The Viscount Who Loved Me (15 page)

Once the two sisters were gone, he settled into the comfortable chair so recently vacated by Kate. It was still warm from her body, and he rather fancied that he could smell her scent in the fabric. More soap than lilies this time, he thought with a careful sniff. Perhaps the lilies were a perfume, something she added at night.

He wasn’t entirely sure why he’d returned home this afternoon; he certainly hadn’t intended to. Contrary to what he’d been telling Kate, his many meetings and responsibilities did not require him to be away from the house all the day long; quite a few of his appointments could easily have been scheduled at home. And while he was indeed a busy man—he’d never subscribed to the indolent lifestyle of so many of the
ton
—he’d spent many a recent afternoon at White’s, reading the paper and playing cards with his friends.

He’d thought it best. It was important to keep a certain distance from one’s wife. Life—or at least
his
life—was meant to be compartmentalized, and a wife fit rather
neatly in the sections he’d mentally labeled “society affairs” and “bed.”

But when he’d reached White’s that afternoon, there was no one there with whom he felt a particular urge to converse. He’d skimmed through the paper, but there was very little of interest in the most recent edition. And as he sat by the window, trying to enjoy his own company (but finding it pathetically lacking), he’d been struck by the most ridiculous urge to return home and see what Kate was up to.

One afternoon couldn’t hurt. He wasn’t likely to fall in love with his wife for having spent one afternoon in her presence. Not that he thought there was a danger of his falling in love with her at all, he reminded himself sternly. He’d been married nearly a month now and he’d managed to keep his life blessedly free of such entanglements. There was no reason to think that he could not maintain the status quo indefinitely.

Feeling rather satisfied with himself, he took another sip of his brandy, looking up when he heard Kate reenter the room.

“I do think Edwina might be in love,” she said, her entire face lit up with a radiant smile.

Anthony felt his body tighten in response. It was rather ridiculous, actually, how he reacted to her smiles. Happened all the time, and it was a damned nuisance.

Well, most of the time it was a nuisance. He didn’t mind it much when he was able to follow it with a nudge and a trip to the bedroom.

But Kate’s mind was obviously not lodged as firmly in the gutter as his, since she chose to sit in the chair opposite him, even though there was plenty of room in his chair, provided they didn’t mind squeezing next to each other. Even the chair kitty-corner to his would have been better; at least then he could have yanked her up and hauled her onto his lap. If he tried that maneuver where
she was seated across the table, he’d have to drag her through the middle of the tea service.

Anthony narrowed his eyes as he assessed the situation, trying to guess exactly how much tea would spill on the rug, and then how much it would cost to replace the rug, and then whether he really cared about such a piddling amount of money, anyway…

“Anthony? Are you listening to me?”

He looked up. Kate was resting her arms on her knees as she leaned forward to talk with him. She looked very intent and just a little bit irritated.

“Were you?” she persisted.

He blinked.

“Listening to me?” she ground out.

“Oh.” He grinned. “No.”

She rolled her eyes but didn’t bother to scold him any further than that. “I was saying that we should have Edwina and her young man over for dinner one night. To see if we think they suit. I have never before seen her so interested in a gentleman, and I do so want her to be happy.”

Anthony reached for a biscuit. He was hungry, and he’d pretty much given up on the prospect of getting his wife into his lap. On the other hand, if he managed to clear off the cups and saucers, yanking her across the table might not have such messy consequences…

He surreptitiously pushed the tray bearing the tea service to the side. “Hmmm?” he grunted, chewing on the biscuit. “Oh, yes, of course. Edwina should be happy.”

Kate eyed him suspiciously. “Are you certain you don’t want some tea with that biscuit? I’m not a great aficionado of brandy, but I would imagine that tea would taste better with shortbread.”

Actually, Anthony thought, the brandy did quite well with shortbread, but it certainly couldn’t hurt to empty out the teapot a bit, just in case he toppled it over. “Capital idea,” he said, grabbing a teacup and thrusting it toward
her. “Tea’s just the thing. Can’t imagine why I didn’t think of it earlier.”

“I can’t imagine, either,” she murmured acerbically—if one could murmur in an acerbic manner, and after hearing Kate’s low sarcasm, Anthony rather thought one could.

But he just gave her a jovial smile as he reached out and took his teacup from her outstretched hand. “Thank you,” he said, checking to see that she’d added milk. She had, which didn’t surprise him; she was very good at remembering such details.

“Is it still hot enough?” Kate asked politely.

Anthony drained the cup. “Perfect,” he replied, letting out a satisfied exhale. “Might I trouble you for some more?”

