He raised his hand, then dropped it to his side. He’d done it. Ruined things again. His damned mouth. He cursed softly, grabbed the brandy decanter from the sideboard, and strode to the small, very masculine study at the back of the cottage.
He wasn’t at his best the following morning. The steaming bath Lizzie brought up had helped a bit, at least the hot water helped unkink his stiff muscles, but his head felt like a lead pipe was wrapped about it.
He’d awakened at dawn, cramped in the chair in the study, and staggered to his bedchamber. He moaned. He didn’t want to think about it. He didn’t want to think about anything.
It was Tom who saved his life. “You look a bit underground, sir,” he said as Rafael drew in deep breaths of fresh morning air. He grunted and kept breathing.
“My ma taught me a marvelous recipe for the morning after. Should you like me to prepare you some?”
Rafael felt a shaft of hope. He nodded.
The potion was brown and thin and tasted of vile, thankfully unknown ingredients, but was possessed of remarkable restorative powers.
“Dear God, Tom Merrifield, I am in your debt,” Rafael said not ten minutes later. He wrung Tom’s hand.
Tom gave him a commiserating grin. “The brandy, sir, can be an assassin, that’s certain. Did Miss Victoria also imbibe?”
“No,” Rafael said, suddenly stiff with memory, “no, she didn’t. I do believe I’m even ready to face Mrs. Ripple’s notion of breakfast fare.”
“Lots of eggs, sir. ’Twill do you good,” said Tom at his most sage. “Another of my ma’s suggestions.”
Rafael wondered at Tom’s sudden loquaciousness. The Cornishman had been a niggardly jailer of his words since Rafael had hired him. He said, “Mrs. Carstairs and I will be riding in about an hour, Tom.” At least Rafael hoped he could talk Victoria into accompanying him. How many peace offerings was a man allowed, he wondered as he walked back to Honeycutt Cottage, before his wife cracked his head with a poker? But she had provoked him, she had indeed.
All her ridiculous questions about virginity. Damn her beautiful eyes. And her near-hysteria about the chicken blood.
Victoria had just seated herself at the dining table when Rafael came into the room. He smiled at her, trying for a markedly winsome smile. All he could do was try. Hopefully she wouldn’t notice the bloodshot eyes.
Victoria, for an instant, felt again like a cloudy day with the sun dashing through. She drew herself up. “Good morning, sir,” she said, trying not to become besotted with that smile of his.
“Good morning. Would you like me to serve you?”
What the devil was he up to now? She stared at him for a moment, then shook her head.
“No, I’m not really very hungry this morning. The bacon looks soggier than the toast, unfortunately. It looks to become a lovely day.”
“Yes, that is true. Ah, Victoria, would you like to explore the countryside with me? That Norman church in Milton Abbas, I wager it is worth seeing.”
“For religious or archeological reasons, Rafael?”
“Neither.”
“For cozying-up reasons, then.”
“What do you mean?” The scrambled eggs were more than a bit on the runny side. Rafael eyed them tentatively, then decided to follow Tom’s ma’s advice. He scooped a pile onto his plate.
“Another olive branch.”
“If you, Mrs. Carstairs, would simply practice keeping your mouth shut, I vow we could have a truce to last fifty years.”
“You shan’t gain your truce in that manner, Rafael. However can you eat eggs that are so underdone?”
“I wish that you would keep your attention on your own plate, if you please. Now, why not look at it this way. Perhaps we can be friends during the day, and save up all our venom for the evenings. Half and half. Never be boring that way.”
“Something so predictable would have to become boring, I think.”
“Not with your mouth, madam.”
She sighed and took a bite of buttered toast. The butter, at least, was delicious. “You want to know something, Mr. Carstairs?”
“Fire away.”
“I have never been an ill-natured person in all my nearly nineteen years. You have a grand capacity for making me absolutely furious.”
He looked much struck. “Come to think of it, neither am I. An ill-natured person, that is. What do you suggest we do about it?”
