TheWifeTrap (36 page)

“Why? What happened to your contessa? This time of year, the two
of you should have been making your way south.”

A wry glint flickered in his gaze. “Carlotta and I decided to part
ways.” At her continued stare, he shrugged. “If you must know, her brothers
apparently took a dislike to me, and persuaded me to rethink my affections for
their sister.”

“They threatened you?” Toddy wasn’t the sort of man to back down
from a fight. “How many were there?”

He laughed. “Eight, and a pair of uncles. I could have handled
them, but the Italians have a nasty habit of starting vendettas. Seemed more
trouble than it was worth.”

He was also nothing if not pragmatic. “So you sailed away and came
here to me.”

“Actually I stopped off in London first. You might imagine my
amazement when I heard you had gone off to Ireland. I decided I could not leave
you to suffer a moment longer.”

“Perhaps you did not hear the whole of it. I am married now.”

“Yes, I know. Countess Mulholland, is it not? I also know you did
not wish to wed, that it was a hurried match to avoid yet another unfortunate
scandal. How horribly disconsolate you must be.”

Reaching for her hands again, he graced her with his handsomest
smile. “My darling, I am so sorry. I should never have abandoned you as I did.
Truth to tell, I’ve missed you. Adore you still. Foolishly, I let greed stand
in the way of true love. Please forgive me and let me make things right between
us again. Let me take you away from this heathen wilderness. We’ll go back to
the city, to London, where you can shine again as you so rightly deserve.”

A year, even six months ago, she might have fallen for his
blandishments, believed his lies. With very little additional persuasion she
would likely have fallen into his arms. But no more. Now she could see him for
exactly what he was, a cad and a user.

She could see another truth as well. Despite his practiced,
winning ways, his power over her was done. She did not love him anymore. She
did not love him because she loved another.

“Toddy, I—”

“Steven tells me we’ve a visitor.”

Her gaze flew to the doorway where Darragh stood.

Zounds, how long had he been there?
More to the point,
how much had he heard? Enough, she surmised, to put a vicious gleam in his
usually genial eyes.

She winced imperceptibly as Darragh’s gaze lowered to her hands,
hands still held inside Toddy’s grasp. Loosening them quickly, she took a hasty
step back, hating the fact that her withdrawal must make her appear guilty,
when she had nothing about which to feel guilty.

Darragh stalked into the room, moved to stand beside her.
“Introduce us, then, love, if you’d be so good.”

Masculine possessiveness and animosity arced through the room like
chain lightning, the two men inspecting each other the way wolves from rival
packs size each other up before a fight. She almost expected them to snarl.

“Allow me to present Mr. Theodore Markham. Mr. Markham, my
husband, the Earl of Mulholland. Mr. Markham is an acquaintance of mine from
London, Darragh.”

The men nodded, but did not shake hands as amiable politeness
demanded. Then again, there was nothing amiable between them.

“Acquaintance, you say?” Darragh asked.

“Yes, old friends, actually.” Toddy flashed her a warm smile.
“Much too old for tedious formalities. What’s this
Markham
business,
my dear? I was
Toddy
only a moment ago.”

“Well then,
Toddy,
what is it brings you to Ireland?”
Darragh said, his tone like steel covered in silk. “And why travel all the way
to the West at such an unlikely time of year? Englishmen don’t usually have the
stamina to withstand our bluff, raw winters.”

“Oh, I have plenty of stamina,” Toddy drawled. “Haven’t I,
Jeannette?”

Darragh’s entire frame tensed beside her, barely veiled fury
streaming off him in an invisible wave. She shot Toddy a look of reproof,
unable to believe he would make such an indelicate and overt innuendo.

Deuced take him, what was he about? Was he deliberately trying to
make Darragh believe there was still a relationship between them? Was he trying
to provoke Darragh into issuing a challenge?

As insane as it might be, another glance convinced her such a
result could indeed be his plan. Toddy might dress the part of a
clothes-conscious fop, but he was lethal with a sword and equally deadly with a
pistol. As for a bout of fisticuffs, she couldn’t easily pick a winner, since
she felt sure Darragh could scrap with the best of them. Suffice it to say, she
had no interest in finding out.

