Lord of Regrets (11 page)

His family.

The word hit him in the throat, choking him. He wanted to be everything his father hadn’t been. He wanted…

Two pairs of green eyes turned to face him, and the lump moved down into his chest. Natasha’s cold gaze was unforgiving, uncompromising. His own flitted to Leona, and there he found a better welcome, curiosity and anticipation.

Calmed, he took a deep breath.

“Well then, my ladies, shall we be on our way? The day is clear and the roads should be dry.”

“I’ll need twenty minutes,” Natasha said tonelessly. She stood, sweeping Leona up with her.

“Of course,” he said with alacrity. “I don’t mind watching her.”

Leona fidgeted in her mother’s arms, and after a long moment, Natasha put her down.

In the wake of Natasha’s departure, the room felt empty and cold despite the well-tended fire. Remnants of breakfast lay on the table, and he picked up a pastry idly. Leona stared at him.

“Let’s go for a walk, shall we, before being locked in the carriage?”

There were ten hours of travel this day, and the carriage, as it had been yesterday, would be cramped with people. He needed air and he needed to clear his head of the residual effects of drink.

She nodded. He held out his hand and, tentatively, she placed hers in his. Her hand was tiny but strong.

They walked out into the inn yard. He savored the brisk air, tinged with the familiar and comforting scent of horses and hay. The inn was on the London Road, on the outskirts of the village, but the street nearby bustled with early morning activity. They made their way along the cobblestoned street. He kept his stride in check, but still she practically skipped next to him, trying to keep up.

Leona dragged and he looked to see what had caught her attention. He smiled when he saw the window display with its array of dolls. He had seen what passed for a store in Little Parrington. This small shop likely looked like a garden of delights to her. Happy that at least his daughter’s desires would be easy to fulfill, he directed her to the door of the store. He could feel her excitement build. She looked up at him.

She reminded him of the spaniel he’d had as a child, the little face eternally hopeful, asking for a bone or a morsel of meat, for anything Marcus would give him. He half expected Leona to wag her tail.

He pulled the creaky wooden door open with a jangle of bells and then held it, letting Leona pass through. The smell of damp and dust assaulted them, and Leona sneezed. Marcus let go of the door and stepped in behind her, rubbing the gloved fingers of his right hand together to remove the wood chips that had splintered off.

The proprietor stumbled in from a back room, wiping a grimy hand through stringy white hair. Marcus surveyed the shop with a critical eye. The display of toys was in the left front corner, and to his eye the assortment was thin: wooden puppets and rag dolls, a layer of dust over most. It would do for now, but his daughter would have the best when they reached London. He’d buy her the damn menagerie if it would please her.

He smirked at his own ridiculous thought––such a move would beggar him many times over.

“How can I help you, sir?”

“The young lady is looking for a doll, is that not right, Leona?” She nodded slowly, eyes wide.

“Well, tell the shopkeeper what you would like.”

Leona kept staring, her eyes even larger if possible.

“Or perhaps you would prefer to look first?” Leona nodded more quickly this time, and Marcus turned back to the shopkeeper with a small smile. “There you have it. The young lady would like to browse. We shall let you know when she has made her selection.”

Minutes later, they exited the store and Marcus was grateful to breathe in sweet, fresh air again.

More than twenty minutes had passed, so he hoisted Leona up to his chest, and to hers she clutched her new doll––which was in truth an old French fashion doll, its once fashionable clothes sadly out of date.

“May I call you papa?” she asked suddenly, her voice almost lost in the rush of winter wind.

That choked-up feeling hit him again.

“That seems appropriate,” he murmured with some difficulty, “considering I am.”

She snuggled closer against him, and he adjusted his hold for her wiggling.

“Thank you, Papa.” The small word, said in her precise little voice, hurt. Hurt beautifully though, with that elusive promise of happiness. A few minutes later, just as they reached the inn door, she said, “I’m glad you’re not dead.”

He laughed as they entered, and then his amusement was cut short. Natasha stood outside the door to the parlor, glaring at him. Behind her, Mary hovered nervously.

