Wanton Angel (Blackthorne Trilogy) (52 page)

      
“Oh, and what might they have been?” she asked, smiling. This was the way things had been between them when they'd first met.

      
“The little matter of all the boots in my closet plus all those in Mr. Hoby's shop on Piccadilly.”

      
“My, you do value us highly, m'lord,” she said, striving for a light tone but knowing that her voice gave away that she was saying much more.

      
As he picked up the whimpering dog, he replied, “I have done an ill job of showing you just how much, puss.”

* * * *

      
Jenna, the cooper's wife, was the village healer. Beth was able to secure yarrow from her to stop the bleeding from Percy's head wound, which upon closer examination proved not to be serious, although it had stunned him into unconsciousness when he was hit. Derrick watched his wife work her healing magic as he held his infant daughter in the rude cabin. Her fit of crying having exhausted her, Vittoria slept peacefully in his arms. He studied the child's tiny perfect features.

      
“She's your very image,” he murmured, stroking the cap of russet hair covering the baby's head.

      
“Look at her eyes once she awakens. They are yours. As for the red hair, it often changes color.”

      
Percy gave a small bark of agreement as Beth applied the yarrow paste to his battle wound. “You must tell me what happened in London. You're wraith thin, and those scars...” She shuddered just thinking about how near death he must have been. “If only you'd sent word—”

      
“I did. Just before Christmas, as soon as I was able to put pen to paper, even though I'd received not a word from you since I left the Hall,” he replied.

      
“But I wrote you four letters before the holidays,” she said, mystified.

      
Noting Jenna's avid curiosity at the doings of the Quality, he replied, “I will show you the purloined letters when we return to the Hall. Then we will have a greatly overdue conversation, puss.”

      
On the long ride back they spoke of many things, mostly catching up on what had transpired while they were separated. He explained about Bourdin and the nearly fatal attempt on his life, Bella's vicious theft of their letters to each other, and his desperate ride from London when he feared Bertie was going to kill her. She told him about the lonely winter months awaiting the birth of the baby, her disappointment when he failed to come for the holidays and the horrifying way in which she'd learned about his cousin's plotting.

      
Neither said how they felt about the problems in their marriage.

      
They arrived at Lynden Hall after darkness had fallen. Every light in the huge manor was burning, the windows glowing with welcome. The landscape, so bleak and forbidding when she'd first seen it last fall, was now gently caressed by early spring. A warm breeze stirred the clear air and not a trace of fog hovered as the stars began to pop out one by one in the night sky.

      
Derrick helped her from the carriage, and a groom led the team and Derrick's horse to the stables while they made their way toward the front entry. “It seems so different now...” Beth said quietly. “Almost...welcoming. I could never have imagined that the first time I saw the place.”

      
As he carried the dog in his arms, he replied gravely, “I grew up here. Since 'twas the only home I ever knew, I always thought it welcoming, especially when I returned from school. I did not see it with your eyes, Beth. Or perhaps I simply wished to punish you because I was hurting—too blind to see that you were, as well.”

      
Whatever else he would have said was interrupted when Donita came running out, followed by Mistress Widlow and the rest of the staff. Vittoria awakened and began to cry with hunger as everyone clucked over mother and child. Derrick issued instructions for Percy's care and handed him to Martha, who had a special fondness for the dog. Beth agreed to bathe and rest after she took care of Vittoria only if he would do the same. He promised they would share a meal and talk that night.

      
In spite of lost sleep and exertion, they were both too tense to linger over their baths. Nor were they hungry as they picked desultorily at the sumptuous cold collation Martha Rumsford laid out in his lordship's quarters. Vittoria slept blissfully in her cradle as her parents gathered their thoughts.

      
At length, Derrick put down his fork and took a swallow of claret, then said, “When I read the note you left, it...gave me cause to hope that...”

      
This was not the glib spy who charmed or the haughty earl who commanded. He seemed to be struggling for words. “Hope, Derrick?” she prompted.

      
His eyes were haunted as he said, “I'd decided to set you free, Beth. You see, after I studied the painting of the odalisque I purchased—”

      
“You purchased one of those awful paintings! I am so sorry I did them—I was furious when you left me alone at Christmas, so I painted them to get back at you and defy the ton.”

      
“They are not awful... They're haunting, sad, profound. I looked into that woman's eyes and felt your suffering. You are a very gifted artist and I tried to take that away from you—the most important thing in your life.”

      
“No! Painting is not the most important thing at all!” She surprised herself by admitting it but would say no more until he explained his feelings more clearly. “What did you mean, you were going to set me free? I left you so that you could find a suitable English lady to wed.”

      
“So your letter said.”
What is the most important thing if not your art?
he wanted to ask but dared not...yet.

      
She nodded uncertainly. “After all that I've done to ruin your reputation as well as my own, 'twas the least I could do to make amends. I painted seraglio nudes, became embroiled in a murder suicide—I was an Algerine captive who had the bad grace not only to survive but the audacity to wed an earl. I know your sense of honor, Derrick—'tis ingrained in you. You wed me because of it and you would insist that I remain your wife because 'twas your duty—”

      
“Bugger my duty!” he shouted, then forced himself to calm down. “On that ride to the Hall, I started to realize that I no longer gave a damn about duty or honor or scandal or anything else but you, Beth. Then, when you left me, I finally saw what I'd been too blind to see before—that I'd killed the most precious thing any man can be given—the love of a brave and brilliant woman.”

      
“You did not kill my love, Derrick. I tried, and I could not,” she confessed haltingly.

