Call Down the Moon (28 page)

“It is not your fault,” he said gently. “You weren’t to know what I was thinking.”

“Maybe not,” she said with a wobbly smile as the paradox of his statement struck her, “but I certainly should never have lost my temper and said all those dreadful things to you. Will you forgive me for that at least?”

“There is nothing to forgive,” he said, closing the distance between them and running his knuckles down her cheek. “We had a misunderstanding, no more than that.”

“Thank goodness,” she said, her eyes welling with a fresh rush of tears. “I didn’t know what to think. I honestly believed that you’d decided I wasn’t a suitable or worthy wife, and you didn’t really want me anymore, and then when you became so angry when I asked—“

He pressed his mouth against hers, cutting her off and kissing her long and hard, leaving her in no doubt of the strength of his feelings.

Releasing her, he took her face in his hands and looked down at her, his expression fierce. “You are mine,” he said, his voice low and ragged. “Now and always. Do not mistake that, Meggie, or ever doubt my love.”

Her vision blurred from the tears that wouldn’t stop, she shook her head in the cup of his hands. “I won’t, but don’t you doubt mine either, Hugo Montagu. I might not have married you for love as you did me, but I swear to you that I have loved you since the day we were married, when you took me to the sea and gave me some of the happiest hours of my life.”

“Don’t—don’t cry, my love, my darling,” he whispered, kissing her eyelids. “It doesn’t matter when it happened, only that it did.”

“No—please let me finish. This is important.” Her tears ran down her face and collected in his palms, as if they were all the words she’d held back for so long, finally released and given up to him in humble offering. “You have to know that when you took me to bed on our wedding night my vows were true. I gave you not just my body but my whole heart and soul, and they are yours forever.”

“And mine yours, Meggie, and mine yours.” He ran his wet hands up her back with a strangled groan, then pushed her night shift up and pulled it over her head, throwing it to one side.

He struggled briefly with his trousers before those went the way of her shift. His mouth fastened hot and hungry on hers as he abruptly pulled her with him to the floor. His weight pressed her flat against the rug, the heat of his body burning into her bare breasts. “Now,” he said, his breath coming in short gasps as he thrust his hips against her thighs, and his engorged shaft pressed hard against her belly. “Let me love you now, Meggie. God help me, but I can’t wait.”

“Yes, oh yes,” she cried, feeling his urgency, willingly opening her thighs to him. She sucked her breath in as he drove into her wet, ready flesh in one deep, powerful stroke that sheathed him completely and forced the breath straight out of her body.

“You are mine.” He pulled back and pounded into her again. His fingers gripping her hair, he held her head tight in his hands. “My body, my blood,” he said with another ruthless thrust so deep that she cried out. “My heart, my soul, my very life, Meggie.”

“Yes,” she sobbed, meeting each powerful thrust fully. Her hips arched up in complete surrender to his hard masculine penetration, and in her surrender, she claimed him every bit as much.

“I love you—God, how I love you,” he groaned, taking her mouth in a kiss that bruised her lips and left her with the coppery taste of blood—hers or his she didn’t know or care.

Her fingers raked over his back, slippery with sweat. Her hands clutched his hair, pulling his mouth down to hers again. Driven beyond thought to a blind, desperate need that came from her heart as much as it did from her body, Meggie needed to be filled, to be completed, made one with him.

She shook with the intensity of his assault. She felt the gathering tension deep in her belly—the escalation of exquisite sensation that built and built until it threatened to sweep her away altogether. She reached toward the peak, her hips straining up against him, her hands desperately grasping his buttocks, drawing him closer yet.

He answered her silent plea, pushing into her hard. His final deep thrust drove her into a shattering release, with the force of her body’s spasms leaving her helpless to do anything but sob over and over.

She felt him shudder in her arms. His teeth bit into her shoulder as he anchored her against her body’s tempest and surrendered to his own. A cry ripped from his throat as he spilled his seed into her—the molten heat of his ejaculation searing them both, binding flesh to flesh, heart to heart, soul to soul, the vow sealed.

Hugo desperately needed to sleep, but sleep continued to elude him, and he knew exactly why. A guilty conscience could do that to a man, and God knew, his conscience was as guilty as it could be. If he’d been ashamed of himself before, that was nothing compared to the burden of shame he carried now.