Determined to stem any potential bloodshed, she stepped between
the two men. “Mr. Markham, you must be weary after your long journey. Why don’t
I call one of the servants to escort you to your bedchamber, then I’ll send up
tea. You can rest for a few hours before dinner. We keep country hours here and
dine at six.” She crossed the room, pulled the bell.

“I remember when you and I dined at ten, sometimes later for a
midnight supper dance.”

“Yes, well, we are no longer in London.”

“More is the pity.”

A housemaid arrived.

“Please show Mr. Markham to the red bedroom. He will be staying
with us for the night.”

“He can go to a bloody inn,” Darragh growled.

She glanced at Darragh, keeping her voice deliberately gentle.
“There are no inns, as you well know.” She turned back to the servant. “Nora,
show Mr. Markham to his room, please.”

Wide-eyed, the girl stared between the three of them, as if they
were a prime carnival act. Recovering, she curtseyed. “Aye, my lady. Sir, if you’ll
follow along with me.”

Amber eyes gleaming, Toddy came forward, took Jeannette’s hand.
“Until dinner, my dear.” Bending, he once again pressed a warm, far too
familiar kiss upon the top. She pulled her hand away before he could give
Darragh even more reason to complain.

Toddy straightened, angled his chin toward Darragh. “Mulholland.”

Darragh showed his teeth. “Markham.”

The instant the other man exited the room, Darragh swung around to
confront her. “He isn’t staying.”

“Of course he’s staying. You said yourself it’s winter. We can’t
very well turn him out to freeze in the cold.”

“He can sleep in his coach. With that fine, inflated ego of his,
he’ll stay more than toasty.”

“And what of his servants and his animals? Would you condemn them
to a night exposed to the elements?”

He glared. “Considering the man, it might be worth it.” He set his
fisted hands onto his hips. “Fine, let him stay, but only for the night. In the
morning, out he goes.”

“We shall see,” she said, irritated by Darragh’s overbearing command.

He froze, set narrowed eyes upon her. “There’s no
seeing
about it. He’s going, at first light if I’ve my way.” A pronounced silence
fell. “He’s the one, isn’t he?”

Her heart took a leap. Devil take Toddy for running his mouth, and
quite deliberately too. “The one what?” she repeated, deciding to pretend
ignorance.

“
The one.
The blackguard who took your innocence, then
left you to deal with the aftereffects. You told me it was over.”

“It is over.”

“Then why is he here? Why would that blighted knave travel across
two countries and a sea, if not for good reason?”

“I have no idea.”

“Do you not?” His eyes narrowed. “Or do you simply not wish to
say?”

Stricken, she countered his cold look with one of her own. “I have
nothing to say, if you are indeed implying what I believe you are implying.
Retract your statement, my lord.”

“I’ll retract nothing until I’ve a satisfactory answer. Did you,
or did you not, write and ask him to come here?”

His accusation drove into her heart like a dagger. After
everything, he would now accuse her of deceiving him, cuckolding him? Before
she knew what she intended, her hand flashed up and she slapped him across the
face.

The scarlet imprint of her palm mottled his cheek. His gaze afire,
he covered the burning stain with his hand, rubbing the spot. “I’ll not have
him in the house above the night, and if I catch him anywhere near your room,
he’ll be dead. You tell that to your lover.”

He spun and stormed out of the room.

Shaking, she went to the sofa and collapsed upon it. Her lips
quivered and she pressed her fist against them, fighting to stem the tide of
her misery.

Dinner was a tense and unpleasant affair.

Toddy spent his time flirting with her and regaling her with the
latest on-dits from London, remarking on who did what and had she heard about
so and so? and do you remember when?

After five minutes she wanted to strangle him. She toyed a time or
two with the idea of jabbing the tines of her dinner fork into his hand to
watch him yelp and make him shut up. But other than resort to violence or an
outright scene, there was little she could do to stem what she knew to be his
deliberately provocative behavior.

