She sighed. “Corrine told you.”
“Aye. Doona blame her—I can be persuasive, as you know. Now, answer the question.”
“No, she hadn’t.”
“Why were you stuck there?”
“My mother just…forgot me for a little while. When she was getting us a new place to live.”
Ethan briefly closed his eyes. Yes, he’d hoped she’d had much in common with Sylvie. Instead, she had more in common with Ethan. They’d both been hurt by the woman.
“Why didn’t you tell me your mother died?”
“Orphansounds so…pitiful. And I didn’t want Claudia and Quin to know anything about how terrible it is—was—in La Marais. I didn’t know if I could trust you not to tell your friends.”
“How did Sylvie die?”
Madeleine drew back. “Did you know her?” she asked with a frown.
Lying easily, he said, “Never met her.”
“You called her by her first name.”
“Quin told me your parents’ names and Corrine called her that today.” He put his whole hand on the side of her head and pressed her back to him.
“Oh. Well, she died of cholera when I was fourteen.”
That disease was a grueling way to die, and in his job, he’d seen it firsthand more than once. The victim’s body evacuated all liquids, then pain and spasms wracked the muscles, blood thickening in every vein. And all the while the victim was sentient—very aware of dying.
He felt a ruthless satisfaction to know that was how Sylvie had met her end, but then his brows drew together. “You were no’…you were no’with her when she died?”
“Yes. But she passed away very quickly. Within a day.”
Yetanother horror she’d witnessed. “You dinna get it from her?” Cholera was highly contagious if one didn’t know how to prevent its spread.
She tensed. “I’m stronger than I appear, Ethan.”
“Of course, lass.” She was one of the strongest women he’d ever encountered—even if she looked like a defenseless waif. She was brave and resourceful as well.
He could stare at her for hours.
He’d taken her with him. And, God help them both, he was glad he’d done it.
Maddy woke alone in a luxurious stateroom. A circle of bright sunlight beamed in through a port window, telling her it was late morning. She remembered passing out in the train last night and supposed the last few weeks of worry had caught up with her. Ethan must have carried her aboard and put her to bed.
Rising to examine the room, she ran her fingers over the rosewood furnishings, wrought with ormolu and gilt, then over the rich counterpane.
The bed and the bathtub were as large as the hotel’s. In fact, everything in this room was big—as if the designer had been dared that he couldn’t possibly have such large fixtures and furnishings on a ship. Apparently Ethan never did anything second-best.
Eager to go find him and to explore the ship, she quickly washed then dressed in a cobalt blue walking gown of stiff fitted silk. She’d just finished unpacking the broad-brimmed hat with the matching cobalt ribbon when he returned.
“Good. You’re awake.”
“Good morning, Scot,” Maddy said, giving him a bright smile.
He frowned at her. “You look well rested.”
“I should be. I think I slept eighteen hours.” She waved a hand around the room. “I could get used to this. You weren’t jesting when you said the ship would be luxurious.”
He took a seat at the mounted desk and motioned her to sit on the bed. “Now that we’re here, there are some things I want to speak to you about. Some rules.”
“Certainly.” She sat with her hands in her lap.
“First of all, there’s to beno stealing . And we’re to act as husband and wife, which means you will no’ be flirting with any of the men as you did in the tavern,” he said with a glower. “And doona bloody steal anything. You ken?”
She blinked at him. “I’m getting the feeling that you don’t want me to…steal?” Growing serious, she said, “I didn’tenjoy taking things that didn’t belong to me. I only did it out of necessity. Take away the necessity, and I won’t steal. It’s as simple as that.”
“What about the flirting?”
“Jealous, Scot?”
“No’ likely. If you blatantly trifle with other men, people will wonder about our marriage.”
“Are those the only rules? Should be simple enough. How long should I say we’ve been married?”
“A week. This is our honeymoon.”
“Would you like me to fawn over you when we go about in public?”
“No’ at all. In fact, I will no’ want you underfoot. There’s no reason for us to be constantly together.” At her surprised expression, he said, “Understand, Madeleine, I’ve been a bachelor for many a year and a loner besides. It will irritate me if you’re always around.”
Though his words hurt her feelings, she nonchalantly tapped her temple. “Be overfoot.”
“There’s more than one hundred and fifty other passengers aboard. I’m sure if you make an effort, you can befriend one of the other wives on board.”
“I’m not a wife.”
“They don’t know that. So you should be able to entertain yourself during the days—all day.”
“I shall endeavor to make friends and stay busy—and out of your way.”
“But I’ll expect you back in the cabin when the sun goes down.”
“Very well. You’ve made my instructions clear.” She rose, kissed him on the cheek, then collected her reticule.
“So you’re going?”
“Of course,” she said, her tone sunny. “Have a wonderful day, Ethan.”
The baffled look on his face before she walked out was priceless. Had he expected her to fight for the right to be near him? She couldn’t force him to want to spend more time with her. That just had to come.
Besides, Maddy well understood what it was like to be saddled with someone she’d rather not be around. Her own mother had had a cloying personality, and her neediness had always made Maddy crazed. Maddy would be deuced if she’d behave the same way.Distant, aloof. That’s what she would be like.
Out on deck, Maddy discovered that theBlue Riband was one of the finest ships she’d ever seen. It was a sleek steamer with full sail rigging—and no paddle wheels above the waterline. She’d have to ask Ethan about that. If she hadn’t seen the two smokestacks, she would have sworn they were on a sailboat.
Though they weren’t to get under way until the high tide tonight, the ship already appeared full. Couples strolled a marked promenade; game tables were set up on board, with special holders for the playing cards so they wouldn’t blow away. Nannies chased children across decks that gleamed in the bright sun.
The activity helped distract her from her wounded feelings, and now that she had the luxury of a day at leisure, she would enjoy it. She would lie on a chaise and have someone fetch her tea while she reveled in the fact that her boots didn’t hurt her.The life!
The wind blew up, whipping the stiff fabric of her dress, and the crisp sound pleased her. After a quick scan of the decks, Maddy determined that her dress was finer than any she could see on the other women.
A group of seated young wives took her measure—they reminded Maddy of the boulangerie women, but these were richer. Maddy subtly raised her chin, but only so she could incline her head to them when she passed, as if she were royalty.
They all had jewelry—pearl earrings, chokers, and diamond brooches. Maddy’s ears and neck felt bare. But it didn’t matter, because she could brazen out the situation, fabricate reasons why she had none.
L’audace fait les reines. Audacity makes queens.
