Chapter 4
Dark night had fallen upon Northly. It was the kind of black winter night that had driven the pagans to light fires and pray to their gods to bring back the light. Marabelle had always found those nights rather comforting with the reassurance of a good hearth, books, and an unladylike brandy.
The wedding guests had long departed. Most of them had been three sheets to the wind, delighted, and still proclaiming their well wishes.
The last couple to leave had been the duke and duchess. And quite frankly, Marabelle was holding Olivia’s promise of a visit the next morning to her heart.
For though her husband had behaved beyond reproach, she felt a wave of apprehension now that night had fallen and they were to be alone.
In a few hours’ time it would be the point in which their marriage would be consummated and the work for an heir would begin.
Marabelle lingered by the fire in the library. She rested her hand along the marble mantel carved with birds and drank in the scent of the boughs that had been brought in from the forest.
The juniper berries washed over her and she closed her eyes. Years and years of wandering through woods with her family, of laughing, of climbing trees, and throwing snowballs hit her. She gripped the mantel so hard she winced.
“Marabelle?” His voice rolled over her, gentle yet rough, like sand on glass.
She swallowed back a wave of tears and she turned to him. “Yes, Lord Gray?”
His brows drew together. “You know you must call me Sebastian.”
She nodded.
“Are you pleased?” he asked, gently.
“I am.”
He frowned, clearly perplexed. “You don’t look it. Has someone upset you? Was it me? It may take me a little time to adjust to—”
“You were splendid,” she broke in, attempting to shake off her grief.
“Then—”
“Memories,” she said simply.
“Ah.” He said nothing else, but the severity of his features eased. Still, he remained across the room.
She looked askance, desperate to find some way to breach the distance between them. “Do you not feel sadness when you recall your family?”
He stared at her for a very long time in that strange habit of his. Little emotion danced over his face.
At last, he said, “No.”
“No?”
“If you must know. . .”
“Yes?” she prompted, leaning forward in anticipation of his confession.
“I feel relief.”
“Relief,” she echoed.
“Likely, this makes me a terrible monster.”
“You don’t seem to be a monster,” she observed. But she couldn’t imagine feeling relief at the loss of her family. “Would you like to tell me about them?”
His lip curled ever so slightly as if the very thought appealed to him. He cleared his throat. “No.”
No, again.
Clearly, her husband was a man that would be very difficult to become intimate with.
“May I play your pianoforte?” he asked abruptly.
She blinked then looked to said mentioned instrument. “Of course.”
It was such an odd and sudden request. She felt quite jarred by it. Was conversing with her really so terrible?
Wordlessly, Sebastian strode to the pianoforte. It was displayed prominently near the dark windows at the end of the salon.
Carelessly, he flicked his frock coattails back and sat on the polished bench.
To her astonishment, he paused reverently. His long, strong fingers rested just above the ivory keys before he stroked the keys ever so softly.
Then, he bent slightly, his head tilting to the side. The small movement caused his obsidian hair to fall over his face.
He pressed the keys lightly.
A shiver ran down her spine as notes began to dance in the air.
She couldn’t tear her gaze away from him as he played. His whole body was engaged in the music.
The song, whatever it was, swept her up in a dark, tantalizing frenzy. For a moment, she felt like she was drifting on some mysterious and magical sea of emotion.
Sebastian seemed totally consumed by the piece.
Her husband, seemingly so distant, so cold, so displeased to be in England at all, was transformed.
He played with a passion she’d not seen in her entire life. A passion she’d never experienced in all her days. It poured out of him into the keys and then those keys struck the metal strings within the pianoforte, which then reverberated into the room and washed over her.
Her breath froze in her throat and, to her astonishment, she realized that his music made her feel utterly alive. Her skin tingled, her heart soared, her whole body felt captivated.
When at last his hands came to rest, the room was engulfed in silence.
He said nothing. He moved not a muscle. But rather, he sat in worshipful quiet before the instrument that he had just awoken to mesmerizing life.
“My God,” she whispered. “I have never heard anything like that before.”
“Herr Beethoven,” he said softly. “There has never been or ever will be a composer like him.”
Words eluded her yet she felt compelled to speak. “I feel. . . I feel. . .”
“Transported?” Sebastian asked without a hint of mockery, still gazing at the ivory keys.
“Yes.”
He looked up to her at last. “It is the only time that I am. . . Happy.”
“When you play?”
He nodded. “When I play, I am at one with myself.”
“I can only imagine what it must be like to produce such music.” She smiled, barely able to contain her envy. “You’re fortunate your parents—”
“My parents would be appalled,” he cut in, his voice flat.
“I beg your pardon?”
“My father was a solider,” he replied simply. “My mother a perfect soldier’s wife. They longed to produce someone who would continue and further their lineage. Great soldiers do not play the pianoforte. That is for artists and other fools.”
Other fools.
That’s what his parents had thought of anyone who reveled in such beautiful music?
“How did you learn then?” she asked softly.
