Love on a Midsummer Night (Shakespeare in Love #2) (21 page)

Angelique refused to stay the night at Pembroke House. Anthony and Caroline had a guest suite set aside for their permanent use in Pembroke’s home, and Angelique seemed to know that already. She kissed Arabella by the front door and took her own carriage back to Pembroke village, where she had leased a cottage for the week. Arabella wondered if it was the cottage she wanted so. She would visit her and find out.

Angelique left early, saying that she had business with Titania, for she was one of the first shareholders in Titania’s Shakespearean company.

Arabella saw the lines of strain around her friend’s eyes and knew better than to press her to stay. The sun was beginning to set when Angelique left just after supper. Arabella stood on the steps of the house, watching the shadows thrown by Angelique’s carriage lamps fade as she drove away. Pembroke stood beside her, stepping out into the gloaming. Fireflies had begun to dance above the tops of the trees, lighting the night as fairies did in Titania’s play.

Caroline and Anthony had retired directly after supper, and the baby had gone to sleep, whisked away by his nurse hours before, so Arabella and Pembroke stood alone on his front steps. Oaks and hawthorns cast deep shadows over them as evening fell.

“Shall we walk in the forest?” he asked her.

She took his hand in her small one. His fingers dwarfed her own, his great paw covering hers with a blanket of comfort and warmth. She did not know how she would leave this man, but she knew that she must.

She also knew that she would not leave until the morning. This night belonged to her. It belonged to them.

“No, Raymond. Stay inside with me. I want a finger of brandy.”

He laughed. “Since when have you become a drinker, Arabella?”

“Since you gave it up.”

She drew him back into the house, making him follow her step by step into the sitting room that looked out over his mother’s rose garden. Codington stared at her as she passed and she nodded to him in an attempt at civility. They had not spoken since he had revealed the letters. She supposed it was just as well. Pembroke would need him when she was gone.

She closed the door to the sitting room in Codington’s face, sealing them off from the world. Pembroke ignored the brandy on the sideboard and stood staring out at the garden. A dish of roses had been cut and stood on the table before the fire. Arabella went and arranged them again, pleased that the sugar water she had poured had kept them fresh. Cut flowers were not meant to last, but these might last until morning.

She lifted one and crossed the room to him, careful to keep the thorns from stabbing her. He turned to her when he felt her warmth beside him, and she reached up and ran the soft petals of the rose across his lips.

“Red roses are for love, are they not?” she asked.

“So I have always heard.” His voice was husky when he answered her, strangled with longing and with all that they could not speak of again. He seemed to realize that to coax her to stay, to bully or cajole her, would leave them both with a headache. Though his longing to keep her was palpable, it matched her longing for him.

She pushed aside all thoughts of tomorrow and lowered the rose to her own lips. “I love you, Raymond. Now and forever. I think that love is eternal for me.”

“You never aged in my mind, Arabella. You have always been that slender young girl who lost her bonnet in the river.”

She covered the rose with her hand and tore the petals free of their thorny stem. She cast the stem onto the Queen Anne chair beside them and took his hand in hers.

She brought him with her into the room, to the soft rug that lay before the fireplace. There was no fire in the grate, but she wanted one.

She tossed the petals onto the carpet, heedless of the expensive weave. She knew that he could afford to buy another one. She also knew that once she was gone, he would keep this rug where it lay.

Codington ran the household well. Though the fire was not lit, it was built properly in the grate, ready for a match. She took a taper from the box on the mantle and lit the kindling. It did not smoke but caught right away as she nursed it carefully, allowing the flames to grow.

Pembroke watched her light the fire in the grate. “Is there anything you cannot do? Bake pastry, light fires with the first match you strike, steal my heart.”

She turned to him and took his hand in hers. She pressed it against her breast so that he could feel her heart beating. “You have my heart, Raymond, for as long as I draw breath.”

“An even trade then,” he said.

“I cannot say, though I am a tradesman’s daughter.”

