Lord of Regrets (10 page)

Chapter Thirteen

The midday sun was high overhead when the traveling carriage, packed full with Marcus, Natasha, Leona, Mary, and Pell, started down the road. They would only make Norwich this evening, but Marcus was determined to leave Little Parrington behind. He had settled Natasha’s rents with Parrington and arranged to have any personal effects from the cottage packed up and sent on to Woodbridge.

The weather was fine, the ground partially dried out, and if those conditions kept, Marcus expected to have only two nights on the road before arriving in London late on the third day. His footman had assured him his lodgings had all been confirmed and his horses waited ready at each change.

It was tight in the interior space, though not uncomfortable. Natasha had placed Leona between them as a buffer, and Marcus had silently allowed it. No more need for force. And as the servants were present, it was best to avoid any possibility of argument. After the ignominy of putting his life on display for strangers to see, he did not need to continue to do so.

A low thrumming of excitement filled his veins. Satisfaction, as well. Anticipation. Leona sat quietly at first, her hands folded in her lap, her legs straight in front of her, little slippers peeking out from under her warm winter coat. In fact, everyone was quiet, and the only punctuation of the silence were coughs and the occasional sniffle. But as the carriage moved farther out of Parrington, Leona started looking out one window, then the other, growing more agitated. Marcus watched Natasha place a staying hand on her daughter’s leg. Mary, who was traveling with them to London under the temporary role of nanny, lowered the hand she had raised as if to quiet the girl.

Marcus looked out his window as well. He would point out the sights to Leona but he knew little of Norfolk. He racked his brain for a topic that would interest the child.

“Has your mother told you of London?” he asked finally. Leona turned to him wide-eyed and nodded her head slowly.

“She said it was big and noisy and that the whole world is there.”

Marcus laughed and peered at Natasha, wondering if that was truly what she thought. But Natasha was looking away, out the window.

“The whole world is not in London, Leona, although it might seem like it at times. It
is
noisy, and big and full of every scent you can imagine, not all good. Let’s see, the city was first settled in…” He began a halting history of London. If they were at Woodbridge or the ancestral Templeton lands, his knowledge would be much deeper and detailed, but he knew enough to speak of the Romans and the Saxons, the Normans and more.

“If I might be so impertinent as to interrupt, milord,” Pell said with a delicate cough, some time into Marcus’s recitation. “Perhaps the young miss would like to hear about the menagerie.”

Marcus arched a brow, then looked more carefully at his companions. Leona still watched him, but there was a sleepy expression on her face. Beyond her, he could see that Natasha, whose face was still in profile, smirked. He had thought Leona interested in history and the like, but perhaps he had not made his story appropriate for her young ears. He thought, with a nauseated feeling, of the rector, who had fascinated Leona with his tales of Greek and Roman mythology.

“What is the menagerie?” Leona’s question was somewhat of a relief. More conscious of his words, he started again.

“It’s a gathering of animals, from all around the world. Strange animals, the like of which you would never see here in Norfolk.”

With satisfaction, he watched Leona listen raptly to his description of the collection at the Tower of London. He shot a grateful smile to his valet, who merely nodded. Marcus noticed that Mary, as well, hung on his every word.

Later, when Leona had fallen asleep, her head in Natasha’s lap, Marcus again peered through the window, pleased with the calming joy the future held. As the carriage neared Norwich, his anticipation grew. This was their wedding night––Natasha’s and his––long overdue.

…

Despite having slept the last few hours of the afternoon’s journey, Natasha was exhausted. Her emotions were strained, her nerves frayed and overburdened.

She had found a perverse amusement in watching Marcus struggle to entertain his daughter, in his having to take direction from his valet. She had held tight to that enjoyment as long as she could, trying to hold back the anxiety that licked at her like the growing flames of a fire.

She had studiously ignored Marcus throughout the evening meal, knowing that at its end was her wedding night. A travesty to consummate their union under the banner of blackmail.

