With strain in both his voice and forehead, he answered, “I fear the dowager is on her deathbed.”
“Oh!” Tempest exclaimed as her hand involuntarily went to her quivering mouth. “No,” she whispered.
“Yes,” he replied and raked his fingers through his already dishevelled hair. It appeared as if he had been doing that all evening because of how unruly the mass of dark brown hair was.
Hudson moved closer and took her hand in his cold ones. “I beg you to come back to the manor with me. Ever since I brought you to the Strombridge manor, I have never seen her so happy. I fear what news of your departure would do to her. Granted, I know she’s already on her deathbed, about to leave us, but I’d love her to do so with a joyful heart. Knowing that we’re still together would put her feeble mind at rest before she passes.”
“You mean deceiving her just the way you deceived me into entering your carriage that fateful day assuming we were going to my cousin’s house?”
Shamefaced, Hudson nodded. “It is for a good cause. I will do anything to make Aunt Agnes happy and rest in peace.”
What about me? Don’t I deserve to be happy? My happiness I think might lie with you, but I’m so scared of letting go.
Sobering from her desperate thoughts, her heart wrenched at the knowledge that the dowager’s time had come. The woman had always been good to her even when she was a little chit. Tempest, although not close to her, would be sorry to see her go.
Despite the fact that Hudson was trying to hide it, she could see he was greatly affected by his aunt’s condition. Why, she was like a mother to him, and Tempest knew he loved the old woman dearly.
Relenting, she didn’t say a word but slowly walked towards the carriage. Hudson helped her up, and she sat in its luxurious interior to endure the tense ride back to the manor.
Chapter 29
The ride back to the manor was tense, to say the least. The coachman had been told to return to Strombridge posthaste and as if he aimed to please, the man was riding the coach as if the Devil was after him.
The bouncing of the carriage mirrored that of Hudson’s mind. Fury was an understatement at how he had felt when he got news of his wife’s departure from the manor undetected. It had come as a thing of shock to him because he couldn’t understand how she had managed to pull it off with the house crawling with servants.
Her brilliant tactic had clicked when after waiting for over an hour and their master didn’t surface, the butler had gone to find out what was wrong and only then realised that they had been fooled. By this time, Tempest’s abigail had already cried to him, informing him of her absence. And so, the whole manor had grown alarmed at their mistress’s disappearance.
Smiling bashfully as he addressed the worried servants, Hudson had told them that he and Tempest had a lover’s spat that morning, and this was her way of retribution; of making him sorry.
“You know how it is with newlyweds. We argue about the most trivial of things.” His tone was rueful as the married men amongst the servants sighed and nodded in agreement. The maids giggled behind their hands.
He told them not to worry because he would fetch their errant mistress back and gallantly apologise to her for hurting her sensibilities. His staff had given him a round of applause before they departed to go on with their chores. It was easy for Hudson to converse with the servants as if they were equal because he had known most of them practically all his life. And as a lonely boy when his brothers weren’t in residence, he had played with them, and the old men amongst them had taught him a lot of things. Besides, Hudson was loved by all.
When he was about to depart from the house, a weeping Joanna had rushed to inform him that his aunt’s time was near. Hudson’s face had gone deathly pale at the news that he had feared but expected to reach him one day.
With heavy steps, he had climbed up the stairs slowly to his aunt’s room. In a matter of hours, she seemed to have shrunk and gone paler.
“Hudson, what’s this I hear about your wife running away?” she had questioned in a voice a little above a whisper.
Hudson had sighed, remembering that he failed to tell his staff not to talk about it in the hallways and corridors to prevent his aunt from hearing. Alas, that wasn’t to be the case.
Seeing her already wrinkled face crease with worry, he had patted her hand and forced a chuckle from his throat.
“It’s nothing serious, Aunt Agnes. You know my wife is quite feisty. So, when we had a difference of opinion this morning, she decided to teach me a lesson by leaving the mansion in the most brilliant of ways. I reckon she’s sleeping in one of the guest rooms while sending me on a wild goose chase.”
Aunt Agnes had laughed which elicited a cough from her. Hudson had hated lying to her, but he hated causing her to worry even more.
“Well, hurry up and bring back your wife. I want to have a word with her before God calls me.”
Her words though lightly spoken had sliced at his heart. It had taken him moments to comport himself for him not to break down and cry before her like he used to do when he was a little boy and needed her comfort.
He had been torn between leaving her and going to find his wife. Accepting that Tempest would defy whoever he sent to fetch her back to the manor, he had resolved to go himself.