Marcus walked across the room and let Leona down, patting her on the head as he passed her into Mary’s care.

“My papa bought me a doll, do you see, Mama?” Leona asked, tugging on her mother’s hand. “I’m going to call her Lydia.”

“How sweet of him,” Natasha said, her words flat, emotionless. Only the flicker at the corner of her mouth revealed her derision.

“Well, shall we be off then?” Marcus asked with forced cheer. He held out his arm for Natasha, and she took it reluctantly. As reluctantly as she had let him inside her the night before.

He pushed the thoughts of last night aside, just as the first pulsing ache settled in his groin. He wanted her desperately but patience was necessary.

He rested his other hand over hers, enjoying the feel of her tucked in there, by his side. She smelled heavenly, and she felt heavenly on his arm. His
wife
. He couldn’t think the word often enough.

“What do you know about children, Marcus?” she scoffed. “You think you can buy our daughter’s love, despite not having been a father to her.”

“I would have been.”

“No. You would have killed her.”

His hand tightened over hers for the briefest moment before he regained his control. She was right. She hadn’t been there when he had come to his senses. If he was going to have any progress with the wooing of his wife, he needed to remember that. Always.

“And in doing so, you might have killed me.”

Again, she was right. This time, it was his heart that tightened like a fist.

Chapter Fourteen

Five hours of interminable traveling before they finally stopped for lunch. Natasha was grateful that Leona, who had not traveled since her first year, was viewing the entire journey as an exciting adventure. There was no crying or pleading or asking to stop to use the privy four times an hour. Instead she asked Marcus question after question about London.

In the carriage after lunch, Leona fell asleep in her arms. The hours passed in painful quiet, with neither Pell nor Mary comfortable talking to their employers in front of others, and with Natasha rebuffing every single one of Marcus’s attempts at conversation.

His knees touched hers. She shifted away and then drifted off to sleep. When she awoke, it was to find him watching her. For one moment, she smiled at him, at the intense sweetness of his expression. Her chest felt expanded, lighter, and then quickly caved back down as she remembered where she was, who he really was, and that five years had passed.

There were things she would have said had they been alone. Or perhaps she would have said nothing. What was the point? The time to convince him was over. Now, she merely had to survive, to protect Leona.

Leona, who clung to her new doll as if it were the most amazing creation in the world.

“I’m going to sleep with Leona tonight,” Natasha said softly when they stopped at dusk. No matter the circumstance, she didn’t need to speak in front of everyone.

“No.”

He didn’t even look at her, and Natasha was torn between wondering if he would attempt to make love to her again and wanting to hit him. No, not torn. Either way, she wished to break his autocratic tone. He’d won thus far. He’d gotten his way in every skirmish. He’d bound her to him, and she had as little freedom as one of the serfs who had worked on her father’s lands.

Natasha was tired from the journey, tired from the fight, and so she allowed the innkeeper to show them to their room.

“We’ll have dinner here.” She heard him give more instructions to the man, before Marcus closed the door and turned to her.

She stood, frozen, by the bed.

“Your trunk, fresh water, whatever else you need, will be here momentarily. As their selection is limited, I ordered us both the turbot. I hope that pleases you.”

Typical Marcus, to ask only after he had already made the decision for her. Five years ago, in the flush of love, she hadn’t noticed. Or perhaps she had thought his behavior indicative of his love for her. Natasha couldn’t remember and it hardly signified. What did matter was that now all her choices were made for her.

She hadn’t exchanged more than a half-dozen sentences with him all day. Now here she was, opposite him at a table. There was no scenery to stare at, no sleep to feign. She wished for Leona, for the distraction her daughter brought.

“What I want,” she said slowly, meeting his eyes defiantly, “is to not have to wake up and see your face.”

“Peace, Tasha,” he said, running his hand through his hair. She remembered the texture of those dark brown waves on the pads of her fingertips. He lurched forward, strode to her, and wrapped her in his arms. “I love you. Let the past go, please.”

