He stood frozen. And then—
“Wait!”
He somehow came to his senses, or at least as much sense as was needed to force his legs into motion. He strode from the room, well aware that his two sisters were gaping at him like landed fish. He called out Iris’s name, but she was nowhere to be seen. His wife was fast, Richard thought wryly. Either that, or she was hiding from him.
“Darling?” he called out, past caring if the entire household could hear him. “Where are you?”
He peered in the drawing room, then the library. Bloody hell. He supposed she had the right to make this difficult for him, but it was beyond time they talked.
“Iris!” he called again. “I really need to speak with you!”
He stood in the center of the hall, frustrated beyond measure. Frustrated, and then extremely embarrassed. William, the younger of the two footmen, was standing in a doorway, watching him.
Richard scowled, refusing to acknowledge the moment.
But then William started to twitch.
Richard could not help but stare.
William’s head began to jerk to the right.
“Are you quite all right?” Richard could no longer avoid asking.
“M’lady,” William said in a loud whisper. “She went into the drawing room.”
“She’s not there now.”
William blinked. He took a few steps and poked his head into the room in question. “The tunnel,” he said, turning back to face Richard.
“The . . .” Richard frowned, peering over William’s shoulder. “You think she went into one of the tunnels?”
“I don’t think she went out the window,” William retorted. He cleared his throat. “Sir.”
Richard stepped into the drawing room, his eyes lighting on the comfortable blue sofa. It had become one of Iris’s favorite spots to read, not that she’d ventured outside her bedchamber in the past few days. At the far wall was the cleverly camouflaged panel that hid the entrance to the most well used of Maycliffe’s secret tunnels. “You’re sure she entered the drawing room,” he said to William.
The footman gave a nod.
“Then in the tunnel she must be.” Richard shrugged, crossing the room in three long strides. “I thank you, William,” he said, his fingers easily working the hidden latch.
“It was nothing, sir.”
“All the same,” Richard said with a nod. He peered into the passageway, blinking into the darkness. He’d forgotten how cold and damp it could get in there. “Iris?” he called out. It was unlikely she’d got very far. He doubted she’d had time to light a candle, and the tunnel grew black as night once it twisted away from the house.
There was no answer, however, and so Richard lit a candle, placed it in a small lantern, and then stepped into the hidden passageway. “Iris?” he called again. Still no answer. Maybe she hadn’t entered the tunnel. She was angry, but she wasn’t stupid, and she wasn’t going to hide out in a pitch-dark hole in the ground just to avoid him.
Holding his lantern low enough to light the way, he stepped carefully forward. The Maycliffe tunnels had never been laid with stone, and the ground was rough and uneven, with loose rocks and even the occasional tree root snaking through. He had a sudden vision of Iris taking a tumble, twisting her ankle or worse, hitting her head . . .
“Iris!” he yelled once again, and this time he was rewarded with the tiniest sound, a cross between a sniffle and a sob. “Thank God,” he breathed. His relief was so quick and sudden he couldn’t even manage regret over the fact that she was obviously trying not to cry. He rounded a long, shallow corner, and then there she was, sitting on the hard-packed dirt, huddled like a child, her arms wrapped round her knees.
“Iris!” he exclaimed, dropping to her side. “Did you fall? Are you injured?”
Her head was buried against her knees, and she did not look up as she shook it in the negative.
“Are you certain?” He swallowed awkwardly. He’d found her; now he didn’t know what to say. She’d been so magnificently cool and composed in the breakfast room; he could have argued with that woman. He could have thanked her for agreeing to mother Fleur’s child, he could have told her that it was past time they made plans. At the very least he could have formed words.
But seeing her like this, forlorn and curled up tight . . . he was lost. He brought a tentative hand to her back and patted, painfully aware that she’d hardly want comfort from the man who had made her so miserable in the first place.
She didn’t pull away, though, and somehow that left Richard feeling even more awkward. He set the lantern down a safe distance away and rested on his haunches beside her. “I’m sorry,” he said, aware that he had no idea what he was apologizing for—there were far too many transgressions to choose just one.
“I tripped,” she suddenly said. She looked up at him with defiant eyes. Wet defiant eyes. “I tripped. That’s why I’m upset. Because I tripped.”
“Of course.”
“And I’m fine. I’m not hurt at all.”
He nodded slowly, holding out his hand. “May I still help you to your feet?”
For a moment she didn’t move. Richard watched her jaw set defiantly in the flickering light, and then she put her hand in his.
He stood, nudging her along with him. “Are you certain you can walk?”
“I said I wasn’t injured,” she said, but there was a rough, forced quality to her voice.
He did not respond, just tucked her hand in the crook of his arm after reaching down to retrieve the lantern. “Would you like to return to the drawing room or head outside?” he inquired.
“Outside,” she said, her chin quivering through her regal tone. “Please.”
He nodded and led her forward. She did not seem to be limping, but it was hard to tell for sure; she was holding herself so stiffly. They had walked together so many times during that brief period he had come to think of as their honeymoon; never had she felt like this, all glassy and brittle.
“Is it far?” she asked.
