He laughed, seeming unabashed by her reprimand, and blew out the candle. The darkness rushed in upon her. Then the mattress shifted as he climbed into bed, suddenly huge and relentless. Before she had time to think, his hands came down on her naked shoulders, pushing her back against the pillows. His mouth sought and found hers.
It was everything she had feared – and hoped – it would be. She did not bother to deny the hot desire between them, but shook violently under the impact of sudden, searing passion, and stopped thinking.
She knew now what it was that had stretched, taut as a chain, between herself and Rendel from the beginning. She had always known, she realised, with mounting excitement as his body wrung from hers a fevered abandonment which shattered all her previous conceptions of love.
What surprised her most was his tenderness. He had begun with heated violence as though intending to force her into submission. But gradually his caresses had grown gentler, coaxing her to response. Once the thought rose into her mind: would it have been like this with Andrew? She pushed it away, shuddering as though at a blasphemy, and for a moment lay impassive under Rendel’s hands.
He leaned above her in the darkness, his eyes glittering. ‘What is it?’ he demanded huskily. ‘Did I hurt you?’ Then he tensed. His fingers crawled over her eyes, cheeks, lips, exploring with tactile delicacy, as though, like a blind man, he could read her mind with his touch alone.
He swore softly. ‘I warned you, Madame, I will not tolerate his intrusion between us.’
Then he began again to kiss her with such hunger that all thought of everything but Rendel – her husband – was banished.
CHAPTER ELEVEN
They left her parents’ house the very next day after the wedding, taking Nan with them. Cornelia had hesitated before asking her husband if Nan might accompany her into her new life. She knew that many people could not tolerate Nan’s presence. They felt uneasy under her fierce stare. Even when they pitied her crooked back, they seemed to resent her need for pity. Some superstitiously looked upon her as a witch.
But Rendel had merely shrugged at her request. ‘Of course she may come,’ he had replied easily. ‘Even if I did not want her in my house I would not dare to say so—she would undoubtedly make an image of me and stick pins into it. I do not like to be hated.’
She had looked at him under her lashes, suddenly provoking. ‘Do you not?’
He had grinned back at her. ‘Oh, yours is good, honest enmity. I do not fear it—we’ll fight our battles naked. Hate that wears no armour is not dangerous.’
‘And you think you must win such a battle?’ she snapped resentfully.
He had smiled in a way that brought hot blood to her cheeks. ‘Oh, I knew from the first moment I saw you that battle was joined. I would not have it otherwise. My triumph will be all the sweeter.’
‘Your conceit is amazing,’ she had said, turning away to hide from him the effect he had upon her.
It irritated her, as the days went by, that he should slowly begin to win Nan over. Cornelia had never heard Nan laugh as she did with him, her eyes snapping in amusement. Rendel abated no jot of his mockery, seeming to care nothing for her hunched back. He teased her when she was cross, asked her to make him a love spell for Cornelia, pretended to believe that Nan had dozens of admirers hidden in the kitchen and called her his sorceress, which, far from making her angry as it would with anyone else, made her bridle and laugh helplessly.
‘He’s a black devil,’ she told Cornelia admiringly. ‘He was born for a bad end, mark me.’
‘Yet you like him,’ Cornelia accused.
She felt, stupidly, that Nan had somehow betrayed her by falling under Rendel’s spell too, like everyone else.
Nan tossed her head. ‘Like him? What a gull you must think me. No rabbit-catcher will pull the wool over my eyes.’
But Cornelia had not believed her.
At first Cornelia found life in Rendel’s great London house both alarming and inhibiting. The wooden-faced servants gave her an inferiority complex. She had to force herself to speak to them, to give them orders naturally without blushing. Gradually this grew easier, but she could not help feeling that they resented and despised her. They all knew her background, that she was no highborn lady as they might have expected in their new mistress. Gossip had run like fire through London when the wealthy gentleman so popular in Court circles married a mere city merchant’s daughter. Various lewd constructions had been placed upon their marriage. Curious eyes watched Cornelia’s waistline, expecting it to increase visibly, and some disappointment was felt as the weeks went past and she showed no obvious sign of pregnancy.
In March, the Commons resumed sitting and Rendel was busy with his official business.
Cornelia had enough to occupy her time in learning the management of the household, and was glad to have him out of the house for a time. His presence made it difficult for her to concentrate.
Living cheek by jowl with him, she could not help but learn to admire and like him. Rendel was, surprisingly, good tempered and kind, she found, both with herself and the servants. Generous to a fault, he bought her many gifts, both large and small, from a small squash-nosed spaniel pup to a breath-taking emerald pendant on a chain of purest silver filigree. During the daytime he was a merry, easy-going companion. She could relax with him, enjoying an hour of lute music or a game of cards, finding his wit engaging and his mischievous grin endearing.
At night, their relationship changed. From the moment he opened the door of her chamber her heart began to thump, her blood to pump violently, her senses to leap passionately into life.
The urgency of his love-making did not seem to grow less as time went by—almost, she felt, he was waiting for something, watching for some response from her which never came. She could not understand him. His passion never failed to sweep her away on the same dark tide. What more did he want from her?
She had expected him to fill the house with riotous Court gallants, but she found that their chief visitors were sturdy, polite country squires, or discreet men of business who would have as easily fitted into her father’s house.
Lord Warburton and his wife visited them occasionally. Dorothy was unbending with her brother’s new wife. Her glacial courtesy was more chilling than downright rudeness. His sister had been angered by their marriage. She openly let Cornelia know that she felt Rendel had disgraced the family by marrying a merchant’s daughter, especially one who brought no vast fortune with her. Had Rendel married for money, Dorothy would have understood it better.
Lavinia and Sir George Lambeth were more frequent visitors. Lavinia came to drink chocolate and gossip, or to carry Cornelia off with her to Madame Charett’s shop in Covent Garden, to buy a French mask for a ball, or study the latest fashions.