“You seem to be developing quite a taste for tea,” she said dryly.

Anthony eyed the teapot, wondering how much was left and whether he’d be able to finish it off without being attacked by an urgent need to relieve himself. “You should have some more, too,” he suggested. “You look a bit parched.”

Her eyebrows shot up. “Is that so?”

He nodded, then worried he might have laid it on a little too thick. “Just a bit, of course,” he said.

“Of course.”

“Is there enough tea left for me to have another cup?” he asked, as nonchalantly as he could manage.

“If there isn’t, I’m sure I could have Cook brew another pot.”

“Oh, no, I’m sure that won’t be necessary,” he exclaimed, probably a little too loudly. “I’ll just take whatever is left.”

Kate tipped the pot until the last dregs of tea swirled in his cup. She added a dollop of milk, then handed it back to him in silence, although her arched eyebrows spoke volumes.

As he sipped at his tea—his belly was a little too full to gulp it down as quickly as the last cup—Kate cleared her throat and asked, “Do you know Edwina’s young man?”

“I don’t even know who he
is
.”

“Oh. I’m sorry. I must have forgotten to mention his name. It’s Mr. Bagwell. I don’t know his Christian name, but Edwina said he’s a second son, if that’s helpful. She met him at your mother’s party.”

Anthony shook his head. “Never heard of him. He’s probably one of the poor chaps my mother invited to even out the numbers. My mother invited a bloody lot of women. She always does, hoping that one of us might actually fall in love, but then she has to find a pack of unremarkable men to even up the numbers.”

“Unremarkable?” Kate echoed.

“So that the women don’t fall in love with them instead of us,” he replied, his grin rather lopsided.

“She’s rather desperate to marry the lot of you off, isn’t she?”

“All I know,” Anthony said with a shrug, “is that my mother invited so many eligible women last time that she had to go down to the vicar’s and beg his sixteen-year-old son to come up for supper.”

Kate winced. “I think I met him.”

“Yes, he’s painfully shy, poor fellow. The vicar told me he had hives for a week after ending up seated next to Cressida Cowper at supper.”

“Well, that would give anyone hives.”

Anthony grinned. “I knew you had a mean streak in you.”

“I’m not being mean!” Kate protested. But her smile was sly. “It was nothing more than the truth.”

“Don’t defend yourself on my account.” He finished the tea; it was bitterly strong from having sat in the pot for so long, but the milk made it almost palatable. Setting the cup down, he added, “Your mean streak is one of the things I like best about you.”

“Goodness,” she muttered, “I should hate to know what you like least.”

Anthony just waved a dismissive hand in the air. “But getting back to your sister and her Mr. Bugwell—”

“Bagwell.”

“Pity.”

“Anthony!”

He ignored her. “I’ve actually been thinking I ought to provide Edwina with a dowry.”

The irony of the gesture was not lost on him. Back when he’d intended to wed Edwina, he’d planned to provide a dowry for
Kate
.

He peeked over at Kate to see her reaction.

He hadn’t, of course, made the offer just to gain her good favor, but he wasn’t so noble that he couldn’t admit to himself that he’d been hoping for a little more than the stunned silence she was displaying.

Then he realized she was near tears.

“Kate?” he asked, not certain whether to be delighted or worried.

She wiped her nose rather inelegantly with the back of her hand. “That’s the nicest thing anyone has ever done for me,” she sniffled.

“I actually did it for Edwina,” he mumbled, never comfortable with weepy females. But inside, she was making him feel about eight feet tall.

“Oh, Anthony!” she practically wailed. And then, much to his extreme surprise, she jumped to her feet and leaped across the table and into his arms, the heavy hem of her afternoon dress sweeping three teacups, two saucers, and a spoon onto the floor.

“You are so sweet,” she said, wiping at her eyes as she landed rather solidly in his lap. “The nicest man in London.”

“Well, I don’t know about that,” he returned, sliding his arm around her waist. “The most dangerous, perhaps, or handsome—”

“Nicest,” she interrupted firmly, tucking her head into the crook of his neck. “Definitely the nicest.”

“If you insist,” he murmured, not at all unhappy with the recent turn of events.

“It’s a good thing we finished that tea,” Kate said, eyeing the cups on the floor. “It would have made a dreadful mess.”

“Oh, indeed.” He smiled to himself as he pulled her closer. There was something warm and comfortable about holding Kate. Her legs were dangling over the arm of the chair and her back was resting against the curve of his arm. They fit together nicely, he realized. She was just the right size for a man of his proportions.

There were a lot of things about her that were just right. It was the sort of realization that usually terrified him, but at that moment he was so damned
happy
just sitting here with her in his lap that he simply refused to think about the future.

