“I’m going to let your legs down, sweetheart.”
Mary barely blinked, and he wanted to chuckle. Not with scorn, but with celebration. He’d done this. He’d changed the prim housekeeper into a creature of fire and light. What a triumph to take her so far…on her first time.
“Can you stand?” he asked gently.
She nodded, and he lowered her legs and propped her in the corner. With his hands on her waist, he supported her while she gained her balance.
He’d known Mary was a virgin from the moment he’d put his finger in her, but from what he’d overheard of her conversation with her maid, Ian had tried to change that, and Sebastian had been furious.
Yes, he had known immediately Mary had been too tight to have ever been with a man, but like the bastard he was, he’d continued to assault her. Creating those unfettered reactions in her despite her resistance had fed his sense of power.
Not pretty sentiments, but he didn’t lie to himself about his less attractive traits. Those traits had helped him survive when everything else in his life had died. He got what he wanted any way he could, and he had wanted Mary Fairchild.
“Come, Mary.” He slid his arm around her. “Let me put you to bed.”
“Not likely.”
Startled, he studied her. She was alive, and the spark had begun to return. Even as he watched, she was throwing off the lassitude of sexual satisfaction and returning to her starchy self.
So now he knew. Guinevere Mary was never pliant, except for approximately five minutes after sex. If he wanted to extract promises or demand obedience, he’d have to do it then.
“You should lie down,” he said.
“You would think so.”
Yes, she was recovering almost too quickly. She pulled back from him, but he wouldn’t let her. She was trying to reassert her independence, was Mary, and he would have none of that. He controlled her with his hands as firmly as he would a defiant two-year-old.
“What makes you think I’m so weak I have to lie down after that?”
He kept moving her toward the bed, and he allowed an edge of exasperation to creep into his voice. “Even I had to lie down after my first time. In fact, my first time occurred while I was lying down.”
She jutted her chin. “Women are hardier than men.”
Obviously. “I had hoped to have this discussion in a more relaxed milieu.”
“Relaxed?” She jerked her head toward the door, which now shook beneath the persistent pounding. “What is it they want?”
He had manipulated her so they stood beside the bed, but she took no notice. She was ignoring him. Ignoring his touch, ignoring his gaze. Pretending to be elsewhere? Annoyed, he swung her into his arms, tossed her lightly on the bed, and imprisoned her between his arms—just as he had done before. “I imagine they’ll want to know that what just happened didn’t happen.”
She blushed. Really red, from the edge of her collar to the top of her forehead. And he was glad to see it. He didn’t like to think he’d gone through an earth-shattering experience that had left his partner only briefly incapacitated.
“And failing that, they’ll want to know when the wedding will occur.”
Now the color drained from her face.
“Didn’t you think of that?”
She looked up at the ceiling.
He cupped her chin in his palm and turned it toward him. “Didn’t you?”
“I wasn’t thinking,” she snapped.
Good.
“But neither were you, I would guess, or we’d not be in this situation.” She tried to sit up. “If you’ll let me off the bed, we will do what we can to remedy our plight.”
“I am anxiously awaiting your suggestions.”
“I’ll smooth my gown, you’ll comb your hair, we’ll let them in and deny any wrongdoing—”
“What will we say about those bloodstains on your thighs?”
She flinched, but he was abruptly as furious as he had been before.
“They match the ones on my—”
“No!” She clapped her hand over his mouth. “Don’t say it.”
Grasping her wrist, he pulled it away. “Don’t say it? Not saying it won’t change the truth. What’s done is done, and I’m not a Fairchild. I pay my creditors. Lying is not a way of life for me. I don’t destroy my neighbors.”
“What did my relatives do to you to make you so bitter?” she demanded. “I should know. After all, I am a Fairchild.”
He cursed himself for mentioning their family’s differences, but the rancor had burned in him for so long, it was a part of his very soul. “It doesn’t matter. I’m a Durant, and I’ll do the honorable thing. I’ll wed you.”
“No.”
