He didn't know how to answer that. It was true, he'd been grieving. Not only for Henry, but for so many of his brothers in arms. But it wasn't something he knew how to talk about. And he could scarcely complain to Mary about it. She'd lost her only brother. With both her parents gone, Henry had been her only family remaining. She was alone.
Or rather, she'd been alone. Now she was with him.
"Go to sleep," he told her. "At first light, I'm taking you away from this miserable place."
She tilted her head to look up at him. "Kiss me goodnight?"
He hesitated.
"It's our wedding night. It seems we should at least have that. For tradition's sake, if nothing else."
Very well. He touched his lips to hers, giving her a chaste, sweet kiss.
And then, Devil take him, the kiss became more.
His first taste of her was a rich, buttery sweetness. Like cake. That cursed wedding cake that was meant for her to share with another man. He wanted to steal that taste from her mouth and burn it to ash.
He swept his tongue between her lips. Exploring, claiming. He slid his hand to the back of her head and wove his fingers into her hair, tilting her face to his to deepen the kiss. She pressed closer, and the exquisite softness of her body made his skin tighten and his blood pound.
Within him, desire sparked and spread like a blaze.
Natural. Wild. Uncontrolled.
This was meant to be a goodnight kiss. A sweet brush of lips against lips before drifting off to sleep. Instead, his long-buried desires were waking and stretching. Roaring to life with a ferocity that startled even him.
He yearned to explore every part of her with his hands. Cup her breasts in his palms, run his fingers along her sweet, hot cleft. He wanted her beneath him. Astride him. Pressed against the wall. Bent over the table, with all that frothy lace pushed up to her waist.
He wanted her calling his name, holding him tight. He wanted to fall asleep tangled with her, and wake up with her in his arms.
He wanted all she had to give him, and more.
Mary, Mary.
A crash of timber and iron jolted them both. The kiss came apart, but he kept Mary close.
Two human silhouettes filled the doorway between the bedchamber and the kitchen.
"Whoever ye are," came a menacing voice, "ye'd best prepare to die."
Chapter 4
In the chilling darkness, Mary clutched Sebastian tight. Her heart trilled like a rabbit's in her chest.
Pushing the quilt aside, Sebastian let her slip from his arms and quietly swung his legs to the side of the bed. She sensed his muscles coiling with tension.
He was preparing to fight.
"Don't be frightened," he murmured. "I'll keep you safe."
She exhaled shakily. Of course he would fight to keep her safe--he was so damnably selfless that way--but she needed him to be safe, too.
As she blinked, her eyes adjusted to the dim, flickering firelight. The two silhouettes in the door belonged to a man and a woman. The man brandished a long, round-barreled weapon. A rifle.
Be careful, Sebastian.
The man leveled his weapon.
Sebastian rose to his full, imposing height, moving between Mary and the door. Into the line of fire.
He gave the intruders a single, thunderous word. "Begone.'
"Lord preserve us." The man's weapon shook. Out of fearful trembling, she suspected, not anger. She squinted and peered around Sebastian's torso. For heaven's sake, it was nothing more dangerous than a broom handle.
"What sort of devil be ye?"
"I should be asking you that."
"'Tis a demon, to be sure," the woman said. "Naked as sin. Formed like Lucifer 'imself."
"Get the hell out," Sebastian said, each word a distinct threat. "Both of you. Or I'll snap your miserable necks with my bare hands."
For a tense moment, no one moved.
Finally, the broomstick-wielding man broke the silence. "Have at 'im, Fanny."
The woman rushed forward, wailing like a Valkyrie and raising a blunt cudgel over her head--one that appeared, from Mary's eyes, to be a rolling pin.
She thwacked Sebastian in the arm. "Take that, ye foul devil's spawn. Back to the fire and brimstone with ye."
Sebastian, clearly unwilling to strike out at a woman, ducked and raised his arms to protect his head. He turned his back to her.
Fanny skittered around him in circles, battering him about the shoulders. "Have that." Thump. "And that." Thwack. "I rebuke thee."
Meanwhile, the man remained in the doorway, apparently content to let his female counterpart do the fighting for them both.