Pell had seen to the readying of the inn room and the making of the bed with fresh Templeton linens. After her bath, Natasha had waved Mary away as the girl was more needed with Leona. In her plain nightclothes, Natasha laid in the bed, anxious. Weeks earlier, when she had woken up to find him in her room, she had wanted him, taken him as her choice. This night was different.

He was her husband, and that should have meant something other than anguish.

She watched him undress, layer after layer peeled away to reveal his body, more solid than it had been five years earlier. There was nothing soft about him, not his body, not his heart.

He was erect already, and the sight sent a shiver of anticipation through her. He caught her eye and their gazes locked. His expression burned with his desire for her, and she shivered again, this time in anger.

He lifted the corner of the cover and sat down, the bed shifting under his weight. He slid his legs under the cloth, turning onto his side and facing her. She watched him.

She was his wife now. His property. He would take her as he wanted.

Marcus bent over, the moving heat of him sweeping out everything else but her awareness of him. He kissed her—soft, dry lips amidst the harsher stubble of a day’s growth of beard. She lay passively beneath him. Then his insistent tongue slid against her lips. She opened her mouth against the onslaught. His hand cradled the back of her head.

His other hand slid down her body. She felt the warm pressure of his palm and his spread fingers until he stopped at the curve of her hip, gripping at the cloth. Then he shifted his body, his legs moving over and between hers.

The fabric of her nightgown was pushed up to her waist, and she felt him against her, familiar, solid, hot.

“I’ve missed you, Tasha. Haven’t you missed this? Missed us?”

His lips trailed across her cheek, her jaw, her neck.

“No.”

“Then tell me to stop,” he murmured, even as he parted her flesh with his fingers, searching for the dampness that betrayed her.

When he thrust into her, she looked away. Stilled completely and let him move over her. Cut herself off.

“You’re my husband,” she said.

He paused in his movements, half within her, his weight on his arms. She felt the hard cast of his glare upon her.

“If you don’t want me, dammit, then say it.”

She didn’t answer, and after a moment, he slowly sank back down, filling her, stretching her. If she thought of how strange it all was, to have this man she had once loved, this…beast, thrusting inside her, then she might––No! It was easier to feel nothing.

Their flesh where they met, thigh to thigh, belly to belly, grew slick with sweat.

He was hard within her, clearly he felt some pleasure, but he looked pained as he continued. She stared at his left hand, flat on the sheet beside her. The hair that dusted his skin was dark. She followed its trail, over his wrist, up his forearms to where it tapered and faded away on his upper arms. The muscles there were flexed as he held himself above her. She pulsed around him, her body betraying the sudden, sharp pang of desire.

She moved her legs restlessly, but now her body was sensitized, tingling everywhere, and the brief rubbing of her thigh against his buttocks thrilled her.

“Tell me to stop, Tasha,” he whispered just before he bent down, a dark swooping shadow swallowing up all the air. His mouth closed over the thin skin of her neck and despite herself, she arched into the wet heat of that touch.

Panic seized her. Either way, she would lose. If she told him to stop, she could no longer pretend to herself that she must do her wifely duties, that obligation was what this display was all about. If she let him continue, she would not be able to keep herself immune to the sensations. And if he didn’t already know that, he would soon.

He retreated and thrust again, and she lifted her hips. She gasped out loud at the feel of him sinking deeper, settling farther into her.

“Tasha, Tasha,” he murmured against her ear, his words muffled by her hair. “My wife, my love.”

“Oh God,” she cried out, tearing her face away, clenching her thighs as he retreated so he could not easily push back in. “Stop, stop, leave me alone!”

He pulled away from her.

Natasha turned to her side, drawing her knees up. She heard him moving about the room, his breathing heavy. She imagined him, standing by the window but watching her.

The room was so terribly full of his breath, his presence, the tension between them, and inside, she was filled with a great gaping, clawing emptiness. She could give him nothing. Neither of them had found their pleasure tonight.

The sheets smelled of lavender, and she breathed in deep, searching for calm.

