“Oh yes, it does and it always will.” Then he smiled at her. She wouldn’t control him, no matter how her mind shifted and played and danced around him. He said easily, “Once you and your damned cohorts forced me to wed with you, you removed many of my options, Duchess. But not all. Let’s get that nightgown off you. I’m tired of waiting.”
In that moment, something deep inside her uncoiled and began to fill her. She felt herself growing cold and colder still, all of it inside her, deep inside.
“Very well,” she said, and all that coldness she felt was in her voice, in her eyes as she stared up at him.
She said nothing more to him. Besides, he didn’t want to talk, he wanted his pleasure and hers as well because she’d come to realize that it gratified his male vanity to make her cry out despite herself. He was gentle and insistent at first, then his mouth was on her mouth, then on her breasts and her belly, until finally he was caressing her, pushing her to pleasure. But there wasn’t any. She lay there, and this time she did suffer him. She hadn’t realized how very empty this lovemaking could be when she was not part of it, not part of him. But there he was, isolated from her, and she saw his growing passion mix with his frustration because he couldn’t arouse her, and she didn’t care. She just lay there, her arms beside her flat on the bed. She didn’t even feel anger, just a numbness, just a waiting for him to finish.
He stopped finally, coming up to look down at her. He’d left the candlelight so he could see her face and her body, for both pleased him, he had told her several times before, then he would speak softly to her, going into vast detail and laughing softly when she would flush at the shocking words, words surely too intimate, and then he would carry his words into action.
This time he said nothing. And now he was looking down at her, studying her face, looking at her breasts and her belly. His face was flushed, his breath coming deep and heavy. He was swelled and ready for her. He started to speak, then shook his head at himself. Suddenly, he pulled her open to him and, lifting her in his big hands, went into her deep and hard.
She gasped at the feel of him but he didn’t hurt her for he’d softened her, she couldn’t deny that, but still she felt him deep inside her with none of the pleasure, just his differentness, the hardness of him, and his heaving over her, and she hated it, this separateness from him. She simply waited, not moving.
Then, just as suddenly as the first time, he pulled out of her and pressed himself against her belly.
And when he was done, he went back onto his heels between her legs.
She said, cold as the North Sea during winter solstice, “Are you now through with me? Ah, certainly you are. May I have a handkerchief, Marcus? I dislike your seed sprayed on me. No, don’t worry, there are no weapons for me about to take to you though you deserve to be beaten quite thoroughly. No, just give me a handkerchief and take yourself off.”
She’d begun sounding as unemotional as a stick and he wanted to yell at her. But now she was mocking him, laughing at him, and he didn’t know what he wanted to do. She’d been utterly still beneath him. He’d wanted desperately to bring her to him but she hadn’t responded. He hated it. He looked down at his seed on her belly. So she hated his seed on her, did she? He looked to her face. She looked utterly composed, no, more than that, she looked bloody amused now, but it was cold, that amusement of hers. She looked as if she didn’t give a good damn. She looked indifferent. She could castrate him with her indifference. He hated her at that moment, hated her for being as passionate as he was before, hated her for making him as wild as a young boy, all the while lying there, thinking about nothing in particular, perhaps even wondering about characters in the novel she’d been reading that afternoon, or perhaps about Esmee, but not thinking of him, just lying there, enduring him, waiting for him to finish with her. He rocked back on his heels with rage, striking his fist on his thigh.
“I don’t believe this. I’d rather have you shrieking at me like you did in the tack room. You lost complete control. You’ve good strong lungs. The good Lord knows I never wanted you for a wife and believe me, Duchess, I will use you only until I return to London. Then you won’t have to suffer me further.”
He was off her bed in moments, jerked up his dressing gown and was gone from her room, slamming the adjoining door behind him.
She rose and washed him off herself. She slowly pulled her nightgown over her head and smoothed it down. She tied the ribbons at her shoulders. When she was back in her bed, she moved to the far edge, for she fancied she could still feel the heat of him. And she was cold, for the deep rage was banked. Perhaps she should fetch one of her father’s dueling pistols from the estate room. Perhaps she should simply be prepared. She could never outguess Marcus. Yes, she would be wise to be prepared.