By the time the ship made port, she’d have convinced the “other” young wives that she yearned to wear all her many, many jewels, but she was a helpless slave to fashion—and this year Paris fashion dictated wearing no jewelry—except,naturellement , when dining at court.
Twenty-eight
“Madeleine, damn it,” Ethan yelled, “I said to wake up!”
Maddy shot up in bed, sucking in a ragged breath. Her cheeks were wet, and the sheets were twisted. She stared dumbly into the darkness, tears continuing to fall.
He lit a lantern, then hastened back to the bed with his brows drawn. He awkwardly patted her shoulder, then removed his hand. “Uh, there, now. You should…you need tae stop cryin’. Directly.” He looked as if he was bewildered by her tears. “Why did you have a nightmare? Is it because you’re away from your home?”
“No, I often have them,” she answered in a whisper. This was so mortifying. They’d had such a nice night once they’d met back at the cabin—dinner, then kissing, then touching. But now…
Maddy hadn’t wanted him to see her nightmares, not yet at least.
She remembered an issue ofGodey’s Lady’s Book she’d read. An entire article had addressed how prospective grooms were attracted to radiant, carefree women.“Brides from happy families make happy families!” Godey’s had declared.
Ethan had just witnessed an example of how carefree shewasn’t .
“Do you want to tell me what you dreamed?” he asked.
Even if she wanted to, she didn’t think she was ready to tell him the details of her nightmares—or of her troubling fear that she might somehow turn out to be a bad mother, like her own. When she shook her head in answer, he appeared relieved. To his credit, he still offered, “Uh, maybe tomorrow, then?”
“Maybe,” she sniffled, then pointed at the lantern. “C-can we leave that lit?” When he frowned at her, she quickly added, “Unless they charge for oil?”
“We’ll make it like daylight in here, if you care to.”
“I’ve always wondered—why would you ever be in the dark if you can afford not to be?” Dashing the last of her tears away, she asked, “Do you ever have nightmares, Ethan?”
“I used to. But no longer.”
“Truly?” she asked, surprised he admitted to them. “How did you get rid of them?”
“I took care of what was bothering me.” At her questioning look, he said, “I doona let wrongs go unanswered. Someone had given me pain”—his expression grew so harsh it made her chilled—“and then I gave it back.”
Making an effortnot to cheat, Maddy acted as dealer for a game ofvingt-et-un among her new coterie of young matrons. Already she’d collected a group of them who thought her royally rich and her style fabulously avant-garde—so much so that they refrained from wearing jewelry because she did.
Ethan had seemed astonished that she’d made not merelyone friend but a baker’s dozen of them. Her new acquaintances helped keep her busy each day while she stayed away from him.
So he could read agricultural journals in the stuffy club room.
After a mere four days of being engaged to him, Maddy now found herselfmissing him. But ever since she’d had that nightmare, he’d been even more standoffish. Hour after hour, Maddy had played cards and dice and listened as the women talked of their husbands and children, so she could stay away until sundown.
Of all the coterie, Maddy liked Owena Dekindeeren best. She was a no-nonsense young Welshwoman, who’d married a Belgian businessman. Though only twenty, Owena already had two children.
Lost in thought, Maddy almost didn’t hear her say, “We can’t all be so lucky as Madeleine with her attentive husband.”
Maddy slowed her shuffling and frowned. “What do you mean?”
“At first I thought your husband was monitoring your gambling, like my Neville does with me,” Owena said. “But I vow, I think your husband simply likes to look at you.”
“Oh, yes,” Maddy began in a scoffing tone, “he’s so attentive he comes by once a day.”
Another woman said, “No, no. He only approaches you once a day, but we often see him lingering nearby.”
“His expression is so dark”—Owena grinned—“and…hungry.” The women tittered, fluttering their ostrich-feather fans, scandalized.
But why would Ethan come by and not speak to me?Maddy wondered, absently shuffling.Why has he been so distant— ?
Realization hit her. Cards flew among the coterie.Ethan is already falling for me!
Maddy mumbled apologies as she hastily scooped cards from the table and from one woman’s bucket hat. Yes, falling in love with her. And that was precisely why he’d been so cold!
“Shall I deal, Madeleine?” Owena asked, amused. “You look distracted.”
“Oh, yes, please,” Maddy said, her thoughts racing….
Although Maddy’s own mother hadn’t loved her, Quin hadn’t fallen for her, and even Ethan seemed not to like her very much at times, Maddy boldly believed she was a lovable person.
People generally liked her, and she’d always made friends easily. And if she turned on the charm? She was nigh unstoppable. MacCarrick didn’t stand a chance, she reasoned, and the poor man probably sensed his heart’s impending surrender—which would explain his increasing coolness.
Naturally he would put up a brusque front as a defense! For a bachelor of his advanced years, yielding to marriage was one thing, but yielding one’s heart was quite another.
And he’d already betrayed hints of his growing affection. Late into each night they touched and kissed and talked of nothing serious, learning each other’s bodies. He taught her how he liked to be caressed and wanted her to reveal what she desired from him.
He’d nuzzle her neck and her breasts so gently, kissing her lips tenderly. He’d compliment her, pleasure her, and then gruffly insist she sleep against him as he held her close.
Whenever they were alone in their cabin, he would walk around naked and unabashed—what male wouldn’t, with a physique like that?—and she would lie on her front, chin on her hands, gazing at him in wonder. As she studied his unclothed body moving, she couldn’t help recalling some of the scenes she’d witnessed in La Marais. Applying the general ideas to him, her curiosity grew each minute.
Every morning, she’d joined him at the basin to explore him as he struggled to concentrate on shaving. She’d run her fingers over his backside, then to his torso and lower, which always earned her a trip to the bed.
Her attraction to him was getting worse. Every encounter between them made her want two more, and her affection for him wasn’t far behind. Especially since he’d begun once again to demonstrate that sense of humor she’d enjoyed. Her heart melted each time he grated teasing words to her with a self-conscious grin.
At breakfast today, he’d looked out from behind his paper and said, “Have you been cheating when you gamble on board?”
“As if I need to. Winning against the passengers is as challenging as hunting cows.”
“Doona scoff, young lass,” he’d said, making his brogue low and rumbling. “Cows can be wily beasts.”
She’d batted her eyelashes as she asked, “Ethan, would you lay down your life to protect me if a cow had me cornered?”
“Aye”—he’d resumed reading—“I’d smite the bovine down.”
Maddy had laughed until he’d folded the paper down, with his brows drawn and his lips curling into that unpracticed grin.
She sighed happily. MacCarrickwould resist her, of course.Ah, but in the end, it will do him no good.
She decided, then and there, in the middle of a hand of blackjack, that she was going to make the Highlander fall in love with her.
