He rubbed the towel over her nakedness as if she were a helpless child. All the while she avoided his eyes, embarrassed at her total surrender and afraid he could read more than lust in her eyes. As he dried her legs, she stared at his dark bent head, loving the simple sight of the dark hair curling at his nape. If he looked up then, he would doubtless see the love emblazoned across her face. Just as it was on her soul. The prospect terrified her.
“I’ll have you warmed up in a bit,” he murmured, his voice a husky growl as the towel arrived at her breasts, reminding her that—thankfully—she was not a child and he was not performing his task with the stoicism of a monk. The towel felt abrasive and rough, the friction chafing her nipples into hard points. He slowed his attention there, massaging the sensitive mounds of flesh until a low, keening sound swelled from her throat. He dropped the towel and shoved her back on the bed. She reached for him as he came over her. Cupping his face in her hands, she kissed him like a woman long denied, devouring his lips as he drove himself inside her. He pulled back to stare at her as he thrust a second time. She tried to control her ragged breathing and slow her wildly surging hips, hoping she did not appear the bungling novice in her eagerness.
He stilled over her. “You’re mine.” His voice was strained, an unnatural tremor running through it.
Body afire, she could only nod.
His fingers brushed the fine hair at her temple. “Say it,” he commanded.
For all the quietness of his voice, a hint of desperation underlined the request. Must he hear her say it? She had pledged herself to him this very day. But if she agreed to this, to belong to him…in this moment, with their bodies merged, there was no going back. Once the words were out she could never protest intimacy again. Her bedroom door would stand forever open. Just as her heart.
“I’m yours.”
His mouth swooped down, hard and demanding, picking up where the towel left off, continuing his amorous assault on her breasts. She tossed wildly beneath the hot, wet suction of his mouth. His hips began moving again and she clutched his buttocks with both hands, forcing him closer, faster, harder. The sting of tears threatened, and she squeezed her eyes tight, only the barest amount of wetness escaping the corners.
Still, as his mouth and body loved her so thoroughly, sadness lingered, hovering like a storm cloud. His words from earlier that day echoed in her heart. Love was not part of the arrangement.
Nick woke several times during the night. At first he told himself the novelty of Meredith curled beside him and his desire to have her again woke him.
But the fourth time he awoke with a gasping start, as if he did not know entirely where he was. Staring down at her sleeping form, he remembered. Dark smudges shadowed her eyes, attesting to her exhaustion. The shadows only heightened her porcelain complexion, making her appear fragile, not at all like her feisty self. She had been through a great deal in the last twenty-four hours. Unable to resist, he ran the back of his hand down her cheek. Dead to the world. Dawn washed the room in a pre-morning gray and still she slept on, oblivious to his touch or the approaching day.
He wrapped an arm around her waist. She relaxed into his chest with a small sigh, and his heart clenched at the total trust she extended him even in sleep. He closed his eyes. Then opened them again to study her. Had he ever thought himself immune to her? Wide mouth slightly parted in sleep, lips bruised from a thorough loving, she was the most beautiful woman he had ever beheld.
Despite lack of sleep, he wasn’t tired. He could watch her for hours. And the thought sent a bolt of panic straight from his heart to his head.
Until tonight he had been convinced making love was an expression a woman invented to make sex more significant, more than the joining of two bodies in a purely physical act, more than meaningless. But with Meredith, his past ceased to exist. Last night the rest of the world had disappeared. Last night he had learned the difference between sex and making love. With her, it was more than an expression.
He couldn’t deny it any longer. His anger had long disappeared—if it had ever truly existed. Her deception was not so incomprehensible. Perhaps he had understood her motives all along but used his anger to erect a barrier, to keep himself from connecting with her. Looking at Meredith, he knew he loved her. The emotion that destroyed, that reduced one to utter vulnerability, that led to suffering and grief, had claimed his heart.
He could do only one thing.
