Some Dukes Have All the Luck, page 21
“Of course,” she replied through numb lips. Feeling unmoored, her eyes dropped from his and jerked about the room, searching for something solid to grasp onto in the swirling maelstrom of her emotions. Suddenly her gaze anchored on her bed. The bed that had seen so many of their intimate moments, that had witnessed her body awakening to sensation and her heart to love.
“And what of our nights?” she found herself whispering. She looked back to him. “Are those to end as well?”
The amber of his eyes deepened, and he looked as if he were burning from the inside out. She expected him to agree then that yes, it would be for the best.
Instead he strode toward her, catching her up in his arms. His mouth found hers, hungry and insistent, an almost desperate quality to his kiss that awakened something equally frenzied in her. She clung to him, her hands diving into his hair, her body pressing up into his, beseeching him. In a corner of her brain she realized this felt like a farewell, and it frightened her. For a moment she felt the mad urge to declare herself, to beg him to stay.
But if she opened herself up and allowed her raw emotions out, only to have him still leave, it would destroy her. And so she kissed him harder, forcing the words back down. Letting him know with each frantic caress, each desperate press of her lips, what she could not say.
The heat between them became an inferno, swift and utterly undeniable. There was no time for undressing, no time to even find the bed. He lifted her off her feet and pressed her to the wall. She wrapped her legs about his hips, her skirts bunching about her waist, his hands frantic on her thighs and beneath her bare bottom. Their harsh breaths filled the room, even as his hand came between their bodies to free his manhood from his breeches. And then he was sinking inside her.
She tore her mouth free, her head pressing back against the wall as he filled her to the hilt, his deep groan mingling with her gasp of pleasure until she could not tell the sounds apart. But there was no reveling in the sensation of him being inside her. No, their need for one another was too great. He began to move, seemingly helpless to do anything else, his hips slamming into hers. And she welcomed each thrust inside her, the wall giving no quarter behind her.
In mere minutes her body exploded around his, so violent in its release she cried out. Suddenly his mouth was on hers, swallowing her cry, even as his own shout filled her up, making her climax that much more powerful. And in that exquisite moment in time, as she floated among the stars beside him, she was able to forget the pain, the heartache, the uncertainty. And she was happy.
* * *
That happiness, however, was as fleeting as it was cruel.
But she would not think of Ash carrying her to her bed, of his tender undressing of her or of him climbing in beside her to hold her against him. Nor would she think of how she had fought sleep with everything in her, knowing that if she were to drift off, he would leave.
No, today she would recall how it felt to wake to an empty bed. To feel the cold sheets beside her and drift her fingers over the faint dip in the pillow where he had rested his head as he’d curled around her. She had known there was something different in the loneliness today. Though there were still three days before their agreement came to an end and he left for London, she knew deep in her battered heart she had already lost him.
But pain was good, she told herself as she went through her morning routine. It reminded a person that they should not be complacent and trusting, and that life was not a fairy tale.
And she fed it, brutally. He would no longer be joining her for breakfast as he used to, she thought as she ate that lonely meal. And he would no longer be accompanying her and the girls for luncheon and outings, she reminded herself as she attempted to guide his wards through the new day. This was how life would be from now on; they had best get used to it.
And, somehow, she had managed it. The day passed, with Nelly and Eliza asking only a dozen times or so where Ash was. And if Regina appeared slightly more subdued than usual, Bronwyn would chalk it up to the girl adjusting to their new normal.
When Bronwyn woke the next day, she was certain it must be easier, now that she knew what to expect. No matter her sleepless night—Ash had come to her, but like the evening before their lovemaking had been swift, and desperate, and he had left the moment her head had hit the pillow—she was determined to pretend everything was well. And besides, she did have one thing to look forward to: the Oddments were set to meet in the afternoon. She had not been to their meetings in weeks, and could not wait to see her dear friends.
Just as she was readying herself to leave, however, there came a knock at her bedroom door.
Her heart leapt in her chest. Had Ash come? In the next instant, however, she quickly stifled the burst of hope. Foolish woman. Of course he had not changed his mind. She had best get it through her head that whatever interlude she’d had with him was over.
“Come in,” she called out.
The door opened hesitantly to reveal Regina.
“Do you have time to talk before you go?”
Bronwyn blinked, wholly unused to this new, more open side of the girl. Attempting a smile, she motioned Regina in.
“Of course. Let’s move to the chairs by the hearth and we can talk as long as you like.”
The girl nodded and moved inside readily enough. But once they were settled she remained silent, staring at the empty hearth seemingly without seeing, her fingers nervously picking at the seam in her trousers, an article of clothing she had taken to wearing daily.
Bronwyn, not knowing quite what to do in this situation—the girl was obviously troubled about something—bit her lip. Finally, when it seemed Regina would not proceed without encouragement, she cleared her throat and said, “You wanted to talk about something?”
The girl started, looking at Bronwyn as if just realizing where she was. “Yes. That is—” She frowned, looking down once more, rubbing her palms up and down her thighs. “Ash is done with us, isn’t he?”