The problem with telling Madeleine not to be underfoot was that she’d listened.
Ethan had expected her to make a friend or maybe two—not to gather up a gaggle of women to follow her around and emulate everything she did. They’d even stopped donning jewelry because she wore none.
Though Madeleine had proved to be charming and sociable, Ethan was still surprised at the sheer ease with which she’d made friends. Having never quite managed the feat himself, he’d always believed it difficult.
She played cards and gossiped with them all day, having no trouble staying away from him.
And this meant that if he wanted to see her, he had to pursue her all over the ship. He’d strived to stay away, passing most of the days in the ship’s club room. Since the majority of male passengers were gentlemen of leisure and landowners, the reading journals available on board consisted mainly of agricultural periodicals.
Ethan was out of study with the subject. He could man a howitzer and shoot a target between the eyes from half a mile away, and he knew the comprehensive geopolitical conditions of every country in Europe and Asia, but the newest farming techniques for loamy soil proved foreign to him.
He’d decided that since he was traveling to Carillon, one of his working estates, he could examine the operations while he was there. So he’d dived into the journals, intending to learn—and to keep his mind from Madeleine.
But staying away proved challenging, knowing what awaited him. On the few occasions he’d approached her, her face would light up, making it all the more pleasurable to see her. No one in memory had smiled upon seeing him, and he always had to stifle the urge to look behind him.
Today, the longest he’d made it was an hour before he’d found his feet eating the distance to wherever she was. Even merely watching her from afar was agreeable to him.
So he spent the days in a state that he could swear was close to bloody pining, counting down the hours until night when he could have her all to himself.
He, Ethan MacCarrick, craved a woman’s attention.
And he felt himself lowering his guard around her. He’d actually caught himself wondering what she would think about Carrickliffe, and about his brothers and their wives—and, ach, that sounded odd.
Madeleine was already friends with Jane. This situation could get tricky if Ethan hurt the girl terribly.
What had Quin predicted? That Ethan wouldn’t know up from down anymore?Bully for you, Quin, you’ve got me pegged. His lips curled.But she chose me over you, you sod.
Things used to be cut-and-dried for Ethan. He used to be detached from others, but now he wasn’t so sure. At least with her. Even as he looked hard for things to dislike about her, at every turn he was burdened with additional examples of how well she fit with him.
Each night he and Madeleine indulged their lusts. He’d experienced more pleasure at her hands than he had in a decade before. Hecould get used to that—if he wasn’t careful.
Toward dawn, they continued their nightly battles in bed wherein he attempted to get her to sleep against him instead of balled up in that way that made his chest feel uncomfortable.
If someone had told him a week ago that he’d be fighting to make a woman cling to him in sleep, he’d have laughed.
If he could just have her fully one more time, he thought he could beat this constant need. So every time he touched her, he would take more. He kept his fingers inside her longer, wanting her to crave the sensation of being filled, to train her body to hunger for his. If the situation had been reversed, this would have been the way to make him want more. Conditioning.
He knew he was playing for more now, though he didn’t understand precisely what he wanted from her.
Yet she remained unfaltering. He was beginning to believe she truly wouldn’t sleep with him outside of marriage. If so, once they landed he would only be able to put her off for a few weeks before she demanded matrimony. Or she’d leave.
Now neither of those scenarios was acceptable.
A plan began to form. Other women had enjoyed his coarse treatment. Cold and domineering had served him well in the past, getting him into the skirts of more women than he could count—it could work with her as well.
Twenty-nine
That night after they’d eaten, shared a bath, and were both naked in bed, Ethan proved Maddy’s theory again and again.
Though he plied her with champagne, he was brusque and distant with her—which amused her because she viewed this as the desperate, last-ditch defense of a rattled bachelor.
She could handle his moodiness. It wasn’t difficult because the idea of sharing a life with him appealed to her more and more, especially after a day like today—she’d left food on her plate and had enjoyed tea without hauling water up to her window; tonight, after their light, teasing touches in the bath, the promise of complete pleasure lingered between them.
“Ethan, I’ve noticed you’re cross with me tonight for some reason,” she asked innocently. “Have I done something to offend you?”Besides threatening the wall around your heart.
“I want to take you,” he said curtly. “You’re supposed to be mine, and I’ve already claimed you. Tonight I mean to be inside you again.”
“Honestly, Scot, your moods confuse me so. I can hardly keep up with them. Maybe it’s the champagne and I’m overly sensitive, but your treatment of me is very erratic—”
He pressed her shoulders to the mattress, levering his massive body over hers. But she wasn’t afraid in the least. “Just lie back, wench.”
She snickered. “Did you call mewench ? Well, you certainly dated yourself there, didn’t you? Sometimes I forget how old you are. What’s your age, anyway? Thirty-seven? Thirty-eight?”
“I’m thirty-three.” Looking completely at a loss, he released her. “Am I…do you think metoo old for you?”
“Not at all, Ethan,” she answered honestly.
“Then admit it, you will no’ sleep with me because of my scar. I’d never had any trouble seducing before I received it—”
She laughed then, clutching her stomach, rolling on the bed. “You’re fishing for a compliment!”
“Are you mad? Stop bloody laughing!”
After several tries, she finally did. “I’m sorry, I just didn’t imagine you would be so vain.”
“I was no’ fishing for a compliment.”
“Then how would you explain your comment, when you know very well why I won’t sleep with you, and you know it hasnothing to do with your appearance? And so, to appease your hungry vanity—”
“Damn you, witch, I am no’—”
“—I will tell you that I find you utterly attractive, handsome, and virile.”
His words seemed to die in his throat. His brows drew together as if he’d been confounded.
“I was going to tell you that morning in Paris,” Maddy said, “but you kept ridiculing my poverty, and I didn’t want to relinquish the one chink I’d uncovered in your armor.”
He looked away when he asked, “And the scar?”
“I’m sorry you were hurt, in whatever mysterious fight you were in.” She brushed her fingertips along it. This time he accepted the touch, his eyes briefly sliding shut. “But the mark highlights the fact that you’re a strong man, who’s been honed by a hard life.”
He scrubbed his hand over the back of his neck. “I doona understand you.”
“This is all a test, isn’t it? You want to see how deep my affection for you goes or to determine if I’ll be able to put up with your surliness and tolerate you in marriage.”
“Aye, if that’s what you believe. And only one thing can prove it—and that’s for you to let me have you now.”
“Scot, that’s not fair.”
“Do you no’ want to convince me?”
She nibbled her lip, wondering how he would react if she attempted something she’d seen again and again and had always been curious about. He certainly didn’t seem the type to chastise her for being overbold.
