Authors: Courtney Milan
A slight, satisfied curl to her lips was the only indication she gave that she’d intended to drive the man off. The signs were all there, for anyone to see.
“You,” Ned said, “are…”
“He
did
speak of the devil,” Kate said. “A little taste of the diabolical, I believe, would do him good.”
“Oh, yes. I have it. ‘Speak of the devil, and he licks your peppermints.’”
Kate snickered. “Something like that.”
“Also, thank you.”
“For driving off your friend?” She looked surprised.
“No. The more I discover about what transpired in my absence, the more responsibility I realize you’ve taken on. I had assumed that Gareth would take on much of it—that was our agreement when I left, you know. But then, responsible as Gareth always has been, he would never have noticed the little things. The human touches. Like Mrs. Alcot.”
Like Louisa Paxton, Lady Harcroft.
Kate nodded regally and held out her hand again. For a tiny instant, he contemplated taking those delicate fingers in his. Stripping off her glove, baring that soft skin to the sun and his touch.
But she wasn’t asking for importunity. He put another peppermint in her palm instead. She didn’t throw this one, though; instead, she weighed it from hand to hand, as carefully as if it were an ingot of metal whose worth she had yet to judge.
Finally, she looked up at him. “What does Harcroft matter to you?” Her eyes were almost silver with refracted light. They seemed to cut through Ned.
He had been so much in sympathy with her, he’d forgotten. She didn’t trust him. She didn’t
know
he knew. The question wasn’t idle. She wanted to know if he might betray her.
Ned swallowed.
She’d never trusted him with the truth of her competence. He wanted her to tell him the truth, let him into her life. He wanted her to judge him worthy of knowing her—the
true
Kate, the one she hid away.
“Harcroft is a distant cousin,” Ned said softly. “We were friends, long before, when we were younger. I think we’re rather too dissimilar now to be more than acquaintances.”
“But he’s your family.”
“Half of polite society is my family, if I must count him my relation,” Ned said dryly. “If you must know, my main obligation to Harcroft is that he assisted me with the people I think of as my
true
family. When Jenny and Gareth married, Harcroft and his wife welcomed Jenny—Lady Blakely—into society. It wasn’t clear at the time that she would take. With his assistance, she did. I am not insensible of my obligations to him. But he’s not true family.”
“True family,” Kate mused quietly. “Those are the people who ask, and on whose say-so, you go halfway round the world? People like Lord Blakely, then.”
She looked up at him.
“Rather like oxygen,” Ned agreed, “inhaled into lungs that burn with exertion. Family consists of the people who are vital, even though sometimes they hurt. But if you’re worried that I feel some obligation to Harcroft that would make me reveal that little trick you played on him with the peppermints, or, um, anything else—worry no more.”
She glanced at him, and then looked away once again. “And who do you include in this category of true family, then?”
“Jenny,” Ned said instantly. “Gareth. My mother. Laura—that’s Gareth’s half sister. She and I were practically raised together. It’s not a large group, Kate.”
Still she didn’t say anything. Her lips pressed whitely together.
He’d wanted her to know that the people who could command his loyalty were few, that she could rely on him. Obviously, that hadn’t worked.
She was looking at him still. Not one muscle had shifted in her face, and yet he could see that the glitter in her eyes was not hatred or even mistrust. He’d completely misunderstood; this wasn’t about Harcroft, somehow. He was never going to understand women. By the furrow in her forehead, he guessed he’d said something truly awful. He’d misread that silver glint all along. She wasn’t angry with him. She was devastated.
“Christ,” he swore in confusion. “What did I say? I didn’t mean to hurt your feelings.”
She shook her head. “Wrong question. It’s what you didn’t say.”
“Very well, then. What didn’t I say?”
“Nothing I didn’t already know.” Her words were bitter, and now she looked down. “And nothing that I couldn’t have expected. It doesn’t matter.”
The edge of the sunlight caught the smallest reflection of moisture in her eyes. She was doing a valiant job of not crying. Her nostrils flared. She took in a deep breath, no doubt intending it to be calming. “It
does.