For one moment his touch felt good, warm––a cocoon for her broken heart and her tired soul. The next moment it felt suffocating.

“I don’t trust you,” she hissed, forcing the words out. “If it were just the past––”

He held her tighter, as if his grip could make her change her words. There was a scratching at the door and his arms dropped.

“Enter,” he called and stepped away.

The maid carried in a pitcher of fresh water and placed it beside the basin atop the commode. Behind her, two men carried in the trunks. Pell was with them, one of Marcus’s valises in hand. Natasha moved to the corner where she sat down at the small table.

“I won’t be a moment with your dinner,” the maid said as she left the room.

“Would you like me to lay out your clothes, my lord?” Pell asked. Marcus waved him away.

“Not tonight. I’ll manage on my own. Please make certain that all is well with Leona.” Pell left, as did the two other men, and once again Marcus was alone with his wife.

But the maid was as good as she said, and as Marcus took a step toward Natasha, there was another scratching at the door.

The food was hearty. That was the best that could be said for it. In the wake of dinner, Natasha sat on a chair by the window and he lay on the bed. He would not bungle this as he had the night before. His wife––
wife
––had mysteries, secrets, to uncover. If he wished to woo her, he would need to know them.

He studied her face, his gaze lingering on the each curve––her brows, nostrils, cheeks, lips. He hadn’t known beauty until he met her.

“Where did you go after you left me?”

“You mean after I escaped to save my life and that of our child?”

“Yes.”

She made a sound, something between a laugh and a sniffle. “I went to an inn. On the outskirts of London. A coaching inn.” Her words came out flat, a recitation of the barest facts. “The next morning, I sold most of the jewelry I had. Then I went to Exeter, stayed in a boarding house for unmarried women. When I started to show, I moved on before they could throw me out. Found another boarding house on the other edge of the town and introduced myself as a widow.”

“I sent a man to Exeter.” The town, large and bustling, broken up by the river and surrounded by a stone wall, was big enough that a woman could live there under two separate identities with no one the wiser.

“I know,” she whispered. For the first time Marcus realized how deeply she had feared him. “It’s why I went east to Norwich. And then, I thought perhaps you had stopped your search.”

“I never stopped.”

“I know.” Her voice broke on the words, and she turned so that he saw even less of her face, just the curve of her jaw and her pale ear. He didn’t want to know if she cried.

“I found you, Tasha.”

Her chin lifted. Her hand fisted in her lap. He saw all the little motions of her body, reacting to him.
Let go
, he wanted to say.
Let us start anew
. But he held himself back.

“So you came here, to Norwich. How long did you stay before you moved to the coast?”

“Why the hell do you care?” She faced him then, her expression furious, and beneath that he saw that she had indeed wept. Dried tracks of tears stained her cheeks. Her lashes clumped together.

“I don’t want us to be strangers.”

“You should have thought of that before.”

He peeled himself up off the bed with a sigh. “I’ll be back soon.”

He grabbed his jacket and left. A strategic retreat.

He stopped in to check on Leona––she was fast asleep in the room next door––and then made his way outside to the bracing night air. The scent of the public rooms nearly pulled him in, but he didn’t need another night of that, drunk and ridiculous by the hearth of an inn. He simply needed to give Natasha time to relax and ready herself for bed.

When Marcus finally returned to the room a good hour later, Natasha lay on one side of the bed, wrapped in her nightclothes, covers tight to her chin. But she didn’t yet sleep. He could tell from the uneven tenor of her breath and from the awareness that crackled between them.

He undressed silently. Slid between the sheets, silently. When he reached for her, she resisted his embrace.

“Come, my love. I just want to hold you. Nothing more. You’ll give me that.” He didn’t make it a question, and she yielded to his demand. Marcus wrapped himself around her body and let out a deep sigh.

He knew he was asking more than she was ready to give. He knew as well that it was unfair. But he needed her the way a drowning man longed for breath.

In her company, and in that of his daughter, he was learning what home was. He had never before felt so humbled and small.