“I wonder if”—she pressed a kiss to his chest—“there might be something else I could do to prove my affection.” Another kiss lower. His entire body tensed, and his thick erection pulsed. “Something I’ve been imagining.”
“You canna be talkin’ about,” he shook his head hard, “aboutthat —” He hissed in a breath when she nuzzled the trail of hair below his navel, letting him feel her hot breaths. His hands shot out to cradle her face, and he rasped, “Ah, you beautiful lass, you are….”He shuddered, drawing his knees up around her. “You’ve been…you’ve been thinking about this?”
“Uh-huh,” she murmured, kissing the rigid indentations of his stomach. “When I watch you shave.”
“You canna tease me with this.” His brows were drawn as if he were in pain. “You doona know how badly I want it.”
“I’ve always been curious to try this.” She slowly rubbed her cheek along his shaft, making his knees fall wide open.
“Pull your hair aside. I want tae see you takin’ me.”
Once she’d pulled her hair over one shoulder, she leaned down again, letting him feel her breaths against the slick crown before she flicked her tongue over the slit.
His eyes rolled back in his head.
His reaction emboldened her. He needed this, truly ached for something she could gladly give him. When she circled her tongue around the smooth head, closing her eyes in bliss, she discovered that she ached for it, too. Enthralled with this new delight, she teased and played, wanting to do this all night.
“Ah, God, that’s it,” he grated. “Now take it in your mouth….”
She hesitated, then ignored his command, beginning to feel a kind of power with the act. Again and again, she lapped at the moisture on the crown until he was arching his back, seeming in anguish.
“I have no’ had this in a verra long time,” he said, choking out the words. “Play later.” He grasped her head in his shaking hands, easing her down.
But she drew back. “I want to savor my first time.”
“Indulge—me,” he growled.
“What if I said no?” She pursed her lips and blew against him, making him shudder and buck his hips. “Looks like I hold all the cards—”
Like a shot, he grabbed her by the waist, tossing her to her back. As she sputtered and cried out, he pulled her around, positioning her so he could repay her in kind. He appeared menacing over her as he clutched her wrists under her back, pinning her so she couldn’t move.
“Looks like wee lasses should no’ play with men like me.” When he took his time settling between her legs, she gasped helplessly, knowing she’d never been more aroused. “Especially no’ in bed.”
Ethan sidled his shoulders under her knees until her legs rested over his back.
Then he merely grazed his lips up her satiny inner thighs, making her pant, her breasts rising and falling fast. He lazily placed wet licks against her belly, slowly descending from her navel.
“Spread your legs.” She did, opening her sex to him, and his cock pulsed, wanting to be buried inside it.
Though he’d only planned to tease her as she had him, when he saw how visibly luscious she was, he couldn’t stop himself from pressing his opened mouth directly to her core. He slid his tongue out to taste her for the first time and found her so deliciously slick.
Instantly, he groaned, his fingers biting into her soft thighs. She cried out at once, undulating against his mouth. As he delved harder with his tongue, flicking her clitoris, her heels dug into his back in total abandon.
Then he somehow made himself draw back.
She raised her head and opened her eyes, brows knitted in confusion. “M-more,” she panted. When she looked at him so hungrily, he nearly wasn’t able to deny her.
“Now do you ken how I felt?”
“Yes, yes.”She tried to free her hands, writhing with her legs spread, until he didn’t know how much longer he could keep his mouth from her. “Ethan, I-I won’t tease you. I promise.”
“Good, Maddy.” He forced her legs wider to take her more deeply, to get more of the exquisite taste he’d only sampled.
“Oh, my God,” she moaned, making his breaths come rough. He’d begun grinding against the bed.
He spread her flesh, took her clitoris with his tongue and lips, then slowly suckled her. “Yes,” she cried, arching her back, rocking her hips to his mouth. “Ah, Ethan…”
As she began to climax, she moaned his name again and again, making him certain he was dreaming—no man could know this much pleasure. When he’d suckled her spent, her legs trembled around his shoulders and neck.
He released her, moving up to take her place, but she clutched his chest, rubbing her face against his neck. She whispered in his ear, “I love the things you do to me,” making his chest swell with pride and his erection pulse unbearably beneath her.
Then she kissed down his body, her hair trailing down his heated, sensitive skin. He yelled out when her hot little mouth closed over him. Wet, sucking, hungry…
He growled, “That’s my good lass. Nice and deep.” Disbelieving, lost, he struggled not to clench her head to hold her while he thrust. She was taking him greedily, moaning around his shaft. It was as if he were an outsider looking in as she had a love affair with his cock—she adored him with her tongue, consuming him with licks and tender kisses.
The experience was mind-boggling. She worked his flesh lovingly, yet wantonly, mystifying him. But when she was about to bring him to come in her mouth, and he felt himself on the verge of losing control completely, he gave a defeated groan and pulled her away.
“Ethan?” she asked, her tone dazed when he drew her up to his chest. “Am I doing it wrong?”
“No, no. I just doona want tae do anythin’…tae make you shy with this.” Feeling wicked, his cock about to explode, he looped an arm around her neck and kissed her.
As he teased her with her taste, he began to handle his shaft. “A particular favorite,” he said against her lips, “want you tae love it as I do.” He stroked harder, his other hand palming her arse. He broke away to ask, “Do you want tae watch me?”
Wide-eyed, she nodded, and he eased his grip around her neck so she could look down at his fist pumping furiously.
Her eyes on him only aroused him more. When he came, the force of his release was violent. He yelled out, and his back arched sharply, seed spurting up across his torso as she gaped.
Once he’d at last finished, they lay catching their breaths. Feeling overpoweringly satisfied, he held her for long moments, petting her hair. Damn, if she hadn’tenjoyed giving him a below job—yet another example of how well she fit with him.
He finally made himself rise and clean off, but when he returned, she cried, “Oh, Ethan! Your injury is bleeding!”
He glanced down at his chest and shrugged.
“Come here, please.” She eased up on her knees and beckoned him. “Let me check you.” When he returned to the bed, she sidled close to examine him. “You didn’t pull the stitches open, thank God. But it’s bleeding more than I thought it would.”
As she rose to collect a wet towel, he tilted his head to stare, riveted by her pert arse. “I dinna take you for the nurturing sort,” he said absently.
Towel in hand, she said, “I will be with a man like you.”
“Like me?”
She climbed back into the bed with him. “Yes, Scot, you’re the dark horse I’m betting on.” She lovingly brushed his hair from his forehead, catching his gaze. “You get all my extra sugar and apples.”
