The Delicate Matter of Lady Blayne (29 page)

He longed to ask what was on her mind. He resisted.

She deserved the quiet and dignity to sort herself out.

His own thoughts wouldn’t give him peace. He didn’t deserve any peace.

How had he come to lose control with her once again? It took a certain depth of selfishness in a man to impose his lusts on a young woman who had been so recently breached. And then to have come inside her. That had been inexcusable.

She did this to him. Yes, she did. All the same, it was wrong to put the blame on her. If she made him weak, it was only because of some weakness within himself. She had shown him this weakness before, all those years ago when she had rejected him in favor of Freddy. A profound weakness, a vulnerability that had nearly destroyed him. He had worked so hard to discipline himself, to eradicate this vulnerability from himself.

He had thought himself successful. He had been proud of himself. Had been smug, even, about the progress he’d made. Only it had all been a lie, the worst kind of self-deception.

A chill passed over his scalp.

She had the ability to make him feel things that were unfamiliar to his nature. Those feelings had the power to destroy him from within. If he were to continue with her, he needed to take command of his emotions. He needed to control himself…and her.

Joy still thrummed inside Sunny as she watched the countryside passing by from the carriage window. Joy, and an intense satisfaction at having pleased James. A real physical elation tingling in her belly and right down to her toes. She looked away from the window and dared a glance at him.

Appreciating his dark hair and lean featured handsomeness only increased her sense of pleasure. He’d been quiet, meeting her attempts at conversation with one- or two-word replies. He’d been reading, but his coal-black brows were drawn tight in a permanent scowl the whole ride, and she had the impression that his mind was consumed but not by the words on the page.

She’d pleased Freddy and Silas, and yet her sense of satisfaction at their pleasure hadn’t been anywhere near this intense. Why was it so different this time? Because James had made proper love to her?

She couldn’t be sure.

He looked up, as though he had sensed her stare.

God, he looked so fierce!

She forced her trembling lips to curve into a semblance of a smile.

“I won’t be so careless again.” His voice was curt, strained, the set of his mouth hard, as though his disgust were so great, he could barely speak for a desire to curl his lip.

“What?” she asked.

“I spent inside you.”

“Oh.” She had forgotten. Now a renewed shock of anxiety shot through her. A week until her courses were due. Days of agony to come. No escape. Her belly ached a little more and she rubbed it unthinkingly.

“I will not do so again. I promise you.”

The resolve in his voice was like iron.

She nodded slowly, wishing that he did not look so dismayed at the prospect of making her pregnant. But that was irrational of her. Neither of them wished to bring a bastard child into the world, right? Of course not.

Not that she could ever give him any children, legitimate or not.

Disquieted by her thoughts, she grew silent. Miles rolled by. Slumber claimed her.

* * * *

“Catriona”

James’ deep voice cut into her sleepy mind. With effort, she opened her eyes and tried to focus on his lean, handsome face.

Catriona.

Others rarely called her by her given name. But it sounded so different on his lips. It made her sound so grown up.

He caressed her cheek with his fingertips. “We’ve arrived.”

“Oh.” She attempted to sit and a sudden ache in her lower stomach made her catch her breath.

He frowned.

She could have cursed herself to have let the pain show. For the past few days, she’d been beset with it. Of course, he had blamed himself. But she had tried to tell him it was a normal occurrence, a female thing. She always suffered some mild pain shortly before her courses. Dr. Meeker said it was an effect caused by her “hysterical tension,” he had stressed to her how new these ideas were, how many medical men did not yet accept them, and that caused needless worry in the women who suffered from these conditions brought about by resistance to proper husbandly authority.

Thus enlightened by Meeker about the root cause of her pain, perhaps she had less reason to worry. But it didn’t make the discomfort any easier to take. And seven days of her courses loomed ahead of her, a vast stretch of agony. James refused to let go of the notion that he had contributed to her condition by taking her virginity.

He had caused them to travel slower, to settle down early each evening and to rest longer into the morning each day. And in all that time, he hadn’t touched her intimately.

But he had sat beside her here today and let her rest against him as she slept, his clean, masculine scent and his body heat surrounding her, a buttress against the rather chilly morning. Surely that was progress of a sort?

“Have a look,” he said, leaning out of the way so that she could see out the window.

The large Georgian mansion was impressive, though not quite as grand or romantic as the Blayne estate with its mullioned windows and Elizabethan architecture. Or maybe she was just being loyal?

He pointed in the distance. “There’s where we are headed.”

