Mutual Consent (19 page)

Once in the study, he threw off his coat and tossed it aside into a chair. He loosened his cravat while he stirred the fire with his booted toe. The footman entered quietly, an open bottle in hand. “Put it on the desk. And bring me another branch of candles. It is bloody dark in here,” said Lord Chatworth.

“At once, my lord.”

Marcus was alone again with his disagreeable thoughts. He kicked the log, and a shower of red sparks hissed up the chimney and showered out of the hearth. One hot mote landed on his thigh. He swept his hand across the place, but already a tiny hole had been burned. He swore comprehensively.

The footman, who had reentered with the requested candles, was suitably impressed by the extent of his master’s vocabulary. When he left the study again, he told his fellow that he had not known the earl was such a stickler when it came to his clothing. “But there it is, Jarvis. His lordship was that perturbed over a tiny spark.”

Lord Chatworth’s curses might have been triggered by the ruination of his evening breeches, but his thoughts were completely engaged by his wife and the spectacle that she had made of herself that evening. Her subsequent and cowardly avoidance of their
tete-a-tete
had but fed his anger.

The earl swung around and stomped over to his desk. He was determined not to think further about the matter. He had accounts to see to and that was what he would busy his mind with. Lord Chatworth threw himself into the chair behind his desk and opened the drawer to haul out the ledger and its attendant papers. He spread out the accounts in an orderly fashion. Then he poured himself a generous amount of brandy and sat back in his chair to drink it.

His eyes glittered as his thoughts returned to his wife. His pride still smarted from the affront of beholding her wrapped in another man’s arms. When he had torn them apart, she had at last seen him and her face had gone quite white with fear. That had maddened him more than anything else. She did not regard anyone else with just that half-defiant, half-fearful expression.

He had scarcely been able to contain his temper while they waited for the carriage to be brought around. He had felt her arm trembling under the grasp of his fingers, and he had been glad of it. She at least had some notion of her position.

On the drive home, she had protested with indignation that she had not been to blame and that she had not encouraged the gentleman’s attentions. He had been surprised by the heat with which she had spoken, and it had even given him momentary pause. Once again he heard that suppressed passion in her voice that had led him to draw her out at their original meeting. But then she had reminded him so cuttingly of the terms of their pact and his flash of temperance had vanished.

Lord Chatworth gave a harsh laugh. The lady had done it rather too brown, he thought. He discovered with some surprise that his glass was empty, and he refilled it. He took a drink, his eyes running down the ledger open in front of him. The figures needed working, he thought. He dipped a pen into the inkwell and for a few moments bent to the task. But his mind refused to stay on the numbers. His wife’s green eyes and lovely face kept swimming up at him from the paper. With a wrathful oath, he threw down the pen.

He filled his glass again and tossed it down. The brandy burned his throat and spread warmth in his blood. Broodingly he stared across the room at the flickering fire. She was his wife. That was indisputable, regardless of any paltry agreement between them.

His memory played for him again the passionate embrace that he had interrupted. His lips curled in an unpleasant smile. Since he had married her, she had seemed merely to endure his own touch. On occasion she had even winced away from him. Apparently he was not to her taste.

Lord Chatworth threw the wineglass, shattering it against the hearth. His thoughts were furious in tone, fueled alike by stung pride and the brandy he had consumed all evening in the card room. He rose abruptly from the chair and went around the desk. He strode swiftly to the study door. She might encourage the attentions of a lover, but she was still his wife. She appeared to have forgotten that fact. He wrenched open the door, leaving the study to cross the entry hall, and with swift strides mounted the stairs.

Barbara had fled to her bedroom and then waited fearfully for his lordship to follow her. Finally she had realized that he had not pursued her, after all. With an overwhelming sense of relief, she rang for her maid to undress her.

While the maid readied her for bed, Babs reflected unhappily on the morrow. She was not looking forward to her next meeting with the earl. She seated herself at the vanity so that the maid could brush out her hair.

