Passions of a Wicked Earl (9 page)

“Nearly everything.” Feeling the heat suffuse her face, she turned her attention to the fire and watched the low flames dancing.

“I didn’t know which room you’d taken,” he said. Then he taunted her, “Did you like what you saw?”

She peered at him beneath her lashes. So much easier to admit the truth when she didn’t meet his gaze directly. “I was conflicted. Part of me was glad you didn’t consummate our marriage on our wedding night, and part of me wondered if it would have been so awful.”

“I assure you it would not have been awful. I was quite experienced by then.”

“Yes, I know. I’d heard. I think that was part of what terrified me. You were accustomed to women who knew what they were about, and I was not accustomed to men.”

Setting his goblet aside, he wrapped his hands around her feet, placed them on his thigh, and began kneading the soles. She’d have pulled them away, but they’d grown cold, in spite of the fire, and his hands were so remarkably warm. “I had no plans to ravish you like a barbarian.”

And she wondered if he’d have touched her like this: slowly, deliberately, sensuously, as though his thumbs and fingers were well versed in how to manipulate every aspect of her feet so her entire body felt each touch.

“As I said last night, I was a silly girl.” She took a large gulp of her wine. She’d also been a coward. After catching a glimpse of him in the flesh that first winter, she’d moved across the hallway to avoid the temptation of watching him again. Afterward, she’d avoided him every time he visited, each year longer and more desolate than the one that came before. Servants alerted her whenever he came to the estate, and she kept to her rooms, to her wing. It wasn’t difficult to avoid him in the monstrosity that was Lyons Place.

Last winter she’d been gazing out the window of her bedchamber when she’d noticed a man striding toward the stables. She’d asked her lady’s maid who he was. Judith had glanced out the window, and said, “Why it’s his lordship.”

He’d looked broader than she’d remembered. Taller. His hair longer. She didn’t know why she’d thought he’d remain unchanged through the years. She certainly hadn’t.

But to see him now, she thought of the two of them that he’d changed the most. He’d left all evidence of boyishness behind. He was a man to be reckoned with, a man who exuded power and influence. There was a calm confidence about him that had been lacking before. He knew who he was, knew his place. It was more intoxicating than the wine. She was weary of dissecting the past. He’d said he no longer wanted her, and yet his presence, his interest in her feet seemed to indicate otherwise.

“It was very kind of you to consent to allowing Beth and me to reside here for the summer,” she said.

“You make me sound as though I’m a tyrant.”

She peered up at him again, only this time she met his gaze fully and gave him the smallest of smiles. “I always thought of you as one. Quite often I model my villains after you.”

He arched a brow. “Your villains?”

“For my own amusement, I often write stories.”

“Do I gobble up little children in your stories?”

She laughed self-mockingly, and blamed the wine for the words that escaped. “You drag the heroine away to your castle. She’s not very bright. She always falls madly in love with you.”

“I’m not quite certain if I should take that as a compliment or an insult.”

“Don’t give it much credence either way. They’re just the musings of a silly girl.”

“You’re not a girl any longer, Claire. Last night was proof enough of that.”

She’d had far too much wine because she thought the heat from the fire had jumped into his eyes. But surely that wasn’t possible. “I’ve heard that you’ve taken a hundred lovers since we were married.”

His dark laughter reverberated around them. “I assure you the numbers are vastly exaggerated.”

She pulled her feet free of his grasp. Cooper stirred and rolled away from her. She missed the comfort of any touch. Still she plowed ahead. “But you have taken lovers.”

“Our marriage was not consummated. I was a husband in name only. You assured that when you allowed my brother into your bed. If you truly knew my reputation, you could not have expected celibacy of me.”

Shaking her head, she finished her wine in one large gulp that nearly choked her. She waited as the warmth diffused through her. She met his gaze. “Who is she? The lady who smells of lilac.”

“None of your concern.”

“You were with her earlier.”

He finished off his own wine. “I didn’t want her to hear from the gossips that my wife was in London.”

“But you have no qualms about your wife hearing from the gossips that you have lovers? Do you care for her?”