She could just make out a structure. Leaning over him, she moved closer to the window and narrowed her gaze.

“Don’t squint.” He caressed her hair.

“I am trying to see.”

“You’ll ruin your beauty.”

She caught her breath, surprised at the sense of warmth that spread through her at his words, at his gentle touch. It was a taste of that intense satisfaction and joy she’d known during their lovemaking. She’d waited her whole life to experience that sort of joy.

She wanted to feel it again.

Releasing her breath slowly, carefully, she wondered what she could do to feel it again before her courses came and prevented their joining for days.

This was the first real warmth he’d shown her since the morning when she’d rode him to pleasure. And she sensed that it would take little to cause him to retreat back into that stern, stony-faced state.

She wished, desperately, that she was more experienced with men. A true courtesan. A seductress well used to getting her way. But she wasn’t. All the romances she’d read had taught her nothing about how to handle a man like James.

All the men in those stories had been mad with lust.

She sighed.

He caressed her back. “Are you tired?”

His voice resonated with warmth and tenderness. It wound through her like a tea laced heavily with honey and peach brandy. Or rich licorice.

Goodness, she laughed. “I think I am hungry.”

“Are you?”

“I am starving.”

His hand on her back seemed to slow down, to press her more firmly. “We’ll be there soon. I am sure there will be some repast for us.”

She froze. “But I thought we would be alone?”

Her heart began to pound and her mouth went dry. She wasn’t ready to face other people. Didn’t want to face their questioning stares.

Didn’t want to face the test of young, fit male servants.

“We will be alone, love.” The endearment seemed to slide naturally off his tongue.

It calmed her. She took a long, deep inhalation then let it go, slowly. He continued caressing her back with a leisurely motion.

“I don’t understand.” She heard the languor in her voice.

“Servants will come at prearranged times to bring food and tidy for us. You will know when they are to arrive and you may stay in your chambers.” He said all of this in that same warm, rich tone, as though he didn’t think her needs abnormal at all.

“Oh.” How kind that he had thought to take care of this detail in a way that allowed her to feel a measure of control. The heaviness around her chest suddenly lifted. She felt a sense of release of anxiety that she hadn’t even realized that she’d been holding inside.

Some of it had been a growing dread that had built up inside her the past few days at his stern-faced coolness towards her.

Well, no matter, it was gone now.

She felt cared for.

Understood.

Accepted as she was.

She could see the cottage now. Only…

“That’s no’ a cottage!” she exclaimed, taking in the two-story domicile with its large Palladian windows, charming red brick walls and pristine white Georgian columns.

“It is the dowager house.” Amusement sounded in his voice.

That he had wanted to surprise her was what most surprised her. She hadn't thought of him as having such playful notions.

Now she could see what seemed to be a large garden behind the house, as well as a maze of respectable size. In the distance, a stream wound through the property at the edge of a wood.

Cottage? She chuckled softly. It was a magnificent house!

And they would have it all to themselves for the next few weeks. All alone. She and James. Excitement swelled within her, blossoming into elation.

Chapter Nineteen

James couldn’t sleep. The footfalls in the chamber next to his seemed to echo too loudly. He inhaled deeply and rolled onto his stomach. Each footfall resounded in the pit of his belly. She was unable to sleep again.

God, he needed a drink.

But he had denied himself hard liquor. How fair would it be if he allowed himself the relief of a whisky, when she paced next door, wakeful and suffering from the slow but steady withdrawal of laudanum?

He should go to her and persuade her to play cards, or read one of her romances—anything to take her mind off of the restlessness that increasingly beset her. But he was exhausted from the past week. The feeling was not so much a physical exhaustion but an emotional one.

Damnation, he just wasn’t used to the world of women and their needs.

Sexual needs, aye.

But emotional needs?

God, no. He just wasn’t equal to that sort of demand.

Her footfalls came quicker, as though her disquiet was increasing. Thunder rolled in the distance, blocking the sound of her slippers on the creaky wooden floor.

Thirst drove him from the bed. He walked to the sideboard and held the bottle of whisky. The sound of thunder died away. And then there was silence.

A sense of peace settled in the center of his chest, and his shoulders eased, making him aware of how much tension he had been holding in his body. A deep tiredness followed, and he sagged against the sideboard whilst still clutching the bottle. He wasn’t used to feeling another person’s suffering so acutely. Or even really feeling for someone else’s pain at all. In the past, the feeling of sympathy for another’s pain had always been an intellectual exercise for James.

At least now she was better physically.

The past seven days had been hell. Simply hell.

