Rebel Dreams (22 page)

By the time his mother moved into Sir Hugh’s hideous mansion,
Alex had decided to remain in his own home. She took the news with only a
slight attack of vapors, followed by asking her new husband to help her back to
the carriage.

Alex watched her leave with a new layer of callousness.

By the end of summer, Bess was swelling with his child. They
admired the hard curve of her belly with equal pride and no shame at all. The
child was something they had done together, a symbol of their independence.
Alex asked her to marry him, but she put him off with giggles and pulled him
down into the hay. Her swelling breasts were a temptation he could not resist,
and he let her lead the way. He just knew she was his. The child growing
between them was proof of that.

The day that he couldn’t find Bess anywhere ended that
fantasy. Fearing her father had come for her, Alex had ridden into the village
in a frenzy. The man showed no fear of him. He looked at Alex slyly, spat in
the dirt, and announced his Bess was happily wedded to the father of her child.

Alex went a little crazy after that. He had just turned
seventeen. He owned nothing of his own. His mother’s estate now belonged to Sir
Hugh. He lived on their charity. He was helpless to fight this injustice in any
way but rage.

He located Bess one September day when the air was crisp and
cool and the sun shone so painfully he had to pull his hat over his eyes. He
had been drinking with the footman again, but the alcohol had not alleviated
the pain. When he rode up to her husband’s solid brick farmhouse and studied
the well-built barn and acres of field around it, he knew what Bess had done,
but he refused to admit it. He dismounted and sought her out to prove it to
himself.

She was eight months pregnant by then and more beautiful
than ever. She met him with eager kisses, let him touch her belly and breasts,
but laughed when he offered to take her away.

“Why should I go?” she had asked cheerfully, gesturing
toward the comfortable rocking chair beside the warm fire in this jewel of a
farmhouse. “Can you give me all of this?”

He had given her love and his child, but he could give her
nothing else, and she knew it. He protested. He threatened to tell her husband.
He raged and pleaded, but she couldn’t be stirred. Her husband had married
fully believing he was the only one and that the child was his. He’d had no
children by his first wife, and he dearly wanted this one. It could be his. It
might be. Who knew?

The full extent of her betrayal came to Alex in bits and
pieces over a matter of weeks. By then he’d persuaded Sir Hugh to send him to
Oxford. He wasn’t home when Bess had the child. He never really went home
again.

His drinking and his womanizing got him sent down so many
times Alex lost count, and finally he just forgot to go back. The quarterly
allowance from his stepfather was sufficient to find him a small suite of rooms
in London. It didn’t pay for his expensive habits, but his cousin, the Earl of
Cranville, had married a woman who could not have children, and he was the only
heir. His creditors were willing to wait.

Unable to explain all this to the woman in his bed, Alex
fell silent, uncertain how much of his thoughts he had spoken out loud. She
said nothing when he didn’t go on. Apparently the tale had been sufficient to
put Evelyn to sleep.

He didn’t tell her how his disillusionment had led him to
one deceitful whore after another. He always felt a certain satisfaction when
he found them out. He never had any objection to sharing the beds of wives of
other men. If they didn’t cheat with him, they would cheat with others, he had
rationalized. Not until he had Evelyn in his arms and knew he couldn’t share
her did he have a better understanding of the harm he had done.

He needed her to erase the pain, and he turned on his side
to wake her. To his surprise, she was staring at him with tears darkening violet
depths to almost purple.

“I’ll love you, Alex, but will you ever be able to love me
back?”

Alex stared at Evelyn in apparent disbelief.

Perhaps he’d expected that his recital would cause tears of
pity or angry denunciations for his wasted years. But she already knew that he
wasn’t a temperate man, which was why she knew he’d never love her.

“I didn’t ask you to love me.” Irritated, Alex dropped back
to his pillow.

Evelyn lay silent, unable to think of a witty reply to
offset that hurtful remark. He had opened his soul to her, and she had accepted
it. Why couldn’t he accept her? Stupid question. He had just told her why. He
hated and distrusted all women. Yet there had to be some feelings, some trust,
or he would never have offered marriage.

