Impulse (8 page)

“Indeed?” Cam said coolly. “An odd request, coming from you.”

Angela stiffened at the implied insult and whirled to stalk out of the room. Cam was up and after her in an instant. His hand lashed out and curled around her wrist, pulling her to a stop.

“Why?” he growled. “Just tell me that! Why did you sleep with those others, yet you would rather let your brother sink into ruin than sleep with me? Is it because of who I am? Because the blood in my veins isn't pure enough? Is my skin too dirty to touch yours?”

Angela started to deny his words hotly, but reason stopped her. Let him think what he would, as long as it gave him a disgust of her. Then he would no longer desire to marry her. She raised her chin a little and stared straight back into his face, forcing herself to hold her gaze steady.

“I am a Stanhope,” she told him proudly. “Perhaps when I was young I was foolish enough to think birth did not matter, but I know better now. Money will never make you a gentleman. I cannot lie with a man who is anything else.”

Ostentatiously Cam dropped her wrist and walked away. Angela braced herself, prepared for a loud and angry condemnation of her shallowness. She was surprised when, after a moment, he turned and said in a clipped voice, “Are those your terms? Not to sleep in my bed? If I agree to that, you are willing to marry me?”

Angela stared at him, flabbergasted. “What? You still want to marry me? Knowing how I feel about you?”

His face was as impassive as stone. “I told you, I expect no love match. 'Tis more a…a business arrangement on both sides. I did not ask to marry you in order to get between your sheets. If you think that I could live with a cold wife and not keep a warm and willing mistress stashed away for comfort, then you are very much mistaken.”

Angela's lip curled. “Of course. You
would
have to have a mistress.”

“What do you think? That I should live a celibate because you are too fine a lady to let a common man into your bed?”

“No. I think only that you should leave me in peace.”

“However, if I agreed to such terms, it would eliminate the possibility of heirs, now, wouldn't it? I had wanted to have children with the Stanhope blood, the Stanhope place in Society. I had wanted to see my children acknowledged by families such as yours.”

“You think that our children would have any place in Society?” Angela retorted sarcastically. “The offspring of a servant and a divorcée? There isn't a chance in hell. You would do better if you married a genteel maiden, even if her parentage were lower. Better yet, go back to the United States. It is where you belong.”

“No.” His voice was quiet. “I have found that I do not
belong anywhere.” He paused, then went on, “Again I ask, what if I agree to your terms? If I agreed that sharing a bed would not be part of our arrangement, would you marry me then?”

She gazed at him stormily, hating the roil of emotions inside her, hating his unflappable calm. Jeremy desperately needed her help, and she owed him for the way he had helped her during and after her divorce. She felt very guilty about refusing to do what was necessary to save him; it seemed horribly selfish. If Cam remained true to his word, perhaps it would not be so bad. Cam had never been mean or violent with her when they were young, and he seemed not to have enough emotions about her now to get enraged enough to hit her. If he kept to his promise not to make her sleep with him…

“I don't know,” she said honestly. “I would have no way of being sure that the terms would be fulfilled. 'Twould be easy to say that you would not take me, but after we were married, my body would be yours, not mine.”

Cam's eyes darkened at her words, and his mouth softened subtly. “A curious way to put it,” he murmured.

“A truthful way.”

“If I gave you my word, you must realize that I would not break it. Surely you know me well enough to know that.”

“I don't know you at all anymore.” Angela took a step back, glancing around her uncertainly. “I don't know what to do.” She turned and ran from the room.

 

Angela sat on the bench in the arbor, sketching a stand of irises that had just come into bloom. She had spent most of the past three days, ever since her confrontation with Cam, out on the moors, so that she could
avoid having to talk to him. Her plan had worked well so far, but she was getting tired of having to escape from her own home, and when she saw the purplish irises, she had given in to an urge to draw them.

Her usual companions were sprawled around her. The sun was pleasantly warm on her face, and she felt lazy and contented. It was almost the way it was normally, the way it had been before Cam and Mr. Pettigrew came.
The way it would be again, if only they would leave.
She let out a little groan at the fact that she had allowed him to intrude upon her thoughts.

