The Sweet and Spicy Regency Collection (101 page)

“Please,” he said. He might as well been that awkward, lanky boy painting flowers and a certain young maiden in Oxford. “Please, sit with me for a moment.”

She pursed her dewy lips and tilted her head as she paused to consider the request. With the grace of a queen she glided over to the settee he stood beside and lowered herself onto the cushion. She sat with her back gently arched and her head slightly bowed.

He settled in beside her with considerably less grace. “I wish to hold your hand.”

He uncurled his fist, ungloved and chilled, and waited to see if she would touch him in the bright light of day. “Remember that day at your uncle’s?” he said while he bided his time. “I was so certain you would refuse to touch my hand. And that, my dove, made me even more eager to win your favor.”

He was beginning to feel foolish sitting there with his empty hand raised. She had turned her head and was staring at his palm, wide-eyed.

With sad resignation, he closed his hand and pressed his knuckles into the plush cushion.

“You’ve been trained too well to hold your tongue, Elsbeth. My darkest wish is for your Lord Mercer to be alive again so I could kill him.”

She recoiled from the violence of his words.

“What was your life with him like?” he’d not wanted to ask that question. He feared the answer. But Lord Mercer and the life Elsbeth had with him seemed to hang between them like a leaden curtain.

“I’d rather not talk about him.” She reached for the locket that had curiously disappeared from her neck. Finding it gone she clasped her hands in her lap.

“For the sake of our marriage, I need to know more about the ghosts that haunt those lovely eyes of yours. You told me once that Mercer was a monster, and I don’t wish to cause you any more pain by asking you to remember, but you have to talk about this. The torment was evident in your eyes even before you met me. I know, I’d noticed you and your troubled eyes at your uncle’s ball. Let me try to take on some of that burden for you. Let me in, Elsbeth. Even if it’s just a little.”

“I-I don’t know that I can. I don’t know that I should. You have to understand, I was disloyal to my marriage vows. I was disloyal to him.” She smiled painfully. “I was not a very good wife. I don’t know if I can be one.”

Her admission broke his heart. “You wrongly put the blame on yourself. From what you and Molly have told me…and from what I’ve heard about Mercer from other sources, it sounds as if he was the worst sort of husband. By being cruel to you, he was the first to break the marriage vow. And once that vow was broken, you were no longer under any kind of obligation to him.”

“He was an angry man,” she conceded. “It started soon after the wedding. He’d been boasting to his friends how he’d married the most beautiful woman in all of England. And—” she hesitated.

Nigel waited in silence.

She squeezed her hands together and then cleared her throat. “You probably need to know this. Your cousin, Charlie was visiting at the time. I had met him once before, but only briefly. He’d flirted shamelessly with me that first time we met, vowing that we’d marry. But I was already in love with…with…Well, I put Charlie off, and I don’t think he forgave me for it.

“And then at that cursed dinner party, where Mercer was boasting how he’d married the most beautiful woman in all England—much to my mortification—Charlie listed at least a half dozen ladies whom he believed more lovely. Some of the other men at the table had nodded in agreement. That night—”

She looked away suddenly. Her voice turned rough. “That one comment put Mercer in a black mood for the rest of the evening. He kept glaring at me. I puzzled over his odd mood, naturally. It was really quite embarrassing. That evening, after we retired, I confronted him. He struck me across the face. I remember falling to the floor.” She fell silent again. “He pulled me back up and hit me again…and again…and again…and…” Her voice trailed off.

“Oh dear God,”
Nigel whispered.

“By the next morning, no one would think me lovely looking like that, which only made him more cross.” She turned back to Nigel, her gaze searching his. “Learning that I was barren only made him hate me more. And yet he was the one who had pushed so hard for our marriage. He was the one who had given me those paintings, claiming that he had created them. He was the one who’d claimed that the paintings had been made for my eyes, and my eyes alone.”

That last part had been true. Nigel always thought of her when he painted. Ever since he’d first seen her as she’d danced across the field, his paintings were for her. Only for her.

“But I quickly learned he wasn’t an artist. He didn’t even
like
art.” She sighed and closed her eyes as if remembering something that had once brought her pleasure. “For many years into my marriage I foolishly held onto a fantasy, hoping that there might be a knight-in-shining-armor lurking in the home wood and planning to rush the gates to save me.”

