Lord of Regrets (25 page)

“You left me.”

“You left me first.” Natasha fell silent, shaken. He was right, of course, in the narrowest meaning of the words, if he meant that day she fled London. Yet, in that case, his threat to her had been a sort of leaving. But if he meant emotionally, the lack of forgiveness, then he was right again.

If she wanted this, she would have to forgive him. This reunion was up to her. She would need to find the right thing to say, but what she felt was frustration that he would go to such lengths to get her only to let her go so fast. So easily.

“You tracked me down. You hunted me for years. You followed me to Norfolk. You made me marry you. Now you would throw that all away? Because of a man who doesn’t matter? Who only existed in my life because he wasn’t you. But what I want is you.
You
.”

She threw herself at him, at his stiff body, his arms flat against his sides. She flung her arms around him and buried her head into the hollow at his neck, pressed her chest to his, her heart to his. She bawled, wept, shook against him. Till he was holding her, too. His arms wrapped around her made her weep even more. Her whole body was one long, racking cry.

“You can’t––” His words were shaky, his voice porous, and through them she thought she could feel his own tears. Hers began to dry under the ache of his pain. She stayed where she was, listening to his pulse, to the working of his throat. Pressing her chest firmer to his, imagining she was opening herself up to him, her love up to him, enveloping him with it so that he would know, so that he could trust her, too. “You can’t blame me anymore. It…” He stopped again, as if he were choked up with whatever he wanted, needed, to say.

She slowly separated herself from him, didn’t move more than a few inches away, just so she could see his face, could look into his eyes, could open her soul to him in that way. Let him see the woman he knew, the one he had called soul mate so many years ago.

“It will need to end.”

It will
. She said it with her eyes, with her heart. She wanted to let go of it all. If she could.

“I will apologize now, Tasha.” The old nickname caressed the back of her neck, her cheek, the most tender parts of her, as if memory were the soft pad of a finger, the whisper of a feather. “Because I was wrong to force you. I thought I didn’t have time, that you would run away again. But in forcing you, I lost you.”

“You didn’t lose me.”

He laughed, and for a moment it felt as if everything were perfect. “You’re being contrary. You know I did. Let me apologize because I was wrong, and then we can put this in the past where it belongs. Much as my grandfather manipulated people, manipulated me—”

“Manipulated me,” Natasha murmured.

“
I
manipulated you,” he continued, almost on the same breath.

She nodded slowly, wet her lips with her tongue, took a step back, and felt the edge of the bed behind her.

“Yes. Yes, Marcus, you did.” She almost cried again, the tears heavy and hot against her lower lids, but she kept it back. Because the time for those tears, for self-pitying tears, was over.

“You would have run away.”

“I would have run away,” she repeated.

“So therefore, I want to apologize again for five years ago. For terrifying you. For being a coward. I swear to you, Natasha, that I came to my senses quickly. I would not have gone through with it. You would have seen had you stayed a quarter hour more. But…your actions were understandable, whereas mine were not.”

“You were just a boy,” Natasha whispered.

“I was a man.”

“Under your grandfather’s wing. You hadn’t grown up yet. I was in love with the promise of the man you’d be, and now you are that man.”

“Drivel,” he said with a disparaging laugh, but he also seemed more at ease. As if she had helped him release some of his tension. Which made her feel better, more hopeful.

His words offered hope as well. He was talking about the future as if it would be. Not as if everything was over between them.

“Your grandfather is a persuasive man,” she admitted. “I still don’t know what he wanted of me, but he ensured I was welcome in society, and then…” She trailed off. She had been about to say that when he thought she had made herself too welcome, he had tried to hide her away. But that would remind Marcus of Carslyle, and the wound was too fresh. Yet again, she couldn’t begin their new life by not sharing her thoughts. “When he thought I was having an affair, he tried to persuade me to leave London. He had been most gracious and charming to me before then.”

“Why do you say you love me now?” Marcus asked abruptly. “For months we’ve fought. Then we’ve been apart. Do we even know each other anymore?”