Chapter 24
Meredith descended the carriage and faced the achingly familiar sight of Oak Run. The late afternoon sun broke through the clouds and cast down its beams as if in welcome. She looked at Nick, pleased to be home, pleased that he wanted them to come here instead of Town.
The front door flew open to reveal Maree’s broad, smiling face. Until that moment, Meredith didn’t realize how much she had missed her. She felt she had been gone a lifetime. Oak Run looked smaller to her eyes. Lifting her skirts, she flung herself in the ample arms of her housekeeper, disengaging herself when she heard Nick instruct the driver, “Just the lady’s luggage. Leave mine. And see about switching out the horses.”
Her pleasure faded and she turned back to him. “You’re not staying?”
“I’ll be going on as soon as the horses are changed.”
She eyed the softly settling dusk. “But it’s late. Won’t you at least stay the night?”
At this, he said nothing. He didn’t need to. That ready-to-bolt look on his face explained everything.
“When will you be back?” She hated asking, but found it impossible to feign total indifference at his departure.
He shrugged, averting his eyes. “Can’t say.”
Although the words weren’t said, she heard them just the same. I’m not coming back.
Numbness crept over her as she stood on the front steps, watching the grooms switch out the horses. Nick stood silently by. Coach finally ready, he turned to face her again. She felt the challenge in her eyes, daring him to admit the truth, to admit he was leaving her and that he had no intention of coming back. He stepped forward as if to kiss her farewell.
She jerked back, too hurt, too furious, to let him touch her.
His mouth thinned into a grim line.
“You should go,” she declared, tones ringing with angry defiance. “No doubt you have business to attend to in London. Nothing’s keeping you here.”
With one last probing look, he bounded up into the coach, hovering in the doorway for a moment. At last he settled on, “Take care of yourself.”
She watched the coach disappear down the driveway, swiping at her cheeks and despising the hot spill of tears. Why should she weep? She had all she ever wanted: a secure and settled future for her family. She never set out to find love.
Why did she want it now?
“Running away never accomplishes anything.”
Meredith looked up from her needlework and glared at her aunt, at once understanding her meaning. “I didn’t run away. He did.”
“Did he?” Aunt Eleanor asked archly, lips puckered. “So you told him you’re in love with him, then?”
Since when did her aunt insist on honesty?
“Of course not,” Meredith snapped. “Why should I? I’m not.” At least she had not been foolhardy enough to confess that to him. Vowing to belong to him was bad enough.
“You most certainly are,” Aunt Eleanor replied. “There’s running away in the literal sense—which Nick has done. And there’s running away emotionally—which you have done, which you always do.”
“Posh,” Meredith snorted, eyeing the tiny row of roses she had fashioned. Her trembling hands did not bode well for her stitches. She found herself wishing, not for the first time, that her aunt had remained in London instead of returning home the moment she heard Meredith was at Oak Run. Or more accurately, the moment her aunt heard she was at Oak Run alone. Husbandless. Again. Her life was miserable enough without her aunt’s keen and somewhat ruthless observations.
Aunt E
leanor resumed her interrogation. “So, what are we doing here when he is in London?”
A smile twitched Meredith’s lips. The first in days. She couldn’t help herself. “We?”
She had found little to smile about since Nick’s abandonment. Oak Run—her refuge, the one place where she felt secure, where the earth did not constantly shift beneath her feet—no longer filled the gap in her life. As long as he was gone, nothing could ever do that again.
Her aunt’s next words chased the smile from her face.
“Seems like you’ve let another husband cast you aside to rot in the country.” She shook her head and clucked her tongue in disapproval. “I just never imagined this marriage would turn out like the last one.”
Meredith felt the blood drain from her face.
Her aunt took one look at her and rushed to apologize. “Dearest, I’m sorry. That was dreadfully insensitive.”
“No. You are quite right,” she murmured, hardening her heart and shaking her head from side to side.