“What about servicing mares? I’ve one I want to be led to.”
“And I’m sure she wants to be covered by a virile stallion, but she needs to secure greener pastures for her future first.”
Even to himself, his tone sounded fascinated as he murmured, “Daft, cheeky lass.”
She slid him that grin; he stared dumbly. All at once he understood why a man might go a little crazy over a woman.
Thirty
Asea squall had whipped up late in the night, and the ship was pitching.
“Tell me how you came to be in La Marais,” Ethan said, as if to take her mind off the storm. He was leaning up against the headboard, with her lying on his torso.
“What did Quin tell you?” Maddy asked, drawing back so she could see his face.
“That your father died in a duel and creditors seized your home. Your mother was French and took you back to Paris.”
She shrugged. “That’s about it, really.”
“No, it’s no’. I want to know everything.”
“So you can have more ammunition to be mean to me?” she asked.
“No. I’m curious about you.”
“I’ll tell you, but first you have to reveal something about yourself that I didn’t know.”
He frowned. “Like what?”
“Something about your past. A deep, dark secret.”
He seemed to be giving this a lot of thought, taking his time before answering, “I used to think I was cursed.”
Her eyes widened. “Truly?”
“Aye. There’s a book that’s been handed down in my family for centuries—it contains foretellings that have all come true. They have for my brothers and myself as well.”
She eyed him suspiciously. “Are you jesting with me? Because I would never take you for superstitious.”
“O’ course I’m superstitious—I’m bloodyScottish .”
“In any event, this doesn’t sound like a deep, dark secret to me. I think it’s adorable that someone as strong and powerful as you, with so much control over your destiny, has irrational beliefs.”
“Adorable?” he spat. “And I suppose you doona have any irrational beliefs?”
“I do. Very much so. But then, I don’t have a lot of control over my own destiny.”
They both fell silent.
She quickly reached up to touch his shoulder. “Ethan, I didn’t mean that I felt forced to come with you. I chose to. And I’m glad I did.”
His demeanor grew guarded. “I’ve told you what I will, now it’s your turn.”
“It’s not a pretty tale,” she said. “And I don’t want to hurt your opinion of me.”
“What do you mean?”
“Brides from happy families make happy families. That was inGodey’s , which is an irrefutable source.”
“It will no’ hurt my opinion. Now tell me.”
“Do you want the long story or the cursory one?” she asked.
“Tell me everything.”
She took a deep breath and began, “Well, contrary to what everyone thinks, my life didn’t fall apart on the day of my father’s death. It was on a night six months before that.”
A night of secrets and fury that she had never been able to understand.
“It was all so dreamlike, Ethan.” Lightning crackled just outside the ship, and she shivered. “I went to sleep safe and secure, and I woke into a different life, a foreign world filled with strangers. It’s hard to explain.”
He rubbed her arm with his big scratchy palm. “Try.”
“I’ve struggled for years to put together what occurred that night.” Her brows drew together as memories assailed her. “The first thing I noticed when I woke was how jumpy the servants were. They peered at me as if to gauge what I knew of the night before. Finally, I learned that two of our family’s most trusted servants had been fired—my father’s right-hand man and my mother’s maid and confidante.” She trailed off, studying his expression. “Are you going to ridicule everything I’m about to tell you?”
“No’ going to ridicule anythin’.”
She exhaled, then admitted, “I think my father…found my mother in bed with another man.”
“Why would you think that?” he asked in a measured tone.
“Because it became apparent that my normally passive father had…struck my mother over the night.” Maddy could well remember her mother’s glaring blackened eye, and how her father hadn’t been able to bear looking at his once beloved wife.
“That does no’ mean—”
“He’d come home early from a business trip that very night. And honestly, knowing my mother, I would be shocked if she hadn’t committed adultery regularly during their marriage. She was a weak, selfish woman, and my father was a good deal older than she was.”
“I see.” Ethan was tense, his body stiff as a plank. She studied him, wondering if he was disgusted—or dreading what she might say next.
“At one point that day, my father absently patted my head and said, ‘Maddy girl, Papa’s made some mistakes.’ Then he wandered off aimlessly. He was never the same. It was like I’d never known either of them.”
“After that night, what happened?”
She noticed Ethan’s jaw was clenching and said, “I don’t know if I should be telling you this.”
“I need to hear it, Madeleine.”
“But it doesn’t—” She broke off under his hard stare and murmured, “Very well.”
Ethan knew the events—had orchestrated them—and now, in a low haunted tone, she supplied the aftermath.
“Half a year after that night, my father died, and the creditors descended upon us. My mother and I came home from my father’s funeral and were turned away from Iveley Hall—that’s the name of my childhood home—in a violent storm. I was so frightened. Especially since my mother was completely unprepared to care for me. I remember asking her once, ‘Are we going to find a place to live soon?’ Instead of answering, ‘Of course. We’ll have a spot of luck any day now,’ my mother snapped, ‘I only know what you know, Madeleine. So what do you think? Tell me.’”
A place to live…
As Madeleine recounted the harrowing trials of an eleven-year-old girl forced away from everything she had ever known, Ethan felt tears on his chest. He learned how painful it had been to be turned away from her home, from all the possessions that a young girl would believe she couldn’t live without—her dolls, her dresses, her beloved pets…
…how terrifying and sordid La Marais had been when she’d first seen it.
And he’d learned that Madeleine knew nearly enough to put everything together. She was keenly perceptive, and obviously had been an observant child. Already she suspected another man had been in her home.
How long would it be before she uncovered enough to determine it was Ethan?
When she’d finally fallen asleep, curled up and clutching her ring on the ribbon, he stared down at her, unable to stop himself from petting her soft hair.
After tonight, he understood far more about the depth of her courage and indomitable spirit. Those traits in her made the failings in Ethan’s own character all the more obvious.
That recognition was painful and unwanted.
Most people assumed bad men didn’t try to better themselves because they couldn’t be bothered to make the effort or because they didn’t know how to make the right choices. Few supposed it had nothing to do with the future and everything to do with the past. Recalling black deeds with a different perspective was hellish.
Ten years ago—when he’d been older than she was right now—he’d pitied himself, swilling liquor, behaving cruelly, and he’d been punished. Madeleine had done nothing but show strength of character and a will that humbled him, yet she’d been punished, too, for her parents’ mistakes.
Punished by Ethan. He often imagined how he might begin to explain that to her:
“I was drunk one night and decided to tup, well, Sylvie, your mother. She cried rape to your father—a weak-willed cuckold who was easily swayed and kept henchmen on hand to do foul tasks. Brymer cut off half my face, so later I gutted him. After I bankrupted your father, no doubt pushing him closer to his suicide, I seized your home and assets, turning you and your mother out into the streets.”