“You are so good to me,” she murmured.

Anthony thought of all the times he’d purposely stayed away, all the times he’d left her to her own devices, but he pushed away the guilt. If he was forcing a distance between them, it was for her own good. He didn’t want her to fall in love with him. It would make it that much harder for her when he died.

And if he fell in love with her…

He didn’t even want to think about how much harder it would be for him.

“Do we have any plans for this evening?” he whispered in her ear.

She nodded; the motion caused her hair to tickle his cheek. “A ball,” she said. “At Lady Mottram’s.”

Anthony couldn’t resist the soft silkiness of her hair, and he threaded two fingers through it, letting it slide across his hand and wrap around his wrist. “Do you know what I think?” he murmured.

He heard her smile as she asked, “What?”

“I think I’ve never cared that much for Lady Mottram. And do you know what else I think?”

Now he heard her trying not to giggle. “What?”

“I think we should go upstairs.”

“You do?” she asked, clearly feigning ignorance.

“Oh, indeed. This very minute, as a matter of fact.”

She wiggled her bottom, the minx, ascertaining for herself just how quickly he needed to go upstairs. “I see,” she murmured gravely.

He pinched her hip lightly. “I rather thought you
felt
.”

“Well, that, too,” she admitted. “It was quite enlightening.”

“I’m sure it was,” he muttered. Then, with a very wicked smile, he nudged her chin until they were nose to nose. “Do you know what
else
I think?” he said huskily.

Her eyes widened. “I’m sure I can’t imagine.”

“I think,” he said, one of his hands creeping under her dress and slithering up her leg, “that if we don’t go upstairs this instant, I might be content to remain right here.”

“Here?” she squeaked.

His hand found the edge of her stockings. “Here,” he affirmed.

“Now?”

His fingers tickled her soft thatch of hair, then sank into the very core of her womanhood. She was soft and wet and felt like heaven. “Oh, most definitely now,” he said.

“Here?”

He nibbled on her lips. “Didn’t I already answer that question?”

And if she had any further questions, she didn’t voice them for the next hour.

Or maybe it was just that he was trying his damnedest to rob her of speech.

And if a man could judge from the little squeals and mewls that slipped from her mouth, he was doing a ripping good job.

M
uch later that night, Anthony was lying on his side in bed, cradling his wife, who had snuggled her back up to his front and was presently sleeping soundly.

Which was fortunate, he realized, because it had started to rain.

He tried to nudge the covers up over her exposed ear so that she would not hear the drops beating against the windows, but she was as fidgety in sleep as she was when awake, and he could not manage to pull the coverlet much above the level of her neck before she shook it off.

He couldn’t yet tell whether the storm would grow electrical in nature, but the force of the rain had increased, and the wind had picked up until it howled through the night, rattling the tree branches against the side of the house.

Kate was growing a little more restless at his side, and
he made shhhh-ing sounds as he smoothed her hair with his hand. The storm hadn’t woken her up, but it had definitely intruded upon her slumber. She had begun to mumble in her sleep, tossing and turning until she was curled on her opposite side, facing him.

“What happened to make you hate the rain so?” he whispered, tucking one dark lock of hair behind her ear. But he did not judge her for her terrors; he knew well the frustration of unfounded fears and premonitions. His certainty of his own impending death, for example, had haunted him since the moment he’d picked up his father’s limp hand and laid it gently on his unmoving chest.

It wasn’t something he could explain, or even something he could understand. It was just something he
knew
.

He’d never feared death, though, not really. The knowledge of it had been a part of him for so long that he merely accepted it, just as other men accepted the other truths that made up the cycle of life. Spring followed winter, and summer after that. For him, death was much the same way.

Until now. He’d been trying to deny it, trying to shut the niggling notion from his mind, but death was beginning to show a frightening face.

His marriage to Kate had sent his life down an alternate path, no matter how much he tried to convince himself that he could restrict their marriage to nothing but friendship and sex.

He cared about her. He cared about her far too much. He craved her company when they were apart, and he dreamed about her at night, even as he held her in his arms.

He wasn’t ready to call it love, but it terrified him all the same.

And whatever it was that burned between them, he didn’t want it to end.

Which was, of course, the cruelest irony of all.

Anthony closed his eyes as he let out a weary and nervous exhale, wondering what the hell he was going to do
about the complication that lay beside him in the bed. But even while his eyes were shut, he saw the flash of lightning that lit up the night, turning the black of the inside of his eyelids into a bloody red-orange.

