Lord Deverill's Heir (21 page)

“You know, now that I think about it, it was strange of him to speak to me at such length about Magdalaine.”

“Good God, Gervaise wanted to know about Magdalaine? Why? What did he ask you?”

“He wished me to tell him all about her life in England. Of course, I know very little of her. She was dead long before I came into the picture. Gervaise, mind you, then proceeded to tell me about her family’s rather unusual dowry settlement with the earl. It seemed that not all of her dowry was given to the earl upon their marriage. I really do not know why he told me all that, for Magdalaine died so very quickly after her return from France, indeed less than two years after her marriage to the earl.” She paused for a moment and then looked up with a sudden smile.

“How very stupid of me, to be sure. Paul, you were attending her when she died, were you not? Gervaise should speak to you if he wishes to know more about his aunt.”

Dr. Branyon looked away from her. When he finally spoke, his voice was uncommonly grim. “Yes, I was with Magdalaine when she died. As to Magdalaine’s dowry, I know nothing of her family’s arrangement with the earl. But why, I wonder, did our little French cock tell you all that? He gave no reason, no explanation for it?”

“No, not really.”

As they wended their way through the geometric patterns of the parterre, he asked, “Did the comte wish to know anything else from you, Ann?”

“Nothing of importance, really, but he did nearly make me laugh aloud. He wondered about the Strafford jewels. He thought that as the countess, I must have a jewel box worth a king’s ransom. I told him it wasn’t at all the case.”

“Hmm,” was all that Dr. Branyon replied until they reached the front steps of Evesham Abbey. He took Lady Ann’s hand to his and squeezed it.

He looked deeply into those beautiful eyes of hers. “Listen to me. You’re now mine, Ann, all of you. I will love you until I pass to the hereafter, then if my soul is hovering about, it will continue to love you. Let’s not wait eight more months. Marry me, Ann. Soon. Very soon.” She was staring up at his mouth. “Soon,” he said again, and his voice wasn’t steady. “You know, people can tell when a woman is well-loved.

Already there is a wicked sparkle in your eyes and that smile of yours would take the skin off an orange it’s so brilliant.”

“Is tomorrow too late?”

He laughed, hugged her, uncaring if every servant in Evesham Abbey was watching. “Let’s wait only until we can solve this matter between Justin and Arabella. Then we won’t have to think of a single thing other than ourselves.”

“I will speak to Justin right now.”

He kissed the tip of her nose. “No, let’s think about this a bit more.

Let me speak to Arabella.”

“All right, but do it quickly. Perhaps we will solve all their problems by Friday?”

“I’ll try my damndest. Ann?”

“Yes?” She was sliding her palms over his chest. He grabbed them and held them tightly in his own.

“Will you mind being married to a simple doctor?” He was deadly serious and she knew it. She said calmly, her spirit radiant in her words, “I’ve always believed your intelligence of the highest order. Never have I believed you at all simple. That was a foolish question.”

He threw his head back and laughed deeply.

Her voice was low now, so serious, he felt a catch in his throat as she said, “I would marry you if you were but a simple farmer. It matters nothing to me. This is Arabella’s home, not mine. It never was my home.

My home is with you, Paul. I want only to be with you. Forever.”

“I am very glad that you came into my life,” he said, then he kissed her, lightly touching his fingertips to her lips as he took his leave. He doubted he could speak another sensible word if his life depended on it.

Why can I not feel anything? Please, God, let me feel something. Is it your punishment for my sin? Oh, please, let me feel my love for him. Just once.

His lips roamed hungrily over her small uptilted breasts, and she wound her fingers in his short black curling hair to press him harder against her. He thought her gesture borne of a desire that matched his own and suckled hard at her breast. He was young, enthusiastic, and his confidence in himself was profound.

She gritted her teeth at the pain, willing herself not to cry out. She brought her hands up to cup his smooth chin and eased his mouth away from her breast to her lips. His beautiful dark eyes were nearly black with his lust, and she saw a gleam of impatience, she knew it. It was impatience. She wasn’t as other women. She was slow. She wasn’t enough of a woman for him. Oh, God, she had to do something. She was afraid he would guess that all his caresses, his kisses, the stroking of his hands, did not bring her pleasure, indeed, froze all feeling inside her.