Well, Mary decided two women could play at this game.
She leapt from the bed and launched herself at the woman, tackling her against the wall. "Stop that, you shrieking harpy."
"Get off me, ye demon's consort. Cavorting with the Devil in my man's and I's bed."
"That's no devil." Mary found the woman's ear and gave it a tweak. "That's your master you're bludgeoning."
Fanny gasped. She flung aside the rolling pin, and from Sebastian's pained shout, Mary deduced the thing had bounced off his toes.
"God keep us," Fanny breathed. "Dick, 'tis Lord Byrne 'imself."
"Y-yer lordship." The man in the door--Dick, she supposed--pulled the hat from his head and bowed. "Dick Cross. I'm the caretaker. And this is the missus, Fanny. We hadn't expected ye. A thousand apologies, milord."
"A thousand isn't nearly enough." Sebastian whipped the quilt from the bed and wrapped it about his hips. "Try multiplying that by a factor of a hundred."
Dick shuffled his feet. "Ciphering were never my strong point, milord."
Ignoring him, Sebastian went to Mary. "Are you hurt?"
"No. Not at all."
He turned to the caretaker and his wife. "That's a stroke of luck for the two of you."
"We'll leave ye alone, then." Fanny gathered up her rolling pin and inched toward the door, tugging her husband with her. "Ever so sorry to have interrupted yer night of sin."
"It's not a night of sin."
"We'll leave straightaway and let you be with yer lady of the evening."
Sebastian puffed with anger. "What are you--"
"Now, now. No shaming from our quarter," she added. "Only God can judge. Perhaps fornication's forgiven for the upper classes. Special dispensations from the Church, no doubt."
"Must say, she's a fair one," Dick put in. "A sight better than the wenches what walk the docks."
Fanny whacked her husband with the rolling pin. "What would ye know about the wenches what walk the docks?"
"Let me alone, woman. 'Tis no concern of yours. The master wouldn't truck with that sort. Got the quality goods, he has."
"Enough." Sebastian grabbed the caretaker by the shirt and lifted him onto his toes. "Insult my wife one more time, and I will shove that broomstick up your arse."
"Y-yer..." His eyes flicked to Mary. "Yer wife?"
"Yes. My wife. Lady Byrne. As of today."
"Beggin' apologies, milord. Milady. We didn't receive any word that ye'd married. Nor a notice that ye planned to be in residence."
"I can see by the state of this cottage that you didn't. Not that it's any excuse. Imagine my displeasure when I bring my bride for a seaside honeymoon, only to find the place in complete disarray. You ought to keep the house in readiness at all times. Instead, we arrived to find this place filthy and in disrepair."
"We've been feelin' poorly."
"Oh, I'll teach you what it is to feel poorly."
Mary decided to intervene. She laid a hand to his arm, gently. "Sebastian."
It was enough.
His demeanor softened. He gestured toward the door. "Begone, the both of you."
"Aye, aye. We'll jes' be in the kitchen, then."
"You'll be in the barn," he said. "We'll discuss the state of your employment--or lack of it--tomorrow."
After the couple had left, Mary and Se
bastian returned to the bed. He turned her so that her back rested against his chest, spooning his body around hers. Keeping her warm and safe.
Her eyelids grew heavy. Heavens, what a day. It seemed impossible to bend her mind around it all. A jilting, an elopement, a decrepit honeymoon cottage.
And one fiery, passionate kiss. If a single kiss could create such a whirlwind of sensation, she could only imagine how their lovemaking would be. It boded well for the honeymoon, she thought. If only they hadn't been interrupted.
Mary pressed her lips together, trying not to giggle. In the end, she couldn't help it. She dissolved into laughter.
"What?"
"The rolling pin. The ciphering. Everything."
"It's not amusing."
"To the contrary. It's highly amusing. I've never been called a demon's consort before. You'll be laughing about it tomorrow."
"Doubtful."
"Very well. Perhaps you'll be laughing about it next year." Or maybe the decade after that.
"Go to sleep," he grumbled.