The door crashed open. The maid let out a strangled scream; Babs whirled to her feet, her heart in her mouth. The earl strode in, dominating the room. Babs saw the ugly temper in his eyes and her heart pounded all the harder.

Lord Chatworth saw that she had prepared for bed. She was dressed in a thin gown and negligee. Firelight outlined her figure through the stuff and he felt the stirrings of desire. Without removing his eyes from his wife, he curtly dismissed the maid.

The maid fearfully glanced at her mistress. “My lady?”

“It is all right, Lucy. You may go.” Babs nodded reassurance to the servantwoman, who reluctantly left. The countess turned her gaze back to the earl. Her voice was cool if a bit unsteady. “It is very late, my lord. What is it you want?”

Lord Chatworth laughed shortly. His stare as he looked her up and down was deliberately insolent. “I want you, dear wife,” he said with soft menace. He reached out to grasp her wrist, but she instantly twisted free.

“No!” Her green eyes appeared huge in her face. “We have an agreement, my lord. I have your word of honor—”

“My honor, madam! Indeed, and what was my honor to you tonight?” he bit out. He swooped down on her to gather her ungently into his arms. Bending his head, he took rough possession of her mouth.

A stinging blow across the face rocked his head and caused him to loosen his hold. Like a hare, she broke free and ran.

“Damn your impertinence,” he shouted, bounding after her. He caught her shoulder and spun her about. Her breath came in dry sobs, her eyes were wild with fear and anger. She fought then like a wildcat, kicking and biting and pummeling him in the face and the body. He could not hold her. She was a blazing inferno of movement, all sharp angles and wicked hits.

An explosion of pain erupted as her knee connected with his groin. Lord Chatworth howled and reacted instinctively. His hand cracked against her cheek.

The blow spun her around, her long hair flying. The negligee and gown ripped down her back under his other hand. She fell heavily against the bedpost and stayed there, dazed, the air knocked out of her.

Lord Chatworth stared down at her bared back. Firelight flickered over healing weals that marred her delicate skin. The silver scars of old beatings shone under the more recent damage. He felt a coldness wash over him, leaving him shockingly sober. He reached down to lift her hair. She flinched away from him, but he held her firmly and yet very gently as he looked closer at her back. His voice shook with mingled fury and disbelief. “Who did this to you?”

“My father.”

Lord Chatworth was numbed. “But why?”

She flung up her head to look at him. Angry tears glittered in her eyes. “Does it disgust you, my lord? But the last is almost healed, after all, and he used a flat cane so that he would not break the skin this time. He did not want me bloodied when I went to the altar, for in his queer way he would have considered it dishonorable to have handed over to you damaged goods.”

Marcus felt himself shaking. His voice sounded queer even to his own ears. “When we were to be married—he had done this to you then, hadn’t he? And when you came to interview me, had he touched you then?”

Her mouth twisted strangely before she averted her face. “My father was not pleased to be cheated out of the spectacle of a wedding he had planned. As for the rest ...” She gestured, a world of tiredness in her hands and bent head.

She did not look at him again, but only waited for what was sure to come. Her limited experience with men had not led her to believe that they could feel any but the crudest of emotions, and with her marriage, she had but traded one master for another.

Seconds passed, in which the only sounds were the breaking of the fire log and the earl’s harsh breathing. Then she felt her robe eased gently up to cover her bare shoulders.

“I shall not trouble you again.”

She heard a quick step and the opening of the door. When she dared to turn, he was gone. She rose, clutching the bedpost for support, and sank down on the bed. Her whole body shook in reaction.

Lord Chatworth hardly knew that he had entered his own bedchamber. He waved aside his valet’s attempts to aid him in undressing, his greatest desire at that moment to be left alone. He stood at the mantel, staring into the fire.

He was appalled by what he had learned of his new bride. He had never really given much thought to the reasons behind her own consent to wed him. He had assumed it was simply out of a wish for social gain and the independence of her own establishment, where she might be free of an overbearing father.

