Lord Garson’s Bride (Dashing Widows 7)

*

The month before Garson’s next visit to the Beeches seemed to last an eon. He retreated to Derbyshire for most of it. Gossip about his failed marriage was rife, but that wasn’t the real reason he avoided society. Three and a half years ago, his life had taken a wrong turn. For so fleeting an interval that it verged on torture, the happiness he found in his marriage made him wonder if his trials were over. But that brief promise of warmth and purpose and fulfillment had soon flickered out into Stygian darkness.

Since then, every day had been a barren waste. Every day to come promised more of the same. He was back to feeling like an unwelcome intruder in his own life. Other people, even friends like Silas and Caro, scraped against him like sandpaper on wood. He was better off alone.

He had an ominous feeling that he’d be alone until he took his dying breath.

Jane’s absence felt like a sin against life. Damn it, she was his wife. She should be with him.

Garson supposed he could storm and rage and demand she come back. After all, as he’d pointed out to her, he had the law on his side. But despite his half-hearted threats at their last meeting, he despised the thought of bullying her.

Anyway, what would be the use? He didn’t just want Jane back as a physical presence. He wanted their friendship. He wanted her to share her boundless sensuality with him. He wanted to know that the two of them were slowly, surely building an unbreakable bond of trust and respect and affection. He wanted the promise of family.

Insisting on his rights would wreck any chance of regaining those things. Perhaps—and he wasn’t optimistic about the odds—if he gave her time to accept that she’d never have his love, she’d return, ready to try again.

Which was the only reason he’d let her call the tune so far. He couldn’t risk harrying her into running beyond his reach.

Because beneath all his bluster, he understood exactly why she’d left him. After all, he was an expert on the agonies of unrequited love. Living with a man who could never respond to her love would turn her generous heart bitter and resentful. It would blight the rest of her life.

He couldn’t bear to think of her vivid soul withering away in rancor and misery.

She needed to accept that some dreams could never come true, however worthy she was to have her wishes fulfilled. Because his wife was worthy. His wife was far too good for him and part of him marveled that this marvelous creature had come to love him at all. If he’d never met Morwenna…

Thinking about what might have been if he’d come to Jane with an unclaimed heart threatened to drive him insane.

After Jane’s second terse note arrived, saying that their encounter at the Beeches hadn’t

produced a child, he rode down to Winchester once again, hiring a fresh horse at each change. This time, Jane didn’t emerge onto the front steps to welcome him. She offered no hint that his visit was anything except a utilitarian solution to an awkward problem.

He stabled his mount and entered through the kitchens. As he strode through the eerily silent house, he couldn’t help feeling that he wandered through Sleeping Beauty’s castle. A foolish fancy, not least because the princess in this particular fairytale wouldn’t let him kiss her under any circumstances.

Garson guessed she was already waiting in her bedroom. He went to the room she’d put aside for him last time. As before, there was hot water and a light luncheon set out. He paused on the threshold and surveyed the neat offerings, while his gut churned with an ocean of contrition and resentment.

When he’d left Jane last month, he’d felt tired and used, no matter how powerfully his body had relished the explosive joining. The way he felt now was worse.

With sudden determination, he turned on his heel and marched toward the neighboring room. He slammed the door open so hard that one of the landscapes on the wall crashed to the ground.

Abruptly Jane sat up from where she’d been lying on the bed. The reminder of how dutiful and frightened she’d been on their wedding night only made anger sink its teeth deeper. He’d once congratulated himself on how far they’d come since then. What a bloody fool he’d been. In this marriage, the seeds of trouble had been there from the beginning. He’d had no right to offer himself to this lovely girl unless he was able to give her his undivided allegiance.

He’d never done that. And that cheater’s bargain had led to his undoing.

“Hugh!” Her gray eyes widened, as she caught sight of him. “What’s the matter?”

His lips flattened. “You know what’s the bloody matter,” he said in a voice like gravel. “Get up and stand behind the chair. I can’t bear to see your face, when I know that you hate every moment of what I’m doing.”

She went ashen, although she rose from the bed. “I don’t hate it,” she mumbled, avoiding his glare.

“What was that?” he asked, although he’d heard her the first time.

Her eyes flashed, and he caught a fugitive glimpse of the passionate woman who had turned his nights to fire. And offered him the deceitful promise of a life he could love, even if he couldn’t love her.

“I said I don’t hate it.” The words emerged sharp as broken glass. She looked like a princess disdaining the advances of an overweening courtier. He recognized with a shock that her pride far outweighed his. Perhaps there was some pique involved in her desertion after all.

“Good.” He took off his hat and gloves and tossed them on a chest of drawers. “You know what to do.”

Hesitantly she approached the chair and after sending him a backward glance, as if asking whether he wanted to position her, she bent over.

Lust fueled his anger. His breath emerged in tattered gasps. The sight of his wife waiting for him to service her had his cock standing up straight as a ship’s mast.