Bronwyn’s heart twisted in her chest. Ah, God, she should have realized the girl was affected by Ash’s sudden absence. “I would not say he is done with us,” she replied carefully. “He is readying himself for his return to London, is all.”
The look Regina shot her was frustrated and angry and pained all at once. “You needn’t pretend all is well,” she said, her voice thick. “I am not stupid, you know. And neither are my sisters. We can see that Ash has changed toward us, that he is done playing the doting guardian. But I would hear it from you, so I might be better prepared to help my sisters through it.”
Damn you, Ash. Her heart broke as she beheld the grief and fear in Regina’s eyes. But no, she had no one to blame but herself. She had been the one to force Ash and the girls together, hoping to heal things between them and give them a semblance of a relationship. This here was proof positive that she didn’t know a blasted thing about dealing with people. If she had just minded her own business, Regina, and no doubt the other girls as well, would not now be hurting.
Swallowing down hot tears, she replied, “We all knew he would be leaving at the end of the fortnight.”
The girl fairly exploded from her chair. “I know he said as much,” she cried. “But I did not think he would—”
She bit her lip, cutting off the words. Bronwyn, however, heard them all the same, for they echoed what was in her own heart. But I did not think he would truly leave us.
But she could not think of her own grief. She had the girls to consider.
She rose and made her way to where Regina stood near the window. The girl held herself ramrod straight, her gaze pointedly focused on something outside. Yet Bronwyn saw, by the way her arms hugged her middle and a muscle ticked in her jaw, that she was holding herself together by the thinnest thread.
Regina would not listen to platitudes. There was too much anger and pain in her, and pride as well. Bronwyn could tell her Ash loved them all until she was blue in the face, but that would mean less than nothing to this girl, who had been hurt far more than anyone her age should have been.
Instead she said, quietly, gently, “I have realized over the course of my life that we cannot control what other people do; rather, we can only control our own reactions to them. Easier said than done, I know,” she continued with a wry quirk of her lips when Regina looked bleakly her way. “I am still learning that lesson. It is not an easy one to learn. And it still hurts, dreadfully.” She reached out and placed a comforting hand on Regina’s arm. “But I think it’s made a bit easier to bear if you have friends by your side. And I shall always be by your side. I will be here for you whenever you need me.”
She did not know what to expect. Whatever it might have been, however, it certainly wasn’t Regina’s quivering lip, or the tears that pooled in her dark eyes, or the sob that ripped from her throat as she threw herself in Bronwyn’s arms. As the girl cried out her pain, Bronwyn found herself crying right along with her. Ah, God, but it was like looking back in time to the vulnerable girl she had been. She had been seventeen, not much older than Regina was now, when she’d had her heart broken so brutally by Lord Owens. A betrayal that had taught her nothing so much as that she could not be loved for herself. That who she truly was invited ridicule and disdain.
It had been years before she had found those friends who had saved her. Years of pain and fumbling and uncertainty and self-hatred.
She would be damned if she would allow Regina to suffer as she had.
As Regina’s sobs quieted, Bronwyn pulled back, taking a handkerchief out of her pocket and gently dabbing at the girl’s cheeks.
“Would you like to go with me to meet with my friends at the Quayside? And perhaps afterward, we might visit the Gadfelds, and you might see Coralie again.”
The hope that sputtered in Regina’s eyes was nearly enough to make Bronwyn go off crying again.
“Do you think they would mind?” she asked in a small voice.
Bronwyn smiled at her. “I’m certain they wouldn’t mind at all.”
Chapter 19
The days since Owens’s visit, reminding Ash who he was and why he had to remain distant from Bronwyn and the girls, had been misery. He had been desperate to rectify his mistake, keeping as busy as possible, filling the time with all manner of business. From scouring the local employment agency for governesses and music instructors and whoever else Bronwyn and the girls might need in the coming years, to making certain modistes and milliners—and even a tailor, so Regina might have all the trousers she required—were at the ready, to meetings with a local solicitor, there had not been a minute spent idle. He had even traveled to nearby Whitby on the mainland for anything Synne did not provide.
No matter how busy he had kept himself, however, he could not stop from thinking of Bronwyn or the girls. And no matter how many times he told himself that he would not visit Bronwyn’s bed, he found himself slipping through their adjoining door each night and taking her in his arms and losing himself in her sweet body—all the while burying her deeper into his heart.
Now, a day before he was to leave for London—a day that was coming both much too quickly and could not come quickly enough—it was taking everything in him to stay away from them all. The moment the sun had risen he had fled the house, filling each minute with business and work and errands until he was nigh exhausted. When the time came to return to Caulnedy, he had to do battle with himself to keep from hurrying home to them.
He started. Home? A strange word, indeed, to associate with Caulnedy. When he had first arrived after tracking down Eliza and Nelly, he had done everything he could to stay outside those walls. The place had given him too much pain, reminding him of his mother, and how he had failed her, and how in his selfishness he had remained blind to the suffering of so many others.
Now, however, it had become a place of happiness, where he had begun to develop something of a relationship with his wards, where he had learned to love. All the result of a slight, stern, pixie of a woman in spectacles.