“I’d not spend time with her if I didn’t.”

“Do you intend to flaunt her in front of me?” She felt the tears burn her eyes and forced them back.

He studied her for the longest before saying, “If you knew me at all, you’d know the answer to that.”

“But I don’t know you, Westcliffe, any more than you know me. That is the very reason behind the debacle of our marriage.” His gaze was hard, almost unforgiving, but she didn’t sense that he was angry with her. Rather he was striving to come to terms with something.

Quite abruptly, he was standing over her. “No, Claire, I do not intend to flaunt her.” Bending down, he lifted Cooper into his arms with all the gentleness that one would cradle a child.

Then he was striding from the room, and it was all Claire could do not to call him back.

After settling Cooper into his favorite chair for the night, Westcliffe began removing his clothes, paused, and grinned. His wife, who had feared her wedding night, had watched him undress. He remembered that first night back at Lyons Place and the sense he’d had of being watched. Little voyeur. Perhaps he should have offered to disrobe in closer proximity.

He heard the door to her bedchamber close. He should have assisted her up the stairs. She might not have thought she was foxed, but she was. Otherwise, she’d have not spoken so candidly. Or perhaps she would have. She was correct. He didn’t know her. Everything he knew about her had come from a distance.

He had known that she was the one he’d marry, and he’d assumed she’d fawn over him as all women did. Christ, he’d been an arrogant bastard in his youth to think he didn’t have to woo her at all. He hoped the next man in her life would take more care with her.

He finished stripping down and went to the bathing room. Using water left in the washstand, he thoroughly washed up. When he was finished, he returned to his bedchamber and clambered into bed. He was about to extinguish the lamp when he caught sight of the sheet-covered easel, set at an angle so it faced his bed. “Don’t look,” Leo had ordered.

“Then you shouldn’t have left it, whelp,” Westcliffe murmured as he stretched across the bed, grabbed the sheet, and dragged it down. What he saw shocked him. The artist had only etched in the lines, but he had a deft hand. Claire was looking up at Westcliffe with an expression of soft wonder while he was glowering down at her.

It was a formidable expression. Surely, he didn’t appear that terrifying.

Easing back, he settled against the pillows and continued to study the portrait. Why had Leo chosen to capture that moment? They’d been looking at him for a good part of the sitting. He’d positioned them so the lighting highlighted their best features, so why this? Westcliffe would develop deep furrows in his brow if he wore that expression for every sitting.

His gaze came to rest on Claire. She still appeared young, wary … and yet defiant. She was not brittle like Anne. There was a vulnerability to her. Had he ever truly looked at her, studied her, come to know her?

He was still contemplating the artist’s rendition of them when he heard a distant scraping sound.
What the devil?

In spite of the wine that had made her lethargic, Claire couldn’t sleep. Weary of rolling from one side of her bed to the other and staring at the canopy above her head, she’d decided that she might as well determine which bedchamber Beth would have when she arrived.

She’d settled on the one at the far corner, opposite the side where hers was. It provided Beth with the luxury of two sets of windows, and on days when the sun held, an abundance of sunshine. She wanted her sister’s room and her stay to be as bright and cheerful as possible, and she sincerely doubted her husband would play a role in that endeavor.

Upon determining which room would best suit Beth—and place her the farthest from Westcliffe—Claire’s next order of business was to rearrange the furniture. While she knew any sane woman would wait until the morning, when the footmen would be available to assist her, her very presence in Westcliffe’s residence claimed her to be insane, and so she began pushing a chair from the sitting area by the fireplace to a spot in front of the window. How much lovelier it would be to sit in the sun during the summer. She was breathing heavily when she finally had the chair in place. Tucking behind her ear the strands that had worked their way loose of her braid, she charged back over to the sitting area and began shoving the next chair—

“What the devil are you doing?”

