The Dangerous Love of a Rogue (35 page)

What? “Mary?”

He went into the bedchamber, she was not there but her things were.

But where the hell was she?

With her family.

Common-sense spoke the answer.

She’d have sent word to her father and they’d have called and collected her. She’d be at the ball. Drew would meet her there.

The smell of her perfume hovered in his rooms as he put on his evening dress. Arriving late was better than not arriving at all.

It took him little more than half an hour to dress and reach the Caldecotts’. The receiving line had broken up but the footman informed him that Lady Framlington was indeed in the ballroom.

Stiffening his spine and straightening his shoulders, preparing for the animosity from her family, Andrew stepped into the ballroom.

His gaze passed about the hall’s glittering mirrors, chandeliers and people, society in full splendour, displaying its feathers like a peacock. Marlow and Pembroke were easy to spot, like him they were a head above most of the women and some of the men. He moved towards them without thought, drawn like metal to a loadstone.
Mary?
His spirit cried for her.

She was not with them though.

His gaze spun around the room skimming over the heads of those dancing, stopping at every dark one. He noticed the exact shade of ebony secured in a high knot by a silver comb that had lain on his dresser.

His feet stopped moving, weighted with lead, and his blood turned to ice.

She was waltzing with Peter! Her slender figure gripped in his hands. A red flood swamped Drew.
What the hell!
The glass in his room. Peter had been in his rooms, with Mary! And now here!

The thread she’d pulled loose, unravelled at a rate knots. He could see nothing but red. His teeth clenched and his hands balled into fists.

My best friend! Why my best friend?

He did not hear any music, nor the buzz of conversation. No one existed but the two of them.

She’d ripped his heart out!

He walked across the floor, through the dancers. People stumbled, moving out of the way and shouting at him. Then the music ceased and the couples broke apart.

Peter’s hands fell and she stepped back smiling, her colour high and her eyes bright.

Drew’s stride lengthened.

Mary looked his way, and opened her mouth to speak – she did not.

Peter turned too, at the moment Drew reached them.

Drew shoved the heel of his palm into Peter’s chest. Peter stumbled back and Drew thrust a satisfying punch. The impact reverberated up his arm as it hit Peter’s jawbone, knocking him off his feet.

A chorus of screams rang about Drew along with disapproving masculine tones.

Peter moved to rise. Drew struck his shoulder with his heel of his shoe. “You bastard!” The words echoed in the almost silent ballroom.

Mary’s fingers gripped his arm. “Andrew stop! Please stop!”

Peter lay sprawled on the floor leaning on one elbow.

Drew was not done with this. “Leave my wife alone! Do you hear?”

Drew dropped to one knee, to throw another punch, but Peter caught his wrist.

“I was doing you a favour,” Peter growled in a disgusted voice, his other hand lifting to wipe blood from his mouth.

“I don’t care what you were doing! Don’t touch her! I told you not to call on her. She’s mine, do you understand?”

“Bloody hell, Drew! I only danced with her.”

“Do you understand?”

“For God sake Drew, don’t be ridiculous!”

Drew’s vision flared red. He gripped Peter’s cravat in his fist and twisted it as his knee came down on Peter’s chest, and his other hand on Peter’s shoulder.

“Enough! I say enough!” A yell rang behind Drew. Marlow. Someone gripped Drew’s arm and pulled.

Drew’s grip on Peter’s cravat lifted Peter a little, then Drew shoved him back and let go.

“You’ve made fools out of both of us.” Peter growled as Marlow dragged Drew up onto his feet.

The Duke of Wiltshire helped Peter up.

“More importantly you’ve embarrassed my daughter.” Marlow, growled in Drew’s ear in a low pitch. “What the hell is this, Framlington?”

Gripping Drew’s arm, Marlow started walking him away from the scene. “The show is over,” he growled at the crowd who watched them.

Drew yanked his arm from Marlow’s grip.

“Have someone send for our carriage, Ellen.”

Drew turned. Mary’s mother had her arm about Mary’s waist but Mary had not turned to her mother. She looked at him her skin so pale it was grey, and one hand rested over her stomach the other over her mouth as though she would be sick.