It didn’t matter. Everything he had said just made it that
much clearer that she couldn’t marry him. The wounds he had taken were apparently
mortal ones. And she couldn’t go to another country and face the hostility of a
new life without at least the slender support of her husband’s love and trust.

“I’ll do as I please,” she answered stiffly. Seeing no point
in continuing to lie naked in his bed, Evelyn started to rise to look for her
clothes.

Alex caught her arm. “Where do you think you’re going?”

“To hell, evidently. I want to get dressed.” She tried to
jerk away, but he rose on one elbow and pulled her back. She glared at his
darkened face.

“The night has just begun. There is no reason to go until
dawn. I don’t think you found what we did together terribly unpleasant.”

He was pressuring her back into the pillows. She had no
defense against his greater strength. She could use words to wound him, but she
didn’t want to cause him more pain. What difference would leaving make after
what they’d already done?

His kiss was angry, but she wouldn’t let him force her. He
had enough guilt on his conscience. Quite shamelessly she wanted him to love
her again but not this way.

Evelyn caught her hands in the thickness of Alex’s hair and
arched against him. She parted her lips and drew him in. Alex groaned, and the
rigid anger drained out of him as he accepted the solace she offered.

When Alex drove into her, Evelyn cried out and clung to the
strong arms on either side of her. He possessed her with urgency, with a
driving need that returned her own passion. Understanding now where this led,
she surrendered to his experience, let him take them to the brink and over.

She gasped for breath as the final aftershocks rolled over
her. Alex didn’t leave her, but remained in the position of triumphant
conqueror. She could feel his shuddering breaths and knew she would never be
able to share this with anyone less than this magnificent man. A tear crawled
down her cheek.

Alex finally took her in his arms, pulling her half on top
of him. Evelyn kissed the salty perspiration beading on his chest and knew her
love was hopeless.

As he silently stroked her hair, Evelyn whispered, “Do you
know for certain the child is yours? Have you ever seen him?”

Alex flinched but didn’t hesitate in his answer. “The child
was a girl. She’s a little older than Jacob now. She had no brothers or
sisters. And no, I have never seen her.”

She understood his anguish. If he saw the child, the visible
proof that she was his, he would never be able to leave her. It was better not
to know. Sighing, Evelyn brushed kisses across his muscular shoulder. His
physical strength was no protection against emotional wounds.

Since words only caused disagreement, they drifted silently
into sleep.

Evelyn woke at dawn to the cry of a jay. She was trapped
against the warm nakedness of Alex’s chest, with his heavy legs entwined around
hers. He’d thrown his arm over her as if to prevent escape. They lay face-to-face,
or more like face-to-shoulder.

Hesitantly, she shifted her legs away. She hurt where they
had joined but even the hurt stirred longings she must get used to ignoring.

She touched the welcome warmth of his chest and hated to
pull away. His breathing changed, and she looked up into beautifully lashed
dark eyes.

“Good morning,” she said, fighting a flood of embarrassment.

He pressed a kiss to her brow and drew her against him.
Evelyn went willingly, loving the sensation of being held. The gray dawn
gradually brightened. If they were married, they could have this every day. Why
couldn’t everything be simple?

“We have to go home. Mama will be terrified,” she summoned
the courage to say.

“I was just thinking it might be simpler if we never went
back, but I suppose running away doesn’t solve problems.” Alex released her,
gently pushing her back against the pillows to study her one more time.

He cupped and stroked her tender breasts, then drew his hand
down her side, to the juncture of her thighs. “Are you very sore?”

His tenderness caught Evelyn by surprise. She had thought he
was building up to another argument. “I think I’ll live. I won’t promise I’ll
be able to walk twenty miles, though.”

“We have a better chance of finding someone to give us a
ride during the day, but I suppose we had best get started.” Alex withdrew and
reached for his breeches. “You had better dress quickly. I can’t promise how
long I can remain noble.”

She was reluctant to leave the warm covers and man for the
chilly room, but she had to learn to do without him. Bracing herself, she slid
to the floor to begin searching for her scattered clothing.

