Married By Midnight (11 page)

When his desires began to feel more like some form of torture, he decided it was time to say goodnight and return to bed, but another moan caused them both to jump.

“
Did you hear that?” Anne asked.

Garrett raised his candle high over their heads. Together they hurried to the end of the corridor and spotted another flash of white heading into the south wing.

“
It’s my father,” Garrett said. “He must be having some sort of episode. We should get him back to his room.”

They both hurried to pursue him.

“
Father, wait!” Garrett shouted as they drew closer. “Let us help you!”

The duke halted and swung around. His face was ghostly white and creased with a wretched look of terror. He dropped to his knees and cupped his hands together as if in prayer.

“
Are you all right, Your Grace?” Anne asked, kneeling down beside him and laying a hand on his shoulder.

“
I couldn’t find my way back,” he replied. “I’m so frightened.”

“
There’s nothing to be frightened of. We’ll help you.” Garrett pulled his father gently to his feet.

Anne and Garrett walked on either side of the duke, quietly leading the way.

“
Did you have a bad dream?” Anne asked.

The duke regarded her with confusion. “I don’t know. I can’t remember.”

They walked in silence until they reached the duke’s door and all three entered the chamber.

“
Everything will be all right now,” Garrett said as he helped his father into bed and covered him with the blankets.

The duke’s stricken eyes darted back and forth between the two of them. “It’s so cold outside. There is a curse on the palace, you know. If it freezes, the palace will shatter like glass.”

Garrett took hold of his father’s hand. “Do not fret about the curse,” he said. “Anne and I will marry on Christmas Eve and everything will be fine.”

His father inched down and rested his head on the pillow. His eyes were wracked with fear. Still mystified by this radical change in him—for the duke was not same man—Garrett stroked his forehead and hair.

“
Where’s Adelaide?” he asked. “My sweet wife?”

“
She’s sleeping,” Garrett replied.

“
Will you stay until I fall asleep?” his father pleaded.

“
Of course,” Garrett replied, while meeting Anne’s concerned gaze on the opposite side of the bed.

She moved forward to hold the duke’s other hand. He fell back to sleep within minutes, and Garrett’s heart felt heavy like stone.

* * *

“He never looked at me that way before,” Garrett whispered as he quietly closed his father’s door. “He seemed so desperate and helpless.”

“
You were very kind to him,” she replied. “He’s a lucky man to have such good children.”

They started down the corridor together to return to their own separate bedchambers.

“
It feels odd,” Garrett said. “I’ve been gone for many years and I’ve hated him for as long as I can remember. I didn’t want to come home. I didn’t care about the Pembroke fortune being lost to the London Horticultural Society. This estate meant nothing to me. But now that I am here, it’s like I am seeing everything for the first time, and I have a different father. He is not the same man he once was. To be honest, I like this one better.”

Anne took hold of his hand. “Then it is good that you have come home. Perhaps it will help you to resolve whatever stood between you in the past.”

He was overcome suddenly by a profound compulsion to explain to her exactly what had been standing between them. Did she even know?

“
How much did Devon tell you about my relationship with my father?” he asked.

“
Nothing, really,” she replied. “I was told only that you had no wish to live at Pembroke—or anywhere in England for that matter. That you wanted to live a separate life, unconnected to your family.”

He held the candle over their heads as they rounded the corner and reached her door. He was vastly disappointed to end their conversation. They both paused.

“
Will you come inside for a while?” she asked. “I don’t think I will be able to sleep now, and I want to know more about you and your father. If you wish to tell me, that is.”

Surprised by her invitation—for she had clearly voiced her displeasure when he pushed the limits of propriety the night before—he nodded and followed her into the room.

The bed was in shambles. Clearly she had been tossing and turning as well, and he was unsettled by the extent of pleasure he derived from that observation.

His eyes turned to the fire. It seemed quite dead, but upon closer scrutiny he discovered a few glowing embers of warmth still thriving in the ash.

Anne set her candle down on the bedside table, and Garrett set his own down on the chest of drawers near the hearth.

“
Are you still cold?” he asked. “If you like, I can freshen this fire for you.”

“
That would be wonderful, thank you.”

He knelt down and threw a few kindling sticks onto the grate. Within minutes new flames caught and burned. He loaded larger sticks of wood and another log, leaned the iron poker against the marble casing, brushed the dust off his hands, and turned to face Anne.

Her complexion glowed like smooth ivory in the dim firelight, and the beauty of her face stole his breath.

He wondered why he had come in here. More self-inflicted punishment? Or perhaps he craved pleasure, at any cost.

Or something
more
than physical pleasure.

It had been so long since he’d felt that side of his emotions.

“
You’re still cold,” he said, watching her rub at her upper arms and feeling a strong stirring of arousal. “You should go back to bed.”

And he should do the proper thing. He should walk to the door and
leave
, but he had spent the better part of the night dreaming about making love to her. He couldn’t resist this opportunity to be alone with her.