Hell and the devil
. He’d done it now – she’d lost all feeling for him.

But she’d let another man escort her…and dance with her… Peter had been in Drew’s rooms with her! Drew’s whole being revolted at the thought.

“We are going, anyway.” he said in a low voice, looking at Mary, denying Marlow’s order.

She said nothing.

Drew did not apologize, not to Peter, nor to Marlow. He would not apologize for who he was! They could like him or not! He did not care!

He only cared for his friends
… Damn!

But he still had Harry and Mark, didn’t he? And if he did not, so what? He had Mary, she could not leave him.

He held his hand out to her, saying he wanted her.

Her hand slotted into his, in that perfect fit he’d become accustomed to.

A tight vice like pain clenched about his heart as in his head he saw Peter’s hand on her back resting between her shoulders, and the empty brandy glass which stood on the side in his rooms.

Drew forced a path through the people, elbowing them out of his way if necessary and pulling Mary with him.

Reaching the hall, he growled at a footman to find her cloak, quickly.

He turned at the sound of a masculine stride behind them, echoing on the tiles.

Marlow, and his wife hurried behind them, Lady Marlow’s dress was clasped in her hand lifted a little to enable it.

“Framlington!” Marlow’s voice echoed about the stone trappings in the hall.

Mary’s loyalty was to be tested again. Marlow was going to begin another tug of war.

“What the hell did you think you were doing? Do you know what people are saying now?” Marlow’s strides ate up the distance between them.

“Let them say it!” Drew snarled. “What do I care?”

“I care!” Marlow growled, stopping three feet away from Drew, his gaze challenging. Then his voice dropped to a low threatening pitch. “And Mary cares. You will have her ostracised. You’ve hurt my daughter.” The wind blew out from the sails of Marlow’s anger as he looked at Mary.

Drew gripped her hand harder, this was it, another moment of choice, her family or him.

“Mary,” Marlow’s voice cut through the air between them soft and understanding, “come home with us, we should not have let this happen. Just come home now. This is enough. We can protect you from this—”

From this? From Drew!

“Let us weather this storm together. Ignore others’ judgement, Mary. You need not continue this…”

Drew’s jaw locked hard.

Her hand gripped his more firmly. “No, Papa, I’ll go home with Andrew. Do not worry. I’ll call on you tomorrow. We can discuss things then. But not now.”

The feeling that raced beneath his skin, through blood and bone and flesh, was relief, but it was hard and cold as ice. It was too late for her to cling to him now! She’d taken his heart and torn it in two, it was not beating anymore, not for her, not for anyone. He was stone inside.

Her father sighed.

“Mary.” Her mother came forward at the same time a footman brought Mary’s cloak. Her mother took it and set it on Mary’s shoulders, while Drew kept a hold of her hand as if the girl was driftwood in a swelling sea. The pain in his chest ate at him. Excruciating. Unbearable. He could barely breathe as they turned to the door.

“Tomorrow,” her father stated, as though he intended to persuade her to leave tomorrow.

Somehow Drew knew she would not. She would be like his mother, stay but be unfaithful. He could not be good-enough for her – he was worthless and unlovable. She would turn to other men, men who knew how to love her without running mad with jealousy. Men who knew how to cope amongst her family.

Men like Peter.

A cold shiver ran his spine as they walked the length of the street, until they found a handsome carriage waiting on the corner. Drew called up their destination to the driver and opened the door for Mary.

He did not speak as he climbed in.

Her hands rested in her lap.

He did not touch her. He did not think that he could ever bring himself to touch her again. It would only break his heart more when inevitably she let him down with someone else.

Chapter 26

The carriage rumbled and bounced over the uneven cobbled streets, the horses iron shoes ringing on the London stone, echoing in the silent air between them.

She had nothing to say to him, what could she say? He’d stormed out of their rooms hours before and then hit the Caldecotts’ ballroom with the full force of a hurricane, now they were in the eye of the storm. He’d neither spoken nor moved.