      
A blaze of joy lit his eyes, then dimmed as he said, “I do not deserve your love, puss. I blamed you for sleeping with Quinn and Kasseim and learned you had not—”

      
“I should have told you the truth.”

      
“But you did not because I would not have believed it—is that not so?” He did not wait for her reply because he knew that he was right. “What is more important is that whether you were forced to lie with them—or any others—has nothing to do with us. I scarce came to you a virgin.”

      
“Men judge women by different standards,” she said with a sad little smile.

      
“Only if they're fools. And besides, women like you are above conventional rules. Have you not said so many times in the past, puss?” Now there was the hint of a smile on his lips. “I wanted to set you free because you did not want to be a countess—which is true—but also because I thought you did not want the burden of a child—which is most certainly not true. I've watched you with Vittoria and realize that you could not have left her with me as I expected you would.”

      
Her eyes widened. “You wanted to keep her? I...I did not think you'd mind so much since she was not your heir... If she had been, I would have stayed...for I could not have borne leaving my child behind.”

      
“Twas good that you did leave, for it made me realize how very much I needed you and how very little all else matters. When I read that you were setting me free, I realized what a foolish mistake it was ever to consider doing likewise to you.”

      
He had been willing to make the same sacrifice as she—for the same reason. The revelation dawned on her, sweet as sunrise. Her smile lit up the room more brilliantly than all the candles in Canterbury Cathedral.

      
“What fools we've both been, puss,” he said softly as he reached across the table and took her hand in his, raising it to his lips. “I love you, Beth, a poor thing though that may be. I never thought myself capable of that tender emotion...until now.”

      
Her heart felt as if it would burst with joy. “I have always loved you and always will. We made a bad start of it, Derrick, wedding for all the wrong reasons, two people who believed the only thing they could share was passion...but with love, with love all things are possible.”

      
He held her hands in his, looking deep into her eyes, seeing the radiance of that love. “I believe I have something that belongs to you,” he murmured, reaching into his pocket and extracting the small emerald ring she'd removed when she'd left yesterday. He slid it reverently on the third finger of her left hand, saying, “This time I will not give you another chance to fly free...and I will never break my word again either. I promised you that I wouldn't stop you from painting and I tried to do just that.”

      
She kissed his hand, murmuring, “Once I believed that art was the most important thing in my life. Now I know that it is a secondary passion. You and our children are the most important things there can ever be.”

      
He raised one eyebrow. “Children?”

      
“I want many children. Lynden requires an heir. Need I remind you that I have four brothers, m'lord?” she asked with a saucy grin.

      
“By all means, m'lady, we shall have to apply ourselves with all due diligence.” Then he could not resist teasing, “ Tis my duty.”

      
“Bugger your duty,” she replied with a cheeky grin.
 

Epilogue

      
Derrick reclined on the carpet in front of the roaring fire in their bedroom as Beth fed him dried figs. They lay naked, arms and legs entwined with her atop him. From the mantel above them, the portrait of him that she had painted in Naples looked down, the mysterious blue eyes seeming to study them with self-satisfied amusement. It had been her gift to him on the first Christmas they had shared three years earlier.

      
“Merry Christmas, my angel,” he murmured as he fed her a bit of sweet dried fig.

      
“I'm no angel, as I have just amply demonstrated, m'lord,” she said, wriggling her buttocks provocatively over a strategic portion of his anatomy.

      
“A wanton one, but an angel nonetheless, all dressed in that filmy white silk you wore at dinner,” he replied. “I'm glad that French modiste on Bond Street talked me into having it made for you, puss.”

      
With that he pulled her into his arms, rolling them across the thick rug until he was on top. Her arms tugged at his neck, pulling his mouth to hers for a deep, slow kiss. Their loving now had a playfulness about it reminiscent of the first times they'd coupled in Naples, with none of the desperation that had driven them during the early months of their marriage.

      
“Mmm,” she said, rimming his lips with the tip of her tongue, “you taste of figs...and other delightful things...”

      
They rolled to their sides, hands caressing and examining each other's bodies in a discovery of delights that were somehow new each time they made love. She pressed her lips to the many scars he bore, remembering how close she had come to losing him. He trailed soft kisses to the frantic pulse beating at the base of her throat, the insides of her wrists, loving the way her skin flushed pink in the soft candlelight.

      
“I love what your telltale fair complexion shows, puss,” he whispered, plunging his tongue deep inside her mouth. Then he raised himself up on his elbows and took a fistful of her hair in one hand, using it to tickle and tease her breasts, which had begun to swell slightly once more in pregnancy.

      
She gasped as the nipples puckered and frissons of pleasure shot all the way to her toes. “Ah, you know how sensitive they get when I'm breeding,” she whispered.

      
“Really, I should never have guessed,” he murmured, using his fingertips now, tracing the fullness of one heavy globe. “They're so beautiful this way...you're so beautiful.”

      
“Soon I'll be fat as a cow again,” she said, not sounding the least bothered by the prospect.

      
“You're most beautiful when you're heavy with child,” he replied. Then a lascivious grin split his face. “Of course, I cannot ride on top when your belly grows too big, so I suppose I shall have to take advantage while I still can.”

      
As his knee spread her legs and he slid into the welcoming heat of her body, she whispered, “Take advantage of me. I am at your service.” Her hips arched up and she locked her long legs around his hips, holding him tightly to her.

      
“This time...we shall...make it...last,” he gasped out, stroking very slowly as he gazed into her eyes.

      
When he lowered his head and took one nipple in his mouth to suckle her, she cried out and buried her fingers in his hair. “If you...keep doing...that...I shall not...last.” When he felt her begin to crest, he held absolutely still inside her. “Beast,” she murmured softly.