Lady Anne's Deception (13 page)

He suddenly seized her in his arms and planted a wet kiss on her mouth just as the door opened.

The guilty couple released each other and swung around.

The marquess and Marigold stood on the threshold. The marquess looked calm and amused. But Marigold’s eyes were wide with a mixture of fear and anger. She looked much younger than Annie at that moment, younger and lost and vulnerable. All at once, Annie realized how very badly she was behaving.

Marigold would have rushed forward, but the marquess held her back with a gentle hand on her arm.

“We were looking all over for you,” he said lightly. “Your partners are languishing upstairs, my love.”

“I—I sprained my ankle,” said Annie wildly. “Mr. Bellamy brought me here so that I could rest it.”

“How very kind of him,” said the marquess. “But you really must not neglect your fiancée, Bellamy. My wife has me to look after her, you know. I shall have a little talk with you about that afterwards.” Mr.

Bellamy visibly cringed although the marquess’s voice was as good-natured as ever. “Run along with Lady Marigold. You’re missing all the fun.”

For once Marigold was speechless. Harry Bellamy went over and took her arm, and she looked up at him with an odd, beseeching look.

The door closed behind them, leaving Annie and the marquess alone.

“We will give them a few moments to get back to the ballroom and then we will talk,” said the marquess.

“I had better get back as well . . .”

“Oh, but you can’t, my love. Not with your poor sprained ankle. Come with me!”

Annie opened her mouth to protest, shut it again, and took the arm he was holding out to her.

“I wish you would make up your mind which ankle it was you sprained,” he said as he led her across the vast, deserted entrance hall. “You are limping on one foot and then the other.”

“I think I sprained both,” said Annie wretchedly, wondering why it was that one lie always led to a whole regiment of lies.

“I think you have sprained your brain. In here.”

He pushed open the door of the Wintons’ library. A fire was burning brightly in the hearth. Gaslight hissed quietly in the brackets over the mantel. Books that looked as if they had never been opened stood in serried ranks behind the glass fronts of the cases.

“Now,” said her husband, turning to face her. His smiling mask had dropped and he looked very grim indeed. “Explain yourself!”

“I did,” said Annie miserably. “I sprained my ankle . . . ankles . . . and Harry Bellamy took me away to rest a little. I saw nothing wrong in it. He is soon to be my brother-in-law.”

“It seemed to me as if you were trying to make sure he would never be your brother-in-law but your lover instead.”

“Why should you care?” Annie flashed back. “You and your fancy women!”

“Yes, me and my fancy women. Well, my dear, I manage not to disgrace you by kissing them in public.

You simply got that poor sap, Bellamy, all roused up in order to make Marigold jealous. Is there no end to
your
jealousy? Or perhaps you would rather have married an idiot like Bellamy?”

“At least he would have been faithful to me.”

“I think we should get one thing clear,” said the marquess, coming to stand over her. “I, my dear, have certainly not led a celibate life. But I have at least been faithful to you since the day I married you.”

“Pooh! Balderdash and tommyrot! What about the seductive Miss S.?”

“An old love. I met her in Paris and walked her down the Champs Elysées where I was photographed by a society photographer. We had an aperitif in a café and then I delivered her into the arms of her latest protector.”

“And you expect me to believe that?”

He looked at her curiously. “Tell me, Annie,” he asked, “are you so wrapped up in yourself that you never stop to think that other people have feelings, that other people get hurt? It’s time you grew up and stopped behaving like a child thumbing her nose at adults. What you did this evening was childish and thoughtless and cruel.”

“Nothing,” said Annie, fiercely, “nothing I could ever do to you would be as cruel as your treatment of me. To go away and leave me alone for months. To cancel our honeymoon.”

“A honeymoon is for lovers, Annie. It is not for a girl who has simply married me to compete with her sister.”

“Will you
never
forget that?” said Annie bitterly.

“Make me.” He stood looking down at her. “Make me, Annie. Make me forget your words.”