Her aunt’s face screwed tight in apology. “I—”
Meredith swiped a hand through the air, silencing her. Aunt Eleanor closed her mouth with a small snap. Dropping her needlework, Meredith rose to her feet, looking out the French doors in mulling silence. The reason Edmund had abandoned her no longer mystified her. She even discovered a smidgeon of compassion for her deceased husband. The burden of a secret life could not have made for a happy existence.
But Nick?
No one pressured him to marry her.
He was a man with healthy sexual appetites for the opposite sex. Appetites that he had seemed happy to lavish on her. So what was the problem? Why wasn’t he here? With her?
She possessed too much self-respect to hie off after him, begging for his love. After all, he abandoned her. If he felt something, anything beyond lust, then pride demanded she wait for him to come to her. She drummed her fingers over her mouth thoughtfully, gazing out the window as a firm sense of knowing grew inside her.
But he would not come.
This she knew as surely as the sun would set and rise again on the morrow.
Unless something brought him here. Someone. Her.
If she didn’t act, the fate of a neglected wife would once again be her lot. Her heart clenched. Only this time it would be more painful, more excruciating, because she loved the husband in question.
“I know,” Aunt Eleanor exclaimed, face alive with excitement. “You can feign another pregnancy, only this time—”
“No,” Meredith cut in, her hand instinctively going to her stomach. “Absolutely not. I won’t lie to Nick about that.” It was too soon to tell, but her aunt’s suggestion might very well be true. As much as the possibility delighted her, Meredith vowed that if it were true, she would not use their child to hold him to her.
“What are you thinking?” Aunt Eleanor asked, studying her face closely.
She scarcely paid attention to her aunt’s question, too busy contemplating what it would take to bring Nick to her. If she could only see him again and look into his eyes, perhaps he would recognize all that they could have together, all that they could be. What could prompt such a proud man to drop everything and—
Seized with inspiration, she ceased tapping her lips and latched onto a single word.
Proud.
Nick was a proud man. At times insufferably so.
“Meredith?” her aunt called out as she rushed across the room. “Where are you going?”
“To pay a call.”
“A call? On whom?” The bewilderment in her aunt’s voice was understandable. Meredith had not so much as stuck her nose outdoors in the last fortnight, preferring to languish indoors where no one would witness her misery save for the household staff. Morose and pathetic, she had refused all callers. But no more. No more hiding. No more self-pity. Time to take matters in hand.
She paused in the doorway, a mischievous smile lighting her face. “I’m going to call on Sir Hiram.”
She caught only a glimpse of her aunt’s horrified expression before spinning away.
During the last week Sir Hiram acted like a carrion bird swooping in at the first scent of blood—or in her case, at the first scent of a newly abandoned bride. He had called nearly every day. She always relayed her excuses, hardly in the mood to curtail his ardent attentions. No doubt he had heard she returned from her elopement alone and wished to resume his old habits. The whole neighborhood knew, explaining the surge of callers, all inquisitive as to why the new bride lacked her groom.
Only this time she would humor Sir Hiram’s attentions.
And make certain Nick knew about it.
Nick dismounted and left his horse standing in the drive, reins trailing on the ground. Solomon wouldn’t go far. He was trained to stay put, never to stray. Unlike a certain wife of his. At any rate, what he had to do wouldn’t take long.
Taking the steps two at a time, he ignored the brass knocker and pounded on the front door with his fist. The sound of crinkling paper in his pocket served as a reminder of Portia’s letter and fanned the flames of his temper higher. If he closed his eyes, he could see the elegant, scrawling handwriting in his mind. He had the words memorized by now, emblazoned on his brain:
…Meredith writes she is busy with callers since returning to Oak Run, none as attentive as a certain Sir Hiram Rawlins who has been keeping her company in your absence with frequent walks and rides. It warms my heart to know that even as I miss my friend, she is in dear company…
Dear company! Hah! He knew just what that bastard had in mind. A new bride, no groom in sight…Rawlins was up to his old tricks. Nick intended to alert the gentleman that Meredith had married a different sort of man this time. One that did not take kindly to another man sniffing about his wife’s skirts.
