Rafael’s fist was raised to pound on the door. Slowly, as reason returned, he lowered his arm. He said very quietly, “Open the door, Victoria.”
“No,” she whispered. Then, louder, “No.” In that instant she pictured herself lying terrified in her bed, Damien calling to her from behind her bedchamber door. It was too much.
“I will kick the door in if you don’t open it this second.”
Very quietly Victoria fled across her bedchamber to the adjoining door. She unlocked it and slipped into his bedchamber, locking the door on his side. Her heart was pounding, but she was smiling grimly.
Her sense of triumph disappeared but moments later. Dumbly she watched the hall door open, watched him stride confidently into the room. He closed it softly behind him. “I thought you just might try something like that. No more escape for you, Victoria. Don’t even try it. Another thing, dear wife. You try to unman me again, and I will tie you down and show you not a whit of consideration. Do you understand me?”
She had lost. She felt an overwhelming sense of helplessness. Futile, she thought. Everything I try is futile. She looked at his angry set face from across his bedchamber. Slowly she sank to her knees. She crouched against the wall, her head buried against her thighs. She didn’t cry; the pain was too great, her sense of loss too overpowering.
Why didn’t she simply tell him about her leg? But she knew the answer. He had believed his brother’s filth. She didn’t owe him an explanation. He didn’t deserve it. He deserved nothing. She didn’t even hear him walk to her, she was so lost in her own misery.
Rafael stood over her, his hands on his hips, his legs spread. She deserved a beating, he thought, but the sight of her huddled on the floor against the door unnerved him. Slowly he dropped to his knees beside her.
“What was your confession?”
She felt his hand on her upper arm and flinched away. But he didn’t release her. “What was your confession?” he repeated. “You will tell me—something—or you will spend the night here on the damned floor. I mean it, Victoria.”
To his surprise and chagrin, she shook her head, not saying a word.
“So, you can’t even think of a convincing lie.”
Suddenly she raised her head from her folded arms and said, “Are you a virgin, Rafael?”
“What the hell does that have to do with anything?”
“Are you?”
“Don’t be ridiculous, Victoria, I’m a man.”
“And a man always wins, does he not?”
“I didn’t,” he said, bitterness filling his voice. “Not this time, not with you.”
She looked him straight in the eye. “Are you going to rape me?”
He sighed. “No, I’m not like that.”
“I don’t want to spend the night on the floor. May I go now to my room?”
“Not until you tell me this confession of yours.”
She gave a brittle laugh. “Very well, I will tell you, all of it. I am really known as the trollop of St. Austell. Damien was only one lover in a very long line of men. There were so many, it’s difficult for me to remember . . . I began quite young, you know, perhaps as young as you, a man. I was, ah, not more than fourteen when this very virile stableboy took me into the loft. I shall never forget how he kissed me, how—”
“Stop it.”
Rafael jumped to his feet. “Get out,” he said finally, very softly. “Get out of my sight.”
I have won, at last, she thought as she forced herself to rise. Her leg, cramped from the position, knotted, and she had to grasp the door handle to keep from falling.
Rafael didn’t notice. He’d turned away from her.
She gave him a last bitter look and slipped into her room. She didn’t lock the door. There was now no need.
Very early the following morning, Victoria quietly opened her bedchamber door, looked up and down the corridor, and slowly pulled her valise out of her room. It wasn’t much heavier, she thought with a sad smile, than it had been when Rafael saved her from the smugglers. How very long ago that seemed. A lifetime, at least a lifetime of feeling. As quietly as she could, she crept down the corridor to the staircase. She paused a moment, staring down into the gloomy entranceway. Of course Mrs. Ripple wasn’t up and about yet. She prayed Tom slept in the house and not in the stable.
Quietly, slowly, she made her way to the oak front door, unlocked it, and slipped through into the chill, foggy early morning. She pulled her cloak more closely about her and half-dragged her valise toward the small stable set at a right angle to the cottage.