Just this once, she decided to obey his command.
Chapter 5
Mary was first to wake. The fire in the kitchen had gone cold, so she wriggled backward, curling into the heat of his body. He growled a little in his sleep. The hard, hot ridge of his erection jutted against her thigh. Apparently, one part of him was awake. A large part.
Her own intimate places softened. She felt a keen, hollow ache of curiosity.
Slowly, stealthily, she turned to face him, trying to muster the courage to steal a peek under the quilt. However, her carnal investigations were set aside when she glimpsed his face.
He looked so different in his sleep. Less troubled, more vulnerable. She stroked the thick, tawny hair back from his brow.
There it was, the tiny sunburst scar just beneath his hairline.
She remembered the night he'd been given that wound. Mary had been the only one awake, sitting in the kitchen with a cup of tea and reading over some papers. Sebastian had stumbled into the house well past midnight, his eye blackened and blood streaming from his hairline down to his chin.
Mary had set her work aside at once. She'd cleaned his wounds and applied a poultice to his blackened eye. He'd told her he'd been in a fight--someone he knew from Cambridge. But the story was just a story. He knew she'd noticed the remarkable similarity between the sunburst cut on his brow and the sunburst shape of his father's signet ring.
And she knew Sebastian had noticed the work that kept her up late. She'd been correcting the errors in contracts her father had drawn up for a client. That was the time when his mind had just begun to fail.
They had these little secrets, the two of them. Always unspoken, and yet always understood.
She pressed a kiss to his scar.
He stretched and yawned, then turned to stare up at the roof above. "I was hoping this cottage had been a nightmare." He rose from bed and went to retrieve his trousers. "I'm going to walk Shadow into the village and find the smithy. Once he's been shoed, I'll ride back and we'll leave for Ramsgate at once." He pulled his shirt over his head. "Stay abed. Get some more sleep."
Mary nodded in drowsy agreement and drew the quilt up to her chin.
However, the moment the door closed behind him, she jumped out of bed. She excavated her simplest, plainest frock from the depths of her trunk, dressed in haste, and had a look around the cottage.
Last night, she hadn't explored any of it, aside from the kitchen and the small room she now understood to be Dick and Fanny's bedchamber.
The cottage wasn't large, and it had been sorely neglected, but with a bit of work it could be a charming home. Downstairs, she explored a parlor with a large fireplace ideal for cozy nights in, and a dining room nowhere near large enough for a party, but more than sufficient for two.
A library rounded out the ground floor, and it was Mary's favorite room yet. Bookshelves covered the walls from floor to ceiling, and a massive mahogany desk lodged by the window, issuing a dare: Just you try to budge me.
She'd no desire to make the attempt.
Instead, she took a seat at the desk and ran her palms over the glossy wood. When she inhaled, her lungs filled with the scents of leather and tobacco and old books. A powerful wave of memories crashed through her.
The library was so much like Papa's.
Henry had never taken an interest in the law, but Mary had loved watching their father work. She'd steal out of bed on nights when she couldn't sleep, tiptoeing through the house to his study. There, she'd find him poring over a legal reference or a making notes on a contract. He didn't scold her or chase her back to bed. Instead, he'd take her onto his lap and explain whatever task lay before him--in simple, but never condescending, language.
Her father had believed girls should be educated in all the same subjects as boys, and he'd encouraged Mary to form her own opinions and share them with confidence.
Most importantly, he'd always made time for her.
Sadly, his time on earth had been much too short. She missed him every day.
Swallowing back the lump in her throat, she left the study and made her way up the stairs to explore the cottage's bedchambers. There were three in total. Two small rooms, and a larger one for the master and mistress of the house.
She went to the window and opened it wide. A breathtaking view greeted her. The blue-green sea, frosted with whitecaps and sparkling with sunshine.
Beautiful.
She pressed a hand to her heart. In no time at all, she'd fallen in love with this cottage. It was the perfect place for a honeymoon.
They would not be leaving for Ramsgate today. Not if she had anything to say about it. However, if she meant to convince Sebastian, she had no time to waste.