If she hadn’t run screaming by then, he could finish, “Then Sylvie took you, at the tender age of eleven, to hell, and I knew about it. I let it happen when I could have spared you. And if all that wasn’t bad enough, I ruined your engagement with the count and came to Paris specifically to deceive and use you.”
What if she’s the one…?Hugh had asked. Ethan gave a bitter laugh.
What Hugh didn’t understand was that her being “the one” or not was incidental. The curse being false or not had no bearing. Ethan could never have Madeleine because the damage had already been done, and ultimately she would hate him.
Whatever he was experiencing with her would end.Common bloody sense….
Just as before, Ethan’s die had already been cast.
Thirty-one
“This is alesser residence ?” Making a credible attempt at keeping her jaw from dropping, Maddy gazed out the coach window at the oceanfront mansion they neared.
“Aye. It’s called Carillon, named after the series of bells in the village,” MacCarrick said as they rolled along the long gravel drive. “And yes, it’s less grand and more obscure than my other estates.”
She swallowed and nodded. “Of course.”
The stately manor house was built in large ashlar blocks, like castles usually were, but these were dark cream-colored and smooth. Along the drive, they passed terraced gardens, walled gardens, wild gardens. Grass pathways and crystal-clear streams wended through the property.
“It’s very beautiful,” she said absently, butbeautiful couldn’t adequately describe this place. When she saw a peacock strutting across a green lawn, she realized Carillon was like a fairy tale. “That’s a…peacock.”
“My grandmother was eccentric, and she brought them here. They’re nearly wild now.”
“Is that apalm tree?”
“Aye. The water that travels the Irish Sea is warm, making it temperate here. It rarely snows or freezes.”
This place was to be partly hers? “I don’t think I’ve ever seen such a splendid home.”
“The steward’s let it fall into a sad state of neglect.”
“How can you tell?”
“At this time of year there should be hay rolls and autumn crops planted over the back fields we passed earlier. There were neither. I see the paint is chipping on the trim of the manor and the stables, and the fences need mending throughout. The fountains are no’ running—since I’d wired the staff of my coming arrival, that means they’re likely broken. I doona keep estates in this condition—ever.”
“I don’t think it looks that bad,” she said, trying to lighten his mood.
He gazed out the window. “You would no’.”
“What’s that supposed to mean?”
“Would anything no’ seem palatial next to La Marais?”
Though she’d been thinking the same thing, she was growing tired of his jabs. Since they’d made port, he’d grown cold again—worse than he’d ever been.Honey, not vinegar, she reminded herself.
Yet she was on the last of her stores. “And here I thought we’d go a day without you reminding me where you plucked me from.”
“I was only making a point,” he said, but their row was delayed when the coach rolled to a stop in front of the manor. “Speak of the devil,” Ethan grated when they found a middle-aged man and woman awaiting them. “Silas the steward.”
When MacCarrick helped Maddy down, he ignored the man and said, “Madeleine, this is Sorcha, Carillon’s housekeeper. Sorcha, this is my wife, Lady Kavanagh.”
Maddy understood why he had to introduce her like that, but the lies sat ill with her. Sorcha smiled shyly and curtsied.
“Show Lady Kavanagh up to our rooms and see that she has everything she needs.” To Maddy, he said, “You’ll join me for dinner.”
Sorcha curtsied again, then turned for the front door, with Maddy following. Inside was a marble tiled foyer, which opened up into a high-ceilinged room. Graceful wooden stairs curved in a horseshoe, with both sides carpeted.
After following Sorcha up the steps to the wide first-floor landing, Maddy briefly peered over the railing to see Ethan downstairs. He strode across the room in another direction, boots booming, a visibly terrified Silas trailing in his wake.
When she glanced back up, Sorcha had opened a heavy door to the master suite and was bustling inside. Joining her there, Maddy found that both bedrooms of the suite were ornately paneled, with Maddy’s room lightly painted and Ethan’s stained much darker. Plush carpeting ran throughout, and the ceilings were soaring.
Standing in the rooms’ connecting doorway, she glanced from her graceful pencil-post bed to his immense bed, which looked as big as a normal room. How would Ethan want them to sleep here, now that they didn’t have to share a stateroom?
“It’s very fine,” Maddy told Sorcha. The manor was, but the interior was also a bit staid. Some of the rooms they’d passed had seemed…grim, even. Making this place more comfortable and less rigidly orderly would be a rewarding task.
When she realized that she could soon make these changes as mistress, she decided to ask Ethan if they could come back and redecorate when things settled down.
“It’s fine, aye,” Sorcha said shyly, “but wait till ye see the view.” She drew wide the curtains to reveal tall bay windows and a glass door that seemed to take up the entire wall.
Opening the door, Sorcha beckoned for her to step outside. Maddy walked out onto a marble balcony—and lost her breath.
The sea…was directly there. Cerulean blue water glittered in the sun, stretching out for miles.
The house was situated on a cliff, tucked back from the rocky headlands and a sprawling beach. Down below was a marble terrace fronted by a balustrade that matched the balcony’s. From every point of this side of the manor one could overlook the beach and the Irish Sea.
“My Lord,” Maddy whispered. If she’d been infatuated with Carillon from seeing its gardens and hills, the sea side enamored her.
Yet her excitement was tempered with a growing sense of uneasiness. The idea of her being mistress to an estate like this seemed…fantastical.
Fortune favors the bold, she reminded herself.Yes, but this is ridiculous.
“So, did you find out why Silas was remiss in his duties?” Madeleine asked after an uncomfortable, reserved dinner with Ethan. He’d brusquely adjourned to his study, without inviting her, but she’d followed him anyway.
“Aye. Strong drink. All day long,” he said, taking a seat behind an imposing, mahogany desk. “The estate’s been neglected sorely. Which makes me fear how my other properties are faring under myriad stewardships.”
He looked so concerned that she sidled behind him to knead his shoulders. “Surely you’ll be able to find a suitable replacement. It seems Carillon would be a feather in any steward’s cap.”
“I suppose.”
“You can run an advertisement in the paper and have inquiries forwarded.”
“What do you mean?” He tensed beneath her fingers. “We’re staying here until this is resolved.”
She forced herself to ask in an even tone, “So how long do you predict we’ll be delayed here?”
“I have to find a replacement, then acquaint him with the operations.”
She drew her hands away, then crossed to the other side of his desk. “How long?”
“A week. Maybe two.”