He kissed her then, his lips lingering on hers as if he knew she would not stay, as if he knew he could not keep her. She opened her mouth beneath his and touched his tongue with her own, beginning the warm dance that she had come to love, the dance that she would never make with anyone but him.

She pulled back long enough to help him take his coat off, but he would not strip any further than that.

“Here?” he asked, cocking one eyebrow at her.

“Here,” she answered. “I want to smell the roses and the smoke of the fire together.”

He kissed her again, his hands running up her arms, down her back, drawing her bottom against him so that she could feel his manhood rising. He teased her with his kisses, his lips toying with hers, only to pull away a little, the softness of his lips moving to glance over her cheek, her temple, to skim over her hair. All the while his hands moved over her, drawing her skirt up, even as he pulled her down onto the rug covered with rose petals.

“Codington will not like it,” Pembroke said, his clever fingers searching for her through the linen of her shift.

“Good.” She laughed, her breath leaving her lungs in one long sigh as he found what he sought.

She did not lie still beneath him. This time she wanted him to fall into pleasure with her. Her fingers were clumsy but determined as she fumbled with the fastenings of his trousers. He laughed at last and helped her, freeing his erection so that she could touch it, a swelling of heat in her hand.

She laughed for joy then too as he fell silent, his breath coming in gasps as he tried to control himself. She felt him fighting her and his own desire, and this time she would not let him.

She pressed her body against him, drawing him closer. The warmth of the fire covered her, raising a sheen of sweat along her temples and along the edge of her bodice. She thought she might suffocate from the tightness of her stays, but she knew she did not want to take the time to loosen them.

She raised her legs even as she coaxed Pembroke to lie on top of her. She raised her knees, pressing her slippered feet into the small of his back, bringing him inexorably down to her.

Pembroke laughed again, still breathless, and kissed her. “If that’s what you want, Arabella, you shall have it. Never let it be said that I said no to a lady.”

“You cannot say no to this lady,” she answered him, slipping her hand between them, drawing his erection to her sheath.

He took her hands and raised them above her head, sliding home in one stroke that left her gasping. Her body stretched to welcome him, and she laughed again, this time with a joy she never could have imagined even a week before.

He began to move inside her, but this time she could not bring him to do as she wished. She wanted him to move faster, to draw her deeper and deeper into pleasure, but he would not. He rose over her, her hands still clasped in his above her head, her breasts rising before him.

He kept her wrists pinned in one hand as he drew down the front of her gown with the other. He did not bother to unbind her laces but pulled down the front of her bodice so that her breasts were before him. He blew on one nipple and then the other until they were both rigid peaks. Arabella moaned as he took one into his mouth, laving it with the tip of his tongue, only to follow with his teeth.

He rode her even as he did this, his rhythm still slow, building a relentless pleasure within her. He feasted on her second breast then met her eyes, raising one brow. “Is that what you had in mind when you pulled me down onto this rug, Your Grace?”

She could not answer him, so she raised her hips to his, drawing him in deeper, tightening her inner muscles around him. It was his turn to lose the power of speech, and his control seemed to slip away with it. He drove into her, raising her hips to meet his, letting her hands go. She clutched his shoulders as he buried himself within her, using his body to draw out her bliss in one long spiral. She felt it then, the rising she had come to know only with him. This time, the spiral mountain rose higher, taking her with it.

She screamed his name, and he did not stifle her cries but seemed to revel in them. She did not care if Codington or anyone else heard her. She did not think of them at all, only of the man inside her, the man she loved more than her own life, the man she would give up to keep him safe from Hawthorne’s madness.

It was Hawthorne who sobered her in the end. She clutched Pembroke close and listened to him gasp against her hair. They did not move for a long time but stayed before the fire, the heat of it rising.

Her new gown was likely ruined, but she did not care. She would keep it always, but she would never wear it again.

Her stolen season was over.

Arabella slept late the next morning, and when she woke, Pembroke was gone. She found a note on the bolster beside her head, saying that he had gone for a ride on Triton before heading to the village green for rehearsal. It said that he loved her.

She pressed the thick paper between her fingers, folding it carefully before slipping it into her traveling case.