“No.” He’d heard the swallow in her voice. He didn’t like it. “The exit is near the orangery.”
“I know.”
He didn’t bother to ask how. It had to be the servants; he knew she hadn’t spoken to either of his sisters. He’d meant to show her the tunnels, he’d been looking forward to it. But there hadn’t been time. Or maybe he hadn’t made time. Or forced her to take the time.
“I tripped,” she said again. “I would have been there already if I hadn’t tripped.”
“I’m sure,” he murmured.
She stopped hard enough for him to stumble. “I would!”
“I wasn’t being sarcastic.”
She scowled, then looked away so quickly he knew her ire was self-directed.
“The exit is just up ahead,” he said, a few moments after they resumed their pace.
She gave a terse nod. Richard led her along the final stretch of the tunnel, then released her arm so that he could push open the door in the ceiling. He always needed to crouch in this part of the tunnel. Iris, he noted with a wry amusement, could stand straight, the top of her blond head just skimming the ceiling.
“It’s up there?” Iris asked, looking up at the hatch.
“It’s at a bit of a slant,” he replied, working the latching mechanism. “From the outside it looks a bit like a shed.”
She watched for a moment, then said. “It latches from the inside?”
He gritted his teeth. “Could you hold this?” he asked, holding out the light. “I need two hands.”
Wordlessly, she took the lantern. Richard winced as the latch pinched his index finger. “It’s a tricky thing,” he said, finally snapping it free. “You can open it from either side, but you have to know how to do it. It’s not like a regular gate.”
“I would have been trapped,” she said in a hollow voice.
“No you wouldn’t.” He pushed the door open, blinking as the sunlight assaulted them. “
You would have turned around and gone back to the drawing room.”
“I closed that door, too.”
“It’s easier to open,” he lied. He supposed he’d have to show her how to do it eventually, for her own safety, but for now, he was going to let her think she’d have been fine.
“I can’t even run away properly,” she muttered.
He held out his hand to steer her up the shallow steps. “Is that what you were doing? Running away?”
“I was making an exit.”
“If that’s the case, then you did a fine job.”
Iris turned to him with an inscrutable expression, then deftly pulled her hand from his. She used it to shade her eyes, but it felt like a rejection.
“You don’t need to be nice to me,” she said bluntly.
His lips parted, and it took him a moment to mask his surprise. “I don’t see why I shouldn’t.”
“I don’t want you to be nice to me!”
“You don’t—”
“You are a monster!” She put a fist against her mouth, but he heard the choked sob all the same. And then, in a much smaller voice, she said, “Why can’t you just act like one and let me hate you?”
“I don’t want you to hate me,” he said softly.
“That’s not your choice.”
“No,” he agreed.
She looked away, the dappled morning light playing along the intricate braids she wore like a crown. She was so beautiful to him it hurt. He wanted to go to her, wrap his arms around her and whisper nonsense against her hair. He wanted to make her feel better, and then he wanted to make sure no one ever hurt her again.
That, he thought caustically, was his honor.
Would she ever forgive him? Or at least understand? Yes, this was a mad thing he’d asked of her, but he’d done it for his sister. To protect her. Surely Iris, of all people, could understand that.
“I would like to be alone right now,” Iris said.
Richard was quiet for a moment before saying, “If that is your wish.” But he didn’t leave. He wanted just one more moment with her, even in silence.
She looked up at him as if to say, what now?
He cleared his throat. “May I escort you to a bench?”
“No thank you.”
“I would—”
“Stop!” She lurched back, holding her hand out as if to ward off an evil spirit. “Stop being nice. What you did was reprehensible.”
“I’m not a monster,” he stated.
“You are,” she cried. “You have to be.”
“Iris, I—”
“Don’t you understand?” she demanded. “I don’t want to like you.”
Richard felt a glimmer of hope. “I’m your husband,” he said. She was supposed to like him. She was supposed to feel so much more than that.
“If you are my husband, it is only because you tricked me,” she said in a low voice.
“It wasn’t like that,” he protested, even though it was exactly like that. But the thing was, it had felt different, at least a little. “You have to understand,” he tried, “the whole time . . . In London, when I was courting you . . . All the things about you that made you seem a good choice were the things I liked so well about you.”
“Really?” she said, and she didn’t sound snide, just disbelieving. “You liked me for my desperation?”
“No!” God above, what was she talking about?
“I know why you married me,” she said hotly. “You needed someone who would need you even more. Someone who could overlook a suspiciously hasty proposal and be desperate enough to thank you for your hand.”
Richard recoiled. He hated that those very thoughts had once sounded in his head. He could not remember thinking them specifically about Iris, but he had certainly thought them before he met her. They were the reason he’d gone to the musicale that first fateful evening.
He’d heard about the Smythe-Smiths. And desperate was the very word he’d heard.
Desperate was what had drawn him in.
“You needed someone,” Iris said with devastating quiet, “who would not have to choose between you and another gentleman. You needed someone who would choose between you and loneliness.”