Maddy’s heart sank. “I can’t stay here with you unmarried that long.”
He waved her concerns away. “I’ve already told everyone we’re wed.”
“You could marry me in the village Sorcha told me about earlier, and then we could stay here for as long as you needed.”
“My God, is that all you care about? My tenants have endured three harsh winters because of Silas, and now they have no hay or vegetable stores for this winter.”
“I don’t understand. What did he do?”
“It’s what he dinna do. If a field flooded, he dinna have it drained. He neglected to order seeds at the correct intervals throughout the year. There are a dozen other examples of dereliction.”
“But why wouldn’t anyone write to you, to alert—?”
“They canna bloody read and write! And it’s no’ their responsibility. It’smine .” He pinched the bridge of his nose, exhaling wearily. “Madeleine, I’m going to be gone most days salvaging this situation. I hope you can entertain yourself.”
“Of course,” she said, exhaling with disappointment. “I’m used to not seeing you until the night.” She rose to leave, but at the doorway, she turned back. “I’ll stay here ten days on the outside, Scot.”
“What’s that supposed to be? A threat?”
“No, just a statement of intent. Maybe I am selfish, but I need this security.”
He narrowed his eyes. “You doona trust me.”
She nodded, clearly surprising him. “You’re right. I don’t, not yet.”
“So what does a man like me have to do to earn your trust?”
“Honestly, I don’t know. I guess it just has to grow over time.”
“You mean in ten days?” he said. “That’s all the time Miss Van Rowen has allotted me.”
The ship had seemed a different world.
Now Ethan was on his property, introducing Madeleine as his wife, to his own people. And the lie didn’t bother him nearly so much as how easily the words slipped from his tongue.
Ethan’s steward problems were very real, but at the same time, he was using the situation for his own ends. He could in fact advertise and have inquiries forwarded. And of course, he could simply marry Madeleine here.
He’d always abided by his decisions, stuck to his plans. Now, he began to feel like he was losing control—the reins slipping from his grasp.
He’d made a decision to keep several various estates because they’d been in the family for generations and because when run correctly, they paid for themselves or even produced a profit. He’d thought he’d hired the best land agents in his absence.
Instead, his tenants here had suffered, and he was becoming increasingly uneasy about the state of his other properties. When he went back to the Network, he wouldn’t have time to check on each of them and right any wrongs.
Slip.
He’d made a decision to appease his anger on the only child of the Van Rowens. Now he wanted her more and more each day. Another slip.
Ethan was brutal, selfish. He knew this, had no wish to change. Yet now he’d caught himself wanting to put Madeleine’s needs over his own. Slip.
He’d always held something of himself back in bed; her kisses could make him lose his mind….
I think I want her…for my own.Damn it, if a man consigned a woman to hell for ten years, he’d best not envision a cheery domestic future with her.
Ethan had always felt things too strongly. And if he allowed himself to feel something more for her, then lost her, he didn’t think he’d ever be right again.
He found himself eyeing the whisky service.Another slip to come?
Thirty-two
“No, no, Ethan,” Maddy muttered to herself, kicking a stone as she explored Carillon. “I can show myself around.” For the last three days, she’d done just that.
On her first foray, she’d discovered an orangery, with walls of glazed glass and a glass dome roof. When she’d been about to exclaim with delight—citrus, there for the grabbing—she realized it was no longer in use and had only a couple of scraggly orange trees within. A great furnace with pipes leading under the floor had probably once supplied heating and steam, but now looked broken.
Another day, she’d come across a stair to a widow’s walk high above the house, where wives had gazed out at the sea, spying for their husbands’ return. She wondered if any woman before her had climbed this spot to gaze out—in the other direction….
Maddy endeavored to stay away each day, going for long strolls. But there was no coterie here. Sorcha was kind but content to keep her distance from the mistress of the house. Maddy was terribly lonely, missing Bea and Corrine so much that she ached.
If she ever did see Ethan during the days, his manner with her was brisk and unapproachable. But when he came to her in the nights…his body told a completely different story.
He’d nuzzle her neck and rumble how much she pleased him as they touched each other. If she kissed or stroked him in a way he liked, he made sure she knew it, lavishing praise. These idylls were so perfect and fulfilling that she’d actually begun to crave making love to him, often imagining what he would feel like inside her once more. Denying him that final step was becoming increasingly difficult with each encounter, even as he inexplicably pressed for it less and less.
After they were spent, he would cradle her face and kiss her so tenderly that she thought she might cry. Each night, he trapped her in his arms, making her sleep against him, but she was growing used to his strong, warm presence.
At night, she was adored, protected. In the days, she felt utterly alone.
The difference in his demeanor was enough to make her crazed. Was he so anxious about the property that he was behaving differently with her? With her determination to stay away, there was no way he could accuse her of being irritatingly “underfoot.”
Maddy knew there were aspects about her that would be unattractive to a potential husband—much less to a rich, powerful peer. She was dowryless, uneducated, and, well, a former criminal. Ethan had known all that and had still pressed for her hand.
But perhaps revealing the wretched details of her family’s past had tipped the balance out of her favor….
From his study window, Ethan watched Madeleine endeavor to tame a peacock with bread crumbs. When it fanned its tail feathers and chased her, she laughed all the way across the lawn.
Ethan wanted to be down there with her.
After just a week here, he was beginning to understand that it didn’t matter if they weren’t together. She was still in his thoughts constantly. He wasn’t eating. His sleep was restless. Each day grew closer to inevitable pain, and he resented it.
He was never supposed to have wanted her like this.
With her bright smile and laughter, she was everything a soulless bastard like him would crave as a dying man does life—a feeling he well knew.
There was something more with her, fundamentally more. A connection, a yearning fulfilled, he didn’t bloody know. He couldn’t even explain it to himself. Sometimes, he felt like she was already a part of him—had always been.
The stronger his feelings became, the more he realized he would be destroyed when he and Madeleine parted.What if I just keep her? he asked himself again and again.
Sometimes he wondered what it would be like if he quit the Network and assumed the life that had always awaited in the background.
Take a wife, oversee his properties, look after his tenants. He’d discovered something deeply appealing about working so closely with his lands. Indeed, it seemed to call to him.
Yet the last time he’d had these thoughts had resulted in tragedy.
When he’d planned to marry Sarah MacReedy, it had been out of a sense of obligation to the title. Now Ethan found he mightneed that life—if Madeleine was part of the bargain.
But if he kept her, Ethan would just end up hurting her worse than he already had. It was inevitable. She would discover his involvement in her past and his present deceit, and it would devastate her.
