Just wicked enough, p.19
Just Wicked Enough, page 19
“No, she didn’t.”
“Of course she did. There was no where else for her to go. You just didn’t see her arrive.”
“As I was sitting on the stairs of my foyer until dawn, there is no way I could have possibly not seen her arrive. Are you certain she isn’t here?”
Rose nodded. “Absolutely positive. She was understandably upset with me. She rushed out. I followed, saw her get safely into the coach. I just assumed—” He dropped down into a chair, hung his head. “I think she’s feeling betrayed. Not the first time. I explained to her that I wouldn’t have even bothered to attend your auction if she’d been trying to find a husband, but she was content to stay in her room and read. I needed her married.”
Michael set his still-full glass on the desk. He needed his wits about him, and he wasn’t particularly interested in what had brought them to this moment. It was done and he no longer had control over it. He’d grown accustomed to not having control. He did the best he could. “Do you know where she might have gone?”
Rose lifted his head, met Michael’s gaze. “No. She hasn’t any friends here.” He sprung to his feet. “Damnation! I gave her control over the money. She could have bought a ticket to anywhere in the world. We may never find her.”
“I’ll find her.” He turned to leave.
“I should have given control to you.”
Michael turned back to him. “No, you shouldn’t have. Kate has a keen sense of money—just as you told me. I wish I’d been in a position…” He looked down at the floor. No frayed, worn rugs there. He lifted his gaze. “The yearly stipend you promised. It won’t be necessary.”
Rose took on the look of a man who’d placed a wager at the racetrack and just watched the horse cross the finish line well ahead of the others. “I never thought it would be.”
Michael wished none of it had been necessary. “I wish I had asked for her hand. She deserved that, at least.”
“Let me grab my coat and I’ll help you look for her.”
“That won’t be necessary.” For the first time since he’d gone into the garden last night, he actually smiled. He might not know her favorite color, but he did know this. “As impossible as it seems, I believe I know where she is.”
“It’s so nice of you to pay us a call, my lord, even though the hour is unconscionably early for a social visit,” the Duchess of Hawkhurst said, as she poured tea into a china cup. “That seems to be an unfortunate habit you have—not calling at the appropriate hour.”
Michael had arrived only to be kept waiting while he was announced to Her Grace, who apparently had decided she didn’t need to greet him until the tea had been properly steeped and was ready for pouring.
“I want to see her.”
She peered up at him. “And who would that be, my lord?”
“My wife,” he ground out.
Hawk, standing against the fireplace as though his presence were needed to support the wall, cleared his throat, and Michael reined in his impatience.
“She is here, isn’t she?”
“Do you take sugar with your tea?”
“I’m not here for tea, Your Grace. I’m here for my wife.”
“And why would you think she’s here?”
“For pity’s sake, Louisa, stop torturing the man,” Hawk said. “She’s here, still abed, after arriving in the middle of the night.”
Michael didn’t know if he’d ever felt such relief, not only because Kate was safe but because he’d managed to deduce where she would go if she had no where else to go. “Will you let her know I’m here?”
“I promised her that I’d provide her with a refuge as long as she needed it,” the duchess said.
“A refuge? I’m not going to beat her.”
“What are you going to do?”
Devil take all women!
“Forgive my impertinence, Your Grace, but I don’t feel I need to explain myself to you, but I will explain things to my wife.”
“She’s feeling quite vulnerable right now.”
“I only wish to speak with her. If she doesn’t want to leave with me”—he could barely stand the thought of her remaining here—”then she need not, and I’ll personally pack up her clothes and bring them to her. Ask her. I’ve been as accommodating as I could be. That will not change, but it is imperative that I speak with her.”
The duchess glanced at her husband. Hawk nodded. She sighed as though she’d lost some great battle. “Very well. I’ll let her know you’re here, but I’ll not force her to see you. She’s been forced to do things she didn’t want to do far too often. I’ll not be party to making her life any more miserable than it already is.”
She rose to her feet and swept from the room with more righ teous indignation than Michael had ever witnessed. Once she was out of sight, Hawk murmured, “I tried to warn you that secrets—”
“Yes, yes, yes. You’re ever so wise and knowing. How fortunate for me that I have such a clever friend.”
“More clever than you for certain, because I know the way to a lady’s heart doesn’t involve bringing her to tears. She was quite distraught when she arrived. Louisa was with her for a good part of the night.”
Hawk’s words effectively doused Michael’s irritation with him. “I’d never planned to deceive her about how she came to be my wife, but once I realized her parents had told a different tale…what was I to do? Reveal them as liars?”
“It might have been better than perpetuating the lie.”
Michael waved that off. “It no longer matters. It’s only important that she come to understand why.”
“Do you think seeing her now is the right move?” Hawk asked quietly.
“What would you do in my place if it were Louisa who wanted nothing to do with you?”
Hawk arched a brow in surprise. “You’ve come to care for the girl.”
