The Lady Confesses (14 page)

The fact that he still felt like pummelling the other man to within an inch of his life for so much as looking at Elizabeth, let alone touching her, told him that his departure had better be sooner rather than later!

‘Enjoyable as yesterday evening was, the truth is that I have other…commitments in town, which are desperately in need of my attentions.’

Simply from the way he said ‘other…commitments’ Elizabeth knew that he was referring to a woman. No doubt an older, more experienced woman, who, unlike Elizabeth, was more than a match for his extensive physical experience. An older, more experienced woman ‘desperately in need of his attentions’…

Nathaniel could not have stated any more clearly that he had merely been toying with her. That she had been but a diversion until he felt able to take up his previous life. Until he felt his health was returned enough to enable him to give his mistress those ‘attentions’!

Had she ever felt such misery before this? Elizabeth wondered numbly. Had she ever before so badly wanted, needed, to scream and shout at the depth of the hurt she was feeling?

She had certainly never felt the need to scratch and claw a faceless, nameless woman, whose only crime was to welcome a more-than-willing Nathaniel Thorne into both her arms and her bed.

Elizabeth moistened the numbness of her lips before speaking. ‘In that case it remains only for me to wish you a safe journey tomorrow, my lord.’

Nathaniel’s intention had been to put the necessary distance between himself and Elizabeth, both physically and socially—something that he had obviously succeeded in doing if the cool remoteness of her expression now was any indication. Such a neutral expression, in fact, that he contrarily wanted nothing more than to kiss her in order to find the warm and vibrant woman he had held in his arms the evening before.

An action guaranteed to further complicate an already unacceptable situation…’I accept your good wishes,’ he said distantly. ‘Will you now consider staying on here yourself?’ he could not resist enquiring.

Would she? Elizabeth wondered. Could she? Could she remain here in Devonshire, with all its attendant memories, after Nathaniel had returned to his life—and his mistress—in London?

She still had no idea whether or not Lord Gabriel Faulkner had quit Shoreley Park, or if he was perhaps still lurking there, with every intention of remaining until he had persuaded one of the Copeland sisters into marrying him. Nor could Elizabeth go back to London now that she knew Nathaniel was to be there; after the set-down he had just given her, she dared not run the risk of his accusing her of having followed him there!

She released her breath in a sigh. ‘I believe I shall.’

‘Do not look so forlorn, Elizabeth,’ the earl mocked her. ‘Perhaps Tennant will come up to scratch after all and offer you marriage!’

Elizabeth’s eyes flashed deeply blue as she looked across at him. ‘And if he were to do so, I would have no hesitation in refusing him!’

Nathaniel raised blond brows at her vehemence. ‘Would that not be rather…foolhardy, given your present circumstances?’

She frowned warily. ‘Foolhardy in what way, my lord?’

He gave an impatient snort. ‘Obviously if you were to marry Tennant you would become Lady Tennant.’

Elizabeth was already Lady Elizabeth! And much good it did her at this point in time…

‘There is that to consider, of course.’ She eyed Nathaniel scornfully. ‘You are quite correct in advising me not to act too hastily, my lord.’

Nathaniel eyed her impatiently, his frustration barely held in check. Could Elizabeth seriously be considering accepting if Rufus Tennant should offer her marriage? And had he himself not just advised her to consider such an offer carefully before refusing?

Yes, Nathaniel had done that—but only in the belief that Elizabeth would indeed refuse such an offer of marriage. Damn it, just the thought of her in Tennant’s bed every night was enough to effect a return of his earlier feelings of violence. As to his feelings concerning Tennant’s hands upon her deliciously curvaceous body—!

But if not Tennant, then it would someday be another man whom eventually wedded and bedded her…

‘I believe this conversation is now over, my lord,’ Elizabeth prompted as he now seemed in no hurry to quit her bedchamber. Something she dearly needed Nathaniel to do—before she could no longer hold back the hot tears burning the backs of her eyes and threatening to fall!

This had to be the very worst day of her life. The disappointment of realising that Sir Rufus’s brother offered no answers in regard to her mother’s death, followed by the indignity of suffering Sir Rufus’s kisses; to then be discovered by none other than Nathaniel Thorne, a man who had kissed and caressed her with such passion the evening before; now to be advised by that same gentleman that she should seriously consider any offer of marriage Sir Rufus might make to her—whatever tender emotions she might have felt towards Nathaniel Thorne must now surely be at an end?

‘Lord Thorne!’ she repeated sharply as he still made no answer.

