To Pleasure a Prince (26 page)

Regina glared at him. “How dare you drag my ailing cousin, after all she’s done for us, into
our
argument? What could you possibly hope to accomplish?”

He fixed her with a feverish gaze. “I hope to bring you to your senses. You can hardly function well in society without her around. How will you read calling cards, respond to invitations, write thank-you notes, and all the rest?”

She felt sick. He would use her own defect against her? He was
that
far gone?

“H-He knows you can’t read?” Cicely squeaked from behind her.

“He knows,” Regina choked out. “He
said
it didn’t matter to him. Clearly that was a lie.”

His eyes blazed. “It wasn’t a lie, confound it all! And I’ll wager it matters a damned sight more to your society friends. Yet you choose them over me.”

“No, Marcus. I choose life over a prison.” She stared at his stubborn features, so full of anger. So full of fear. If she went with him now, he would never stop this madness. But if she didn’t, would he ever forgive her?

She had to take that chance. She was in a fight for his soul, and she meant to win, no matter what it took. “You’ve spent your life hiding away in your cave to avoid the world at its ugliest. Instead, you’ve missed all its beauties. Well, I shan’t do the same. When you decide to rejoin the world, I will be here waiting. But I love you too much to let you drag me back to die in a cave with you.”

Turning on her heel, she left the room and headed for the stairs, not sure where she was going but sure that she could not stay another minute to have her heart torn out of her chest.

She heard Marcus stalk into the hall behind her. “I order you to come home with me, Regina!”

She kept ascending the stairs.

“Damn you, you’re my wife!”

Yes, and he’d certainly rewarded her well for that, hadn’t he? Tears filled her eyes and she brushed them away ruthlessly.

Silence filled the hall below her. As she reached the top of the stairs and headed for someplace she could release all her tears, she heard him growl, “Fine. If that’s how you want it, you can rot in London, for all I care. But you will damned well rot here alone.”

She froze, her tears spilling over. She heard the thunder of his boots receding down the hall and out the front door. Then she heard the unmistakable clopping of horse hooves on cobblestone, growing fainter and fainter until they merged into the other street noises.

Only then did she fall apart. Collapsing onto the floor, she began to weep uncontrollably. What if she’d lost him for good? Could she ever get him back?

Footsteps sounded on the stairs, voices murmured near her, and still she sobbed, unable to stop, unable even to drag herself from the floor onto a chair.

Suddenly an arm came around her shoulders, and a gentle, familiar voice whispered, “Here now, my dear, you will hurt yourself with such weeping.”

“C-Cicely?” she said, glancing up at her cousin through her tears. “You…you should have gone with him.”

“Nonsense. My place is always with you, dearest.”

“He will make good on his threats, you know. He will cut you off entirely. And I cannot promise—”

“Shh, shh, dearest,” Cicely murmured, holding Regina’s head to her breast. “There is always your brother.”

“No,” she said doggedly. “This is all Simon’s fault. I don’t even want to see him.” Tears choked her throat. “Besides, Marcus is probably going to k-kill him.”

“Not if I have anything to say about it,” another voice cut in.

She looked up to see Lord Iversley standing nearby with his wife, their faces filled with concern.

“I’ll send a note to your brother at once,” the earl went on, “warning him that if he knows what’s good for him, he’ll retire to the country until Draker’s temper cools.”

“Marcus will not appreciate your interference. And I do not mean to come between you and your br—” She caught herself just in time. “Your friend.”

Lord Iversley’s face softened further. With a glance at Cicely, he said, “Our friendship has withstood a great deal. If the choice is enduring his temper or seeing him killed in a duel with Foxmoor, I’d rather endure his temper, I assure you.”

“He’ll come round,” Lady Iversley put in. She slid her hand in her husband’s with a soft smile. “They always do.”

“I wish I could be sure of that.”

“You can be sure he loves you,” Lord Iversley said. “But some men don’t handle falling in love very well. Katherine’s right—you just need to give him a few days. If you want, I’ll talk to him.”

