Captive Scoundrel (21 page)

She lay her cheek against his knees, to steady her trembling and seek wisdom from a higher source. After several clock-ticking minutes, wherein he did not touch her, no matter how she prayed he would, she looked into his eyes and stood. “We are speaking of the rest of our lives, Justin. Did you not listen to the Vicar? “In sickness and in health, until death us to part.””

“I believe we have mastered the sickness and health part.” His levity rang hollow.

“Until death,” she snapped. “A long, lonely business arrangement, and no bloody bargain!”

He sighed. “What do you ask of me, precisely?”

“That you try to understand how I feel.”

“I am trying. How can I prove it?”

“Make no demands on me tonight. I need something solid between us, before we become … intimate again.”

“The vicar said you should obey me.”

“Do you order me to allow you the use of my body then?”

“Damnation, Faith, that’s not what I meant. Fear not, I have no desire to take someone who does not want me.”

She started to speak. He stopped her with a finger to her lips. At least he was touching her. She closed her eyes to cherish the sensation.

“I did not mean that the way it sounded. I am trying to understand. What I ask is this; sleep by my side, let me hold you in my arms. Only that, until you are ready for more. I too want to make this marriage work.” He stood.

Shocked, grateful, certain when he was rested he would want more, Faith put an arm around his waist. “Let’s go to bed.”

A child’s giggle penetrated Faith’s consciousness. She woke to see Beth perched atop the blankets straddling her father’s chest. Nose to nose, she stared into his eyes.

Justin’s chuckle and Beth’s laugh were like music.

Faith sat against her pillows. “I forgot to tell you; since I’ve been sleeping in here again, Beth occasionally joins me before Sally comes for her.”

Justin placed a kiss on his daughter’s nose. “Morning, Muffin.” He looked at Faith, “An unusual way for a man to wake the morning after his wedding. But then the wedding night was out of the ordinary, also.

“I … I’m sorry about the ice.”

He grimaced. “Probably the only thing that could accomplish what it did.” He smoothed Beth’s bronze curls. “Faith, you mean more to me than I can express.” He took a shuddering breath. “Frankly I find even that admission frightening. You’ll never be sorry you married me. My word. But you ask a lot.”

“I begin to understand.” It was all she could do not to beg him to make love to her. But his candour made a good beginning and she did not want to take a step back. “Thank you for that.”

He smiled—more than his doubtful half-smile, but not one open and easy, either. “What time does Sally usually come for Beth?”

“Around seven.”

“Good, we have two hours together.” They tickled and played until Beth yawned. Justin tucked her against him, took Faith’s hand and brought it to his lips. “Shall we three escape and leave Vincent to his wealth, for mine will be with me.”

His words washed gently over her with a soothing touch. Faith placed her arm around him and their daughter. “Shh,” she whispered. “Beth’s asleep. Here, I’ll take her back to her own bed.”

When she returned, Justin had propped himself up in bed, and he watched her. “You’re the mother Beth needs.”

“Would you mind if I taught her to call me Mama?”

“People might wonder why she suddenly began.”

“My God, I’m getting careless. It’s too soon, you’re right.”

He squeezed her hand. “Harris should be back in a few weeks. Perhaps then we can make plans to deal with Vincent.”

“I’m afraid of what Vincent will do next, and his man has been asking questions, checking the food brought up—”

“You didn’t tell me that.”

“I didn’t want to worry you, but Hemsted, his man, is terribly interested in what’s happening with you.”

Justin sat up. “Sometimes I wish I could walk out of here, declare myself alive, and have my life back the way it was.”

“The way it was?”

Justin smiled. “No, not exactly.” He pulled her down beside him. “I would have you by my side with no fear for the future. But we have to find a way to ensnare Vincent.”

“By proving his guilt.”

“If ever we can. I wonder how Harris’s search is going.”

“I received a letter from him yesterday while the Vicar was with you, before I began to dress for the ceremony. He has found nothing. He will spend Christmas in Horsham with his sister and return to London after. One of his contacts is following leads and he hopes answers will be waiting when he returns. He bids us be patient.” She sighed. “It could take months.”

He stood. “Months with the two of us shut up alone together.” He slid his hands around her waist. “I want you for Christmas.”

She touched his face. “Christmas, at the earliest.”

Beside Justin, Faith tossed in her sleep. Celibacy was difficult for them both. Thank God his exercises used up so much energy. He had slept by her side since their wedding, a gruelling test of respect and understanding. Perhaps even trust, for he trusted when her enigmatic needs were satisfied she would be a passionate wife. But how to satisfy those needs?

A challenge. Trust, understanding, respect. He did respect her. But trust? He didn’t think there was much he wouldn’t entrust to her. And perhaps he was coming to understand her frustration with this arrangement of a marriage … somewhat.

He worried with a family like hers—affectionate, close—she might expect more than he could give. But more than ever, he believed it was time to try. Because the prize was greater than any ever offered, and if he lost … it didn’t bear thinking about.

He could tell by her breathing that she slept. Good. He slipped from bed. With stealth, he went to his room and donned his father’s clothes. To fetch Faith’s gift for Christmas, in two days time, he must walk—God grant him the strength—to the opposite wing of the house and his parents’ apartments.

