Compromised by Christmas (34 page)

Roxana's spine straightened, and she seemed to be
trying to unwind her hands from her shift. She was not a woman who
was meant to cower, and it tore at him to know that there were
times when fear overtook her so powerfully. She shook her head and
her long dark hair swung down over his hand, covering the secret
and the gooseflesh that rose on her back. "You did not throw your
boots and cross the room so quickly to . . . to . . ."

"To kiss your scars. I did not see them before now."
He shifted her hair out of the way and pressed his lips on the
trail of abuse. "Who did this to you?"

"It does not matter." She leaned forward to her
knees.

"This is more than one thrashing." Her father? Surely
it could not have been the weak downtrodden woman who was her
mother. He remembered the tiny cottage where her family lived and
the strange man who was her father, the man whose permission he
would need to marry his daughter, and understanding clicked into
place.

"It does not matter," she repeated.

He pressed his lips against her nape. He wanted more
than ever to protect her, to take her away from the horror she had
lived in her life. "I crossed the room to wrestle you into clothing
because if you keep prancing around naked, I will end up back in
your bed and my poor coachman is waiting outside in the cold."

"I don't believe you," she said wearily.

"This is why you refuse to marry me, Roxana?"

She turned slightly. "A husband has the right to
discipline his wife."

"Not to do this, Roxana." He brushed his palm over
her back.

She grabbed his thumb, circled it with her finger and
thumb, and then pulled it off and held the circle in the air. "You
could beat a wife with a rod as big as this. I will never marry,
Max."

Max felt sick as he recognized that the law allowed a
man the right to control his possessions. And a wife and children
were considered his possessions. He struggled against his own need
to claim her as his own and protect her.

"At least let me take you home. Fanny has probably
held dinner for me. You have not eaten." He pulled the wadded mess
of red silk from her hand and searched for the hem to position it
over her head. She shivered. The room was cold and he wanted her
again. Scarred or too skinny, she was still everything he wanted in
a woman. Yet she did not trust him. She tarred him with the brush
of a man who had beaten her.

He shook his head. Who was he fooling? Men made laws
that gave them the right to bend women to their wills.

"No, Max, go home."

He pulled the shift over her head and lifted her long
silky hair free of the material. He pulled out the few pins that
clung ineffectively to the strands. Piling them in his palm he
reached around and handed them to her. "I'm not leaving you alone
this night. If you will not come home with me, then I'll stay
here."

"I have work to do. Go home, Max. Go have your
dinner."

He lifted her into his arms, standing and carrying
her over to the chair he kicked directly in front of the stove. How
could he win her trust if he insisted on going against her
expressed wishes? "You are intent on breaking my heart."

He sat her down in the chair and said gruffly, "Get
warm."

Collecting his boots and the rest of his clothes, he
drew them on and looped his cravat around his neck. He drew on his
overcoat and hoped that the capes would disguise the disarray of
his clothing, although his coachmen and the accompanying footmen
would not have any doubt about his purpose in a dressmaker's shop
well after it had closed for the evening.

*~*~*

As soon as Max left the room, Roxana stood and found
a wrapper and scuffs to put on her feet. She would need to go lock
up after him and set the bar across the door, but she wanted to be
sure he was gone before she went down to the shop. She leaned over
the table to blow out the lamp, saving the precious oil, and opened
the door of the stove. The dim orange glow from the coals provided
enough light for her to sew.

She heard the door below and knew she needed to go
downstairs and throw the bolt. Her eyes blurred as she crept toward
the stairs and found her way down them in the darkness. She had not
thought he would leave so easily. But he had gone, and she felt
even more acutely alone.

As she made her way among the wire frames displaying
her creations, her chest began to ache. A sob broke free as she
approached the glass door at the front of the shop. She could see,
outside, the tall form of him standing in the recessed doorway. He
turned and she did not know if he saw her or had heard her in the
clear silence of the moonlit night, but he reached for the knob and
stepped back inside her shop and gathered her to him.

The starkness in his face hit her much harder than
she expected. She buried her face against his coat.

"So you wanted to become my mistress only?" he
asked.

She nodded, relieved he understood.

"You know I cannot live with that, Roxana." He kissed
the top of her head. "I cannot stomach the dishonor." Then he
backed away from her, reached for the door, then stepped outside
into the cool night. His crested carriage pulled up, and he swung
inside.

Why couldn't he?

As she watched his carriage drive away, she felt as
if she had severed her last link with the world. She had told him
to leave and he had honored her request. She pressed against the
glass and her sobs broke free.

As she bolted and latched the door a man moved on the
other side of the street. The street was fairly deserted, but
London never slept and even though all the shops were closed,
people still traveled the street. Nonetheless, a chill ran down her
spine.

Max pressed his palms against his temples. What was
he to do? He wanted her. He owned her. He could not own her. His
thoughts swirled and he came back to the realization that he had
again behaved with dishonor. He had convinced himself that she was
no longer an innocent, so there was no harm in bedding her. God, he
knew better, but he could not think clearly around her. Nothing
good ever came of violating the tenets of his upbringing.

His carriage drew to a stop and the door opened.
Scully swung inside.

"Where have you been?" asked Scully.

"Are you my keeper now?" asked Max, wondering how
Scully had come across him.

"Forget that. Did you find her?"

Max stared at his hands.

"Fanny is in a fret about you," Scully said.

A sharpness in his voice made Max look up at his
friend. "What is wrong?"

"Offer me your congratulations, son. She has finally
agreed to be my wife."

Pain shot through Max. Roxana would never agree to be
his wife, and he finally had a glimmer of an understanding why. She
was wrong, but how could he expect her reason to be balanced with
those scars on her back? "Good, then."