To partially exonerate himself, would he tell Maddy her parents hadn’t been as she’d believed? Would he tell her that her father, whom she spoke of so lovingly, had been a pathetic cuckold, and her mother hadn’t been merely spoiled and selfish, as Madeleine seemed to believe, but out-and-out evil?
Did Madeleine need to know that her parents were responsible for a twenty-three-year-old man being strung up in their stables and tortured?
There could be no union more doomed than his and Madeleine’s. If he did have children with her, they would beVan Rowen’s grandchildren—Sylvie’sgrandchildren; Ethan had bloody made sure Madeleinestarved .
Doomed…
Damn it, he’d made a decision not to marry her, and he never wavered from his decisions. When had he lost sight of all he’d planned? His first impulse was to leave her. Give her money to see her happy and let her have one or—sod it all—allof his homes. The problem with that plan? He was already too attached to her to part from her willingly. Ethan was snared.
He’d hurt her, and she was unwittingly repaying him a thousand fold—just by being herself. Every time he saw her utter lust for delicacies, and every night she woke, cheeks wet from some nightmare, his chest hurt.
The more attached he grew to the lass, the more guilt and strangling frustration he battled. The regret was riding him hard, and having never wrestled with that emotion before, he had no idea what to do with it.
He resented being saddled with that unbearable guilt; he bloody resentedher for being everything he could dream of in a wife.
Though he hadn’t had a drop of liquor in years, he now found himself lurching to the drink service, pouring a whisky with shaking hands.
Staring into the glass, he muttered, “Slip.”
As if he were attempting to drive Maddy away, Ethan hadn’t come to her the last two nights, instead spending the time drinking—though he’d repeatedly assured her that he never did.
Maddy certainly had seen pleasanter drinkers. Lying on stoops. In La Marais.
If she and Ethan crossed paths during the day, he’d taken to snapping at her. Indeed, at times she could swear that he begrudged her very presence at Carillon. Occasionally, she’d caught him staring at her from his study window, sometimes frowning, sometimes gazing at her with a disquieting anger.
So each day she climbed up to the widow’s walk. When the weather was clear, she could see all the way to the Irish shore. Pondering her situation, she’d stare at the sea for hours, watching the ferries jaunt back and forth to Ireland.
She’d finally admitted to herself that Ethan’s behavior had nothing to do with the strain of work. Either he believed she would endure any kind of treatment just to marry him, or he was seeking to drive her away….
That evening she returned at sunset and found him sitting in his study, staring blankly at the whisky in a crystal glass in his palm. Her heart sank when she saw he was well on his way to getting foxed.
Though uninvited, she entered the room, sitting in the chair in front of the desk. “How was your day, Ethan?” When he shrugged, she said, “What did you do?”
“Worked.”
“You’re drinking,” she said.
“You’re observant.”
Honey!She could be patient. “Have there been any leads on a new steward?” she asked.
“No.”
“Can I do anything to help you? I find I have a lot of time on my hands,” she added, struggling to keep a rein on her temper.
“No, no’ a thing.”
“We’re supposed to leave in four days.”
He finally faced her. “Do you think I doona bloody ken that? As if you’d let me forget it. It’s always got to be about Madeleine.”
“Already we’ve been here for—”
“And I’m no’ done here yet!”
In as calm a tone as she could manage, she said, “Perhaps you’d accomplish more if you drank less?”
Ethan’s expression turned menacing, his scar stark against the tan skin of his face. “Aingeal, you doona want to begin this with me, no’ tonight.”
“Have I done something to you, Ethan? Have I offended you or failed to please you in some way?”
“Aye, it’s called intercourse.”
Enough! Deuce the honey.“You’ll have intercourse as soon as I have matrimony—just as we agreed! It isn’t as if I just sprang this on you at the last second.”
“No, but then I never expected you to hold out, or I’d never have agreed to something as asinine as that.”
“You can be so hateful, Scot. You love to give me reminders that I really shouldn’t marry you.” And, as she’d begun to suspect, he was doing it purposely, with intent. Maddy knew men.
This one was angling for a way out.
“I’m the best you’re going to get”—he raised his glass—“and doona ever forget that.”
She gasped, drawing back her head as if slapped. It hurt all the worse because he was…right.
“I see. I fear this is all growing wearisome.”
He gave a humorless laugh. “Aye, that’s what I’ve been saying—”
“Forme, Ethan.”
Thirty-three
Maddy was finished.
Living across from Bea had taught her that it didn’t matter how lovable she was, or how hard she tried to please, some men couldn’t see when they had a woman to be treasured. MacCarrick had never hit her, as Bea’s man had, but he could still wound.
Last night, she’d stayed awake till nearly dawn, mulling over her options. She’d heard him in the adjoining room, pacing for just as long, it had seemed.
Before she’d gone to sleep, she’d reached a startling conclusion. She didn’t agree that MacCarrick was the best she could do.
When she woke, she’d started packing her bags.
Maddy could see now that when she’d accepted MacCarrick’s proposition, she’d been cowed, hungry, and afraid of Toumard. Of course the Scot had looked like a godsend in light of those circumstances.
Now she concluded that there was no way she would become his legal chattel. She had other options. At worst, the ring he’d given her would see her through a few years.
When he came downstairs that morning and saw her bags, he said, “You’re leaving me?”
“You’re observant,” she said, repeating his words from the previous night, astounded to see he was already drunk.
He leaned back against the wall and crossed his arms over his chest. “And how do you think you’re going to get anywhere?”
“I was thinking the posting coach. I’ve been outside so much, I’ve noted it comes every other day at five on the dot.”
His rapidly fading smirk was satisfying. “You little fool. You’re going to throw away marriage and wealth because you’reimpatient ? I’ve told you I’m no’ done here yet.”
She gave him a pitying look. “No, but I am. Ethan, I have too often and for too long been forced into unwelcome situations. Do you think I can’t recognize the same trapped feeling in another? You don’t want to marry me. You’ve made that abundantly clear. I’m merely making this easier for you.”
“No, you’re no’. This is naught but added pressure. An idle threat. Understand that I doona respond well to pressure.”
“I’m quite serious.”
“You told me you’d stay ten days. I’ve three days left.”
“Don’t play games with me, Ethan. You could have married me in this town and then again in your county. You could have done a lot of things differently. All I wanted was to be treated decently by a faithful husband. It would have taken so little to make me love you.”
“Loveme, is it now?” He made a scoffing sound. “So all I would have to do is throw you some scraps of kindness and keep my prick in my pants?”
She didn’t bother hiding her disgust at his drunken coarseness.
“Do you think things will be better for you without me?” he demanded. “When you go back to the gutter?”