Seduction Becomes Her (23 page)

Charles pulled at his ear. “Ah, I forgot,” he said carefully. “I haven’t mentioned Sofia’s son, my half brother, Raoul, have I?”

D
aphne stared at him a long moment before asking sweetly, “Are there any
other
relatives that you have forgotten? Or shall I forever be opening my door to yet another member of your family that you failed to mention to me?”

Charles grinned. “Technically, you wouldn’t be opening the door—that’s Garthwaite’s job.”

Daphne ignored that sally, and hands on her hips, she said, “I would remind you that I have just become a member of this family. With the exception of your relationship to the earl, something I learned from others, and being introduced to your cousins and others that attended our wedding, you have been singularly secretive about the closest members of your family. I must tell you that I find secretiveness to be a most unattractive trait, especially when it concerns family members.”

“The family is rather complicated,” he said warily, “especially when you factor in the old earl, my paternal grandfather.”

“At the moment, I’m not interested in your grandfather,” she snapped. “It’s bad enough I know nothing of your family, and I didn’t even learn of John and Daniel’s existence, or their deaths for that matter, until just a few moments ago. Since you and your stepmother were not fond of each other and she has been dead for a few years, I can understand, partly, your avoidance of talking about her. But now I discover that you have another brother! Where is he? How old is he? And when do I meet him?” Her gaze narrowed. “Or are you about to tell me that he, too, has met a tragic end?”

“Half brother,” Charles corrected automatically, avoiding answering her last question. The expression on her face warned him that he was about to discover that his sweet wife had a temper and that if he wished to stay in her good graces, he had several tricky minutes in front of him. Dash it all! This wasn’t how he’d envisioned their first moments at Stonegate. Certainly, at some point, he’d planned to tell her about Raoul, not everything, but enough to satisfy any curiosity she might have about him, but this wasn’t that point. It had been wrong, he realized, not to have told her some facts about the family that she was marrying into, but in all fairness, events had moved rather rapidly. He thought back over the past weeks, trying to imagine a time when it would have been appropriate to murmur into her ear, “By the way, did I mention that I had an older brother, John, who was murdered nearly fifteen years ago? Or that John’s son committed suicide, oh, about four years ago, and almost three years ago, my stepmother, a woman I loathed, was killed by a madman…the same madman who just happened to kill my half brother at the same time?” Not even to Daphne, or at least not yet, would he confess the truth of that terrible night. Telling her about Raoul and what had happened in that dungeon below the Dower House was not something he viewed with pleasure.

As the minutes passed and Charles remained silent, Daphne sighed. “Aren’t you going to answer me?” she asked quietly. “Is there some reason that you don’t want to talk about Raoul?”

“There are several reasons,” he admitted, “but the main one is that I didn’t intend to bore you with family tragedies your first hour in your new home.”

She studied him for moment, reminding herself again of the brief time that they had known each other. They had known each other a month, and though trust and respect had grown quickly between them and she loved him, she reminded herself with a touch of wonder, they didn’t know each other very well…yet. She sensed that he was not deliberately hiding things from her, but that he had not yet decided how to present something that she suspected would be unpleasant. Guilt smote her. They had only been at Stonegate a matter of minutes, and she was already interrogating him like a shrew. Deciding that perhaps this was a topic that could be postponed, she finally said, “You will tell me later?” A faint smile curving her mouth, she added, “Even about the Old Earl?”

Charles laughed. “Especially about the Old Earl.”

