Lord of Regrets (5 page)

Chapter Six

Marcus burrowed into the mattress, listening to the creaking of the house settling around him, his hands searching for covers, his feet…

His numb feet were still trapped in his boots.

He came awake suddenly, memory flooding back, and peered in the darkness for Natasha. Her scent was strong in the air, but the room felt empty. He fought down his panic and rolled out of bed, fastening up the falls of his wrinkled clothing.

Where would she be?

He lit the candle on the chest of drawers. As he neared the bedroom door, he recognized the creaks and the rushes of noise as the sound of movement across wooden floors, and he relaxed. He opened the door. The sounds stopped.

He opened the door across the hall, and two faces turned to him, illuminated by the thin light of a candle.

“Mama?” The little girl sounded scared and confused. Natasha’s stilled hands were resting atop an open valise, half stuffed with the child’s clothes.

“No.” Marcus wanted to say more, but it was the only word that worked, the only word that mattered. She could
not
leave him again. “No.” The word came out deeper, darker, and even he was shocked at the emotion in it.

“Mama?”

“Either you leave or we leave,” Natasha said as she began to carefully fold a small garment.

“We need to talk.”

“Mama?” The plaintive voice was louder this time. He glanced at the girl––his daughter.

“Hush, Leona.”

“Why is Lord Templeton here?”

“Because I made a mistake,” he said, the admission for Natasha even though it was his daughter’s question that he answered.

“A mistake!” Natasha stood, arms akimbo, fury emanating from her, and Marcus felt himself sink inside. “A mistake is forgetting someone’s birthday. What you did, Marcus, there are words for that I can’t say in front of Leona.”

“Are we leaving because of him?”

“I know.” Marcus held his hands out, palms up, pleading. “If I could change the past, I would. I’ve missed out on so much, on our daughter, on our life together.”

“No.” Natasha stalked toward him, her hands fisted by her sides.

“Mama,” Leona wailed, standing up on the bed.

Natasha stopped. Her eyes closed and her fists slowly unclenched.

“You need to go, Marcus.” The words were cold and final. He could not accept them.

“Who is he?”

He seized on the girl’s question, on the small, living being who tied him to Natasha irrevocably.

“I’m your father.” His words filled the air like a cannon, smoke and ash raining down in the momentary silence.

Natasha pinned him with a shocked, furious glare.

“No, you’re not,” the child denied. Marcus tore his gaze from Natasha to watch Leona shake her head vigorously. “I don’t have a father. And if I did, it wouldn’t be you.”

“Why not?” Marcus asked, offended and then bemused by his own emotions, by the conversation they were having by the light of one candle, in the middle of the night.

“Because my mother loved my father and she doesn’t love you.” The statement was made with all the assured logic of youth, and while Marcus couldn’t deny that Natasha hated him now, he thought it odd that she would tell their daughter she had loved Marcus. He wanted to ask her why she had loved him, but he bit back the words, thinking them weak.

“Tell her, Natasha.”

“My father is dead,” Leona said, her lower lip trembling. But she didn’t run to her mother.

“He’s right, darling.” Natasha’s voice broke.

“No,” the girl wailed. “No, no, no. I hate you!” She threw herself at Marcus, small fists hitting. “You’re making us leave, and I hate you.”

He didn’t know what to do with the small person assaulting him. He was afraid to grab her arms, to push her away. He was afraid that he would break her.

Natasha pulled the girl away, hauling her roughly. “That’s enough.”

Leona’s fists found her mother’s chest, her face scrunched up in dismay.

“If I must have a father,” Leona cried, “why can’t it be Reverend Duncan?”

The words hurt, but Marcus forced down his anger, his resentment of another man taking such a prominent role in his daughter’s life. She was just a child, and when she and Natasha came to live with him, everything would change.

“You said!” The girl pushed away, her tearstained face uncrumpling and settling into a mask of confusion. “You lied.”

The words seemed to hit Natasha with more force than Leona’s fists. That sinking nausea in his stomach started again, and Marcus wondered when the ripples would cease, when he would finally right this horrible nightmare.

“When you’re older, you’ll understand,” Natasha said, her words measured, but he heard the pain behind them.

“You told me not to lie. Reverend Duncan said lying is a sin.” Leona backed away on the bed. “I hate you. I hate you. I hate you.”

Marcus grabbed her as she stumbled off the mattress. She kicked and screamed in his arms, but he held her tight, wondering that her little limbs could hold such powerful fury.

