This was worse than her wedding night.
Sybil, frozen beneath the counterpane, lay terrified as she anticipated the quiet opening of the door and the soft tread of slippered feet across the carpet. Ironic that for ten years she’d lain tense and hoping for just this. Now, with Humphry’s visit inevitable in view of their previous encounter, she felt physically ill.
What choice had she but to submit? She was his wife. His wife of twenty years, the mother of four of his children, the only legitimate means by which he could sire an heir.
The wind sighed in the trees, a thin thread of sound. Sybil forced herself to relax. She’d been listening so intently for Humphry she was conscious of the faintest rustle.
It was a clear, still night, the moonlight almost blinding as it thrust through the chink in the curtains.
Dear Lord, give me the fortitude to bear what I must, she prayed silently.
She wondered if her actions these past few days constituted the kind of sinning that would be viewed with opprobrium when she had to account for herself at the Pearly Gates. The fact she’d committed adultery—even if she’d done it for the purest motives, initially, anyway—might not just be regarded in the same light as she viewed it, she realized.
A creaking floorboard. Her body tensed. Her breath caught in her throat and she licked her cracked lips and ran her hands down her body, stiff as a board beneath the sheets. Humphry had enough difficulty summoning sufficient desire to spill his seed in her when she was soft and encouraging and aching with the desire to please him. How would he manage now when he encountered such frigidity, for her every nerve ending recoiled at the mere thought of his touch?
“Are you awake, my dear?” His voice, soft but not imbued with the honeyed suggestion that he was here on a lover’s errand, punctuated the darkness.
“Yes, Humphry.”
So businesslike. She tried to imagine Stephen addressing her like that and could not. Stephen was the lover consummate. Tender, thoughtful, kind and oh, so eager.
Carefully, she breathed past the pain in her chest as she moved into the center of the bed, giving Humphry room to sit on the side. The mattress dipped beneath his weight as, wordlessly, he began untying his banyan. His heavy breathing indicated it had required great exertion to make it to this point.
“No megrim tonight? Lord, Sybil, but it’s come to a pretty pass when you have to tell lies to deflect our headstrong daughter from marrying that dandiprat in such haste.” He grunted as he tossed his banyan aside. “Prodded me into action, though, didn’t it, wot?”
She was unable to share his amusement, instead saying drily, “I’m sorry you find it such a chore, Humphry.”
To her surprise, he chortled and reached out blindly into the darkness to touch her cheek. His stubby forefinger jabbed her eye and she gave a surprised cry of pain.
“Sorry. Didn’t mean to start out so ham-fisted.” This was followed by another great sigh and then, “
Well, needs must...”
In the darkness his hand grasped her shoulder, clumsily heading south before gripping her breast. She squealed.
“Come, Sybil, let’s get this over with, shall we? You clearly relish the idea as much as I do.”
Sybil’s mouth dropped open. Had he really said that? With such sarcasm? Her reasonable though far-from-in-love-with-her husband? She couldn’t believe it. Scrambling away from him, she jerked upright in the bed.
He must have realized his error for he said almost sheepishly, “Didn’t mean to sound so ungrateful, Syb. I know you dislike the idea as much as I do but as it was your idea—”
“This was not my idea!” She slithered away from his creeping hands. “No, Humphry, you mistake me. Granted, I agreed an heir was required,” she gasped. “For your sake, Humphry. For the future of this family. So Araminta wouldn’t waste herself. So Hetty might be happy. So you might go to your eternal rest with the comfort of knowing you leave the estate in better hands than Edgar’s.”
She squeezed her eyes shut at the sound of Humphry’s heavy breathing. The smell of him was too intimate. She wasn’t used to it. She was used to bergamot and horses. Of gentle caresses that whipped her body into steadily escalating eddies of desire. Humphry’s stolid determination to “do the deed” seemed wrong and...foul.
She felt rather than saw him digest this. He ran a hand across his forehead. Then let out another gusty sigh.
Quietly, he said, “We are bound by our contract. Our forebears demand it, our descendants will thank us for it.”
“Oh, for God’s sake, stop speaking such piffle!” Angrily, Sybil rose up against the headboard. “You hate the idea as much as I do. You were more than happy to see Stephen inherit if it let you off the hook. It’s only because you detest Edgar that you’ve been prompted to come here.” She heaved in a breath, making very sure he was well out of arm’s distance. “Only a week ago you all but suggested you’d be more than happy if I attended to the business without your participation, for who’d be the wiser?”
“I did not.” There was a whining quality to his defense before he added, “Anyway, you were hardly about to come up with a solution...so here I am.”
“No, Humphry! I cannot do it!” She could feel the rising hysteria and tried to rein in her emotion. Humphry did not take kindly to emotional women. He abhorred it when she wept.
Trembling, she said softly, “For twenty years you’ve condemned me to an emotional wasteland. Then you all but thrust me into the forefront of finding a solution to our problem. Well, what if I did?” She drew a shaky breath. “What if I’ve taken a lover and so can’t abide the idea of being touched by you, in exactly the same way you abhor the idea of touching me because you are, and always have been, in love with Lizzy Hazlett?”
The silence was telling. She felt him pulling himself upright, the exertion making him wheeze. “What are you saying?” His voice was quiet. Warning.