She looked at him, trying to summon up the courage to take a step toward him, to throw herself into his arms and beg his forgiveness. She looked beyond him to the window, where the curtains were drawn back, trying to forget all the hurt.

The fog outside the window swirled in a rising wind. Through the curling, swirling fog, in the square of light cast on the garden outside by the gaslight in the room, a horrible, distorted, bloated face turned and danced.

It was much like one of the faces of the South Sea carvings back at Crammarth Castle with its mouth protruding from lips drawn back in a ghastly sort of grin.

Annie turned paper white.

She opened her mouth, but it was like one of those horrible dreams where you try to scream and no sound comes out, where you try to run, but your feet won’t move.

The marquess turned around and looked at the window.

He gave a muttered exclamation and rang the bell by the fireplace.

“Sit down!” he said to Annie. “And put your head between your knees.”

The door opened and a liveried footman came in.

The marquess waved his hand at the window. “There is a body out there, hanging,” he said. “Be a good fellow and inform the police, the local hospital, and Mr. Winton, in that order.”

The footman stared at the horror that was turning slowly outside the window. The thinning fog revealed that it was the body of Miss Hammond hanging from the rope.

From the open door came the laughter and chatter from the ballroom upstairs. The orchestra was playing a polka.

“Very good, my lord,” said the footman.

“I never turned an ’air,” he told the kitchen proudly afterwards. “I went up to Mr. Winton and I said:

‘Sir,’ I said, ‘the Marquess of Torrance presents ’is compliments and says to tell you that there is a body a-hanging from a rope outside the ’ouse. I ’ave informed the Yard, sir, as per ’is lordship’s instructions.’

”

“Come along,” said the marquess to Annie. “What a bloody, sickening sort of evening. The police will know where to find me if they want me.”

Annie silently allowed him to help her out of the house. She could not get the memory of that dreadful face out of her mind. Somewhere at the back of her mind was a growing fear. Somewhere, somehow, someone had said something. She knew something quite dreadful and yet she could not think of what it was.

The silence of her rooms at home weighed down on her. After Barton had made her mistress ready for bed, Annie sat in front of her dressing table, brushing her long red hair with automatic strokes of the brush. Barton had told her in a hushed whisper that two gentlemen from Scotland Yard had called to see the master.

The little gilt clock on the mantel chimed a silvery two in the morning.

The door opened and her husband stood there. His face was set in harsh, stern lines as he studied her reflection in the glass.

“They’ve gone,” he said curtly. “Go to bed.”

Now was the time to say she was sorry, but a dreadful, stubborn pride held her back.

Almost as if he knew what was going through her head, he said, “Oh, go to bed and dream of ruining Marigold’s life—and pray for the wisdom to realize you are ruining your own.”

The door slammed. Annie stared miserably at her reflection. Why did she always feel like a naughty child? Couldn’t he understand? He ought to
know.

“But he’s not psychic,” said the cynical voice of her conscience. “And he’ll never know unless you tell him.”

But it was too late, tonight anyway, thought cowardly Annie. And—and she had seen a dead body.

And—and he should have realized her feminine feelings were lacerated and have been proud of her, yes
proud.
For she had not screamed or fainted.

All at once, she remembered the feel of Harry Bellamy’s soft, hot mouth and writhed with shame. Then there was that lost, hurt look in Marigold’s eyes.

Oh, why couldn’t life be black and white?

Annie trailed miserably to bed.

But sleep would not come.

Every time she closed her eyes, the bloated, dead face of Miss Hammond rose before her inner vision.

Like a sleepwalker, Annie swung her legs out of bed and walked slowly out of her room and along to her husband’s door. She gave the door a jerk to open it and went inside.

Light was shining from the bedroom beyond his sitting room. Annie hesitated, longing to turn back and yet frightened of the nightmares that lay in wait for her, frightened of her own guilty conscience.

He was lying propped up on the pillows reading a book. As she entered, he put the book down on the covers and looked at her, his face rigid, his eyes cold.

Annie couldn’t help remembering his former lazy good humor, his smiling eyes, as she looked at the stern, handsome face against the whiteness of the pillows.

