Lord Deverill's Heir (17 page)

Touch her life? God, Justin had ripped through her life, doing his utmost to destroy her. The nagging soreness between her thighs was bitter proof that he had violated her body. She would not let him ravage her mind and spirit as well.

His words were clear in her mind, yet they were so absurd that she had difficulty crediting them. She tried to remember his words, to give them some meaning she hadn’t yet comprehended, not to excuse him for what he had done to her, but to allow her to understand. Absurdly, he believed that the comte was her lover. And he’d spoken of seeing them at the barn.

It made no sense at all. She could not fathom how Justin had drawn such a damning conclusion. Someone must have lied to him, convinced him that she had betrayed him.

But who could have done that and, for God’s sake, why?

She frowned between Lucifer’s ears. It was beyond obvious that he had believed the lie. Then why had he gone through with their marriage? Ah, but she was being stupid. If he hadn’t gone through with the wedding, he would have lost the greater portion of his inheritance. And he’d said it himself. He’d been quite clear. She had betrayed him but he couldn’t kill her else he would lose everything. But he was thinking about killing Gervaise. She wondered dispassionately if he would kill the comte. She found that she didn’t care a great deal, except, of course, that the comte was innocent of bedding the earl’s bride.

She pulled Lucifer to a halt. He was breathing hard. She looked about her and realized with a start that she had ridden past the Roman ruins without even noticing. She drew up and patted her horse’s neck. She suddenly remembered a phrase she had overheard her father say to one of his friends: “I rode the wench until she would have thrown me off, if she could.” She thought ironically that at least the meaning of his crude remark was now clear to her.

Almost unwilling she turned Lucifer about and headed at a slow trot back to Evesham Abbey. She must have ridden for hours, for the sun was reaching its zenith in the sky.

She could feel her bitter calm begin to crumble the nearer she drew to his home. Justin would be there, waiting. She would have to face him, not just today, but tomorrow, a lifetime of tomorrows. For a fleeting moment she considered confronting him, to plead her innocence again, to demand to know who had told him such a damning lie. She pictured such a scene in her mind and saw herself pleading and him rejecting her pleas, as he had the night before. Instinctively, after his rage of last night, she knew that he would still disbelieve her. She pictured renewed fury and savage reprisal. In that instant she hated that she was female and thus weaker, hated his superior strength that could allow him to dominate her through sheer physical power.

Arabella shivered despite the hot sun that beat down upon her black riding habit. Surely he would not force her to submit to him again.

Hadn’t he said he wouldn’t spill his seed in her again? Hadn’t he said that he wanted no child from her? His revenge upon her had been thorough and merciless. But it was over now, or at least for as long as he kept to his vow.

She guided Lucifer into the stable yard, pulled up before her sweating groom, and slid to the ground. She hated the feeling of wariness, of dread that washed over her as she neared the front doors of Evesham Abbey. God, if she did not have her pride, she would have nothing. He must not know how he had hurt her, disillusioned her. She would not allow that. She thought again of his words of the night before, spoken so calmly at her and yet there was such deadly fury in his voice. She had played his words over and over in her mind, yet there was one word he had said to her that she did not understand. Strangely, it seemed vitally important to her that she know the meaning of that word.

She glanced up at the sun, guessed that it neared luncheon, then let herself quietly into a side entrance. She thought only to avoid seeing Justin before it was absolutely necessary. She trod through her home to the library, slipped through the door, and shut it quietly behind her.

Arabella was not an enthusiastic scholar, certainly not much addicted to the use of the dictionary. Thus she spent several minutes perusing the book-lined shelves to locate it. She had always assumed that any words her father did not use were not worth knowing about. She was beginning to think that in this instance she was wrong. She pulled the leather-bound volume from the shelf, wet her fingertips on her tongue, and began to riffle through the stiff pages.

Her fingers sped down the columns until she found the word she sought.

“Sodomy,” she read. “Middle English and Old French ‘sodomie’.” There were biblical references, but nothing to tell her what it meant. “Well, damnation. What could he have meant? What?” Arabella suddenly felt movement behind her and whirled about, nearly dropping the dictionary, so thick and heavy that it would have broken her foot. She looked up at the earl, who stood with negligent ease, his hand resting flat on the top of the desk. Her mouth went dry. She felt guilty even though there was no reason to. She’d even been speaking out loud.