Once Garthwaite had served them tea, a brief tour of the house was next. It was a big, handsome house, and Daphne had to pinch herself several times to make certain she was not dreaming as she was shown by Garthwaite into room after room, each one more spacious and elegant than the previous one. This magnificent place was now her
home.
With Charles at her side, she would spend the rest of her days in this house. Their children would be born here, and a tingle went through her at the idea of the wide hallways and empty rooms ringing with the sounds of children running and laughing through the house. She glanced occasionally at Charles, who trailed behind her, wondering what was going through his mind. His expression was hard to define. There was pride in his home—she could see it in his eyes—but there was also something guarded in his expression, as if he was protecting himself and dare not let his true feelings show. Had his stepmother tainted his love of the place? Or were there other reasons? Perhaps something connected to his father? His half brother? She sighed. There was so much to learn about his family, and it certainly did not help that her husband was disinclined to talk about them. Curiosity ate at her, and she wondered at the series of unfortunate events that seemed to have plagued the family. Obviously, his mother was dead. But what of his father? Charles had never once made any reference to him. She made a face. Until she walked through the front door of Stonegate, he’d not mentioned any of the others either, so that omission should come as no surprise. But she wondered how long ago Charles’s father had died. It could not have been recent for surely if it had been, he would have said
something.
A terrible thought occurred to her. Was his father’s death in the same period of time that had so cruelly taken John, Daniel, Sofia and…Raoul from him? A shudder rolled through her. Had she married into a family that was cursed? Telling herself not to be a goose, she pushed those thoughts away and concentrated on being delighted and awed by her new home.

Time flew, and soon enough, Daphne was being shown to her rooms to change for dinner. Having seen throughout the house the style and taste that Charles’s stepmother preferred, she had expected her bedroom to be as cold and rigidly formal as the rest of the house, and she had been prepared to dislike it on sight. Instead, she was charmed to be shown into a suite of rooms that revealed a very different hand at work. The amber silk walls and cream ceilings imparted warmth to the big rooms, and while the bed hangings and draperies of gold-striped bronze and the carpets in tones of hunter green, russet, and cream were somewhat masculine, she was quite happy with her new rooms.

Jane had already ordered a bath prepared in the attached dressing room, and Daphne was soon sinking into the warm carnation-scented waters. The water felt decadent against her skin, and the memory of Charles’s urgent mouth against her breasts sent a shaft of longing through her. Her cheeks pinkened. The things they had done last night! Heat that had nothing to do with the water temperature flooded through her, and she gasped as her nipples hardened and an insistent ache bloomed between her legs. Her mind was flooded with memories of Charles kissing her, tasting her, making love to her, and by the time she stepped from the tub, her whole body was tingling, yearning for his touch. Uncertain whether to be alarmed or amused by her reactions, she quickly dried herself and slipped into a blue dressing gown.

Her black hair waving wildly around her shoulders, Daphne wandered into the bedroom. She stopped short at the appearance of a small table laden with various covered dishes near her bed; a bouquet of white lilies and yellow rosebuds had been set in the middle, and two chairs had been drawn up next to the table. Candlelight bathed the room in a soft glow, and the perfume of the lilies drifted in the air.

The door that connected their rooms pushed open, and Charles strode in. He was wearing a black robe, the lapels heavily embroidered in gold and crimson thread, and a thrill traced through her at the knowledge that like her, he was naked beneath the fabric. Spying her, he grinned and said, “Excellent! You haven’t dressed for dinner yet.” His eyes slid down her slender form. “Although,” he murmured with a glint in his eyes, “I wouldn’t have minded undressing you…”

Trying to ignore the way a pulse throbbed low in her body at his words, she waved a hand in the direction of the table. “Is this your doing?”

“Indeed, it is. It has been a very long day, and I thought for tonight that you might prefer simpler fare and to postpone the grandeur of the dining room for another day.” He smiled. “One in which you are not longing for your bed.”

She smiled back him. “Oh. Am I longing for my bed?”

He walked up to her and pulled her into his arms. His mouth teased hers, his teeth nibbling at the corners of her lips. “If you are not, my sweet,” he said huskily, “I certainly am.”

Daphne melted into his arms, her mouth opening to him, savoring the taste and thrust of his tongue. His hand on her bottom, pushing her up against his hard shaft, made her moan, and her fingers tangled in his hair, pulling his head closer to her.

Dinner was quite late.

They eventually feasted on turbot with lobster, lamb cutlets, peas and asparagus, plover’s eggs in aspic jelly and meringues à la crème, among other dishes and then once again, retired to bed. It was only when they were lying side by side, breath, pulse, brain, and body slowly returning to some degree of normality after another bout of lovemaking, that the subject of Charles’s family came up again.