Kissing his aunt on her cheek and praying she would wait for him to tell her a proper goodbye, he had left her presence.
“When I catch up with her, I’ll wring her lovely neck,” Hudson had muttered when he was setting out to search for his runaway wife.
However, when the late afternoon became early evening, and he had still not found a trace of her, fear gripped his heart. What might have become of her? he had wondered continually.
Incidences of highwaymen were few and far between in the area, but he still feared that she might have fallen into the wrong hands. The joy that had filled his heart seeing her waving at the carriage was nearly the same he had felt on the day of their wedding as she walked up to him.
He still didn’t know why she had decided to leave the manor, but at that moment, he didn’t care. He was just grateful to have found her and that she was safe.
Whether she was pretending to be asleep, he couldn’t say, but he wished she would stop whichever and talk to him. He was very worried about Aunt Agnes’s condition and hoped to God that she hadn’t already passed away since it had taken hours to find his errant wife. He didn’t know if he could forgive Tempest if the dowager passed on before they reached the manor.
Then she would be forced to tell him why she ran away in the first place. God’s truth, if it happened to be something trivial, he would throw her across his lap and teach her not to behave like a recalcitrant child. Or better still, he would stop being a gentleman and allow her expand all the energy bubbling inside her writhing underneath him in bed.
He was sick and tired of the ache between his thighs. Every night he had to force himself to think of other things other than his wife’s breasts and her soft flesh at her apex. Undoubtedly he was the only husband who lay in bed every night fantasising about making love to his wife.
All that would come to an end soon. By the time his aunt passed away, he would summon her for a serious talk, and then their marriage could begin proper. Resolving not to take any excuse from her, his first order of business in seeing that they had a normal marriage would be him planting his seed in her to bring about his heir.
Possibly when she was with child, she wouldn’t be so fiery. He had heard of headstrong women becoming putty after their first child. Not that he wanted Tempest all soft and malleable—well, except in bed—but he would love to go about his business without any thought of her running away or poisoning him.
The carriage shook vehemently at that moment, throwing his sleeping wife—or pretending to be so—across his lap, making her lie virtually wholly atop him. Her eyes widened as her buttocks made contact with his swollen shaft. Thinking about putting his baby inside her womb had put him i
n a state of arousal.
Hudson drew in a sharp breath when Tempest wriggled to be set free. His hands tightened cross her waist when she continued her innocently sensual movement.
“If you continue like this, Temp, we might just shock the life off Twigs when he opens the door and finds me making love to my beautiful wife.”
A sharp gasp released from her lips, and Hudson laughed heartily, grateful for the distraction from his depressing thoughts about his dying aunt.
Tempest held herself stiff in his arms, and he laughed with gusto.
“You’ll hurt your back that way, my love. Why don’t we find something to while away the time before Twigs pulls up in front of the house. And you only have yourself to blame if I choose to ravish you inside here seeing that you have nowhere to run to. Had you not decided to run away like a spoilt child, we wouldn’t be here together now. You would have feigned tiredness by now to avoid my attentions in the night and gone straight to bed. I never pegged you to be a coward, Temp, but you’ve been running away from this marriage from the start. Perhaps you’re lily-livered after all and all you show is false bravado.”
Just as he expected, Tempest swirled around on his lap to strike him. He used the opportunity to bring her head down for a sensual kiss. The slap was forgotten as he moved his lips across hers, darting his tongue in her mouth to force it open. His hand rose to cup a rosy breast. She gasped, and he plunged his tongue deeper into her mouth as his other hand cupped the back of her neck.
There was something wholly arousing seeing her in his clothes. His hand moved to cup her other breast and toy with her nipple. Tempest let out a groan that sent blood rushing into his loins. It was the most sensual noise she had ever made in all their near-lovemaking experiences.
He didn’t know for how long he could keep this up because he was growing harder every second that passed. He had meant to use it to show her that she desired him and to distract him from his thoughts, but dear God, he wanted to lay her across the seat of the jostling carriage and plunge into the very sheath of her.
The kiss went on and on as his hands explored her breasts and teased her nipples. When his mouth lifted from hers to clasp a hardened nipple through her dress, Tempest tilted her head back and bit her bottom lip hard. The view was so intoxicating; Hudson reached down to undo his trouser button in order to slake his lust inside his wife since she apparently was his for the taking.
Just then, the carriage pulled to a stop. Hudson swore furiously and stayed his hand.
Twigs pounded on the door of the carriage and said, “We have arrived, sir.”
