Trust Me (27 page)

“Yes, all of that,”
he said. Such an odd pressure swelled within his chest. Not humour, as it
should have been given their silly talk. No, it was happiness.

Perhaps they were
being silly. It didn’t matter, there was no one else present to see or hear
them. No one else would ever know. The secret made the moment more precious
somehow.

He didn’t recognize
himself.

But it didn’t matter.

Nothing mattered but
the feelings of the moment. Hers and his own.

A rosy flush suffused
her face. She looked down and closed her eyes.

“And you thought that
maybe the feelings weren’t the same for me? That it wasn’t as intense for me?”
he asked. His voice sounded peculiar in his ears. Gentle. Not the calculated
gentleness he used when he wished to gain his way with a woman. It was a
natural, unforced tenderness. He was tender inside.

She didn’t look up or
open her eyes but she nodded.

He took her hand and
placed it on his chest, directly over his heart.

She smiled, wide
enough to show her fine white teeth.

“You remember?” he
asked.

Again she nodded, her
flush deepening, her smile somehow widening. God, the curve of those full,
deep-red lips—an urge to kiss her threatened to overtake him. But no, the
moment wasn’t meant for that. It would spoil things.

“It was that way from
the beginning,” he said. “You made my heart pound. And when I looked at you,
when I thought of you, I had such a feeling of elation. Of anticipation that
something monumental, the very best thing in my entire life, was about to
happen.”

Slowly, she opened
her eyes and lifted her gaze to his. Her mouth was open and she gaped at him,
incredulous.

“It scared the hell
out of me, Anne.” The memory of it, of himself trying alternatively to make a
conquest of her and to run from her, made him grin.

Her eyes sparkled
like a sapphire necklace under chandelier light at a ball. She laughed, the
sound girlish and free.

He knew that she
laughed because she assumed he was teasing her.

But he wasn’t.

He had been scared by
the way she’d made him feel. He’d faced Napoleon and the Americans and never
experienced fear like that.

He’d almost passed
her by because of it. And when he thought about that, it scared him all over
again.

But he let his grin
widen and he winked at her.

She tilted her head
back, showing the long, graceful arch of her throat. Warmth filled his chest,
his belly. A sense of release at being able to admit to her something he would
never admit to anyone else.

His fear.

His vulnerability.

He could be afraid, vulnerable,
just like any other mortal.

And though he’d
passed it off as teasing, that warmth, that sensation, filled his stomach. No,
maybe it was more a lack of sensation, a lack of weight. Lightness. The
feelings of his boyhood flashed in his mind. The years before his mother had
left. Carefree days spent running along the shore.

He laughed and the
sound rang like innocence. He leant towards Anne and put his mouth on the
delicate hollow of her collarbone. She tasted salty, like sea-spray on his
lips.

Soon they would be
done with Mayfair. Done with the senseless, mean scandal. He would take her
home to Blackmore Castle. She would show him how to see it all with the eyes of
his boyhood. They would walk with their children on the shoreline. He would
show them how to make kites and they would fly them there and in the meadow.

For the first time,
he no longer resented being bound to the estate.

****

“You must miss him.”

The smooth, deep
feminine voice echoed in Rebecca Howland’s ears. Longing knifed through her and
she had to close her eyes for a moment. When she opened them, Maria Waterbury
was still there, smiling slightly in that way of hers that made it look as
though she were contemplating something evil. At least, it had always seemed
that way to Rebecca.

“What do you want,
Lady Waterbury?”

“My goodness, such a
sharp tone.” Lady Waterbury put her hand to her collarbone and raised her
brows. An exaggerated expression of shock. Fake, like everything else about
her. “I was merely feeling concern for you. It has been so long since I last
saw you.”

“I wasn’t aware you
considered me a friend.”

“I would have never
denied him the comfort of your company. You realize that, don’t you?”

“Yes.” Rebecca hugged
her shoulders. Why wouldn’t the woman just come to the point and then leave?

“Please sit.” Lady
Waterbury laughed. “You are making me nervous, standing there, staring at me as
though I were some odious spider or something.”

Rebecca forced her
expression to relax and she slowly walked from the window to her wingchair.

Lady Waterbury
glanced about the sitting chamber. “He certainly has kept you in style. But I
imagine you’ll soon need to find more affordable accommodations or else find
some other protector. But then, you’re not exactly a fashionable impure, are you?
You’re not likely to find a protector with such deep pockets again, I would
think.”

“I suppose not.”
Rebecca forced her expression to remain impassive. “But no worries for me, Lord
Ruel has signed this house over to me.”

Lady Waterbury’s
brows shot up. This time there was no artifice in her expression. “Well, he
certainly cannot be accused of being stingy, can he?” She caressed her pearls.
“Still, you must have expenses.”

“I shall make do just
fine, Lady Waterbury. But thank you for your concern, all the same.”

Lady Waterbury calmly
stared at her and Rebecca resisted the urge to cross her arms over her chest
and hunch her body until she sank into the chair. No, she sat up straight and
returned her stare just as calmly. Many moments passed. What did the woman
want? Why wouldn’t she just come out with it?”

“Still, you must miss
him terribly.”

“I have made my peace
with the situation.”

Lady Waterbury’s
laugh sent shivers through Rebecca. And of course she laughed. Rebecca’s face probably
told all. She had not made her peace with it. She longed to feel his touch,
smell his scent, hear his voice. She longed for these things the same as she
would long for air if she were being held under water.

“I am soon to be married.”