A frazzled looking housekeeper, gray hair escaping beneath her white cap, opened the door. High-pitched screams that could only belong to young children instantly besieged him.
The housekeeper’s eyes swept him hurriedly, taking in his fine if rumpled attire. “Yes, sir. What can I do for you?”
He removed his gloves and slapped them against his palm. “Sir Rawlins, please.”
At that moment a woman’s shriek added to the din.
“Mercy! That’d be the new governess. This way, sir.” The housekeeper trotted ahead of him, not bothering to ask after his name or request his card. She simply waved at the drawing room door before darting away and calling over her shoulder, “Sir Rawlins will be with you shortly.”
He waited in the drawing room, pacing its length with stiff strides. The cries from the other side of the house died down, and he guessed the housekeeper had gained control of the situation. He had heard a little of Rawlins’s wayward children and that the unruly pack chased away potential wives. Too bad. The inept father could look elsewhere to assuage his needs and keep his paws off his wife.
“Lord Brookshire, this is a surprise. I did not know you were visiting Mer—” The man stumbled to correct himself, his eyes reflecting his wariness at this unprecedented visit. “—Lady Meredith.”
Nick’s strides were long and quick, his momentum aiding him in delivering a fist into Rawlins’s face.
Rawlins hit the floor in a gratifying crash. Nick loomed over him, his chest lifting on an inhalation of satisfaction. Rawlins held a hand over his face and peered up at him in horror, clearly shocked to be struck down in his own drawing room. Very ungentlemanly. But Nick wasn’t a gentleman. Never claimed to be.
“That’s Lady Brookshire to you. And if I ever hear your name linked to my wife’s again I’ll be back.” He jabbed his finger in the air. Rawlins flinched. “And this—” He flicked his hand to encompass Rawlin’s prostrate form. “—will fade in comparison.”
Sliding his gloves back on, he stepped over Rawlins. A throng of servants had gathered in the doorway, mouths agape as they eyed their master on the carpet. They instantly parted and made way for Nick to pass.
He
felt only slightly better. A certain lady still needed to be dealt with. Not, however, today. Perhaps never. He couldn’t trust himself around her, especially in his present mood. His gut clenched just thinking how near she was. Even being furious with her for dancing the line of impropriety with Rawlins did not guarantee he could keep his hands off her. And it certainly did not guarantee his ability to ride out of her life a second time. Their last parting nearly killed him. The nights without her had been torment. He possessed only so much resolve. Nick feared he had used the last of it when he left her standing so resolutely on the steps of Oak Run. Those wide eyes, so accusing as they stared out from her pale face, haunted him.
He swung himself into the saddle, his lips tight as fresh determination filled his heart. With a nudge of his heels, he turned his horse for London.
Chapter 25
Meredith sat on her knees, enjoying the sensation of the afternoon sun on her bonnet-free head as she dug out weeds that had sprouted during her long absence.
“Meredith!” Aunt Eleanor called, capturing her attention.
She looked up, brushing loose tendrils from her face as she observed her aunt jerk to a stop before her, one hand pressed to her ribs as she struggled for speech over her labored breaths.
At last Aunt Eleanor managed to spit out, “Nick…is…here.”
“Here?” She winced at the excited squeak to her voice, immediately trying to set her hair to rights by hastily tucking stray tendrils back into her topknot.
“No,” Aunt Eleanor clarified. “Cook was in the village buying capon for tonight when she saw Lord Brookshire pass through. He was seen taking the north road.”
“The north road?” The two women exchanged looks of dismay. Given her recent letter to Portia, Meredith had a good idea where he ventured and why.
She shook her head incredulously, refusing to believe that he would not come directly to Oak Run—to her—but instead sought a confrontation with Sir Hiram.