“It is quite simple, really.” He leaned forward at her quite serious tone. “All you must do, Rafael, is to trust me and believe me. I am your wife, if you would but bring yourself to remember that one small fact.”
“You can prove to me quite effectively that I can trust you and believe you.”
“No, you must trust me fully and completely before we consummate our marriage.”
“Consummate? Wherever did a nice young girl like you hear that word?”
“I found it one day in the dictionary. I was looking up ‘consumption,’ as I recall. Elaine’s aunt died of it and I wondered what the symptoms were.”
“All right. There is another way, then. Tell me your confession.”
She toyed with the spoon in the honey pot. Thick, smooth, and golden. At least Mrs. Ripple couldn’t make the bees produce soggy honey. She should tell him her confession, but she couldn’t bring herself to. All of it was inextricably tied together. It would, however, make him feel a total and complete bounder. That thought brought a smile to her lips. His chagrin just might be worth the sacrificing of her principles. Since when, she wondered, frowning at the honey pot, had her lame leg become a principle? Surely that made no sense at all. Nothing she’d done since she’d met this man made much sense.
“You ate all your eggs,” she said finally.
“Yes,” he said. “Arguing with you made me forget what I was eating. Would you ride with me?”
“Why not? Will you be charming? Until the sun sets, at least?”
“At the very least,” he said, and rose from his chair.
12
We are easily tricked by those we love.
—MOLIÈRE
When Rafael lightly clasped her shoulders, drawing her closer, Victoria was too surprised to move. When he lifted her chin with his forefinger and kissed her on her closed mouth, she simply stared up at him, still unmoving.
After but a moment he raised his head and looked down at her. He smiled, lifted his hand, and gently caressed her jaw with his fingers.
“The sun hasn’t set yet,” he said. “We still have some minutes before it’s evening and time to argue.”
“Why did you do that?”
He shrugged. “You’re beautiful, your mouth is very soft, you taste sweet, and you’re my wife.”
“I see,” she said. Victoria wanted him to kiss her again. She wanted him to pull her against him so she could feel the length of him against her. She wanted that so very much, but she did nothing. He would doubtless be repulsed by such trollop behavior were she to show the slightest interest in his lovemaking. His mouth was beautiful and firm and he tasted more delicious than she possibly could. It was difficult to keep such things to herself.
“You will just stare at me, Victoria? You’ll say nothing more?”
She shook her head helplessly. Unconsciously she lifted her hands to his shoulders and arched her neck back. Her lashes swept down over her eyes.
Her invitation was clear. He kissed her again, softly, gently, but he felt the response in her and marveled at it. She kept her mouth firmly closed. He ran the tip of his tongue along her lower lip, teasing her, probing lightly, and he felt her shudder. His arms closed tightly around her back. He deepened his kiss.
It was the moan from deep in her throat that made Victoria’s eyes fly open. She was trembling, awash with wild, uncontrolled feelings, and she didn’t know what to do about them. She just wanted more of Rafael. She wanted . . . No, stop it. She felt his hands glide down her back to cup her bottom. She felt him lift her, fitting her against him. She felt
him against her belly, and she cried out—surrender, desire, a plea in her voice.
Rafael slowly slid her back down his body, not releasing her even when her feet touched the floor. “Should you like me to have Lizzie fetch you a hot bath?”
“Bath?” Her eyes were vague, her voice thin.
“Yes,” he said, releasing her, “a bath. Should you like a bath before dinner?”
He knew well enough that her body was on fire. He was nearly in the same state himself. It was just that he knew how to exercise control over himself, and evidently she didn’t. It was that simple. Her mind wasn’t functioning as yet and he watched her try desperately to get control of her breathing, to slow the deep heaving of her breasts, to stiffen her legs. He waited, wondering what she would say, what she would do.
What she did surprised the devil out of him.
Victoria drew her hand back and swung, slapping him as hard as she could. “I hate you!” Her voice sounded hoarse, raw, as if she were in pain.
Rafael rubbed his hand over his cheek. “I merely asked you if you wished a bath. Why did you strike me?”