Opening his eyes, he saw that they’d left the drapes partway open when they’d retired to bed earlier in the evening. He’d have to shut those; they’d help to keep the lightning from illuminating the room.

But when he shifted his weight and tried to nudge his way out from under the covers, Kate grabbed his arm, her fingers pressing frantically into his muscles.

“Shhhh, now, it’s all right,” he whispered, “I’m only going to close the drapes.”

But she did not let go, and the whimper that escaped her lips when a clap of thunder shook the night nearly broke his heart.

A pale sliver of moonlight filtered through the window, just enough to illuminate the tense, drawn lines of her face. Anthony peered down to assure himself that she was still sleeping, then pried her hands from his arm and got up to close the drapes. He suspected that the flashes of lightning would still sneak into the room, though, so when he was done with the drapes, he lit a lone candle and set it on his nightstand. It didn’t give off enough light to wake her up—at least he hoped it wouldn’t—but at the same time it saved the room from utter blackness.

And there was nothing quite so startling as a streak of lightning cutting through utter blackness.

He crawled back into bed and regarded Kate. She was still sleeping, but not peacefully. She’d curled into a semifetal position and her breathing was labored. The lightning didn’t seem to bother her much, but every time the room shook with thunder she flinched.

He took her hand and smoothed her hair, and for several minutes he simply lay with her, trying to soothe her as she slept. But the storm was increasing in intensity, with the thunder and lightning practically coming on top of each
other. Kate was growing more restless by the second, and then, as a particularly loud clap of thunder exploded in the air, her eyes flew open, her face a mask of utter panic.

“Kate?” Anthony whispered.

She sat up, scrambling back until her spine was pressed against the solid headboard of the bed. She looked like a statue of terror, her body stiff and frozen into place. Her eyes were still open, barely blinking, and though she did not move her head, they flicked frantically back and forth, scanning the entire room, but not seeing anything.

“Oh, Kate,” he whispered. This was far, far worse than what she’d been through that night in the library at Aubrey Hall. And he could feel the force of her pain slicing right through his heart.

No one should feel terror like this. And especially not his wife.

Moving slowly, so as not to startle her, he made his way to her side, then carefully laid an arm over her shoulders. She was shaking, but she did not push him away.

“Are you even going to remember any of this in the morning?” he whispered.

She made no response, but then, he hadn’t expected her to.

“There, there,” he said gently, trying to remember the soothing nonsense words his mother used whenever one of her children was upset. “It’s all right now. You’ll be fine.”

Her tremors seemed to slow a bit, but she was still very clearly disturbed, and when the next clap of thunder shook the room, her entire body flinched, and she buried her face in the crook of her neck.

“No,” she moaned, “no, no.”

“Kate?” Anthony blinked several times, then gazed at her intently. She sounded different, not awake but more lucid, if that was possible.

“No, no.”

And she sounded very…

“No, no, don’t go.”

…
young
.

“Kate?” He held her tightly, unsure of what to do. Should he wake her? Her eyes might be open, but she was clearly asleep and dreaming. Part of him longed to break her of her nightmare, but once she woke, she’d still be in the same place—in bed in the middle of a horrible electrical storm. Would she even feel any better?

Or should he let her sleep? Perhaps if she rode out the nightmare he might actually gain some idea as to what had caused her terror.

“Kate?” he whispered, as if she herself might actually give him a clue as to how to proceed.

“No,” she moaned, growing more agitated by the second. “Nooooo.”

Anthony pressed his lips to her temple, trying to soothe her with his presence.

“No, please….” She started to sob, her body rackedwith huge gasps of air as her tears drenched his shoulder.

“No, oh, no…
Mama
!”

Anthony stiffened. He knew that Kate always referred to her stepmother as Mary. Could she actually be speaking of her true mother, the woman who had given her life and then died so many years ago?

But as he pondered that question, Kate’s entire body stiffened and she let out a shrill, high-pitched scream.

The scream of a very young girl.

In an instant, she turned about, and then she leaped into his arms, grabbing at him, clutching his shoulders with a terrifying desperation. “No, Mama,” she wailed, her entire body heaving from the exertion of her cries. “No, you can’t go! Oh, Mama Mama Mama Mama Mama Mama…”

If Anthony hadn’t had his back to the headboard, she would have knocked him over, the force of her fervor was that strong.

“Kate?” he blurted out, surprised by the slight note of panic in his voice. “Kate? It’s all right. You’re all right. You’re fine. Nobody is going anywhere. Do you hear me? No one.”

But her words had melted away, and all that was left was the low sound of a weeping that came from deep in her soul. Anthony held her, and then when she’d calmed a bit, he eased her down until she was lying on her side again, and then he held her some more, until she drifted back into sleep.

