Twice a Rake (17 page)

At thirty-two years of age, Quin was becoming a man.

He ought to feel good about that—about becoming responsible for more than just himself. Instead, he felt more despicable than he’d ever felt in his life. Lord knew that was saying something.

For every step forward, he took two steps back. Yes, he was marrying Aurora Hyatt. But he’d forced her hand once by kissing her in a blasted ballroom, and if that hadn’t been enough, he’d forced it again by resorting to blackmail.

It felt cheap.

When the vicar called upon him, he said, “I do,” but took no pleasure in the act.

The process of arriving at that moment made him realize that every day, he became more like the bastard his father had always been.

~ * ~

The sparsely furnished townhome Lord Quinton had arranged for sat at Number Fourteen, Oxford Street. The lack of furnishings didn’t bother Aurora. Frankly, she didn’t care about anything save ending the blasted day. A blinding headache had assaulted her the moment her then-fiancée-now-husband mentioned her journal, and had only intensified in the hours since.

She returned with him to the church. She repeated her vows. She sat through the celebratory breakfast and accepted the toasts and felicitations as graciously as she could manage. She’d done everything that could be expected of her.

Now, she wanted a bed. And since she would no longer have her bed in her father’s home, any bed at all would do.

Aurora said a silent prayer of thanks when they arrived at their new London home, to be greeted by only a tiny delegation of staff, waiting to be introduced to their new mistress. Her lady’s maid, Rose, stood alongside a butler, a housekeeper, two footmen, a cook, and a scullery maid.

“I’ll endeavor to hire more servants in the coming week,” Lord Quinton said as Mrs. Gaffee, the housekeeper, led them on a brief tour. “We should have a full staff before a fortnight is past.”

“Very well,” was all Aurora could manage.

They stopped to examine a room on the lowest floor that might be either a gallery or a music room. He placed his hand against her lower back, and it was all Aurora could do not to flinch at the brief contact. “You may decorate the drawing rooms and whatnot as you like.”

She nodded and immediately regretted it. The pounding in her head magnified to epic proportions from the slight movement. The hardwood floor beneath her feet seemed to sway. Aurora reached an arm out to the side to steady herself, but only managed to knock it against Lord Quinton’s expansive chest.

He moved the hand at her back to encircle her waist, pulling her up against his side. “You are unwell.” His other hand felt her forehead and cheeks. “No fever. Aurora, you must lie down. Mrs. Gaffee, the remainder of the tour will wait. Please show us to Lady Quinton’s chamber.”

Aurora took a step to follow behind the cheerful but squat woman, only to be lifted off her feet.

Which was probably for the best. Her head felt like it would splinter into a thousand pieces at any moment. She wasn’t entirely certain she was capable of traversing a flight of stairs right at that moment.

Just before reaching the stairs, Lord Quinton carried her past a massive picture window. The draperies were pulled back, allowing sunlight to pour in unhindered. The pain in her head became blinding, all-consuming.

Aurora might have whimpered; she couldn’t be certain. But Lord Quinton shifted her in his arms, turning her head further in to his shoulder, effectively blocking out the offending sun.

Blissful darkness enveloped the main hall of the second floor. He turned a corner and passed through a doorway. More light, not as harsh as before, pulsed against Aurora’s pinched eyelids.

“Draw the curtains,” Lord Quinton commanded in a soft tone. He sat on the edge of the bed with Aurora still tucked neatly in his arms. Once again, the pulsing light left, leaving her with only the intense throb at her temples.

She felt weak—too weak to lift her head, to open her eyes, to speak. Strong fingers went to work removing her bonnet from her head, soon accompanied by a more delicate hand.

“My lord, allow me to see to her ladyship.” Rose’s voice. “Mrs. Gaffee and I can make her more comfortable if you will allow us”

“Leave us,” he ordered. His voice was quiet, but firm. It brooked no argument.

The whispering swish and sway of their dresses moving across the room to the door seemed more like a long, deafening clap of thunder in Aurora’s present state.

Lord Quinton laid her on the bed. She instantaneously felt bare, once she was bereft of the warm cocoon created by his arms. This time, she did whimper, though it sounded to her ears more like a scream.

“Hush, love,” he said, removing her shoes from her feet. Though his hands were large and cumbersome, he performed the action with a deft skill Aurora often could not manage. Then, just as smoothly and gently, he slid off her stockings.

Oh, dear good Lord. He could not be doing this. Not now. Not when she was more wretched and in more pain than she had ever been in her entire life. He could not expect to take his marital rights
now
.

She would die. She would kill him.

Either way, someone would die.

At least, someone would die once she could convince her body to function again.

When he rolled her to her side and worked at the buttons lining her back, Aurora let out a muffled whimper into the pillow. He was really doing it. And she was absolutely powerless to stop him, even if she felt she could. It
was
his right. She’d married the bastard and said ‘I do’, hadn’t she?