“She was trying to protect you,” he said against her ear, all too aware that Natasha was watching, that his lack of fathering ability was on show. “I should have been there to protect you, but instead your mother had to do the best she could.”

“She lied! She lied, and you want to make us leave!”

Leona ripped herself out of Marcus arms and threw herself onto the bed, bawling into the coverlet.

Natasha pushed Marcus out of Leona’s room, shutting the door behind them and leaning heavily on it.

The hallway smelled of dust, of wood, and of Natasha. He wanted to wrap her in his arms and apologize again, whisper the words of admiration and praise that would never express how he truly saw her.

“How could you?” she accused, low and despairing.

“She’s my daughter. I won’t lose you again, Natasha. Neither of you.”

He flinched at the expression in her eyes: lost, doubting.

“Please, give me a chance to make it right.”

“What do you want of me?”

“I want you to marry me.”

She was silent for a long time. He fought the urge to babble, cry out his love. If she said no, he would speak again.

“What good will it do you, Marcus? Leona is illegitimate and always will be.”

“I don’t care about the codicils.” He had cared years ago, but he’d worked hard to ensure that never again would he be trapped and bound by somebody else’s rules. He had his own life to lead; Natasha, and now Leona, were central to that life.

She opened her mouth and he waited, desperate for her next words. Her lips worked. She shook her head and looked toward the ceiling. Whatever decision she was making did not please her.
Would it please him?

“At least now, even if it is a lie, people think her legitimate. No one turns from her or speaks of her unkindly.”

“It is not the ideal situation, but I will protect you both with my name as best I can. Even without an honorific, she is the daughter of a viscount, the granddaughter of an earl. She will want for nothing.”

“I’ll think about it,” she said finally. Her expression was shuttered.

“You won’t run away. I’ll follow you again.”

She met his gaze, and he steeled his heart against that lost look. “I won’t run away. Please, just go now.”

He nodded, holding himself tight against the surge of elation. She was giving him time. He would make everything right.

Natasha would be his.

…

Natasha knew she should follow him to the door, lock it after him, but no one else had ever stolen into her home. Not here in Little Parrington, where life was quiet and slow.

No, the danger had left with Marcus.

Sighing, she crept back into Leona’s room. The candle still burned where Marcus had placed it on the console, but the child––her sweet, small daughter––lay curled and asleep above the covers, her fist tucked against her mouth.

A far cry away from the look of disbelief and hate she’d had when she’d realized her mother had lied. That crime, too, Natasha laid at Marcus’s feet. He had come back to ruin her, to destroy everything.

All in the name of love.

Natasha stifled her laugh, her cry, against her own fist and stumbled back through the door. In the hallway, she let the bitter sob escape.

She sat up the last three hours before sunrise. She couldn’t sleep and even if she could, her bedroom now smelled of him. Of Marcus and of the intercourse they had shared.

In five years, she had never once imagined he would ask her to marry him. As if he could wipe it all away with an apology and a marriage offer.

A mistake. He said his actions years ago had all been a mistake. That if she had waited half an hour, her life would have been different. It was an easy thing for him to say, for she could prove it neither false nor true.

Did she believe he was sorry? Now, perhaps, faced with the living Leona, but he’d shown his true character in that long-ago moment. As Leonardo Da Vinci had said, “The depth and strength of human character are defined by its moral reserves.”

Marcus had chosen greed.

She could never forget that, no matter how she had reveled in his touch, no matter how his words of marriage had torn her up inside with sweetness.

When the morning leaked its first cool gray light through the curtains, Natasha washed her face with ice-cold water and dressed. She started the fire in the kitchen, put water in the kettle, and sat down. She had decisions to make, but she didn’t even know how to think about her life.

She could still feel his mark on her body.

“Mama.” A sleepy Leona padded into the kitchen. “Are we leaving?”

“No, darling, we’re staying.” Natasha pushed her chair back from the wide wooden table to let her daughter climb into her lap. Instead, Leona pulled another chair, taller than herself, away from the table and hopped up.

“Is Lord Templeton really my father?”

She heard the water bubbling in the kettle and stood.
Stupid, stupid, stupid
. She found herself mouthing the words, but wasn’t certain if she was referring to Marcus or to herself.

“Yes, yes he is, but you cannot tell anyone, sweetheart, about your father. We have to keep it a secret.”

“Why?”

“Because.” Natasha stopped, trying to think of some reason Leona would understand. She took her time, pouring the water into a pot, adding the tea leaves.

“Are you married to him?”