She had every intention of taking his stallion, Gadfly.
Her chin went up. She also intended to go to London, to Mr. Westover. Surely Rafael had lied about her inheritance. Surely it could not simply all be his, just because of a few words spoken by Bishop Burghley. No, nothing could be that unjust. She’d had the long night to refine her plan. She wasn’t stupid and knew well enough that her leg could bear only three hours of riding a day. It would take her at least four days, then, to return to London. And that, she thought now, a bit uncertain, would most certainly eat up her fifteen pounds.
She slipped into the warm, dark stable. She smelled leather, linseed oil, hay, and horse. Comforting smells. She found Rafael’s stallion, and spoke softly to him, wishing now she’d had the nerve to fetch some food from Mrs. Ripple’s kitchen. As she slipped a bridle over the stallion’s head, her wedding ring sparkled in the dim light. The beautiful sapphire, circled with small perfectly cut diamonds . . . Slowly she smiled. She had more than fifteen pounds. She would hock the ring.
She eyed the saddle, then squared her shoulders and hefted it onto the stallion’s broad back. He snorted, dancing a bit to the side of his stall.
“Hush,” she said. “Please, don’t move, that’s right. Hold still now, Gadfly. Good boy.”
She tightened the girth, then slowly led the stallion from the stall. She managed to lift the valise to the saddle and slip the leather handles over the saddle pommel.
“Hold still now, boy. We’ll be gone in just a moment.
“I doubt that, Victoria.”
Victoria whipped around to see Rafael standing in the doorway of the stable, his arms crossed over his chest. He was wearing only a pair of breeches and a white shirt. His feet were bare.
For a moment she could think of nothing to say. She’d been so quiet. She laid her cheek against the saddle, willing him to magically disappear, willing him to be a nightmare.
But he didn’t disappear, of course.
“How? I was so quiet.”
“It occurred to me that you weren’t in an excessively intelligent frame of mind. Only a female would decide to run away with fifteen pounds. You have proved your stupidity by this stunt.”
“Oh, I have more than a paltry fifteen pounds.” The instant the words were out of her mouth, she wished she’d kept her mouth shut. She eyed the stallion’s back and gauged her chance of climbing into the saddle and running Rafael down.
“Don’t try it, Victoria. As to your meager fortune, I already checked. You didn’t try to steal my money. Of course, that would have meant creeping into my bedchamber. I couldn’t see you doing that. After all, I might have awakened, and then you would have shortly found yourself in my bed, on your back.”
She forced herself to straighten and face him fully. There was a good twenty feet between them and it gave her courage. “Why are you doing this? Why aren’t you delighted that I wish to leave and be gone from your life?”
His right hand slashed through the air. “Were you doing to sell my stallion once you reached London?”
“No.” Actually, she now realized that she probably would have thought of that, sooner or later.
“If you managed to make it to London, of course, which I strongly doubt. No smugglers, not here, in any case, but there are bandits, Victoria, who would be ecstatic to come across a delightful morsel like you.”
“Why would you care?”
“A
fter, of course, they raped you, they would probably kill you.”
“Why would you care?” she repeated. “Then there would be no question that all my money would be yours.”
“There is no question of that now, with you quite alive.”
“I don’t believe you. It would be too unfair. No, you are lying to me.”
“My feet are cold,” he said abruptly. “Come along back to the house.”
“No, I’m not going anywhere with you.”
He heard the panic in her voice and it bothered him. It made him feel guilty as hell. Damn her, she’d lied to him, she didn’t deserve any consideration.
“Come here, Victoria.”
“No. And since you appear to be so very concerned about my lack of funds, I fully plan to sell my ring. Perhaps you will be good enough to tell me how much of my money you paid for it?”
“About a thousand pounds.”
“Poor Rafael,” she said, trying for a credible sneer, “now you have only forty-nine thousand pounds left. Believe me, there will be much less for you when I am done.”