The Duchess climbed over the low fence, careful not to rip her riding skirt. She looked about her, studying the details of the landscape. The Fenlow moor was off to the west, rugged and barren even in the lush warmth of summ
er. To the east was a dense copse of trees, firs and beeches, mostly. But directly in front of her were farms, spread out like richly embroidered squares, rich with growing crops under the summer sun, one after another, their boundaries stone fences or lines of carefully planted trees. There were small hillocks dotting here and there and trees and several small streams. It was a beautiful prospect, but she didn’t care. It was a puzzle. These were just pieces and she didn’t yet know which pieces fit where.
She just wanted to find that ancient gnarled oak tree, and thus she’d walked from a different direction today. She stopped and studied the stone fences slashing gray and thick across the horizon, most of them well maintained by the farmers, but some falling into disrepair.
She shook out her skirts and walked forward. Where the devil was that oak tree?
She reached the ruins of St. Swale’s Abbey after a brisk twenty-minute walk. She’d been here every day now for a week and a half, looking through the rubble, searching, for what, she had no idea.
As to who had struck her down and taken the book, she didn’t know that either. Nor did Marcus. Nor did Spears or Badger or Maggie, who refused to let her out of their collective sight. Even Mr. Crittaker and Sampson had joined their ranks. She was never alone in the house, never. Now her guard believed her to be resting as they believed her to have been resting for the past week and a half at this particular time. And that was why she was on foot. The stable lads were loyal to Marcus. Lambkin would have a fit if he saw her near the stables. If she took Birdie out, Marcus would know it within ten minutes.
She was on her knees in what she was certain had been a monk’s cell, studying a small etched drawing low on one of the stones in the wall when suddenly from behind her, he said, furious, “What the devil are you doing here? Damn you, Duchess, you’re supposed to be resting.”
She turned slowly, unaware that there was a smudge of dirt on her cheek and that her hair was coming down, a thick plait curling over her shoulder. “Marcus,” she said only.
“What are you doing here?”
“Looking around.” She shrugged. “Come look at this etching. It’s very faint, but I can still make out the lines. This is a monk’s cell, I’m sure of that. Come on your knees and look.”
He didn’t. He grabbed her arm and hauled her upright. “You have bloody lied to everyone, haven’t you?” He shook her. “You haven’t been the feminine little lady reclining on her bed napping, have you? No, you’ve been here, digging about and wandering around alone, damn you.” He shook her again for good measure. “Say something, anything. Shriek at me or yell. Yowl like Esmee when she’s in a snit.”
Suddenly, she turned perfectly white. “Marcus,” she said, utterly disbelieving, “let me go. I’m going to be ill.”
He was so surprised, he released her immediately. He watched as she fell to her knees and wretched. Soon she was dry heaving, for she hadn’t eaten much. He knelt beside her, pulling back her hair, steadying her, for she was trembling now from the effort, weak from vomiting. He felt a shaft of guilt, sharp as an arrow. “I told you that you should be resting. Look what comes of it. Damnation, you’re still ill from that blow. No wonder you didn’t yell at me, or flail at me with your shrew’s tongue, you were too busy swallowing your bile, and you failed.”
He took out his handkerchief and handed it to her. She wiped her mouth, then crumpled it in her hand when her body shook with more heaves that left her sweating and shaky.
He cursed even as he lifted her into his arms. He was silent as a midnight moon as he managed to mount Stanley with her in his arms. He settled her in the crook of his arm, then kicked Stanley in his fat sides. To her surprise, he didn’t ride back to the Park. Instead, after some minutes, he halted his stallion beside a slender thread of a stream bordered with thick water reeds.
He lifted her down and eased her onto her knees. He cupped the water in his hands and let her wash out her mouth. She then swallowed some of the water, clear and so cold that it made her lips blue. The water hit her belly and nausea struck her again. She moaned, clutching her arms around herself.