“No, and that is why we cannot tell anyone.” Natasha brought the teapot and a cup to the table and sat down again.

Leona stared at her, clearly working through the new information. Natasha wondered how much about the world Leona really knew, what she had gleaned from adult conversations. Would her daughter’s confused expression turn to condemnation?

“Are we going to live with him?”

“No.”

“Are you going to marry Reverend Duncan?”

“No.”

Leona lay her head down on the table, her hands fisted and wrapped in the tangled curls. Natasha watched her silently.

“Will Lord Templeton come to see us again?”

“Yes.”

“Is that a lie?”

Natasha shuddered. She let out her breath in a slow, shaky exhale.

“No, sweetheart. I won’t ever lie to you again.”

Leona didn’t move her head, but she pulled her left hand an inch toward her head, the fingers tangling more deeply in her hair.

Natasha rested her hand on the small, warm one of her child.

“I don’t want tea,” Leona said, her words muffled against the table just before she pushed away, slid off the chair, and ran from the room.

Natasha swallowed down the agony that built in her chest.

She would have to teach her daughter not to run. One generation would have to end the madness.

Chapter Seven

When Marcus called on Natasha that afternoon, the man he had set to watching the house in case she decided to run informed him that Mrs. Prothe had gone out. A momentary panic seized Marcus before the man added that she had left alone. The maid confirmed this, saying Mrs. Prothe would be home soon. Marcus waited. As much as he would enjoy stealing into her room this night, he needed to show Natasha that he honored her wishes. He also liked the idea of a few minutes by a warm fire rather than braving the biting cold again. The girl looked nervous, as though she’d had orders not to let him in, but in the end her respect for his title won out.

He found himself in the cozy little parlor, sitting by the lighted fireplace, with Mary gone to the kitchen to fetch tea. Then, as if he had conjured her out of the growing question in his mind, Leona appeared at the open door.

He had last seen her in the middle of the night, a ghost in her white nightgown, crying, hitting him with her fists. Today, although serious and subdued, she looked like a proper little girl.

“Good afternoon, Leona,” he greeted her, standing and offering a bow. She cringed and hung back against the door frame, and he realized his height made him more menacing. “Won’t you come in and sit down? I’m awfully tired, and you know a gentleman may not sit while a lady still stands.”

She puzzled over that for a moment. He imagined he could actually see the distinct thoughts behind the expression on her face.

Finally, she picked her way across the room and, using her hands and knees, climbed onto the wide armchair opposite his.

“Mama said you would come.”

Her feet in their little slippers made circles in the air, and she played with the folds of her dress while looking at him under long lashes. Wondrous to think that he had had a part of creating this curious little being.

“And so I did. Your mother was correct.”

“She said we aren’t going to leave. Are you going to live with us?”

Marcus laughed, despite himself. The idea was so preposterous.

Leona wiped at her forehead with her palm, as if she were confused by his laughter or made self-conscious. Her movement had the awkward grace of a body not yet sure of itself.

“My mama doesn’t like you, so she probably won’t let you,” she continued, her arms folding over her chest and her face settling into a mulish expression, clearly not happy with his laughter.

But he was amused by this little human who still boggled his mind.

“Why do you think she doesn’t like me?”

“Because you are stupid.”

He laughed again. Perhaps he was stupid, but surely not for any reasons this child could imagine. In any event, his stupidity was monumental.

She lifted her hand to her forehead again, pushing back a loose strand of hair with the flat of her palm. A childish gesture with no precision, and the charm of it momentarily humbled him, made his laughter catch in his throat.

The house shifted and creaked with the opening of the front door. Marcus straightened in his seat, a flush of anticipation heating his body as he waited for Natasha to enter the room.

Leona sat up, too, pushed herself to the edge of the chair as if she intended to jump down and run to her mother. But she stopped herself and looked down at her shoes, her legs swinging.

Then, framed in the open doorway, caught between the illumination of the fire and the cool gray afternoon light, was Natasha. Even in the plainest clothes she looked beautiful. Her eyes wide and large, her features heavier than most English women, but all of it so perfectly balanced that she appeared at once delicate and strong.

Marcus stood immediately. In five strides, he closed the distance between them and took Natasha’s hands in his own. Her bare fingers were cold and he pressed them to his lips fervently, meeting her stunned gaze.

Her cheeks were pink from being outside and her lips were parted ever so slightly. He lowered her hands, letting the back of his brush against her skirts, pressing so that he could feel, through the layers of cloth, the resistance of her thigh. He wanted to lean forward and kiss her, to capture the fullness of that soft, rosy lower lip between his.