“Actually,” he said quite calmly, “there will shortly be a good deal less for me. I intend to have Mr. Westover draw up papers for half your inheritance to go into a trust for our children.”
She drew up, astounded. “I don’t believe you. Damien would never have—”
“Don’t compare me with my brother again, Victoria.”
“I don’t believe you,” she said again.
She stared at him, watching him walk toward her, and something deep inside her snapped. With a broken cry, she kicked up, trying to thrust her foot into a stirrup. Then his arms closed around her waist and he was pulling her back. She yelled, calling him the few names she knew, and heard him laugh.
The stallion whinnied and jerked away from them both. In the next instant she was lying on the floor of the stable. Rafael grabbed the panicked stallion’s bridle and began soothing the animal. With quick, efficient movements he removed the saddle and her valise. Then he led Gadfly back into his stall, still speaking low nonsense words to him. He didn’t look at her until he’d calmed the animal and closed the stall door.
“Stand up, Victoria. Don’t make me carry you.”
Slowly she came up on her knees. The muscles in her leg were tightening, she could feel them, and knew she must ease them. She must stand up.
He watched her slowly rise. Bits of straw clung to her cloak, her face was pale, and despite himself, he thought her beautiful and so very desirable, that his groin ached. He picked up her valise and turned away from her. “Come on,” he said over his shoulder.
Another exercise in futility, she thought, trailing after him. She saw him wince when his bare foot hit against a sharp pebble, but he kept going.
She found herself studying him, his strong, straight back, his long legs. His thick black hair was disheveled. And she remembered, so very clearly, how she’d felt when he’d kissed her and caressed her on their wedding night. Such feelings she’d never imagined. She shook her head at herself. She was a fool. Evidently she should have showed more hesitation, more maidenly fright. It simply hadn’t occurred to her not to act naturally with him. Didn’t men want honesty? She sighed.
Men were the oddest creatures.
Mrs. Ripple was in the kitchen when Victoria followed Rafael back into the house. Her step was quicker up the stairs. She didn’t want to be caught in such an unexplainable situation by the housekeeper. “Oh, yes,” she could hear herself saying, “I was running away from my husband because I responded too freely with him on our wedding night and he believed his brother and thinks me a whore.”
She wondered vaguely if she would ever forgive him for believing his brother’s lies. And all because she’d wanted to become his wife and all because she was terrified that he would be repelled by her leg.
“Go back to bed,” he said shortly, and left her at her bedchamber door, the valise at her feet. He turned suddenly, and said very softly, “Don’t try such a stunt again, Victoria. You wouldn’t like the consequences, I promise you.”
She took off her clothes, pulled a cotton nightgown over her head, and crept into her bed. She had to think, to decide what she would do now, but she was wretchedly tired, and within a few moments she was sound asleep.
Rafael quietly opened the adjoining-room door. He saw her huddled in the middle of her bed. What the devil should he do now? His marriage, begun with such promise and confidence, had fallen about his head in a shambles. He left the adjoining door open and walked back into his own room. He flung himself down on his own bed and pillowed his head on his arms. He stared at the white ceiling. He had to know, damn her, he had to. But he couldn’t rape her. He’d been honest about that. It wasn’t his style; indeed, he had nothing but contempt for men who treated women in such a callous fashion. No, he couldn’t do that. What he had to do, he decided finally, was to seduce her. Then he would know once and for all. And if she isn’t a virgin? What will you do then, you stupid sod?
He wouldn’t think about it. He would simply deal with it if it happened. But what is her grand confession? Whatever could a supposedly young innocent girl have to confess in the middle of lovemaking, for God’s sake? He found himself trying to remember her exact series of responses to him. Had she acted at all surprised when he’d first kissed her? He could feel her trembling against him, feel her part her lips.
