A Christmas Promise Read online

  “After all, my lady,” he said, nudging at the silk and lace with his wrists so that the gown fell off her shoulders and down her arms, exposing her to the waist, “you are my wife.”

  It was perhaps at that moment, or a moment later, that anger and the desire to humiliate were changed into desire of a different kind. She took him completely by surprise by reaching up with both hands to undo the large buttons on his nightshirt and very deliberately grasp it by the neck and draw it down over his shoulders.

  “After all, my lord,” she said, and he noticed her teeth for the first time—white and perfect teeth bared for the moment almost as if she wished to bite into him, “you are my husband.”

  After that he rather lost his head, he thought later with shame and amazement. He took her hands none too gently by the wrists and forced them downward to her sides so that her nightgown whispered down all the way to the floor and he shrugged out of his own nightshirt, though her hands, when he freed them, pushed at it too. And when he brought his mouth to hers again, her own opened beneath it without persuasion, and when he plunged his tongue inside, she fenced it with her own tongue and followed it out and into his own mouth. And when his hands touched her and explored her without either gentleness or subtlety, her own hands followed suit.

  One thing at least must have been as clear to her as it was to him before he finally stooped down to pick her up and half throw her onto the bed. He was going to have no trouble at all feeling enough desire for her to enable him to consummate their marriage.

  She wrestled with him on the bed, so that by the time he had her pinned beneath him they were both panting. He worked his knees between her thighs, pushed them wide, slid his hands beneath her, and lifted his head. She was staring boldly up at him, her cheeks flushed, her hair wild about her shoulders and over the pillow. He found the entrance to her and came inside her with one deep, swift thrust.

  Her expression did not change. Only her body tensed and tried to pull back away from his penetration. For a few moments. But as he watched, she half smiled again and slid her feet up on the bed on either side of his legs to brace herself and very deliberately pushed down against him.

  “Almost my wife, my lady,” he whispered to her. “The deed is almost done.”

  “I thought it was to hurt,” she said. “I thought it was to be something earth-shattering.”

  He might even then, his triumph complete, her body spread and mounted beneath him, have had some small mercy on her and finished quickly. But she had restored his anger by her foolish attack on his manhood. She would be made to know, then, what it was to be duty bound to cater to his pleasure, what it meant to be obliged to grant him his conjugal rights. He would make all her future days ones of anxiety, wondering if she must face this again when the night came.

  He began to move in her, watching her face. She looked back, but something far back in her eyes assured him that she had not known of this, that she had thought the one penetration of her body all that was to be endured. He set up a slow rhythm before finally lowering his weight off his elbows and onto her warm feminine curves and continuing, making sure that he withdrew almost completely from her with each downward movement and reached deeply into her with each upward one. And he listened to the wetness of their coupling and the rhythmic creaking of the bedsprings and her ragged breathing and his own, imposing the last ounce of control over himself so that he would not climax before he was quite ready to do so.

  But it was not easy. He gradually became aware over the thudding of his heart and the surging of his blood that her legs had hooked themselves around his and her pelvis tilted to allow an even deeper penetration. And inner muscles were drawing on him, resisting his withdrawals and relaxing around his entries. And her hips were swaying against his.

  He grasped her shoulders, slid his hands down her back to grasp her buttocks and still her movements, and pushed urgently and mindlessly up into her depths until a blessed shattering brought his release. He heard a shout and rather thought that it must have been his voice.

  She was shuddering violently beneath him. He held his weight firmly on her until she gradually relaxed. And perhaps for longer than that. He had the distinct impression when he finally thought of moving off her that he was just waking up from sleep. But the candles were still bright, and the fire still burned in the grate.

  He lay beside her, looking at her. Neither of them had pulled up the blankets. Her dark red hair lay in wild disarray all about her, making her pale breasts look as if they might be made of alabaster. At least now, he thought, the red hair did not seem quite so out of place. She had an earthy, passionate nature that he had not dreamt it possible for a woman to possess. Least of all this woman. Perhaps it came from her less than noble background, though in his experience even mistresses and whores exercised more decorum in the bedchamber than she. Passionate nature and cold, cold heart.

  “Well,” he said, “the deed is thoroughly done. At least I will never now be able to be accused of depriving you of all your rights as my countess.”

  “And at least,” she said, “I will never be able to be accused of denying you all except the fortune that came with me.”

  “Touché once more,” he said. “Well, the happiest day of our lives is over, my lady, much to our mutual regret, I am sure. I shall leave you to dream of the triumph of your new status while I return to my own bed to dream of counting piles of gold. Good night.”

  He looked down at her as he got to his feet. The sheet and her inner thighs were a mess of blood. But she did not even try to cover herself. She looked up at him with that half smile he found so unpleasant.

  “Good night,” she said. “I doubt the night will be long enough to count every pile, my lord. My father is very, very wealthy.”

  “I know,” he said, bending to retrieve his nightshirt but not stopping to pull it on before leaving her room.

