Chapter Sixteen
In their dressing room, her husband reclined in the huge porcelain bathtub which barely contained his long, strong form. His head back along the rim, he had closed his eyes. His sensual mouth formed a slash, grim. And as Lily watched his facial muscles move from frown to scowl, she guessed he relived the reading of the will earlier this afternoon.
He’d dismissed his valet, and she had waved off Nora. They could retire for the evening. The guests in the house were invited to partake of a cold buffet in the dining room at their leisure. Lily had suggested that and her mother-in-law had not, for once, countermanded her order. Breathing a sigh of relief, Lily had closed the door upon their two personal servants. She wished to be alone with Julian to draw him out on the day’s troubles.
“Would you like me to wash your back?”
At her words, he peeped open one eye and grinned at her. “The best suggestion I’ve heard today.”
“Is the water warm enough?”
“I hate to overtax the plumbing system.”
“You are the owner of this plumbing, dear sir, and if it doesn’t suit you, who will it please?” She strode to the cistern and put a hand to the heater. Warm. She turned the spigot. The water gurgled through the pipe and emerged in a solid stream to Julian’s tub. “How’s that?”
He tested the flow. “Excellent.”
She got a wash cloth from the linen cupboard and went to her knees. She dunked the cloth in his water. “Lean forward.”
He complied.
She began a slow circular massage of his broad back. “I think Phillip did a marvelous job today.”
Julian made a sound that he agreed.
“Val was happy with his mother’s portrait,” Lily said, recalling the way the man admired the painting of the striking blonde woman.
“She was lovely. And Winterhalter did her justice. I remember her.”
“She was your father’s sister?”
“She was. Ran away with Val’s father. Supposed to be a scamp, but a rich one. Still my father and his did not approve. She was cut from the family inheritance, even her portrait had to remain here. Did her well, it seems, not to be in touch with us. She was, you see, very happy with her husband. Unlike those of us in this family.”
It chilled Lily to hear him include himself in the family curse. Swallowing back any negativity, Lily ran her hand down Julian’s spine, the nap of the cloth tingling the skin of her palms. “She was very lovely.”
He raised his head and wiped the drops of water from his jaw. “We’re not a bad looking family.” He turned his head to gaze at her and let his eyes caress her features. “You make us look even better.”
She winked at him and went back to her task of washing him. He was so masculine. Muscular and fit, he was a handsome creature. Her husband. Hers. And not hers completely. She tried to be valiant. “Elanna resembles your aunt.”
“She does. In looks.” His last words held an ominous note. “I’m glad she and Carbury go home tomorrow. I cannot bear their animosity.”
“How can she be so indifferent to him?” Lily asked and hated that she’d let slip such honesty.
“I gather he merits it. Though I’m not certain why.”
Her worst fear of the Carburys’ relationship was almost outlandish. “Does he mistreat her?”
Julian snorted. “Ha! You mean like my father ‘mistreated’ my mother?”
“Well, I—”
“You can say it.” He leaned over, bunching up his knees and circling his arms around them. “You did not see much of it.”
She paused. “Enough. I saw enough.”
“They never stopped punishing each other.”
“For what?” she whispered. Oh, that was bold. She bit her lip.
He pivoted and looked her straight in the eyes. “They loved each other when they first married, but in turn, each one took another to bed.”
“That,” she said with tears in her throat, “is very sad. Why would they?”
“Why would they?” Julian winced and lifted his face to the ceiling. “Because it was possible. Because he was a duke. She was a duchess. Men and women coveted the chance to say they’d bedded them. Because he was obsessed with his title and his pride. And she was obsessed with…”
What? Her reputation? Her title? Her—
“Revenge.”
“How—how do you know?”
He shrugged. “Bits and pieces of the resentments came out in their arguments over the years. They were reputed to be a unique couple, renowned lovers, fated mates, envied. But others sought to ruin the perfection. For their own amusement, I gathered. Society can do that. Indulge in such cruelty. And the two of them were silly enough—weak enough—to allow it.”
She sought to put distance or perspective between his parents’ tragic marriage and what could happen to her own. She stopped her ministrations, the cloth dropping to the water with a splash. “Elanna is not full of vengeance.”
“No. She’s full of hatred.”
“But—”
He raked a hand through his wet black hair. “It doesn’t matter. Her marriage appears to be a disaster as well.”
“I don’t want ours to be.”
He spun to look at her. The frown that creased his brows alarmed her.