Bronwyn. Ah, God, he did not want to leave her. But leave her, leave all of them, he must. All his life he had lived under the shadow of his father, the shame at having that man’s blood in his veins fairly eating him up inside until he hated himself almost as much as he had hated who had sired him. He could not let that happen to the girls, could not allow such degradation to crush their spirits, especially not after all they had already been through. And he could not allow Bronwyn to be tainted by it either. For while their life together thus far had been idyllic, there would be no holding back the ugliness of the world forever. Owens and Lady Brindle had been proof of that.
But no amount of reasoning would soothe the longing in his soul that he might stay with them all forever.
Sighing, weary down to his bones, he nevertheless straightened his shoulders and urged his mount on. The sun was setting, the forest that surrounded the long drive growing shadowed. He would have one last dinner with them all, say his farewells, and retire so he might prepare for his departure. And then in the morning, before dawn broke, he would be gone, and they would finally be able to live lives free of him and his father’s stain.
What he did not expect as he neared the manor house, however, was a lone rider coming toward him. But even if he had not recognized the woman, the parrot on her shoulder would have given her away: Miss Seraphina Athwart, proprietress of the Quayside Circulating Library. The one who had threatened him with that cryptic the Oddments are watching on the day of his and Bronwyn’s wedding.
Surely they could acknowledge one another and be on their way. But as he went to pass her, she pulled her horse up, blocking his path, and all hope for a quick leave-taking from her disappeared like a puff of smoke.
“Miss Athwart,” he murmured. “I hope you are doing well.”
She glared at him, her opinion of him plain on her face. “I am, in fact, not doing well, Your Grace,” she said, her words clipped and furious. “And can you guess why I am not doing well?”
Frustration surged, and all manner of sarcastic answers flew through his mind. In the end, however, he remained silent. There was no use in adding fuel to the already blazing fire of her anger.
“Please do correct me if I am wrong,” she continued, “but I believe I did warn you on your wedding day not to break Bronwyn’s heart.” She straightened in her saddle. “And now, sir, you have done just that. And I will not stand for it.”
Why, he wondered desperately, did her words only awaken a faint hope that Bronwyn might truly have come to care for him? But no, he thought wildly, trampling that hope as surely as an elephant tramples the grasses at its feet, that was an impossibility.
He scowled at Miss Athwart, praying it hid the turmoil within him. “I assure you, I have not broken Bronwyn’s heart. In fact, I have done everything in my power to make certain she would not be affected.”
She scoffed, a rude sound that echoed through the trees. Her parrot repeated the sound—and no wonder, for it was one he must have heard daily from this Fury of a woman.
“Then you do not know my friend at all. For she is in pain.” She gave a low growl of frustration, one that made her mount dance. “If I were a man, I would call you out,” she spat.
He had no doubt she would at that. But Miss Athwart’s anger was his least concern. Was Bronwyn in pain, as she said? Ah, God, he truly was a bastard, as selfish and unworthy of love as he had always known, for the idea made that sputtering hope in his chest flare brighter. If her heart was breaking, it meant she had fallen in love with him, just as he had with her.
No, he told himself furiously, desperately, he did not want Bronwyn to have fallen in love with him.
“You are wrong,” he managed, his voice hoarse.
“I am not wrong,” she replied. “And you shall make it right.”
“How the devil am I to make this right?”
“You forced her into this sham of a marriage,” she snapped. “You have trapped her, as surely as if she were held in a locked cell.” For a moment her expression transformed to one of deep pain. In the next minute, however, the fury was back in place, burning brighter than before. “You made a vow to her, Your Grace.”
“And I am trying to keep that vow,” he gritted.
“You are not,” she spat. “Else you would stay with her. But no, you are thinking of only yourself.”
“I am trying, for once in my miserable life, to not be selfish!” he cried, the words bursting from him before he could hold them back. “Everything I am doing is for her. If I was thinking only of myself, I would stay and make a life with her. But Bronwyn deserves so much better than me.”
Miss Athwart gaped, as if seeing him for the first time. “My God,” she whispered. “You have fallen in love with her.”
His hands tightened in shock, his horse shifting in agitation beneath him. He hardly noticed for the roaring in his ears. “No,” he replied, shaking his head violently. “Of course not.”
“You have,” she insisted. Her brows drew together, confusion plain in her face. “Why, then, are you leaving her?”
Ah, God, this woman saw to the heart of him. She did not even know him, and she could recognize what he was trying so desperately to hide. He had to escape her presence before he gave even more of himself away.
Drawing upon every ounce of self-control he had left, he straightened and stared down at her. Once more he was the dangerous gaming hell owner, and she recognized it if the alarm in her eyes was any indication.
Yet instead of bringing him comfort that he was finally returning to himself, he felt as if he had slipped into clothes that no longer fit.
“You are wrong, madam,” he said with as much darkness as he could muster. “And I would appreciate you not to involve yourself in my marriage. Bronwyn and I have an understanding, and I expect you to respect that. Good day.”
