Dangerous to Love (31 page)

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Authors: Rexanne Becnel

Tags: #Fiction, #Romance, #Historical, #General, #Regency

BOOK: Dangerous to Love
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Ivan stood next to the door, one hand on the knob as he . looked back at his wife.
Why had he returned here? What had he been thinking?
He’d panicked when she’d become ill. He’d never felt so completely helpless as he had those few desperate moments when he’d not been able to help her. When he’d discovered the source of her illness, however, that panic had turned to fury. He’d felt as if she’d betrayed him.
It had taken the whole day and half the night—and most of a bottle of whisky—for him to recognize that this pregnancy was more his fault than hers. He could have taken precautions as he’d always done in the past. But he hadn’t—never mind why—and now she carried the heir he’d never wanted to have.
So he’d come back, only to run away now once more.
But he didn’t have to leave, he told himself. He could close this door, strip off his clothes, and get into bed with his wife. Angry as she was with him, it would still take very little to turn her anger to passion. That was the one thing he was sure of—the only thing he was sure of when it came to Lucy—that her passion for him was very nearly as powerful as was his all-consuming desire for her.
He looked over at her, at the curvaceous form beneath the thin sheets, and felt her eyes on him. It would be a challenge to seduce her tonight, but he knew he could. She would protest. She might even fight him. He would understand if she did. But in the end she would capitulate and he would make her very glad she did.
But what if she again professed her love?
Sweat beaded on his forehead at the thought. He didn’t want her love. He didn’t want anyone’s love.
. He didn’t believe there was such a thing anyway. At best it was a combination of lust and affection. At worst it was a manipulative trick, one he was not fool enough ever to fall for. That some women loved their children, he supposed might be true, and he sorely hoped Lucy would love this child she bore. The last thing he wanted was to have his child—any child—grow up in the care of women like his mother and grandmother.
But love between a man and woman? No. He liked her, that was all. And he desired her. He didn’t love her, though, any more than she loved him.
Regardless, however, he had to do something. He had to either go to her or leave. But he was frozen by indecision. Then she blinked and shifted restlessly, and panic made the decision for him. He jerked the door open, charged through it, and in his haste, slammed it harder than he meant.
That only deepened his despair, for he knew how women were. Though she was not the weepy sort, he’d seen the sheen of tears in her eyes. She’d held them back, though. But not now. Not after he’d slammed the door on her.
He made himself wait, to listen for the telling sound of her sobs. When they didn’t come, he turned down the hall, still sweating, just as panicked as he’d been when she’d become so violently ill. He couldn’t handle it. Not her sickness, nor her tears, nor her lack of them. He couldn’t deal with her and that fed his panic all the more. No other woman had this effect on him. He’d vowed none ever would.
But Lucy did.
And now that he was married to her—was having a child with her—he was at a complete loss as to how he was to deal with her. He couldn’t keep running away. But what other choice did he have?
At the awful crash of the door against its frame Lucy turned her face into the pillow and burst into tears, hard, cruel sobs that shook her body, they were so strong. But they were silent. She saw to that. She buried herself beneath the sheets and silken coverlet and poured all her pain and sorrow into the muffling solace of the uncritical pillows.
That the bed linens smelled of him—of their lovemaking of the previous night—only wrenched her all the worse. How could he love her—
make
love to her, she amended—and hate her at the same time?
Intellectually she suspected he hated all women. Or perhaps he feared them. It was no wonder, given his dreadful childhood experiences with them.
But it was not her intellect he’d torn to shreds. It was her heart. As she sobbed out her pain and loneliness in her cold, solitary bed, she curled around her baby.
“You shall always be loved,” she vowed between hiccuping sobs. “Always.”
And so shall you, Ivan, though you may never believe it. You shall always be loved by me.
 