She shrank away.
He grabbed her hand. “Neither do I.”
She began to smile when he shook his head.
“I fear I don’t know how to be a proper husband.”
Tell me you love me. That would make you a perfect husband.
He rose from the tub, grabbed a towel from the rim and anchored it around him. Stepping out, he reached for her and drew her to him.
He lifted her face and kissed her with a ferocity she hadn’t known from him. As if he were not thinking, only feeling, he led her to their bed, brushed her peignoir and her negligee to the carpet and put her to the edge of the mattress. There, he cupped his hands behind her knees and brought her legs around his hips. The towel had fallen and she embraced him, naked and full and ready for him.
In a second, he sank inside her. Her eyes fluttered shut as he filled her and satisfied them both with breathless passion. But what they built together out of this lust for each other left her wondering, wanting more that she feared he might not ever be able to give her.
* * * *
“I’ll bid them all goodbye,” he told Lily the next morning. He bent to place a kiss on her mouth, her lips swollen from their love play last night. She’d been pliant in their first coupling, then turned ravenous in their second. He was a fortunate man to have a wife who loved her bed sport. He could not have planned for a better mate. And yet, he was ashamed to say, he denied her what she needed to make it perfect.
Denied her the declaration that teased his lips every time he kissed her and pushed inside her wet and giving walls. If he said he loved her, would he—like others he knew—lose his pride, his very self in the process? Could he give himself away so completely?
If he did, she’d have such power over him. Such terrifying power.
He lifted her hand and kissed her palm. Escape was easier. “Have your breakfast here, will you?”
“I don’t like to.” She fingered the buttons on his coat, fixing it so that he was dressed to perfection to greet his guests downstairs over breakfast.
“I know, but you needn’t endure them.” The sheet over her breasts slipped, her large rosy nipples a ripe temptation. He’d bitten one last night in his madness for her and his teeth had marked her. Tempted once again to join her in bed, he compensated by bending to lick her luscious skin and suck one hard point into his mouth. His cock jumped.
She undulated and clamped shut her eyes.
Be a gentleman, not a beast. Drawing away, he grinned at her. “You did your part yesterday, darling, and they made you sad. I want you happy. I’ll tell Nora to bring you a tray.”
She pulled at the sheet and he winked at her as he turned away.
In the dining room, his mother and Leland were already seated. Shocked that his mother deigned to eat here rather than in her own bedroom from a tray, he bid her good morning with a half smile. To Phillip Leland he gave a broader one.
“I’ve been talking with Mister Leland,” said his mother, “about my allowance.”
“I see.” Julian sat in a quiet tone as Perkins the butler and a footman hurried around him with pots of tea and coffee. “And? What of it?”
“I tell you, Julian. I need more money.”
He ground his teeth. In front of Phillip who was a very distant relation, she might have addressed him as Seton. But she had this persistent reluctance to recognizing that, indeed, he was now the duke and she must in public call him by any number of honorifics. His given name was not permitted. Her failures in addressing him correctly were her attempt to show she superseded him. She did not. And he would not allow it.
Furthermore for this dressing-down, he would not dismiss his servants. This was his house, his domain, his money and his debts. And he would be master here.
“Madam,” he said in the frostiest tone he had ever used with anyone, “there is no more money.”
She glared at the butler and the footman in turn. “They must leave.”
Both men froze in their tracks.
Julian locked his eyes on hers. “They will remain.”
“You had money for them,” she accused him. “If you have it for them—”
“No. I do not have more for you.”
“I understand you sold that Irish land you wanted your father to sell. There’s money from that.”
Julian felt Leland’s eyes upon him, but he would not meet them. He knew the man would be apologetic for divulging that fact to his mother, but it was no secret that he’d asked him to sell the land.
“The proceeds from that sale go to our debts, madam.”
“They can be serviced.” She waved a hand.
“They are serviced. By this sum.” He sat straight as a pin while Perkins placed a plate of eggs and bacon before him.
She shook her head, fuming. “I understand you used money to refurbish Willowreach before your marriage.”
Where in hell did she get that information? He’d ferret that out, by God. He picked up his fork. Stabbing a portion of food, he suppressed his desire to rage at her. “That is my business.”
“She needs no comforts.”
She needed every comfort.
“And I refuse to live like a pauper.”
“Then perhaps, madam, you should find employment.”
Silence reigned.
“You have money for doctor’s implements. For chemist’s potions. Then you have money for me.”