Care hardly seemed a strong enough word to describe what he felt for Kate. In a short period of time, she’d come to mean everything to him. He couldn’t imagine his life without her.
“She wanted to be desired for more than money. Yet we can’t survive without the funds she brought into the marriage. How do I convince her that she is more important?”
“Simply tell her.”
Michael shook his head. “If I’ve learned anything at all about Kate these past few weeks, it’s that she must be shown.”
And in the showing, he knew he could very well lose her forever.
“Kate?”
Kate heard the soft voice, but she wanted to stay buried beneath the covers where not even a whisper of sunlight could touch her. Oh, her head hurt and her eyes felt gritty and swollen from all the tears she’d shed once she’d arrived here.
“Kate, you need to wake up.”
She eased the blanket down only enough to look out from the cocoon of her haven and see the Duchess of Hawkhurst standing over her. “To wake up would indicate that I’d slept. And I haven’t.”
Louisa sat on the edge of the bed, moved the covers down farther, and tenderly brushed the loose hair back from Kate’s face. “Falconridge is here. He wants to see you.”
“You sent word to him—”
“No. He simply arrived and asked to see his wife as though he knew you were here. But neither Hawk nor I sent word.”
“Then how did he know?” she asked, baffled.
“I don’t know, but he looks as though he’s had as rough a night as you. I’ll help you get dressed.”
Kate shook her head. “I need more time to sort things out. Tell him I’ll return home when I’m ready.”
“I’m not certain he’s in a mood to accept that as an answer.”
“That’s just too bad. He sold himself, Louisa. And my father purchased him, not only placing a value on him, but a value on me. I can’t be part of this. I won’t be part of it. He doesn’t own me. I won’t do as he bids.”
“He must have been very desperate—”
“Or incredibly lazy. I’ve heard the snide comments about what American heiresses will bid for a nobleman, but I didn’t think anyone would actually take them to heart.” She sighed. “Tell him I’m not at home. Tell him to go to the devil.”
Louisa released a deep breath of obvious exasperation. “I shall try, but I think you should prepare yourself for my not meeting with success. He seems quite determined to have his way.”
“Yes, well, I can be just as stubborn, and well he knows it.” Or at least she thought he did. But he knew so little about her. How had he managed to deduce that she was here?
“Did he go to my parents’ house first?” Kate heard herself murmur.
“I’m not sure,” Louisa said. “Perhaps you should go down and ask him.”
“No, I don’t want to see him. Simply tell him that it would please me if he left. He always does what would please me.”
“A woman can’t ask for much more in a husband than that.”
“A woman can ask for love,” Kate said quietly.
“He must hold some affection for you or he wouldn’t come looking for you.”
“I have complete control over our purse strings, Louisa. Without me, he has no access to funds. And he needs a good deal of funds to renovate his residences. Just tell him what I said. He’ll leave.” Lying down, she pulled the covers back over her head. There was comfort to be found in the cozy darkness.
It was several minutes before she heard the door open again. “Did he leave?”
“No, he did not,” a familiar deep voice answered back.
She jerked the blankets down and glared at her husband who was slowly closing the door behind him and watching her intently as though wondering if she might pick up an object on the bedside table and throw it at him. If they were her things, she very well might have. Even Louisa had betrayed her. Was there no one she could trust?
“Don’t be angry at your hostess. She believes I left. Her mistake was in taking me at my word and not escorting me to the door.”
“So you lie as easily to her as you do to me.”
“I never lied to you, Kate. I may have danced around the truth a bit, but only because I realized your parents didn’t want you to know the particulars of our arrangement.”
“You said you approached my father—”
“And I did. With an invitation to the auction.”
“Who all did you invite?”
“Your father. Jeffers, Blair, Haddock, and Keane.”
She pushed herself up and sat back against the pillows, settling the blanket at her waist. “Rather austere company. The wealthiest of the wealthy. At least I can’t fault you for not aiming high.”
He walked over to the window and gazed out, squinting against the brightness of the morning. “In my youth I would stay in this room when I visited Hawkhurst.”
It seemed a strange change in topic, and yet at the same time, it was revealing something that she couldn’t quite comprehend. “But your own residence isn’t that far away.”
“Still, it was more pleasant here. Hawk’s mother had a tendency toward kindness.”
“And your own mother didn’t?”
“My mother was hardly ever home. I think she and my father saw me as a necessary nuisance. The required heir and nothing more except a bother. A nanny and a governess saw to my care. They were neither kind nor particularly pleasant.”
“I had a governess. She wasn’t so awful.”
He peered over his shoulder at her. “Did she lock you in a closet if you didn’t eat your peas?”
She slowly shook her head. “Did yours?”
“To this day I refuse to eat peas willingly.”
“But you were the young lord, the heir—”
“I suspect that was the reason she took such delight in tormenting me. She was quite clever. She had me convinced I’d be a grave disappointment to my parents if they ever learned I had to be punished for behaving poorly, so I suffered through her cruelties in silence.”