Instinctively she moaned softly into his mouth and arched up against him.

She felt a quickening in him, and for an instant knew an overwhelming desire to push him off her, to beg him not to drive his man’s sex into her. She hated it beyond anything. She held her breath, ashamed at such unnatural thoughts, and suffered his grinding mouth and probing tongue.

She must remember that he loved her, that, above all things, she did not want to lose him, to give him a disgust of her.

She tried to relax, to inhale the sweet smell of hay. But all she could smell was him, the musky scent of him, the scent of sex. It is you who are the lucky one, the chosen one. He does not want Arabella or any other woman. To give him your body is proof of your love for him, it’s proof of your worth.

Suddenly he reared back on his knees, clutched her knees, and pulled them apart. She closed her eyes as his fingers fumbled to part her. She heard him growl with frustration, and a red veil of shame clouded her mind. She felt his fingers, wet with his own spittle, rubbing at her, pushing inside her. She winced as his fingers went deeper, widening her, and in a haze of misery she wondered yet again how she would bear that thick shaft shoving inside her.

He poised himself over her, unable to contain himself, and shoved hard inside her, feeling as he did so the eruption of all his senses, a moment’s suspension of thought and time. His seed flooded the small taut passage, easing his way, and he pushed into the depths of her. He felt an ecstatic instant of animal victory, an affirmation of his maleness, his superiority over this female. Her small hands clutched at his shoulders, and he believed yet again that he had conquered her as a man must a woman, possessed her entirely, and by his own passion given her a woman’s fulfillment.

He eased his weight off her, kissed her moist lips lightly, and rolled on his side next to her. The smell of him filled her nostrils. She thought she’d gag. She felt leaden, her body wet and prickly as the cool air settled upon the thin sheen of sweat left by his body.

“I adore you, ma petite cousine,” her said, knowing it his duty as her conqueror, as her lover, as the man she worshiped, to reassure her with binding words that cost him so very little. Certainly it had heightened his vanity to seduce his shy cousin, yet, too, he had guessed that to ensure her absolute compliance, he had also to possess her body. Her furtive virginity had pleased him.

“And I you, Gervaise,” Elsbeth whispered, her body already stilled to its outrage, her memory already hazy from the pain and humiliation of it. She thought how very blessed among women she was, to be loved by one so very handsome as he, with his dark eyes, almond-shaped as were hers, and his flashing white teeth. He was more handsome than the earl, whose very size terrified her, particularly now that she knew what men demanded of women.

Her soaring spirit dimmed. If only she could feel her own pleasure, glory in but a moment’s passion. Surely it wasn’t too much to ask. But perhaps it was. Perhaps it was only men who grunted and heaved and yelled when their lust overtook them. She tried to turn her mind away from her selfishness. If there was a lack, it was in her. She must believe that to have him, to let him delight in her body, was enough for her.

“You know, Elsbeth,” he said after a moment, “I spoke to Lady Ann about your mother, Magdalaine. She knew far less than I had expected her to about your mother’s circumstances and her life here in England.” Elsbeth pulled the edge of his cloak over her and turned on her side to face him. “What do you mean, her circumstances?” Why was he speaking of her long-dead mother? Why didn’t he want to talk about their future together?

He quickly patted her cheek and let his fingers rove over her breast. He had moved too quickly, caught her unawares. Women were strange little creatures. They had to have constant reassurance. He shrugged indifferently and yawned. “Oh, it’s nothing, really,” he said. She smiled, lulled, again satisfied that his attention was focused upon her.

But he couldn’t let it go, not now. Time was growing short. He sensed that the earl wanted him gone, no, the damned earl wanted to kill him.

How could he have found out about Elsbeth? Why hadn’t he said anything to him? Why, in God’s name did he even care? But he did; Gervaise saw the anger, the banked rage in his eyes.

He had to hurry. “Perhaps I shouldn’t have said circumstances. My father merely told me some rather unusual stories about your mother. Are you not interested in your mother, Elsbeth?” There was gentle reproach in his voice. Like a trained dog, she heeded it immediately.

“Certainly, it is just that she died so very long ago, when I was but a baby. I have no memory of her at all. As to any stories about her, I should, naturally, be delighted to hear them.”