Leland stared at his plate.
Julian was aghast. The woman knew no bounds. Why did he not foresee this? Was he blind? Or just too trusting?
Or was it that living with a woman who was not vindictive, not manipulative, not unprincipled had changed him? Made him whole.
“My wife wishes to care for our tenants and servants. I welcome that.”
His mother growled. “She buys anything she wants.”
He stood with such force, his chair toppled backward.
“Perkins,” he addressed the butler. “See to it that my mother leaves the house today. You will have her maid and two of the upstairs maids ready her trunks. Two footmen go to the dower house immediately to open it and clean it as best they can. Two more go tomorrow to finish the task.”
His mother pushed back from the table and rose. “I will not go.”
“You will go or I will throw you out. Choose.”
White as a ghost, she groped for words. Her jaw worked but she was incapable of sound.
A very good thing, too. What else could be said that was more sordid than what they’d already uttered?
She marched out.
Perkins, wise man, shut the door swiftly behind her.
The footman replaced Julian’s chair and Julian resumed his place.
Leland inhaled.
“I am sorry you had to witness that,” Julian told him.
“Don’t be.”
Julian sipped at his coffee. His appetite however had fled.
Leland figeted with his napkin, then said, “I’m afraid I have more bad news.”
Julian gave an outraged laugh. “Well, do tell me. It can’t be worse than this.”
“You asked me to look into certain rumors about you and the duchess in the London tabloids.”
“You found the papers?”
“I did. I had my assistant combing the pages daily ever since you told me.”
“Right after my father died.”
“Yes.”
“And what?”
“They are scurrilous. Astonishing in their content.”
Julian could not believe it. “How so?”
“They allege that you and your wife engage in…” Leland was red with embarrassment.
“Come, Leland. We are men. Out with it.”
“Risqué sport.”
Julian swallowed his disgust. What went on his bed was his private purview. “I don’t understand.”
“They say you indulge in erotic play with chains and leather.”
Julian shouted in laughter. “Fantasy.”
But the hesitant look on Leland’s face said there was more.
“Go on.”
“That you married your wife after you compromised her in your stables and your home.”
Foul rumor. What Meg Sheffield had told him he’d put down to fiendish minds not a ninnyhammer who told tales. But certainly only three others had first-hand knowledge of events in Willowreach. “Anything else?”
“That you married her for her money.”
Julian squeezed shut his eyes. This was true. Partially.
“That your wife—” Leland cleared his throat and took a drink of his coffee. “That she rides astride and without her corset.”
“At midnight,” Julian whispered.
“Yes.”
“What else?”
Leland slumped in his chair. “That you took to your bed another duchess and—”
“What?”
“And that your wife on the same night took a viscount.”
His mind whirled with impossible scenes. “The only time— Dear God. The only time we’ve ever been near a duchess and a viscount was at Burnett’s house party.”
“I know.”
“So who—?”
Leland shook his head. “Someone who was there?”
Julian clenched his hands. He was beside himself. Meg? She would repeat such gossip, but she wouldn’t shame herself by reaching so low as to perpetrate such rumors. Who else might have a reason to spread such lies? And who else knew about the midnight rides and lack of corsets and—
Julian shot from his chair, his gaze riveted to Leland. “You have a list of these publications?”
“I do.”
“Give it to me.”
“You wish me to speak with the publishers?”
“No. I will.” He got up from his chair. “Join me please in my office in ten minutes, will you, Leland?”
He got to his feet. “Yes, my lord.”
“Bring that list.”
“I will.”
“Perkins, tell my wife and my mother I want them in my study in ten minutes.”
* * * *
Lily stared at her bedroom ceiling, counting the acanthus filigree in the stucco frieze. Five, ten, fifteen, twenty white leaves in one ring. Twice as many in the next. They circled the expanse much as her thoughts did. Endless whirls. No beginning. No end. She loved him, her husband loved her not…enough.
She sat up, the linens crumpling around her naked body. Blushing at the memory of how Julian had kissed her minutes ago, she shivered and shook off the thrill of it. She responded to his ardent lovemaking so naturally, so freely.
But his actions weren’t love, were they? Passionate, yes. Erotic, certainly.
Without the full ardor she gave him. Without the regard she wanted from him.