Now he fully realized, and from the appalling evidence of his own eyes, that she had been virtually forced into the marriage. When she had come to him beforehand, it had been in a pathetic attempt to guarantee herself some measure of safety from the same sort of tyranny.

Lord Chatworth closed his eyes against his thoughts. He was bitterly ashamed. He had not fully understood then. Not until this evening, when he had tried to force her into his bed, had he begun to understand her panic and desperation. He groaned quietly, recalling that he had struck her. He had proven himself little better than her monster of a father.

After several minutes Lord Chatworth slowly straightened. His hard eyes held a queer light that his scapegrace friends would not have recognized. He vowed that he would not again behave in any fashion that his wife might find objectionable or that would wound her sensibilities. The dowager countess was proven unquestionably right. As his wife, Barbara deserved a great deal more than he had heretofore offered her.

She was blameless in the
contretemps
earlier at the soiree, he thought. It had been he who had overstepped the bounds of their pact and totally disregarded their mutual agreement that granted each the liberty to form their own liaisons.

Though it rotted his pride, he meant in future to step aside for his wife’s cisibeo. Hovering on the fringes of that particular resolution was the half-formed thought that he could endeavor to make of himself a much-preferred suitor. He was not lacking in experience and he had the advantage of being married to the lady.

His jaw tightened as he thought of the mastermind behind their fateful marriage. More than ever before, he was determined to gain freedom from Cribbage’s grasp. His hardened determination to do so was now as much for his wife’s sake as it had formerly been for himself.

The earl acted swiftly upon his resolutions. When he went down to breakfast, he was determined to proffer his apologies to his wife for his want of conduct, but his good intention was thwarted. Babs was not in the breakfast room. Lord Chatworth assumed that she had risen belatedly and would come down later, so he sat down to his own hearty breakfast of kipper and eggs, steak and biscuits.

Several times during the course of his repast his frowning gaze went to the breakfast-room door, as he was in every expectation of his wife’s appearance. He was finishing his coffee when he at last inquired from the butler news of his wife. “Smithers, is her ladyship not coming downstairs this morning?”

“No, my lord. Her ladyship requested that her breakfast be taken up to her room. I understand that her ladyship is not feeling well this morning,’’ said the butler. He had begun to remove the covered dishes on the sideboard; he paused to ask, “Will there be anything else, my lord?”

“No, that will be all,” said Lord Chatworth. He lingered over the last of his coffee, reflecting on his best possible course of action. He had the wit to realize the significance of his wife’s shunning of the breakfast room. It was obvious to Lord Chatworth that Babs was not in the most amenable of moods. He concluded that his apologies would necessarily have to wait. Whatever his motives, she would very much resent it were he to foist his presence upon her in her rooms. That would smack too much of the scene last night, he thought.

Marcus thought it would be prudent to give Babs time in which her alarm and anger against him could cool. He was experienced enough to know that if he gave the lady the opportunity to reject his apology out of hand, he would then be forced to endure a sort of armed camp in his own house until she should relent enough to forgive him. He was not enamored of the notion, having a great dislike of such high drama.

Lord Chatworth left the breakfast room and entered his study to pen a short note. He gave the folded sheet into the hand of a footman, directing that the note be carried up to Lady Chatworth. He collected his beaver and left the town house.

The earl sauntered down the walkway in the direction of his club. He knew that two of his cronies could usually be found in the card room at that early hour and he thought that he could contrive to wile away the interim pleasantly enough until such time that he could be reasonably assured of finding Lady Beth Cartier in to visitors. He knew that the lady never rose until noon and that it would be unlikely that even he would be allowed entrance before the appointed hour.

Three hours later and somewhat plumper in the pocket, the Earl of Chatworth left his club. The weather was the clear and sunny sort that encouraged Londoners out-of-doors and there were more than the usual carriages and promenaders on the streets. He was hailed several times by acquaintances in the short distance to Lady Cartier’s town house.

Lord Chatworth sent up his card. He was immediately admitted and ushered upstairs to the lady’s private sitting room. The door was closed softly behind him.