Enchanting Pleasures (32 page)

He bent his head and kissed her, a brief, sensual promise. “What is the point of having an adjoining door if one cannot watch one’s wife dressing—or undressing?”

Gabby jumped backward so quickly that she knocked his hand off her arm. “It matters nothing if that door is shut,” she said firmly. Gabby had given a great deal of thought to the future during the days she waited for Quill’s migraine to recede. Only a bedlamite would consider engaging in behavior that caused her husband pain. And if he thought she was going to be party to instigating another such attack as racked his body for three days, he would have to think again.

But there was no point in arguing in the open hallway. Gabby mustered her dignity and moved toward the viscountess’s chambers. Her husband dogged her heels. She entered, and he closed the door behind them.

Gabby sighed. “Don’t you think it would be better to have this discussion after we have washed and eaten a meal?” She drifted across the room, pretending to inspect the gilt chairs positioned before the fireplace.

“I believe that we should discuss it now,” Quill replied.

She turned around, her fingers trailing over the polished surface of a rosewood writing desk. “Obviously we cannot indulge in the kind of behavior that caused your migraine.”

“I see nothing obvious about it.” Quill’s voice sounded tight, almost angry.

“I should think it is unquestionable. Something about …” She paused and chose her words carefully. “Something about connubial relations gives you a migraine headache. Therefore, we shall not repeat the experience until a cure is found.”

“For God’s sake,” Quill shot back. “Do you think that I didn’t attempt to find a cure?”

“We shall have to try harder,” she replied stubbornly. “I know you, Quill. You could hardly bring yourself to speak to me about it. There are likely hundreds of doctors both here and abroad with a cure for your malady.”

Quill crossed his arms and leaned against the mantelpiece. “The leading expert on migraine headaches is an Austrian named Heberden. I had him brought over to England to consult with my doctors. Heberden remarked that bleeding was detrimental.”

He smiled grimly. “I already knew that, having had leeches attached to every part of my head in the previous year. Heberden’s prime remedy is a concoction of Peruvian bark; that, too, was inefficacious. I might add, Gabby, that Heberden seemed somewhat startled by the number of cures I had already undertaken, which included taking valerian, myrrh, musk, camphor, opium, hemlock—even sneezing powders. And there was the fraudulent doctor in Bath who covered me with fomentations made of hemlock and balsam. I smelled like a pine forest for days.”

Gabby bit her lip. “Did Dr. Heberden have any ideas other than the bark?”

“He advised me to put blisters behind my ears during an attack,” Quill said with a sarcastic twist of his lips. “You can judge the efficacy of that remedy from the lack of blisters around my person. He then tried to push opium on me, but I have a persistent dislike of the idea that addiction is an appropriate substitute for sexual activity. After that, I decided that I had better live with the malady as it is. In fact, the last medicine I took was a miracle drug my mother bought from a quack located in the Blackfriars. Doctors informed me two weeks later, after I recovered from a prolonged attack of delirium, that the drug almost killed me. It did not, however, cure my migraines.”

Gabby thought of mentioning her letter to Sudhakar, but dismissed it. Quill had a fiercesomely stubborn look to him.

“I have vowed not to take any further medicines, Gabby.” He cleared his throat. “I realize that my weakness impinges on your happiness. I probably shouldn’t have married you.”

“Well, that’s just it,” she said.

Quill’s heart sank to his knees. He could feel the sarcastic smile on his face turn to stone. She was right, of course. She had every reason to scream at him, to leave him, to divorce him. All justifications were flimsy before her well-earned reproach.

“You
did
marry me,” Gabby pointed out. “And now the problem is ours, not yours.”

“I fail to follow your reasoning,” Quill said with deadly courtesy. “I shall be quite happy not to bother you with invalidish behavior. I assure you that I will not require nor request your presence during these episodes.” His heart was beating so slowly and heavily that he felt rooted to the ground.

Gabby scowled at him. “I said nothing concerning your behavior during migraines. I merely said the problem is now ours rather than yours alone. What I meant is that we should approach the question of remedies together.”

“No one—and certainly not a wife—is going to dictate my decisions,” Quill said between clenched teeth. “I refuse to take any more half-baked remedies. The situation stands, and you will have to live with it.”

Gabby felt a slow burn up her neck, but she grappled with her temper. “Your attitude is not a gracious one. Surely you can see that this is a decision to be made between us?”

“No, it is not.” Quill spaced his words with brutal precision. “When I first had my accident, my mother dictated everything in my sickroom. Had I continued to listen to her, I would be malingering in that bed to this day. She almost killed me with spurious cures, and then she fought tooth and nail against Trankelstein’s ideas—and it was Trankelstein’s massage and exercises that got me out of bed.”

Gabby pressed her lips together. “I fail to see what your mother’s error in judgment has to do with our current situation.”

“I—and I alone—will make all decisions to do with medicine, Gabby. I have no wish to half kill myself by taking a cure given to me by a deranged doctor whom you have heard about over tea.” He folded his arms across his chest, ignoring her frown. “My decision is final.”

“Well,” Gabby said after a moment of silence, “in that case, I must inform you that all decisions pertaining to my body are also my own.”

“Naturally.” Quill nodded.

“Good. Then you will not mind if I have this door”—Gabby pointed to the door leading to the viscount’s bedchamber—“sealed. We have no further use for it.”

“What are you attempting to say?”