They weren’t playing by the rules anyway. This whole arrangement was outside the normal realm of propriety.

He watched her climb onto the bed and slip beneath the heavy crimson covers.

“
I feel guilty,” she said.

“
Why?” he asked, slowly strolling closer.

“
Because I want to continue talking to you about your father, but it’s freezing in here. While I am warm in my bed, you are...” She paused.

“
Suffering miserably in the chill?”

And from a host of other things, too, but he had the grace not to mention them.

* * *

Anne watched Garrett approach the bed and knew they were treading into very dangerous territory. He was handsome and virile, full of intriguing mystery, and after their stolen kisses last night, she was finding it more and more difficult to remember the fact that this was supposed to be a charade.

She had been floating in a thick haze of sexual desire all day long, and when she found Garrett wandering the corridors outside her bedchamber a short while ago, she’d wondered if he might have come to steal a few more secret intimacies. She had experienced a thrill like no other and was perversely disappointed to discover he was only searching for a ghost.

But now he was here, in her bedchamber, like a beautiful masculine dream figure, and she didn’t want their time together to end.

“
I appreciate your concern for my basic comforts,” he replied, his voice pleasantly sensual.

As he approached her slowly, he reminded her of a hungry lion, carefully creeping closer so as not to frighten off its prey.

She was completely spellbound. Ready to be devoured. If she had any sense, she would steel herself immediately and suggest that he leave this very instant, but any hope for responsible behavior was fading fast with each step he took closer to the bed.

If only she could forget about the soft touch of his lips the night before. If only she could shut her eyes to the captivating sight of his strong, muscular form.

What would he do if she let him stay? How far would he take this, and more importantly, how far would
she
allow it to go? She didn’t want to be the sort of woman who lived up to her notorious reputation, but this was so very difficult.

He reached the bed and paused at the foot of it. “May I join you?”

“
Yes,” she impulsively replied, than made one last effort to behave somewhat respectably. “But only if you promise to remember that we are not yet married. Can I trust you?”

A lazy grin touched his lips and he squinted at her. “I’m not sure. Should I leave?”

Damn him
. Her body was on fire. She could no more tell him to leave than she could stop herself from breathing.

Though she gave no reply, she supposed her expression was enough, for he leisurely moved around the bed and slid under the covers beside her.

Determined to cling to the safe haven of their earlier conversation—which was far less risky than the wild attraction presently firing her blood—Anne rolled to face Garrett and rested her cheek on her palm.

“
In the corridor you asked me how much I knew about you and your father, but you revealed nothing after that. Now I am curious to know why the two of you were not close.”

Garrett rolled to face her. “Now I feel foolish,” he said. “I thought you invited me in here to seduce me.”

She should have been unsettled by the suggestion, but instead, she was wickedly aroused.

“
Garrett,” she whispered. “You promised.”

“
Did I?” His tone was playful, teasing, enthralling.

“
It was implied,” she said, “and my curiosity must be satisfied.” She struggled to keep the conversation going, not to let her passions take over. “There seem to be many secrets at Pembroke. What happened between you and your father? Why did you leave here all those years ago and not return for seven years?”

He rolled onto his back and stared up at the canopy. The firelight danced on the walls and the flames crackled noisily in the hearth. “I will be blunt, Anne, because you should know the truth. Charlotte and I are not true Sinclairs. Not by blood at least. The duke is not our true father.”

Surprised, Anne leaned up on an elbow. “Does he know?”

Garrett turned his head on the pillow to look at her. “Yes. He’s always known. I don’t know how, exactly. Perhaps Mother simply told him, or he recognized that we looked nothing like him. All I know is that it was never a happy marriage and he despised me quite openly, for I represented all that he could not control. My mother, specifically.” Garrett paused and studied Anne’s face. She nodded and he continued.

“
He treated me like dirt under his boot. If he was not shouting at me or punishing me for something I hadn’t done, he was simply ignoring me, treating me as if I were invisible. On the day I left, he had spotted me in the garden with a very highborn young lady with a blood connection to the Queen. He called me inside and told me I should stay away from her, that if one of his sons should have her, it would be Devon. It was the last straw. I told him to go choke on his opinions, and that I would court whomever I damn well pleased. He knocked me around a bit, gave me a bloody lip, but I wasn’t a child anymore. I fought back and swung a chair at him.”

“Good heavens.”

“
I swore it would be the last time he would ever raise a hand to me, and it was.”

Anne digested all of this. “Were you in love with that girl?”

Garrett shook his head. “No, we were just friends, but it was a matter of principle. I left for Greece the very next day. Father provided me with an allowance under the condition that I stay away, but informed me that upon his death, I would not receive any inheritance. It was no great surprise. I always knew I would never inherit the title, even if something happened to my older brothers. He made that very clear to me early on.” Garrett looked at her. “So if you thought you were marrying a man who is fourth in line to a dukedom, that will never be the case.”