She lifted her head. Her blue eyes shivered. “You knew me, before my marriage? Bess says that you knew me even then.” She swallowed hard. “Loved me. Because of Dionysus?”

He searched for the words to tell her the truth.

Her shoulders fell and she lowered her head again. “Of course that couldn’t be true. You are a good man. You would have never allowed me to suffer at Lord Mercer’s cruel hands. I waited for someone like you to come along…for Dionysus to find me. Surely, if you had known about my situation, you would have stormed the gates. You would have saved me.”

“If only I had known…If I had it all to do over again I would have been a better man. I would have sought you out. I would have protected you.”

Elsbeth did an amazing thing then. She reached out and took his hand, uncurling his fingers, smoothing out his tightly held fist.

“Your fingers are cold,” she said. With both hands she vigorously rubbed away the chill. She then took his other hand within her palm and began rubbing. “Gainsford and I have decided to serve chicken for the ball, if that will suit. He tells me that Cook does wonders with some exotic spices and the chicken. I cannot remember the name of the dish.”

“Khorma.”

Elsbeth nodded as she continued to massage his hand and wrist. She seemed quite unconscious of her actions. He closed his eyes and imagined that they were alone and in the master suite. In the middle of the night she often touched him this tenderly. Under the cover of darkness she was a different woman, a sensual woman unafraid of her husband. In those late night hours he was grateful for what she’d given him. And yet, even though he was afraid of hurting her again, he wanted to be intimate with her in more ways than just the physical.

“Cook spent several years preparing meals for a general in India. She picked up several recipes.” With nimble fingertips she worked to relax the sinews crisscrossing the back of his hand. Did she know what she was doing to him?

It was amazing how intuitive her movements were in finding the tension buried beneath his skin.

“Will that suit?” she asked, pressing quite hard on a particularly sore spot.

“What? Yes, yes, of course. The chicken dish will be fine. Elsbeth, do you truly find marriage to me distasteful?”

She dropped his hand and jumped up from the settee. “Oh, you are a vexing man, my lord!”

“Vexing, Elsbeth?”

“Terribly, horribly, so. And you know it well. So, please, don’t pretend to not know that you’re able to twist my head around.” Her pretty little fists were pressed against the most exquisite hips he could ever hope to encounter.

“Twist your head—? How so?” He rose and stood directly in front of her. She was trembling like a small bird longing for the freedom of the vast sky. Her wide eyes remained riveted to his. Her stare fed the fire burning in his chest.

“You continually confound me, my lord.”

“Nigel,” he said. “My name is Nigel. I insist you use it.”

He held out his empty palm. “Place your hand in mine.” When she hesitated, he said, “I insist.”

She was quick to comply.

He was acting the part of bastard, he knew. But if she’d only give him the chance, he knew he could make her happy.

“Good.” He led her back to the settee. They sat side-by-side holding hands like a pair of naïve youngsters. “Now tell me, Elsbeth, specifically how do I vex you?”

“Specifically?” She chewed her bottom lip. It was an excruciatingly erotic act. “I do not wish to be fond of you, my lord.”

“Nigel,” he corrected.

“I do not wish to be fond of you, Nigel.”

“And you
are
fond of me?” He could only hope.

“Yes.” She tore her gaze away.

“A certain degree of fondness for each other is beneficial in a marriage.” With a gentle caress of her cheek, he coaxed her gaze back to his. “I am more than a little fond of you, Elsbeth. I do love you, you know.”

“No, do not say that.” She pulled from him and fluttered her hands in the air. “Do not say that.”

“But it’s true. Perhaps you will never be able to return my affection. But Elsbeth, believe me when I tell you my love is genuine.”

“
No…no…no
,” she said, shaking her head. “
You cannot
.”

He caught her fluttering hands in his. “Kiss me, Elsbeth. Let your heart hear what your ears refuse.”

“But I refused to tell you the name of the smuggler.”

“I know.”

“You have a mistress—”

“I
had
a mistress.”

“And a child. I-I cannot give you a child.”

