Silence of Scandal (16 page)

Betty burst in brandishing a heavy broom.

“Ravisher! Rapist!” She shouted until she saw the Duke standing several meters from his wife, innocently dishing up boiled eggs and bacon onto a plate. Betty dropped the broom with a clatter. “Oh…What are you doing here? I serve my Lady’s breakfast.”

Alexander raised an ironic eyebrow as he looked back at the woman.

“I believe that I am allowed to treat my wife to breakfast in bed if I feel like it. I’ve barely had chance to see her in over a week and I thought to give her a change of company. I can assure you that no harm has come to your mistress.”

Betty looked suspiciously between him and Elizabeth. Elizabeth grinned at him and took the proffered plate of food.

“Is this some kind of trick?” Betty asked him as she narrowed her eyes.

He gave his best affronted look and then examined the dishes in front of him carefully.

“No, no tricks. No spiders concealed in the oatmeal or snails disguised in the kidneys.” He grinned at the memory of a plate of food Phillip had once meant to offer him as a trick but their father had suddenly appeared at the breakfast room door, took the dish from his brother and promptly went to eat it himself. Phillip had been put on bread and water rations for two days afterwards. “No, it looks just like breakfast to me. Cook would be fascinated to find out that you believe she would serve such things.”

Betty put her hands on her hips and glared at him while she tried her best not to smile.

“Oh, very funny, Your Grace. I wasn’t talking about the breakfast. I want to know what you were doing with my Lady. You shouldn’t be in here with her un-chaperoned.”

Alexander actually laughed. He threw back his head and laughed until the tears ran down his face. When he could actually speak again he smiled at the woman in front of him.

“My dear lady, I admire your tenacity in keeping your Mistress safe from my advances but it appears that you may have forgotten that Elizabeth and I were married not two weeks ago. I have more right to be in here than you do.”

Betty shut her mouth quickly and looked back at Elizabeth.

“Well, if that all right with you young lady? I thought you were trying to avoid him,” she spluttered an aside to Elizabeth.

Elizabeth smiled at her maid and ran forwards to take her hands.

“It is alright Betty. Alessander and I have been friends for a long while. He would never do anything to hurt me. Please don’t be concerned, it is only breakfast after all. I will ring for you when I need you.” She ushered the reluctant maid out of her room and turned back to her husband.

Alexander was looking at her carefully.

“I hardly think two weeks is a long acquaintance but I have the feeling you will explain it to me while we eat our breakfast.” He shook his head at her shocked expression and motioned her to the chair by the fire. He placed the plate on the table in front of her and then filled his own.

Elizabeth kept her eyes down and her mouth shut unless she was eating and even though he could see the pulse pounding in her throat betraying her guilty heart, to his increasing fury, she ignored every one of his questions.

She pretended to concentrate on the breakfast in front of her. It was a nearly impossible feat. His eyes never left her and she could feel the intensity of his stare as he ate his breakfast.

How could she have slipped up so easily again
? He was far too easy to be around. His presence overwhelmed her, made her want to please him. He was becoming impossible to ignore.

She was beginning to think that maybe she wanted Alexander to find out who she was. She shook herself mentally. That could never happen. He would be furious with her, would maybe even hate her. He might even send her back to her father.

She watched fearfully out of the corner of her eye as he forked bacon into his mouth and chewed slowly. She knew that he had been asking her questions, the vibrations of his deep tones could be felt in the air around her but she kept her eyes averted as her heart raced frantically.

She chanced a glance up at him as he went to pour tea. His lean figure was taught with finely hewn muscle that showed through his shirt at his shoulders and on his thighs beneath the material of his breeches. She swallowed at the memory of his bare chest, warm and inviting, heart pulsing furiously beneath her palm.

Discovering him in her bed had been more than her wildest dreams dared to let her hope. The feelings he had induced when he had touched her body was something she had never believed possible. Her heart had almost leapt from her body at his gentle yet fervent touch. She felt sure that it had just been lust on his part. There was no way he could love her yet. She hadn’t given him the opportunity and now she saw that she had been wrong to avoid him during dinner over the last week but she didn’t know how to make this right. When he discovered her beginnings and what she was meant to do he would demand that she left. She couldn’t let that happen. She had nowhere else to go.

He returned to the table and continued eating, his dark eyebrows becoming a thunderous line as they ate their meal in ever deepening silence. Elizabeth could feel her emotions choking her and she picked up her napkin to cover her mouth.

Ten minutes later his patience snapped. He slammed down his cutlery and forced himself back from the table.

She flinched and then looked up into glinting blue eyes as he mouthed the words.

“I will find out about you, Elizabeth. I cannot have anymore secrets kept from me. My family has been decimated and dragged to the verge of ruin. I will not let this go. If you won’t tell me why you were forced to marry me then I will find my own resources.” He waited for her to respond but she couldn’t answer him. She hadn’t known why she had been forced into marriage with him until it was too late, though if her father had told her it was Alexander she had to wed she would have happily skipped up the aisle. Now, after receiving the letter, she knew that it was all for the famed Ormond jewels but she could never let Alexander know that her father had demanded that she discover their where-a-bouts and steal them.

Alexander was long beyond patience. She had lowered her gaze again and he stood up quickly. He strode around the table towards her, wanting to make sure that she could be in no doubt of his determination to discover the truth. She cowered back in her chair and ducked her head as he loomed at her side.

He stopped dead, aghast at the implication of her cringing figure and quickly dropped into a squat beside her. Biting back his temper he picked up her trembling hand and tugged on it gently until she looked into his eyes again.

The frown was gone and his brow was clear again.

He took a deep breath and dropped a gentle kiss onto the back of her hand before he spoke.