Wearing only his tight breeches, Alex joined her search. Evelyn
avoided looking at the bulge behind his placket that warned she had better
dress quickly.

She pulled on her chemise and tied the ribbons high to avoid
Alex’s lascivious gaze. She refused his offer to help with her stockings. “You
would do better to don your own,” she said tartly, pushing away his encroaching
hand.

Alex chuckled and kissed her. “I knew I liked women with
spirit, but you are very much in danger of becoming a shrew, little tyrant.
Somehow we’ll have to learn to soften each other’s edges.”

“I don’t think there’s been a grindstone made that could
soften yours, sir. I’m neither shrew nor tyrant, just practical.” In a huff, she
jerked on her shirt and grabbed for her skirt before he could make further
invasions upon her person. The wool was sadly crumpled.

Alex caught the length of her hair and lifted it from her
shirt collar. “One of us must needs be practical, I suppose. Still, I can think
of a thousand things I’d rather do than leave this room right now.”

“A thousand? In this room?” She raised a skeptical brow as
she buttoned her shirt.

His grin was the devilish one she had expected the night
before. “At least a thousand. Do you think there is only one way of making
love? Remind me sometime to teach you more.”

Flushing, Evelyn turned away. She must not let him think in
those terms again or she really would end up carrying his child. She nervously
brushed the place between her hips where a babe would grow. Surely he had not
already planted his child in her. She tried to think of how long it had taken
friends to get pregnant after marriage, but the memories weren’t reassuring.
Susan had had her babe only six months after she was wedded, and Mary’s had
come nine months to the day. How long had they been indulging in these sinful
pleasures before they were actually married?

Refusing to contemplate the possibility that one night of
pleasure could lead to a lifetime of misery, Evelyn finished dressing and tried
to tie her hair into respectability.

Alex prevented her from doing more than tying it back from
her face. He wrapped the length about his hand and kissed her, doing no more
than teasing her lips. “I like seeing your hair down. That first day I saw you,
I wanted to jerk the ribbon from your hair and see how it would look spread
upon a pillow. Now that I know what it looks like, I don’t think I’ll ever get
enough of it.”

Evelyn shivered at his seductive words. She had to remind
herself that he was well-practiced in seduction. She returned his kiss, but already,
she was shielding her heart with cynicism.

Downstairs, the old woman waited to tell them their horses
had miraculously returned. Instead of being delighted at this news, Alex looked
grim. Evelyn sent him an anxious glance, wondering if he still blamed her, but
he gave no hint of his thoughts as he ordered breakfast.

Afterward they rode in silence. It was the beginning of
October and the maple leaves had reached the height of their brilliant color.
With every jolting stride of the livery nag Evelyn was reminded of what she had
done. Her gaze strayed to Alex’s masculine frame riding straight and tall. In
this new light he appeared quite revoltingly handsome and very much the noble
lord. Had she really lain naked beneath him not more than a few hours ago?

She couldn’t believe she had refused his offer of marriage in
favor of prison, but she loved him too much and knew herself too well to make
them both miserable. After a few years in prison, she would go on with her
life. Jacob and her mother would have the warehouse, and she could visit New
York or Philadelphia and start over. It would work. It would have to.

Alex climbed down outside her mother’s house and caught
Evelyn’s waist to help her. He flicked a finger over her pale cheek.

“Courage, little tyrant. I’m used to taking the full force
of the blow. Just having you beside me will make it easier.”

He took her arm and turned toward the house before he could
see her astonishment. She had thought he was still angry and blaming her for
what had happened. What had brought about this sudden change to tenderness?
Tenderness! From Alex! She sent him a surreptitious look to see if he was the
same man who had stood in his tavern room with his doxy hurling insults at her.

At Alex’s call of greeting, the front room burst into life.
Amanda Wellington flew in with reddened eyes and sodden handkerchief. Jacob
raced down the stairs with suspiciously moist lashes. And even George Upton
appeared from the study where he had apparently made his vigil.