She came up so abruptly that she nearly wrenched her back. And she realized that her breathing had not been hard at all, because suddenly drawing in a breath was near impossible. Her husband stood just inside the doorway, wearing nothing except his trousers and a shirt tucked into them. Thank goodness, he’d buttoned his trousers, but he’d not buttoned his shirt, and it hung open to reveal a good part of his chest—displaying a light sprinkling of dark, curling hair. Obviously, she’d not seen as much detail as she’d thought when she’d observed him from her window that long-ago night. Or perhaps he’d only recently acquired it. But it added such an alarming allure of masculinity to his physique. His feet were bare and so large. Why did wearing boots not make them seem so big? Even from this distance, she could see that the ends of his hair were damp, curlier than usual. He should have looked boyish, but nothing about him was anything except manly.

“I, uh—” She cleared her throat. “I was preparing the room for Beth.”

His dark eyebrows drew together. “Is she arriving in the early hours of dawn?”

“No, not for a few more days. But I couldn’t sleep so I thought I might as well …” She let her voice trail off.

“What is your obsession with moving my furniture around?”

So he’d noticed the parlor, yet hadn’t said anything. She wondered what else he might not have commented on. “I can barely tolerate the haphazard way it’s arranged.”

“Haphazard?”

“The sitting area in front of the fireplace is cluttered with chairs. Why would anyone entertain so many in a bedchamber?”

He arched a brow at her.

“A lady does not,” she snapped, assuming he had been with women who entertained a good many men at one time in their chambers. “So I decided to make two sitting areas.”

“And it couldn’t wait until morning?”

“I couldn’t sleep.”

“Then read a book. Something quiet.”

“I’m sorry. Did I wake you?”

Instead of answering her, which seemed to be a nasty habit of his, he strode toward her. She skittered back without thinking, cursed her cowardice, then stepped forward. For a moment, the way his mouth moved, she thought he’d been entertaining the notion of a smile. Bending down, he lifted the chair. “Where do you want it?”

“Oh … by the window.” She stared at the play of muscles over his back, the way his shirt stretched across them, and wondered what it might feel like to run her hands over them. Like touching warm marble perhaps. Silky and smooth.

When he’d set down the chair, she hurried over and angled it in relation to the other—with his help. At his nearness, the first thing she noticed was that he no longer carried the faint fragrance of lilac that had been with him earlier. Instead, his scent was dark and masculine, true to him.

To her surprise, he continued to assist her—carrying over two tables, then rearranging the pieces of furniture that remained near the fireplace. When they were finished, she looked at the room from the doorway. “Oh, yes, that’s so much more pleasant.”

She walked to the foot of the bed and studied one side of the room, then the other. Smiling with satisfaction, she said, “Beth will be happy here.”

“As long as she isn’t so happy she has no desire to leave,” Westcliffe said, standing by one of the windows, his arms crossed over his chest.

“Oh, I’m certain she’ll be as anxious to leave as I am.”

His jaw clenched, and she wished she could take the words back, but surely after the welcome he’d given her and the demands he’d outlined, he couldn’t possibly think she relished being here.

She fought not to tremble as his gaze wandered over her. What was he searching for when he looked at her like that?

He walked forward, and she felt the back of her legs hit the bed. He tucked strands of hair behind her ear. “When your hair is not braided, it must be much longer.”

“Yes.”

“Is it long enough to reach your waist?”

She was having a difficult time drawing in a breath with him so near, still she managed, “Longer.”

“To your hips?”

She nodded.

He dropped his gaze to her hips, then lifted it to her mouth. “Your first kiss. Why didn’t you ask me to give it to you? I was the one you would marry, and well you knew it.”

While his expression was still hard, uncompromising, she sensed no anger there but a dark curiosity. How could he not understand the reasons? How could she explain them?

“I was ten, a child,” she said softly. “You were already a man. I saw you talking with my father and Lynnford and other adults, and you seemed completely comfortable with them, their equals. While the eight years separating us does not seem such a great span of years now, when I was ten I despaired of ever catching up to you. When you were eighteen, would you have wanted to kiss me?”

She could see him considering her words, the realization taking shape that a chasm of years had separated them in their youth. With each passing year, the chasm narrowed, until at last he didn’t seem all that much older.