Married to the Marquess (29 page)
Read Married to the Marquess Online
Authors: Rebecca Connolly
“Are we?” he asked softly, holding her eyes with the power of his own.
“No.”
He smiled tenderly, and pushed off of the post, stepping up into the gazebo again. Then he held out a hand to her. “Will you dance with me, Kate?”
Miraculously, she laughed amidst the fluttering of her heart. “Here? Now?”
“Of course, here and now,” he said without concern. “Haven’t you always wanted to secretly dance with a handsome man in the middle of the night in a lilac covered gazebo on a senile lord’s property with the moonlight swirling all about us?”
She wanted to laugh out loud at his impish suggestion, but she couldn’t. She couldn’t deny that she had wished for exactly that, but she would most certainly not be telling him so. “But there’s no music,” she protested softly, her lips pursing just a bit as she placed her hand in his and allowed him to help her up.
“Oh, please, Kate,” he scolded as he backed up into the center of the gazebo, tugging her along. “Are you telling me you can’t hear the songs all about us in that musical mind of yours? There is a symphony playing, Kate, and it comes into my thoughts whenever you are near.” As if to prove his point, he started humming a soft tune in his low, melodious voice, and it sent shivers down her spine.
“You are entirely too charming for your own good,” Kate muttered with a smile as she moved towards him.
“I know,” he quipped, shifting his hold on her hand and pulling her in closer with one hand on her waist, continuing to hum.
“What are you doing?” she half-whispered, her insides aquiver at his touch.
“Teaching you to waltz, Kate. I learned years ago, but it was apparently unfit for the propriety of an English ballroom until very recently.” He gave her a look she was far too unsettled by to interpret. “I think it is suited for a husband and wife, though.”
Breathe, Kate, breathe
, her mind screamed, and it was all she could do to obey as Derek resumed his low humming and guided her in the pattern of the waltz. They continued to dance on and on, just the two of them in the gazebo, slivers of moonlight and stars their only illumination, the stillness of the night their only companion. Eventually, the proper form melted into something far less, with his head resting alongside hers, and her face turned into his shoulder.
“You waltz perfectly,” Derek breathed somewhere near her ear, his voice muffled by her hair. “If I didn’t know better, I would say that…” He paused suddenly, though his waltzing never faltered. She felt him shake his head, and bit back a smile when he said, “No, that would be impossible. You are clearly just that gifted.”
She snickered softly and lifted her head. “I know how to waltz, Derek.”
He pulled back and stared at her, his dance finally faltering, but somehow, he kept them moving in a semblance of the pattern. “You do?”
“I have known how to for years now,” she admitted, unable to hold back her smile now. “I overheard some ladies talk about it ages ago, and they were so scandalized by it that I was fascinated. I went home that night and practiced alone in my room. I imagined myself to be quite graceful at it, but never had any opportunity to prove it until now.”
Slowly, a disbelieving grin grew on her husband’s face until he was beaming. “Wait, I have a secretly improper wife? How delightful!”
“Not improper!” she protested, pushing at his chest a little. “Just… a trifle daring. Secretly.”
“Even better,” he said with a meaningful waggle of his brows.
She laughed merrily and allowed him to sweep her into a grand waltz movement as he imitated a great swell of the music he had been dancing them to. She sighed and shook her head. “I’ve never told anybody that before. Just you. And… and I’m glad to have you know my secrets, Derek.”
Slowly, he brought them to a stop, and looked down at her with the gentlest, warmest eyes she had yet to see him bear. “I want to know all of them,” he confessed, cupping her cheek with one hand.
“So do I,” she whispered, wrapping her hand around his wrist and leaning into his touch.
Accepting the unspoken invitation without hesitation, Derek bent his head and captured Kate’s lips with his own. Somehow, though he had kissed her often enough, this felt like the first time all over again to her. The same stuttering of her heart, the same trembling of her knees, the same war within herself to both move closer and move away.
Only it was so very different from that first kiss that the two could hardly be related.
There was passion and heat and need in this kiss. Gone was the hesitation, the uncertainty, and the nerves of before. Now there was confidence and delight, and though confusion still swirled around her as it had before, she was not tossed about by it.
Never had anything ever felt so right, confusion or not.
Again and again they kissed, and they were slow, deep, savoring kisses that made Kate feel as though her very bones were melting. In some small, still sentient corner of her mind, she remembered to be grateful Derek was a strong man, as he was all that held her upright. Tight in his embrace, wrapped about him, she had somehow ceased to exist and he and his fire were all that remained.
She felt safe in his arms, in his hold, in his presence. Here was happiness and home and life. Here was where she belonged, where she was always meant to be. And where she yearned to remain. And if that did not scream love, she did not know what else would.
She broke the kiss with a whimpering sigh, feeling that she ought to say something, anything. The moment was too much, too precious to leave things unspoken. “Derek, I think… I think I…” She looked up into his eyes, so full of warmth and understanding, of desire and pleasure, looking at her as if she were the only woman in the world.
She couldn’t say it. The words were on the tip of her tongue, were swelling her heart until she felt certain it would burst, but she could not say it. She released a heavy sigh and leaned her head against his chin. “I’m so confused,” she whispered in a low, harsh voice as she tightened her hold around his waist.