His mouth had thinned, his jaw set disapprovingly. ‘I wish you every happiness in your future…endeavours.’

Elizabeth gave a curt inclination of her head. ‘And I wish the same for you.’

There was nothing more to be said, Nathaniel realised impatiently. Nothing more to be done. Just this stilted leave taking, between two unlikely people who had been thrown together, and whom circumstances had allowed to become closer than normal propriety permitted.

Nevertheless… ‘Elizabeth—’

‘We have said our goodbyes to each other, Nathaniel; let that be an end to it,’ she said with quiet finality.

Goodbye.

Yes, this was their goodbye, Nathaniel realised with a frown. Any further conversations between the two of them would take place in the presence of his aunt or Letitia and be all the more formal because of it. He would miss their verbal sparring. Would miss the parry and thrust of those private conversations. Deeply regretted that he would never hold Elizabeth in his arms again, that he would never kiss her again. Never caress her—

‘I really must ask you to leave my bedchamber now, my lord,’ Elizabeth insisted waspishly.

Nathaniel straightened abruptly, his bow brief and his expression coldly remote. ‘No doubt I will see you at dinner.’

‘No doubt.’ Her curtsy was just as formal.

Elizabeth stood and watched as Nathaniel walked from her bedchamber, knowing that any further meetings between the two of them before his departure tomorrow would be as Lord Nathaniel Thorne, Earl of Osbourne, and Miss Elizabeth Thompson, the young and impoverished companion of his aunt.

Chapter Fourteen

‘I
want to know how this could have happened!’ Nathaniel’s voice was cold with suppressed fury as he stared down at Midnight lying prostrate in the straw in his stall, the stallion obviously in great pain and discomfort. ‘And why!’ he added forcefully, hands clenched into fists at his sides.

Finch, a man in his fifties and the head groom of his aunt’s stables at Hepworth Manor, looked no less grim as he straightened from examining the black stallion. ‘He must have eaten something, my lord.’

‘Such as what?’ Nathaniel looked pointedly at the horses in the neighbouring stalls as they munched happily—and healthily—on their early-morning feed.

The groom shook his head. ‘He was perfectly well when I checked at eleven o’clock yesterday evening, and he went down too fast for it to have been anything else.’

Nathaniel had not been in the best of moods this morning even before he came out to the stables to check on Midnight and instruct he be prepared for his departure today.

Dinner yesterday evening had been a stilted affair, with his aunt and Letitia making most of the conversation and Nathaniel and Elizabeth not even looking at each other, let alone attempting to speak, which had not made for a comfortable night’s sleep. Nathaniel had hoped to talk to Elizabeth over breakfast this morning, so that at least they did not part acrimoniously, only to be thwarted in that plan when she’d sent down her apologies and the explanation that she had a cold. His Aunt Gertrude had immediately gone upstairs to check on her young companion, of course, returning several minutes later to confirm that Elizabeth did not look at all well and that she had advised her to spend the rest of the day in her bed.

To now come out to the stables and find his horse stricken with some unexplained illness was positively the last straw as far as Nathaniel’s already tautly strung patience was concerned. That he would not be leaving today, as planned, was more than obvious; he intended getting to the bottom of Midnight’s sudden malaise. It was a lesson he had learnt too well whilst in the army; a soldier saw to the comfort of his mount before thinking of his own.

‘Do what you can for him.’ Nathaniel said to Finch as he straightened from the stallion’s side. ‘If there is no change by midday…’ He scowled at the thought that they might have to put the horse out of his misery.

‘Let us hope it does not come to that, my lord,’ the head groom replied. ‘I have given him a purge and that may well bring about some positive results.’

In the meantime Nathaniel had no choice but to go back into the house and instruct his valet to delay his expected departure; he might yet have need of the clothes already packed into numerous trunks and loaded into the carriage.

‘We do not seem to be particularly lucky with the health of our animals at present, Osbourne,’ his aunt sympathised when he informed her of the reason for the postponement of his journey, the brightly alert Hector sitting comfortably upon her silk-covered knees and showing absolutely no sign of his own misadventure of yesterday.

Nathaniel frowned. ‘No, we don’t, Aunt.’

‘Excuse me, madam, but these have just arrived for Miss Thompson…’ Sewell stood in the doorway of the parlour, a huge bouquet of cream roses, each petal tipped with a peachy hue, obscuring most of his rigidly held torso. ‘I was unsure, in view of Miss Thompson feeling indisposed this morning, as to whether or not I should take them up to her bedchamber.’

