Chapter Thirty-One
After tea and more expressions of congratulations and surprise, Banallt very slyly, or perhaps not slyly at all, gave Harry Llewellyn a recommendation to a restaurant in Duke’s Head. Or, he told them, they could do as he planned to do and have supper in their rooms, if they cared to stay at Darmead. They did, as it was getting late and threatening rain. King appeared to escort the Llewellyns to rooms, and then, Sophie was alone with Banallt. She took one look at him and burst into tears.
“Sophie, darling,” he said.
She wanted to go to him, but her feet refused to move and she was afraid to try because her familiar world no longer existed. If she moved from this spot, she might just vanish into thin air. But Banallt moved the world for her, and before long, she was in his embrace. “Your cousin wanted you to marry Fidelia.” She curled her fingers around the lapels of his coat and breathed in the scent of bergamot. “He expected you to marry her.”
“Everyone knows that. He made no secret of it.” Banallt rubbed his hands along her spine. “His hope for a marriage between me and Fidelia was the primary reason he put off your brother.”
Sophie lifted her head. “You knew?”
“I am head of the family. It is my business to know. Harry was quick to inform me I’d a rival. It’s been a favorite subject of his since the year after my wife died.” He shrugged. “I don’t begrudge him that. As such matters go, a marriage between Fidelia and me makes sense.” He tightened his arms around her, and she allowed herself to relax against him. “If I were not in love with you, Sophie, I might have gone through with it. Or if Fidelia’s heart had been free to be won. But after she met your brother, there was no one else for her.” He lay his cheek on the top of her head. “Her affection for him was genuine. I think they would have been happy together.”
“So do I,” she whispered. She blinked and something tickled her cheek. Tears, she discovered, when she swiped a hand beneath her eyes. Weeks of emotional deadness were crumbling away, and unless she found a way to stop the erosion of her control, she was going to break before the night was done. She wanted to be someplace where she would not be confronted by topsy-turvy emotions, and that meant away from Banallt. Far from Darmead.
He brushed her hair behind her ears, his fingers lingering there. “Let’s go where we may be private.” He took a step back, hand outstretched. She put her hand in his, and this time, her feet did move. He walked with her to her room. Her trunk from Havenwood was open at the foot of the bed. Sophie’s maid, Flora, was just closing a mahogany armoire.
“Ma’am,” she said. “Lady Banallt, begging your pardon.”
Her presence must be Banallt’s doing. Sophie hadn’t arranged for her to come here. He’d thought of everything. Flora was a pretty woman, young, too, but if Banallt noticed, he hid it well.
“Flora,” he said. He never hesitated calling her maid by name. He knew instantly who she was. “You are free to go tonight. I’ll look after Lady Banallt myself.”
“Milord.” She curtseyed again. “Milady.”
With Flora gone, Sophie stood in the center of the room, the tips of her fingers over her mouth. This couldn’t be real, she thought. This was Darmead, after all, the place where she’d had more foolish dreams than most girls had in their lifetimes. If this was one of her stories, Banallt would be the villain, and her marriage a sham. She knew it wasn’t because she was the villain here; she had entered into this marriage without love.
Banallt went to the fireplace and added more coals. He intended to stay with her, she realized. Her husband turned. “Come, Sophie. Let’s sit before the fire a while.”
There was a bottle of wine and two glasses on a table along with bread, a plate of cold meats, and fruit. Banallt ignored the food as he led her to the sofa arranged before the fireplace. She sat, at once glad of a reprieve from the intimacy to come and perversely disappointed. Banallt sat beside her, but rather far away, with his back against the sofa arm and one foot on the floor, the other on the sofa.
“Shall we speak,” he said, “of your long and trying day?”
“No.” She looked at him, but without meeting his eyes. Coward, she thought, but she still stared at his ear rather than risk locking gazes with him. She straightened her shawl, settling it very precisely around her shoulders, and then felt foolish. The gesture gave away her unsettled state of mind. She did look into his eyes then. Yet another confusing reaction washed over her.
“You’ve sailed between Scylla and Charybdis, Sophie, and survived.”
“Have I?”
He held out both hands as if weighing the air on his palms. “You chose between Havenwood where you were intolerably miserable”—one hand dipped below the other—“and marriage to me. A monster, yes, an infamous scoundrel, but all the same, a man who adores you.”
“You’re not a monster.”
“Hm. The words have been used. We’ll settle for scoundrel, shall we?”
“Infamous scoundrel.”
“Have you made the right choice?” he asked.
“Does it matter?” she returned. “The choice is made.”
He smiled at her, and Sophie’s emotions went to war. She had always admired Banallt’s intellect and his easy manner with her. He never had condescended to her or made her feel unworthy or insignificant. But how could she forget him arriving at Rider Hall with Tommy, drunk and with a woman who was not respectable? All the times he’d watched her with his unsettling eyes and then left with Tommy. The night he’d admitted he was unfaithful to his marriage and saw no reason to change.