His words stilled her, scared her. But she didn’t want them to be true. She wanted the sweet thread of her love for him to be what vanquished all doubt, and so she opened her eyes to him again, bared her soul.
You know me
.

And he was looking at her like he could read her, like he did understand. Suddenly shy, she swept her lashes down, studied her hands.

“I love you because of the boy you were and the man you have become. Because you won’t stop being a father to Leona even though you are apart, even though it would be so easy to walk away. I’ve seen your letters; I’ve read them with her. You didn’t write to me, other than…well, but to her…and I love you because you are a man who cares about his family, first and foremost. And I am your family, and you always saw me that way, even when I did not.

“I am your family, Marcus. I am. I want to be. I am your wife. You do have possession of me.” She looked up, watched his eyes darken, felt him take that step forward. “And I,” she added, stepping forward into their love, “I have possession of you.”

“I am yours, Tasha. I always have been, from the first moment we met, and when you put yourself into my hands, it was my heart I put in yours.” His voice hitched.

She nodded, and then he was around her. His body shaking, his body drawing what he needed from her.

“You can’t leave me again, Tasha, not if this is going to work. You
cannot
. I need you. You are my family. Leona is my family. No one else matters. But you cannot leave me again. And, God help me, if you so much as look at another man—”

“Marcus, it is only you I want, that I ever wanted. I love you.”

He buried his head against her shoulder, his body hunched over, his face pressed against her neck as she had done to him. His tears wet her throat. His hands grasped at her back, at her body, as if he could possess her, devour her that way.

“Say it again,” he growled against her.

“I love you.”

“Again,” he demanded, this time, his mouth open and hot against her skin.

“I love you.”

“Again.” She felt his teeth scrape, his tongue scorch, his lips tease, and she laughed with the insistence of his repeated demand and the pleasure of his embrace.

“I love you, Marcus. I love you, I love you, I love you.” She wrestled with him, till it was her face pressed to his neck, her tongue against his skin, bare above his cravat, her touch convincing him of her need, her desire for him. “I love you. I have loved you forever. And I will love you forever.”

He grabbed her by the shoulders, dragged her away, his gaze dark, intense, doubting upon her.

“But you said you hated me, just as passionately.”

“In those moments, I did. But I didn’t stop loving you.”

He let go of her.

In that instant of separation, the three inches of heated air that thickened and pulsed between them, she understood what they were doing.

“When we married, Marcus, I was angry. I was scared. I didn’t make my commitment to you before God. I will make that to you now. I will never leave you, just as you will never leave me.” She hoped as she said the words that they would be the truth. “I am your wife now, and I love you.”

She lifted her hand to his cheek. When he didn’t flinch away, she caressed him, her thumb along his jaw, his cheek, her fingers at the soft, sensitive, thin flesh behind his ear.

He lifted his arm, covered her hand with his own.

“And I, too, make my commitment to you now, before God: I will never leave you, just as you will never leave me. I am your husband now, and I love you.”

Simply her words said back to her, but Natasha felt them unlock a part of her she hadn’t known was caged.

She stepped forward, rose up on her toes, pressed her lips to his.

She had never felt an embrace so full of joy or known a joy quite like this––a joy birthed of sorrow and pain, and through that agonizing journey, all the sweeter, all the deeper.

His hand slid up her arm, and even as she shivered at the touch, she tugged on his cravat, pulled it loose from its simple knot.

She needed him inside her, to seal their vows.

She moved faster, pushing his coat from his shoulders, tugging on the sleeves. When that garment was on the floor, she stopped only to let him work on the buttons at her back before she returned to his waistcoat, to his shirt, to his pantaloons.

“Tasha,” he murmured, his mouth against her hair, “I want you naked.”

Which she wanted, too. She helped him, stepping out of her dress as it pooled on the floor, unfastening her petticoats as he worked on unfastening her stays.

His hand brushed over her nipple, and even through the barrier of her chemise, she felt the sharp pain of desire, at once so familiar and so strange, and between her legs was where the heat pooled, the need centered, even though it was just his palm against her breast.