The morning sun fell on the bed through the open curtains. A breeze came in from the park, carrying the scent of wisteria and roses as Arabella dressed in the blue worsted traveling gown. She had never worn clothes that she had bought with money of her own. She found the sense of freedom it gave her was almost intoxicating. Independence had its price, but it had its blessings, too.

She did not allow herself to think but took her satchel and her bag of guineas and walked downstairs. She met Codington in the hallway.

“There is a gig waiting to take you to the village, Your Grace.” Codington’s blue eyes rested on her bags. “It can take you no farther.”

“I need borrow it only so far as that. Thank you, Codington.”

“You are leaving him again,” he said. This time she heard the accusation in his voice.

“I am hunted by a man he cannot stop. I will not have him killed by a madman because of me.”

Codington did not seem impressed by her reasons, and they sounded weak in her own ears as she climbed into the gig, bundling her bags with her. Then she forced herself to remember Hawthorne’s touch on her body and his knife in the dark. She would not bring him down on Pembroke, if she hadn’t already.

She shut her mind down long enough to slip into the mail coach. It was empty save for herself and one old woman on her way to Bath. Arabella kept one bag beneath her feet and her guineas on her lap. She did not look out at Pembroke village as they passed through it, but she could hear the voices of the actors as they prepared for that day’s work. She would miss the play. For some reason, this small sorrow was the thing that brought tears to her eyes.

They had not made it two miles before she heard a commotion on the seat above and felt the horses drawn to a stop. The old woman in the seat across from her woke then, blinking blearily at the light coming in from the leather tied across the window. Arabella pulled the leather flap aside to see what the matter was, only to find Pembroke outside the coach, staring back at her.

“Arabella, you are wasting these good people’s time. Get out.”

“I will not.”

“My fiancée,” Pembroke was saying to the man on the seat. “She’s gotten cold feet. Women are a trial on the earth.”

“Amen to that, my lord.” The coachman spat for emphasis.

“I will not marry you.”

Pembroke ignored her, opening the door. He took her bag of guineas first, and when she squawked in protest, he took her satchel, too.

“My Lord Pembroke!”

He did not answer her but tossed her bags into his phaeton.

“Hawthorne is coming,” she said. “I must be gone.”

“The duke, ma’am? He’s spent the last night in Pembroke village, or so the gossip says.” The coachman doffed his cap to her, accepting the gold Pembroke
offered him.

“Good luck with that one, my lord. You’ll need it.”

The horses picked up their pace again, and Arabella was left standing in their dust with Pembroke beside her. She had never sworn an oath in her life, but she was tempted to in that moment.

“He’s already there, Arabella. You can’t use Hawthorne as your excuse. He’s here and we’ll face him together.”

“He’s a madman.”

“So am I.”

“He’s a killer.”

“I can claim that, too.”

“In war, Raymond. But Hawthorne brought a knife into my bed. He will not let me go, and if you stand in his way, he will put that knife in you.”

“He can try. He’ll fail. God knows, all of the Usurper’s armies couldn’t kill me. I doubt one madman can.”

Arabella was shaking. She gripped one gloved hand in the other, but she could not make them stop. Pembroke’s touch was gentle as he took hold of her upper arms. He slid his own gloved hands down her arms as if to warm them. She felt her hands shaking even as he held them in his grip.

“I swear, Arabella, no harm will come to you as long as I draw breath.”

“And when you don’t?”

“Anthony will care for you.”

She laughed, tears rising in her eyes. “I am not afraid for myself, Raymond. I am afraid for you.”

“I think you’re afraid of me,” he said.

She froze, even her hands going still. He did not let go of them but looked down at her, his erstwhile lock of hair falling across his forehead and into his eyes.

“I think you fear me more than any man. More than your father. More than Hawthorne. I think you fear me because I am the only man with the power to hurt you. I’m the man who loves you.”

Arabella tried to pull her hands away, but he would not let her go.