He wanted
her
. The memory of the night before boiled through his veins, heated his nerves.

“Please release me,” she said softly, so softly her words did not at first register.

He was tempted to ignore her. Tempted to place his hands against the wall on either side of her and lean in close. To kiss her, to take her there, to remind her of how they fit together.

He heard a noise from behind him—Leona, who was likely watching their interaction avidly.

So instead, tightening his grip on Natasha’s hands, he pulled her against him ever so slightly and whispered, “For now.”

…

Natasha’s breath caught in her chest. When he finally dropped her hands, she began to shiver. She rubbed her palms together and swept past him into the room, toward the fire, toward Leona.

Who looked away from her as she came closer. The rejection stung, and Natasha had to stop herself from gathering her daughter into her arms and forcing a hug. She had tried that earlier in the day, and Leona had squirmed in her arms, pushing at her. It would pass. Leona would forget…or at least forgive. It
would
pass.

Natasha stood by the fire and put her hands out, trying to warm herself. In the wake of Marcus’s burning hands touching her, she was colder than she had been outside.

She watched Marcus out of the corner of her eye. He drew closer and stood by the small settee, his hands behind his back, waiting.

Waiting for her to sit, likely, for her to invite him to join her for a cup of tea or an afternoon repast. As if this were any normal call.

Then Mary walked in, burdened down with a tray laden with tea and biscuits and some of the leftover
torta
Natasha had made two days earlier. In her absence, he had apparently invited himself to feel at home.

“Oh, Mrs. Prothe,” Mary exclaimed as she lay the tray down on the table. “I didn’t hear you come in.”

“No, how could you, Mary, as busy as you were in the kitchen?” Mary flushed at the admonishment and scurried out of the room. The girl should have been embarrassed at how generously she had entertained the enemy. Shaking her head, Natasha turned to Marcus. She gestured to the tray even as she sat down in the vacant chair by the fire—the chair he had so recently occupied. “Won’t you join me, Lord Templeton?”

He had the gall to smirk as he sketched a bow.

“Thank you for the invitation,” Marcus said. “I’ve had the great pleasure of Miss Leona’s company for the last quarter hour. And I am honored and delighted to enjoy yours.”

His long legs made the delicate settee look small. In fact, despite his good humor, he looked cramped and uncomfortable. She derived a small bit of satisfaction from that.

“Well, then.” Natasha leaned forward to pour the tea. She put milk and a spoonful of sugar in the cup for Leona and then half a spoonful of sugar in the cup she meant for Marcus before she stopped. “How do you take your tea?”

He wasn’t smiling when he met her inquiring gaze, but his expression was knowing, satisfied. “Exactly as you remember.”

Her hands shook as she finished preparing his tea, and she hated herself for the weakness.

Leona slid out of her chair and padded forward to take her teacup in two hands.

“A lady waits,” Natasha admonished, even as she passed Marcus’s cup to him.

Leona stopped midmotion and looked up at her, confused.

“Next time,” Marcus said softly, and Leona turned to him, her forehead wrinkling. Then she looked back at Natasha.

Anger burned through Natasha, but she bit it back and nodded curtly. Leona warily picked up the cup.

There was a muted knock on the front door. The house shivered again as the door opened.

The chilled wind swept through, bringing with it the sound of voices, those of Mary and the Reverend Duncan. Natasha put down the teapot, panicked. Duncan would know. He would take one look at her and somehow know that Leona was Marcus’s daughter, that Marcus had spent the previous night in Natasha’s bed.

She wanted to stop Mary from letting Duncan in, but Leona put down her cup and ran from the room calling, “Mr. Duncan, Mr. Duncan!”

A moment later, Duncan entered the room, Leona hopping by his side with excitement.

“Good afternoon, Mrs. Prothe,” Duncan said as he entered, just before he caught sight of Marcus, who’d relaxed back in that ridiculously small settee as if he belonged there. “I was visiting Mrs. Drummond and her son,” he said, much more warily. “Thought I’d stop and see if tomorrow would be a good day to start Leona’s lessons.”

“It’s good of you to stop by,” Natasha managed. “Won’t you join us for tea? Leona, stop bouncing around the reverend. You’ll make him dizzy with your antics.”