She rose from the bed to walk to the window. In the July sun, she soaked in the warmth. Her skin absorbed the heat, the glow baking into her bones. This was what she missed, the intensity of the earth in her soul. In south Texas, for ten months of the year, you couldn’t escape the sun. It burned your skin, your blood, and if you were not smart and stayed too long outside, it could burn your brain. Your reason gone.
She’d been so cold here, especially here at Broadmore, that her brain hadn’t melted, but frozen.
She could stay so long that her heart would, too. And what then would happen to her love for Julian…or any children they might bear? An icy fear gripped her. Could she turn as cold as his mother? As forbidding? As bitter?
Would he turn against her as his father had his mother?
She pushed back the draperies, the shock of her thoughts acid in her mouth.
She couldn’t let that happen. Not when they’d begun together so well. It was the death of his father that had changed their lives so radically. Julian’s new responsibilities and the virulence of his mother’s attacks against her ate at her confidence.
She couldn’t allow it any longer, lest she lose her own self-worth. But what could she do to change any of it?
She couldn’t change the dowager. She was who and what she was.
She couldn’t change Julian, nor did she care to. She loved him as he was. But she could help herself. The best she could do would be to accept the fact that he might not change. He might not ever love her. Not in the full devotion she wished from him.
Tears welled behind her eyes. She forced them back. She would not cry. What good would it do?
He didn’t love her. Not as she did him.
She had bargained that he would. That he would come to that easily. But it would take longer and she questioned if she had the patience to wait for it. Even now, as she did, she lost a bit of her own integrity day by day, night by passionate night.
She put a hand to her eyes and dug deep inside herself for courage. Whenever she’d been faced with a problem in the past, she had sought solitude. She’d ridden out on the ranch by herself. Society here proclaimed she needed a cursed maid or a groom or a footman ready to hand. She needed or wanted none of them. And because she had married into this strict society, she had been compliant. Agreeable. Too much so.
But now she would not be.
She’d take what she wanted for herself. And what she wanted was time to think and time to rediscover the patience and fortitude she’d need to live with a man who wanted her for her money and her grace and her good humor and her body, but who might never reciprocate her deepest love.
She must accept that or live forever in the shadow of her own sorrow.
Turning, she spied her peignoir. Julian must have picked it up from the floor this morning and put it on her chaise longue.
She heard a rustle in her sitting room. Her lady’s maid, most likely, had arrived with her breakfast tray.
“Nora?”
Something shattered to the floor.
Her maid stuck her head around the door jamb. A blush colored her cheeks at the sight of Lily naked. She seemed surprised, on edge. “Yes, ma’am. It’s me.”
At once shy of the woman who examined her body too intently, Lily reached for the silk robe and pulled it on.
She picked up her hair brush, a prickle of unease running up her spine. “What broke?”
“Oh, your ring dish.”
“I see.” The maid was not usually clumsy.
“I’m sorry, ma’am. I’ll pay for it from my wages.”
“No matter. I’m sure we have others, don’t we?”
“We do.”
“I’d like a breakfast tray up here this morning, Nora.” She’d like the servant to leave her so she might pack a small reticule with a few clothes. “Bacon, eggs, tomatoes, if we have them. Coffee and tea.”
A knock came at the outer door.
“See who that is,” she told the woman.
What would she take? Where would she go?
Nora and Perkins exchanged comments.
A minute later, her maid reappeared. “His Grace wishes you to go to his study.”
“Oh?” What now?
“Me, too. Immediately.”
“Very well.” She’d wash and dress quickly. That was best. The less time she had to think of her departure, the better she would be.
* * * *
Lily entered Julian’s study, the dark oak paneling casting shadows on those already assembled. He’d ordered the gas lamps turned up but the silence added to the somber atmosphere.
“Come sit here, Lily.” Julian pointed to the Chippendale chair beside his desk.
She crossed the room, while Nora hung back near the door.
“Perkins,” Julian said to his butler, “you may leave us.”
Phillip Leland, the dowager duchess, Nora and she were the only ones in attendance. Why her own maid was here raised unusual questions of propriety.
The dowager regarded the servant with narrowed eyes. “Why is she here?”
Julian came round his desk to lean back against it and cross his arms. In one hand, he held a sheet of paper. “We shall learn.”
The dowager shifted in her chair, her jaw set, her gaze upon the paper in Julian’s hand.
“Mister Leland has been very kind to bring to my attention a matter that deeply concerns me. Since we’ve been here dealing with the death of my father, I have not had opportunity to give my attention to the London news. And now we must.”