“Hear me out. You fear me because I can hurt you. Arabella, I tell you that you will not escape me by running away. The thought of me will haunt your days and all your nights until you drown yourself in a bottle. But a bottle won’t soothe you. There is no place far enough away that the thought of me will not haunt you, no battlefield on earth can take the memory of me from you.”

Arabella heard his own story on his lips and felt the tears in her eyes spill onto her cheeks. She stopped trying to pull away and listened to him.

“I love you, Arabella. And there is no doubt that love is pain. And has the power to wound. But it also has the power to heal. Let me heal you, Arabella. Come home.”

She wept then but he did not draw her into his arms. He did not try to cajole her with sweet touches or with the power of his desire. He stood beside her, a friend, the only friend she had, just as he had always been.

“I can be no man’s chattel,” she gasped. “Not even for you.”

“You will keep your own money. I’ll sign away all rights to it. I’ll settle money on you, land, jewels, whatever you want, whatever makes you feel secure. I will
sign away my own life if it will comfort you. It belongs to you already.”

Arabella still wept, and finally he let go of her hands. She hid her face in the cotton of her gloves, until he offered her his handkerchief.

“Consider this, Arabella, and then I will be silent. Have I ever given you my word and then not kept it?”

She wiped her eyes, her tears spent, the pain of their passing like a storm that had gone. She breathed deeply and looked up at him. His blue eyes were as fathomless as the sea.

“No,” she said. Her voice was so weak, she almost could not hear it. But he could.

“Promise me something more,” she said. “You must leave your mistresses behind. No more gambling. No more gaming. And no more whores.”

He pressed his lips to hers once, swift and hard, as if to seal a pact between them. He looked down at her, his own eyes red with unshed tears.

“I give you my word of honor, here and now, that I will never gamble again. I will not game, I will not whore. I will renounce my membership in the Hellfire Club. I will never touch another woman as long as I live. You are the only woman I want for the rest of my life. So help me God.”

Arabella’s arms went around him then, slipping beneath his coat so that she could feel all of his warmth. He clutched her hard, as if she might turn to insubstantial air and fade away. Only then did she know how much this day had cost him.

“I love you, Raymond. And our love is enough.”

He kissed her, his lips lingering on her as if to seal her words between them. He drew back then and took her hand in his. He stripped away her cotton gloves and slipped his mother’s ruby onto her hand. It gleamed in the summer sun like a promise, like hope.

“It’s a good thing you agreed to marry me,” Pembroke said. “The banns have been read already.”

She laughed and dried her eyes. “You are incorrigible.”

“A rogue of the first water. But your rogue, Lady Pembroke.”

She kissed him. “My rogue. I like the sound of that.”

“Good,” he said. “You’ll need the rest of your life to get used to it, I expect.” He picked her up and placed her in the phaeton, as if afraid to let her move on her own. “Now let’s go home.”

“The duke is waiting for me,” Arabella said.

Pembroke squeezed her hand. “He’ll find that Anthony is waiting for him. I don’t envy the bastard. He deserves whatever he gets.”

***

The players’ morning without Oberon had passed in a flurry of set painting and Shakespearean language. Pembroke told her to sit at the foot of the stage and not to move without him. Lunch would soon be brought out to the tables under the trees on the village green, where the entire company would sit down together.

Arabella cast her gaze over the town square but could find no evidence of Hawthorne. She pressed her ring against her hand beneath the cotton of her glove. The weight of it was like a blessing, a promise of good things to come. She wished Hawthorne would reveal himself so that she could get the confrontation over with. He was a part of her past, and she was tired of fear. She did not know how she would escape him, or how Pembroke would. But she wanted it all to be over. She wanted to move on with her life.

She saw Angelique step out of the dressmaker’s shop on the village high street, and she waved to catch her friend’s eye. Arabella moved away from the stage to meet her, raising her gloved hand to shield her eyes from the noonday sun.

As Angelique approached from across the green, a shadow fell across Arabella’s path. She felt a breath of the tomb on her spine, and she shuddered even before she looked up at the man who stood before her.

