Amanda Scott (8 page)

Sybilla said, “Why is it absurd for me to thank you, Ned? ’Tis much more in keeping with your nature that you gave the order to serve us in here without consulting my wishes than that you subsequently remembered I might have had a preference.”

His heavy dark eyebrows knitted together in a beetling frown as he turned toward her. “Are you trying to provoke me, wife?”

“Don’t call me that.”

“Why not? You are my wife.” He moved toward her, and Sybilla watched him warily but made no attempt to elude him, even when he placed one hand on her shoulder, looked down into her eyes, and added more gently, “Perhaps you ought to be reminded of that fact rather more often.”

She gazed back at him, willing her emotions to remain calm. “Is that why you escorted me to the concert tonight, sir? To remind me? I do not forget, you know.”

“Do you not, Syb?” Both his hands were on her shoulders now, and his touch was firm, possessive. The expression in his eyes was enigmatic and told her nothing about his feelings.

She wished he would move away, and her tension made her tongue sharp. “Of course I don’t forget. How could I?” Having decided it would be better to put distance between them, she found when she attempted to move that he would not let her. His hands tightened. She turned her head to avoid his ardent gaze.

“Do not look away, Sybilla,” he said softly. “It has been a long time since I was last able to look this closely into your lovely face.”

She wanted to ask him why it mattered, but she could not find the words. She still was uncertain about his motives. From all she had heard of his activities these sixteen months past—and it often seemed as though her friends were only too willing to report his every move to her—he had not missed her. Nor had she missed him, of course. Not at all.

All these thoughts passed through her mind in less time than it took Ramsbury to realize that she did not intend to reply. He opened his mouth to speak again, but just then Robert entered with the wine he had ordered. Collecting his wits with visible effort, the earl removed his hands from Sybilla’s shoulders and stepped away.

She released her breath in a long sigh of relief and fought a nearly overwhelming urge to smooth her hair or her gown.

The footman set the tray down on the side table and turned to address the earl. “Shall I pour the wine, m’lord?”

“No, thank you. That will be all.”

When the footman had gone, Sybilla said shortly, “I do wish you would remember that you are not master in this house, Ned.”

He shot her a level look from beneath his brows but said nothing, turning instead toward the side table. Pouring two glasses of wine, he offered one to her.

There was a long moment of silence before she stepped forward to accept it.

He said quietly, “It has been a pleasant evening. Let us not spoil it by quarreling.”

“I do not quarrel,” she said provocatively. When he only shook his head and turned away, she took a small sip of her wine, watching him over the rim of the glass. He turned, saw that she was watching, and lifted his glass in a silent salute. Instead of drinking or speaking, he held her gaze, his expression daring her to look away again. She could not.

His expression was hungry, his desire only too clear to her. For a brief moment she felt her body quiver in response to that look, until a sudden mental vision leapt unbidden to her mind of Lady Mandeville, slender, beautiful, and sleekly blond, standing behind him at a Carlton House ball, looking up at him with that selfsame hungry—and, yes,
possessive
—look of desire on her lovely countenance. Blinking hard, as though to do so would erase the vision, Sybilla turned on her heel and strode rapidly to the nearest window, lifting her hand to draw aside the heavy peach-velvet curtain, as though her only objective were to look out upon the moonlit crescent.

There was silence behind her, and she did not have to look at him to feel his annoyance. Stubbornly, she kept her gaze fixed upon the lights of the city below, shifting the curtain a little, as much to screen her face from his scrutiny as to block the room’s light so that she could see better.

A scraping sound drew her attention, but she refused to turn until he spoke. His voice was calm, and he said no more than her name. To pretend deafness would be churlish. She turned, then nearly smiled to see that he had dragged the sofa from its position against the wall to face the fireplace. She remembered a similar setting in their London house that had been, in the earlier days of their marriage, a favorite retreat of his.

He was waiting. She let the curtain fall behind her and moved toward him. Her heart was pounding, and she stopped some feet from him to draw in a long breath, steadying herself, hoping her expression did not give her feelings away. To let him know she was nervous of him would be to give him the upper hand.