“No. He must decide for himself if he wants a wife or a prisoner. He knows I won’t accept the latter.” Which was why she doubted it would be only a few days.

“In the meantime,” Lady Iversley said, “you’ll stay here with us, won’t you?”

“I hate to inconvenience you. And there’s always the town house—”

“Nonsense,” Lord Iversley put in. “You and Cicely shall stay here, and that’s an end to it.” When she started to protest again, he added gently, “You don’t have keys to the town house, my dear. And I’m afraid Draker might forbid the servants from allowing you to stay there anyway.”

That very real possibility roused her temper enough to banish her tears. “Yes,” she said bitterly, “that sounds exactly like something he’d do.”

Any man who would try to take away his wife’s companion in order to make her dependent upon him would certainly not hesitate to deny her any servants.

But Cicely had stayed with her, and that gave her hope.

It also gave her an idea. Swallowing hard, she stared at her cousin, then Lady Iversley. Katherine, her sister-in-law. Surely she could trust
this
woman. “As long as I’m going to be here for a few days, do you think you and Cicely could teach me to read?”

Do not forever curb your young charge’s independence. A little willfulness might stand her in good stead later in life.

—Miss Cicely Tremaine,
The Ideal Chaperone

M
arcus hadn’t thought that living without Regina would be this difficult. In truth, he hadn’t thought at all when he’d left Iversley’s in a blind rage.

He’d had plenty of time to think about it since, however. With a sigh, he glanced at the clock presiding over the empty dining room where he sat with his toast, tea, and morning paper. Nine o’clock. In a short while his steward would arrive for their daily meeting, and he might gain a blessed two-hour respite from his tormented thoughts.

But then the afternoon would yawn before him, hours of doing nothing because he could not concentrate on estate business or investments or even the treasures in his library. Finally, he would dine alone, since Louisa would not eat with him. Had not eaten with him since their return three days ago.

Had it only been three days since he’d left Iversley’s? It felt like three weeks…months…years. A torturous eternity. His bed was empty, and his heart was hollow. And the place at the end of the table, which should be filled by his wife—

Damn, damn,
damn!

He thrust his untouched toast aside. He’d lived like this contentedly before, closeted at Castlemaine and tending to his estate, with only Louisa for company. He’d even gone through stretches when Louisa was so angry at him that she wouldn’t speak to him for days on end. So why did he suddenly want to hurl his cup through the clock that gnawed away his life with each slow, methodical tick?

Because of Regina. Because until his wife had exploded into his life, he’d never tasted heaven, never truly known what he was missing. She had changed all that, confound the woman.

And God, how he’d lapped it up. How quickly he’d grown used to waking up with a warm, willing wife in his bed. To having her settled sweetly upon his lap while he read the morning paper and tried to help her read it, too.

To being buried inside her so deep—

He groaned. That was how a woman like her kept a man enthralled, by being so soft, seductive, and ready to please that a man couldn’t help but root his cock deep inside her. Then once she had him by the cock, she led him around by it, and he was helpless to escape. If he even wanted to.

He hid his face in his hands. That was the trouble. He wasn’t sure he wanted to escape anymore. Any life, even among her society friends, was better than this.

Was that how Father had finally come to accept Mother’s infidelity? Because she’d worn him down? Because eventually he’d decided that any piece of her was better than none at all? Damn it, he would not let that happen to him!

“Marcus?”

He jerked his head up at the sound of that familiar resentful voice. “Yes, angel?”

“I wish to speak to you.” Louisa marched into the room as regally as any queen. Great God, she already walked like Regina. Give her a few years, and society would be calling
her
La Belle Dame Sans Merci.

He stiffened. “I take it from your expression that you’re still angry at me.”

“I have just received a note from Lady Iversley.”

His eyes narrowed. “Oh?”

“She is requesting that I send apparel for your wife. It seems Regina and Cicely are residing with the Iversleys. Because they have nowhere else to go.”

“Nonsense, I leased her a damned town house.”

“She has no keys, and you never instructed the servants to admit her.”

He squirmed in his chair. He hadn’t even thought of that. “What about her brother? She could stay with him, for God’s sake.” Though he didn’t like the idea.