She closed her eyes and turned sideways on the bench, leaning back against the arched trellis that formed the arbor, and tried to recapture the feeling of content she had had earlier. She told herself that everything would be better later—except that Jeremy was going to be ruined financially, as well as socially. Firmly she pushed that thought from her mind. But she could not make it stay away. Angela knew that she could not let Jeremy be destroyed on her account. It was entirely within her power to save him. She hated that fact. She hated Cam for having put her in such a position. She wondered what marriage to Cam might be like, whether he would keep his promise not to seek her bed.

Years ago, she would have trusted him with her life, she knew. He had been her god, her idol; she had loved him with a child's worshiping heart long before they fell in love as adults. Her father had died when she was young, and her mother had usually been sick, which had left her in the company of her grandparents, who were too old and not of the disposition, anyway, to enjoy talking to or playing with a child. She had been left primarily in the charge of her governess after she got old enough to leave Nurse's care, and that prim woman
had provided little affection or attention to a girl hungry for it. But Cam had had time for her. He had listened to her, talked to her, been her friend.

Hot tears welled in Angela's eyes, surprising her, and seeped out beneath her lids.

“Crying at the prospect of your wedding, my dear?” a familiar voice drawled, not three feet away from her. “Can't say that I blame you.”

Angela gasped, her eyes flying open, her entire body suddenly chilled to the marrow. Lord Dunstan was standing on the narrow dirt pathway that led to the arbor.

S
HE HAD NOT
seen him in four years. She had thought— hoped and prayed—never to see him again. It was such a shock to have him there in front of her, without warning, that for a moment she felt as if she could not breathe. She simply stared at him, unable to move or to speak, her insides turned to ice.

“Ah, I can tell that you are surprised to see me,” he continued coolly. He looked much the same. Dissipation had yet to mar his well-proportioned face. He looked cold and perfect, as if he had been carved out of marble, and his clothes were in the height of fashion and of the best material. Lord Dunstan allowed nothing but the finest around him.

Angela forced herself to stand up and face him. She could not let him see that she still feared him; nothing would please him more. “What are you doing here?”

She was pleased that her voice did not tremble. She clenched her fists at her side. Her entire body was rigid.
Would anyone hear her inside the house if she screamed?
The walls of Bridbury Castle had been built to withstand sieges. Beside her, Wellington lumbered to his feet, eyeing their visitor distrustfully.

“I came because I was concerned about you,” Dunstan told her, his voice mockingly sympathetic. “I could not believe the rumors I heard. I had to see for myself.”

“I can't see why. Nothing about me is any longer of your concern.”

“But you are my wife! Of course what you do is my concern.”

“Was,”
Angela pointed out firmly. “I
was
your wife.”

“Perhaps I am old-fashioned, but, though the legal bonds between us may be broken, I still feel that you belong to me.” His pale green eyes swept down her body knowingly. Angela shivered; it was as if a snake had slithered across her path. “You see, I am very familiar with every inch of you.”

“Go away, Dunstan. You have no right to be here.”

“I cannot leave until I learn what I came here for. I heard that your brother,
not
the most discriminating of men, as we both know—” again there was a knowing leer in his eyes, and Angela was certain that he, too, knew about Jeremy's sexual habits “—that Jeremy was entertaining your former stable boy in his home. Odd, I thought. It couldn't be true, but I heard it so frequently, I decided I must drop by and see if it was true.”

“Cameron Monroe is visiting here, if that is what you mean.” Angela tried for a haughty tone, but the icy amusement in Dunstan's eyes told her that he saw right through her pose.

“My dear girl, really, you can't mean you still have your predilection for low types. I would have thought you had lost that by now.” He sighed. “Ah, well, one would have hoped that Jeremy, at least, would have more thought to the Stanhope name.”

“What do you care about the Stanhope name? It is none of your business who is visiting us, anyway.”

“It is my business when my wife—all right, my
former
wife—is rumored to be marrying a servant.
How do you think that looks, for you to go from me to a stable lad?”

“I don't care how it looks! It has nothing to do with you!”

“Ah, but everything about you has to do with me,” he replied, reaching out and stroking his knuckles down her cheek. Angela flinched instinctively. “I see you still remember.”

“Of course I remember,” Angela replied in a choked voice. “How could I possibly forget?”

“Then you must remember how completely I owned you, my dear. I still do. Whatever other man might have you, you will always have my stamp upon you.”

Bile rose in Angela's throat, and she swallowed hard to keep from gagging. Dunstan, watching her, smiled.

