Matthew studied her as she walked ahead. He remained behind. Partly because he knew she wanted privacy after her revelations. Partly because he was so angry, he was likely to lash out.
Furious grief for her sorrow gripped him in claws of steel. She was young, close to his age, yet she’d seen so much unhappiness. He’d give his soul to ease her pain. But his soul, he knew to his regret, held no value for her.
He clenched his fists at his sides as he watched her raise her hands to her face. He didn’t need to be close to her to know the tears that had threatened during her tale finally overflowed.
Jesus, he hated it when she cried. Every tear ripped at his heart like a blunt butcher’s knife.
She’d been determined to cast herself as the villainess in her recounting. He’d heard the shame throbbing in her voice. He could well believe she’d acted thoughtlessly. She’d been a mere chit of sixteen and she’d more than paid the price for her foolishness since. The loss of her family was a wound that still festered.
His parents had loved him dearly. He could imagine no circumstance, however dire, that would make his mother or father repudiate him. Yet Grace had endured long, lonely banishment from her home and those she loved.
Damn bloody Paget to the hottest hole in hell. He hoped the bastard fried forever in his own self-righteousness. How in God’s name could a man in his fifties remove a pampered girl from everything she knew and subject her to unrelieved hardship?
It wasn’t hard to fill in the details. The misery of life with a man set on crushing her spirit. The unending drudgery on the farm. The despair when she was left destitute and friendless. The fortitude with which she’d faced her trials.
Matthew’s outrage boiled up. She’d been reticent about the sordid details of her marriage but nonetheless, he had a vivid picture of the man. Dry, arrogant, sanctimonious, obsessive.
Beautiful, warm Grace had been tied to that canting tyrant for nine joyless years.
He knew already that she’d stuck to her vows to the sour, judgmental old fool. She’d put heart and soul into making the best of the situation. Even if it killed her, which, given her thinness, wasn’t far from the truth.
Paget should never have married her. But Matthew could guess how irresistible she’d been in her passionate commitment to a better world. Hell, hadn’t she tried to mask her beauty and ardor in the last days? Still he wanted her so badly he couldn’t sleep or eat. Old Paget hadn’t stood a chance in that dusty old bookshop, God rot him.
The bastard had won an exquisite treasure and he hadn’t deserved her.
And Matthew finally faced the shameful truth that lurked in his heart. He was jealous. Jealous of a dead man. In his way, he was no better than that whoreson Paget. Both of them wanted Grace. Neither could do her any good.
His longing gaze followed her as she slowly made her way along the path. While one triumphant chant rang over and over in his heart.
She hadn’t loved her husband.
It was late but Grace lay in watchful alertness in the dark bedchamber. Trusting the marquess with the details of her marriage had left her edgy, exhau
sted. But it wasn’t the strain of reliving her painful history that made sleep elusive.
No, furtive lust kept her awake.
Lust all those hours with Lord Sheene had built into a raging blaze. It now threatened to incinerate every principle.
With a feeling of inevitability, she watched the door swing open. The marquess stood on the threshold as he had that first night. She shoved herself up against the headboard and tried to quash the drunken joy surging through her.
“My lord?” The question in the soft rain-hushed darkness was an invitation.
Chapter 12
Holding her in his arms last night had heightened Matthew’s senses to an almost preternatural level. He heard her husky uncertainty. He heard the breath catch in her throat. Jesus, he even heard desire thrumming beneath the seemingly innocent words.
Lingering in the doorway, he told himself he’d faced greater challenges than this exquisite dark-haired woman. He wished to Hades he believed it.
Bedclothes rustled and bedsprings squeaked. Damnably suggestive sounds. Then he heard her fiddle with tinder and candle before an unsteady glow bloomed. Briefly he closed his eyes against what the golden light revealed. Grace, all great unfathomable eyes in a pale oval face. Her long plait fell over her shoulder and curved to caress one breast. His fingers curled at his sides as if they followed that sinuous line.
“My lord, what are you doing here?” She leaned forward and the garish green satin nightgown slipped almost to her nipples. Before she hitched the neckline up, he glimpsed the soft pink of her areolas. Desire slammed through him and he bit back a groan.
“We must share a bed,” he said curtly, too close to the limits of control to modulate his tone. He should have spoken about this in daylight, but he’d been reluctant to shatter the intimacy her confidences had created.
Emotion flared in her eyes. Fear, certainly. And something else smoky and mysterious that tightened his need another agonizing notch.
He plowed on. He had to. Her life hung upon this moment. He spoke as though drilling soldiers and not talking to the woman he craved above all others. “We have to convince Monks and Filey we’re lovers. I mean only to sleep here. You have my word you’re safe from my advances.”