How on earth had she gotten herself into such a mess?

But when he pulled her gown free of her body and she was left in only her shift and drawers, Lord Quinton lifted Aurora off the bed and pulled back the counterpane. He settled her back into place and tucked the sheets in all around her.

“Rest, now,” he said, placing a tiny, chaste kiss on her forehead. Then his weight lifted from the side of the bed and he stepped across the room, gently clicking the door closed behind him.

Dark stillness overcame her. Sleep won out in mere moments.

Chapter Ten

3 April, 1811

Weddings, when one is one of the two primary participants, can truthfully be rather dismal affairs. It is lucky indeed that most people only go through them once in their life. Somewhere between listening to the vicar drone on about
obeying
and
sickness
, and standing up there with no one to look at but the vicar and Lord Quinton, I found my mind wandering. Shocking, I know, since my mind has
never
been prone to such fits of wanderlust. Pun intended.

~From the journal of
Miss Aurora Hyatt
Lady Quinton

Where was she? Aurora sat up in bed—not her familiar bed—and looked about in the dark. A few rays of sun tried peeked around the edges of heavy drapes. Sitting up sent her head to spinning for a moment. A muted ache remained as a reminder of the intense headache that landed her in bed in the first place. She walked over and pulled the draperies back, allowing enough sun to fill the room.

In the center of the room stood a large four-poster bed, covered in a Pomona green counterpane that matched the draperies. Very simple, quite elegant. An armchair sat near the fireplace, a vanity near one of the three doors.

If only she had been able to pay attention when Lord Quinton carried her in. Then she might know which of those doors would lead to her dressing room. She couldn’t very well go out into the main house clad only in her shift—particularly not with any number of unfamiliar servants out and about. Not to mention a husband.

But a glance around the room didn’t reveal a bell pull, so she would have to take a chance. Common sense would place the vanity next to the dressing room. She tried that door first.

Aurora had guessed wrong. Blast.

Lord Quinton sat in a rosewood armchair with striped silk-satin cushions near a large picture window, reading a newspaper and facing her. An empty glass and a decanter of brandy lined the table beside him. As soon as the door opened, he stood.

How was it possible for the man to look so enticing after the way he’d trapped her into this marriage? She should loathe him, or at least be repulsed by him.

But he’d removed his greatcoat and waistcoat and cravat, and his shirt hung loose from his pantaloons and gaped open at the top, much like it had done when they first met. And kissed. Aurora flushed again with the memory. His Hessians gleamed in the bright sunlight.

“Do you feel better after your rest?” he asked.

The words drew Aurora’s eye to his lips, his strong, square jaw. The ever-present growth of stubble was back. She thought, unless her memory was more muddled than she realized, that he had been clean-shaven that morning when they married. She preferred this—the roughness of it, the wildness of it.

She could get lost staring at his jaw line.

“Yes, my lord. Thank you for asking,” she finally managed to respond.

His eyes darkened at her response. Oh, dear good Lord. What had she done now?

“You are my wife, now,” he said. “We need not be quite so formal.”

Which only served to remind her of how very little she knew this man. “What, then, should I call you?” Surely the vicar must have said his name during their wedding, but she hadn’t the slightest memory of it. Nor did she recall what he might have signed upon the register.

For that matter, she didn’t know what her new name was. Aurora what, precisely? Lady Quinton she knew. But the rest? It was all a blur. An overwrought, bitter blur.

He half smiled, half grimaced, though it fell short of reaching his eyes. “My friends call me Quin.”

“I will call you that if you’d like.” Though she had the distinct impression he would prefer to be called something else.

“You may call me anything you please, Aurora.” The way he said it sent shivers of anticipation coursing along her spine. “Are you cold?” he asked. “You must be, with only your shift on.”

Oh. Oh, my. How had she forgotten such an embarrassing detail as that? She tried to cover herself with her arms, but they could only cover so much. Blast, he could see her through the thin material. But she most certainly was not cold. Far from it, in fact. Aurora could be no less cold if she were standing on the sun.

Quin picked up a blanket that had been draped over another armchair. When he stood before her with it, she trembled. But not from cold. Nor from embarrassment. No, she trembled from the intensity of his gaze as he wrapped the blanket around her. The tips of his fingers brushed against hers as he pulled it closed in front of her, tickling and burning, all at once.

Aurora needed to pull herself together like the silly blanket. Easier said than done, of course, with this man—her husband—standing so close before her that she felt she’d melt in his heat.

He raked a hand through his long hair. Her fingers itched to do the same. What on earth was coming over her?

She had to regain her wits. Speak. She should speak. “What is your name?” she blurted out. Now she truly sounded like a dolt. He would think he’d married an imbecile. He had, after all, just requested she call him Quin.

He smiled then, and not in a manner that appeared like laughter. “My given name? Niles. Niles Thornton.”