He looked down at Meggie sleeping peacefully in the curve of his arm, a slight smile turning up the comers of her mouth. She was truly remarkable, he thought, his heart aching. Honest to the core, her every feeling freely given without reservation or subterfuge—she was everything he was not. He knew perfectly damned well he didn’t deserve her.

She loved him—and oh, how those words had gladdened his heart. The problem was that she loved him because she thought him perfectly wonderful in nearly every way, brave and strong and moral, a paragon of virtue. The irony was that since marrying her, he’d tried to become exactly that, but his past sins kept getting in his way.

For with every word of love Meggie had spoken, she’d also unwittingly driven a dagger into his guts. He had fashioned that dagger entirely from lies—the handle crafted by corruption, the blade honed by deceit.

For one truly dreadful moment he’d thought she’d somehow guessed the truth, that she knew him and loathed him for the reprobate he was. When he’d realized that her distress was caused because she thought herself unworthy to be his wife, he’d felt completely sick.

If anyone was unworthy, it was he. He’d married Meggie with the sole intention of getting his hands on her inheritance and engineered the situation to perfection. That was criminal enough, but along had come the Mabey sisters, who sweetened the pot with nearly half of that again. This gave Hugo a sum total of seven hundred fifty thousand pounds, not a penny of which he deserved.

Oh, he was now a rich man indeed, and he felt as if he’d taken blood money from a complete innocent, who would surely hate him if she ever learned the truth. The very thought made his blood run cold. If she ever learned why he’d really married her, she’d never trust him again, let alone believe that he truly had fallen in love with her.

Why should she? Why should she ever believe anything he said again? Even Meggie would never be that forgiving or understanding. She had been completely truthful with him that night and he had been forced to give her his own truth sprinkled with damnable omissions and evasions.

He rubbed his free hand over his aching brow, wishing he’d been able to unburden himself, to tell her everything, for only then would his conscience be clear.

He hoped that she would know from the way he’d made love to her that he had meant every word of what he had said. She was part of him, the fabric of her being woven into his. From the moment Meggie had entered his life, she had entwined herself around his heart, and that heart had opened and grown and learned to embrace, just as she had taught his spirit to fly.

No amount of money in the world meant anything next to those precious gifts she’d given him, and none of those gifts was more precious than her love.

He released a heavy breath. Maybe the best thing to do was to go straight to London and pay off his debt to Waldock, erasing that problem. Now that the documents releasing Meggie’s inheritance had been signed, he was free and clear to do so, and the sooner he put that chapter of his life behind him, the better. The guilt would always be with him as well as a lingering fear that one day the truth would come out and his life would come crashing down.

He didn’t really see how that could happen. The debt was between Waldock and himself, the only other witness to his stupidity being Foxlane. Foxlane had no interest in how Hugo got in or out of trouble—he only cared about the thrill of the play and securing his own fortune.

Meggie stirred against his shoulder and sleepily opened her eyes. “Mmm,” she said, pressing her mouth to his shoulder in a soft kiss. “What are you thinking about? You look terribly preoccupied.” She smoothed a hand over his chest.

He covered her fingers, then pulled her closer against him. “I’m thinking I should go to London tomorrow,” he said. “I have some business I’ve been putting off, and James Gostrain’s visit reminded me that I shouldn’t neglect my other duties.”

Meggie struggled upright and wiped the sleep out of her eyes, oblivious to the sheet that had fallen down around her waist, exposing her high, creamy breasts. “London? Tomorrow?”

“Yes,” he said, lazily stroking one of those lovely soft mounds of firm flesh, the pink nipple standing hard against his palm. “London. Would you like to come?”

The idea suddenly seemed brilliant. He didn’t know why he hadn’t thought of it before: he didn’t want to be without Meggie for an instant, and she might like London if he kept her out of the fray of society. A few cozy walks, a great deal of time in bed, maybe some light entertainment that didn’t involve anyone else—yes. It was an excellent idea.

“But—but Hugo…” she said, frowning. “I thought you didn’t think me suited for life in the outside world. Are you just being polite?”