Derek wrapped his arms around her fully, and tucked her head beneath his chin. “I know,” he murmured, pressing his lips into her hair. “I know.” He released a slow breath himself, but said nothing further as he held her, comforted her, and waited for their pounding hearts to settle.
Kate nearly cried at such tender attention. She loved him; she
loved
him, and she couldn’t even say it. He had to know what she was going to say, what she could not manage to get out. But he had said nothing, had not even looked disappointed or upset. And now he was holding her, knowing that she could not bring herself to say the words that were hanging unspoken between them.
Perhaps somehow, the magic of the night would carry her thoughts to his heart, and he would feel them, would know just how much she meant them, though she could not vocalize it. Someday she would say them; she could not be a coward forever. However, he wasn’t saying the words either. Whatever he was feeling, there were no words to enlighten her.
But here and now, in this moment, she thought she felt them. She thought she could hear him saying them to her as well. And if that were true, then she could wait. The words would come in time. So long as she could feel this way, she could wait however long it took.
“Kate, something has been troubling me since last night.”
Derek’s words brought Kate out of the daze of her thoughts as they ate breakfast together, and she looked at him in confusion. “What was troubling? I thought we had a marvelous time.”
He actually blushed a little at the recollection. “We did. Apart from trying to get back through our hedge without bleeding, it was the best night I’ve had in a long time, and certainly the best dance I have ever had.”
Now it was Kate’s turn to blush, which she quickly covered by shoving some more eggs into her mouth.
“But besides that point, I tossed and turned all night over one little detail,” Derek continued, ignoring Kate’s sudden lack of table manners.
“Which was?” she asked when she managed to swallow.
His expression turned very serious. “You said that you go out to that gazebo in the middle of the night alone.”
“Yes,” she replied promptly. “It’s my escape. When I’m there, I can imagine myself as being anywhere but here, anyone but who I am.” She smiled softly at him. “But I don’t believe I will need to do that anymore.”
That deflated him momentarily as he tried to remember how to breathe properly, and he returned her smile. But then he remembered his purpose. “Regardless, you go alone. How often were you doing this, Kate?”
“Oh, I don’t know. Once a week? A few times a month? I never sat down and calculated.”
Derek felt his blood begin to boil and he clenched his teeth. “That is not going to continue.”
Kate stilled and looked at him sharply. “I beg your pardon?”
“It’s not safe for you to go gallivanting off in the middle of the night alone, especially in London,” he gritted out, trying to remain calm.
“Derek, I have never been caught nor seen,” Kate assured him, a small but bewildered smile gracing her lips. “My reputation has not suffered in the least for this.”
“Hang your reputation, Kate! I don’t care half so much about that as I do for your safety and your person!” He ran a hand through his hair, the panic that kept him awake most of the night coming back to haunt him. “What if you were attacked? What if somebody took you? What if…”
“Oh, don’t be ridiculous, Derek,” Kate scoffed with a snort. “I always carry a knife on my person whenever I go out.”
That brought Derek’s tirade up short. She carried… a
knife
… on her person. He ought to say something rather indignant, such as “That makes no difference,” or “So do bandits.” But all that managed to come galloping out of his senseless mouth was a blurted, “Where?”
Kate gave him a rather devious look, but didn’t reply. All she did was take his chin in hand, press a quick, but heated kiss to his unmoving lips, and flit from the room like a bird, saying something about having things to do today, and she would see him later.
He sat at the table for quite some time after she had gone, mulling over their conversation. She obviously saw nothing wrong with her actions, and that worried him just as much as her actions. The very thought of something happening to her made his blood run cold. Yes, she carried that blasted knife, wherever she kept it; and yes, he was rather curious as to location, but that was a quest for another day; but it could hardly matter, no matter how sharp or wicked a blade it was. Assuming she could even wield such a weapon.
With a shudder, he admitted that she probably could, and rather well. If the woman could waltz in secret, who knew what other less than proper things she had knowledge and expertise in.
He couldn’t make her stay, he would not. She was like a lilac, in truth; she had fairly blossomed once the pruning and taming had ceased, and he didn’t dare subject her to the same any further. But something had to be done, or he would be sitting watch outside of her door the rest of their married life just to be sure that she didn’t go alone. If only it were not so far away.
A sudden idea struck him with such force that he sat back in his chair. He thought it through carefully, wondering if the idea were even a realistic one. A fairly scheming grin flashed across his face as he determined that not only was it plausible, it was necessary. It was something she would never in a million years suspect. Today was the two week mark, but this would take far longer than that, which brought a satisfied smirk to his face. Now he absolutely had a concrete reason to tell Kate he was going to stay. And after that… he was quite certain he would have confessed another.
Laughing triumphantly, he jumped to his feet and dashed out of the room, startling the footmen and Harville, and, ignoring them all, he took his jacket and hat and swept from the house, humming his song to her from the night before, and relishing the thought of his task at hand.
Kate would never expect this.
It was just the thing to convince her to love him in return.
For he was no longer falling in love with her. He already did love her. He was very fully already in love with her, loved everything good and bad that was her, and had no doubt he would continue to love her for quite some time after all of this madness was over.
And he would do so quite madly, at that.