Wicked Nights With a Lover (25 page)

He busied himself removing his greatcoat and draping it over her shivering form, and in that moment, in that carriage with him, it didn’t matter that he was unable to look her in the eyes, that his face looked carved from granite, that a foreboding quiet hung about him. She told herself it was just because he cared about her. Perhaps he even loved her.

He just didn’t know it. Yet.

Chapter 23

H
e was a bloody fool.

All this time he’d thought his parents’ marriage would be the worst fate imaginable. The type of marriage where love soured and turned twisted, descending into a state of constant hostility. The kind of poisonous union that had killed his sister and left him scavenging the streets of St. Giles at an early age.

But even worse than that fate, there loomed another.

Loving and then losing someone to death … well, that was a pain he wouldn’t face. Not if he could help it.

And he could.

Evidently, falling in love was not something one chose, but
embracing
that love was. As the choice

was his, he chose not to embrace what he felt for Marguerite. He knew it would hurt to let her go. Just the thought made his throat squeeze. Yet nothing could hurt him as much as those moments when he watched Marguerite fall beneath slashing hooves.

He’d miss her, long for the yielding heat of her in his bed, the way her eyes softened when she looked at him, but the ache would ebb. Eventually, he’d grow numb. Perhaps even forget her. His chest clenched suddenly at that thought.

Marguerite slept, snoring lightly beside him. She’d scarcely moved since nodding off after the physician Ash had called for examined her and treated her with a small dose of laudanum.

Lying beside her on the bed, he trailed his hand through the cascade of her ink-black hair. Rubbing the tendrils between his fingers, he watched her, memorized every delicate line of her heart-shaped face until a faint blue-gray of dawn tinged the air, seeping into the room beneath the damask drapes.

He knew she believed the risk to herself over, but he didn’t believe in fortune-tellers. He didn’t believe that one’s fate was decided in the dregs left in a teacup. One’s fate could not be foreseen. He brushed an ebony strand off her forehead, wincing at the sight of the nasty scrape edging her hairline, so stark against her fair skin. Life was dangerous, full of loss and pain. A diviner didn’t need to tell him that.

He’d died inside when those horses reared over Marguerite. The sound of her cries ripped through him, playing through his head still. He doubted he could ever close his eyes and not hear her screams … not live in a state of constant unease that he would one day suffer that again. Only worse because the next time she might not survive.

He took her hand and raised it to his lips, marveling at how entangled he’d become with her in so short a time. The slow clatter of carriage wheels sounded below.

Lowering her hand back to the bed, he rose and moved toward the window. He recognized Jack’s carriage. A groom helped two women. He recognized Grier at the lead. The other one—smaller and younger—was vaguely familiar from the night he’d stormed Jack’s house looking for Marguerite. He slipped quietly from the room, sparing one last glance at Marguerite, still sleeping soundly.

He met the women as they entered the foyer.

Grier fixed her steel-eyed gaze on him. “We came as soon as we heard.”

Ash snorted. “Indeed. Ash Courtland rescuing a woman from beneath a carriage. I’m certain it was all over St. Giles.”

“Jack wouldn’t permit us to call on you last night,” Grier complained. “He made plans for us to attend the opera with the Duke of Colbourne. Bloody ass,” she muttered.

Ash wasn’t certain she referred to her father or the duke, but he didn’t inquire. “Marguerite is resting,” he informed them. “The doctor assured me she’ll be fine.”

“Madame Foster was right then,” Grier said.

He angled his head dangerously at Grier. “Not you, too,” he warned.

“Come now. Don’t you find it a coincidence—”

“Yes,” he snapped, cutting her off. She sounded too much like Marguerite. “A coincidence. Nothing more.”

“Cheerful fellow, aren’t you?” Grier asked with a wry twist of her lips.

He swept his gaze over the pair of them. “You’re welcome to wait in the drawing room, but it could be a while.”

“We would not wish to overwhelm Marguerite the moment she wakes,” the sister who had yet to speak murmured. “We’ll call again when she’s better. Please let her know we were here.”

“You may not find her here,” he announced.