“Good day, Your Grace. I see that you traveled safely from London to Pembroke House. I understand that felicitations on your upcoming nuptials are in order,” the Duke of Hawthorne said.

Arabella felt the ground tilt beneath her feet. She looked for Pembroke, but no one else had seen Hawthorne save for Cassie, who watched them together with a snide smile on her face.

A chill ran down the nape of her neck in spite of the warmth of the summer sun, as her mind spun in useless loops. All the plans she and Pembroke had made to face him, and her resolution to stand strong before him melted like ice in sunlight as she met his gray eyes. She stood looking up at the man who had threatened her life, unable to move or speak.

“I am sure the Earl of Pembroke is a decent match for you, though a step down from the duchy of Hawthorne.”

Arabella could not find her tongue. It was as if she had swallowed it down. Angelique was at her side then, her head tilted up to meet the eyes of her adversary. Though her friend was quite tall for a woman, Angelique had to crane her neck to look at Hawthorne, who stood almost a foot taller.

“Good day, Your Grace,” Angelique said.

Hawthorne bowed once to Angelique, but his eyes never left Arabella’s face. He watched her for signs of weakness and perhaps for some indication that he might draw her away from the crowd and take her somewhere with him, so that they could be alone. Arabella found her voice, her back straightening beneath the onslaught of Hawthorne’s gaze. She had dreaded this moment, and now it was here. She could not shrink or shy away. She must face her enemy.

Arabella had been afraid all her life. She had feared first her father and then her husband. The last few weeks that she had spent with Pembroke had shown her what it meant to live without fear. She was afraid, but she would not run away. Arabella would begin her new life as she meant to go on, and no one, not even the Duke of Hawthorne, would stop her.

Her voice was strong when she spoke, so assured that it sounded to her own ears like the voice of another. “I thank you, Your Grace, both for your kind words and for your concern for my well-being. As you see, I traveled to Derbyshire without mishap. No brigands greeted me along the road. I arrived quite unharmed.”

“What good fortune,” the duke said. He opened his mouth, but Arabella interrupted him.

“Indeed, Your Grace. The roads from London to Derbyshire are a good deal safer than the roads in Yorkshire. I stopped here, and I will stay here for the rest of my life.”

Arabella was so intent on facing her adversary that she did not see or hear Pembroke approach until he stood beside her. “Good afternoon, Hawthorne. What brings you to Derbyshire? Come to see our production, I suppose. I had no idea that you had a taste for Shakespeare.”

Hawthorne smiled then, and Arabella shuddered. He turned his gray gaze on her, and she saw again his lust for her, coupled with his contempt. The sight made her flesh crawl with revulsion. She felt Angelique’s hand steady on her arm, anchoring her to the ground.

Pembroke stood on her other side, his hand warm on her arm. She found herself standing close to him, almost as if his stalwart body were shelter in a storm. She found her fear rising again, this time not for herself but for Pembroke, that he had drawn this man’s ire. She wondered if she could bring it back onto herself.

“Hawthorne, it was good of you to come,” she said, addressing the duke as a man would, as an equal. “But once you have signed over my property, our business together is done.”

“But you have no property rights on the Duchy of Hawthorne,” he said. “As soon as you marry another man—this Sunday the banns said”—Hawthorne looked to Pembroke then, raising one inquiring eyebrow—“the Hawthorne lands revert back to the estate.”

“You will turn over my money to me directly. And then you will go back to London, and I will never see you again.”

Hawthorne smiled. “What a charming story. You sound almost as if you believe it. But I will not let you go.”

The air was as electric as before a fierce summer storm. Arabella shook with fear and mingled fury. If she held a pistol, Hawthorne would be dead. As it was, she feared that she would not be able to swallow the bile that had risen in her throat.

Lord Ravensbrook crossed the green, leaving his carriage drawn up before the inn. He strode out to meet the duke, and Caroline followed a step behind, bringing baby Freddie in her arms. Arabella wanted to call out to tell her to take her baby away from the poison of Hawthorne’s gaze, but she returned her eyes to the man who wanted to wrest her freedom from her.