"I suppose we shall have to draw up a settlement."
Scully turned toward the carriage window and stared out. "You are
the head of the household."

"I need to draft a piece of legislation before the
next Parliament."

Scully turned toward him and stared. "Did you find
Miss Winston?"

The carriage pulled up in front of his town house
then. As Max alighted, not commenting, he stared at the ornate
limestone and tall windows. He was a man who had so much, but he
would trade everything he had for the chance to hold Roxana.

He entered the marble-floored hall and stared at the
gold-plated girandoles, the gilt mirrors and expensive paintings.
Did Roxana truly prefer her bare wood floors in her drafty attic
above her dress shop?

The butler reached for his coat and Max shrugged out
of it, forgetting the disarray of his clothing. He headed for the
library and sat down to draft a bill to prohibit violence against
women. He knew his chances of getting it passed were slim, but he
had to try.

*~*~*

Fanny's knees shook as she stood in the drawing room
and recited her vows. Scully stood beside her and solemnly repeated
the minister's words. He seemed quite subdued, but he had done as
he said and obtained a special license so they might be married
right away.

Her French friend had visited this morning with a
vengeance. She only hoped she did not soak through her rags and
stain her amber gown. That it was not too late to tell Dev that she
was not pregnant and end this before he was bound to her for life
tormented her.

She had been presented with plenty of opportunities
to tell him, but had kept her mouth shut. On one hand she was
relieved she was not with child, but disappointed too. She feared
her soon-to-be husband's reaction. Would he hate her? He had
insisted on marriage only when he thought she was with child. She
had wanted him to insist, and he had left the choice to her.

All her life, men had told her what to do when it
came to marriage, love and relationships. Her father had insisted
when the over-fifty duke began courting her that she must dismiss
her other suitors. And she had. When the proposal came, she
accepted it, as she knew she should. Her husband and then Max had
made all the decisions about the upbringing of her children. She
did not know how to make decisions for herself. She could furnish a
house or arrange a party, but she had never decided her own
fate.

And she feared Dev would be angry, feared he would be
disappointed and she feared that she had finally done the thing
that would make her content at the cost of everyone else's
happiness.

Max stood stoic and silent, his face betraying no
emotion. Would he hate her for abandoning him? Would he look for a
wife? Would he allow her children to live with her and Dev, or
would he insist they remain in his home? He had that right.

The ceremony ended and Dev turned to her and tilted
her chin to press the sanctified kiss on her lips. His lips were
dry and the kiss quick, as if this was too dignified a moment to
ruin with passion.

Julia clapped her gloved hands together and Thomas
stepped forward to kiss her cheek.

Scully kept his hand under her elbow as if he could
steady her shaking. He cast her a skeptical look as if uncertain
why she was exhibiting such a fit of nerves. She had to tell him
that she had tricked him. She could only hope that he would not
hate her for it.

*~*~*

The packet of papers arrived just a few days before
Christmas. Roxana had hung red ribbons around the shop windows and
splurged on candles to burn late into the evening. It was an
extravagance, but it drew customers' eyes to her windows in the
short dark days before the holiday. She had been lighting the fat
candles as the darkness fell, when the footman entered her
shop.

She had not heard from Max. She had thought she had
seen him standing in the street in front of her shop, but he had
not come inside.

As she took the packet of papers upstairs and unbound
them she began reading. At first she was confused, but then she
began to understand that it was legislation drafted to make it
illegal to beat a woman to the point her skin was broken. As she
drifted in and out of the legalese she frowned. The last paper was
a letter and at the bottom of the page was his signature, "yours
forever, Maximilian Trent."

She hadn't had a chance to read more than the
salutation of the letter, when Madame Roussard climbed the
stairs.

"Mademoiselle, there is a gentleman to see you." If
she had been paying attention she might have heard the unease in
her manager's voice, but her heart was soaring believing Max was
below.

"Please would you send him up to me, then lock the
shop."

"Yes, Mademoiselle."

Hearing the footsteps on the stairs, Roxana turned
and expected Max, but instead her father stood there with that look
in his eyes. Her fluttering heart came to a dead stop, and the raw
metallic taste of fear filled her mouth.

"Hello, Papa," she said.

"So this is how Trent keeps his whores?" he
asked.

Roxana didn't answer. Nothing she could say would
dispel his anger.

"How much does he pay to keep you?"

"Nothing. This is all my doing. I pay for this."
Roxana winced. Why couldn't she keep her mouth shut?

"Anything my daughter owns belongs to me. Where is
the money?"

Roxana closed her eyes.

"I saw you lighting the candles. I saw Trent leaving
here at night. I know there is money."

"There is no money for you."

The first blow across her cheek whipped her head
around. The next knocked her to the floor. And then she protected
her hands.

*~*~*

Devlin entered Fanny's room, his room now too,
without knocking. Fanny had behaved strangely for a bride, shaking
and jumpy. Or perhaps not so strangely for a bride, but for a woman
of middle years who had been married nearly twenty years before and
had been his lover for the last year, she was extraordinarily
skittish.

She had disappeared before the wedding breakfast and
then several times throughout the subdued celebration of the day.
Perhaps the pregnancy made her ill, but she had seemed unwilling to
be alone in his company.

She stood fully dressed in front of the fireplace.
"Ah, there is my beautiful bride."

"I have done a dreadful thing," she whispered.

He walked to her and rested his hands on her
shoulders. "Yes, you have become too slender. All that play,
Fanny." He shook his head as if he regretted their days of
laughter. In truth, he would regret giving them up during her
confinement. "We shall have to take care that you grow fat and
round as a dumpling, my darling."

She turned, her eyes huge in her face. "But that is
just it, Dev. I'm not with child."

He pulled her to him and offered comfort. "I am
sorry, love. I am so sorry."