“Perhaps then sometime soon.” How very easily he could divert her thoughts, to call forth the insecure lonely child, striving so desperately to please. Though he was certain that he had bound her to him, he wondered if her loyalties to Lady Ann and to Arabella might render her incapable of doing what he wished.

He appeared to grow bored with the subject. It was enough for the moment that he had planted seeds of curiosity in her mind. He let his gaze wander up and down her body. He said nothing. In his experience, the woman believed he was thinking only of her body and praying that he believed her beautiful. He could not know that she was frantically searching her mind for something of interest to distract him, to keep him from thrusting into her body again. With sudden inspiration she said,

“Gervaise, I do think it wonderful that you care to know more about my mother. Did you know that my maid, Josette, was also my mother’s nurse?

She knew my mother from a baby, and indeed, accompanied her here to Evesham Abbey after her marriage to my father. She would know everything about my mother.”

He was looking vaguely at her white belly. God, how stupid he’d been.

Josette, of course. Now he would not need to count upon Elsbeth. Would not Josette feel loyalty to the de Trécassis family, to him? He felt a surge of confidence. Thinking to reward Elsbeth for providing him the answer, he spurred the cold embers of his passion and swept his hand between her thighs, glorying in the dampness of his own seed that clung to her. He jerked away his cloak and pulled her possessively against him.

For an instant he thought she pushed against his chest, but then she moaned softly against his neck, her lips soft and wet, and wrapped her arms about his shoulders.

“Yes,” he said, kissing her throat. “Oh, yes.” She wanted to cry, but she didn’t.

Elsbeth glanced at the small gilt clock on the table beside the copper bathtub, sighed contentedly, and lowered herself deeper into the warm, scented water. She felt supremely happy, even as she had scrubbed herself until the soft flesh between her thighs hurt. She stayed for a long time in the warm water, the violent, embarrassing man’s side of love all but forgotten, her mind soaring with unbounded pleasure into a romantic image of Gervaise as her dashing, gallant lover, the man she adored, more importantly, the man who adored her above all other women. Arabella included. He did not even know that Arabella was alive. Surely that had to mean something.

“Come, my lamb, it grows late. You would not wish to be late for dinner.” Elsbeth turned toward her rheumy-eyed maid, Josette, vaguely aware that there was an unusual sharpness in her withered voice.

“Come, mistress,” Josette repeated, waving a large towel toward Elsbeth.

“Ah, very well,” Elsbeth said, her voice all soft and vague, and rose, her arms outstretched.

“Really, my baby, you are a lady, not a grisette to flaunt her naked body.” She quickly bundled Elsbeth into the towel, averting her eyes as she did so.

Elsbeth eyed her faithful old maidservant with a secret woman’s smile.

How very old-fashioned she was, she thought, forgetting that but a short time before, she would never have emerged from her bath until Josette had positioned her towel before she’d stood up.

“Oh, do not scold me, Josette, for I’m much too happy. Finally, I’m alive. Finally, I know what I should know.” Josette grunted, pulled Elsbeth’s chemise over her head, and forced her arthritic fingers to tie the dainty ribbons. The pain in her fingers made her say crossly, “Just because you are now a rich young lady, with ten thousand pounds, it’s no reason for you to go bounding about screeching like a scullery maid.”

“I’m not screeching. Oh, I may as well tell you, you sharp-eyed old eagle, for you will know soon enough.” She whirled about and clasped Josette’s gnarled hands, pulling her wispy gray head close to her. “I am in love!”

Josette felt a bizarre moment of muddled confusion. No, it was not Magdalaine who was in love. Elsbeth? Surely that wasn’t possible. She grasped at the vague realities that filed in lopsided order through her mind and drew back with a gasp of shock. “Oh, no, my little pet. You cannot love the earl. He has wedded with Arabella.” She groped to remember. “He did marry Arabella, did he not?” Elsbeth gave a trill of laughter and hugged the familiar stoop-shouldered old woman. “Yes, indeed, the earl has married Arabella. It’s not the earl, no.”

“But there is no one else,” Josette said slowly, her mind squirreling about, finding nothing but more confusion. She wished that the dainty, smiling girl in front of her were not so very like Magdalaine. Such transports, such gaiety, when Magdalaine was in love.