Things could have been different. An image filled her mind, hazy-edged and indistinct, of a wedding night in which she wanted to hear those words, wanted to be so close to his body that nothing in the world separated them. She shivered from a breeze, shivering more as the mattress sank down beneath his weight. She curled into herself further, cringing away from the sudden warmth of his hand on her arm. Her fantasy shattered back into the harsh reality of the night.

“It doesn’t have to be this way.” His voice was low, hoarse, and the insidious urge to soothe away his pain made her heart grow even smaller and colder. “Could we start over perhaps?”

Start over? Pretend that nothing had ever happened between them, that Leona was not a constant reminder that they did have a past, that she wasn’t here because he had threatened to take Leona away if she didn’t marry him.

She didn’t answer. The thick silence grew, and he pulled his hand away. The bed shifted and the air thinned. Scuffles and movement. Cloth rustling. When the door shut behind him, she shuddered and buried her head into the pillow.

This was her life now.

…

She’d come around. A fifth of whisky in, Marcus was convinced of it. He could still smell her, still taste her. He had the scent of woman and drink all mixed up. It was late. The taproom was empty but for him; the innkeeper had left him the bottle, a dying fire, and a commiserating look.

She
would
come around. Naturally, she was wary of him. He should have taken his time and wooed her, rather than impatiently forced her into marriage. But after that mess at Parrington’s, to find that she had run, that she was slipping from his life yet again––he had panicked. He had displayed none of his hard-earned wisdom. With a deep, shuddering sigh, Marcus pushed the self-recriminations away. Regardless of the circumstance, she was his now and that was fact. Before God and man, she was his. Perhaps he could woo her still.

He fell asleep before the hearth, when the liquor was gone and the spirits created their own warmth. It was only in the dim gray light of dawn that the innkeeper’s wife clucked at him sadly and ushered him up to his room.

He opened the door quietly, the world still reeling about him. He winced at each deafening
creak
of wood underneath his feet. She would wake up. He couldn’t bear if she awoke now, before he could get in bed and see her. He wanted her sleep-softened beneath his hands, gentled in his embrace as he fell asleep.

He slipped off his boots and lay down on the bed. Slowly, achingly slowly, as to barely move the bed, he shifted toward her. Finally he brought his hand to her shoulder, caressed the silken skin and wrapped her against his chest. He slipped his hand down to meet hers and he felt the heavy band he had placed there just hours earlier.

She stiffened. “Did you drown yourself in a barrel of scotch?”

She was awake and angry with him again.

“Shh, love. Just let me hold you now. Nothing more. Just hold you.” He didn’t wait for her to answer. The dark curtain of sleep fell before her words could.

Marcus woke shivering from the cold. The fire had died and the place where Tasha had slept retained no lingering trace of her heat. He pulled the sheets and coverlet closer around him, seeking warmth, seeking oblivion. Where the devil was his valet?

When he stood, the blood rushed from his head with a pounding force, and he painfully remembered the night before. He felt desiccated. His eyes ached. The very thought of the upcoming ride made his stomach roil.

Taking deep breaths, he washed his face and dressed. Pell arrived with a freshly washed and starched cravat as Marcus was pulling on his boots.

“Lady Templeton is downstairs having breakfast with Miss Leona,” Pell informed him. Marcus accepted the starched length of snowy-white linen and went to the mirror. He tied a simple knot, hardly glancing at himself.

“Thank you.” Marcus surveyed the room. Their trunks were barely unpacked and it would be the work of a few minutes to collect what was strewn about the room. “I would like to leave as soon as possible.”

“Yes, my lord.”

With his hand on the door, Marcus stopped and turned. “Pell,” he began, knowing he should hardly be addressing his valet this way, but feeling the need to be armed with information. “How did she…? Is my lady in good spirits this morning?”

Not a flicker of emotion crossed Pell’s face, and Marcus was absurdly grateful for that. “She was playing with the child.”

Marcus nodded, accepting the answer that hid as much as it gave, and left the room. The vestiges of excess that had stabbed at his head settled into a dull throb.

He found Natasha in the private parlor, settled on a sofa with Leona snuggled against her. His wife and his daughter.