“You used me. God, you wanted to make me wild so you could taunt me, and hate me and despise me. I won’t let you do that again, Rafael, I won’t.”
He watched her in silence as she whirled about into her bedchamber, slamming the door behind her. He heard the key grate in the lock.
He had meant just a simple sweet kiss, that was all. It was her response, instant and hot, that had made him do more than he’d intended to do. He hadn’t meant to humiliate her or taunt her. He’d pulled back because . . . He wasn’t sure. He was honest enough with himself not to close himself up in a complex lie of his own making just to soothe his own conscience. He would have to think about it. Marriage, he thought as he strode into his own bedchamber, marriage was a mess, a bloody complicated mess.
What was her damned confession?
Victoria sent Mrs. Ripple a message through Lizzie. She had no intention of facing her husband across the dining table, at least not this evening. He’d done her in yet again. It was because he’d caught her off guard. If she’d but known that he was going to kiss her, she could have prepared herself, made certain that she would show nothing but absolute disinterest. Even when he fitted her against the length of him? She bit her lip, remembering the shadow of those feelings, feelings so intense, so powerful, that she’d been utterly helpless. Was she a trollop? Did a trollop have such feelings?
No. Now he was making her wonder about herself, damn him. She’d felt nothing but revulsion with Damien, and simply nothing at all with David. It was Rafael Carstairs who seemed to have the magic that made her crazy with need and passion, at least she supposed it was passion. She might as well admit it. She wanted him, desperately, whatever that entailed. All it entailed.
She finished her bath and wrapped herself in a warm towel. It was going to be a long evening.
Downstairs in the dining room, Rafael was sitting at the table in splendid isolation. He’d botched it again, royally, he thought as he forced himself to eat a reasonable portion of Mrs. Ripple’s rabbit stew. How could anyone ruin a stew? he wondered. After all, it was prepared in a pot, all of it. How could the potatoes be raw and the carrots overcooked?
He stayed at the table, a bottle of port at his elbow long after Mrs. Ripple had taken the stew remains to what he hoped was a final interment. He had no intention of drinking himself into insensibility again. He thought about Drago Hall and his brother. It was a deeper division now, with Victoria as his wife. A chasm that would never be breached.
And he thought about the assignment he’d accepted from Lord Walton. Why, he wondered sourly, couldn’t it be something to do with smuggling? That was something he knew about, had known about since he was three years old. But a revival of the Hellfire Club? It seemed ridiculous and nonsensical, save for the savage rape of Viscount Bainbridge’s daughter. He wondered, a crooked smile on his face, if when he arrived in Cornwall he would hear of Strange Happenings as well. Well, no matter. This group of dissolute young men would have to be stopped and the identity of the shadowy figure known as the Ram made known. Ram, Rafael thought, as in masculine animal, as in horns that represented a phallus. He determined to check the small library in Honeycutt Cottage on the morrow for any works on witchcraft and covens and the like.
He fretted with nervous energy until nine o’clock, when he took himself outside for a long walk. The night was overcast, the half-moon veiled by gray clouds that crossed in front of it in thin wisps. What to do about Victoria? He really had no idea how she, or he, for that matter, would be treated at Drago Hall. He would do his best to prevent any insults to her. He also knew that if she was Damien’s lover, he was throwing her back into his brother’s waiting arms and bed. He would sleep with her himself, damn her, and that way he would know where she was every night.
I want you to believe me and trust me before we consummate the marriage.
“Oh, Victoria, what the devil am I going to do with you?”
There was only the wind rustling through the oak trees to give any reply. He missed the sea, the endless days and nights, the heavy sun, the restless storms, the continuous test of man against nature. He wondered how he would settle down on land with the firm earth beneath his feet, if he ever really would. He grunted, kicking a stone out of his path. If he and Victoria continued on their present course, she would doubtless be cheering to see him off on the Seawitch for a six-month voyage.