“I heard Herr Beethoven’s music in Austria.” He gave a wry smile. “By sheer audacity, I asked him to teach me.”
“Beethoven?” she exclaimed.
He nodded, stroking his fingertips over the polished wood. “Yes. I’m a lord and had the coin. So, he agreed. He’s quite deaf, you know. A veritable bear of a man. Seems very rude. . . He tries to keep his condition secret. But I think he’s very angry that he can no longer hear the music he sends out into the world.”
She attempted to comprehend it. To study music with such a master? Such a thing would only be in her imaginings. It struck her then that she had what he lacked and vice versa. He had traversed the world and engaged in its delights and foibles but had no affection.
She had seen hide nor hair of anything outside of her own small sphere. But she had been lavished with love from the day she was born.
“I hope you will play often,” she said in all honesty.
“If it pleases you.”
“Pleases is not the word.”
“Oh?”
“Would you think me foolish if I said your playing fills me with rapture?” The idea of her home filled with such music was marvelous.
She waited for him to laugh.
Instead, he replied in all seriousness, “I cannot think you foolish. For if I did, then I would be a fool, too. Or perhaps we both are. My parents be damned.”
She could hardly believe he’d utter such a thing, but then again, she had never known a moment’s unkindness from her family. Even though she and Sebastian had known each other less than a day, she was beginning to believe he may never have known the slightest touch of love all his life. Not the kind of love which sustained one through cruelty and the disappointments of life.
The crackle of logs upon the fire filled up the now somewhat awkward silence.
What did one say after such revelations?
She knew what she should say. She should inform him that she was going upstairs and that she would await him. Yet the idea was. . . Daunting, to say the least.
He was beautiful and strong and her husband. She knew full well that love didn’t matter for the production of an heir. Most husbands and wives didn’t love each other when wed.
It was actually one of her mother and father’s favorite stories, how they had married not knowing each other, not loving each other. After a year, they’d loved each other better than any other couple they knew.
It gave Marabelle hope.
Perhaps, in time, despite his reticence and coldness, Sebastian might come to love her and she him. Then all would be well with the world and she wouldn’t be so entirely alone.
She swallowed, then lifted her chin, determined to be bold. “Shall we go upstairs? I am ready to retire.”
A spark ignited in his dark eyes, smoldering. That look, that single look of passion, burned through her. Slowly, his gaze wandered over her face, then traced over her body. Ever so slowly, it penetrated her as if he were branding her somehow, before he lifted his eyes back up to meet her gaze.
Languidly, he stood, then oh so very pointedly crossed the room. He lingered before her, angling his head down, for he was much taller.
Her stomach danced with anticipation.
Would he kiss her? What would it be like to kiss such a man? A rogue. A man who had seen so much. A man who had largely forsaken the niceties of society.
Carefully, he wound one of her curls around his forefinger then he gently wove his other hand into her coiffure. He tilted her head back and looked down upon her face.
Never in all her life had she felt more exposed. Never in all her life had she allowed someone to take such intimacies and such control.
But to her shock, she wanted him to take control. She wanted to evoke the sort of passion within him that his music had in her. To her delight, it seemed that she was about to.
Her pulse raced and her senses heightened.
His scent, a sort of wild spiciness, surrounded her. The very heat of his imposing body so close to her own made her feel as if every bit of her had been scorched by desire.
All she had to do was lean forward and their bodies would be pressed together.
“Kiss me,” she breathed.
“Oh Marabelle, you do not know me,” he said, his voice a low rumble. “You do not know what you even ask.”
“It doesn’t matter,” she protested honestly.
“Kiss me,” she said again.
His hold tightened at the nape of her neck and then his mouth was upon hers.
There was nothing gentle about it. If she had thought he would be as gentle as the opening notes of the song he had played, she’d been mistaken.
Oh no, he kissed with darker strokes. More powerful caresses.
He dragged her to him and held her as if he wished to make her at one with him.
He devoured her.
And she loved it.
My God, she did.
Her mouth opened to take more of his kiss. And kiss after kiss sent her flying high into an ecstatic drunkenness.
Transported was the word he had applied to them in regards to his rendering of Beethoven’s music.
Well, he was just as intoxicating as any composition.
The feel of her body crushed against his hard chest drove her mad with longing. Drove her to cling to him. To let go of any sort of reason.
For it seemed this evening, though they knew each other not at all, they were both lost to raw emotion. Emotion which threatened to rip them both apart then, dare she hope, bring them back together as one.
Suddenly, he tore his mouth from hers. His face was a mask of amazement and something else. Something she couldn’t name.
“I. . .” His voice was gruff now, barely audible with his need.
“Yes?” she urged, still holding tight to him. Still waiting to be taken away by his kiss.
“Not tonight,” he whispered. “Soon. But not tonight.”
Those last words were punctuated by the quick removal of his hands from her person. He turned and walked away, the sound of his booted feet marching from the room.
Lord Sebastian Rutherford, The Earl of Gray, her husband, left her standing paralyzed by their passion without so much as a backward glance.