T
he long day’s ride to Somerset was wretched. Lucy was nauseous the entire journey, and they had to make frequent stops. She’d never suffered from the traveler’s malady in the past. Her pregnancy, however, seemed to have turned her into a foreign creature, totally unlike the strong-willed, healthy person she’d always been. Or was it her unhappy marriage to Ivan that had her so weepy and ill?
Ivan accompanied them, but astride a high-spirited gelding that he said he’d recently purchased and needed to ride. He left Lucy to the company of the maid he’d insisted that she bring along.
It was just as well, she told herself. Although she ached with sorrow over his remoteness, his proximity while she was so sick would have been infinitely harder to bear.
They reached their destination after the late summer dusk. Houghton Manor was lit as if for a ball, with lamps burning in almost every window. Lucy knew neither her mother nor Hortense would instigate such an extravagance. Graham must be even more pleased to have an earl for a brother-in-law than she’d suspected.
They were met by everyone, even young Charity and Grace. Lucy had never been so happy to see her family. Since meeting Ivan she’d begun to value them in a way she’d never done before. She hugged each of them in turn, even holding tightly to Graham. For all his priggishness, he was a good brother who had always cared deeply for her welfare.
When her mother opened her arms to her, Lucy was close to tears.
“Oh, my darling. My darling,” Lady Irene crooned, holding her with unusual strength. “I have missed you so much.” She cupped Lucy’s face with both hands and kissed her, then stared at her with bright, hopeful eyes.
Lucy knew what that look meant. But she was not ready to reveal her condition. Not here in the foyer with everyone standing around—with her own emotions so raw and Ivan so near.
“You look, exhausted,” her mother said, eyeing her shrewdly.
“It has been an extremely tiring day. If you don’t mind, I should like nothing better than to collapse into my bed.”
“I’ve had your old bedroom freshened up,” Hortense said, slipping her arm in Lucy’s. She glanced at Ivan then leaned nearer Lucy, whispering, “I had another feather mattress added to the bed.”
Somehow Lucy managed a meager smile. But inside she began to shake. They would have to share a room. Not once during the horrendous journey here had that thought occurred to her.
“Now, Hortense,” Lucy’s mother interrupted. “You have your children to attend to. Let me attend to mine. Come, Lucy. I’ll help you unpack while Ivan and Graham have a drink in the library.”
Lucy glanced at Ivan. He stood with his hat and gloves still in hand. He looked no worse for wear, considering he’d spent the entire day astride. If anything, his windblown appearance made him more unbearably handsome than ever. He met her gaze, then looked away, greeting Graham with every appearance of ease.
“A glass of Irish whisky would sit very well.”
“Then come along, come along,” Graham urged.
So they dispersed, Ivan to indulge in the drinking he seemed to enjoy more and more, Hortense to tend to her boisterous brood, and Lucy to face the determined grilling of her mother.
“Well?” Lady Irene began before the bedroom door had . scarcely clicked closed. “Have you any particular news you wish to share with your mother?”
Lucy sank onto the chaise longue that angled away from the window. She’d imagined many sorts of futures for herself while curled up in this very spot, but never that she’d marry a man who didn’t love her and who didn’t want to have children.
“May I at least remove my traveling coat before you begin this inquisition?” She broke off when she realized how tart her words sounded. This was her mother who loved her, who wanted only good things for her. She did not deserve any part of Lucy’s ill-temper.
She stared at her mother, whose face hid no emotion, not her consternation nor her continuing curiosity. Here was one person, at least, who would be deliriously happy to hear that Lucy was expecting, and for no more reason than that she adored babies. Especially her own grandchildren.
“I’m sorry, Mama. It’s been a long, grueling day and … and I’ve been in the most horrid mood of late.”
“Of late?” The woman moved closer to Lucy. Her eyes sparkled with anticipation. “Do you notice any other changes?”
Lucy smiled. She couldn’t help it. “You mean like nausea or weepiness or—”
“You’re in the family way!”
“I am.”
Lucy was immediately smothered in a glad embrace. “Oh, my darling, darling girl! I’ve waited so long for this day. So long! Have you told your husband yet?”
The beginnings of Lucy’s pleasure in her mother’s enthusiasm faded at once. “Yes. He knows.”
Lady Irene frowned at Lucy’s obvious lack of animation. “He is not pleased?”
The urge to tell her mother everything was nearly overwhelming. But Lucy held back. It would only make things worse if Ivan were subjected to his mother-in-law’s scrutiny.
“He was … shocked,” Lucy finally answered. “But he’s getting used to the idea. You must remember, Mama, that we married rather suddenly. Now, to immediately have a family, well, it’s rather daunting to both of us.”
“There, now,” Lady Irene said, patting Lucy’s hand. “What is there to find daunting in starting a family? If you’d waited any longer, well, it would very likely have been too late. It’s not as if you’re fresh from the schoolroom. But you didn’t wait, and now, come the spring, I shall have another grandchild to hold. You won’t be going back to town, will you? No, of course not,” she said before Lucy could respond. “It would be far better for you to remain here for the duration of your confinement—although the dowager countess will, no doubt, want you at Westcott Manor. Have you informed her yet about the baby?”
Lucy wrote to Lady Westcott the next morning: She didn’t tell Ivan what she was doing, for she suspected he would object, and that would lead to a scene, and then her entire family would want to know about the unpleasantness going on between Ivan and his grandmother—and perhaps deduce what was going on between Lucy and Ivan as well. She rationalized that she hadn’t had a chance to tell him anyway. He’d come to bed late, slept on the chaise longue, then been gone before she rose. According to Prudence, he and Graham, along with Stanley and Derek, were now out fishing on the Exe.