Nathaniel scowled at the array of beautiful blooms, knowing Tennant was responsible for sending them. ‘Leave them on the table there, Sewell,’ he instructed the butler, waiting until the older man had left the room before striding over to remove the card nestled amongst the blooms and unashamedly reading the message written there:
Please accept these roses as an apology for my behaviour yesterday and as evidence of my deep regard for you. I have decided to name the rose ‘Elizabeth’s Innocence’. Tennant.

‘Why are you reading a private missive to Elizabeth, Nathaniel?’ His aunt sounded shocked at his impropriety.

Nathaniel’s fingers tightened about the card as he turned to face his Aunt Gertrude, uncaring that he crushed it in his palm. ‘Will you excuse me, Aunt?’ He picked up the bouquet of roses with the obvious intention of leaving the room.

‘I—but—’ Mrs Wilson looked completely nonplussed by this strange behaviour. ‘You cannot go up to Elizabeth’s bedchamber, Nathaniel!’ She rose to her feet, her expression scandalised. ‘Let Sewell or one of the maids take up the roses, if you must. You simply cannot—’

‘Oh, I simply must, Aunt,’ he said.

‘But—what will the servants think?’ His aunt raised an agitated hand to her ample chest.

He gave a humourless smile. ‘I will not tell them, Aunt, if you do not.’ He made good his escape before his aunt could think of any further objections she might make, having no intention of heeding them in any case.

Already agitated at Midnight’s malaise, and irritated at his delayed departure, he now found the arrival of Tennant’s roses as being the final insult, when she would not so much as leave her bedchamber to make her goodbyes to him. It was the excuse he needed so he could go to her…

Last night Elizabeth had cried for so long and so miserably that she had absolutely no difficulty in convincing Mrs Wilson that she was brewing a cold. Her throat was sore and her eyes were surely red enough from weeping to be convincing.

Nathaniel, not a virus, was the reason for those humiliated tears, of course.

He had barely been able to look at Elizabeth at dinner the previous evening, let alone speak to her, all of his few remarks directed to his aunt or Letitia Grant. By the end of the evening she had been consumed with misery to know Nathaniel now believed her to be nothing more than a scheming young woman in search of a wealthy husband.

Going down the stairs this morning, and pretending a calmness she did not feel, as Nathaniel took his leave of them all was totally beyond her present fragile state of emotions.

Why she should be so utterly downhearted at his bad opinion of her she refused to consider; she only knew that her misery was very real as well as very painful. She—

Elizabeth’s gaze turned sharply towards the door as it was thrown open unceremoniously. Nathaniel was standing in the doorway, a huge bouquet of roses in his arms. The grimness of his expression, and the distinctive colour of those blooms, was enough to alert her to the fact that the roses were certainly not a peace offering from him.

She moistened dry lips before speaking. ‘I had thought you might have left by now, my lord.’

His eyes narrowed stormily. ‘You mean, perhaps, that you had hoped I had.’

‘No, I—’

‘Perhaps I should have been gone by now if my horse had not been struck down by a mysterious illness.’ He kicked the door closed behind him and came to stand beside the bed, looking down at her. ‘These, as you have probably already guessed, have just arrived for you.’ He dropped the bouquet of roses on top of the rumpled bedcovers. ‘This came with them.’ His top lip curled back in a sneer as he threw a crumpled card down as well.

Elizabeth pulled herself further up the bed and leaned back against the pillows, taking her bedcovers with her to protect her modesty as she did so, before smoothing out the crushed card and reading the message written there. ‘Sir Rufus is obviously a man lacking in all understanding! He behaved unacceptably towards me yesterday.’ She put the card onto the table beside the bed with a moue of disgust before moving the roses to one side, showing no pleasure in their presence.

The burn of Nathaniel’s ire had sent him up here like a bullet being fired from a pistol, but he calmed somewhat at Elizabeth’s own lack of interest in receiving the roses from Tennant, or being in the least flattered that they were being named for her.

His anger faded completely as Nathaniel drank in the loveliness of her loose dark curls displayed across the pillows behind her and framing the pale fragility of her face, some of the silky strands falling across the gentle rise and fall of her breasts visible beneath her white silk nightrail.

The lessening of his temper finally allowed him to realise the consequences of his recent actions; he had defied his Aunt Gertrude, and propriety, by coming upstairs to the bedchamber of her young and unmarried companion, especially as he should not even have known where it was situated, as well as coming in without permission!

Facts borne out by the trepidation with which those dark blue eyes now looked up at him beneath the fringe of their long dark lashes.