“I attempt nothing.” She shrugged. “I merely point out to you,
husband”
—she gave it a delicate emphasis—“that my body is no longer at your disposal. Thus you will suffer no more migraines and will have no need for deranged cures.” She turned about briskly and began pulling pins from her coronet.

“And if I visit a concubine?” Quill’s voice was dangerously steely and came from somewhere behind her left shoulder.

Gabby didn’t look. “That is your choice, as it always will be. I may sympathize with the migraine you incur, but at least I won’t be responsible for it.”

“And as for yourself?” His voice was a sneer. “How will you achieve satisfaction, Gabby? Are you planning to make me a cuckold?”

She bit her lip hard. Her throat was closing with tears. But she had to do this right, or Quill would incur that pain again—and it would be her fault.

“Oh, no,” she said, managing an airy tone. She shook out her hair and began brushing it. “While I enjoyed our night together”—she paused just enough to lend doubt to that statement—“I see no particular reason to engage in that kind of behavior again. It was pleasant, but not…necessary.” Some part of her was amazed at how difficult it was to tell Quill this particular lie. It felt as if she were stamping on her own heart to say so.

She turned around and met his eyes. She had always found that her father was more likely to swallow a fib when she looked straight into his eyes. “It was rather messy, wasn’t it, Quill?” She gave a delicate shudder. “I’m afraid I greatly disliked the fact that my sheets were untidily marked. Not to mention that I did not like being naked in the open room, nor that you looked at me so freely.”

“For God’s sake, Gabby! You bled because it was your first time. It will not happen again.”

“Hmmm,” she replied. “My point is only that I will not make you a cuckold, Quill. I am not interested, and I would never resort to other men. You are my husband, but why on earth would I allow a stranger to use my body?” Well, that was true enough, Gabby thought. She had no interest in other men. She only wanted Quill.

Quill’s teeth hurt from clenching his jaw. He knew that ladies disliked sexual congress, of course. And he’d seen for himself how much Gabby feared being naked. He must have misunderstood. He thought she had put that dislike aside in the pleasure of the moment. He must have been blinded by lust.

He turned to leave, but paused with his hand on the doorknob. “And if I try various cures, will you allow me to use your body?” He hated himself for asking, loathed himself for exposing his vulnerability. He didn’t turn around so that he wouldn’t see pity in her eyes.

Gabby couldn’t answer. The windowpane blurred before her eyes.

He waited and then repeated himself. “So, Gabby, do I get one bout of marital intercourse for every draught of Peruvian bark I drink? Or do I have to resort to the leeches in order to get access to my wife’s bed?”

Somehow she wrenched her voice out. “Do we have to—”

“Well, yes, we do,” Quill replied. His voice was frigid. “In order to try a cure, Gabby my wife, I must incur a migraine. So I gather we’ll wait until a quack presents a concoction of stewed insects, and then I shall beg you for permission to engage in a bout of marital activity.”

A sob tore its way up her throat. She pressed her hands hard over her eyes. “I”—she gasped—“I don’t want to
do
that again, Quill! Can’t you understand?”

“Quite,” her husband said. His voice was even and, oh, so icy. “I will not intrude on your chambers again, madam. You may instruct the servants to do as you wish regarding the door leading to my room. Nail it shut, by all means.”

He bowed, but Gabby didn’t turn around. Tears were spilling hotly over the hands pressed to her eyes.

She heard the door open and then close. Sobs ripped from her throat. Oh, God, what a liar she had become! She had told him that—and he believed her. He believed she was indifferent.

It was so far from the truth. Every finger longed to touch him. At night, lying between cool linen sheets, she thought of nothing but the heavy pleasure of his body, of the way he pounded into her, of the hoarse moan that broke from his lips. And even…she even remembered how he spread her legs and touched her until she writhed before him, naked as the day she was born. Shamelessly raising her hips to his hand.

That was how absorbed by wicked desire she was, how far she was in sin. How far she was from indifferent.

When the bathwater arrived, Gabby told Margaret that she had a headache and would not join her husband for dinner. Then she lay curled in misery while the bathwater steamed and finally cooled. Only when it was stone-cold did she lower herself into it.
Punishment
, she thought dimly. For lying and for desiring—which was worse? But she knew the answer. Quill was right about desire. There could be nothing wrong about the way their bodies met and loved each other, in daylight or at night. But there was everything wrong about telling him that she disliked the act.

And so she sat in chill water and watched her nipples turn a dark cherry red, as they had for her husband. As they did when she thought of him.

And she sobbed. Because she loved him and she wanted him. And the two could not go together. Because she loved him, loved the way he laughed with his eyes but not out loud, the way he looked at her silently, the way he touched her, as if she were beautiful and worth cherishing.

She loved him more than she loved herself, and thus they could not make love.

The cold bath worked. Other memories replaced the heated memory of lovemaking. During his migraine, Quill’s skin became deathly pale, as if the honey had leached from his skin. His face looked ashen, haggard, and his eyes were sunken. And the vomiting…No.

She was right to lie. It was horrible to deceive Quill, but it was for his own good. Instinctively she knew that he would rise from a migraine attack and come back to her bed. He would suffer that pain over and over again.

Because he loves me, Gabby said to herself. He had not said so, not since asking her to marry him, but Quill was shy with words. Since he loves me, he would always make love to me. He would not wish me to be deprived of pleasure, no matter the toll it took on his own health. But now…he would not think to make love to her. He wouldn’t even wish to do so, coldhearted jade that she seemed.

And that was the most important thing.