Kate, I don’t actually want to cause you pain, you know. If you would just tell me—”
“Jenny,” she counted softly. “Gareth. Laura. Your mother. I don’t question your allegiance to any of them, or the sincerity of the connection. It’s foolish of me. We’re not that kind of husband and wife. But Ned, you are married to me.”
Oxygen? It was as if suddenly there were too much of it, as if his every breath counted for twice as much. Ned felt himself gasping—as if he were a salmon cast upon the sand.
“That’s not what I meant.”
“It never does seem to be. You vowed to cherish me,” Kate said quietly. “You vowed to love me and honor me. When I spoke my vows,
I
meant them. I intended to cleave unto you for the rest of my life, but you disappeared for years. To you, that ceremony was nothing but words,” Kate said bitterly. She held up her hand, index finger pointed. And then she touched his chest—as if she were
tallying up his mistakes on his ribs. Her finger swished along him as if making an accusatory notch:
One.
Ned had nothing to say in response.
“That’s all you’ve ever given me—words.”
“No. You can trust me.”
She clenched her hands and faced him. “Who do you suppose I am?”
Kate was the impossibly attractive woman he’d married, and if he’d craved her before today, he hungered for her now.
She raised her chin. “I was the one who waited at home while you strolled the world. I withstood the questions. I endured years of the betting books, and I held on to fidelity through all the long years of your absence.”
“I—I may not have acted as well as I could with regards to you. But that’s going to change, Kate. It’s already changing. Listen—”
“If you had really wanted to stay—if you had really wanted to keep company with your new wife, you would have found a trusted minion to take your place. I think you wanted to go. I think,” she said, “that like all young men, you wanted to sow your wild oats. And having lost your chance to do so here in England, by virtue of your unfortunate marriage, you decided to take the matter abroad.”
She raised her hand again, to tally that second accusation against his chest. Ned reached out and grabbed her fingers. “No,” he said. He could barely recognize his own voice. “No. That wasn’t it. That wasn’t why.”
“How many women? You were gone three years. In all that time, how many women did you kiss?”
“One,” he replied. “And she was you.”
She waited. The silence that followed was cold with her disbelief.
“I was young, Kate. Young and determined to prove I was more than a useless fribble. I’ve made mistakes. I wanted to show everyone that my mistakes hadn’t made me. That I was rational. Sober. Reliable.”
“And what did you want to show
me?
”
“You?” He glanced at her and understood innately why he’d left. She flummoxed him. Even now, peering into the gray of her eyes, he could feel a tide of want and desire rising. He’d had a million reasons to go. But primary among them, he’d fled England because when he was around her, that sober, rational, reliable part of him faded into nothingness. It left behind this dark beast, this needful thing. When she stood near him, he sure as hell didn’t want to
honor
her. He hadn’t wanted to keep any of the gentle vows required by the Anglican ceremony. No, standing this close to her, he yearned to possess her. He wanted to own the curve of her waist with his hands. He wanted to claim her for his own. And he was unable to suppress that longing, no matter how ferociously he tried. He’d hoped that proving to himself that he was steady and reliable would alleviate that want.
“I left to
find
control, not to dispense with it. I didn’t sow any oats, Kate. It would have defeated the purpose.” He
could
hold his wants in check. He was the master, not his lust, not his cavernous want and not his deep, dark fears.
Unfortunately, three years of intimacy with his own
palm had done nothing to alleviate his physical longings. Where Kate was concerned, he’d not become more sober. He’d become less.
But she didn’t understand that. She stood next to him without the least bit of concern for her person. His hand was still wrapped around her fingers, and she looked up at him, not understanding the danger she was in.
Instead, she sighed. “I thought not,” she said. “When you left, you weren’t thinking of me at all.”
“I thought of you.” The words sounded hoarse and guttural in his ears. “I thought of you…often.”
Her lips pursed, but still she looked at him, her head tilted to one side.
“You’re wondering if you can trust me,” Ned said. “You can.” She didn’t know that he knew her secret. And he wanted to win her trust, not force his knowledge upon her. He waited.
