Lord of Regrets (13 page)

There was a round of laughter, as he had known there would be, and the inevitable protests and speeches against marriage and wives. Shortly, conversation turned away from Marcus and toward other society gossip. Underwood was distracted by a conversation with the man to his right, a man Marcus did not know. For a moment, Marcus had nothing to do but focus on the plate of beefsteak before him. Just as well, because the only other conversational topic on which Marcus was versed at this time was the manufacture of soap and the import of exotic ingredients, and trade was nearly as scandalous as the origin of his relationship with his wife.

After luncheon, Marcus made his last stop with a great deal less enthusiasm. This act would have been a pleasure in the morning, but that afternoon it had the added tinge of guilt, of the need to atone for a wrong done. With the uneasy idea that Underwood’s familiarity might cause problems in the future, he made his last stop of the day at Rundell, Bridge, and Rundell on Ludgate Hill. At Woodbridge, Natasha would have use of the Templeton jewels, but in London, as she had sold most of her jewelry over the years, she had nothing. It was time to replenish her box. He settled on a choker of pearls. Then, with no idea whether a child should wear jewelry or not, for Leona Marcus purchased a thin gold strand with a single pearl pendant.

An hour later, he stepped out of his carriage and looked up at the facade of the townhouse that had once been his father’s, and in truth had been his maternal grandfather’s. The guilt and the sense of wrongness fled. It was a new day, a new era.

The front door was open before he even reached the top step, Logan bowing and welcoming him home. The house seemed filled with energy and noise as well. His butler informed him that the dressmaker was there, in his wife’s sitting room, with the elder Lady Templeton and the young miss.

Marcus thanked him, ascended the stairs, struck by the desire to take them two at a time—a need he gave into on the last few as the noises of female laughter grew louder. He entered his room first and was met by Pell, who looked as if he had been waiting all day for his employer to return and need his services.

“They’ve been in there for three hours now,” Pell informed him as Marcus placed his package from the jewelers on the console and handed the man his soiled gloves.

Just then a loud, “No, no, no!” pierced the barrier of the walls and Marcus, thinking the voice strange, chalked it up to the dressmaker. A high, childish giggle followed the exclamation.

“And has Leona been in there all the while?” It seemed extraordinary to him that a child of four might be interested in sartorial pursuits for such an exaggerated length of time, but then, Marcus had to admit, he did not know what usually interested a girl child, especially one as quick-witted as his daughter.

“I am not entirely certain, milord. I retired to Mrs. Marsdale’s sitting room to avoid the din.”

“Ah.” On that sufficient note, Marcus once more picked up the parcel, undoing the ribbon so that he could separate it into its two elegantly wrapped gifts. The door between his bedroom and his wife’s bedroom––the very thought of its existence irked him––was opened with the slightest twist of his hand. He pushed it forward, knowing the space would be empty, but was surprised at the fragrant assault on his senses of a room that smelled feminine and lived in after so many years vacant. His eyes were drawn almost immediately to the doorway at the other end, leading to the much-smaller, well-lit interior of Natasha’s sitting room. Through the rectangular frame, it seemed crowded with people. In the center of it all, half-obscured by the open door and standing atop a box of some kind, was Natasha. Over her plain muslin shift, a swath of turquoise-blue silk draped across her shoulders, held up by the arms of a woman he assumed to be the dressmaker even though the majority of her was not visible.

“And in this as well.” He heard his mother’s voice, clearly. “Only look at yourself, dear.” Natasha’s head turned, and then Marcus knew she saw him, for she shifted until he was no longer in the periphery of her gaze, but its primary focus.

“Marcus.” He read his name on her lips more than heard the sound.

“Oh, yes. I am certain he’ll love this color on you,” his mother continued.

“I think,” Marcus said, projecting his voice as he crossed the room, “that what my wife means is, I am here.”

“Papa!” Leona appeared running around the corner. She threw herself at his legs, and he lowered his body to meet her hug. The sensation was so new, so surprisingly precious, that he blinked back sudden tears at the strength of the small arms that now clung around his neck.

“How goes your day, my girl?” he asked, lifting her, clutching his two presents in his hand pressed against her back. “Are you all outfitted with pretty frocks now?”

“Not yet,” she whispered, one hand moving to clutch at his ear as if she could make him hear her better. “She has to sew them first.”

“Ah, of course,” he returned in his own near whisper. He crossed the threshold into the dressing room, which in the normal course of events might be considered large but now felt overwhelmed with people. Despite the cold season, the window had been cracked open to let in a flow of air.

Natasha was still watching him, only she had turned back to the mirrored glass and now caught his gaze in its reflection, holding the turquoise silk more solidly in front of her body as if it would protect her. It didn’t prevent him from noticing the way her shift clung to her backside. He moved his gaze to his mother, whose raised brow made it obvious she hadn’t missed what he had been ogling.

“Marcus, since you are here, I’d like you to meet Mrs. Burgh. She is an excellent dressmaker. I had several dresses made up while you were away and her taste is exquisite.”