“You needn’t stay here,” she said. His eyes went wide the moment the words burst from her. “I mean, London is more convenient for you and I am happy to stay here at Darmead. I should be very happy here, with the castle to myself.”
Banallt didn’t reply right away. He tipped his head ever so slightly toward the back of the sofa. “What do you suggest we do instead? Carry on a passionate correspondence via the post? I think not, darling. You’ve not proven yourself a good respondent.”
“Your cousin mentioned Mrs. Peters.” Her cheeks burned, but he wasn’t looking at her and so did not see.
“For which I ought to have his head.” Banallt turned toward her, his lashes partially hiding his eyes. “He spoke out of turn.”
“An affair, Banallt, is nothing irreparable if both parties are aware in advance.”
“Indeed?” The word dripped with ice.
“I daresay neither of us would have any deep regrets if you carried on as before. There’s always been talk about you, and it needn’t matter. Not between us. It didn’t used to, after all.”
“What else needn’t matter, Sophie? Your vows to me? Because I assure you, you are wrong in that assumption.” Banallt sat up and stared at the ceiling. When he looked at her again, his expression was familiarly cool. “That was uncalled for. My apologies.”
“I’m only trying to find a way for us to get on, Banallt. That’s all.”
“You’re trying to find a way for you to stay in the past,” he said. “The past is dead. Let it stay that way. I don’t mean for us to get on as we did at Rider Hall, Sophie.” He stood, and she watched him only long enough to see him walk to the table where the wine had been left. Anger added stiffness to the set of his shoulders. She curled her legs beneath her, put her arms on the back of the sofa, and buried her face there. What a farce this night was becoming. She burned hot one moment, cold the next. She didn’t want him to leave her. She couldn’t bear to be near him. He was her friend. He would break her heart. Behind her closed eyes, the darkness increased. Banallt had turned down the lamp. She lifted her head, thinking perhaps that he meant to leave. The room jumped with shadows.
“What am I to do then?” she said into the darkened room. She curled in a corner of the sofa. “When I hear your name connected with some other woman’s, am I to let your affair break my heart as Tommy’s did? I should think that you, of all men, would prefer a wife who isn’t jealous.”
He was by the table with the bottle of wine and both their glasses in one hand. He rejoined her on the sofa. Not too near, but not far, either. The wine and glasses he set on a folded-up card table at his elbow. She could see his face, pale and intense, and she remembered all those times at Rider Hall before she knew him, when he was Lord Banallt only and a stranger to her, the possessor of a familiar name, and then a friend of Tommy’s of whom she deeply disapproved. And somehow he’d become a friend to whom she had confessed things she’d never told anyone else. How she loved Tommy and how she kept her writing income secret from her husband.
“Sophie.” He said her name softly. If her life depended on it, she could not have looked anywhere but into the flat, silver depths of his eyes. She didn’t think it was possible to be more aware of him than she already was, but the next moment proved her wrong. “Darling. I must turn down your offer. I am as astonished as you. But this is a subject upon which I’ve had months to think. You’re intelligent. You suspected my first offer of marriage was based upon my conviction that you would never consent to an affair with me and that it was desperation only for your person that drove me to offer for you.”
“And the second upon a need to rescue me.”
He nodded. “Far more straightforward, darling, yet hopelessly complex.”
She ignored the shiver in her belly. “Meaning?”
“I love you.” He reached for the wine and filled the two glasses, though he left them on the table. “I’ve become like you. A hopeless fool who cannot break his vows. And I did make vows to you today.”
She rested her head on her arms again. “That’s not like you at all.”
Anger flashed over his face, quickly mastered. “On the contrary. It is precisely like me, only you refuse to see me for the man I am.”
“I want us to be truthful with each other,” she said. “Even here in Duke’s Head we hear the rumors from Town.”
“Yes, my cousin brought a particularly fine one tonight, didn’t he?” He tugged on his cravat. “But it wasn’t true and well you know it. I don’t give a fig for Mrs. Peters or any other woman whose name has been falsely linked to mine since my return from Paris.”
She said nothing.
“A scandalous number of women have delivered to me their willing persons without benefit of marriage or consideration of their vows. But never you. Not until you were free.” He took up one of the wineglasses and sipped from it. “The truth, Sophie, is that I have been celibate these past months. There’s been no one but you.”
This was not a subject upon which they would agree. She stretched out a hand. “Banallt, come. Let’s not argue. I am your wife and this is our wedding night. Whatever our reasons for marrying, we are here. We are married. And I will be faithful to my vows. You cannot doubt that.”