“Is her punishment the reason you don’t suffer confinement well?”
“Probably.”
“Is all of this the reason you hate your mother, that you don’t go see her—”
“I don’t hate her. I’ve always loved her, even though she had no time for me. And I go see her quite often.”
“But you’ve never taken me to meet her.”
“I had my reasons.”
He crossed the room, stood at the foot of her bed, and wrapped his hand around the bedpost. She could see him more clearly now. He looked as though his night had been as horrendous as hers. His eyes were red-rimmed, but she couldn’t imagine him weeping. No doubt he’d imbibed and become lost in his favorite liquor or perhaps it was simply lack of sleep that made him appear so war-weary. His hair was untamed, as though he’d run his fingers through it a thousand times. Other than that his clothing was impeccable, his grooming perfection.
She felt her defenses crumbling and forced herself to shore them up. How could she resist him when he looked at her as though he’d like nothing more than to gobble her up? She shifted her gaze to his hand, holding the bedpost until his knuckles turned white, as though he needed that solid anchor to keep his distance.
“Your hand looks swollen.”
“I rammed it against something last night.”
“In anger?”
He nodded.
“Does it hurt?”
“I suspect the discomfort pales when compared with the pain I’ve brought you.”
“I promised myself I wouldn’t ask, but I have to know. After my father outbid the others, did you tell him that it was me you wanted to marry?”
She could see him struggling to hold her gaze. “No.”
“You wanted to marry Jenny.”
“I thought she stood less chance of being disappointed.”
“Because you can’t love me?”
“I don’t know how to love you, Kate. Love is not something with which I’m intimately familiar. I can tell you that I never meant to hurt you.”
“And how did you plan to accomplish that when your selection of a wife was based on the highest bidding father? You couldn’t even be bothered to court a lady. You wanted the fastest, easiest—”
“What I did was not easy.” It sounded as though he’d shoved each word out from the depth of his soul. “It cost me everything that I valued, my pride, my dignity as a man. And now it’s going to cost me you. I need you to understand why I did it.”
“Your reasons are obvious. The condition of your estate, your London residence—”
“I could live with the deteriorating conditions of my life. There’s more, but I have to show you. Give me an hour of your time and if at the end of it, you want to be rid of me, then we shall find a way to make it happen.”
Even now, as much as she hurt, she didn’t want to be rid of him. She wasn’t certain what she did want. But she did know what she didn’t want.
“I don’t have proper clothes here. All I have is the gown I wore to the ball last night and it’s hardly suitable attire—”
“Our residence is not that far away. We’ll stop there first.”
“Where are we going after that?”
“To visit hell.”
Chapter 18
Kate had tried to get more information from her husband on the pretext that she needed to know exactly where they were going so she could dress appropriately. But he’d refused to offer even a hint, and she knew him well enough to know that he could be as stubborn as she. They were alike in that way.
So she’d decided on a simple gray dress with red velvet trim, an elegant matching cape, and a tidy hat that sat perfectly atop her upswept hair. She’d even spent a few minutes with slices of cucumber over her eyes to reduce the swelling. She fully intended to arrive at hell looking her best.
If he’d sought to intimidate her with his succinct response, he’d learn she wasn’t easily intimidated. Although she suspected he was well aware of that. They’d not spoken on the way to their residence, and he seemed determined to be equally noncommunicative as they made their way to wherever it was he wanted them to go.
“How did you know I was at Louisa’s?” she finally asked, because the oppressive silence was beginning to grate on her nerves.
Sitting beside her, he merely angled his head slightly to meet her gaze. “I simply knew.”
“Did you go to my parents’ first?”
He nodded. “I spoke with your father this morning. He was quite concerned. I sent word to let him know you were all right.”
“I’m still angry at him.”
“Still angry at us both, I suspect.”
“Both of your actions degrade me.”
“I beg to differ. They degrade us, but you’re innocent…above all this.”
It seemed to be a time for honesty between them.
“I didn’t arrange to meet Wesley in the garden last night. Jenny and I were going for a stroll. She forgot something and left me…and Wesley was there. I was so surprised by his appearance that I didn’t leave immediately, and I should have.”
“Thank you for that.”
“You know, one of the reasons that I wanted to marry a man who loved me was because when you love someone it’s much easier to forgive their faults, and I have a good many faults.”
“Will you think more of me if I list them rather than your favorite color?”
His eyes held the familiar glint of teasing.
“Are you saying that you’ve noticed them?” she asked tartly.
“I’m saying they’re easier to deduce than your favorite color, but then I have faults of my own and far more than you.”
“You’re very secretive.”
“I’m not accustomed to sharing.”
They began to move into an area of London sparse with buildings and people. Just as quickly her curiosity intensified. What if he had a child…someone he visited in secret?
“Are we going to see someone or something?” she asked.
“A bit of both. It’s just up here.” He indicated a building in the distance that became visible whenever there was a break in the trees. A wrought iron fence apparently circled the property.