  He glanced at a clock in his dressing room. More than an hour had passed since he had entered his wife’s room. A wave of revulsion set him to shivering as he poured water that was almost cold into the basin on the washstand and proceeded to wash himself. Revulsion against the strange cold, passionate woman he had married. And revulsion against himself for indulging hatred and animal instincts he had not known himself capable of.

  At least, he thought, it was all over now. Both this house and Grenfell Park were large enough that they could avoid each other for most of their days. And after a year had passed he could make sure that she was always in a house where he was not. And if he should ever feel the need for an heir of his own body—well, he would think of that when the time came. He was only twenty-eight years old.

  She had bled a great deal more than he would have expected a virgin to bleed, he thought, looking at the distinctly pink hue of the water. And he felt shame for his roughness, and hatred against her for having provoked it.

  He could scarcely wait for the following night, he thought, closing his eyes and reaching for his nightshirt. Tomorrow night and the comfortable sanity of Alice’s bed and body.

  4

  SHE WOKE UP FEELING THE STRANGENESS OF HER surroundings—the large square, high-ceilinged room, the bed, wider and softer than her own, its elaborate hangings green instead of rose pink. She realized what had woken her when she spotted a maid, on her knees, quietly building up the fire. Someone else was in her dressing room. There was a clinking of china. It was probably a pitcher of hot water being set down.

  And then came the feeling of surprise that she had slept at all. She had not expected to. And yet she could remember standing in her dressing room, washing herself off with hands that shook from fear and shock. She remembered leaning on her forearms on the washstand and closing her eyes and contemplating the full horror of what had just happened—of what he had done to her and of the way she had reacted. She had done what she always did when she was afraid or angry or both. She had given as good as she had got. She had fought her fear—literally fought. She had never been so te
rrified as she had been when her husband came to her. She had never fought such a desperate fight.

  And yet she could remember yawning despite everything. Yawning and yawning and wondering how she was to get herself back from the dressing room to the bed. She had had three almost sleepless nights and she had lived through an hour of terror and an hour of frightening abandon, at some time during which she lost herself completely, so that she had somehow woken as if from sleep to find herself pinned beneath his full weight. She could not now remember returning to her bed from the dressing room. But she must have done so because that was where she was now lying. And she was wearing her nightgown, she noticed, feeling it with one hand. She could not remember pulling it back on.

  One of the hardest things she had done in her life, she found half an hour later, was dismissing her maid and leaving her dressing room to descend to the breakfast room. She dreaded seeing him again—the stiff and contemptuous stranger who had so hurt and degraded her the night before. Her husband. She drew back her shoulders and raised her head high.

  But the breakfast room was empty except for the butler and a footman and rows of silver-covered warming dishes on a sideboard.

  “Good morning, m’lady,” the butler said, bowing deeply and drawing back a chair for her.

  And that was what she was, she thought with some incredulity. She was my lady, a countess. The Countess of Falloden. The thought made her heart sink lower than it already was.

  “Good morning, Mr. Starret,” she said, smiling at him as she always smiled at her father’s servants. “Good morning.” She looked at the footman. “I do not know your name.”

  “Peter, my lady,” he said, seeming startled and jumping to attention. “Good morning, my lady.”

  “Good morning, Peter,” she said.

  The butler had a message for her. His lordship would be ready to escort her to her father’s house as soon as she had breakfasted. The words brought on a wave of nausea and she asked only for a slice of toast. He was going to come with her, then, as he had told Papa the day before that he would. She was not going to be able to escape from him. And Papa. She realized with a jolt of surprise and shame that she had not thought of him all night or even when she had got up. How could she not have thought of him? How could she have slept?

  She felt a wave of panic. Had he lived through the night? Would they arrive home only to find that he was already gone? What would she do? She would not be able to face the aloneness with Papa gone. Especially now. And yet the selfishness of the thought filled her with new shame. She set her napkin beside her plate and the half-eaten slice of toast, and the butler rushed forward to draw back her chair.

  “Thank you, Mr. Starret,” she said. “Will you inform my husband that I will be ready to leave in five minutes’ time?” She had to use all her willpower not to rush from the room.

  ———

  SHE WAS THE MARBLE lady again, seated silent and straight-backed beside him in his carriage, watching the world go by outside her window. He watched her as they rode through the streets of London. She looked startlingly lovely in rich brown velvet, a color that might have looked drab on any other woman. But it suited her hair. She sat stiff and proud. She might have been a duchess, he thought, and guessed that she must have rehearsed her triumphal entry into the ranks of the ton with great care. No one would realize, seeing her this morning, that she was nothing but a cit’s daughter.

  And his countess. He remembered the night before with renewed shame. He had never handled even a whore with such roughness as he had used on his wife. He might have apologized to her. In fact, he had rehearsed an apology when waiting in the library while she got up and had breakfast. And yet she had looked at him with such cool disdain when she joined him in the hall, ready to leave, and had bidden him good morning with such cold haughtiness, that his apology had faded from his lips and his mind. He had bowed and returned her greeting.