He grinned. “When have I ever been polite to you? Anyway, I think you’ll do just fine. I’ve been meaning to see to a proper wardrobe for you and this is the perfect opportunity. You can’t go about in Lally’s castoffs for the rest of your life.”

She tilted her head and gave him a searching look. “Are you asking me because you truly want me to come, or are you asking me because you’re expecting me to refuse and you’d rather not hurt my feelings by neglecting to ask me at all?”

Hugo squinted, trying to make sense out of Meggie’s skewed logic. As much as he loved her, deciphering her haphazard statements did sometimes give him a headache. “I’m asking you because I’d truly like you to come,” he said, grasping at the obvious answer and hoping it would suffice.

Meggie nodded. “Why?”

Hugo groaned. “Meggie, did I not just finish showing you how I feel about you?”

She colored, a lovely flush that ran from her high breasts all the way up over her neck into her cheeks. “Aunt Ottoline said you’d suddenly want to go to London, that men become easily bored and like to go off and conquer new territory.”

He sat up abruptly. “She told you
what?
” he said, his blood starting to boil. “The damned witch, how dare she imply I would do such a thing! Meggie, when are you going to stop listening to those silly old women, who wouldn’t know a cock from a—from a cockatoo, or what to do with one!”

Meggie tapped her finger against her mouth. “I believe you are very much mistaken,” she said.

“What? You don’t mean to tell me you think those two old bags are anything less than frustrated virgins who like nothing more than to dispense bad advice? Meggie, come now.”

Meggie slipped out of bed and marched across to the wardrobe. “Did you ever wonder why our rooms don’t have a connecting door?” she asked, hands resting on her gently rounded and very naked hips. “I believe it is usual in the upper class for the husband and wife to have an easy passage through to each other so as to conduct their marital affairs discreetly. Or at least that is what Mrs. Lindsay told me.”

Hugo watched her with amusement. She had no idea what effect she was having on him, standing there without a stitch on, conducting a lecture on proper aristocratic bedroom etiquette, courtesy of mad Mrs. Lindsay of all people.

“There is a connecting balcony,” he pointed out.

“Which in the freezing middle of winter would be an enormous deterrent, I believe. Do you also know that this room once used to be Aunt Ottoline’s? Aunt Dorelia’s was on the far side of yours. That was while Lord Eliot was alive, before they moved into the suite of rooms down the hallway.”

“And?” he said, wondering what convoluted mental path she was traveling now.

“Observe. I always wondered why this wardrobe was so huge, and I also wondered how it was that Aunt Dorelia vanished so quickly my first night here after she’d finished dressing me. I knew she hadn’t used the bedroom door, and I would have seen her leave through the balcony door.”

“What do you mean, she vanished?” Hugo said, seizing on the most salient point.

“Like so. I only discovered this by accident this morning when I was looking for a missing shoe.” Meggie swung the wardrobe door open and pushed aside the dresses, then stepped inside and clicked a latch. To Hugo’s astonishment, the back panel slipped away, revealing another panel. Meggie turned another latch and pushed back the panel. Through the opening Hugo could clearly see his own bed—in which he’d slept precisely one night. Meggie went through, and turned, waving at him through the open space.

“Good God,” he said. “Do you mean to tell me that wretched biddy hopped from your room into mine? I never heard a thing! Why didn’t she just use the damned door like everyone else?”

“Force of habit?” Meggie grinned. “Or maybe she was curious about what sort of a man had moved into her dear Linus’s bedroom. I don’t know. You should count yourself lucky that Aunt Ottoline didn’t pull the same trick from the other side.”

Meggie’s meaning finally dawned on him. “Are you saying that you think the aunties and Linus Eliot … no. No, I refuse to believe it.”

“Fine,” she said, re-emerging from the wardrobe and beaming at him triumphantly. “Believe what you want to believe, but I’ve heard enough to make me quite sure they had a very satisfactory arrangement among the three of them after Lally died. I think it makes perfect sense that they had these wardrobes made so that the proprieties would appear to be observed. No connecting doors, no indiscretions—if you look closely enough, you can see that they went so far as to have railings built to separate the balconies, railings which have only recently been removed.”