She went outside and found the well. Once she'd drawn a full pail of water, she took it in both hands and--rather than carrying it inside the cottage--proceeded directly to the barn, where Dick and Fanny Cross lay snoring atop a mound of straw.
She dashed the water over them. "Wake up."
The caretaker and his wife jolted to life, sputtering.
"You will not find me an easy mistress to please," Mary said, "but at the moment I am your best friend. If you want any hope of keeping your posts, you'd best rouse yourselves and prepare to work your fingers to nubs. Do you understand me?"
The caretaker struggled to stand. "Yes, milady."
"Good." She set the bucket at the caretaker's feet. "You can begin by drawing more water and bringing it in to the kitchen. Fanny, gather up brooms, rags, soap, and some vinegar."
Fanny nodded.
"This cottage--or at least a fair part of it--will be presentable by the time your lord returns." Mary arched an eyebrow. "Or prepare to face the wrath of the demon's consort."
Within an hour, they had the kitchen swept and the cobwebs knocked from the corners. Mary had scrubbed the panes of the windows with vinegar and a drop of lemon oil. Dick brought in eggs from the henhouse, and Fanny produced bread, a slab of bacon, and some butter. In the cupboard, Mary found a jar of preserves and a locked tea caddy. She broke the rusted lock with a knife and was rewarded with a small stash of serviceable, if a bit stale-looking, tea.
By the time she had the kettle boiling, eggs and bacon frying, and bread sliced for toasting, her hair had begun to come loose, and perspiration dotted her brow. She meant to wash her face and pretty herself before Sebastian returned, but she didn't have a chance. The clop of Shadow's freshly shoed hooves on the lane told her he'd already returned.
She patted her hair, hastily untied her apron and cast it aside. At the last second, she adjusted the bouquet of wildflowers she'd picked on a whim earlier and crammed into a crockery vase.
As Sebastian came through the door, she clasped her hands together and tried not to appear as anxious as she felt inside. How silly, that she'd be nervous. But perhaps it was natural. This was her first morning as a wife, and she found herself eager for her husband's approval. Maybe he'd
be impressed by everything she'd accomplished in only a few hours, and then he'd embrace the idea of domestic bliss.
My darling, you've worked a miracle. I can't imagine how I ever lived without you. Truly, you are the best of wives.
"Good morning." She smiled and prepared herself to receive his praise.
Instead, he shook his head. "Mary, what have you done?"
*
Sebastian gestured broadly at the kitchen. "What is all this?"
As he watched, the smile faded from her face. "It's breakfast," she said. "And we did a bit of tidying up."
The kitchen hadn't merely been "tidied up." It had undergone a complete transformation.
The spiders had been evicted from the corners, and the thick layer of dust had vanished from the fireplace mantel. The smell of fresh sea air breezed through the open window, and a pair of lacy curtains fluttered in the wind. Everything in the place had been scrubbed and polished to a gleam. Even the floor looked to have been scoured.
She must have worked every blessed minute he'd been away. Yet more impressive, it would seem she'd convinced Dick and Fanny Cross to do some labor, too.
The prettiest thing in the room, of course, was Mary herself. She was lovely as a Dutch painting. She'd dressed in a sage-green frock with cap sleeves and delicate lace edging. Her skin seemed to glow in the morning light, and her cheeks had a fetching blush. She wore her auburn hair in a loose, haphazard knot, and stray wisps had curled at her temples and the nape of her neck.
"You look as though someone stomped on your new hat," she said. "Don't you like it?"
"It's not that I don't like it. You shouldn't have put yourself to all this trouble, that's all. We're leaving for Ramsgate this morning."
"Yes, about that..." She chewed her bottom lip. "Let's at least have breakfast first. I'm hungry. And if I'm hungry, you must be starving."
Sebastian was starving. He hadn't had a bite to eat since breakfast yesterday, and that might as well have been last year. But since that kiss last night, another sort of hunger was tormenting him. He was ravenous for his wife.
While she loaded a plate for him, he washed his hands. Then he sat down to a feast. Fried eggs, bacon, toasted bread with butter and jam. How had she managed all this?