Hudson almost told him to continue riding and not to stop until he said so, but desperation for news of his aunt’s condition prevented him from doing so. Moreover, Tempest was already looking at him with horror in her eyes as she hastily pushed herself from his embrace.
A wry smile curved his lips as he studied her trying to put a semblance of order to her—his clothes.
“Perhaps, if you can manage it here which I believe you can, you should take a moment to change into your dress before alighting from the carriage.”
Throwing him a dark look, she didn’t say a word.
Grinning as he made to alight from the conveyance, he said, “Thanks for the distraction.”
Tempest threw him a foul word, causing him to laugh heartily. He stepped down from the carriage, and not waiting for his wife, raced up the stairs where the door was swiftly opened by a footman.
Mr Bridges walked up to him immediately he entered the foyer. His countenance left much to be desired. Hudson’s heart dropped.
“Has she …” He couldn’t finish his question.
Solemnly the man shook his head. “No, but it’s a matter of time now.”
Hudson’s throat bubbled up and down. He stood there on the spot afraid to go up the stairs to her room for he alleged Aunt Agnes had held out till now because of him.
He was still standing there contemplating if he should delay the moment of the final meeting or go and get it over with when his wife came into the house and swept past him to climb the stairs without saying a word to him.
Exhaling slowly and quietly, Hudson climbed the stairs behind her. He was surprised when she didn’t go to their suite of rooms but hurried in the direction of his aunt’s room.
Hudson’s admiration for Tempest grew when she knocked softly on the door to Aunt Agnes’s room and strode to the bed where the deathly ill woman lay.
Hudson stood at the door, staring at the woman who had become a shadow of her former self. Her personal maid was crying bitterly at the corner. Tempest sat on the bed beside the woman. Aunt Agnes spoke in whispers, so Hudson couldn’t hear their exchange.
At that point, Hudson admitted that Tempest might be an obstinate woman, but she was kind, sacrificial, and willing to go the extra mile for people. Because she had thought he was a man of despicable character, she had gone out of her way to help her cousin break her betrothal with him. Now, seeing her show so much kindness and unselfishness towards the frail woman when she could have simply insisted on not returning to the manor with him showed him her strength of character.
Mayhap when everything was over and done with, she would agree to stay with him so they could build their marriage and start a family. He could only hope.
Chapter 30
“My dear boy.” Aunt Agnes raised a frail hand to indicate that she wanted to see him.
Hudson’s throat bobbed up and down as he strode forward. Tempest placed her lips on the woman’s forehead. He heard her sniff and wipe away her tears. He wanted to offer her comfort, but he had none to give because he was equally devastated.
His fingers repetitively went through his hair before he sat before the woman who had been nothing but kindness ever since she got to know him.
She smiled weakly at him. “I believe there’s a God because He indeed answered my prayers. Aside from your wife, I accept as true that I’m the happiest woman right now.” She spoke slowly and softly.
Her nephew tried to push away the bulge that had formed in his chest, but he couldn’t. It seemed as if it was lodged there permanently.
Her rakishly thin hand reached up to cup his face. He held her hand to his cheek, willing the tears glazing his eyes not to fall. “Hudson Danvers,” she tried to call him in the stern voice she used when he had been naughty. He smiled, and the tears finally spilled down his face at the wonderful memories he had shared with this wonderful woman. “I don’t want you to mourn me. Life is too short to dwell in sorrow. You have a new bride, a beautiful and wonderful woman. I want you to spend the rest of your life showing her how much you love her and making her happy. Of course, you should remember me once in a while or I might come to haunt you.” Her effort at laughter ended in a bout of coughing. Hudson didn’t think she should be talking so much, but since this was the last time they would ever be together again, she could talk for the rest of the night, he didn’t mind. As a matter of fact, if he could keep her talking and away from death, he would have done it.
“I’m happy to go, dear boy. And I don’t regret anything in life. Thank you for making my deathbed a happy and peaceful one.” The truth in her words resounded in her voice.
“You hear that chit crying over there.” She managed a giggle. “I dare say she’s going to miss harassing me with medicine and sleeping potions at every given opportunity.”
Hudson chuckled.
“I hope you don’t mind. I left her a little something. She made my last days quite entertaining, and she was a very good personal maid, I dare say. I presume that I’m going to watch over her from heaven and make sure no one kills the spirit in her. I’m also going to watch over you and your dear wife.”
Amazingly, she went on to talk about some of their best moments together as aunt and nephew. Then she grew weaker and weaker as her voice went lower and lower. Finally, she closed her eyes, and her hands dropped from Hudson’s.
The Irresistible Lady Behind the Mask Page 26
