Chapter Twenty
Avery was not in bed. He lounged in the chair reading, his bare feet propped up on the fender, a leather-bound book in his hands.
‘Laura?’ He dropped the book to the floor and stood up. ‘Is something wrong?’
‘It occurred to me that I had spent rather too much of my marriage lying in my bed waiting on my husband’s pleasure. Literally, his pleasure. Certainly not mine.’
‘Laura!’ He sounded so shocked she almost smiled.
‘I do not think I need to mince my words with a man who uses his wife for his carnal needs without any consideration for hers,’ she retorted.
‘The devil you say!’ Avery strode across the room and confronted her. Laura took a step back and found her shoulders were against the door. ‘Are you saying that I take you without your consent?’
‘No, you pig-headed man,’ Laura snapped. ‘I am saying you leave me unsatisfied in order to punish me for trapping you into marriage. When you condescend to come to my bed at all, that is. There, is that plain enough for you?’
‘You are saying that you want me even after I said those things about coming to you only to get an heir? Even after the way I leapt to assumptions over that letter to Piers?’
Suddenly she saw a vulnerability that she had never glimpsed before. Perhaps because she had never looked, perhaps because all she had been filled with had been her own needs—her need for Alice, her need to somehow survive loving this man who thought so little of her.
‘Yes, I am saying that. We have always known it, you and I, haven’t we? That there was an attraction, despite everything.’ She reached up and touched his face, trying to convey a tenderness that she dared not put into words. ‘I am a grown woman, Avery. A married one.’ Laura looked deep into the troubled green eyes. There it was again. Avery needed something and perhaps, just perhaps, she might be it. ‘You want me, too.’ She did not dare risk saying need.
He did not answer and for a despairing moment she thought he would turn from her. Then his mouth came down over hers in a kiss that was hard and unapologetic and demanding. She fisted her hands into his hair and kissed back with equal force. There was the metallic taste of blood in her mouth, his, hers, she did not know, or care. She would probably have felt no pain if a bullet had hit her.
Avery put his hands on her waist and lifted her up, heedless of her hold on his hair, his mouth still fastened on hers. Pushed back against the door, all she could do was wrap her legs around his waist as her nightgown rode up and she felt silk, skin, coarse hair and blessedly hot, hard, fierce heat against the soft skin of her inner thighs.
He lifted her higher, freed her mouth, then with relentless control, let her slide down, down until their foreheads rested together and he filled her. They clung to each other, joined tighter and deeper than they had ever been before, the only sound their shuddering breaths.
Then he began to move. They were so locked, the position so strained, that he could make only the shortest withdrawals and thrusts, but the very constriction and restraint inflamed her beyond bearing. Laura found Avery’s mouth and pressed her own to it open, her tongue searching and twisting against his, her breasts crushed against his chest, each movement fretting the hard, aching tips of her nipples against the lawn of her nightgown.
He growled deep in his chest and lifted her, holding her higher so he could thrust harder, making the door rattle at her back, merciless until everything knotted, broke, shattered and she screamed against his mouth, convulsing around him, until she felt him shudder and collapse against her, the spasms of his release sending her over into a second crashing climax.
He must still be supporting her, she realised hazily, otherwise she would have poured down the wall, boneless and limp. Avery was so still she might have thought him unconscious, the thud of his heart against her breast and the heat of his breath on her bared shoulder the only indications that he lived.
After a long moment he lifted her, shifted her in his arms and carried her to the bed. He laid her down and then simply collapsed on the covers beside her, limbs sprawled, eyes closed. Laura found strength from somewhere to roll over and push back the sides of his robe. The belt had been lost somewhere. She folded her arms on his chest and studied his face. His hair was dishevelled and there was a smear of blood on his lip. She wondered if he was asleep or simply as shattered by the experience as she felt.
Cautiously she sat up and dragged her nightgown over her head. It was torn and crumpled and she tossed it to the floor and went back to contemplating her husband. The dark lashes lifted and he regarded her steadily. ‘Did I hurt you?’
‘I don’t think so. I did not notice if you did. Did I hurt you?’
‘I have no idea.’ His lips twitched into a fleeting smile. ‘I had other sensations to deal with.’
‘Mmm.’ She curled up against his chest, a satisfyingly broad and strong pillow.
Avery tugged until he could flip covers over both of them. ‘I regret that I may need to lie here awhile before I can repeat any part of that performance.’
‘I will contain my impatience,’ Laura murmured and heard his chuckle. ‘Part of me wants to know where you learned to make love so skilfully, part of me does not want to hear the answer.’
‘What happened just now was not skilful.’
‘It was thrilling beyond words.’ She wriggled so she could trace kisses across the flat pectoral muscles and feel his skin quiver at the touch. ‘And the first time...’