Had he really expected her to shrink from him? Had he wanted her to be shy and frightened of sex so he could play the gallant, patient lover? Was he such a fool to have seen himself in the part of her mentor, her gentle husband who would teach her according to rules of his own creation to enjoy sex with him?
Of course, he remembered Patricia then. So sweet, so innocent, he’d thought, and he’d been so passionately in love with her, his sixteen-year-old heart filled with her. With all the restraint of a boy desperately in love, he’d taken her, so afraid that he would hurt her, his sweet, virgin love. She’d cried and whispered that he had hurt her, and he’d begged her forgiveness. And he’d believed with all the fervor of his sixteen years that he was the only man—man, ha!—she wanted. And then he’d found her with Damien. How his brother had laughed and taunted him.
Rafael couldn’t bear those taunting memories, memories that he’d firmly believed were long dead. Until Victoria. He rose quickly, dressed, and left the house. He rode Gadfly until the stallion was lathered and blowing with fatigue.
It was near noon when he returned. Luncheon was laid out in the small dining room. Victoria was seated there, listlessly playing with a thin slice of ham on her plate. She looked up briefly when he entered, then just as quickly lowered her head again.
“Captain. Would you like some luncheon?”
He forced a smile for Mrs. Ripple and nodded.
When she took herself from the room, he forced himself to eat a bit of ham, which was incredibly salty, and buttered potatoes that tasted rancid. The silence was deafening.
He could hear himself chewing the bread, which was alternately crunchy and doughy.
“Victoria,” he said finally, slowly laying down his fork.
She said nothing.
“Would you care to drive into Milton Abbas and see the sights?”
She could only stare at him, completely at sea. “Why?”
“We are on our wedding trip,” he said, his voice smooth as velvet. “Surely we should find some enjoyment.”
Victoria had already thought ahead to the long empty hours facing her. There was nothing more he could do to her. “All right.”
“Excellent,” he said, and took another bite of ham. “Perhaps we can have something to eat there.”
There was a moldering old mare in the stable, but Victoria preferred riding even that relic to sitting in the closed carriage. The afternoon was clear, the sky light blue dotted with white clouds. They left Tom Merrifield chatting with Mrs. Ripple, that good woman flushed with pleasure at his attentions.
The weathe
r provided conversation fodder for a good five minutes. When it ran dry, Rafael looked at her profile for a moment, then drew a deep breath and said, “If you shouldn’t mind too much, tomorrow or perhaps the next day we can continue to Cornwall. I wish to stay at Drago Hall for a week or two, that is all. Just to give me enough time to find the land where I want to build my home.”
“Perhaps you will find a house already there that you like,” she said, closing her eyes against the awful return to Drago Hall and Damien and Elaine.
She hadn’t refused outright to go to Drago Hall, and he wondered about that. He’d expected her to shriek invectives when he told her. He looked at her and saw that she was smiling. At what? Damien?
“That appears to please you,” he said, and she heard the suspicion in his voice.
“Yes, it does. I have sorely missed Damaris. I have cared for her a good deal since her birth.”
“Yes, I remember your mentioning her now. You would not mind staying at Drago Hall for a while?”
She chewed on her lower lip, staring between the old mare’s ears.
“Your position would be quite different, you know, from before. I assume you were at Elaine’s beck and call.”
“Yes, but I didn’t mind. After all, until a very short time ago I believed myself a poor relation.”
“Now you are my wife.”
He sounded possessive, and that surprised her. She said nothing.
She felt his hand lightly touch her arm, and she turned to face him. “You are mine, Victoria,” he said again. “I want no more strife between us.”
She looked at his hand, his long fingers. “The strife was of your making, Rafael.”
“That is true. I wish now to unmake it.”
“Do you truly mean it?”
He dropped his hand from her arm. The hopefulness in her voice shook him, made him hate himself, and his deception. Well, it was what he wanted. He wanted her trust. He wanted her to smile again. He wanted to make love to her and then he would see.