SHE LAY THERE staring into the darkness, waiting for him. She’d heard him come up just minutes ago. He’d been playing whist with Trevor, and his hired Celeste, who was really Hannah. The evening had been delightful, Marcus introducing Miss Crenshaw as a distant cousin, more distant even than his cousins from America, more distant perhaps than even China, and all had laughed and enj
oyed themselves and Badger’s cooking except Aunt Wilhelmina, who was in top form, even going so far at one point over gooseberry fool, one of Marcus’s favorite desserts, to observe, “This is all quite inappropriate, this jollity. It is her fault. She was a bastard and thus doesn’t know how one is to behave properly.”
Marcus had choked on his gooseberry fool, managed to get himself back in control, and said, “I quite agree, Aunt Wilhelmina. Consider Miss Crenshaw a hopeful for my hand once I have gotten rid of the Duchess here. Do you approve of Miss Crenshaw?”
“She has breeding, that is obvious. I shall consider her for marriage with Trevor or James. Miss Crenshaw, have you a dowry that is worthy of my consideration?”
The laughter had burst forth, but Aunt Wilhelmina had seemed oblivious. Thank goodness the Twins and Ursula weren’t at the dinner table.
But that was then and now it was dark, and she was still carrying a child he didn’t want.
When the adjoining door finally opened, she felt empty and dull, all the evening’s laughter sucked out of her.
“Well,” he said after a moment as he sat on the edge of her bed, “I was hoping for a carolling hello and winsome smile. I get neither?”
She swallowed the silly tears. “I have a winsome smile. You just can’t see it.”
He lit a candle.
She turned her head away, but he was fast. He gently cupped her chin in his fingers and turned her to face him. He gave her a look more brooding than a hero in a Gothic novel. “Don’t cry, Duchess. I would rather you shoot me than see you cry.”
“I would rather shoot you too. It’s nothing, Marcus, nothing at all.” He snorted at that and she knew, of course, that because he was Marcus, he would dig and dig, and thus, she sat up and threw herself in his arms. “Please, Marcus, please forget that you never wanted me. Forget I made you marry me. Please forget I carry a child you don’t want. Kiss me and love me.”
He went very still, but not for long. When he was deep inside her and she was trembling from the aftershocks of the pleasure he’d given her, he dipped his head down and kissed her. His breath was warm and sweet in her mouth. “You were made just for me, do you know that, Duchess? Just for me. Feel, just feel how we are together. I never would have believed such a joining possible, but it’s true. Feel us, Duchess.”
She did. She’d believed herself beyond sated, so exhausted with pleasure that she surely couldn’t want more, but his words and the touch of his fingers on her flesh, made her suck in her breath. It was she who brought his head down again and kissed him with all her heart, all the feeling that was within her, feeling that was older than the Duchess was surely, deep and full, all that feeling, and it was all for him and it always had been and it would be until she died.
He fell asleep with her gathered against him, her face in the crook of his neck. She wanted to sleep, but it eluded her. She wondered, for perhaps the hundredth time since she’d found out she was carrying his child, what she was going to do. Her arm was over his chest. Slowly, she caressed his warm flesh, feeling the strength of him, the power. She rested her hand finally on his hip, aware that her belly was pressed against his side and she was hot from the touch of his flesh.
Would she still be here at Chase Park when her belly would be rounded? If she was, would he still want to hold her like this, the child he didn’t want between them?
He felt the wet of her tears against his neck. “No,” he whispered against her ear, “no, Duchess, don’t cry. Scream for me instead.” He came over her, coming into her, and when she did find her release, she didn’t scream, just moaned softly into his mouth.
The day, Marcus thought, was one of those few days in high summer when the sky was so clear, the air so fresh, it nearly sent one into tears, that or poetic raptures, that or a good fast gallop. He decided on the gallop. He and the Duchess had seen Hannah Crenshaw off early that morning. She’d had the impertinence to say to him quietly as he’d handed her into the carriage he’d hired to return her to London, “She’s very special, my lord. I hope you see that. She’s also unhappy. She shouldn’t be. I trust you will see to it, and not become like so many husbands I have seen and known and none of them worth a pig’s snout.”
He’d said nothing to that, but he had wanted to box her ears for her damned effrontery. Instead, he’d just closed the carriage door and waved to the coachman. He had stood back, watching the carriage bowl down the wide drive.
The Duchess had said, “She was an experience, Marcus. You are a bounder, a perverse bounder, but your sense of humor pleases me. I suppose it is up to me now to outdo you.”
He’d recoiled in immediate alarm. “No, don’t even think it. Promise me, Duchess, not until you’re well again.”
“I am well again, Marcus. I’m pregnant and quite healthy.”
“Yes,” he said, his voice clipped, looking for just an instant at her belly, flat beneath her morning gown of pale blue muslin. He’d massaged her belly the night before, caressing her pelvic bones, oh yes, he’d felt with his hands how flat she was. It didn’t seem possible his child could be there in her womb. He didn’t look up when she sighed and left him.
He’d stood there, cursed quietly, then took himself to the stables.
As Lambkin saddled Stanley, he looked up again at that sky that deserved a poet’s praises. The clouds were whiter than a saint’s soul.
“Mr. Trevor took out Clancy,” Lambkin said as he picked up Stanley’s left front leg, crooning to the stallion as he examined the hoof carefully.
“Riding my horse without a by-your-leave,” Marcus said, picking up his own saddle and hefting it over Stanley’s broad back. “Damned encroacher.”
“Aye, an excellent rider Mr. Trevor is, just excellent. Like one of them ’orse men, you know, my lord, ’alf of ’im a ’orse and the other ’alf a man?”
“A centaur, curse his damned eyes. A centaur was never named Trevor.”
“Aye, that’s it, and Mr. James was with him. He enjoys riding Alfie, a fine fellow old Alfie is, all spit and growl, but ever such a sweet goer. Mr. James is different from Mr. Trevor. He treats his ’orse like a man would a pretty lady. ’E’s got magic in ’is ’ands, ’e does.”