Without moving her head, Mary glanced towards him, hoping he would not see. He sat in the far corner, the ankle of one leg resting on the other knee, his elbow on the shallow ledge of the small window and his forearm and fingers lying back against the window.

Rain began falling outside the carriage, striking the hide roof in a hard pitter-patter.

He still did not move a single muscle, just stared from the carriage, his eyes focusing on nothing.

He looked in turmoil, and pain, not simply angry.

She should never have made him go to that house. She should have listened to him. Now she understood his complexity; the hidden fragments were broken pieces. He’d said once, in the beginning, in a letter, the second, which had won her soul, her heart having been given to him a year before
. I cannot say I love you, not yet, I do not even know what on earth love is, but I do know that I cannot sleep for thinking of you, or dreaming of you. I think of you and I lose my breath, I see you and my heart begins to pound, I hear you and my spirit wants to sing. I am yours, Mary.

She’d read that letter again this afternoon, a dozen times, although his words had already been etched on her heart. But, oh, she understood it now, he had really not known love, because he’d never been loved. How could he know? How could he see that she gave it? Yet he had not written those words, his friends had written them.

But she believed the essence of those words were his. He did not know love.

She sighed, and his sharp gaze turned to her.

Mary looked out of the window, while his observation made her spine tingle. The first time she had met him, he’d carried a sense of mystery, holding dangerous secrets in his eyes. But the truth behind his secrets was pain, loneliness and longing. She saw through him now.

‘
Don’t pity me, damn you!’
His last words before he’d stormed out this afternoon, she did not want to pity him, she just wanted to love him and be loved in return. But the darkness outside the carriage window was endless and the silence between them was a wall she did not know how to scale. His pain was a fortress she had no idea how to conquer. She would simply have to wait until his defences fell again.

He said nothing as he walked behind her up to their rooms.

In their bedchamber she tried to undo her dress. He came to her and began releasing the buttons, but he still did not speak, and then when she slipped out of her chemise he walked from the room into the sitting room.

She heard him pour a drink as she slid her nightgown over her head.

Then she heard a glass shatter against the hearth.

She knew it was the one Peter had drunk from.

She climbed into bed, her stomach growling with hunger. She’d still not eaten but she was not hungry, and nor could she sleep. She lay facing the door, watching the candlelight flicker in the other room and listening to him walking about.

He came to bed an hour later and undressed in the dark. His weight made the mattress sag as he lay down. He did not speak or touch her.

When she woke the next morning, it was to the smell of fried bacon, fresh bread, coffee and chocolate.

Her stomach rumbled loudly and she felt physically sick with hunger as she slipped from beneath the covers and searched out her dressing gown. Andrew sat in an armchair, a broadsheet paper open before him. He’d already eaten.

“Good morning,” she ventured.

Without looking up from the paper he answered, “I’ve ordered breakfast, luncheon and dinner, whether you or I are here or not, seeing as you’ll not order for yourself. I am going to Tattersall’s today to buy a carriage. I’ll employ a driver at the stables. I’ll buy another pair to pull it too. It will be yours, Mary, you can then go wherever you like, whenever you please.”

“So I will have no need of an escort…”

“Quite so.” His voice was deep and bitter. He was still angry. Still full of pain.

Mary sat down to cut a slice of bread. She had no idea how to respond, or what to do.

“I will also employ a lady’s maid to come in the morning and evening, to help you dress.”

“And to undress?” Mary’s voice left her throat with quiet uncertainty. Was he saying he would have nothing more to do with her?

“She will await your return.”

Did he not wish to touch her anymore? Did he not love her anymore? Mary stood again, her hand gripping the top of the chair. “It was just a waltz, Andrew. He only took me because you were not at home.”

He stood too, but he did not look at her, he folded the paper and tossed it onto the table where the broken chessboard stood. “I’m going riding.”

Mary hurried forward and gripped his arm. “Wait, I’ll dress and come with you.”

His hazel eyes were empty and cold – lacklustre. “That is not necessary.”

“Not necessary or do you not want me to?”

“Both, Mary. I’ll have your carriage by tomorrow, you may do what you like then, ride your brother’s horses. Or Peter has some good ones, perhaps he’d oblige…”