He faced her, one leg beneath him, one foot on the floor, glass of wine in hand. “That’s so, Lady Banallt.” He breathed up all the air in the room, not leaving any for her. He wasn’t looking away from her, and heaven knows she couldn’t look away from him, not even when he leaned forward and took a stray lock of her hair between his fingers. “Like silk,” he said. “Have I told you what lovely hair you have?”
“It’s brown,” she said. “Plain brown.”
“Hardly. Your hair is brown the way the ocean is blue. How many colors is the sea? A dozen? A hundred? Such a rich color, your hair. Soft. Luxurious.”
“You swore to me you were not a poet.”
“I’m not.” He reached behind him to return his wineglass to the table. “And yet you inspire me to such flights of desire that you transform me.”
She touched his hand, drawing a fingertip from his wrist to the end of his middle finger. “Tonight you are a poet.”
“That is a solid basis on which to make a life together, don’t you agree? Mayn’t a poet and an author find happiness?” He brushed her cheek with the back of his hand. “I mean to prove you wrong about me. You’ve turned me into your faithful hound.”
She smiled softly. “Are you a hound or a poet?”
“Both.” And then, in one fluid move, Banallt moved close to her and put his hands on her shoulders. Her skirts had ridden up when she curled up on the sofa, and, belatedly aware of the fact, she tugged her gown over her exposed ankles.
He covered one of her hands with his. “Don’t.”
She imagined his eyes, lifeless, black-rimmed pewter skimming over her ankles. Her belly felt tight and fluttery. She didn’t want the sensation to stop, and at the same time, she couldn’t bear another moment. She rested her head on her arms again and pretended, or tried to pretend, that she was unaffected. “I’m afraid, Banallt. I’m afraid of everything going wrong. I lost Tommy, and I thought my world would end. And then John died, too.”
“Oh, Sophie,” he said.
“I don’t want to feel anything. Not anymore. I don’t want to lose anyone else.”
He stroked her shoulders. “You aren’t alone. You never were, if only you’d believe it.”
“But the duke will send you to Wellington, and there is to be war.” She bowed her head and realized she wasn’t going to stop the tears burning in her eyes, so what was the point of trying to hide them? “Anything might happen.” She rolled her lower lip over her teeth but that didn’t stop the emotion roiling in her, either. “Anything. You’ve been my friend. You were my friend even when I’d lost my way with Tommy. And I came to know you better than anyone. You loved your daughter so deeply, my heart did break for you, truly, and then you—”
“Insulted you.”
“You were there after John died, looking after me, and now you’re to be sent off to war.”
“Not as an infantryman.” He slid an arm around her. “They’ve no need of generals without experience in war, and I have none of that.” He lifted her chin. “But if I’m asked to go, I will.”
“I know.” She didn’t know how to explain her feelings to him when she didn’t understand them herself. “It’s just—” She threw a hand into the air. “Banallt, I don’t know. I don’t know anything.”
“I’ll not make promises I can’t be sure of keeping. My will is changed. If I am killed, if my ship sinks or some fool soldier aims the wrong direction, if any of that should happen, you will not find yourself alone. That is a promise I can make you. I have family and now they are your family. Harry will look after you. And now, please, you’re right. This is our wedding night. And you are my wife.” He touched the back of her head and pulled out a hairpin. And then a second.
“What are you doing?”
“I’m not leaving this room tonight. I hope we agree. We’ve sent away the servant who was to help you dress for bed. Who else is left to play lady’s maid but me?” He pulled more pins from her hair, and Sophie let him.
With no hesitation whatever, he smoothed out the curls the pins had made in her hair. She felt him lean close, and then his breath warmed the skin near her ear. “You’ve not cut your hair in a long while, have you?”
“No.”
“Not very fashionable of you.”
She shrugged. His fingers in her hair soothed her, and after a bit, she actually closed her eyes. Several times in the process of his work, he moved her head this way or that, so when he put a hand on either shoulder and drew her toward him, she complied. But he didn’t do anything more with her hair. His hands continued to cup her shoulders. His palms slid downward to her upper arms, to her elbows, and then to her forearms with but the lightest pressure of his fingertips. And all she did in response was hold her breath. His hair brushed her cheek.
His hands left her arms and settled on her thighs, and then one palm slipped underneath the hem of her black-dyed gown. Linen and muslin rustled. She made no protest when his hands touched her bare thigh. He’d gathered up her skirts and quite completely exposed her legs. He stretched out one of her legs, trailing a finger from her calf to her thigh. His fingers, long fingers, traced a line around the top of her garter. He divested her of her stockings. The moment felt unreal. She shivered with anticipation. Her belly and lower, there, between her legs felt taut with expectation.
“Darling,” he said in his familiar, wicked drawl, “legs such as these deserve prettier garters. Pink silk and Brussels lace.”
“I dislike pink,” she said, but how she spoke at all amazed her.