She was trying to be her usual firm and housekeeperly self, but he saw the tremor of her chin. “We will mend the feud with our union.”
“No.”
The pounders on the door had become shouters. They were making enough racket to wake a corpse—or to thoroughly announce Sebastian’s presence in Mary’s chamber. “Where will you run with your ruined reputation?”
She pushed her hair out of her face and held it in a tail at the base of her neck. “Where will you run when you’re wed to a Fairchild?” she asked, revealing a streak of ruthlessness to match his.
“To bed.”
She let her hair drop back again. “That won’t change who I am!”
“I will make you a Durant by infusion.”
She stared at him, unsure what he meant or perhaps skeptical about his ability to jest.
But it was a joke, although he didn’t blame her for her uncertainty. He wasn’t like the men who danced attendance on her. He cared nothing for the social arts and had found little to amuse him in life. But he would be a better husband for her than the others. He knew the truth about her; no one else did.
“Why don’t you want to marry me?” he asked more gently. “I’m not an easy man, I know that, but I’m rich—”
“So am I,” she answered quickly.
“Not nearly as rich as I.” A fact for which he was ecstatic.
Still, he didn’t fool himself that their disagreements were over. He knew very well that lust was a poor reason to succumb to marriage. But he didn’t have a choice; he had to have Mary.
“I can’t marry you. There’d never be respect between us, or love”—her lip curled with as much scorn as ever he’d seen in an expression—“or even truth.” She faltered on the last word.
So she wouldn’t tell him the truth? Her distrust stung him, and he levered himself off of her. With an expression of acquiescence, he said, “As you wish.” He stalked toward the door. “Let us face our audience.”
“She wasn’t truly compromised.” Bubb held a glass of straight rum in his trembling hand and glared at the assemblage in his study. “They both had their clothes on.”
“Sebastian was in Mary’s chamber—alone.” Lady Valéry held just as large a glass as Bubb, filled with brandy, and she held it without a quiver. “You know how improper that is.”
Mary sat in a chair, stared fixedly at the dreadful gargoyle carved into the huge desk, and wished she were anywhere but here where the ghost of her grandfather hung like a choking miasma.
“Apparently my uncle Oswald was in your bedchamber alone, and he’s barely been able to stand since.” Bubb seemed uncertain whether to laugh or scold.
“That is not to the point. I have not been a maiden for…never mind how many years,” Lady Valéry said. “My reputation cannot be stained.”
“No, no.” Bubb waved a dismissive hand. “Of course not. Forgive me. It is just I have never seen my uncles behaving with such—”
“Infatuation?” Lady Valéry relaxed and smiled. “Lovely gentlemen, both of them. But not well traveled, I assume.”
“What does that mean?” Bubb covered his eyes with his hand. “No, I don’t want to know. The point of this conversation is my dear, dear cousin Mary, and if she says what passed between her and t
his base lord was innocent, who am I to disbelieve her? I would be the last man to force nuptials on my unwilling cousin after her previous lamentable experience with the Fairchilds.” Bubb tried to sound pious.
“You were forced to wed,” Lady Valéry said. “Aren’t you happy?”
“Eh, eh…” Bubb recognized his dilemma, but knew not how to escape unscathed. “Of course I’m happy. But like your virginity, my marriage is not germane to this discussion.”
Laughter cracked from Lady Valéry. “Good one, Lord Smithwick.”
Bubb wiped his sweaty palms against his breeches and smiled modestly.
“But Sebastian was unbuttoned,” Lady Valéry said relentlessly. “Good God, what more proof do you need?”
The debate had been going on for what seemed like hours as Lady Valéry argued for marriage, and Bubb glanced around helplessly. Alone, he hadn’t a chance against Lady Valéry’s brisk resolve.
If Nora were here, he might have succeeded, but she had come to the study and listened to the opening volleys of argument. She had examined first Mary, then Sebastian, from head to toe. She had smiled, with a rather sad and desperate expression, and she had walked from the chamber and not returned. Very odd, Mary thought, and in her absence Bubb had lost more and more ground to Lady Valéry.