He stepped back from the bed in the hopes he might appear less threatening. ‘Elizabeth, I apologise for my lack of—I should not have—dash it, what is wrong with you?’ He instantly forgot his previous intention of being conciliatory as he finally took a proper look at her without strong emotions clouding his eyesight.

There was nothing wrong with her, except she’d had no will or inclination to leave her bed this morning simply in order to watch Nathaniel ride away from her. ‘I believe I have a slight cold, my lord,’ she said mendaciously, knowing her voice and looks would serve to confirm that diagnosis, as it had to his aunt earlier.

His mouth thinned. ‘A certain part of your anatomy will remain far from cold if you dare call me “my lord” once more when we are alone together!’

Elizabeth felt the heated colour in her cheeks. ‘I did so because I believed that was appropriate for the level of our…acquaintance now, my—Nathaniel,’ she hastily amended as his face darkened ominously.

He raised arrogant blond brows. ‘And I believe I will inform you whether something is or is not appropriate for you to do. What do you intend doing about Tennant’s roses?’ His gaze sharpened as he abruptly changed the subject.

Elizabeth looked down at the beautiful flowers as they lay on the bedcovers beside her, inwardly lamenting that such an obnoxious and insensitive man should have been responsible for their very existence. ‘I shall not do anything about them, my—Nathaniel.’ She sighed heavily. ‘They are undoubtedly beautiful flowers, but to even acknowledge them would offer an encouragement to Sir Rufus which I do not feel.’

Nathaniel felt even more of the tension ease from his shoulders. ‘If that is genuinely the way that you feel in regard to Tennant, then I believe you are being wise in your lack of action.’

‘What do you mean “if”?’ Elizabeth asked. ‘Do you still doubt my lack of interest in that gentleman?’

Damn it all, did she have to take offence at every word that left his mouth? ‘Of course I do not. I merely—oh, never mind,’ he said wearily. ‘Should I ask my aunt to arrange for a physician to call upon you?’

‘For a simple cold?’ She shook her head. ‘I am sure I shall be perfectly well enough to go downstairs by dinner time.’ She frowned suddenly. ‘Did I hear you say earlier that your horse is unwell?’

Earlier, when Nathaniel had first burst into her bedchamber behaving like a maniac surely bound for Bedlam. God knew what his Aunt Gertrude was thinking of his actions at this very moment!

‘You did,’ he confirmed, knowing he was going to receive a severe grilling from his aged relative when he returned downstairs. ‘Some discomfort of the stomach, which the groom has attributed to Midnight having eaten something during the night that he should not have.’

She looked concerned. ‘Are any of the other horses in the stables suffering the same discomfort?’

Nathaniel inwardly applauded her presence of mind in asking exactly the same question as he had earlier. ‘No,’ he replied. ‘The head groom has some hopes of Midnight rallying, but it means that I shall not, after all, be leaving here today.’

‘Oh.’

Was that disappointment or relief he read in her expression? The first would be the logical choice, of course, but the situation between them had never been particularly logical. ‘In which case, I shall be pleased to see you well enough to join us downstairs for dinner this evening,’ he said slowly.

That delicate colour returned to her cheeks. ‘So that you might have the opportunity to once again ignore me as you did yesterday evening?’

Nathaniel heard the rebuke in her tone. ‘I had thought that was the way you wished it to be between us in future.’

Her eyes sparkled with temper as she looked up at him. ‘To be overlooked as if I do not exist? To be made to feel vilified, unworthy and undeserving even of conversation?’

‘Now see here, that simply was not the way of it at all!’ Nathaniel protested firmly. ‘I did not think you in the least unworthy and undeserving—’

‘I believe I am best placed to state how being ignored by you made me feel, Nathaniel.’ She sat up, the dark curtain of her long curls falling forwards across her breasts and reaching almost to her waist. ‘And, as such, I’m telling you that you behaved abominably towards me last night.’

He was now too aware of the wildness of her beauty, and the lack of formal clothing between them, to feel able to give his full attention to her accusation. Nevertheless, he did his best to answer her honestly. ‘I did not deliberately mean to hurt you, Elizabeth,’ he said gruffly.

‘Then it is a pity that is exactly what you succeeded in doing.’

Sweet heaven, she looked so deliciously appealing, lying there pouting at him, that he just wanted to gobble her up! Remove that nightrail and reveal the slender delicacy of her naked curves before tasting and sipping from every inch of her—indeed, he could almost taste her—the perfumed perfection of her skin, the tight little buds that tipped the swell of her breasts, the creamy dampness between her thighs…