Chapter Fifteen

The carriage rumbled across the bridge, and Natasha found herself peering out the window with as much enthusiasm as Leona.

London.

Five years ago she had left this city, the city of her birth, of her childhood, of her adolescence. Five years ago, she had run away with the heavy stones of her shame strewn across her body and had stumbled through the foggy evening, across the dirty streets, and found an inn, a place that would take in a lady alone, one with wild eyes, whose rich clothing looked much the worse for a climb down soot-clad stone walls onto the muddy grass of the garden. That hostelry had been nothing like she had experienced in all her previous eighteen years of, if not pampered, then at least sheltered, existence. For the first time, she had lain on strange sheets and awoken at the irritating bites of bugs that had not been visible earlier.

For five years, she had remembered the pain of her leaving.

Now, as she sat pressed tightly between her daughter and her husband, she felt the first stirrings of excitement, of the sense that she was entering a place where life
happened
.

Perhaps she had come here under duress. Perhaps the man sitting to her left, who insisted on holding her gloved hand within his incessantly caressing grip, was the same man who had caused her terror, but still!

Before her, the warren of twisted streets––slums, neat avenues, and squares––loomed, squatting and rising along the river she knew existed but could not see beneath the spires and towers.

Natasha had loved London. Each outing from her family’s home had been an opportunity for her world to expand and for her life to begin. Each person she saw or met had carried the mystique of possibility, of being the one who held the key to her future.

Her society had been varied, from the French émigrés to the Russian émigrés and visitors. She had had few acquaintances among the English, for with the instability on the continent, her family’s ancient and honorable genealogy held little weight with society, and she had been forbidden to mingle with those in trade. In London, she had been on the fringes of gentility. In Little Parrington, too, she had lived in an in-between state. Now, she was a viscountess.

Viscountess.

For the first time since her forced marriage three days earlier, the full import of that word hit her. She was back in London and she was a viscountess. Lady Templeton.

Mrs. Prothe disappeared with a whisper into the gray London streets. At long last, Natasha had come home.

But when the carriage eased to a stop at the front door of an elegant townhouse, Natasha’s definition of home narrowed. This four-story mansion was a far cry from any home she had had thus far. This was her prison. She peeked at her daughter, for whom she had sacrificed so much. This would be Leona’s home, but never Natasha’s. Never.

…

Marcus’s footman had ridden ahead to inform the house of their imminent arrival. Both the butler and the housekeeper were at the door to greet them. Marcus’s gaze swept over the marble hall, noted the absence of his mother, and he breathed a sigh of relief. One matter at a time.

“Natasha, dearest,” Marcus said, pulling her deeper within the house. “Allow me to present to you our butler, Logan, and our housekeeper, Mrs. Marsdale.” He eyed the gaggle of servants milling in the hall. “My wife, Lady Templeton.”

No one looked particularly shocked, although they seemed to stare at his wife with rapt interest.

“And my daughter,” he said, a bit more cautiously. “Miss Leona.” He intended to see his lawyer in the morning to immediately set about ensuring her name was the same as his.

“This is where you live?” Leona asked, gaping at the house. “Is this a palace?”

“Hardly.” Marcus laughed. “And, sweetheart, this is your home as well.” The little endearments were getting easier.

“And Mama’s home, too?”

“She
is
my wife,” Marcus said with laugh, glancing toward Tasha. His laughter died. She looked unmoved by the humor. “Well then, how about Mrs. Marsdale shows you and Mary to the nursery and I’ll show your mother to her room.”

“Marcus? What
is
this circus?”

“Mother, impeccable timing,” he remarked dryly, slowly turning to face her, aware that Natasha had gone completely rigid.

“Are you my grandmother?”

His mother let out an uncomfortable laugh. “Grandmother?” she said. “What’s your name, child?”

“Leona.”

“Well, Marcus? Am I?”

He nodded, wincing inside at the supercilious arch of her brow. He should have warned her.

“Child, you look half-asleep on your feet,” she proclaimed, despite the clear shock. His mother waved a hand, and Mrs. Marsdale stepped forward. “Show the girl and her maid to the nursery.”