As he approached the stair at the centre of the house, he remembered when he and Vincent slid down opposite rails, their mother frowning at the bottom. She explained later that she couldn’t catch them both, so she had chosen to catch Justin.

He could still hear Vincent’s scream as he landed and broke his arm. He was three years old, the younger by four years. Truth to tell, Justin had been surprised that the reigning queen of society had elected to catch either of her sons. But she’d shipped them off to old Fishface soon after, for an education said she, though it was more of a hell-raising, and they did occasionally come home for holidays…at her whim.

Eventually, Justin entered the queen’s jasmine-scented sanctum and was transported to the event that led to this midnight excursion.

“Maman, you sent for me?” ‘Twas so odd to be summoned to this room, Justin expected to be expelled, but he saw her smile in her mirror, her dressing-table a forest of glass bottles and enamel jars. Then to his shock, the lady with the rouge-pot lips stood and kissed him, clasping him to her breast.

She stood him away and examined him. “Ah, my son, you are soon a man and do not appreciate a selfish, clinging mother.”

He was not a man yet. And she had never been a clinging mother. Selfish, yes; even then he knew that. For years, he’d hidden his yearning for this mother he hardly knew. Now he allowed himself to be held for a moment, pretending it was one of those dark nights he’d called for her, when she never came, because she wasn’t there.

But he was not a halfling anymore, so he pulled away.

Tears silvered her cobalt eyes. “There is something I must say.” She placed the palms of her hands against his face. “Never let it change you, my son. You will feel the same for me, and your brother, and your father. Do you promise this?”

He answered as she wished. “I promise.”

“You, Justin, are your Papa’s only son.”

He was glad she no longer touched him as he tried to absorb her words, but they made no sense. He looked at her, really looked, her smile as false as her beauty. A mask. “Vincent—”

“Is my child by another man. Your father was not faithful, so neither was I. You remember your cousin who lived with us?”

“Justin Reddington. He was sent to America.”

“He was your father’s bastard. Your father named him Justin to spite me and brought him here to throw him in my face.”

Justin reeled. “Why was he sent away?”

“Because, if he was not, I told your father I would present him with more bastards. A wife pays for her sins as well as her husband’s. Someday, you will understand. Eh bien. Now you know. And you still love your maman?”

“Yes,” he’d said, because she wanted him to, but something in him broke. A child had paid for his parents’ mistakes. Children. For he and Vincent were not immune to the damage.

Sweating, hand trembling, Justin pulled himself from that horrible time in his life and concentrated on his purpose here. Sixteen was young to become world-wise, but it happened to him that night. Sometimes he hated his mother for that, even now.

He’d hated his parents for betraying each other and their sons, all three of them. Mostly, he hated them for casting Justin Reddington, an innocent child, adrift in a harsh world.

Justin Devereux’s ability to trust had died in this room. He’d known it even then, and he couldn’t change any of it.

Lady Madeleine Beaumont Devereux’s pedestal had toppled.

Justin remembered her taking his hand—as if she had not just rocked the ground beneath his feet—and she led him to her fireplace. “Here, my love, is a secret and a gift.” She felt beneath the mantle and pushed at the eye of a bronze gargoyle.

The fireplace swung away from the wall. Behind the structure hid a landing and a stairwell. She led him inside, located a knob, turned it, and took a pouch from a drawer. “Here is my gift. My mama’s and her mama’s emerald ring.” She replaced the pouch and patted the drawer when it was shut. “It waits for your bride, Justin. Choose her wisely.”

At this moment, the sea-wind battering the windows, Justin’s heart was cold and heavy. He looked around the moon-lit room, dead now like the beautiful Madeleine. She’d kissed him for the last time here, beside her fireplace. She had never kissed him, that he could remember, but she had twice that day.

She died in her sleep two days later. A canker of the stomach. She’d known she was dying and the ring was her parting gift. As were her words. She loved him.

He’d forgotten the ring, until he began to drive himself insane looking for a Christmas gift for Faith. His children—assuming they would ever create any—would never know the need for affection he’d experienced. He saw daily how much she loved and showered that love on Beth.

How surprised Faith would be when he gave her the ring. “Thank you Maman,” Justin whispered, understanding her better, perhaps, if not precisely forgiving her. He understood human imperfection so much better now.

It took a while to locate the correct gargoyle. “Ah,” he whispered, pressing the creature’s eye. Icy air galloped into the room as the fireplace opened on a groan. Inside, he located the knob he must turn to open the casket, but it did not budge.

He fetched the poker from the fireplace and rapped, recoiling at the echo in the stairwell. A dog barked somewhere in the house. The knob turned. And in the drawer, he found his mother’s emerald ring. He slipped it into his pocket.

The dog’s bark growing louder gave testimony to its approach. Justin pulled the hearth panel, closing himself inside. In the pitch-black passage behind his mother’s fireplace, he waited.

An echoing flutter grew fast and clamorous. A bat—no two —dipped by his ear. “Terrific.” That damned barking cur stood beside the fireplace, now. Too close.

Voices called to the beast. A man and a woman.

Justin glanced at the stairs. It would be the devil to re-enter the house if he took them. It was freezing out and he didn’t know if he could manage the stairs. His legs shook from walking.