chair. He left his waistcoat and linen shirt on, as well as his breeches. He took his boots off carefully, one tight sheath of leather at a time. Arabella sat up so that she could see him better, taking in the play of his muscles beneath the sheer linen of his shirt.

  “I did not know what desire was until I saw you,” she said to him.

  Another woman seemed to have taken over her body, and yet she had never felt more completely herself. And it was not wine this time, or mead, for she had not taken a drop. This night she was drunk on her love for him and on the fact that, for this night, he was hers.

  He sat on the bed with her then, his weight making a deep depression in the soft mattress. Arabella rolled toward him and caught herself against his thigh. She ran her hand idly over the muscles beneath the taut breeches, touching him as she had always longed to do. Before this, she had always been afraid. This night, she felt as if she would never be afraid again.