“Yes, to Lady Waterbury.”

“No, it is someone else.”

His face—God, how
grave he had looked at that moment. She’d never forget it. She had smiled at
him.

“Well, it won’t affect us, will it?”

Lady Waterbury’s
delicate cough brought Rebecca back into the moment.

“Shall I call for
tea?”

Lady Maria shook her
head. “Aren’t you the least bit curious about her?”

“Who?”

“Oh, don’t play
stupid, it doesn’t suit you. Jon’s wife, of course.”

“She is nothing to do
with me.”

Lady Waterbury
laughed softy. “She’s absolutely beautiful.”

Pain sliced into
Rebecca’s chest. “Of course she would be, wouldn’t she?” Her words came out
stiff, halting. She winced, then stood and went to pull the bell for tea. It
would give her something to focus on for the remainder of this most unwelcome
visit. And she could use a cup of good strong India black.

“Very young.”

“Very young?”

Lady Waterbury
chuckled. “Well, very young compared to you and me. Though she is young in ways
other than years.”

“What do you mean?”

“She spent her
childhood isolated on an Irish farm, raised by servants.”

Rebecca found herself
interested despite herself. “But she is a duke’s daughter, is she not?”

“Yes, well, even
dukes may neglect their children, especially daughters. Especially when the
marriage goes sour. He married her mother solely for her wealth. And there were
no other children. Lady Ruel is a wealthy woman all on her own.”

“You say she seems
naive then?”

“Naive does not even
begin to describe it. She is a pedant, they say her nose always stuck in books
and she can speak of little else besides dry quotes from philosophers.”

“Goodness.” It was
all Rebecca could manage. This was not the picture of Jon’s wife she’d
imagined.

He had been so
guarded when he’d spoken of this new interest, this duke’s daughter he intended
to marry. And then, when he’d finally spoken her given name, the softness in
his tone had been so… Rebecca’s throat began to burn. Oh, let them hurry with
the tea.

“She sounds unlike
any woman I would ever have imagined Lord Ruel becoming infatuated with.”

“She is painfully
shy. Sensitive.”

A young woman like
that, caught between Jon’s cruel harshness and Maria’s catty meanness. Despite
herself, Rebecca’s heart contracted for this girl. This unknown girl who had stepped
in and so effortlessly taken the only man Rebecca had ever loved.

She’d heard enough.
“Lady Waterbury, surely you didn’t come here today to tell me this.”

“Actually, Mrs
Howland, I came here seeking the benefit of your expertise on a certain matter.”

“My expertise?”
Rebecca laughed uneasily. What could she possibly be considered an expert in
except how to make uniform trousers whiter, or how to cauterise and put a
tourniquet on a wound until a doctor could be located? She also had no small
skill at midwifery, but surely Maria didn’t need that either.

“Your husband
suffered a mental and emotional trauma from his experiences in the war, did he
not?”

Tension seized all of
Rebecca’s muscles. Just as it did whenever someone mentioned her late husband.
“Yes.” She spoke the word tightly.

“And you helped Jon
with some of the other men who had suffered a similar trauma.”

“I tried—we tried to
help them. Sometimes we were more successful than others.”

“That’s how he came
to know her.”

“What do you mean?”

“Didn’t he tell you?”

“Tell me what?”

“She was in a
carriage accident with her first husband. They say the experience unhinged her
mind.”

Rebecca looked down
and brushed imaginary lint from her skirt. “I am sure this is none of my
business.”

“A person like that remains
very fragile in their mind, don’t they?”

“They may. It depends. Not
everyone suffers a lasting trauma from a horrific event. Everything is in
degrees. It cannot be stated so specifically as you are trying to do.

But some people do
become deeply damaged by such events?”

“Yes, I suppose they
do.”

“A person like that
can be pushed further back into their madness.”

“I don’t like where
this conversation is headed.”

“You want him back,
don’t you?”

“I shall have to ask
you to leave, Lady Waterbury.”

“Madness in a wife,
the lack of suitableness to be a mother to an heir to an earldom. This is one
of the few reasons Parliament might issue a favourable ruling in a divorce.”

Rebecca stood. “Lady
Waterbury—”

Lady Waterbury stood
as well. She approached Rebecca in two steps. “If I were his wife, I would
never, ever deny him the comfort of a mistress.”

Rebecca gaped at
Maria. “But you’re not his wife. He has another wife now and we both must—”

“Don’t you miss him?”
Lady Waterbury brushed her gloved fingers caressingly upon Rebecca’s cheek.

Rebecca flinched
away. It wasn’t that she found another woman’s intimate touch distasteful.
Quite the contrary. “Once, Jon asked you to come to our bed—”

“He didn’t ask for me
to join you in
your
bed.” Maria Waterbury spoke with disdain. “He asked
me to allow you into ours.”

“Very well, he asked
you to allow me to join the two of you in your bed. And you said that I was
ugliest, most common wench of all his women and you wanted nothing to do with me
in that way.”

Lady Waterbury
twisted her mouth slightly as she stared at Rebecca for several moments with
those unsettling pale eyes. Then she smiled, an affected, rueful sort of smile.
“All right, Rebecca, I was jealous of your influence with him. You know, he
might have married you, if he had not inherited the earldom.”

Hearing this
speculation from another’s lips caused a sudden, burning pain to blossom in
Rebecca’s chest.

Bitch!
She wanted to spit the word at
the beautiful, vain, selfish woman.
I would
never
lay with you or
allow you to touch me.