“I wouldn't mind having you back,” he continued. “It takes so many years to school a woman as adequately as I had schooled you, you know. 'Tis such a chore, having to train others. And, I find, there are few who are quite as…titillating as you are.”

Angela could not hide the convulsive shiver that ran down her spine at his words. She felt pinned between Dunstan and the arbor bench behind her. She wanted to run around the bench and up the path to the house, but she hated to turn her back to him almost as much as she hated facing him. Besides, it galled her to let him know how much he scared her. That had always been one of the things from which he derived the most pleasure.

“You will never have me back.”

“Won't I?” Dunstan's mouth twisted in a smile. “I told you, it is all over London that Jeremy is on the threshold of debtor's prison. Everyone knows you are for sale to the highest bidder. Why else would Jeremy entertain the notion of allying your family to that of a
servant? I should think he would be grateful to me if I were to save him from denigrating the Stanhope name in such a fashion. I can pay off his debts, and I would think he would be suitably grateful to me. Don't you? Of course, marriage would be out of the question now. An Asquith could have a divorcée as no more than a mistress, say.”

Angela sucked in her breath and stiffened. A white- hot rage swept through her. Dunstan watched her with a faint smile on his lips, enjoying the reaction his words had caused in her.

“Angela?” Her brother's voice came across the yard.

Angela whirled. Jeremy was hurrying toward her along the path from the house, a worried frown on his face. Cam Monroe was beside him, looking wonderfully solid and safe. A feeling of power surged up in Angela. Suddenly she felt stronger and more confident. She glanced at Dunstan. There was something in his eyes that told her the thought of her marrying Cam Monroe galled him. It was pride, she decided, pride and possessiveness. He hated to think that another man—worst of all, someone of lowly birth—might own something that had been his, for that was the way Dunstan had thought of her, as one of his beautiful possessions.

“Ah, and this must be your swain,” Dunstan commented, his mouth curling into a sneer.

“Yes, it is,” Angela said loudly, turning toward the approaching men and holding out her hand. “Cam, I would like for you to meet Lord Dunstan.” She turned toward her former husband, lifting her chin in a gesture that was both defiant and triumphant. “Dunstan, this is my fiancé, Cameron Monroe.”

Jeremy stopped dead, his mouth dropping open.
Cam's eyes widened slightly, but he gave no other sign of his astonishment as he went to Angela and took the hand she offered.

“Good morning, my love.” He bent and gave Angela a peck on the cheek, then turned to the other man and bowed. “Lord Dunstan.”

Dunstan's nostrils flared, and a deadly light flickered in his eyes. Angela thought for a moment that he was going to refuse to return the acknowledgment. But polite behavior had been bred into Dunstan more deeply than morals, and, after a moment, he sketched a stiff bow. “Monroe.”

“I presume Lord Dunstan was about to leave,” Cam went on pleasantly, glancing from Angela's pale face to the man's. “Sorry that we did not get to talk, my lord. Why don't I walk you out? That way we can chat a little.”

“Perfectly all right,” Dunstan said smoothly. “I know my way.” A knowing smile touched his lips as he went on. “I have been here before you.”

Cam's smile was more a baring of teeth. He understood the double meaning that the other man intended to convey, but he refused to acknowledge it. “However, I am sure it is no longer familiar to you. I insist on escorting you to your horse.”

He moved to Dunstan's side, and the only way the other man could avoid Cam's taking his arm and propelling him along was to turn and voluntarily move forward, though it was clear from the chill on his face that it galled him to do so.

Jeremy moved over to his sister and slid a comforting arm around her shoulders, asking in a low voice, “Are you all right?”

“Yes.” Angela nodded. But the momentary flush of
victory she had felt was fading. She felt sick and weak in the knees, and her mind was whirling. “Oh, God, Jeremy, what have I done?”

 

Cam was certain that Angela was regretting what she had said. He carefully avoided her for the rest of the day, so that she would not have a chance to withdraw her hastily uttered words. Instead, he spent the time closeted with Mr. Pettigrew and Jeremy, drawing up the terms of the marriage contract and making sure that the announcement of the impending marriage was sent to the
Times.
At dinner, Jeremy announced the engagement to his mother and grandmother. Angela looked a trifle trapped, but she made no demur. Cam went to bed that night feeling pretty well satisfied with himself.

