Intimate Deception (24 page)

Thankfully the children—good God, eleven of them, and if he were any judge there would be more by Christmas—were immediately closeted upstairs with a regiment of nurses and nannies. How was it possible for them to be so cavalier when it came to producing children? How could each of these men risk his wife in childbirth again and again?

At first he thought perhaps their marriages weren’t based on love or any emotion resembling it. But that hadn’t been the case. The affection between each sister and her spouse was plain to see, even surprising at times in the looks they gave each other, the smiles, the familiarity with which they touched.

Vincent wiped a sheen of perspiration from his brow. They didn’t know the risks. They hadn’t experienced the devastating heartbreak of losing someone you cared for. Of knowing you were to blame.

He closed his eyes and willed Angeline’s heart-shaped smiling face and Lorraine’s somber, porcelain features to appear. He wouldn’t forget them or repeat his mistakes in this marriage. It was too late to prevent a third pregnancy, but it wasn’t too late to protect his heart.

A heavy pressure weighed painfully against his chest, stopping his lungs from taking in air. Oh, how he wanted her. How he’d wanted her since the night he’d trapped her in Wedgewood’s study, her eyes wide with fright, her breasts rapidly rising and falling as she gasped for air. No matter how hard he tried, he couldn’t erase how he’d felt when he held her and touched her and buried himself deep inside her as he’d done on their first meeting. Or how he ached to hold her in his arms even now and kiss her until neither of them could breathe.

He braced his hands on either side of the window and leaned his forehead against the cool glass. If only he’d never had her. If only he didn’t know what loving her was like. He was burning inside, on fire from flames he had no hope of extinguishing except in her arms.

He dragged his hand across his face, praying the gesture might wipe any thought of her from his mind. He breathed a heavy sigh, then walked to the fireplace and placed another log on the dying embers. The door opened and a faint light crept across the floorboards. Vincent jerked upright and turned. “Grace?”

He reached for a dressing gown and put it on to cover his nakedness. “Is something wrong?”

“May I come in?”

“Of course. Is there something you need?”

“Yes.” She stepped into the room and closed the door behind her.

He waited where he was. After a slight pause, she walked toward him, her back and shoulders straight, her satin gown shimmering around her legs. He locked his hands behind his back to keep from reaching out to her. To keep from pulling her into his arms and holding her. To keep from covering her mouth with his own.

“What is it? What do you need?”

She lifted her chin and answered, “You.”

Grace stood close to him, so close she could feel the heat from his body. So close she could smell the fresh scent of soap he’d used to bathe. So close she could hear the breath he sucked into his lungs when she answered him.

Her heart thrummed with excitement, with fear. The blood raced through her veins with such speed that every part of her body came alive with need. She clutched her fists in the material at her sides to keep from reaching for him.

“What do you need?” he asked again, as if he hadn’t understood her. As if he chose not to understand her.

“Is this where you intend to sleep for the rest of our marriage?”

His shoulders lifted. “This is my room. Yes.”

“And is the room next to yours where I am to sleep?”

“Yes.”

“Do you ever intend to come to my room? To my bed?”

A frown covered his face, his features turning almost angry. “What is this, Grace? It is nearly three in the morning.
Surely your questions can wait until some other time. At least until tomorrow.”

“No, Your Grace. I think it best we put everything out in the open so there will be no misunderstandings.”

Grace fought the urge to walk away from him. Fought the urge to lower her eyes so she didn’t have to look into his ironclad gaze. “Please answer me, Your Grace. Do you ever intend to sleep in my bed?”

His chest rose and fell with each labored breath. But he remained silent.

“Is this my punishment, Your Grace?” she said, her voice sounding hollow to her ears. “Is this how I am to suffer for deceiving you?”

She lost her courage and stared at the burning logs. “Do you intend to parade me through the
ton
, keeping up with our charade? Do you intend for us to continue playing our parts as if we had a perfect marriage?”

She knew her voice held an accusatory tone. Knew the words had not come out as a question but as a criticism. She did not care. She was fighting for her very existence.

“How long do you intend for us to pretend our infatuation was so all-consuming that we could not be bothered with a courtship or lengthy betrothal but married mere weeks after we met? And by special license?”

She turned from the fire and caught his gaze with hers. “A month, perhaps? Longer?”

“Grace, I—”

“Then what, Vincent? Do you intend for us to return home each evening and for me to allow you to politely kiss me on the cheek, then tuck me into bed and not bother with me until it is time for our next performance? Do you
envision us walking up the stairs each evening, arm in arm like the loving couple we have pretended to be for the day and evening? And do you intend to bid me a polite good night before you close the door behind me so you can forget I exist?”

“Grace, that’s not—”

“I cannot live like that, Vincent. I will not.” Grace swiped her hand through the air. “I would undo what I did if I could, but it is too late. I cannot turn back the hands of time. I can’t—”

“Enough! What is it you want from me?”

She took a step toward him so he had no choice but to look her in the eyes. “I want you to be a husband to me.”

“You don’t know what you’re asking.”

Grace stood her ground. “I do. I know how much it hurt you to lose your first wife and your babe with her. I know how much harder it was to lose a second wife with another babe, then go on living while your heart was breaking. I know the vow you made afterward never to marry again.”