“Why do you stop?” he asked, his voice low in his throat, his eyes fixed upon her.

“I was considering the new arrangement of the furniture,” she said quickly. “It has some merit, I think, though my father would not think so. He believes that all furniture belongs firmly against a wall.”

“Your father never comes into this room anymore. You told me so a long time ago. Come, sit down with me and enjoy your wine by me fire.”

Suddenly, she longed to sit with him, to feel his arm around her shoulders, to lean against him, to feel the warmth of the fire on her skirts and the warmth of his body close to hers. She swallowed hard as more unbidden visions leapt to mind.

He grasped her arm gently and drew her toward the sofa, then down beside him. She held her breath when his arm went around her shoulders, the gesture so familiar that it was as though they had not been separated at all. She could feel the fire now.

When he stirred beside her, making himself comfortable, she stiffened, suddenly completely aware of where she was and what was happening. Her firm control was slipping. She knew it and did not know what to do to prevent it. Anything she might say to him might provoke a quarrel or another sort of confrontation altogether, one that would be at the same time exciting and frightening. Her body wanted his, wanted to press closer to his, to urge him to do things she remembered with anxious desire. But if that was to happen, he would expect … What would he expect? Was this not the way it had begun before?

She straightened, trying to move away, but the arm around her shoulders held her in place. “Please, Ned,” she said gruffly, “I will spill my wine.” Then, to show him how awkward it was for her to sip, she drank off what was left in the glass.

He chuckled. “You’ll soon be tipsy if you keep that up, but give me your glass, and I’ll get you some more.”

Since it meant that he would move away, if only for a moment, she obeyed him, and when he returned with the wine, she had slid into the corner of the sofa and turned so that he could not resume his seat so closely beside her.

He handed her her glass. “What are you doing?”

“I think that question ought more properly to come from me to you, sir,” she said quietly. The brief moment had been enough. She was in control of her senses again, but she knew well enough that her control would last only so long as he did not touch her. “What is your intention tonight, Ned? What do you think is going to happen between us?”

He stood looking down at her, his expression somber. “You are my wife, Sybilla,” he repeated.

His tone set off alarm bells in her mind, warning her that at this point it would not do to arouse his temper. She did not think, from what she knew of him, that he would force her, but she had never put that possibility to the test with him, and she had not the slightest wish to discover herself in error. She drew another deep breath, thinking rapidly. Then, at last, quietly, she said, “You have agreed to live separately from me, sir. Will you not hold by your agreement?”

“I am having some second thoughts,” he admitted.

“Well, I am not. Only consider,” she added rapidly when his brows drew together again, “how unsuited we are to live together. Only remember the quarrels, the shouting. We do not get on together, Ned, for the simple reason that neither of us is willing to submit to the other.”

“The right to command submission is mine,” he reminded her. “ ’Tis your duty to submit.”

“Well, I hope you will not command me,” she retorted frankly, “for I need not remind you that I lack the habit of obedience, and in this house the servants will obey me, not you.”

For a moment, as she spoke, it had looked as though he might smile, but any look of amusement had passed by the time she finished, and his tone was grim when he said, “Don’t put them to the test, Sybilla. I might not be the master of this house, but I am still your husband. Your duty, as well as your father’s servants’ duty, is to see that you submit to my command. And do not,” he added more harshly, “make the mistake of giving way to that burst of temper I see rising. Such an air of profound indignation does extraordinary things to your décolletage, and the added color in your cheeks is another magnificent addition to your beauty, but if you treat me to one of your tirades, or give way to the temptation—equally obvious to my experienced eye—to throw that wine at me, I’ll be sorely tempted to assert my rights in a way that I know you will not like at all.”

She gasped, glaring at him in indignation, but he did not look away, and she remembered, belatedly, her resolution not to arouse his temper. Lowering her gaze, she struggled to contain her temper, to think. But rational thought would not come. She thought of Lady Mandeville again instead, of the way she had treated Ramsbury like a private possession. How much Sybilla yearned to tell him what she thought of him for encouraging such a woman to behave so, while believing his wife capable of extorting money from his mother. Remembering that little matter, however, quenched rather than fueled the flames of her fury. Until she could somehow prove to him that he was wrong in believing her guilty, it would be better to calm him, for when he was angry, he was unable to see anything clearly.