“Thank you, Mrs. Prothe.” He bowed to Marcus. “A pleasure to see you again, Lord Templeton.” He took his seat in the other chair by the fire. Leona stood near him for a moment before Marcus scooted over and patted the vacant space beside him. A bit of Leona’s excitement dimmed but she climbed up onto the settee.

“So you are to give Miss Leona lessons,” Marcus said. Natasha was grateful for the conversation to ease the discomfort, until she remembered Marcus was the cause of that unease.

“Yes, she’s quite bright. I had some difficulty at first convincing Mrs. Prothe that we can hardly waste such an intellect, but I persevered.” Natasha watched Marcus carefully for his reaction, but his expression was shuttered and difficult to read. “We’ll begin tomorrow, if that’s fine by you, Mrs. Prothe? Beginning with Latin.”

“Do you know how to read?” Marcus asked Leona with an admiring look. She nodded. “That’s quite a feat for a person as small as you.” Something about the interaction warmed Natasha, and she turned her attention away quickly.

“Yes, that is very kind of you, Mr. Duncan. Leona is clearly excited,” Natasha said. She picked up the teapot up to pour for the rector.

“So, Lord Templeton,” Duncan said in a slightly louder voice. “What brings you to Little Parrington?”

“Business,” Marcus said, “and the chance to see Natasha.”

Natasha winced at his familiar use of her name, but she understood, even as it shamed her. He would not use Mrs. Prothe.

Suddenly the fire seemed too hot, too stuffy, and the room too small. She glanced at Duncan, unwillingly, but needing to see his reaction. The reverend’s brows furrowed, and Natasha opened her mouth to make some excuse, reaching for anything that made her relationship with Marcus sound more normal, more tame.

“Well, then,” the reverend said, his voice thick with a forced joviality that made Natasha want to sink into her seat. Her anxiety was made worse by knowing that through it all, Leona watched them over the rim of her teacup. “How long do you intend to stay in our little village?”

“Until my business is complete,” Marcus said. “But I should take my leave. May I call on you again, Natasha? Perhaps I could impose upon you, Reverend, for a ride back to the village? It looks as though it has begun to snow.”

How neatly Marcus forced Duncan to leave with him. The maneuver at once revealed everything she loved and despised about him.
Loved?
Natasha’s own thoughts took her aback. Did she still feel any love for the man?

…

A storm rolled through in the night and pounded Little Parrington with hail and freezing rain until the early afternoon. Marcus slept in late and then lay abed, listening to the roar against the roof of the inn.

How did one woo a woman? It had been too long. Far too long. Flowers would be impossible to get unless he procured them from Norwich. Baubles would be inappropriate considering the circumstance and, again, would necessitate a ride into Norwich earlier than he planned.

No, he would need to remind her of how they fell in love.

He hadn’t fallen in love all at once; he’d admit that. The first emotion he’d experienced was more a sensation of sweetness, of deep knowing, as if this girl were someone he should have known always.
Soul mates.
Foolish claptrap perhaps, but he had believed it then and, having gone five years with her haunting his days and nights, he believed it more now.

Love had come more slowly, with each caress, each whisper, each shared confidence. Love had come after he’d carelessly made her his mistress.

He’d torn her from the bosom of her family and promised to shelter her and to keep her safe, to show her the world. She had been his.

She would be his again.

Intent upon his courtship, Marcus arrived late in the afternoon with a basket of bread and invited himself to supper. It was sundown and the maid, Mary, was just leaving.

“It isn’t proper for you to be here,” Natasha protested.

Marcus almost laughed at that, at the idea that after all their intimacy, they would need a chaperone. Especially here, far away from town and any curious eyes.

“Mary will surely tell her family about your visit.”

“Then the damage is already done. Give me a chance, Natasha.”

She took the basket out of his arms. “Won’t you join us for dinner?” she asked, her tone laden with sarcasm.

“I’d be honored.” Natasha made a small sound at his response as she turned away. He followed her toward the kitchen, but Leona, carrying an unwieldy stack of dishes, stumbled past and he quickly relieved the girl of her burden.

“I can do it,” Leona protested with a mulish expression. “I do it every day.”

“Yes, but you wouldn’t stop a gentleman from trying to impress a lady with his great strength, now would you?”

Leona ducked her head, almost hiding her shy smile. “You’re silly.”

He followed her into the dining room and let her direct him where to put the dishes. After he purposefully misplaced two plates and let her correct him, his daughter’s shyness had ebbed again.

“Mr. Duncan isn’t silly at all. Except when he eats
torta
. He eats more than anyone.”

“Does he?”

“He ate almost a whole cake today.”