Yet he struggled valiantly on. “Another solution exists which is preferable to this hurried and embarrassing union. Our cousin Ian has expressed a willingness to—”
Mary swung her gaze to Bubb. “Don’t even say it,” she pronounced coldly.
Bubb didn’t argue for her sake. No, he argued because he was desperately trying to keep a hand, however feeble, in the honey pot of her money. His attitude and words explained that incident in the hallway with Ian more clearly than Mary could have wished, and it hurt to think the handsome, affable Bubb had schemed to ruin her with her own cousin. It hurt more to discover Ian was a false idol.
Oh, yes, her grandfather lurked in his study, mocking her. She could scarcely draw breath as she remembered him saying, “I told you, you were like your father—allowing your lesser emotions rein and thus losing to a ruthless opponent.”
Mary glanced up at Sebastian. There was her ruthless opponent. He lolled against a bookshelf, looking relaxed and disgustingly satisfied. And why not? He’d gotten what he wanted from her, and he was well on his way to getting his way in this matter. In the matter of her marriage.
“Sebastian,” Lady Valéry called. “Do you desire to do the right thing by Mary?”
Mary had argued for the first hour after Sebastian had opened the door. Now that she had given up, they spoke in front of her as if she were unable to comprehend, and from Lady Valéry’s tone, Mary might have been in the same predicament as a rapidly increasing, desperate belowstairs maid.
Worse, that was how everyone viewed the situation.
Everyone except Sebastian, that nasty devil who stood smirking at her while he mouthed generous offers to rescue her stained reputation. “I will, of course, do the right thing by Miss Fairchild.”
When he’d opened her bedchamber door, hell had spilled in. It seemed every servant and guest had entered, led by Lady Valéry and the perfidious maid, Jill. The old lady had had a spring to her step and a gleam of triumph in her eyes; she could not have been more indiscreet in her “discovery.”
Sebastian himself had lent fuel to the fire that consumed Mary’s good name. He hadn’t even had the good taste to claim he’d forgotten to button his breeches.
But Mary was not a belowstairs maid. She was a Fairchild, and a Fairchild who had not only killed when she had to, but had given up her youth to support herself and her brother. She might have yielded her virginity, but this housekeeper did not easily yield her hard-won control over her life.
She had to try again. “I do not wish—”
Lady Valéry pointed a crooked finger at her. “You keep quiet, gel. We’re arranging your future here.”
“My lady, I don’t need anyone to arrange my future.” Mary kept her voice polite, her demeanor reasonable. “I have done an exemplary job of taking care of myself these last ten years.”
“Tut, child,” Bubb said. “A woman can scarcely be expected to know what’s best for her. Witness your lack of discretion.”
Lady Valéry cackled at Bubb’s inadvertent admission.
He added hastily, “Innocent though those actions may have been. You just sit and be quiet like a good girl, and let your elders settle your future.”
“Say what you will, I won’t marry him.”
They weren’t listening. Bubb and Lady Valéry had their noses in each other’s faces again, arguing her future.
Mary stared at Sebastian. This was all his fault. Everyone at the house party now deemed her giddy and reckless, when really she was calm and stable. At least, that’s what she had been until she’d met him for the first time in ten years.
Moving closer to her, he said softly, “Don’t glare so evilly.” He dropped a hand on her shoulder and rubbed the knot of tension that had gathered there. “Rebelling will do you no good, you know. You’re going to marry me. You’re too sensible not to.”
Sensible. Yes, she was sensible—until he touched her, as he was doing now. Until his palm massaged the muscles beneath and her treacherous body forgot the pain he’d caused her. She forgot that someone lurked within the corridors of Fairchild Manor who knew the truth of her past and demanded money for his silence. When Sebastian’s fingers grazed her skin, this detestable room blurred before her eyes, the other voices faded, and moisture gathered low in her belly again. Then Mary lost her domination and Guinevere, that imp of emotion, emerged triumphant.