“Apparently she’s too angry at her brother to stay in his house. Not that it would matter. It seems he’s missing.”

“What?”

Approaching the table, she tossed a newspaper clipping at him. “Read
that.”

The minute he caught sight of Regina’s name, or rather, her married name, the breath dried up in his throat. Snatching it from her, he read:

Called away on estate business? He snorted. The woman was ever quick to hide the truth. She would never say,
I abandoned my husband.

He skipped past all the fashion nonsense, then was arrested by the words, “Lord Whitmore.” His heart pounding, he read:

Marcus stared blindly at the paper. He’d threatened to bar Regina from his home, and she’d repaid him by cutting the very man who’d insulted him at Almack’s. Her own cousin. A man who would leap to take Marcus’s place if she would only give him the chance.

Clearly she wouldn’t. But how long would it be before she did? If Marcus continued to brood out here without her, how long would she stand firm? A cold fear closed its fist around his heart. Great God, what had he done?

He kept reading, hoping for more mention of her, but instead…

“Damn.” He threw the clipping aside. If he’d done as Regina asked and let Louisa stay in London, nobody would be speculating on anything. It might have been possible to separate the couple gracefully with little comment, but now—

“What did you do to Simon?” Louisa shook the clipping in his face. It was clear what part of the column
she
deemed important. “If you’ve hurt him in any way, I swear I will never forgive you!”

“How am I supposed to have hurt him when I haven’t left Castlemaine in three days?” Not that he hadn’t wanted to trot off to London to strangle his brother-in-law. But he hadn’t dared leave Louisa alone while he did it.

Besides, he’d promised Regina not to kill the man. And although he’d broken at least one promise to her, he sensed that she would never forgive his breaking that one. Murdering her brother was the quickest way to make his wife hate him. It suddenly seemed very important to have his wife not hate him.

“So what
are
you going to do to Simon?” Louisa asked plaintively.

“I haven’t decided.” But he didn’t intend to let the man escape unscathed. The first chance Marcus got, he intended to speak to Byrne about a suitable revenge. His diabolical half brother would know exactly how to hit Foxmoor where it would hurt the scoundrel most.

Louisa sat down at the table. “And me? What do you plan to do to me?”

“You’re just now asking that?” he said, raising one eyebrow.

“I expected you to say something that night in the carriage, but you didn’t. Since then, you’ve been so grumpy, I didn’t want to broach the subject.”

“You thought you’d give my anger plenty of time to cool, did you?”

She thrust out her chin exactly as his wife might have. “Perhaps.”

He shook his head. “That was pointless. It’s not a matter of anger anymore—I still hold to what I said in London. You’ll stay here for now. And sometime in the fall, we will consider whether to let you have another season.”

“Who’s
we
—you and Regina? You drove your wife away, remember? She doesn’t even feel free to live in the town house you supposedly leased for her.”

The words were like a slap in the face.
He’d driven his wife away.
She was in London, apparently convinced that she must rely on Iversley’s charity, and probably growing to hate her husband more with every day.

Oh, God, what if she never came back?

“What happened between me and Regina is not your concern,” he said tightly.

She leaped to her feet. “Isn’t it? You got angry at her because she was standing up for me. She still is.” Her lower lip trembled. “But it’s not going to do her much good, is it? How long do you think she can keep telling people in society that I have a cold? And if…if no one hears that Simon has offered for me and he stays absent from society…how long do you think it will be before they’re spreading nasty rumors about
me?”

“They won’t,” he choked out. “I won’t let them.”

“And how will you stop them? By shouting down all the rumormongers? Going to Almack’s and threatening to cut out their tongues, like you did to Lord Whitmore at the opera?”

He gaped at her. “How did you know about that?”

She paled. “Oh, dear. I wasn’t supposed to say. She said you might be annoyed.”

“She who?” he bit out.