Natasha made a move as though to stop them or to follow––Marcus didn’t know––but his mother turned her attention to his wife.

“You, then, must be the new Lady Templeton?” At Marcus’s confirmation, his mother laughed. “What a charming surprise. I assume you haven’t told your grandfather? Those stupid codicils. Whatever were you thinking?” What
had
he been thinking to bring Natasha here first before they’d had a chance to acclimate to married life?

“Actually, after Natasha is settled in, I intend to go see grandfather.”

“Well, go now, why don’t you,” his mother suggested spitefully, “before the hour grows too late to visit. I’ll show your new wife around.” She took Natasha’s arm and ushered her away. The last sentence he heard was, “Now who
are
your people?”

As he walked to his grandfather’s, Marcus thought about what he knew of Natasha. Her father was a Russian noble and had been wealthy there before he left for Paris, where he married Natasha’s mother, one of three daughters of a wealthy aristocratic family. Then they had fled to England with all the wealth they could carry, which was far less than they were accustomed to. Natasha had grown up in genteel poverty.

Life had been unfair to her, and much of it was his fault. He had been thoughtless and selfish in making her his mistress when she had been raised for a far more respectable life than that. He had acted as any spoiled young nobleman might, taking anything offered as his right and never thinking about the consequences. Yet, how could he regret those months? The only action he truly regretted was sending for the surgeon.

But now Natasha was exactly where she belonged. She was a viscountess. When the old, manipulative schemer died, she’d be a countess. His countess. He had no idea how society would welcome her, if her––their––past ever came to light, which it surely someday would. But the ton had accepted far more scandalous matches in the past. History was peppered with them.

The gates of his grandfather’s house rose up before him. He nodded at the footman who let him in, a familiar gesture, and walked up the path.

He found his grandfather in the study, which was three times larger than his own small room back at Marcus’s townhouse.
The war room
was how Marcus termed it when he thought of the eight men gathered in this space discussing all the possible permutations of the future, helping to prepare England for tragedies, for new discoveries and inventions that could be used for evil by her enemies. He knew his grandfather’s work was not as heroic as that; he didn’t know, however, if the other seven men had also laid intricate, self-serving web-like schemes.

“It’s too bad that you left London. I had work for you, people who wanted to meet you,” his grandfather said immediately, laying on his complaints. “Napoleon is in his death throes. There will be meetings, treaties. I can’t leave London. I want you to be there.”

“We lost at Brienne,” Marcus protested. “How can you say he’s done for?”

“We won at La Rothiere and the process of negotiation has begun at Chatillon. Are you so oblivious to the world around you? Little wonder that what you term your business is but a trifle.”

Though he bristled at the slight, Marcus pushed his frustration away.

“I’ve been away from London. I’ve had greater concerns.”

“Your new wife, yes. We’ll get to her in a moment. There are interests. Competing, compelling interests. The tsar, Metternich, the Prussian king. And there is Bernadotte, a man who’s come from nothing.”

“How do you know about Natasha?”

“I have men across all of Europe, Asia Minor, and Northern Africa. I have men in the Americas. I know about your mistress.”

Heat flooded the back of Marcus’s neck, his cheeks. A crawling understanding reached into his mind, and he shuddered with the force of his world upending.

“How long have you known?”

“I knew about your mistress since you first seduced the girl.”

“Did you know where she was? All those years that I searched for her? Did you know I searched? Did you know where she was?” He couldn’t keep the desperation out of his voice, and he hated the thin, uneven sound of it. He waited for his grandfather’s answer, sick with trepidation. The back of his neck was cold now. Every word uttered was impossible, game-changing, and terrible.

“I knew you searched,” his grandfather said. “I didn’t have her followed. It didn’t matter.”

“What do you mean, it didn’t matter?” A rage built up inside Marcus, a rage at the uselessness of his life.

“You’ve married. She is not who I would have chosen, but perhaps her ancestry will be useful.”