“Yes, I love my son. But I also love you. Kiss me, Elsbeth. Just one small kiss.”

She stared deep into his eyes. Her throat tightened as she swallowed hard. “Just one kiss.”

It took all of his control not to pull her into his arms and kiss her. But no, this was something she had to do for herself.

She leaned forward. She closed her eyes just as her lips brushed his. It was a chaste kiss not unlike one he would give an aunt. Her lips were hard and firmly sealed.

He despaired at his failure to reignite the passion he knew lay buried deep within her. He had seen that passion come alive several times now and had witnessed the miracle of her pleasure. He groaned deep in his throat from the memory.

She responded. Her lips parted as she heaved a tender sigh and sought his with a hunger he’d not dared to hope for in the light of day.

She clasped her hands at the base of his neck and clung to him while she deepened the kiss, swirling her tongue in his mouth with a courtesan’s skill. Gradually, she pulled back. Her sapphire eyes were darkened with a lusty haze. A rosy glow colored her finely formed cheeks.

She kept her fingers clasped around his neck.

“So, where do we go from here?” she whispered.

“Hmmm.” His mind filled with thoughts a gentleman should not share with the gentler sex. “I suppose you should tell me, Elsbeth, do you truly find marriage to me so distasteful?”

A sparkle brightened her eyes. Her lips curled into a delightfully wry smile. “I think I shall have to kiss you again.”

Chapter Twenty-Seven

She didn’t want to love him, but it seemed the harder she fought against it, the deeper she fell. He’d woven a spell around her, one that made her heart pound heavily in her chest every time he was around.

When she kissed him, she tasted what she’d missed in her life for far too many years—a home. Not just a roof over her head but a safe place where she could rediscover herself, where she could live and grow. And love. A life with a man she could trust. Oh, she so dearly wanted to trust.

He traced his finger along her tear-dampened cheek. “I love you,” he whispered. “Let that be enough. Let me love you.”

With her mouth she told him how she was willing to share her life with him. She wanted—no, needed—the confidence he gave her more than she needed to breathe. Nigel touched her, caressed her, encouraged her while their tongues played a prelude to how their bodies would touch.

He eased the bodice of her gown off her shoulders and freed her breasts so he could put his mouth to its swollen bud, suckling and teasing her until her whole body was throbbing with desire. His hands roamed lower and he parted her thighs.

Ah…this was the way life should be. She prayed that this wasn’t just another illusion as she lost herself to the moment…to the feel of his mouth on her body…to his love…

“Edgeware!” The gold parlor’s narrow door swung open and cracked against a marble top cabinet. An expensive Wedgewood jasper and ivory colored vase plunged to the plush gold-tinged Persian rug. The vase bounced but didn’t break.

Mr. George Waver, his clothes rumpled, his face smudged with black soot, charged into the room. Gainsford trailed close on his heel, wringing his hands in a helpless gesture.

“Oh my,” she heard Gainsford mutter. He was no longer looking fretfully at Mr. Waver, but he was now looking at her and Nigel and the erotic positions of their bodies on the sofa. A shocked expression quickly turned to one of satisfaction, softening his furrowed brows while bright spots of color stained his cheeks.

Nigel sprang to his feet and with his arms spread wide to put himself physically between her and Mr. Waver. “Whatever quarrel you have with me, George, I demand you leave Elsbeth out of it. I will never forgive you for dragging my wife out into the middle of a storm and nearly killing her.”

“Is that what she told you?” Mr. Waver charged.

She tugged on her gown’s bodice, desperately trying to get the crumpled material up around her torso, to cover her breasts that were displayed for all in the room to see. It had been so easy for Nigel to get the cursed gown off her shoulders, she couldn’t figure out why it should be so difficult to set herself to right again.

“She told me nothing. Damn you!” Nigel grabbed Mr. Waver by the cravat and shook him. “You bloody bastard! You coerced a vow out of her! You turned my own wife against me!” He shook Mr. Waver again.

Elsbeth had just gotten her sleeves back into place when she realized Nigel had finally cracked. His shell of control was gone, and if she didn’t act quickly, he might actually kill his friend. She certainly wasn’t going to let that happen. She rose quickly from the sofa.