So even though she knew he would not approve, Lucy wrote the letter anyway. She refused to let herself become caught up in the Westcott family feud. She meant to treat them both as good manners dictated they be treated. Lady Westcott deserved to know about the new life that bloomed inside her, the new Westcott heir. But Lucy knew Ivan would be furious.
She told him as they descended together for dinner. It was the first time she’d been alone with him.
“You wrote her about your condition?” Ivan paused at the stair landing. “This child is not something I plan to share with her. She will never be a part of its life. Do you understand?”
Lucy looked up at him. He’d dressed for dinner, leaving off the earring for once. But that did not diminish one whit the wild, Gypsy look of him. If anything, the more restrained his clothing, the more flamboyantly did his heritage shine forth. And just as his proper dress and aristocratic blue eyes set off his Gypsy darkness, so did his quiet tone and impeccable manners toward her now only emphasize his anger—and also the vengeance he still meant to wreak upon his grandmother. The pain he still needed to inflict on her.
It made Lucy want to cry. But then, lately, everything made her want to cry. She buried the urge and met his steady glare. “I plan to correspond with whomsoever I please. Just as I always have.”
His eyes were cold. “Why do you persist in contradicting me?”
“I thought that was what attracted you to me, that I disagreed with you and tried to thwart you.” Though her answer was tart, inside Lucy was aching.
He smiled, just a faint curve of one side of his mouth, but it made her heart beat faster. “What attracted me to you was the passionate nature you keep tamped so tenuously beneath the proper façade you wear.”
Lucy knew he was trying to unsettle her and she hated that he was succeeding. She tilted her chin up. “You have a rather curious way of showing your interest in my so-called passionate nature.”
A light began to glitter in his eyes. “Feeling neglected, are you?”
“Hardly,” she snapped. “I just find it awkward to pretend for my family’s sake that we are content.”
. “Then don’t pretend,” he said. His hand came up and his knuckles grazed the side of her neck.
Lucy swallowed hard. “Don’t pretend we’re content? Shall I air my unhappiness to everyone, then? Is that what you want? Or will you air your unhappiness for them?”
He leaned nearer to her. “What I want is for you
not
to have to pretend. I can make you content, and we both know it.”
He was going to kiss her. She could tell by the slumberous’ look in the depths of his azure eyes. She wanted that kiss, as he no doubt could tell by the melting expression in her own mesmerized gaze. He was going to use that powerful masculine appeal to cast his spell on her—his potent sexual spell.
If she had an ounce of sense she would fight that spell. This was not the way to peace between them.
But that was an intellectual response, and at the moment she was feeling anything but intellectual. Their mutual attraction was the one place they met as equals, with the same goals and desires.
Desires.
She leaned forward, eager for the kiss. Desperate for it.
“Lucy! Aunt Loo-cee!”
Five-year-old Grace skidded to a halt at the foot of the stairs, her seven-year-old sister fast on her heels. “Mama says hurry.”
“No,” Charity corrected her with all the self-importance of an older sister. “Mama says what are they doing up there? It’s still daytime and they better not be … be …” She shrugged. “I don’t remember the rest.”
Lucy had jerked away from Ivan at Grace’s first call. Now she hurried down the steps, painfully aware that her cheeks had heated with color. Was that what Hortense thought was delaying them? She frowned at the two girls. “How many times have I told you children not to run—”
She broke off as the pair turned guilty faces up to her. Grace had blond hair, blue eyes, and plump baby cheeks. Charity had serious gray eyes, darker hair, and a face that already hinted at the lovely young woman she eventually would become. They both regarded Lucy warily.
On impulse Lucy crouched down and gathered them in her arms. “I don’t suppose a little running indoors will hurt anything. Just watch out for vases.” She stared at their innocent little faces. “You both look very nice. Who did your hair?”
“I did Gracie’s hair,” Charity said. “And Prudence did mine.”
“My, but you’re all getting so big. You’re not my little babies any more.”
“Papa says there’s to be another baby in the family soon,” Charity confided in a lisp.
“He told you that?” Lucy was surprised that Graham would discuss such things in front of his children.
“We were playing hide-and-seek in the library and we heard him say there’s a baby in the oven. But we can’t find it,” Grace said, “Will you help us look for it?”
Lucy laughed and hugged them tighter. Why hadn’t she let herself enjoy them more in the past? She’d studied them and analyzed them and tried to develop the right system for instructing them and disciplining them. But she hadn’t let herself just enjoy them. Or love them.
She meant to enjoy them and love them now.
She tickled Gracie, then tickled Charity too. They giggled and wriggled in her arms, but they didn’t try to escape. Instead they tickled her back. Lucy laughed, then overbalanced and tipped backward so that they all landed on the floor, laughing hilariously.
Ivan had remained on the landing above them. But when Lucy and her nieces ended up on the floor, he hurried down the stairs. “Be careful,” he ordered Lucy, taking her arm and pulling her upright. “You have to be more careful now and not allow yourself to be overrun by these children.”
“But I want to be overrun by them,” Lucy replied. She drew the girls to her side, circling each one’s shoulders with her arms. She stared up at Ivan, trying to understand his irritation. Was it concern for her or for his child? Or was it jealousy at the affection she showed her nieces?
She decided to find out.
She ruffled Charity’s hair, then stroked Gracie’s plump cheek. “Children are wonderful, don’t you think? So fresh and new. So unformed. They want only to be loved. Give them your love and you may shape them into whatever sort of person you want them to be.” She paused, then spoke to the girls. “Run along and tell your mother that Uncle Ivan and I shall be there directly.”
She stared after them as they caught hands and skipped off in an uneven cadence. Then she turned back to Ivan. “I wonder what sort of person our child will turn out to be.”

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