Marcus had scared Natasha all those years ago just to please this man, to keep a secret. And the man had already known. “Why are you telling me this now?”

“Because you are the only one I can send. The man I have in place now…he can only do so much on the fringes of society.”

“Now you have no one, sir,” Marcus rasped, the swirling emotion barely below the surface. He stalked to the door of the study, ignoring the squeaking sound of the wheels of the bath chair.

“You’ll think about it,” the old man called behind him.

Marcus paused, one palm flat against the doorjamb, catching his forward momentum. He turned, stared his grandfather in the eyes, in the damn watery, gray eyes that thought they knew everything, that wanted to control everyone.

“Did you know about Leona? About my daughter?”

Marcus had the pleasure of seeing his grandfather’s face pale, the thin lips working.

“The girl is yours?”

“Yes, mine. Your damn codicil isn’t worth a cent to me.”

Walking briskly through the gray haze of impending night back to the townhouse, anger and a sense of freedom warred within his breast for prominence. Marcus had been a pawn in his grandfather’s game his whole life, and that man would try to make him one even now. But the old man wasn’t omniscient and that carried considerable weight with Marcus, empowered him in a way he had never truly known before. Leona’s gift was that she had set him free.

A sudden surge of energy invigorated him. The massive buildings around him no longer felt oppressive. He had avoided London these last years because every brick, every soot-stained stone, had reminded him of his loss. And because here in London, his grandfather reigned. Now, everything shifted. Natasha was with him once again, permanently, bound by the strictest, most holy laws of society, and the chains of his father’s legacy and his grandfather’s control no longer motivated Marcus’s actions.

What did it all mean? Why the codicils if his grandfather knew? But his grandfather
hadn’t
known about Leona.

Marcus was a free man, and all around him London was vital, thriving. His business in town would be finished soon, but that was no reason to return quickly to Woodbridge. After all, he’d promised his cousin Charlotte a Season, and if he could rouse the love of society Natasha had once had, she would likely enjoy the whirl as well.

Natasha, who cringed at his touch and protested their love. They were still touched by the past.

Bile rose in his gut once more––rage at the impotence of the last five years, at his own foolishness in crumpling to please his grandfather, at the waste of all that time.

The need to see his daughter, to hold her close and purify his past, overwhelmed him.

Lost in his thoughts, he made his way home by rote, so often had he gone to pay obeisance to the old man. The butler informed him that his mother was sitting down to dinner. The meal had slipped his mind entirely.

“And my lady wife?”

“A plate in her room, milord. She was very tired, she said.”

His own hunger raged up suddenly in his stomach, and Marcus paused in the hall.

“Marcus? Is that you?” his mother called. Years of habit had him turning toward her voice.

As he entered the dining room, a maid was quickly setting his place, anticipating his desire.

“Roast rabbit,” his mother said. “I know it isn’t your favorite, but I did not know you would arrive today.”

“Rabbit is fine.”

The first course was soup, and he ate that in the seething shadow of his mother’s polite silence. He waited her out. The soup had been removed and the rabbit laid out before she spoke again.

“She is…very
French
,” his mother remarked finally.

“She was born in London, I believe,” he responded with an arched brow. “And her father is Russian.”

“Nonetheless, she is foreign, and the air of her foreignness hangs about her quite indecently.”

He was beguiled for a moment by the poetry of his mother’s speech.

“I find her charming.”

“She has lived like a commoner. For all we know, she is a commoner. She says her father was a prince in his country. Princes are like rabbits in Russia.”

Marcus’s hand stilled in the process of slicing a morsel of meat. He took a deep breath, even as he surveyed his plate.

“Nonetheless, I hope you welcome your new daughter with open arms.”

His mother looked somewhat taken aback. “Who do you think I am? Who taught you manners when you were still in long shirts? I doubt Natasha is to blame for your actions. I may not approve of her. I might even tell my son that in a moment of privacy, but society shall never know.”

Marcus laid down his fork and knife, met his mother’s disparaging gaze with his own chagrined one.