“What is it?” he said.

“I’m frightened,” whispered Annie.

“No doubt,” he said in a flat voice. “It is not every day one sees a dead body. I suggest you wake Barton and ask her to sleep in your room for the night.”

Annie dimly realized that he must have once had some feeling, some affection for her. Why else would she now notice the sudden lack of it?

“I want to sleep with you,” said Annie, trembling with the cold and nerves.

“Very well. So long as you don’t mind if I go on reading.”

Annie removed her dressing gown and placed it on a chair. She was wearing a white satin nightgown chosen for her by her mother. It covered more of her body than a ball gown. She walked around to the far side of the bed and pulled back the covers, noticing before she climbed in that her husband was naked.

She pulled the blankets up and lay very still. But she found that she had exchanged one sort of agony for another. She could feel the heat emanating from his body a few inches away from her own. Her whole being started to throb and ache for his touch. Her treacherous body started to shake and tremble.

“If you are cold,” he said, without raising his eyes from the page, “I will fetch some more blankets.”

“It’s not that,” said Annie miserably. “It’s . . .” At a loss for words, she turned on her side to face him and put one small, cold, trembling hand on his chest.

He twisted his head and looked at her. Her eyes were wide and pleading and bright with unshed tears.

Her soft mouth trembled.

“Bloody,
bloody
hell!” said the marquess savagely. He threw his book on the floor and jerked the bedclothes down to the foot of the bed.

“Take off that repellent thing you’re wearing,” he commanded.

“Put out the light,” pleaded Annie. The room was lit by the soft glow of one oil lamp on the marquess’s side of the bed.

“No. I said, take it off.”

Blushing, Annie pulled her nightdress over her head.

“Now,” said the Marquess of Torrance. “Come here and kiss me.”

Annie threw herself on his chest and kissed him inexpertly on the mouth.

He gathered her into his arms and rolled over so that he was lying on top of her, propped up on his elbows.

“Do you want me to make love to you?” he demanded.

“Yes, Jasper,” whispered Annie shyly.

“Do you want me?”

“Yes.”

“How much?” he said. “Tell me how much!”

“Very much,” she said in such a low voice that he had to strain his ears to hear.

Then his eyes gleamed with laughter. He lowered himself down on top of her, the hard weight of his chest pressing against her breasts. “Prepare for a long night, my lady.” He grinned. “Let’s spend our first passion quickly so that I may explore this delicious body of yours at my leisure. I will stop only when I have discovered that your passion matches your temper.”

After the first violent lovemaking was over, Annie felt so exhausted that she thought she would sleep forever. But his lips were moving down her body and every nerve leaped in response until she buried her hands in his thick hair and cried to him to take her again. As the pale dawn light filtered into the room, Annie looked up into her husband’s eyes and saw that they were filled with tenderness and a sort of amazed gratitude.

Her last waking thought was that for the first time in her life she had done something right.

His caressing hands woke her some hours later. The birds were singing outside, and the noises of the street came to their ears.

But, for Annie, all worries and fears had gone. All of the busy world had gone away. All of the universe was reduced to the touch of his lips and the feel of his long fingers, stroking her and turning her from one delicious position to another.

Mary Hammond, Mr. Shaw-Bufford, Marigold, and Harry Bellamy whirled and turned and disappeared from her mind as the Marchioness of Torrance proved over and over again that her passion could outmatch her temper.

* * *

She had retired to her own rooms to bathe and change after the long and exhausting night and morning in her husband’s arms.

A servant had told her that the marquess wished to see her downstairs as soon as she was ready.

A small smile curved Annie’s bruised mouth. He had not said he loved her during their exquisite, shared passion. Now she was sure he would.

She was therefore startled to find her husband waiting for her at the foot of the stairs with a grim look on his face.

Annie tilted her face up for a kiss and closed her eyes.

He seemed not to notice, for when she opened them again he was half turned away from her and saying,

“Those two chaps from Scotland Yard are back. I put them in the study. They want to speak to you.”