‘You mean that the way you responded to me that first night together, that was genuine? At the time I believed it was, hoped it was, but then when I knew why you were there, I did not know.’
Laura sat up abruptly. ‘How good an actress do you think me, Avery?’ And how cynical? But he said hoped. Does he care?
‘I do not know.’ He sat up against the pillows, turned so he could look her in the face. ‘Your—’
‘My reputation?’ Her heart sank. So that was it, not the uncertainty of a man who cared, but the doubts of a man who thought he was dealing with an experienced lover. ‘I was a virgin when I first lay with Piers. Thinking back, I expect he was, too. We made love six times. I told you I have been with no one else, Avery, whatever the gossip says. They called me Scandal’s Virgin, did they not? That was the truth. I flirted, I kissed, I permitted liberties that I should not have, but that was all.’ Part of her rebelled against justifying herself, part of her desperately needed him to understand.
‘Why?’ he asked. ‘Why risk your reputation like that?’
‘Frankly?’ She shrugged, embarrassed by telling someone she cared about what had motivated her. ‘I was angry. Angry with men, angry with society. Angry with myself. Piers had taught me to love, but then he left me. I know it was not his fault, that my anger was not rational, I understand that.
‘I wanted a lover, but there was no one I could bear to be with and besides, I dared not risk falling pregnant again. Society expected me to return to the Marriage Mart after my illness, but how could I counterfeit an innocent little virgin? Besides, if I married, the man would have to be very naive indeed not to notice I had carried a child.’
‘If he wished to marry you, you could have told him first.’ Avery’s thumb stroked the sensitive skin of her inner wrist. She doubted he realised he was doing it, he seemed so absorbed in her story.
‘And have him break it off? Risk the truth getting out? No man would marry me knowing that.’
‘I did.’
‘I trapped you,’ she flung back.
‘Perhaps,’ he said, puzzling her with the small, almost secret smile that touched his lips. ‘You certainly secured the two things you wanted: your daughter and a man in your bed.’
‘A man in my bed is a matter of no importance beside my daughter. I would have become a nun if I thought that would make Alice happy and secure,’ she protested.
‘That would be a waste,’ Avery said. Had she wounded him, asserting that a man—he—was of no importance? ‘It took you a long time to seek her out.’
There was a question in the statement, one she could not bring herself to answer. How could she tell him her parents, whom she had loved and trusted, had plotted and lied, had planned to take her child and break her heart, all in the name of respectability? She loved them still, but she could not forgive them, or bring herself to speak of that betrayal, the way they must have put respectability and appearances beyond care for their own grandchild and before her own wishes.
‘The time was right,’ she said abruptly. ‘Avery, make love to me again.’
It seemed he was rested enough. There was no opportunity then, nor until they fell asleep finally and deeply at dawn, for questions, truths or lies.
* * *
Avery could not remember ever feeling so physically satisfied before. His muscles felt as though they had been massaged, his whole body was relaxed and yet sensitive, tingling with remembered orgasmic pleasure, the anticipation of more to come a constant awareness.
And yet, as another week passed in apparent harmony and the nights in mutual pleasure, he could not settle, could not be easy in his mind. He knew what was wrong, or, at least he could see the shape of the problem, looming like a nightmare beast in the corner of his vision. Lack of trust. Laura had lied to him and, he was certain, lied to him still. There was something she was hiding, something she was not telling him. He no longer believed that she feigned delight at his lovemaking, but he had been deceived by her too often to yield to the emotions that he feared would make him blind to more lies, more deceptions.
He loved Laura and if she ever discovered that weakness she had the intelligence and the ruthlessness to exploit it unmercifully. His own mother had been quite conscienceless in manipulating his father, who could never bring himself to believe the woman he loved was the wanton his friends tried to warn him about. She had smiled and charmed and, occasionally, confessed to a fault with tears and ingenious excuses. The poor devil had believed her until he was confronted by undeniable proof.
Avery had never believed the story of how the shotgun had gone off accidentally when his father was climbing a stile. He had gone to his Aunt Alice and she had simply accepted him into the family, treated him as an elder brother to Piers. His mother had shrugged, no doubt, and gone her own self-obsessed way. The accident that left her with a broken neck at the foot of her latest lover’s grand staircase had been hushed up. Avery, aged just seventeen, had wept for the last time in his life and faced the fact that his mother had killed any scrap of love he had ever had for her.
Now, over breakfast, he watched his own wife and tried to force the lid closed on the feelings that left him vulnerable to hurt and disillusion, just as his father had been.
Why had she left it so long to come for Alice and why, when she did, had she disguised herself and lied about her identity? Why had she not simply come to him, told him who she was, confessed her wish to become part of her daughter’s life? Why, when she knew he was seeking a wife, had she not suggested to him that they wed in order to provide Alice with a loving home?