His eyebrows furrowed. “How did you—”

“Your cousin told me while profusely congratulating me on stealing your heart and forcing you to take the risk you’d vowed never to take again.”

“Then you know—”

She shook her head. “I know nothing except that I am taking just as big a risk as you. Can you guarantee me you will not walk out onto the street and get run down by a team of horses before our child is born? Can you promise me Fentington will not attempt to harm you again? And this time succeed?” She tried to keep the tears at bay, but they swam in her eyes. “Do you know the guilt I live with
each day, knowing he blames you for what
I
did?” Grace hugged her middle tighter. “Do you know the guilt I live with each day, knowing the bullet you took was because of me?”

“No. That was not your fault.”

“Yes. Just as forcing you to marry again is my fault. I would give the world to have thought of another way to escape Fentington. One that did not involve you. One that did not put you in danger. But I could not. I didn’t expect you to ever find me. I didn’t expect you would ever want to.”

Her tears ran freely now. He reached out to pull her to him, but she twisted out of his grasp and slashed the air between them with her hand. “I do not want to live my life like this, Vincent. I don’t want a chasm of fear between us that can never be bridged. I don’t want our marriage to be an empty shell with no substance. Please, don’t leave me alone with my regrets.”

She watched the haunted look in his eyes grow darker and felt her world fall away from her. “I don’t expect you to ever love me,” she said, her words no louder than a whisper. “Not after what I did to you, how I deceived you. But please, don’t condemn us to a bitter existence. Don’t make me pay for deceiving you every day for the rest of my life.”

He stood as if rooted to the floor. Finally Grace heard and saw the ragged sigh that lifted his shoulders.

“I do not blame you for what you did to escape Fentington. You had little choice. And anything Fentington did after that is not your fault, Grace. He is deranged. He does not think like you and I. You are not responsible for his attempt on my life.”

“Then what is it? Is it so impossible for you to want me as your wife? Is it so hard to hold me like you did that night at Madam Genevieve’s before you knew who I was? Is it so impossible to make love to me?”

“No,” he cried out, and Grace could hear the pain in his voice. “But it would be impossible to give you up once I did. I cannot go through that again.”

His words struck her with the force of a battering ram. He’d laid his fear out before her like an open wound, raw and festering. An infected sore that tormented his very soul.

“You will not have to give me up, Vincent. I promise. You will not lose me like you did Angeline and Lorraine.”

“You can’t make such a promise,” he said, his voice teeming with regret.

“I can.” Grace reached for his hand and placed it low on her stomach. “I am going to give you this babe I have growing inside me. And a dozen more besides. Together we will love them and care for them and watch them grow into adulthood.”

His agonizing moan held the untold heartache and sorrow of his painful past.

“Love me, Vincent.”

She waited, praying he’d lift his arms and hold her. Praying she could break through the barrier he’d erected between them and love her. “Don’t condemn us to living our lives alone. I can’t survive the emptiness you intend for our marriage.”

She turned into him, standing so close her body was pressed against his. Waves of need and want rushed through her, every part of her yearning for his touch. It was always like this. Every time she was near him. “Please. Love me.”

With a low growl of surrender, he wrapped his arms around her and pulled her against him. His mouth came down on hers, kissing her with the force of a man dying of thirst, desperate for a last drink of water. His lips crushed hers, then opened, his demands obvious.

Grace followed his lead. She clung to his shoulders and opened her mouth, granting him entrance.

Their mating was explosive. Again and again he kissed her, ground his lips against hers, giving to her, taking from her until she could no longer breathe. But breathing no longer mattered. She didn’t need any air other than the air she and Vincent shared. She didn’t need anything except to be held in his arms.

She lifted her arms, winding them around his neck, pulling him closer to her.

“I should have known it was impossible to keep away from you,” he whispered against her mouth.

“Impossible. From the first,” she whispered.

He moved his kisses to her cheek and down the side of her neck. Grace burned with desire, her body heating until she feared it would burst into flames.

Vincent’s hands moved over her flesh, over the sensitive skin down her back, then pulled her closer.

She moaned into the silent darkness and pushed her fingers through his thick, dark hair.

He lifted his mouth from her neck and brought it back to her own, deepening his kisses until her legs felt weak beneath her. Her heart thundered in her breast like a runaway team of horses while his hands worked their magic, skimming up her sides and curving inward.

A soft moan escaped from deep within her and her head fell back to her shoulders. His fingers were relentless in their ministrations. She could no longer think.

“Vincent…”

Her breaths came out in ragged gasps, her body trembling with a frantic need she’d never felt before. A desperation she didn’t think was possible.

She was barely conscious of her gown being lifted over her head, of the nighttime air hitting her flesh. She welcomed the coolness. Her body seemed on fire. Then he touched her. Flesh on flesh. His fingers and hands moving over her skin, finding their way down her stomach to where their babe rested.

Grace clung to his shoulders when her body turned limp. She struggled to stay upright.

“I need you,” he said, and lifted her in his arms and carried her to the bed.

Grace pulled him toward her. She needed him too. The way she’d never needed anyone in her life.