Sebastian always brought Guinevere out of hiding. That was why Mary couldn’t marry him.
“Think of it,” he urged. “You’ll be secure.”
“I’m secure now,” she muttered, and wished he would move his hand to her other shoulder.
He did. “Be logical, Mary. You’re an heiress. Even in our enlightened age, it’s not uncommon for men to take heiresses to wife any way they can, and now that you’re ruined, the men would not even bother with the niceties of courtship. If you married me, you’d be safe from all that.”
He was right, Mary thought.
I don’t want to, Guinevere wailed.
Mary was startled. Guinevere didn’t want to wed him? Not even to experience once more those shattering elevations of passion and satiation?
Both hands enclosed the back of her neck now, and he tilted her head forward to work the tightly clenched cords. “I can do much for Hadden, too. I can get him into Oxford if he desires, or send him on a grand tour.”
“I have money—money I would have no control over if I married you.”
“I don’t want control of your money. It is your grandfather’s money, and I want no truck with him or his wealth.”
Money easily scorned, she thought, when more is available.
“When we wed,” he continued, “it will be yours to do with as you will.”
She snorted. “Readily said.” But she was speaking into her chest, her eyes half-closed as he used his thumbs to knead each side of her spine.
“As of this moment, I swear to relinquish all control of your fortune. You may do as you wish with your moneys.” He seemed to think that promise enough, for he continued, “But you have no connections that would help Hadden, and you’re not likely to get them.”
She stiffened and tried to raise her head. “Because of my reputation, do you mean?”
“That’s a handicap, too.” He slipped his fingers under the mobcap she’d hastily slapped on and rubbed her scalp right behind her ears. “But I was speaking of your femininity. The deacons of the colleges have no respect for a woman’s opinion. But if I should use my influence to have Hadden recommended by…say…William Pitt, I’m sure they’d listen.”
“Bribing me with my own brother’s welfare.” She meant to ridicule him. She feared she sounded wistful.
And she
must have, for he stopped massaging and came to kneel at her feet. She didn’t want to look at him; he was temptation incarnate.
But he spoke softly, not demanding or commanding as he usually did, but coaxing like a suitor. “Why don’t you want to marry me? I can’t apologize for what I did, at least with any measure of sincerity. It was too magnificent an experience for that.”
His voice might sound contrite, but his words proved him to be his usual self. “You are such an ass.”
“You have told me so often, I now fear it is true. But I was wrong to do what I did. I was wrong about your character.”
He smoothed her cheek with his palm and lifted her face until she had to look at him. At his sharp features. The hair she’d rumpled with her hands. The broad shoulders and strong body. God, she ached from the strength of his body. But she’d been sitting here, thinking about the scene in her bedchamber, and now she asked, “Did you think I knew where the diary was?”
He flinched. Visibly flinched. “I am an ass, a guilty, judgmental ass.”
He did look guilty. That didn’t assuage her distress. “Have you thought that ever since we left Scotland?”
“No.” He shook his head. “No. It was just a momentary madness, brought on by the memory of the old feud.”
By the knowledge she had killed a man, too? Surely not. Surely he would scorn to marry a murderess. Briefly she shivered as she remembered the note and despaired of what to do.
“Are you cold?” He rubbed her arms.
“No, I was just wondering…if we married, and if you heard something about me that was so dreadful—”
“I wouldn’t believe it!” Still he rubbed her arms, as if he wished to warm her. “You are a Fairchild, but mostly you are Guinevere Mary, and I’ve learned much about you. You could be accused of any crime, and I would know you justified in your actions.” He looked at her steadily. “Is there something else about you I should know?”
She almost told him. She opened her mouth. The words were there. I murdered a man.
But she couldn’t. She should, but she couldn’t. And her hesitation wasn’t even because of Hadden’s future of Lady Valéry’s shock. She hesitated because she couldn’t bear to see the indulgence on his face turn to shock and disdain. She couldn’t bear to have Sebastian despise her.