“Regina. She told me and some other ladies at the wedding breakfast what happened at the opera. I think she was afraid Lord Whitmore might resent you enough to reveal it himself, so she told her side to stave off the gossip. She said she didn’t want anyone to think badly of you. Not that anyone would. It was very romantic, the way you leaped to defend her honor when Lord Whitmore caught the two of you holding hands.” Louisa swallowed. “But I suppose I shouldn’t have said anything.”

“I’m glad you did.” Even if every word pounded his conscience. Regina, his clever wife, had known that her sanctified version would instantly be believed over the tale of a spurned suitor…as long as she told hers first.

He tried to imagine his own mother drumming up some tale to protect Father’s reputation, but he couldn’t conceive of it. And she certainly had made no attempt to preserve her son’s. Yet Regina, the wife he’d barred from their home, had risked her own reputation to save his pathetic one.

“Marcus?”

“Hmm?” Great God, where had he gone so wrong?

“Why do you hate Simon?”

He chose his words carefully. “Because he doesn’t love you as he should.”

She took that in, then frowned. “I suppose you think he can’t possibly love me because I’m a bastard.”

His heart stopped. “Who told you such a lie? Did
he
tell you that? Did that damned ass—”

“Nobody told me. I-I figured it out on my own.” Tears welled in her eyes. “It’s the truth, isn’t it?”

“Of course not. You’re the legitimate daughter of the fifth Viscount Draker.”

She brushed the tears away. “I’m not an idiot, you know. Uncle George…I-I mean, the prince…was always here, and it seemed natural that he would be. But of course it wasn’t natural at all. That’s why I figured I must be as much a bastard as you.”

“No, you—” He stopped short. “You know about me?”

She managed a smile. It dug at his heart. “Only because of that awful argument you had with the prince before he and Mama went away.”

He scowled. “I didn’t think you’d heard that.”

“Only some of it. Then I asked my governess about it, and she said I wasn’t to talk about you being the prince’s son to anyone, especially you, for it would hurt your feelings. She said it was a secret. And…and when I asked if I was Uncle George’s daughter, she said ‘Certainly not,’ and I believed her.”

“She was right.”

“Marcus,” she said, the tone far too old for a young girl, “since I’ve been in society, I’ve heard nothing but tales of the prince and his many mistresses. And I can’t ever remember a time when he wasn’t here—”

“He wasn’t here the year you were born, and that’s good enough for me. It was good enough for Father, too.”

She bit her lower lip. “But I
could
be the prince’s child, couldn’t I? Mother took lots of trips to London. He didn’t have to be at Castlemaine to conceive me.”

“ ‘Conceive’ indeed—how do you know about that sort of thing, damn it?”

At least she had the good grace to blush. “I asked Lady Iversley. I couldn’t believe that my governess was right—she said babies were made when a man and a woman slept in the same bed. And since I used to climb into bed with you when I got scared as a little girl, and I didn’t have any babies, I knew she was lying.”

“Oh, God,” he groaned. “I never dreamed your governess was telling you anything about it at all, or I would have dismissed her.”

Louisa looked sad. “Do you really think I’d have been better prepared for life if I’d been completely ignorant?”

“No, of course not, but—”

“That’s the trouble with you, Marcus. You think you’re protecting me. But really you’re just killing me. A little bit at a time. Cursing me to stay in this house forever—” A sob caught in her throat. “I swear I’ll die if I have to stay here for the next year without even Regina for female company.”

I swear I’ll die,
accompanied by tears, had been a common ploy of Louisa’s in the past, but this time it wounded him. Deeply. Because it too closely echoed what Regina had said.

And for the first time, he really understood what they meant. He might just die himself if he had to stay here one more minute without Regina.

He choked back the bile rising in his throat. “All right, angel. I’ll take you back to London. We’ll work something out.”

He thought that would end the conversation, that she would leap up, kiss him, and run off to pack while he sat here trying to figure out a way to get his wife back that didn’t involve making too many concessions he couldn’t abide.

Instead, Louisa just sat staring at him. “You’re only saying that to distract me, because you don’t want to answer my question.”

He blinked. “What question?”

“Could I be the prince’s by-blow?”

He started to say “no,” then caught himself.
Do you really think I’d have been better prepared for life if I’d been completely ignorant?