The silence lengthened, and he made no attempt to break it, clearly waiting for her to make the next move. At last, she turned toward him again and said with careful diffidence, “I apologize, Ned, but you frightened me a little. You want to spend the night here, I collect, and I do not want you to do so. You are perfectly correct in saying you have the right to command me, but I hope you will not do so.”

“I believed you felt otherwise,” he said. “Earlier …”

“I know,” she admitted, “I did not behave well. I cannot deny that I have enjoyed our time together this evening or that I was glad you came to Bath. Oh, not at the first,” she added when his expression turned sardonic, “but afterward, when you returned with Lady Lucretia, and tonight. I wanted to see …” Her free hand, which had been gesturing to emphasize her words, dropped to her lap as she fell silent. She could not be so candid as to put those revealing thoughts into words.

His expression as he listened to her changed from satisfaction at hearing her confess her earlier, guilty behavior to irritation at the elliptical reference to his arrival in Bath, then to amusement at her obvious discomfort. He relaxed finally, with a little smile. “I think I know what you wanted, Syb,” he said, “but you ought to have considered the consequences.”

She bit her lip again but did not speak.

After another lengthy silence, he said ruefully, “I sent Jem Lassiter back to Camden Place. Would you have me walk? I doubt I’ll find a chair at this hour.”

Her relief made it easy to smile back at him. “It is not so far as that, sir.”

“It is damnably cold out, however.”

That she could not deny, and he had not worn a cloak. Perhaps one of her father’s … But the thought was rejected before it was completed. Her father was not much shorter than Ramsbury, but his shoulders were a good deal less broad. Any cloak of his would be scanty on the earl, if she could even find one. Sir Mortimer had not stirred from the house in years.

Ramsbury continued to watch her, but her senses were no longer on the alert. The threat was gone. She said, “I suppose, if you really wish to stay, there is no good reason that you should not do so.”

“Ah,” he said, satisfied.

“But you will not sleep in my bed, sir,” she added quickly. “I will have Robert show you to Brandon’s bedchamber. The bed there is always made up, for we never know when to expect him.” Her chin lifted. “I hope that will do for you.”

“I suppose it must,” he said, “but we will talk about this again before we are much older. That I promise you.”

Telling herself that it would be a deal easier to cope with him by daylight, she rose to her feet, set her glass down, and rang for Robert before Ramsbury could change his mind or attempt to change hers. The footman arrived with gratifying promptness, reminding her that her servants must be very interested in her husband’s presence in the house.

“His lordship will remain the night, Robert,” she said calmly. “Show him to Mr. Brandon’s bedchamber and see that he has everything he needs.”

Ramsbury, turning to follow the footman, looked back over his shoulder. “Everything?”

She frowned at him but refused the bait. “Good night, sir. I trust you will sleep well.”

Alone in her own bedchamber twenty minutes later, she found that she could not turn her thoughts from him. Moonlight filtered through a crack in her window curtains, and she focused her gaze upon the slender thread of light that reached the carpet, but it was no use. All she could see was his face, his broad shoulders, the hungry expression in his eyes when he moved toward her. Her memories lingered on his touch, on the way the pressure of his lips changed from softness to firm possessiveness when they claimed hers. She had thought he might kiss her when he first put his hands on her shoulders. If Robert had not chosen to enter just then …

A noise startled her, and her gaze shifted warily to the door of her bedchamber. Had the noise been a footfall in the corridor? Would he dare? Swift as thinking, she scrambled from beneath her down quilt, put bare feet to the carpet, snatched up the folds of her nightdress so they would not impede her, and ran to the door, ramming the bolt to without the least concern for the noise it made. Then, leaning breathless against the door, she listened. There was not the slightest sound from the other side. A moment later, she heard the boom of the tall clock on the landing as it began to toll the hour, and realized that the noise she had heard must have been the slight whirring that always preceded the clock’s hourly announcements.