Her first deception had risked confusing and hurting the child. It had certainly confused him. He could accept that now and knew why he had been so angry when he had discovered who she really was. Her second piece of scheming could have wrecked his reputation.
Was that it? Startled by the sudden thought, Avery lifted his newspaper to hide his face. The sheets rattled against his cup and he threw it down. Did she hate him so much that she would risk upsetting Alice, hazard her own, fragile reputation in order to punish him?
He had taken her daughter, then she discovered he was instrumental in sending her lover to his death. Once he knew her identity he had forbidden her any contact with the child until the house party had thrown them all together. Had she manipulated her invitation to the house party, relying on his godmother’s cheerful love of entertaining to ensure her welcome?
The enormity of it made him dizzy. Avery made himself breathe deeply until the charming, happy face of his wife came back into focus. She was coaxing Alice into eating some egg before the child attacked the jam and toast. The picture of perfect motherhood. The ideal wife who had every reason to hate him.
He had never found the words to convince her of his deep regret for the misunderstanding over the letter to Piers. And Laura had never mentioned it again. Was that because she did not want to forgive him? Yet there was no way she could wound him, not now they were wed.
‘Papa?’ Alice’s clear voice cut through his churning thoughts.
‘Yes, sweetheart?’
‘Do you like my new hair ribbon?’
‘Yes, sweetheart.’ She could hurt him through Alice. If she took the child away...
‘I don’t seem to have seen Blackie for an age,’ he said.
‘No.’ Laura smiled at him. Clear-eyed, innocent. ‘I gave her a long holiday with her family. Now Miss Pemberton is with us I thought it was time she had a rest.’
Miss Pemberton, his wife’s choice made without reference to him. His wife’s employee, loyal to her. Avery schooled his expression into bland approval. ‘Of course, my dear. She deserves her holiday.’
* * *
He waited until the next morning. It was Miss Pemberton’s half-day and Laura went out shopping, taking Alice with her. Avery waited for the front door to close behind them, then he climbed to the nursery floor and tapped on the door of the governess’s sitting room.
She was sitting at the table, darning stockings, but she got to her feet when she saw who it was. ‘My lord. Please come in.’
Avery left the door ajar in case she felt uneasy about being alone with a male employer. ‘Miss Pemberton, I hope you will excuse me interrupting you in your free time, I will not take much of it, I hope. Shall we sit?’
She took the chair opposite his and folded her hands neatly on the table. A self-contained, intelligent young woman.
‘I do not interfere with my wife’s running of the household, you understand. And, naturally, your appointment is within her sphere of influence.’ She looked a trifle puzzled, but she nodded. ‘However, Alice is my daughter. She is my wife’s stepdaughter.’ The governess nodded again and sat a little straighter in the chair. ‘Naturally she is very fond of Alice, but she is not her guardian, not her mother.’ His tongue almost tripped him on the lie.
‘Yes, Lord Wykeham. I am aware of that.’ Miss Pemberton was cool.
‘I am sure you are. I wanted to make it clear that my daughter does not leave the house without my knowledge and consent. She most certainly does not go on carriage journeys without it. Do you understand?’
‘Your instructions are very clear, my lord, although I confess I do not understand.’
‘Lady Wykeham is prone to occasional flights of fancy that usually manifest themselves as erratic journeys. It would be unsettling for Alice.’
‘I see.’ She looked very perturbed. ‘I can assure you, my lord, that if there is any suggestion of such a thing I will inform you at once.’
‘Thank you.’ Avery stood up. ‘I can rely on you not to mention this to my wife? She becomes very distressed when we argue about these...whims.’
‘Of course, my lord. I greatly respect Lady Wykeham, I would not wish to upset her in any way.’
* * *
Laura barely made it downstairs in time before the sound of footsteps on the upper landing sent her headlong through the first bedchamber door she came to. She closed it gently and leaned back, one hand pressed to her lips to stifle the sound of her panting breath.
She had come back into the house because Alice had forgotten her gloves and, leaving the child in the carriage, had run lightly upstairs in her thin kid shoes to fetch them herself. It was much easier than trying to explain to a footman where they might be.
The sound of Avery’s deep voice coming from Miss Pemberton’s room had caught her attention. What on earth was he doing there? Not interfering in the carefully constructed lesson plan, she hoped! She tiptoed along the landing and found the door ajar, so she stood and listened, indignation at interference swept away by horror at the tale Avery was telling about her.
She was within an inch of sweeping in and demanding to know what he meant by it when she realised what was happening, what he feared. Despite the lovemaking, the appearance of friendliness, the pleasant partnership that she was so hoping would blossom into something else, he trusted her not one inch.
He believed she would betray him. He thought she wanted to steal Alice from him.