The dowager scoffed. “If we want to read the papers, Julian—”
He lifted his hand and rattled the paper. “I have here a listing of London scandal sheets. The Tatler, The Flyer. The Red Parlor. A penny a piece for hideous stories of degradation. Fit for no one of any refinement but nonetheless, popular.”
The duchess lost all color to her face.
Nora sucked in her breath.
Lily examined the servant. Her wide eyes, her grim lips. What was wrong with her? What concern had a maid for London broadsheets?
Lily stiffened. What has this to do with me?
“A number of articles have appeared in the past few weeks in these gossip sheets,” he went on, “and the contents are intriguing.”
A premonition of the subject matter had Lily squirming in her chair.
“They recount stories that not only are malicious lies but family secrets.”
Lily froze. About me? Cartoons again? Oh, the shame of it. Why do this?
“Only a few people could have ever collaborated to reveal these items to the presses and I want to know now why you would do such a thing to shame us all.” And he turned the full force of his rage on his mother and the servant who stood behind her, Nora.
“What have you to say for yourself, Mother?”
“You are quite insane if you think—”
“Do not deny this. The only others who might have knowledge of these things are Lily’s father and my own. Hanniford would never disparage his own daughter and my father lies outside in his grave. So, you see, there is no reason to dance around this. You did this to damage me and my wife and you enlisted this maid to assist you in this dastardly business.”
“I won’t sit here and be accused of this.”
“Don’t sit. Get out.”
She sprang up. “She is not worthy of us.”
“Enough!”
What had the woman said about her? Lily put a hand to her brow. Did it matter what the dowager had told these papers? What others thought of her? It once had. Mightily. But now?
Julian straightened. “You, Madam, are not worthy of her. Leave.”
“I demand—”
“Nothing. You can demand of me nothing. Go. Now.”
The dowager rushed from the room.
Julian skewered Nora with his anger. “You, too, will go.”
The maid looked from Lily to Julian.
He pulled on the gold fob at his waistcoat pocket and glanced at his watch. “You have ten minutes or I throw you out.”
Her face scarlet, Nora attempted to form words. But she seemed palsied as she snapped her mouth shut and with a huff, scurried away.
Phillip Leland watched her go, then faced Julian. “I will depart myself this morning.” To Lily, he said, “I’m so sorry, Your Grace. This was a nasty business and I hated to be the bearer of such bad tidings.”
Whatever was in those broadsheets, Lily never wanted to know. “I would never ridicule you for bringing such a thing to light. Thank you.”
He inclined his head and quickly left Julian and her alone.
Julian walked toward her and made to take her in his arms, but she side-stepped him.
“I will make this up to you.”
Lightheaded, Lily steadied herself by putting a hand to the back of a chair. “You needn’t. It was not you who did this.”
“No, but I would not have you hurt.”
“So you’ve said.”
He blinked, as if he could not understand her words. “My mother will not hurt you again. Nor the maid.”
And what of you? Will you hurt me? “Thank you. I must go.”
She took a step and wobbly as she was, he was quick to take her arm.
“I’m well.” She pulled away from him. “I need to think on this.”
He swallowed. “I will speak with the publishers of these rags. Ruin them. I’ll see to it they never run other pieces about anyone.”
He was so dear to say it, but he was nigh unto penniless and they, so he said, were popular. He could not buy them off. “You must not spend your money or your time on them. You have tenants to aid, estates to run.”
He questioned her statement with a searching look on his face. “I promised you once I would call anyone out who ran such pieces about you.”
“I know. But what good does it do? There will be others.”
“I’ll see to it there are none.”
She put a hand to his cheek. “You’re kind, Julian. Sweet. Devote yourself to your people, your livelihood.”
“But you are my first concern.”
Was she? “I need a rest from this turmoil. The arguing. The hatred. The sadness.”
“Of course. I understand. Go upstairs. I’ll get the housekeeper to assign you another maid.”
“Thank you. One who is young and untried. And one I can take to Willowreach.”
He stepped to her and took her in his arms. With gentle fingers, he lifted her face. His own was ravished. “You want to go to Willowreach?”
“I was happy there.” We both were.
“I’ll go with you.”
She shook her head. “I must go alone. Let me, Julian. Let me. I need this.”
He pressed her close, his hands urgent on her back, his lips in his hair. “Promise me you’ll write to me when you want me once again.”
She placed a kiss to his jaw. “I will.”
Then she hurried away from him and all she’d hoped for but had not achieved.