She had tried to hide her misery from him, but living so closely with a woman, something he had certainly never done before, he could not overlook her slow movements and chalk-white face.

She had denied it and denied it.

That had been maddening!

Finally, under the press of his sternest voice, she had told him. He had never realized that women could suffer so direly with their monthly flux.

She had said her courses had become so severely painful only in the last three years. He had asked her what could be done. She said she normally took more laudanum. When he said that she ought to have it then, she had refused, saying she didn’t want to delay her recovery.

She’d been so determined to overcome what Meeker had done to her. Fierce pride had filled James. Admiration.

He had never felt that sort of admiration for a woman.

He became aware of something. A change. He paused. Oh, yes, that was it.

Silence.

He held himself still, ears straining.

Yes, quite silent.

The relief he felt made him relax even more. His eyes became heavy. Well, if she was finally abed, perhaps sleeping, it wouldn’t be disloyal to have a spot of whisky to wet his throat. He poured the drink then downed it, feeling the burn all the way down. Moonlight seeping through the clouded sky made streaks of silvery light on the floor, turning the maroon and gold carpet into muted shades of wavy purple and greenish smears. He took the few steps to the window and watched the fast-moving clouds above.

Something flashed in the corner of his eye.

He glanced down at the lawn. Lightning flashed on the horizon. A silver arc…no, a wall of silver shown against the line of trees in the distance. A heavy rain. Then all was in darkness again.

A white blur moved quickly in the darkness, flashing more brightly and then dimly with the movement of streaked clouds over the moon. Then more brightly than ever as lightning flared again.

His heart seemed to stop.

Catriona!

Had he shouted her name aloud? The sound rang in his ears.

As the lightning ceased and darkness returned, he narrowed his eyes and kept focused on the billowing cloud of purplish white moving away from him rapidly.

She hadn’t even the sense to take her wrap. Was she even wearing shoes? Did it matter? Her slippers were next to useless. Scraps of silk sewn to the thinnest kid leather.

He glanced at his bed. How many nights since he had slept, truly slept, more than snatching an hour or two here or there? Yes, he was used to managing quite well on little sleep. But that had been at sea, in the midst of a storm or battle. Such things he could cope with no matter his state of mental and physical fatigue.

But he had no experience being a nursemaid, especially to a mentally fragile woman.

Sunny wasn’t quite well. Just the gradual lessening of her laudanum dose would have been a strain on her, but for a week now she had also been suffering female pains and that ever increasing restlessness. She had been eating little and sleeping hardly at all. And when she had slept, more than a few times she had been stirred to wakefulness by visions of terror.

In his mind, he saw her pale face and the harsh purple shadows that ringed her eyes.

She was in a weakened condition. She could catch her death in that downfall.

He slammed his glass down on the window ledge.

Devil take this nonsense!

He was not equal to this kind of challenge. He’d never felt so lost. So inadequate.

He began throwing on his clothes, covering his naked body. Damn it, he was no nursemaid. Coming here with no women to take care of and watch over this mad chit! He must have been mad himself to have allowed her to seduce him into agreeing to such a thing. He wasn’t equipped to give her what she needed most.

He sat on the edge of the bed and pulled his boots on. Well, no more madness on his part. Tomorrow he would send to Landbrae for some females to care for Catriona. Someone experienced as a nurse, as Donna Carson had first suggested. A nurse would know how handle things far better than he.

With that thought to comfort him, he collected his greatcoat and a blanket for her, then strode from the chamber.

He reached her minutes later.

She was sprawled on her hands and knees. Though the rain was letting up and becoming more of a fine mist, her waterlogged nightdress clung to every line of her broad, round arse. Her sodden hair fell over her face, obscuring it. Her hands were extended into claws, digging in the mud.

Frantically digging.

“Catriona.” He placed the blanket over her.

She kept digging.

The strong smell of earth and roots and rain rose to his nostrils. Thunder sounded in the distance. Wind gusted. Lightning flashed. The easing of the rain would not last long. As the rumbling faded, his ears strained, automatically attuned to the sound of her harsh pants.

“Catriona!”

She began to dig more frantically, her hair dragging into the mud. Splattering his boots, his trousers, and her sleeves with mud.

He reached down and swept the mass of soaked hair from her face. “Catriona.”

She froze, her eyes wider than any he’d ever seen.

Wild.

His heart died. Or at least it felt that way. Stone, cold and dead.

She really was mad. Without the laudanum, she was mad.

His throat went dry as dust. Dry like it had never become since he’d been first in a battle at sea.