  The only words they had exchanged that morning. And yet, he remembered in amazement, she had been like a tigress the night before. A tigress in heat. It was difficult to reconcile that memory of her with the very real image of the ice goddess seated beside him. He unclothed her with his eyes but could not quite see the same woman with whom he had been naked and wildly intimate a mere matter of hours before.

  “I thank you for your escort, my lord,” she said as they approached her father’s house. She did not turn to look at him. “But there is no need for you to descend. I shall return to Grosvenor Square later in my father’s carriage.”

  “On the contrary, my lady,” he said, “I shall pay your father the courtesy of a personal call.”

  He vaulted out of the carriage ahead of her and handed her down. Straw had been strewn about in a thick layer on the pavement and roadway in front of the house, he saw, and yards of cloth had been wound about the brass knocker. He was thankful for the moment that his wife was cold and insensitive and reacted to these signs of desperate illness and imminent death within the house just as if she did not see them.

  Mr. Transome was upstairs in bed with his physician in attendance, the servant who opened the door explained in answer to the earl’s question—his wife stood silent at his side. And yes, his lordship could indeed wait upon the master. Mr. Transome had requested it.

  They waited until the physician came downstairs. She led the way into the parlor and stood facing the fire, warming her hands. He might have moved up behind her and set his hands on her shoulders and offered some word of comfort. But she looked unconcerned. Would not any normal daughter have bounded up the stairs two at a time, physician or no physician?

  The physician was shown into the parlor as the earl had requested and bowed obsequiously and shifted his weight from foot to foot with embarrassment. Mr. Transome was gravely ill. Miss Transome—her ladyship, that is—must prepare herself for his demise at any moment. The doctor had left instructions for the medication to be doubled in dosage, but Mr. Transome had refused to take more than his usual amount before speaking first with his lordship and her ladyship. The doctor finally bowed himself out.

  The earl, for good reason, felt no great affection for his father-in-law. Nevertheless, he looked in anger at his wife’s back. She had not once turned from the fire while the physician was in the room.

  “I shall wait upon your father now, my lady,” he said. “You may stay here until I come down. I shall not be long.”

  She said nothing.

  The difference in the appearance of his father-in-law was appalling. The earl realized in a flash just what superhuman effort of will had brought the man to Grosvenor Square on two separate occasions the week before and to his daughter’s wedding just the day before. Now he was very obviously a man close to death. And yet he managed the ghost of a smile when the earl came to stand beside his bed.

  “Ah, my lord,” he said in a voice that was little above a whisper, “you will excuse me for not rising to make my bow.”

  “How are you, sir?” the earl asked, feeling all the foolishness of his words.

  “I have felt better,” Mr. Transome said, and even attempted a chuckle. “So what do you have to tell me?”

  “Your daughter is my wife and my countess in every sense,” the earl said.

  “Ah.” Mr. Transome closed his eyes. “I wish I could see my first grandchild, my lord. But I must not be greedy.”

  The earl looked down at him, his hands clasped behind his back.

  “Where is Ellie?” Mr. Transome asked.

  “Downstairs,” the earl said, “and impatient to be with you, sir. But I thought you might wish to have a private word with me first.”

  “There is a small parcel and a letter in the top drawer of the bureau,” Mr. Transome said. “Fetch them. And here am I giving orders to you, my lord. You must forgive me. You are my son now, after all.”

  The earl found the two items with ease. The top drawer of the bureau was empty except for them. He brought them back to the bed and showed them to the man lying the
re.

  “A Christmas present for Ellie,” Mr. Transome said with the hint of a smile. “I had it made on the chance that I would live that long and yet be too ill to go shopping. I could give it to her now and watch her face when she saw it, but it is better kept for Christmas. Give it to her, my lord. And the letter to explain a few things.”

  “It will be done,” the earl said.

  “Ah.” Mr. Transome closed his eyes again. “I shall be saying good-bye then, my boy. Forgive me for the trick I played on you. Eventually you will thank me, I believe, but for now forgive me. She is all that has made my life worth living since her dear mother passed on.”

  “She is in safe hands,” the earl said, feeling a twinge of guilt at the lie, his mind filling unwillingly with memories of the night before. “On that point you may rest assured. Good-bye, sir.”

  He let himself out of the room and stood still outside the door for a moment before descending to the parlor. And yes, he thought, he almost could forgive the man. He had made arrangements for his daughter’s future security in the only way he knew how—by using his money to buy what he wanted. And who could blame him?

  The only pity was that all the love and work and scheming had been expended on such an unworthy object. The earl gritted his teeth and turned toward the staircase.

  SHE STOOD STARING INTO the fire. He was dying. She had known that. She might expect his demise at any time, the doctor had said. She had known that too. But all the horrible reality of it had come home to her when the horses’ hooves and the carriage wheels had suddenly become muffled and when she had stepped down from the carriage onto straw and looked up to see the knocker wrapped with cloth. It had come home to her then in all its harsh truth.

  And it had been her husband, not she, who had asked for news, who had directed that the doctor be shown into the parlor as soon as he came downstairs, who had questioned him when he came. It was her husband who had gone up first to Papa, not she.