He laughed, low velvet, a sound as morbidly compelling as ever his eyes were. “In the matter of garters only my opinion is of any consequence, I assure you,” he said. His palm covered the back of her thighs. “I’m going to buy you a dozen new garters, all lace and silk. Sophie, you are luscious beyond belief. Such soft skin.” His fingers slipped around to the inside of her thigh. “Darling.”
His breath warmed the place where her shoulder became her neck. “You—” His fingers pressed into her, and she bowed a little. “You belong to me now.” She felt his teeth nip her ear, a soft bite, a low growl that reverberated in her heart. The tautness in her belly shot through her, clear to her breasts. “You are mine, Sophie. Legally, now. Morally. Mine. Never doubt that.” He withdrew his fingers, but his thumb moved along her, then his fingertips stroked, moving her into a madness of sensation. He stopped again, his palm slipping around her upper thigh to her backside. She whimpered because he wasn’t touching her there anymore, and the shivering pleasure stopped. When his hand came back, she opened herself to him. “Have you ever done this for yourself?” he asked.
Since words were quite beyond her, she shook her head. Her corset, which wasn’t laced all that tightly, prevented her from getting enough air, though she was uncertain if that was the cause of her light-headedness.
He gave a low laugh in her ear. “When I first met you, you were so careful of your passions and so disapproving of me. I found you quite irritatingly proper, and yet it was a matter of mere hours before you were in my most erotic dreams. Perhaps you’re not really proper.”
Her body and her will loosened. “I still am,” she whispered. “I am a very proper sort of wife. I promise you, I am.”
“You insist you are a good and proper woman,” he said, arms tightening around her. “But good and proper women bore me, and you have never bored me. Not even once, so, darling Sophie, I am forced to conclude that you are not a good and proper woman at all. Are you good, darling, or wicked?”
She meant to inhale, but she had trouble filling her lungs. “I am good,” she whispered. “Always good.” She was going to faint. Her head swam, and she leaned against him for support.
“Yes,” he murmured. “You are good. You are very good indeed. Sublime, in fact.”
His fingers pressed against her, stroking, moving, and there she was, about to lose her mind to her body. She completely lost her breath.
“Let me help you, my odalisque.” His arms around her were a fortress of strength. She was protected here. Revered in his arms.
“Banallt…”
“Resist the pleasure,” he whispered even as he urged her into sensation. Instinct commanded, told her she was peaking toward orgasm. “Resist”
“I can’t.”
“If you come,” he said, his voice a growl in her ear, “I’ll have won.”
“Oh my.” She grasped blindly for him, reaching to curl her hand around the nape of his neck while with the other she gripped his wrist. “You beast. You’re beastly.”
“Go on.”
Banallt wouldn’t stop, yet he wouldn’t give her what her body demanded of her, either. His hair caught between her fingers, soft as silk. “I hate you,” she said. Her voice broke.
“How positively beguiling of you.” His fingers slowed, and she thought she would scream with frustration.
“I despise and abhor you.” She opened for him, pushed her hips forward.
“Do you hold me in contempt?”
“Yes.” But the word came out in a rush of air. She tried to gasp and couldn’t. Her head was spinning, reeling. She wanted.
“You disdain me,” he said. “Scorn me. Contemn me.” With each whispered word, he stroked harder, and then whatever else he said was lost. She could do nothing but hold him as sensation peaked, and he held her there until she thought she could not live. Pleasure washed through her, took her over, filled her so that nothing else existed, and through it all, his fingers touched, caressed, paused, and gave.
She still held him when he said, “Thank you, Sophie. You are exquisitely lovely when you come, and I should not have properly lived if I had not seen that.” He turned away, though one hand remained, touching her as he reached for the wine on the table. When he came back, he extended a glass to her. His other hand slid up to her stomach, as far as her corset allowed. She was glad she wore a short corset today.
“This is my very best Bordeaux,” he said. “From the Cote d’Or, and it’s not to be wasted. God knows when I’ll be able to get more. Drink it all, darling.”
“Must you make everything sound so wicked?”
His fingers splayed over her belly, and his chin once again rested on her shoulder. “Now what kind of question is that? I thought you knew me. The answer is yes, when I mean it to be, and, sometimes, even when I don’t.”
“Really, Banallt.” She refused the wine. She wanted a clear head tonight.
He kissed her neck and then sat beside her, this time very close. He took her glass from her and tipped his head to drink from it. He watched her face, searched her with his tarnish eyes, and this time he did not speak at all unkindly. “I suppose I ought to warn you that I have every intention of hearing you beg tonight.”
“Never.”
He put the Bordeaux back into her hand. “Drink up, darling, and we’ll see which of us is right.”
She drank in the hope that it would give her the courage. No marriage should start out with a lie between husband and wife. She had not told him the entire truth about how her marriage to Tommy had ended.