“I trust you,” she said calmly. “I trusted you enough to marry you. I trusted you wouldn’t abscond with the portion of my fortune over which you were granted free rein. I trusted you wouldn’t hit me.” Her voice dropped on that. “I trust you enough to do my duty, should you require such a thing again. I trust you to put your own comfort first. But you told me that we had a marriage of convenience. Why should I trust you with anything
more?
”
“Because…” Ned began, and then ran smack into the hard truth of it.
He had no reasons. She was right. He’d left, thinking selfishly of himself and what he could prove. When he’d
thought of her, it had only been to imagine what she might do for him. To him.
Even now, he was putting her in his bed.
Oh, why bother to travel so far? His dark selfishness was undressing her here. He was imagining peeling the gown from her shoulders. He would kiss his way down each rib. He was on the edge of forfeiting every shred of control he’d ever fought for. He was still holding her hand, crumpled up like a handkerchief. Her fingers trembled in his.
And yes, he was—and he had been—a selfish cad. He leaned forward. The motion pulled her skirts against his trousers. For one glorious second, he held her—her body, her sweet curves, sliding against him. He could smell the faint scent of her rose soap. One last inch, and he could possess her as he’d always wanted.
For one glorious, lightless second, he thought of giving in to his selfishness. But no. He was still in control of himself. Once she trusted him…
Slowly, he released her hand. She flexed her fingers in the air. She had no idea how close she had come to being ravaged in broad daylight.
“You’re right,” Ned heard himself say. “You’re completely right. If I were you, I wouldn’t trust me, either.”
Her eyes rounded.
He sketched her a half bow, and turned to go. But before he could complete that turn—before he could give her his back, one last strand of selfishness caught in his chest. And he checked that movement and stepped toward her.
“You’re right,” he said. “I haven’t given you much
reason to trust me. But Kate…” Ned let his index finger draw near to her. She did not draw back, not even when he placed it on the edge of her lips. “Kate,” he repeated, “I will. I promise.”
Ned handed her his bag of peppermints and walked away, swiftly, before he changed his mind.
He had never given any thought to what it meant to be a husband. The duties, he’d supposed, were spelled out by the marriage ceremony: endow her with worldly goods and, when necessary, father children. He had only to look at Harcroft to find a husband who had done substantially worse.
But when the best thing your wife could say of you was that you didn’t beat her, you weren’t doing very well.
As for Kate herself, Ned knew he’d left England too soon after their marriage. He’d been as fooled by her delicate demeanor and her fine clothing as Harcroft.
He wondered how often he’d looked at her, not seeing anything except the exquisiteness of her features. There was more to her than he’d imagined.
A second realization struck him as he turned down the path that led to the barn.
She’d wanted him once. What would it be like, to don a mask all your life? To hide what you could accomplish behind layers of silk and lace? To do all that, knowing that no one—not your husband nor your family—knew the truth of who you were?
Kate was complicated. She was strong. And she was very much alone. He might do something for her besides meet the bare necessity of their physical needs. He could mean something to someone besides being a
mere provider of things. He wasn’t much of a knight, and he’d just left Kate with the closest thing he had to a war stallion.
Still, he might be the rock she could stand on. He could be the arm she leaned upon. She wanted proof? He could start, for once, by letting her know what she could mean to him.
Ned swallowed again and clenched his fist. For a long time he stared at his fingers, wrapped in a ball. He thought of strength, of power. He let himself feel all the fear of failure that had once entangled him. He imagined it, a dark solid ball in his hand, all those fearful thoughts holding him back. And then, slowly, he pulled back his arm. He threw his fears as far from him as he could. He imagined them soaring above the barn, high over the house in front of him, before plummeting to the ground and bursting apart like dry, baked clay.
Black magic, for sure; but he’d been crippled by doubts before. He didn’t have time for them any longer.
It was time to start becoming the husband he could be.
CHAPTER TEN
“I
KNOW WHAT YOU’RE DOING.”