Untouched (36 page)

“I’ll wait in the coach,” the earl said.

“Father!” she called helplessly. How could he abandon her when she needed him most? For once, she wanted him to play

the despot, order her off this estate with its memories of death and pain and captivity.

And love. Always love.

“Come when you’re ready.” Her father shuffled toward the line of carriages where armed men waited with the shackled

and cowed Filey.

“There’s no point to this,” Grace said in despair.

“Well, there’s something we don’t agree on,” Matthew said grimly. He ignored her resistance and dragged her around the

side of the cottage until they had privacy. They were directly outside the garden room. Lamps within shed enough light for

her to see his impatience. Not that she needed to see it. It was vividly apparent in his voice and in the hold he kept on her

arm.

“What the hell is this about?” he snapped.

She wrenched away with a shaky jerk. “You haven’t got time. You’ve got to go with Kermonde. The king commands

your presence.”

“Damn the king. He’s waited eleven years for the pleasure of my company. He’ll wait another half hour. Why are you

running away?”

“My father…”

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“Will wait too.” The awful night became even worse as he encircled her with his arms and hurt confusion softened his

tone. “Grace, aren’t you happy to see me?”

“Of course I am,” she admitted before she could stop herself. For one blissful second, she leaned her head on his chest.

Under the stained linen of his shirt, she heard the race of his heart. How she’d craved his touch. His rich scent filled her

head with poignant memories.

No. She couldn’t afford to weaken.

“Let me go, Matthew.” She tried to sound firm, resolute, determined, but her words emerged as a choked whisper.

“It’s been an eternity. I want to hold you. Grace, let me hold you.” His voice was velvety with yearning. Every hair on her

body prickled as that seductive tone brushed across her skin, lured her to surrender.

“I…can’t,” she said through dry lips. This was like having her skin scraped off. She couldn’t take much more. With a

muffled sob, she struggled out of his arms.

At first, she thought he wouldn’t let her go, then he lifted his hands with an ironic gesture. The eyes that had haunted her

for four endless months were opaque as polished golden glass. He studied her as if he read her every secret. He probably

did. In their short time together, he’d come to know her so well.

When he spoke, his voice was level. “Won’t you take off the mask? I’ve only had dreams to keep me company. I want to

see your face.”

“The servants,” she said huskily. If she took off the mask, he’d know how she cried.

“As you wish.” He smiled at her, the sweet, tender smile that was manna to her soul. His voice gentled and he took her

gloved hand in his. The warmth of his touch through the soft kidskin was a piercing reminder of all she sacrificed.

She should pull away but nothing could make her surrender this one last contact. “Kermonde is under royal decree to

bring you directly to Windsor.”

“Very well.” Matthew’s jaw took on a determined line. He’d worn the same expression when he told her she had to

escape. “It’s not how I wanted to do this. But then, I never thought my chance would come.”

“Chance?”

To her horror, he fell to his knees, still clinging to her hand. “Grace Paget, will you grant me the transcendent joy of

agreeing to become my wife?”

Everything she wanted. Everything principle insisted she couldn’t accept.

Oh, Matthew, Matthew, don’t do this!

With a savage movement, she tore herself away. She stopped a few feet from him. “I can’t marry you, Matthew,” she said

rawly, wringing her hands in wild distress. “It wouldn’t be fair.”

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He frowned as he absorbed her refusal. “Are you afraid of my madness?”

“No! No, never think that,” she said frantically. How could he imagine that was why she denied him? “You’re not mad.

You were sick. Now you’re cured.”

With a slight stagger, he rose to his feet. He was even thinner than he’d been when she first saw him. Knowing his uncle,

she guessed Matthew had been chained since she left. He needed rest and sustenance and a chance at happiness, not this

fraught encounter with a former lover.

Automatically she reached to help him but he drew apart with a trace of hauteur. “You told me you loved me. Was that a

lie?” Then the brief coolness evaporated and his voice cracked. “Have your feelings changed, Grace? Because as God is

my witness, mine haven’t. I love you. I will always love you.”

“Stop!For pity’s sake, stop!” she cried out, lifting one shaking hand in his direction to keep him away, although he hadn’t

touched her. She saw so clearly that they had no future together. Why couldn’t he see it?

He looked even more bewildered. Her chest constricted with guilty anguish. This should be the most joyous day of his

life and she ruined it. Her father was right. She shouldn’t have come here. It was cruel and self-indulgent.

“Do you love me, Grace?” he asked with the stark honesty that always reached right to her marrow.

She wrapped her arms around herself to stop her convulsive trembling. She’d known this time had to come, she’d known

from the first time she kissed him. But the reality was so much more painful than her painful imaginings.

“Grace?”

He wasn’t hiding behind pride. She owed him equal honesty. “Yes, I do love you.” Perhaps she was unwise to tell him but

she couldn’t lie.

“Then why?”

Kermonde rounded the corner of the house and stopped as he observed Grace and the marquess together. “Sheene, I can

delay no longer. His Majesty awaits.”

Matthew didn’t shift his gaze from her face as he replied. “A minute’s patience, sir.”

In other circumstances, Grace would have laughed at the well-bred surprise on Kermonde’s face. Dukes weren’t used to

people telling them to hold their peace.

“A minute then.” It was clear Kermonde meant sixty seconds precisely. At least he moved far enough off to give them an

illusion of solitude although not far enough to let them think he meant to wait much longer.

Matthew’s eyes were unwavering. “Tell me, Grace.”

She sucked in a shaky breath. She was right about this. She knew she was right about this. He was so intelligent, surely

she could make him understand too.

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“You haven’t seen anything of the world. You think you love me but…” She lowered her voice so the duke wouldn’t hear.