“No,” he said, shaking his head. “That’s not—”
“But it was!” she cried. “You can’t tell me that—”
“Maybe at the beginning,” he cut in. “Maybe that’s what I thought I was looking for—No, I’ll be honest, that’s what I was looking for. But can you blame me? I had to—”
“Yes!” she cried. “Yes, I blame you. I was perfectly happy before I met you.”
“Were you?” he said roughly. “Were you really?”
“Happy enough. I had my family, and I had my friends. And I had the possibility that I might someday find someone who—” Her words shattered, and she turned away.
“Once I met you,” he said quietly, “I thought differently.”
“I don’t believe you.” Her voice was small, but her words were tight and perfectly enunciated.
He held himself still. If he moved, if he so much as extended a finger in her direction, he did not know that he would be able to contain himself. He wanted to touch her. He wanted it with a fervor that should have terrified him.
He waited for her to turn around. She did not.
“It is difficult to have a conversation with your back.”
Her shoulders tensed. She turned to face him with slow intensity, her eyes gleaming with fury. She wanted to hate him, he could see that. She was clinging to it. But for how long? A few months? A lifetime?
“You chose me because you pitied me,” she said in a low voice.
He tried not to flinch. “That’s not how it was.”
“Then how was it?” Her voice rose in anger, and her eyes somehow darkened. “When you asked me to marry you, when you just had to kiss me—”
“That’s exactly it!” he cried. “I wasn’t even going to ask you. I never thought I might find someone I could ask in such a short time.”
“Oh, thank you,” she choked, clearly insulted by his words.
“That’s not what I meant,” he said impatiently. “I assumed I would have to find the right woman and put her in a compromising position.”
Iris looked at him with such disappointment it was almost too much to bear. But he kept talking. Because he had to keep talking. It was the only way he might get her to understand.
“I’m not proud of that,” he said, “but it was what I thought I had to do to save my sister. And before you think the worst of me, I would never have seduced you before marriage.”
“Of course not,” she said with a bitter laugh. “You couldn’t very well have your wife and sister pregnant at the same time.”
“Yes . . . No! I mean, yes, obviously, but that wasn’t what was going through my head. God!” He raked his hand through his hair. “Do you really think I would take advantage of an innocent after what had happened to my own sister?”
He saw her throat work. He saw her fighting her own words. “No,” she finally said. “No. I know you wouldn’t.”
“Thank you for that,” he said stiffly.
She turned away again, hugging her arms to her body. “I don’t want to talk to you right now.”
“I’m sure you don’t, but you will have to. If not today, then soon.”
“I already said I would agree to your ungodly plan.”
“Not in so many words.”
She whipped back around to face him. “You’re going to make me say it out loud? My little announcement at breakfast wasn’t enough?”
“I need your word, Iris.”
She stared at him, and he couldn’t quite tell whether it was with disbelief or horror.
“I need your word because I trust your word.” He paused for a moment to let her reflect upon that.
“You are my husband,” she said without emotion. “I will obey you.”
“I don’t want you to—” He cut himself of
f.
“Then what do you want?” she burst out. “Do you want me to like this? To tell you I think you’re doing the right thing? Because I can’t. I will lie to the entire world, apparently, but I won’t lie to you.”
“It is enough that you will accept Fleur’s baby,” he said, even though it wasn’t. He wanted more. He wanted everything, and he would never have the right to ask her for it.
“Kiss me,” he said, so impulsively, so suddenly that even he did not believe he’d done it.
“What?”
“I will make no more demands on you,” he said. “But for now, just this once, kiss me.”
“Why?” she asked.
He stared at her in incomprehension. Why? Why? “Does there have to be a reason?”
“There is always a reason,” she said with a quiet choke in her voice. “More fool me, for letting myself forget that.”
He felt his lips move, trying and failing to find words. He had nothing, no sweet poetry to make her keep forgetting. The light morning wind swept across his face, and he watched as one lonely tendril of her hair broke free of its braid, catching the sunlight until it sparkled like platinum.
How was she so lovely? How had he not seen it?
“Kiss me,” he said again, and this time it felt like begging.
He didn’t care.
“You are my husband,” Iris said again. Her eyes burned into his. “I will obey you.”
It was the fiercest of blows. “Don’t say that,” he hissed.
Her mouth clamped into a defiant line.
Richard closed the distance between them, his hand thrusting forward to grab her arm, but at the last minute he stilled. Slowly, gently, he reached out to touch her cheek.
She was so rigid, he thought she might break, and then, he heard it—a tiny whisper of breath, a small sob of acquiescence, and she turned, allowing his hand to cradle her cheek.
“Iris,” he whispered.
She brought her eyes to his, pale, blue, and impossibly sad.
He didn’t want to hurt her. He wanted to cherish her.
“Please,” he whispered, his lips coming within a feather’s breadth of hers. “Let me kiss you.”
Chapter Twenty-one
KISS HIM?
Iris almost laughed. The very thought of it had consumed her for the past few days, but not like this. Not when she was wet-cheeked and dusty and her elbow felt bruised from when she’d tripped over her own feet because she couldn’t even run away with dignity. Not when he hadn’t said a word of reproof in the tunnel, and he was being so bloody kind.