The Offer (Baron 2)

“Even though I have been your husband for but a very short time, my dear, know that I expect loyalty and obedience from you. I do not expect questions that hover on the disrespectful.”

“Loyalty is what I’ve given you. Come, tell me the truth. Would you have continued to chase her after you’d managed to rape her?”

He laughed, actually laughed. “The truth is a strange thing, Elizabeth. You hate your sister yet you are choosing to believe what she told you. Why don’t you believe me, Elizabeth? After all, I am your husband. I will father your children. Mine will be the last face you see when you lie dying.”

For an instant she saw herself lying on her bed, quite dead, saw him staring down at her. He was smiling. “Stop it. Forget that I asked, forget everything.”

“Very well, I shall. Now, I want loyalty even when we are alone. I don’t want any more of these speculations, Elizabeth. I want compliance and obedience from you. I want you to bend utterly to me.”

“I choose to give you my loyalty because it is in my interest to do so, Trevor. But as the future Countess of Monmouth, believe me, I shall not allow you to sully the Eversleigh name.”

Trevor regarded his passionless bride and wondered if any man would be able to make her scream with lust, make her buck as her woman’s pleasure overtook her. Probably not. He was an excellent lover, but she hated his touch, his using her. Since their wedding night, he’d treated her with unflagging gentleness, forcing himself to curb his demands. She didn’t flinch anymore, didn’t plead. That was a start. There would be a better time to show her that it was he who was her master, in all things. For the moment, it rather amused him to see her try to control him. She didn’t even realize that it was the shadow of the old earl that held him in check, and not any warnings from her. After the old man died, he would do precisely as he pleased.

She would not allow him to sully the Eversleigh name? That alone would merit a punishment. He would gladly mete it out when the time came.

But for now, he gave Elizabeth his most engaging smile and said with a lover’s gentle voice, “Alas, my dearest wife, men are sometimes weak. Wasn’t your father like that as well? Didn’t he seduce every woman who did not run from him? Ah, no need to answer. Perhaps you didn’t even know. Perhaps it was a lie fashioned by my own father. Now, you need have no further worry—surely you know that I love and desire you above all women. Sabrina? She was nothing, merely a young girl who chanced to whet my appetites one long afternoon. Just consider what it has gained you. I believe you owe me a great debt of gratitude. She is gone.”

Elizabeth let his words pass. Her father hadn’t been a saint, for no man was a saint, but he hadn’t been like Trevor. And she was married to him for as long as she lived. It made her cold to her bones. Well, she would mold him, change him, guide him into behavior that wouldn’t shame her in the future. She stared down at the great emerald wedding ring on her third finger. It was something of which she should be proud, a symbol of what she had long thought she would never have in life. Yet, it still felt alien to her, as alien as it had almost two months ago when the earl had summarily called her to the library, placed the ring in her outstretched hand, and said without preamble, “You are to be married, Elizabeth. The Eversleigh emerald is yours. I trust you will like the fellow, for he will be the Earl of Monmouth after my death.”

She’d stared at him, so startled she had to flounder for words. “My cousin, sir? Trevor?”

“Of course, my girl. I could have wished for another heir but God doesn’t grant us that many choices. Of course it is Trevor. At least he isn’t a stranger to you.”

But Trevor Eversleigh was a stranger. Elizabeth had met him only twice in her life, when he’d visited from his home in Italy.

She was to marry him? She swallowed. “He is coming here, Grandfather?”

“Certainly, how else could you wed with him?” He expected no answer, and waved Elizabeth toward a chair opposite him. “Sit down, and I will tell you the whole of it.”

The earl looked down at his hands a moment, then began. “As you know, Elizabeth, Trevor is the grandson of my younger brother. You will not remember Trevor’s father, Vincent, for he besmirched the Eversleigh name and fled to the Continent with a divorced woman who was a harlot. I will not sully your ears with tales of his mother’s despicable behavior in Italy. At least Vincent married her so that Trevor is legitimate. Suffice it to say that she contracted the pox some three months ago and died a wretched death. It was then that your cousin wrote me. I don’t intend to hold the doings of Trevor’s antecedents against him, for he is, after all, my heir and the future Earl of Monmouth. I grow old, Elizabeth. I want Trevor Eversleigh here, at Monmouth Abbey, so that he may learn what will be required of him as the future earl. You might as well know too that it is my right to bestow the Eversleigh wealth where I wish. I have told Trevor that the wealth would be his if he agreed to take you for his wife. His reply, of course, shows his good sense. He will, of a certainty, live here with you, at least until my death.”

“I cannot remember that my cousin Trevor even liked me, Grandfather.”

“It’s been four years since you’ve seen each other. He is nearly twenty-eight, a man full grown, and you, I might add, are growing no younger with the passing summers. I will hear no romantic drivel from you, Elizabeth. He will treat you well enough, trust me for that.”

“Yes, Grandfather,” Elizabeth said, nodding obediently.

“He will be arriving next week. Your banns will be read then.”

The earl turned away from her, as if she were no longer in the room. “You may go now, Elizabeth, to contemplate your good fortune. Send Sabrina to me.”

She had felt like dancing from the library, but she’d forced herself to walk away serenely. She smiled widely. A servant saw that smile and stared at her. Whatever her uncertainties about her future husband, she forced them from her mind. She was to be married. And not just married to anyone, she would be the future Countess of Monmouth.

She’d given up hoping any suitable gentleman would want her, despite the handsome dowry. Her stay with her aunt, Lady Barresford, had netted only two offers for her hand, both from gentlemen with an obvious need for money. At long last she would be freed from snide comments about her inevitable spinsterhood, freed from unflattering comparisons between herself and Sabrina. And above all, she thought, her pale eyes shining, she would be the Countess of Monmouth. As soon as that old man died.

Elizabeth felt Trevor’s fingers caressing her shoulders and flashed him a confident smile. She wondered, almost dispassionately, if her younger sister was dead.

“I fear for Sabrina’s safety,” she said aloud, trying to disregard his hand, which was caressing her upper arm, moving toward her breast. He released her abruptly.

“Yes, so do I.” He turned away from her. “I woul

d wish it could be different. It is really quite a pity, quite a pity.”

Her chin went up just a bit as she said, “Perhaps she has found shelter. She is so pretty, so vivacious, anyone would help her, don’t you think? I have seen gentlemen scramble over themselves to please her. She always just laughed and teased them.”

“You want your dear little sister home in the bosom of her family? Yes, of course you would give all you have to have her with us again. Perhaps soon she will be home. I would enjoy that. I would try to please her perhaps even more than you would. Is it possible that is true, Elizabeth?”

She was trembling. He had won. Her voice was low, furious. “If she does return, if she dares to return here, I assure you, Trevor, that she will not long remain.”