“I won’t hurt you, Elizabeth. Not ever. I may not like your denial of me but I have yet to raise a hand to any woman.” He stood up again and stared down at her ebony curls. There was nothing he could do if she refused to answer him. He hesitated but then lay his hand on her shoulder for a moment. He was relieved when she didn’t flinch away from him. She looked up at him and he raised his hand to beneath her chin, refusing to let her look away from him.

“I am leaving you,” he paused as sadness swept her beautiful features and he quickly shook his head. “Not for long, maybe a week or so. Please understand Elizabeth, I cannot let this go. If you know anything I beg of you to tell me now.” He waited quietly for a response but although her lips trembled and for a moment she seemed about to speak no words were forthcoming. He gave a deep sigh. “If you know nothing then I must find out from other sources and apart from the staff and my mother, the only other person here regularly was Lady Anne. I am going to her to ask if she has any papers of my brother’s or any information at all. I will be leaving this morning and expect to be back before Whitsun. If you need anything, Geoffrey will be able to help you or send word for me.” He brought his hands to the sides of her face and brushed his thumbs gently over her velvet cheeks then he leaned down and gave her a gentle kiss on her ruby lips before he turned on his heel and was gone.

Elizabeth sat perfectly still. She didn’t want the tingling that covered her whole body to stop. Right from the moment she had woken and discovered him in her bed, she had known that she wanted more than a kiss from him.

She hadn’t been shocked at the feel of his masculine body radiating heat beside her or the musky scent of his arousal. He had filled her whole being with a longing that she could barely describe. She wanted him totally, with her whole heart and soul. Her body had been given new insights into what marriage would mean and she was now glad that her worries had kept her awake at night.

Several times over the last week, while darkness covered her movements, she had taken a candle and ventured downstairs. Her original intention had been to alleviate her boredom but her night time forays into the library had given her some excellent insights into what made her heart thump faster when her husband had fondled her breast and touched the tip of his tongue to her most private place. She had been almost desperate to discover if the pictures in the books were accurate in their depiction of ecstasy on the faces of both the men and women and she was secretly annoyed at Betty’s untimely thumping at the door.

Elizabeth had discovered the small selection of erotic books while she was searching for the drawings of Phillip’s strange machines. She had been keen on her idea for cheering up the castle and she hoped that Alexander hadn’t burned Phillip’s drawings along with everything else touched by the rabid dog.  She didn’t think he would have, his brother being only recently dead but she wasn’t sure.

Catching sight of a loose leaf of paper wedged between two slim volumes had tempted her to pull it from the shelf but the first book had slipped with it. She bent to pick it up but her hand flew to her breast as she saw that the book had fallen open on a drawing of a most unexpected nature. At first she gaped and then she had gazed in wonder at the picture.

A woman lay naked and spread on a bed, her face covered with an expression that could only be described as blissful while a broad shouldered naked man kneeled between her legs. His muscled arms held the lady’s legs high and wide while his face plunged deeply between her fleshy thighs.

Elizabeth had slammed the book shut, perspiration beading all over her body as she gasped at the image imprinted on the inside of her eyelids. She lifted her head to stare at the library door in case anyone had heard the commotion. Five minutes later the castle remained quiet and with her heart still pounding she dared to open the book once again.

She opened it at the first page and stared as heat gathered between her own legs. The pictures the book contained made for riveting viewing as page after page revealed the secrets that lay between the bed sheets. She was glad to see that all the men in the diagrams had protruding parts between their legs, though she noted that they were not nearly so large or as firm looking as Alexander’s had been while he soaked in the bath. It was clearly something men could all hide in their breeches.

She turned the book this way and that while her skin heated as she took in all the various positions possible. There were some handwritten annotations with the pictures and she wished that she could read all of the captions that accompanied and obviously described some of the detail of the drawings.

Returning the book to its place on the shelf, she had picked up the next book to it. It had a similar plain cover green cover and similar but slightly different content. This book contained pictures of a parallel vein but the actions of the participants was not restricted to the bed chamber. Her eyes had returned time and time again to the image of a couple standing against a tree in an overgrown garden. The woman’s back was pressed against the trunk, her skirts raised to above her waist while her legs wrapped the man’s naked hips. The man’s breeches hung low on his thighs but the rest of his clothes remained intact. His head was bent against the woman’s neck, his arm under one of her knees, lifting it slightly higher as his loins pressed forwards.

Other images burned in her head. Women bent forwards over tables, over desks, even over garden statuary. In some of the images the women were naked, in others their skirts were gathered above their waist while several of them had their dress tops pulled down to expose plump breasts with achingly stiff nipples. All of the participants appeared to be in a state of complete ecstasy.

She drew in a deep breath as she remembered the way Alexander’s face had relaxed into a similar expression while he pleasured himself in the bath. The place between her legs clenched hard and heat rose through her body.

At least he wasn’t leaving her for long. A week, he had said. She thought she would do some investigating herself while he was away. Why did her father tell her that Alexander was dead? And then why make her marry him? It was hardly a punishment to her and from the look in Alexander’s eyes as he had almost ravished her that morning, it was no hardship for him either. Were the jewels really worth that much to her father?

She placed her napkin on the table and took a sip of her tea as she sat back in her chair. Her lips still tingled where her husband had kissed her so enthusiastically. She placed her cup back on its saucer and touched her fingertip to her mouth. It felt slightly swollen and she gave a small smile as she remembered his fervour as he had lost nearly all self-control while they had been in bed that morning. She knew that if Betty hadn’t pounded on the door she would have ended up like one of the women in the books. Her pulse fluttered erratically as she wondered if she would have the same look of ecstasy when Alexander eventually made her his.