Grier blinked. “You’ve just arrived in Town and you’re departing again?”

“I’ve an estate outside Town that I’ve paid little mind over the years. The place needs a proper mistress to care for it—”

“You’re moving then—”

“No. I’m staying. I still have the gaming hells to oversee here. God knows your father won’t see to their operation.”

“But you’re dumping her in the country?” The younger sister crossed her arms over her chest, dragging them back to the subject of Marguerite. The very subject he wished to avoid.

He stared at the two females. They’d only just met Marguerite, but they behaved like the fiercest of protectors. “It would seem the safest place for her. She’ll enjoy it there, away from the dreary City.”

“What nonsense is this?” Grier held up a hand in supplication. “You said you love her.”

“That bears no significance,” he snapped, his face heating with the reminder of his confession. “This is the best thing for Marguerite.”

Grier shook her head. “Marguerite is asleep. I wager she has no notion you’ve made this decision for her. Why don’t you ask her when she wakes if she wants to be discarded—”

“Because I know what she wants!” he shouted, tossing his arms wide. “And I can’t give her that. I won’t go through yesterday all over again. I can’t.”

The sisters looked alike in that moment. With brown eyes similar to Jack’s, they gawked at him in wide-eyed wonder.

Grier looked him up and down with ill-concealed disgust and sneered, “Coward.”

“You know nothing of me,” he spat. “Or Marguerite for that matter. Sharing blood doesn’t make you an instant family, it doesn’t make love just magically emerge.” He swept his hand toward them in an angry wave.

The young one spoke quietly. “You’re absolutely right.” She stepped forward, undaunted by his glare or that he towered over her. “Love is something that doesn’t happen instantly or easily. But for whatever reason it’s happened between you and Marguerite. And you’re a fool to throw it away.” With a slow exhale, she swept Grier a glance. “I’ll wait in the carriage.”

Feeling as though she’d taken her reticule and beaten him about the head with it, Ash watched the female he had dismissed as unassuming take her leave. With a weak smile that looked damnably close to pity, Grier followed her.

Ash stared at the door for some moments with a scowl on his face before marching away to his study to write a missive for his housekeeper in the country, informing her of his wife’s impending arrival.

“What do you mean I’m going to spend some time in the country? By myself?” Marguerite lowered her fork to her plate, the breakfast she had thus far consumed suddenly rebelling in her stomach. The rasher of bacon that she had so looked forward to sinking her teeth into no longer looked appetizing.

“It’s a lovely estate,” was Ash’s only reply.

He stared at her, so cold-faced and distant where he stood at the window. She could scarcely stomach to look at him from where she sat propped against pillows, a bed tray over her lap. The damask drapes had been pulled back. He turned away and looked down at the street, his hands clasped behind his back, as if something was occurring below of vast interest.

He looked stark, officious. Every inch the gentleman. Nothing like the scoundrel she’d met on the streets of St. Giles. Nothing like the man who had swept her up into his arms yesterday and looked down at her with such longing and anguish. As though her pain were his own.

Where had that man gone? The man whose face had been the first sight she sought when she woke this morning?

“Where are you going to be while I’m buried in the country?” she asked, unable to mask the quaver in her voice.

He finally looked at her. “I’ve business to attend here.” He must have read something in her face, for he added, “I shall visit, of course.”

Was that the way it was to be then? She had escaped death, emerging ready to seize her life with him only to find he had no wish for her presence.

“The house is magnificent, the grounds vast, but it needs a woman’s touch. I’ve neglected it appallingly ever since I won it off some baron two years ago.”

She shook her head, bewildered. “Did I do something … are you still angry that I visited with Madame Foster—”

“It is not that, Marguerite. I’m not angry with you.” He gazed at her with dull eyes. “This is simply the way it has to be.”

They way it has to be. He, here, and she in the country.

“I don’t understand—”

“I never wanted this.”

“What? Me?” She made a low sound in her throat, tossing her head. “Hard to fathom when you abducted me and chased me across England you didn’t want this.”

“I wanted to marry you, wanted you in my bed, I simply never wanted …” His voice faded and he tore his gaze from her.

