Tangled (41 page)

“I can hardly wait for tonight,'' he murmured against her ear before kissing her again. "Has a week been long enough, Becka?"

"Yes," she said.

"I have never known a longer week in my life," he

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said, looking down at her with the boyish grin that had always drawn an answering smile from her. "But tonight it will be at an end."

"What did Father want?" she asked him. The earl had taken Julian into the library after breakfast and kept him there for all of an hour.

"Just to know what my plans are," Julian said. "It's pretty difficult to plan anything right now, Becka. I have been officially dead for so long that it seems I have little more than my life and die clothes I stand in. And you, of course." He paused to kiss her lingeringly once more. "It's going to take a while before I get my property and fortune back. I haven't been in the mood to do much about it in the past week, but Father is bringing a solicitor down tomorrow to get things moving. He was mumbling about responsibility and my being a married man and all that. It was quite like old times." He chuckled.

"And when everything is settled we are going to go home at last?"

she asked. "I have never even seen your home, Julian. It seems strange after six years of marriage, doesn't it?"

He wrinkled his nose. "I don't know if we will go there yet, Becka," he said. "I would prefer to have some fun while we are still young enough to enjoy it. I think we will travel for a year or two."

"But I'm twenty-six, Julian," she said. "I want a home. You don't have to think of traveling for my sake. I'll be happy just to be with you."

"I don't think I could settle if I tried, Becka," he said. "Not yet anyway. We'll travel. It will be fun, you'll see."

That was what he had said about joining the Guards six years before. She had told him then that she did not fancy the unsettled life, moving from place to place, never having a home that she could really call her own. But he had laughed and said it would be fun to move about and to mingle with other people.

Would he never want to settle? She gazed up at him, her head resting comfortably on his arm. But perhaps it would not matter. She would be with Julian. She would have all she could possibly want in life. But she remembered those two years of marriage with him and recalled something she had denied at the time or simply ignored.

She had been dissatisfied and frequently bored. Everything—her whole happiness—had depended upon Julian. When he was with her, everything had been wonderful. When he was gone, there had been nothing.

Perhaps that was why she had been so inconsolable in her grief when she had thought him dead. There had been nothing—nothing at all—apart from Julian. No meaning to life. No real sense of self.

She had been nothing and nobody. Only his wife.

But that was enough. It was enough to be just his wife, wasn't it?

She had been taught that that was all a woman needed for a sense of fulfillment.

"A penny for them," he said, rubbing his nose against hers.

"I was thinking it does not matter where we are provided we are together," she said.

That thought sustained her through the rest of the day and on until bedtime. She undressed, brushed her hair, dismissed her maid, and dabbed some perfume behind her ears—something she had never done before at bedtime. It was going to be a special night, one that would get her so deeply involved in her marriage again that all else would pale into insignificance. The marriage act was going to be as wonderful as it was with . . .It was going to be as wonderful as she knew it could be.

She was in bed when he came as she had always used to be. She was lying on her back, breathing deeply and evenly, her hands flat against the mattress at her sides. She smiled at him.

"We'll do it right this time, Becka," he said, dimming the lamp.

"Perhaps it was the light that bothered you last time."

"No." she said. "It was just the newness of your return, Julian.

Thank you for having patience with me."

"Well," he said, "I love you, you know."

She drew a deep and steadying breath as his hands lifted her nightgown to her waist and he came on top of her, pushing her legs wide with his own as he did so. She loved him, she told herself over and over. She was going to show her love in the ultimate way. She was going to give him what only a wife could give.

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"I love vou, Julian," she said as he positioned himself.

And then everything snapped again and she was fighting wildly, arms flailing, legs kicking, teeth gnashing, voice crying out.

"Shh! Hush! The devil!" he was saying when she had enough sanity to hear sounds from outside herself again. "What the devil? Hush up this minute, Becka. You'll have the whole household coming at a run.

Hush or I'll be forced to slap you." His voice was harsh, quite unlike Julian's voice.

She went limp. She was lying across the bed, his weight heavy on her, his hands holding her arms clamped to her sides, his legs imprisoning her own between them.

"Julian." Her breath was coming in sobbing gasps. "Oh, what have I done? I'm sorry. I'm so sorry. I can't. Oh, please, I can't."

His weight was gone suddenly and she lay, gasping for air until the lamp flared again. She pushed hurriedly at her nightgown. He was looking flushed and furious. She could not remember seeing Julian angry before. He glared down at her.

"I've had enough of this," he said. "I can go elsewhere if you would prefer it, Becka. It's all the same to me. But if it's Dave you are hankering after, you can forget him. Do you hear me? He had you for over a year under false pretenses. But that time is over. I'm back whether you like it or not, and you're my wife. You will do well to understand that.''

"Julian," she said, deeply distressed, "I love you."

His laugh was harsh. "A strange way you have of showing it, Beck,"

he said. "A damned strange way. If you love someone, you want to go to bed with him. You don't fight like a wild cat as soon as he's ready to make his mount."

She could feel the blood hot in her cheeks. She gazed up at him—this strange, angry, vulgar Julian—and was frightened by the nightmare into which she had propelled them. She loved him. She did love him.

But . . .

But there was David. Her body was David's.

"I need time," she said, her voice dull.

298 Mary Balogh

"How much time?" he snapped. "Another week? A month? A year?

Ten damned years? What am I supposed to do in the meanwhile?"

"Give me another week," she said.

He leaned over her on the bed, an arm braced on either side of her head. "And do we have to go through this same performance at the end of the week?" he asked. She watched the anger ebb from his face as he gazed down at her. "I love you, Beck. You're my wife. Is everything spoiled? Is it Dave? Foolish question. It's Dave, isn't it?"

