The Wyndham Legacy (Legacy 1)

“Stop looking at me as if I were a brute. I’m your husband. Your body is mine and I’ll thank you not to forget it. I wouldn’t ever allow George Raven to touch you like this, to look at you with lust as I do. Just me and always just me. So don’t be embarrassed. I forbid it.”

“It’s difficult, Marcus. I trust you, I surely do. You’re my husband, but I’ve always been so private and surely things that are only female should be kept private.”

“No, that’s silly. Obviously you don’t trust me enough. I know what I’m talking about. Now, you’ve got some color in your cheeks, no doubt from the pleasure I just gave you.” He paused, tossed the towels and other clothes on the floor, then turned back to her, suddenly serious, his expression very intent.

He looked down at his hands as he said, “Actually, Duchess, as my wife, you should tell me everything you feel, everything you think. You don’t have to keep anything from me, be it physical or something you’ve done. Not any more. Not ever again. You can even continue to yell at me, to hit me, whenever I unwittingly chance to say something you dislike.”

To his horrified surprise, she began to cry. She didn’t make a sound, just let the tears gather, pool in her eyes, and slip down her cheeks.

“Ah, sweetheart, don’t cry, please don’t.”

She turned her face away from him. He saw her hands had fisted on the covers at her chest. He reached out his hand to touch her, then drew it back.

“You know,” he said finally, his voice deep and calm, “I’ve been a great fool, perhaps so great a fool that even you won’t be able to forgive me this time. And I know you’ve forgiven me more times than I can begin to count since we were both children.”

He had her attention, he saw it in the lines of her body, tensing now, alert, waiting, but she didn’t turn back to face him, just waited, and he knew she was afraid, and he understood that well enough.

“In Paris I was ready to strangle you I was so furious at you for taking matters into your own hands, for taking away my choices, and here I was the brave man, the man who was enjoying his rage, his bitterness, wallowing in self-pity. There’s just something about being a man and having a woman take away control, it makes all of us a bit crazed, unreasonable, perhaps even irrational, though a man hesitates to believe such a thing about himself.

“You’ve always known, Duchess, that I’m quick to anger and say things that curdle even my own blood when I remember them later. I know I’ve said things to you that have hurt you unbearably. I’ve spoken like a fool and then proceeded to believe what I’d said to you.

“I wounded you deliberately because you were your father’s daughter and God knows I still detest that old bastard for what he did, not only to me but to you as well. And so I punished you because he was dead and beyond anything I could do to him.

“Try to forgive me just once more . . . well, it’s bound to be dozens more times in our future together if you’ll have compassion for your fool of a husband. Have babies with me. Let’s fill Chase Park’s nursery with babes, and you remember how large that nursery is. Our children, just yours and mine, and your father be damned for his own bitterness, for his own despair, for he has nothing to do with us now, nothing to do with our children, with our future.”

She turned slowly to face him. She raised her hand to lightly touch her fingertips to his cheek. “Do you really want to have an heir? A boy child who will be the future earl of Chase, a boy child who will carry my blood and your blood and thus my father’s blood?”

“Yes. And he must have brothers and sisters.”

“But why, Marcus? Is it because you feel pity for me since I lost my babe? You feel somehow guilty?”

“Yes, but that’s not the reason.”

“What is the reason?”

“I love you more than I ever imagined a man could love a woman. I want no more distrust between us, no more wariness because you’ll never know what I’ll do next. In the future when I berate you or send curses flying about your head, feel free to cosh me with a fireplace poker. On the other hand, if you pull one of your boots off to hurl at me, I’ll be laughing so hard just perhaps you’ll forget you want to kill me and laugh with me. I love you. Now, does that satisfy you? Do you believe me? Will you forgive me?”

For a moment, she was the old Duchess, silent, aloof, looking at him intently, assessing him, apart from him, and he hated it. He realized how much he wanted her to scream at him if she wanted to, that or kiss him and tell him he was wonderful, but at least now, at this moment, she was utterly silent, just like she used to be.

“I’ll even let that damned young George Raven bring our children into the world, though I distrust him and his motives when he’s with you. Now, stop being the old Duchess. Hit me. Yell at me.”

“All right.” She raised her hand, palm flat.

He eyed her, took her hand in his and drew it back down. He leaned down and kissed her very lightly on her mouth. “All right what?” he asked, his breath warm on her mouth.

“I’ll hit you next Wednesday, yell at you on Friday, but right now, Marcus, tell me again.”

“I love you and I still distrust George Raven. We will have to find him a wife. It will divert his lust from you.”

She laughed and he felt intense heady warmth spread like brandy to his belly, or was it his heart?

“And I you, Marcus. I’ve probably loved you since I was too young to even know what it was. I deceived you into marriage not just because I knew I had to put things right after what my father had done, but because I wanted you for myself. You were so angry, I didn’t think you’d ever change. I had to do something, Marcus, so that the Colonial Wyndhams didn’t get what was rightfully yours.”

“Rightfully ours. Rightfully our son

’s and his son’s son and on it goes far into the future.”

“Yes. Oh yes. Please understand. I couldn’t let you not have what was yours.”