Which, he noticed ironically, was right about the time the last of the thunder and lightning split the room.

When Kate woke the following morning, she was surprised to see her husband sitting up in bed, staring down at her with the oddest look…a combination of concern, and curiosity, and maybe even the barest hint of pity. He didn’t say anything when her eyes opened, even though she could see that he was watching her face intently. She waited, to see what he would do, and then finally she just said, somewhat hesitantly, “You look tired.”

“I didn’t sleep well,” he admitted.

“You didn’t?”

He shook his head. “It rained.”

“It did?”

He nodded. “And thundered.”

She swallowed nervously. “And lightninged as well, I suppose.”

“It did,” he said, nodding again. “It was quite a storm.”

There was something very profound in the way he was speaking in short, concise sentences, something that raised the hair on the back of her neck. “H-how fortunate that I missed it, then,” she said. “You know I don’t do well with strong storms.”

“I know,” he said simply.

But there was a wealth of meaning behind those two
short words, and Kate felt her heartbeat speed up slightly. “Anthony,” she asked, not certain she wanted to know the answer, “what happened last night?”

“You had a nightmare.”

She closed her eyes for a second. “I didn’t think I had those any longer.”

“I didn’t realize you’d ever suffered from nightmares.”

Kate let out a long exhale and sat up, pulling the covers along with her and tucking them under arms. “When I was small. Whenever it stormed, I’m told. I don’t know for a fact; I never remembered anything. I thought I’d—” She had to stop for a moment; her throat felt like it was closing up, and her words seemed to choke her.

He reached out and took her hand. It was a simple gesture, but somehow it touched her heart far more than any words would have done. “Kate?” he asked quietly. “Are you all right?”

She nodded. “I thought I’d stopped, that’s all.”

He didn’t say anything for a moment, and the room was so quiet that Kate was sure she could hear both of their heartbeats. Finally, she heard the slight rush of indrawn breath across Anthony’s lips, and he asked, “Did you know that you speak in your sleep?”

She hadn’t been facing him, but at that comment, her head jerked quite suddenly to the right, her eyes colliding with his. “I do?”

“You did last night.”

Her fingers clutched the coverlet. “What did I say?”

He hesitated, but when his words emerged, they were steady and even. “You called out to your mother.”

“Mary?” she whispered.

He shook his head. “I don’t think so. I’ve never heard you call Mary anything but Mary; last night you were crying for ‘Mama.’ You sounded…” He paused and took a slightly ragged breath. “You sounded quite young.”

Kate licked her lips, then chewed on the bottom one. “I don’t know what to tell you,” she finally said, afraid to
press into the deepest recesses of her memory. “I have no idea why I’d be calling out to my mother.”

“I think,” he said gently, “that you should ask Mary.”

Kate gave her head a quick and immediate shake. “I didn’t even know Mary when my mother died. Neither did my father. She couldn’t know why I was calling out to her.”

“Your father might have told her something,” he said, lifting her hand to his lips and giving it a reassuring kiss.

Kate let her eyes drop to her lap. She wanted to understand why she was so afraid of the storms, but prying into one’s deepest fears was almost as terrifying as the fear itself. What if she discovered something she didn’t want to know? What if—

“I’ll go with you,” Anthony said, breaking into her thoughts.

And somehow that made everything all right.

Kate looked to him and nodded, tears in her eyes. “Thank you,” she whispered. “Thank you so much.”

Later that day, the two of them walked up the steps to Mary’s small townhouse. The butler showed them into the drawing room, and Kate sat on the familiar blue sofa while Anthony walked over to the window, leaning on the sill as he peered out.

“See something interesting?” she asked.

He shook his head, smiling sheepishly as he turned to face her. “I just like looking out windows, that’s all.”

Kate thought there was something awfully sweet about that, although she couldn’t really put her finger on what. Every day seemed to reveal some new little quirk to his character, some uniquely endearing habit that bound them ever closer. She
liked
knowing strange little things about him, like how he always doubled up his pillow before going to sleep, or that he detested orange marmalade but adored the lemon.

“You look rather introspective.”

Kate jerked to attention. Anthony was staring at her quizzically. “You drifted off,” he said with an amused expression, “and you had the dreamiest smile on your face.”

She shook her head, blushed, and mumbled, “It was nothing.”

His answering snort was dubious, and as he walked over to the sofa, he said, “I’d give a hundred pounds for those thoughts.”

Kate was saved from having to comment by Mary’s entrance. “Kate!” Mary exclaimed. “What a lovely surprise. And Lord Bridgerton, how nice to see you both.”