And all the while the others looked on.

Darragh’s siblings were arranged silent and watchful as spectators
at a very taut tennis match. She and Toddy presided at one end of the table,
while Darragh sat at the other, brooding darkly into glass after glass of
bloodred Bordeaux.

Darragh wasn’t given to heavy drinking, as a general rule, and to
her recollection this was the first time she had ever seen him get slowly and
thoroughly inebriated. Dangerously foxed in a way that had even Michael minding
his tongue by the conclusion of the meal. Luckily, this being a casual family
dinner, there was no need for the ladies to leave the gentlemen to their
after-dinner port and cigars. Instead, Darragh stalked off to his study while
the girls made their way upstairs.

The prudent action would be to retire as well, she mused, but the
evening was young and she refused to scurry away like some timid mouse,
cowering beneath Darragh’s displeasure. He wasn’t the only one displeased
tonight, her emotions abraded by his obvious lack of faith in her.

She had not sent for Toddy, and there was nothing between her and
her old lover anymore. She had told Darragh that, but if he chose to believe
otherwise, then so be it.

Into the drawing room she went, letting Toddy lounge beside her
and talk, his conversation reminding her with each word of her old life and
everything she had left behind. The memories he awakened stirred wistful
longings inside her, longings for all the parties and entertainments, friends
and relations with whom she could even now be mixing and mingling.

She had been rusticating in Ireland far too long, she told
herself. Just because her life here at the castle hadn’t been nearly as grim as
she would once have imagined, that did not mean she wished to become
permanently immured in the countryside.

She had a right to fun and frivolity. A right to participate in
the social whirl and rejoin Society should she wish, especially considering she
was now a countess. A few of the loftier members of the Haut Ton might sneer
down their noses at her Irish title, but they wouldn’t have the gall to cut her
outright, as she once had worried they might. With careful planning and
positioning, she could still conceivably rise among London’s social hostesses.
After all, is that not what she had always wanted? Is that not what she had
always planned?

If her relationship with Darragh were better, perhaps those things
would not matter so much. Then again, if their marriage were better, she argued
to herself, wouldn’t he want those things for her? Wouldn’t he want only to see
her happy?

He spoke of love—hers for him. But not the reverse. His seemed a
one-sided kind of affection, expecting obedience and devotion from her without
any expectation of a similar commitment from him. Was it pride holding him back
or did he simply not love her beyond the obvious physical pleasure he derived
from her body? And if he did love her, why could he not admit it and apologize,
beg her pardon and promise never, ever to lie to her again?

But he had not.

As she and Toddy continued to converse, her brothers-in-law sat
over the chessboard, each of them pausing every now and again to shoot her
separate, disapproving glances. Finally she decided she had had enough—of them,
and of Toddy too—and rose to her feet, excusing herself for the evening.

Toddy followed her into the hallway, reaching out to stop her with
a light touch. “Consider my offer, my dear. England is little more than a week
away. You have only to say the word and I shall be your grateful escort, the
instrument of your triumphant return to Society’s bosom. I can see you are
unhappy, and despite your Irish philistine of a husband, I shall not leave
until you have bade me do so.” He bowed, kissed her hand. “Think on it,
ma
petite.
You deserve better than to molder away in obscurity, locked inside
some forlorn old pile of Celtic rock.”

Frowning, more troubled than she wished to admit, she murmured a
brusque good night and continued on to her bedchamber.

Hours later, lying in the murky umbra of full night, she roused
from a shallow sleep to find a man standing beside the bed, cloaked in heavy
shadows. Her heart skipped before settling into a more natural rhythm when she
recognized his size and stance.

Darragh.

She waited, expecting him to come to her bed, unsure how she would
respond, given his earlier state of intoxication and temper. Instead, he did
nothing, just stood with a single fist wrapped around the bedpost, gazing down
upon her. She said nothing, making no movement, as if she slumbered still.

Long minutes passed before he flung himself away, striding out as
soundlessly as he had come, his catlike footsteps silent as he disappeared down
the steps of the connecting passageway.