“It’s been so long.” Her words were unnecessary but they fit the sudden shyness, the realization that this time, this time there was no going back.

“Five months,” Marcus said with a laugh, and she knew he remembered exactly the last time. She flushed, remembering as well.

His lips touched hers again, and she focused on the feel of his lips, firm, giving, spicy too, though she knew the spiciness was that sharp desire.

“Stop thinking, Natasha, shall we both?” Under the suggestion of his words, everything turned to liquid and color, dark ruby warm pleasure, blue strands, ribbons of sensation, chocolaty, warm pads, which if thought interfered, was where his hands touched.

The bed was behind her, fragrant with all the male scents of him, his soaps, the fresh linen, even the down that stuffed the pillows. She could smell herself, too, womanly, richer, ready for him.

His hands on the curves of her hips made her voluptuous, outside and inside, and she arched her back, lifting her breasts toward him, offering herself.

Then his bare chest pressed against hers, breast to best, belly to belly, naked and vulnerable. He was vulnerable, too.

She shuddered, stunned with that knowledge and with his touch, and she pulled him closer to her, wrapped her arms around him, lifted her neck, and pressed her lips to his skin.

Here, on this bed, in this foreign country, she was powerful.

She wanted to weep with the understanding, but instead she gave into it, gave into his love, her love, their love. She gave into it with as much power as she had tried earlier to convince him she had and he should.

When they joined, all the sharp sensation was inside her, more than she remembered it being, as he stretched her, as she grasped him with her limbs, lifted to bring him deeper.

He stilled, and she opened her eyes, found him looking back down at her. His lips parted. She waited, wondering.

His voice was soft and deep, and the sound vibrated through her.

“We’re almost home.”

Epilogue

Leona hated London, hated everything about London. Her father had tricked her, brought her here and left her, and then her mother had left, too. It didn’t matter if he wrote to her every week or had sent her a present for her birthday. He was far away, in Paris, when she knew very well––she had heard her grandmother say so––that he had no reason to be there.

Unless it was because of her. Maybe they had left because of her.

Grandmother had said that they would be back soon, that everything was fine, the same as it had always been. However, nothing was the same as it had always been. Leona didn’t even know what “always” was. Even Cousin Charlotte, who had sat still in the sitting room as if she were a painting just barely come to life, had left. She said she was going to stay with friends for the Season, but Leona knew better.

A sharp, high-pitched bark urged her to her feet and, sharing one knowing glance with her nanny, she set down the stairs at a run. Puffin had grown increasingly protective lately. If Leona didn’t stop her barking soon, Grandmother Kitty would stop letting the puppy have the run of the house. Or worse, would threaten to give her away, which Leona couldn’t bear.

She could hear a commotion in the front hall, and even as she flew down the stairs, she practiced her excuses and pleas.

Then she stopped because Puffin wasn’t barking any more. Instead she was slurping away happily, licking Leona’s mother’s face. Her mother’s happy face.

Leona took a step back. She wasn’t entirely certain it was her mother even. But there was her father, a step behind, turning around, catching sight of her. And he was happy. He was holding out his arms.

Leona picked up her skirts and ran, ran for his arms, and when she was up, snuggled to his chest, she had to hold back from slurping at him the way Puffin did. But it didn’t really matter, because Leona was happy, too.

Acknowledgments

Lord of Regrets is one of those “books of the heart,” and was made even more so by the number of people who have helped make it what it is today. First of all, I’d like to thank my editor, Gwen Hayes, for championing the book. I’d like to thank as well everyone at Entangled Publishing. I’d also like to thank the following people for their invaluable input: my mother, my sister, Moriah Jovan, Rachel Jones, Amber Anderson, Sarah MacLean, Stephanie Dray, and Stephanie Cabot.

About the Author

Sabrina Darby
has been reading romance novels since the age of seven and learned her best vocabulary (dulcet, diaphanous, and turgid) from them. She started writing romance the day after her wedding when she woke up with an idea for a Regency. She resides in Southern California with her husband and son. She can be reached on
Facebook
,
Twitter
, and her website
www.sabrinadarby.com
.

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