Letting Leona down to the ground, Marcus faced Mrs. Burgh, who stared at him with undisguised interest and disapproval, as if a man shouldn’t walk in on his wife’s fittings. Two other women, likely her assistants, crowded behind her.

“A pleasure, Mrs. Burgh,” he said, offering a perfunctory bow, his fingers clenched around the boxes in his hand. Perhaps this was not the time to distribute such gifts, with his mother and strangers in the room. “I shall leave you all to your work here. I merely wished to…” He caught Natasha’s gaze in the mirror once more and words failed him. He could hardly admit he was a lovesick man eager to see his wife after a morning away––that one hour apart was too much, but four was painful and five, a cruel space of time. “My mother was quite right, Natasha. I find that color very appealing on you.” His wife blushed, and he found that color appealing as well.

He backed out of the room with another general bow to its occupants and then swiveled on his heel. He was halfway back to his bedroom when he heard the soft clip of footsteps and then his mother’s voice.

“One moment of your time, Marcus.”

Agreeably, he stopped. She reached him and took his arm.

“Let us continue apace. I’d like to discuss a few ideas.” He walked forward, doing as she said. “What’s that in your hand?” Marcus winced. “Rundells!” Her laugh was a quick, mocking exclamation. “Do be careful. You’ve given up the majority of your inheritance for this woman. You don’t want to waste what you
do
have.”

“You need have no fear,” Marcus said, his good humor fading. “And I gave up that inheritance five years ago.”

“It is of no consequence,” his mother said dismissively, letting go of his arm and stepping deeper into his bedroom. She stopped, looked about as if she had never been in there before. He supposed it had been years since she had––since his father had been alive and they had lived in London together. Before six of his seven half siblings.

“Well, thank you, Mother, for welcoming Natasha.” He placed the packages on the console again. “And Leona.”

“It is a bit of a scandal,” she admitted, “but we do what we must. Perhaps no one will ever know. I, for one, will not be saying a word of the past. Though there will be questions once, and if, it is known you are the girl’s father.” Before Marcus could speak, she continued, “I think a dinner party, perhaps? To introduce the new Lady Templeton to the family at least?”

“There isn’t really any of the family in town,” Marcus said, forbearing to mention that he had little hope of keeping the scandalous history secret. “And we shan’t be inviting grandfather.”

“No?” she stared at him, utterly flummoxed, and he relished it.

“No.”

“I see.” His mother looked to the wall, clearly thinking. “Well, then, perhaps more informal. In any event, do you have the direction of her parents? I wish to invite them to tea or to dinner. Which do you believe would be best?”

“I sent a letter this morning,” Marcus admitted, even then slightly nauseated at the mere thought of Natasha’s father and their last interview. But Marcus had put cowardice away five years ago, and Natasha needed to be reunited with her family.

“Excellent.” His mother looked surprised again. And still somewhat questioning.

“For dinner,” he added. “Tomorrow night. However, I have not yet had their response.”

“Your wife seems to be of the impression that they will not come, that she has been disowned fully.”

Suddenly Marcus’s collar felt too tight, his cravat too done up, and all of the offending cloth choked him. He thrust the guilt aside. It was the past and he could not change it.

“Circumstances are different now,” he said.

His mother nodded. “Yes, a ring and a title changes everything.”

Chapter Seventeen

In the large oval glass, Natasha watched Marcus’s progress across the bedroom––
her
bedroom––and shivered. The draft from the open window was much more prominent now.

“This one as well then,” Mrs. Burgh noted.

At that extraneous piece of commentary, she turned her attention back to the turquoise length of cloth upon which both her new mother-in-law and her husband had agreed and relinquished it into the waiting hands of one of the seamstresses. Standing in only her shift once more, she nearly dared her husband to look back. But he had crossed through the wide double doors back into his room, his mother beside him.

She shivered again and stepped down from the pedestal, accepting her dressing robe from the other seamstress. She spied her daughter, perched on the round upholstered ottoman, clutching the pretty length of pink ribbon Mrs. Burgh had earlier tied in the young girl’s hair. Leona looked ready for a nap.

“Are we finished?” Natasha asked the dressmaker.

“Unless Lady Templeton has any more orders,” Mrs. Burgh replied, looking up from her notes. “I believe we have covered all the necessities and the frivolities as well.”

Natasha laughed. “I’ll just be a few minutes. Come along, Leona. Let’s get you to the nursery.”

She watched her daughter hop down from her seat. “I’m not sleepy,” she protested. Despite Leona’s words, it wasn’t long before she was asleep in her bed, long lashes fluttering in dreams.

When Natasha returned to her room, Mrs. Burgh and her assistants had finished packing, and the footmen were in the process of carrying all the packages and bolts of cloth down to the waiting carriage. Her mother-in-law was nowhere about, so she thanked the dressmaker. When she could finally close the door behind them, Natasha lay down on her bed and let herself sink into the soft mattress. While her world had changed completely in the last few days, it was not overly difficult to adjust to a life of increased leisure. With an indulgent stretch, she reached up to pull the bell cord. The greatest pleasure was the ability to order up a hot bath without having to boil and heft the steaming buckets of water herself.