“I’m the first woman you’ve bedded. I’m almost the only woman you’ve seen in eleven years. Anyone would mistake the

significance of his feelings. You want to make promises. You’re a decent man. But when you resume your rightful

position, you’ll regret any commitment. You’ll regret it even more when you fall in love with the woman fit to stand at

your side.”

He was genuinely angry now. “Unlike the Earl of Wyndhurst’s daughter.”

She flinched at his sarcasm then lifted her chin and faced him down. “Unlike the poor widow Grace Paget who was your

mistress.”

He drew himself up and spoke in a low growl. “So you think I’m too stupid to know what I feel and too weak to keep any

vows.”

“No, never that. But what we shared was part of your captivity. It’s time to start life as a free man. I can have no role in

that life.”

“You are that life,” he said with a snap.

“Lord Sheene,” Kermonde called. “I insist we leave.”

“Are you coming?” Matthew extended his arm as he’d extended it so often when she’d shared his imprisonment.

She shook her head. “I promised my father there would be no scandal. For his sake, no hint must emerge that you and I

have been lovers. You go with Kermonde and I go home to Marlow Hall in Yorkshire.”

“Then I’ll come to you after I’ve met the king.”

“No. You have to stay in London and prove your sanity publicly. You have to take your place as Marquess of Sheene. You

must make it clear there’s no taint of madness.” Then the harshest words of all. And still harsher because they were true.

“It’s over, Matthew. There is nothing more between us. We part here and now.”

Still he refused to surrender. She’d been right to call him a fighter. “That’s not good enough.”

“Lord Sheene!” Kermonde’s tone was peremptory.

“I’m coming.” But he didn’t move. Instead, he reached out to take Grace’s hand again. She knew she should pull away

but she couldn’t. If he kissed her, she’d shatter into a thousand pieces. But he merely looked at her with his familiar grave

attention. He spoke very slowly. “If I prove my worthiness over a year, will you believe in my steadfastness?”

“A year?” She hadn’t expected to haggle. She wasn’t sure what she had expected. He’d never been likely to say yes and

go meekly away.

“Yes, a year,” he said curtly. “Will that convince you?”

“You’ve already given up so much of your life,” she stammered. “Don’t waste another year on a futile bargain.”

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“You’re the one setting conditions, Grace. I’ll marry you tomorrow and let the rest be damned. I have no doubts, as long

as you love me.”

Outwardly he was calm but she knew he hid a titanic storm of emotions. How could he not after tonight? His sudden

release. His uncle’s death. The shooting of Monks. Now this clash with her. He’d been through so much. Too much.

“Sheene!” Kermonde said sharply. Clearly ducal tolerance had reached an end.

Matthew didn’t even blink. “Grace?”

He had to go. Powerful men worked on his behalf. She couldn’t allow him to jeopardize that. She gave a jerky little nod.

“If you feel the same in a year, ask me again. Don’t consider yourself bound. I told you, Matthew—you’re free. Of your

uncle. Of your bondage. Of me. If you think of me with occasional gratitude, that’s all I ask.”

A pathetic lie. And one she could see he didn’t for a moment believe.

“A year then.” He spoke as if he closed a financial transaction.

“There can be no contact between us.” While she died slowly of loneliness and he discovered he wanted a world that

contained no trace of Grace Paget. The inevitability made her belly twist with anguish.

“Agreed.” His voice was clipped. “I won’t write or try to see you. You have twelve months to mourn Josiah and decide

what you want. You have your bargain. But never imagine for an instant that this is ended. You and I have unfinished

business, Grace.”

With focused ruthlessness, he lifted her hand and quickly stripped away the glove. She should protest. This moment

would just become a bitter memory to taunt her.

When he bent over her hand, his long hair fell forward to hide his face. He pressed his lips to her bare palm and she

couldn’t stifle a sigh of pleasure. Impossible not to remember nights when he’d kissed each inch of her. Every cell of her

skin remembered his possession. Every cell of her skin longed for him to take her again. But it could never be.

Tears blurred her last image of him as he lifted his head and stepped back with a formal bow. How she loved him. She

would never love another.

He turned away and at last strode across to Kermonde. He held himself straight and moved with an unhindered

confidence she’d never seen in him before. This was a man ready to embrace his challenges. Embrace and conquer.

Only when Kermonde’s carriage left in a clatter of hooves and wild cracks of the whip did she realize he’d taken her

glove with him.

Apool of afternoon sunlight warmed Grace on the cushioned window seat inside Marlow Hall’s Chinese summerhouse.

She stirred from her troubled doze. She’d dreamed. The dream that still visited with heartbreaking frequency although

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ABC Amber LIT Converter http://www.processtext.com/abclit.html

almost a year had passed since she’d seen Matthew. The dream where his long, powerful body drove into hers, where his

arms lashed her close, where his deep voice whispered love.

She whimpered. Her cheeks were sticky with tears. How she hated to wake to a cruel present and the desolation that ran

beneath her new life. The grief never faded. Slowly, reluctantly, she opened her eyes.

Matthew stood between the open red lacquer doors at the top of the summerhouse steps. Under one arm, he carried a slim

mahogany box.

She exhaled on a soft startled gasp. Graphic, carnal images from her dream flashed behind her eyes and sent heat rushing

to her face.

His intent, unblinking stare didn’t shift from her. How long had he watched?

His physical impact was astonishing. In their year apart, she’d forgotten quite how handsome he was. A slight breeze

ruffled his thick dark hair, now cut in a fashionable style. With a pang, she remembered his wild black locks drifting like

warm silk across her wrist while he’d kissed her hand in farewell. She couldn’t imagine this dauntingly elegant man

clutching her with such desperation. She couldn’t imagine him clutching her at all.

After months of thinking of him, dreaming of him, longing for him, now that he was here, he seemed a stranger.