With those thoughts, he wondered if Victoria had ever been on the water, if she knew, perhaps, how to sail. She would be a good sailor, he thought, she had guts and steadiness. He determined to buy a sloop once they’d settled down in Cornwall.
He also determined before he was chased into Honeycutt Cottage by a sudden thunder shower that he was prepared to lie. Why not? He wanted her, very much, and she was his damned wife. Yes, he would tell her, straight in her beautiful face, that he trusted her, believed in her. Then he would make love to her. Then, finally, he would know.
He lit a candle and made his way upstairs to his bedchamber. It wouldn’t take very much effort on his part, he thought, pausing a moment in front of her bedchamber door, to make her want him. Lord, he’d kissed her, caressed her just a bit, and she’d yielded to him as surely and completely as if he’d been fondling her for hours. He ducked his head, hearing Damien’s words again in his mind. “Forget Damien,” he said aloud to his shadowed bedchamber. “Forget his damnable accusations.”
Rafael stripped off his clothes, folded them neatly, as was his habit, and smoothed them down over the back of a wing chair. He found himself gazing toward the adjoining door and wondering if she had locked it against him. Probably. She was angry enough to spit. Surely she’d locked the door, perhaps even pushed a dresser in front of it. The trick was, he thought, to catch her unawares. She was at her most unaware during sleep. He could make her so wild for him that by the time she was fully awake she would want him so badly she wouldn’t fight him.
It was a low trick.
He was even willing to admit that it edged very near to the despicable.
If he were in her shoes, he would be so furious, at least later he would, that he would consider the destruction of his manhood the only worthy revenge.
Best wait. Test the waters on the morrow. Soften her up a bit. At least give it another try. He’d royally mucked it up today. Dammit, he was used to men’s company, to their vagaries and aberrations and sins. Not women’s.
Of course most of the women he’d known had been like Lindy. Warm, passionate, yielding, and expecting nothing from him that he didn’t want to give.
They sat across from each other at breakfast the following morning. Rafael eyed the runny eggs and the limp, greasy bacon with revulsion and helped himself to muffins that appeared edible.
Victoria was listless and Rafael saw the shadows beneath her eyes. He didn’t like it, not one bit. He said abruptly, “What do you know of witchcraft in Cor
nwall?”
That got her attention. She paused in the act of crumbling a muffin and looked over at him. “No more or no less than most people, I suppose. There are those who do practice witchcraft, and I heard there was a coven near St. Austell. Why?”
He shrugged, took a bite of the blueberry muffin, and realized belatedly that it was raw in the middle. He manfully chewed and swallowed, then selected a piece of dry toast. He said, “You know, if we ever have an argument with the marquess, we can tell him what a marvelous cook Mrs. Ripple is. Convince him to come here and sample her delights. Revenge indeed.”
“She tries very hard.”
“I think I will give her a brief holiday and take over the kitchen myself. What do you think?”
“I think that between us we could cook the eggs and fry the bacon.”
He grinned at her. “Let’s do it.” Without letting the proverbial moss grow on the stone, Rafael called out for Mrs. Ripple. She appeared, apron on, her hands dusty with flour, and Victoria shot Rafael a look. He managed to keep a straight face.
“Mrs. Ripple,” he said, all affability, “Mrs. Carstairs and I are very grateful for all you’ve done for us. We are, as you know, on our wedding trip.” Victoria shot him a look but he continued, his voice at its blandest. “Indeed, to thank you for seeing after us, we would like you to take a short holiday. My wife and I should enjoy being alone for a while.”
Mrs. Ripple blinked and exclaimed, “But, sir. Who will see to you and Mrs. Carstairs? I really don’t think that’s at all proper. Why, the dear marquess wouldn’t—”
“No, it’s quite all right,” said Rafael. “Truly. My wife here is a fine cook. We will be leaving on Friday. Why don’t you come back Friday morning?”
Mrs. Ripple did her best to appear reticent about Captain Carstairs’ plan, but within fifteen seconds she was nodding and pulling off her apron.
“I don’t know how to make bread,” Victoria said once they were alone again, “and that is what she was doing.”