She shook her head. "It's not spoiled, Julian," she said. "I adored you for years before we married. I adored you after our marriage. I thought I would die of grief when you died. I married David because there seemed to be nothing else to do with my life and he needed help with Stedwell. But I didn't stop loving you for a moment. Give me time. Or give me a command. I don't think I could be disobedient to a command. I'm your wife." She raised a hand and touched her fingertips to his cheek.

He drew his head back. "You had better not touch me, Becka," he said, "or you may find yourself being forced even without the command. And if you think I am going to order you to spread your legs for me, you don't know me very well, do you?"

She flushed and bit her lip.

"We will have to work this thing out somehow," he said, running the fingers of one hand through his hair. "Just tell me one thing, Becka. You don't love him, do you?"

Her eyes widened. "David?" she said. "Of course I don't love him, Julian. I love you."

"We'll work it out, then," he said. "I daresay that letter upset you this morning. You care for the child pretty deeply, don't you?"

"Of course," she said. "He's my son, Julian. I carried him with great difficulty for nine months. I gave birth to him and suckled him."

He looked at her broodingly. "Does he look like Dave?" he asked.

"He has golden hair like mine," she said. But he had David's eyes and would have David's build.

"We'll have children of our own," he said. "Once you have got over your aversion to having the seed planted. You'll be happy again once we have a child."

"I'm happy now," she said.

His smile was just a ghost of his old grin. "Lord, Becka," he said, "I would hate to see you unhappy, then. We'll talk tomorrow, shall we?

After that blasted solicitor has been here? We'll make plans. We'll decide where we are going to go on our travels."

"Yes," she said. "Tomorrow, Julian."

He left her room without another word.

Rebecca continued lying across the bed. She closed her eyes and let the thought come that had been hovering at the edge of her consciousness for many minutes. There would never be enough time.

She would never be ready.

She had lied to him.

He had asked her if she loved David and she had lied to him. She had thought as she spoke the words that they were the truth. It was only after they were out that she knew she had lied.

Her answer had been a lie.

She lay on her bed, defenseless against the onslaught of horror.

And despair.

"When will they be leaving?" Louisa met her husband's eyes in the mirror of her dressing table. He was brushing her hair, something he liked to do occasionally at night after she had dismissed her maid.

"They have been here almost a month."

The earl did not answer for a while. "This is their home," he said at last. "I have treated Julian as my son since he came here at the age of five. Rebecca has belonged here since she married him. You were always fond of her, my dear.''

"And of course I still am," she said impatiently. "Don't deliberately misunderstand me, William. Rebecca could stay here forever and I would be happy.''

"Julian is waiting for the solicitors to settle his affairs," he said. "He is waiting for what is his to be restored to him. Then they will be leaving. He is going to take Rebecca traveling."

"She will hate it," Louisa said. "But that is not the point. He has money, William. There is all the officer's pay that accumulated from the time he was presumed dead until the time when he came home and sold out. That must be fortune enough to keep them for a year or more abroad."

"You do not like Julian," he said, setting the brush down quietly on the dressing table.

"No," she admitted. "I'm sorry, William. I know you love him.

After he employed me, I stayed only because I felt sorry for Rebecca.

She deserved better. She deserved—well, David."

"And yet," he said, "she was deeply in love with Julian and had been for years before they wed."

"He was not worthy of her love," she said, rearrang-

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ing pots and combs on her dressing table. "And is not. She is unhappy.''

"Yes," he said quietly. "It is a sad situation especially with a child involved. And yet she loves Julian still. I cannot think there is real harm in him, my dear. He was rather wild and weak of character as a boy. Perhaps time has put that right.''

"It has not," she said tersely.

"Louisa." He rubbed the knuckles of one hand over the back of her neck. "I have known you long enough to know when you wish to say something but do not quite know how or whether it should be said.

You had better say it before we go to bed or I shall feel you like a coiled spring beside me all night."

"When Rebecca was expecting a child in London, before her miscarriage, before he left for Malta," she said, "he made—overtures to me. I made my indignation quite clear and he said no more. But I disliked him and despised him from that moment on."

"Poor Rebecca," he said. "Yes, I suspected that Julian would not be a constant husband. I really should have forced the truth from David—well, no matter. But again time may have healed his weakness. He was away from her long enough to have learned to value her, I believe."

"He made similar overtures this morning," Louisa said. "It seems that I cannot be quite satisfied with an aging husband and that I must be looking for a diversion."

The earl's hand stilled against her neck.

"It is rather comic in light of my condition," she said.

"No one yet knows of that except you and me—and the doctor,"

he said. "I shall have a word with him, my dear. It will not happen again. I do assure you it will not happen again. I beg your pardon that it happened in my own home while you are under my protection."

Louisa got suddenly to her feet and faced him, her face tight with emotion. "She should be with David," she said, "and Charles. It is with them that she belongs. She is pining away for them. One has only to look at her to see that."

He gazed mutely at her.

"Can't you do anything?" she asked.

302 Mary Balogh

"I wish I could be God for you," he said. "But perhaps it is as well I cannot be. I would have to choose which hearts were to be broken.

She married him, my dear. She married for love. And marriage vows are for life."

Louisa sighed and the tension went from her face. "It seems unfair, that's all," she said. "Life is unfair. And I do believe you would do a vastly better job of ordering it than God does, William."

He chuckled and drew her into his arms. "Don't let the vicar hear you utter such blasphemies,'' he said. “I'll have a word—more than a word—with Julian tomorrow. I'll not have you being upset, especially at this particular time. Is it to be a boy or a girl this time?"

"Do you want a boy?" she asked, looking up into his face. "Does it matter to you?"