Had he heard her? Of course he had.

“Well, my dear wife, what word could be of such interest to bring you to the dictionary?”

He sounded colder than he had the night before. Utterly apart from her.

Contemptuous of her. Would he hurt her again? Rip off her clothes again?

She shook her head even as she looked down at the word, so very damning by itself, and she tried to slam the dictionary closed. He moved quickly, wresting it from her arms.

“Surely we could have no secrets? Aren’t we married? Come, Arabella, if you wish to know the meaning of a word, you have but to ask me.” For a brief instant, she wanted to demand that he call her ma’am, but she couldn’t. Everything had changed. It was now too grave, too perilous. She said nothing. There was no hope for it. He would find the word. She hadn’t done anything wrong. She’d be damned if she would act guilty. She said with a tone she prayed was as cold as his, “I was looking up a word you screamed at me last night. I had never heard it before. I wanted to know what it meant.”

“What was this word I screamed at you?”

“Sodomy.”

His black eyebrows went up a good inch. She had no shame, the damned slut. She was shoving it right into his face, rubbing it in his nose. So be it. He turned slowly to place the dictionary onto the desk. Then he looked at her. She was standing tall, her shoulders squared. He looked at her, stripping her naked as he had the night before, and it was all there in his eyes, all the condemnation, the contempt, the rage. “Poor Arabella, did not the comte give you a term to describe your activities?

I understand it can be painful, this way a man can take a woman. I have never done it. But perhaps now, that he has breached you, I will do it.

Was he gentle with you? But you are an intelligent woman. I cannot understand why he did not tell you what he was doing to you is called.

How very remiss of him.”

“I have no lover,” she said in the calmest voice she had ever heard from herself. It was flat, no emotion scrambling about to humiliate her further. “The comte is not my lover. I have no idea what this sodomy means. Either you will tell me or you will get out of my way. I will repeat it once more: the comte is not my lover. I have no lover or any sort. Tell me or move.”

She actually shoved at him. He grabbed her arms and forced them against her sides. “Sodomy,” he said slowly, looking down at her. “Very well. I will tell you what it is. You will recognize it quickly enough and I will see the knowledge of it in your eyes. When he took you, you were on your hands and knees, that, or on your belly. Damn you, stop looking so blank.

He took you from behind. Is that plain enough for you? He took you as he would take a boy were he a pederast.”

This hadn’t occurred to her. She felt utterly stripped of anything that she knew. “But surely that is impossible. Horses don’t do that, and I have watched horses mate. My God, it would be horrible. It isn’t what is proper, for man nor beast. What is a pederast? What do you mean?”

“Shut up, damn you. Very well, so he didn’t use you in that way then.

Then it was your mouth.” He jerked her forward, leaned down and kissed her hard. “Open your mouth,” he said against her lips. “Open your lips so I can taste you. Did that miserable little bastard spill his seed in your mouth?”

She didn’t open her mouth, despite the force he used. Finally, he let her go. He raised his head. Lightly, he touched his fingertips to her lips.

“Yes,” he said slowly, “he let you take him in your mouth. You have a beautiful mouth—soft and giving, even though you refuse to give it to me, I can imagine what it was like for him to caress his sex with those lips of yours.”

She saw him in her mind’s eye, his sex, swelled and long, thrust into her mouth. No, it wasn’t possible. She ran her tongue over her lips. He laughed. She wanted to kill him. He believed the comte had put his sex into her mouth? That he had found his release in her mouth? She shuddered with disgust. She didn’t try to escape him again. She wouldn’t allow him to destroy her.

She smiled up at him, her voice as calm as her mother’s. “You are lying.

No one would do what you have described. It is absurd, unbelievable. I will tell you one last time that the comte is not my lover.