What?

“It’s become complicated, Marguerite. These feelings … I never expected them.”

He had feelings for her? Her heart raced, beating a mad rhythm against her throat. Hope surged inside her. She propped herself up on the bed. “I have feelings for you, too,” she began.

“And that’s just it,” he said abruptly. “I don’t want you to. I can’t, I
won’t
—” he stopped, shaking his head, and her heart dropped heavily in her chest. She heard everything he wasn’t saying, sensed,
felt
his unspoken words like a penetrating wound deep in her bones. He
wouldn’t
love her.

Finally, he looked at her again, and the last of her hope withered. His eyes looked empty. Dead.

“Well,” she said with a rushed exhale, quickly grasping the tattered remnants of her pride and storing them inside her. “I will strive to be a dutiful wife and please you.” Tearing her gaze from his handsome face, she resumed eating. Or at least pretending to eat. She scooted her kipper around her plate. “When shall I leave?”

“Tomorrow. If you feel fit for travel and can pack in that time.”

She stabbed the kipper with her fork, hoping he did not notice the amount of force she used. “I’m fit,” she said, her voice tight. “Tomorrow is fine.”

“Good,” he murmured, moving from the window and striding swiftly from the room.

She stared after him, her heart lodged in her throat, wondering where the Ash she had come to love had gone. Had he ever existed at all?

Chapter 24

A
sh stood staring out the window in his dressing room the following morning. A dark sky hung and it felt more like evening than morning. A perfect backdrop to his mood.

Today, he banished his wife to the country, an action certain to earn him her eternal enmity. For the best, he supposed. Hard to love someone who reviled you, and he knew from the hurt in her eyes yesterday that she would soon hate him. A few weeks in isolation at his estate, and it would be a certainty.

With a fist squeezing his heart, he watched as one of the grooms loaded the final trunk, waiting for her to appear. He hadn’t seen her since yesterday, burying himself in his office at the Devil’s Palace, fearing that if he spent another moment in her company he would relent—break from his purpose and keep her with him forever. However fleeting that may be.

At the sound of the door, he turned, a sinking sensation in his chest telling him who he would find there.

“Marguerite,” he murmured as she strolled toward him, something akin to dread beating a staccato in his pulse. Her red cloak swished about her slim ankles, and that simple sight made his mouth water.

He opened his mouth to speak, but she pressed cool fingers to his lips, shaking her head sternly at him.

He held silent, watching her. It was easier to say nothing. Everything had been said between them. Eyes locked with his, she pushed him back onto a chaise at the center of the narrow room with a roughness he had never seen in her.

Ash fell back. She dropped down on her knees before him. Hands sure and fast on his trousers, she freed him, her silken fingers closing around the length of him. He was already hard. He had been since the moment she stepped into the room.

She stroked him up and down with deep, slow pulls.

He groaned. “What are you doing?”

She looked up at him through the dark fan of her lashes. “Making sure you remember me.”

Then her head lowered and she took him in her mouth, her soft lips sucking first at the head of him, then all of him, drawing him deep into the warm wet of her mouth. She licked and tasted him until he was bucking, desperately seeking more. He ran his hand over her head, scattering her pins. Her dark hair tumbled over him. Her mouth increased its pressure, working faster until he was begging, grinding his teeth against the incredible sensation.

Then she stopped.

He blinked, his desire-clouded vision watching her as she rose to her feet before him. For a panicked moment, he thought she was leaving. Her hands flattened on his chest and sent him backward on the chaise. Lifting her cloak and skirts, she climbed atop him. Her fingers found his cock and guided him to her sweet heat. She glided the tip of him against her folds, back and forth, back and forth, teasing him at her opening until he was pleading and groaning again, his hands digging into her hips through layers of clothing.

At last, she seated herself fully on him, sinking down with a breathy sigh. Her slick flesh surrounded him, clenching and wringing him in blissful agony.

She took his hands and placed them on her breasts. Her own hands fell to his chest and she leveraged herself, working her hips over him, setting a steady pace, pumping slow and deep over him.