She closed her eyes as she waited, but when she heard the door creaking open, the sound came from the wrong direction. She let out her breath with a deep shudder, sinking farther into the feather mattress. She didn’t need to open her eyes to know it was Marcus. She could feel him entering the room, sucking up air, taking up space. Slowly, she turned her head, her cheek resting on the pillow, and then she opened her eyes. It occurred to her too late that she was vulnerable, lying on the bed as she was. He was already next to her, sitting on the edge of the bed, one leg bent before him and the other hanging off the side.

“Exhausted, are you?” he asked, and the tenderness in his voice, the deep warmth of it, was so seductively inviting. His brown eyes studied her in a way that made her blink and shift her head so that the canopy was more in her view than his face.

“Somewhat.”

“Too exhausted for a gift?” The teasing, coaxing tone urged her to open her heart and her arms to him as she had when she was young and foolish––which was just enough to keep her frozen still, confused and indecisive.

“Are you still trying to buy my affections, Marcus?”

Out of the corner of her eyes, she watched him pale, and then the import of her words, let out so lightly, hit her as well. Once again, she had that sharp duality of emotions, anger at him for making her feel like the whore he had once named her and guilt for hurting him with her jibe.

She struggled up to a half sit, leaning back on her elbows.

“Natasha.” His voice was so soft, so caressing, and he joined it with the solid warmth of his hand, cupping her cheek, his thumb stroking her skin. She had a choice: to sink into that touch or to rebuff him yet again.

He was relentless with his pursuit. But then, why shouldn’t he be? As his wife, she was his, should be submitting to him, to his touch, his wishes––his gifts.

There was no choice.

“What do you have for me, Marcus?” she asked brusquely, shaking off his hand and sitting up completely. His hand seemed aimless for a moment, falling from her to rest atop his bent knee and then to reach inside his coat and draw out a slim package wrapped in paper inked with birds and flowers. The paper itself was lovely.

She accepted it, taking off the wrapping with a sense of inevitability and déjà vu. How many times had he brought her a bauble, a trinket, or some jewelry that was rare and costly? She had staked her future on that treasure trove, had turned the majority of it into solid English currency that bore nothing of Marcus’s taste or affection.

The velvet box opened stiffly under her hands. Within, three tightly woven strands of almost perfectly matched pearls gleamed in the afternoon light. It was an exquisite gift, one that had surely set him back a small fortune.

“It’s lovely. Thank you.” He took it from her and, as he was dangling the choker in his hand, reaching toward her, they heard the telltale scratching at the door to the hall. Natasha called for the maid to come in, a young woman named Sara who blushed and stared at the floor once she realized that Marcus was also in the room. The girl bobbed a curtsey and fled as soon as she knew what was wanted of her.

“A bath?” In the quiet of the maid’s wake, Marcus reached forward again, his arms snaking around Natasha’s neck, so that at the same time that she felt the cool pearls heavy against her skin, she also felt his heat, his touch, his breath. He fumbled for a moment, his fingers at the nape of her neck, his lips close to her forehead, so close that when they touched her, brushing gently against her skin, she half expected it. Then she heard the
snap
of the clasp closing. One of his hands settled on her jaw while the other tangled in her hair, cupping her scalp. Her world was suddenly the space between his hands, between her face and his. There was nothing more and nothing less.

He was going to kiss her. And she was going to let him. She swallowed hard, her throat working against the pearls that stuck thickly to her skin as if a symbol of her submission to him, to his right as a husband to kiss her, to have her.

Her eyelashes fluttered down and she waited, breath held, curious. His hands shifted, easing away from her skin, and then the space between them was greater, the air cooler. She opened her eyes again to find him studying her, his hands retreating till they no longer touched her person. No longer intruded on her.

“I am pleased with the way they look. Are you pleased?”

Swallowing hard again, Natasha bestirred herself from the bed, slid to the ground, found it unsteady. But she pushed herself forward to stand before the glass and clutched at the lip of the rosewood console for support. She stared at her reflection, pale skin, dressing gown, necklace––

It was an exquisite necklace with its gleam of ivory, one that seemed made to accentuate the elegance of a woman’s throat. It was the necklace a lady would choose to wear when she sat for a portrait.

“I am pleased,” she said softly, even though she wasn’t entirely certain she was. She didn’t know how she felt other than that there was a maelstrom within her.

Her thoughts were interrupted by the clanging sounds of footsteps and buckets against walls, and then the sloshing of water into the bath. Behind her, there was the whisper of cloth against cloth, and in the mirror she saw Marcus slide from the bed, brushing down his coat.

“Good then, wife,” he said with a satisfied smile that ate at her heart. “I shall see you at dinner.”

There were moments like these, so intimate and unsettling, that made Natasha feel like a sculpture being hewn from ice. A sculpture that would then melt under Marcus’s heat. Could she forgive? Forget?

Drawing on the violence of swirling emotions within her, Natasha reached up to unclasp the pearls. This was her life, but she did not yet know how to live it.