“Ah, but look at you, you believe it so completely. Thus you must trust the person who told you. Who was it, Justin? Who told you this lie?” It was he who stepped away from her. He had sworn that he would not again allow his bitter anger and disillusionment to get the better of him. Ah, but she enraged him with that calm of hers, trying to turn the tables on him, to put him in the wrong. He managed to smile at her, but it was difficult. He wanted to strangle her, to throw her on the Axminster carpet, jerk up her riding skirt, and plunge deep inside her. He drew a deep breath. “No one told lies of you, Arabella. You have only yourself to blame for my knowing the truth. I saw you. I saw him.”

“You saw me? You saw the comte? Who cares? What bloody truth? That makes not one whit of sense. What in the devil are you talking about? Damn you, don’t just stand there like a preacher searching out witches, tell me!”

“Perhaps when you meet again at the barn or wherever, you can show him your newfound knowledge. You can tell him that you want him to sodomize you. Yes, but caution him to go slowly, Arabella. Tell him that he must be gentle, that he—”

She thought she would vomit. Instead, she struck him with her fist in his jaw. His head snapped back she had hit him so hard.

She picked up her skirts and ran to the door.

He called after her, even as he rubbed his jaw, “You will pay for that, Arabella.”

“I have already paid,” she whispered as she pulled open the door and slipped through it.

“Another macaroon, I think, my dear.” Dr. Branyon smiled at Lady Ann as he slipped another cookie onto his plate.

“Elsbeth, more tea?”

“No, thank you, Lady Ann,” Elsbeth said, turning her wandering attention to her stepmother.

“I suppose it is not so very odd that the earl and Arabella do not join us.” The comte spread his hands expressively, a knowing gleam in his dark eyes.

Lady Ann gave him a look that she had until today used only with Sir Arthur Bennington, a local baron who had tried to kiss her once behind the stairs. The gleam disappeared quickly. Good. Even a Frenchman understood that gleam. She nodded, raising her chin, then turned to Dr.

Branyon. “Paul, I trust you will join us for dinner this evening. It is Thursday, you know, and Cook will prepare Arabella’s roast pork.”

“Pork, hmm? Perhaps I can force myself,” Dr. Branyon said. He looked at the clock on the mantelpiece and quickly rose. “If I am to have a chance at snabbling any dinner, I must leave now and see to my patients. Six o’clock?”

Lady Ann nodded and walked from the drawing room to the great double doors with him. He turned, saying quietly, “Ann, something is troubling you. Ah, it’s the marriage, is it? You know that you must become used to the fact that Arabella is a married lady.” Lady Ann didn’t know what to do. She looked up into his face, a face she had known since she was seventeen years old, a face so beloved that all she wanted to do was touch him and kiss him and hold him so tightly he would never let her go. The truth then, she thought, at least about Arabella. About her own feelings, they had to wait. She had no idea what he felt about her. Oh yes, he was fond of her, that much was obvious, but for anything more—

She said, “I promise that isn’t the problem. I believe Arabella was born being grown up. A married lady? I neither had nor have any difficulty accepting that.” She drew a deep breath. “There is something wrong between them. Something very wrong.”

Dr. Branyon frowned into her clouded blue eyes. It was on the tip of his tongue to make light of her concern, but he had found over the years that her perceptions about people were usually appallingly accurate. He said,

“Since I haven’t seen them today, I can’t say anything to the point. This evening, well, I will watch them. I hope you are wrong, Ann. I really do.”

“So do I. But I’m not.” She wondered if she should tell him about Arabella’s ripped nightgown. No, that was going too far. It was far too intimate.

God, how he hated to see her upset. Without thought he lifted her hand.

As his mouth brushed her palm, he felt a slight tremor in her hand. Her fingers closed over his. He forgot everything except his need for her. He looked hungrily at her mouth, then into her eyes. He didn’t at first believe what he saw there even though it was so clear a blind man couldn’t be mistaken.

“Ann, my dearest love.” There was such longing, such complete commitment in his voice that Lady Ann didn’t notice the groom approaching with his horse.

But he did. He tried to smile, difficult when all he wanted to do was kiss her until neither of them could breathe. He wanted badly to touch her, just lightly touch her, it was all he asked, but it wasn’t to be. He drew a deep breath and swallowed a lurid curse. “We have no privacy here.

I would speak with you further, Ann.”