With Daphne cradled next to him, her head nestled on his shoulder, Charles stared at the silken canopy over head. Fate was a peculiar thing, he decided ruefully. It seemed incredible that he had left Stonegate hardly two months ago intent upon discovering if Raoul was alive and slaughtering innocents again and had returned a married man. A married man, he admitted, a bit astonished, who was madly, wildly in love with his wife. He turned his head and dropped a fleeting kiss on Daphne’s forehead. It almost didn’t matter that she didn’t love him, that Adrian and April were her first concerns. As long as she allowed him to be part of her world, he was content. He frowned. Actually, he allowed, that was a dashed bloody lie. He knew that he would never be satisfied until Daphne loved him…as he loved her.

Charles was pleased and not a little surprised at the promising start of their life together, but then he didn’t know why he should be. He supposed that there might have been a way to escape the parson’s mousetrap once they had been rescued from the sea cave, but by then, he was so thoroughly in her thrall that even finding an honorable way out of marrying her had held no appeal to him. With a start, he realized that he’d
wanted
to marry her. Even back then. It had been a gamble, perhaps the biggest in his life, but then, he acknowledged cynically, he was ever the gambler.

He pressed another kiss to Daphne’s forehead. Yes, he was a gambler and look what it had gained him. The only woman he could ever imagine sharing his life with, the only woman he could ever imagine bearing his children. Something clenched within him, the idea of children, the awareness that last night or even tonight, he could have planted a child in her womb, filling him with a curious mixture of panic and joy.

The thought that one day he might be a father had never crossed his mind. Would he be a good father? he wondered uneasily. He’d adored his own father; John had been a good father to Daniel, and Julian was an exemplary father. Perhaps there was hope for him.

Raoul’s contorted features jumped into his head, and a kernel of fear lodged deep within him. He’d always believed that Raoul’s sheer evilness had come from Sofia, but what if he was wrong? What if part of the malignancy that had driven Raoul to inflict such horrific acts on innocents had been inherited from his own side of the family? What if he carried that same evil seed? And passed it on to his own child? A shudder roiled through him.

Daphne felt the movement of his body, and she angled her face toward his. “What is it? Are you cold?”

Charles shook his head. “No,” he said flatly.

A note in his voice alerted her, and rising up on one hand, she looked into his grim features. “What is it? Have I done something to displease you?”

“Good God, no!” he exclaimed. He smiled crookedly. “I was thinking of family…and the family that we may have one day.”

She frowned. “And this makes you uncomfortable?”

“No. It’s just that….” His voice trailed off, and his eyes searched hers. Dare he tell her the truth? Was this the moment? He swallowed. She had a right to know. But what if she turned from him in revulsion and disgust?

The expression on his face alarmed her. She touched his cheek. “Charles, what is it? Surely it is not so terrible that you cannot tell me.” She smiled slightly. “After all, we have faced Sir Wesley together—what could be worse than confronting a vile old ghost?”

His gaze roved over her features, and he traced the shape of her mouth with one long finger. “There is so much that you don’t know.”

“But you’re going to tell me, aren’t you?” she said softly.

Charles nodded slowly, his mind made up. “Some of the Westons have not been very, uh, virtuous,” he muttered. And that, he thought disgustedly, doesn’t even begin to cover it, not when you consider the Old Earl and his legion of by-blows scattered throughout the British Isles and…Raoul. Daphne looked expectantly at him, and avoiding the hard ground, he added reluctantly, “I loved my father, but after my mother died, he became…a drunkard and a gambler. He brought us to the brink of ruin, and if it hadn’t been for his marriage to Sofia, we might have lost Stonegate.” Deliberately, he said, “Theirs was no love match. He married her for her money because if he hadn’t, Stonegate would have fallen in rack and ruin about our ears. Sofia’s fortune is the only reason that Stonegate exists as you see it today.”

“That doesn’t sound so very bad.” She gave him an encouraging smile. “Impoverished gentlemen have been marrying heiresses since the beginning of time.”

He was avoiding the crux of the matter, and he knew it. He sighed, wondering when he had turned into a coward. But he knew the answer to that—when he had fallen in love with Daphne. He could not bear the idea of her recoiling from him in horror and revulsion. And she is very likely to do just that, he thought wretchedly, when I tell her about Raoul. What woman wouldn’t?