No, he was letting his emotions run away with his better sense. He must not leap to conclusions. He knelt beside her, still holding her hair from her face. “What the devil are you doing, Catriona?”

She sat up so quickly, the blanket fell from her shoulders.

He picked it up and put it back into place.

She stared at him with that disturbing wildness in her eyes.

He suppressed a chill not caused by the cold and wet. “Catriona?”

She licked her lips. “You’ve come to help?”

“I’ve come to fetch you back indoors.”

She shook her head. “No, no we must work now.”

“Work?”

“Yes, we must uncover the garden. It’s being choked by weeds!”

“Catriona—”

“No, no! The tender green shoots are being strangled.” She pointed a shaking finger at the ground. “See, here and here!” She moved away from him.

He grasped one of her arms with one hand, and with the other kept the blanket securely over her back, partially over her drenched head.

She pulled as far away as his hold would allow and began to dig again with her free hand. “We must liberate them. They are being strangled by the weeds. They can’t breathe, they can’t reach the sunlight. They can’t be!”

“Catriona, here, let me take you inside.”

“No, they can no’ be like this! The weeds are choking them! Stealing their sunlight! Just help them. Let them just be!”

“I’ll call for the gardeners on the morrow. At first light.”

“No, no, no.” She chanted the word, digging madly with one hand, her hair and sleeve getting caked with mud.

“Catriona, now.” He made his voice as stern as he could muster, not knowing any other way to break through her frenzy.

“No gardeners!”

He could hear the tears in her voice.

It softened him.

“Why no gardeners?”

“They will murder them. In trying to help, they will trod over the green shoots and murder them.” She took a deep, sobbing breath then looked up at him, the mudspatter on her face broken up by tear streaks like tiny streams. “To choose between being strangled to death or being trod over, what kind of choice is that?”

Her sad, pleading gaze struck him right in the center of his chest.

He pushed her muddy hair from her face and then he took several deep, calming breaths.

“What kind of choice is that?” Her voice broke on the last word.

He pulled her to him and held her wet form to his body. “Shh.” Her hair was stiff and sticky under his hand. He hadn’t thought to stop for his gloves on the way out of the house. Herbal scents filled the air, rosemary and mint and others, he didn’t know what. The scent of mud further permeated his senses. Underneath the blanket he found and stroked her arm. Her bare flesh was clammy and cold. Nubby with gooseflesh.

Lightning illuminated the horizon.

“We must get you inside,” he said.

“It will be too late.”

“Shh, tomorrow will be soon enough.”

“No gardeners. They would be too rough.”

He waited whilst the boom of thunder sounded then rumbled through the earth beneath them. Her eyes shone with an almost frantic glint, watching him avidly.

“No, gardeners,” he said. “I shall come here with you at first light, as soon as the storm ends.”

“Will you?”

Her voice sounded small, girlish. Hopeful, painfully hopeful.

Tightness seized his chest.

Oh Christ.

He wasn’t equal to this!

She needed a type of care now that he just didn’t know how to provide.

Yet, he was the only one who could provide it.

“Do you promise?” her voice was soft, girlish, yet underneath he sensed a palpable tension, making him aware of how close to the surface the wildness still churned within her.

Catriona.
His poor, lost Catriona.

Again, he stroked her arm. “Of course I will—but only if you promise to come with me now, back to the house.”

She went limp. He felt the warmth of her breath release against his neck at his open collar. “All right, I’ll go.”

In the kitchen, whilst James built up the fire, Catriona stood over the huge oak worktable, peering into a highly polished silver tray while tracing the mud tracks on her face. The wind howled and rain pelted hard on the windows; they had reached the shelter of the house just in time.

He came to her and put his hands under her hair and lifted the matted, sticky mass. Her beautiful hair, caked with mud. How would he possibly get it clean again? What he did know of women and their toilet? He dropped his hands and let the weight of her hair drop.

“Turn.” The sharpness of his tone echoed and he winched.

She didn’t so much as flinch.

He put his hands on her shoulders. She offered no resistance as he turned her to face him. She focused her gaze at the center of his chest.

She touched his open shirt. “I have muddied you.”

The too-girlish lilt in her voice sent a chill over him.

She put her forehead to where his open shirt gaped at his neck. “I have sullied you.”

Her voice sounded so small, so lost. It twisted something inside him. Maybe she was hopelessly mad. He didn’t care. He would be here for her. He lowered his head and rested his chin on the top of her head whilst putting his arms around her. A thousand foolish, rash promises rushed to the fore of his mouth, he was just opening his mouth—