He was awakened by screams. He was out of the bed and headed toward the door before he was awake enough to realize what had happened. He paused, shaking his head to clear it, thinking for an instant that it must have been a dream. But then he heard a woman's voice again, raised in fear, saying, “No, no, please…” in a way that sent chills down his spine. It was Angela's voice.

 

It was the same as always. She was running down a long, dark corridor, her heart pounding, her breath rasping in her lungs. She was fleeing the thing behind her, the faceless horror that followed her. She didn't know exactly what it was, only that it was monstrous and terrifying.
And it was after her.
It would not rest until it had her.

She ran on in terror, careening around the corner and rushing down the stairs. The stairs went on forever, around and around until she was dizzy. And then suddenly she was outside, and now she knew where she
was: the formal gardens at Gresmere, Dunstan's estate. There was the statue of the satyr, hidden deep within the maze. He was grinning lasciviously down at her, hands on hips, hairy and goatish, but extending from him a huge and human male member.

She was running now through the lanes of the maze, the close-growing, suffocating green hedges that often twined together at the top, blocking out most of the sunlight. Every corridor she took, every twist and turn she made, brought her back to the middle and the evil grinning satyr. Her lungs burned, and she was crying. Her legs ached, and she was so scared she wanted to vomit. She staggered and lurched along, shivering in the cold. Hands reached out, touching her, plucking at her. Then she realized she was naked. She wanted to stop, to hide, but there was no place in the thick green bushes. She had to run on, because the nameless
thing
was behind her, reaching for her. It would not stop….

She fell to her knees and crawled on, sobbing and begging. Suddenly, instead of the bushes, there were people lining the way, all of them watching her silently. She cried out to them to help her, to save her, but no one moved or spoke. They all just watched her with avid faces, eyes alight and mouths twisted into grotesque smiles just like the satyr's. There was a pounding, and she thought they were clapping. Or maybe it was the thing stomping after her, for it was right behind her now, reaching for her, and she could no longer move. She began to scream. The pounding drowned out her cries.

Her eyes flew open. She was awake, out of the horror of the dream, yet still wrapped in darkness. The pounding continued, confusing her further.

“Angela!” a man's voice roared outside her room. “Damn it, open this door.”

A shudder ran through her, and she glanced around, horror-stricken, thinking for an instant that she was still married, that it was Dunstan outside demanding entrance. But she recognized the furniture, and she knew it was her room at Bridbury. The pounding stopped, followed by a metallic crash against the doorknob.

“Wait! No!” That was Jeremy's voice. “Angela, it is I, Jeremy. Are you all right?”

The first voice spoke again, a deep male rumble of anger, followed by Jeremy's agitated answer. Angela slid out of bed and hurried through the dark to the door, still trembling and dazed from the terror of her nightmare.

She put her mouth close to the door. “Who is it?”

“Angela? It's me, Cam. Open up. What the devil is going on?”

She opened the door a crack, trying to control her shivers. “It's all—”

Her words were cut off as Cam shoved the door back and stepped into the room, casting a swift, encompassing glance around the dark room, then sweeping her up into his arms as if she were a child. Under normal circumstances Angela would have shrunk from such an embrace. But now, still half-spellbound by the powerful nightmare and without her usual conscious defenses, she curled her arms around his neck and clung to him, burrowing her head into his chest. She wanted shelter, and he was large and warm, a safe haven.

“There, now,” he murmured, his voice rumbling in his chest, beneath her ear. He kissed the top of her head. “It's all right now. I'm here.”

He turned back to the door, where Jeremy and the
others were edging in. Cam scowled at them. “I will take care of it.”

He reached out with his foot and shoved the door closed, then turned and strode across the room, still carrying Angela, to the large, comfortable chair by the window. He sat down in it and cuddled her on his lap. She snuggled closer to him, pushing her toes down between the cushion and the chair to keep them warm. Cam smiled a little at the gesture and curled his arms around her even more tightly. He laid his cheek against the top of her head.

“What happened?” he asked after a moment. “A nightmare?”

“Yes. Sometimes I have them. Not much anymore.” At first, after she left Dunstan, she had had them almost every night. It had been so bad that Kate insisted on sleeping on a cot in Angela's room, so that she could wake her mistress when she was in the throes of one of the dreams. But as the years passed, the nightmare had come less and less often, and after a time Kate had agreed to return to her own more comfortable bed in the servants' quarters. It had been almost a year now since Angela had had the nightmare.

“You want to tell me about it?” he asked.