To Seduce a Sinner

  She looked up and saw him. “Can you hand me the blanket from the bed?”

  He nodded, not trusting his voice, and went to the bed to pull off the blanket. What must she think of him? He crossed to the fire and handed the blanket to her.

  “Thank you.” She bent and began tucking it about a pile of linens to make a rough mattress.

  Did she worry that she’d married a madman? He looked away. The room wasn’t big, but it was cozy. The walls were a gray-blue, the floor covered by a faded brown and rose patterned rug. He went to the window and pulled back the curtain to look out, but the night was so dark, he couldn’t pick anything out. He let the curtain fall. Suchlike must have been and gone. Melisande had already undressed. She wore a pretty lace-trimmed shift and her wrapper.

  He took off his coat and began unbuttoning his waistcoat. “Lovely dinner.”

  “Yes, it was.”

  “Lady Charlotte was most amusing.”

  “Mmm.”

  He pulled off his neck cloth and then held the strip of material in his fingers, staring down at it blindly. “It’s because of the army, I think.”

  She stilled. “What?”

  “That.” He tilted his chin toward the pallet, not meeting her eyes. “We all have quirks, the men who came back from war. Some start violently at loud noises. Some can’t stand the sight of blood. Some have nightmares that wake them in the dark of night. And some”—he took a deep breath, closing his eyes—“some cannot bear to sleep in the open. Some fear attack in the night when they sleep and cannot . . . cannot help themselves. They must sleep with their back against the wall and with a lit candle so that they can see the attackers when they come.”

  He opened his eyes and said, “It’s a compulsion, I’m afraid. They simply cannot help themselves.”

  “I understand,” she said.

  Her eyes were gentle, as if she hadn’t just heard that her husband was a lunatic. She bent and continued putting together the pallet. She seemed as if she really did understand. But how could she? How could she accept that her husband was only half a man? He couldn’t accept it himself.

  He poured some wine from a decanter on a table. He stood drinking it and gazing sightlessly into the fire for some time before he remembered what he’d been thinking about when he came to their room.

  Jasper set his empty wineglass down and began unbuttoning his waistcoat. “You’ll think me fanciful, but for a moment when we were first introduced to the Holdens, I thought Timothy Holden looked like he recognized you.”

  She didn’t reply.

  He tossed his waistcoat to a chair and looked over at Melisande. She was plumping the bedding rather overhard. “My lady wife?”

  She straightened and looked at him, her chin up, her back stiff, as if she faced a firing squad. “I was engaged to him.”

  He simply looked at her. He’d known there was something—someone—but she’d never mentioned an engagement before. Stupid, of him, really. And now that he knew . . . He realized he felt a rising swell of jealousy. She’d set out to marry another man—Timothy Holden—once upon a time. Had she loved pretty Timothy Holden with his red lips?

  “Did you love him?” he asked.

  She looked at him a moment, then bent to finish putting together the pallet. “It was over ten years ago. I was only eighteen.”

  He cocked his head. She hadn’t answered the question. “Where did you meet?”

  “At a dinner party like tonight’s.” She picked up a pillow and smoothed the cover. “He sat beside me and was so kind. He didn’t turn away, as most gentlemen did back then, when I didn’t immediately fall into conversation with him.”

  Jasper pulled his shirt over his head. He had been one of those ungallant gentlemen, no doubt.

  Melisande laid the pillow down on the pallet. “He took me for rides in the park, danced with me at balls, all the things a gentleman does when he courts a lady. He wooed me for several months, and then he asked my father for my hand in marriage. Naturally, Father said yes.”

  He sat to shed his hose and shoes. “Then why aren’t you married to him?”

  She shrugged. “He proposed in October, and we planned to be married in June.”

  Jasper winced. They had been married in June. He went to her and gently helped her out of her wrapper. Then he took her hand and lay down on the pallet with her. She shifted until her head was on his shoulder. He stroked his fingers idly through her long hair. Funny how much more comfortable a pallet could be with her in it.

  “I had shopped for a trousseau,” she said quietly, her breath brushing his bare chest. “Sent out invitations, planned the wedding day. Then one day, Timothy came to me and told me he loved another lady. Naturally, I let him go.”

  “Naturally,” Jasper growled.

  Holden was a filthy ass. To lead on a young, gentle girl and then leave her nearly at the altar was the work of a swine. He stroked his sweet wife’s hair as if soothing her for hurts over a decade old and thought about their marriage and their marriage bed.

  At last he sighed. “He was your lover.”

  He didn’t bother phrasing it as a question. Still, he was almost surprised when she didn’t deny it.

  “Yes, for a while.”

  He frowned. Her tone was too flat. He stirred uneasily. “He didn’t force you, did he?”

  “No.”

  “Or threaten you in any way?”

  “No. He was gentle.”

  Jasper closed his eyes. God, he hated this. His hand had stopped moving in her hair, and he was conscious that he was gripping a lock.

  He exhaled and carefully unfisted his hand. “Then what is it? There’s something more that you’re not telling me, my heart.”

  She was silent so long that he began to think he’d imagined it in a jealous haze. Perhaps there was nothing else.

  But in the end, she sighed, a lost, lonely sound, and said, “I found out I was increasing, shortly after he broke the engagement.”

  Chapter Fifteen

  When Jack returned with the silver ring, he paused only to change into his rags, and then he nipped down to the royal kitchens. The same small boy was stirring the princess’s soup. Jack once again asked him if he might buy a turn at the spoon. Plop! went the silver ring, and Jack was away before the head cook could spy him. He hurried up the stairs and to his princess’s side.

  “Why, where have you been all day, Jack?” Princess Surcease asked when she saw him.

  “Here and there, thither and yon, beautiful lady.”

  “And what have you done to your poor arm?”

  Jack looked down and saw that he had a cut from the troll’s blade. “Oh, Princess, I did wrestle a monstrous pill bug in your honor today.”

  And Jack capered about until the entire court roared with laughter. . . .

  —from LAUGHING JACK

  Melisande felt Vale’s fingers pause in her hair. Would he repudiate her now? Get up and walk away? Or would he simply pretend he hadn’t heard her self-damning words and never speak of it again? She held her breath, waiting.

  But he merely ran his fingers through her hair and said, “Tell me.”

  So she closed her eyes and did, remembering that time so long ago now, and the pain that had nearly stopped her heart in her breast. “I knew at once what it was when I became sick in the mornings. I’ve heard of ladies being confused and waiting months to tell because they were not sure, but I knew.”

  “Were you frightened?” His deep voice was even, and it was hard to tell what he was feeling.

  “No. Well,” she amended, “perhaps when I first realized my condition. But very soon after that, I knew that I wanted my baby. That no matter what, he would be a joy to me.”

  She couldn’t see his face, but she watched his chest rise and fall beneath her hand. There were curling hairs in the hollow of his breastbone. She threaded her forefinger idly through them and let herself remember a bit of that joy. So strong. So fleeting.

  “Did you tell your f
amily?”

  “No, I told no one, not even Emeline. I think I was afraid of what they would make me do. That they would take the baby from me.” She took a steadying breath, determined to tell him all now, in case she couldn’t work up the courage to talk about this again. “I had a plan, you see. I would go to live with my elder brother, Ernest, until I’d begun to show, and then I would retire to a cottage in the country with my old nanny. I would have the baby, and we would raise him together, my nanny and I. It was a silly, childish plan, but at the time I thought it might work. Or maybe it was simply my desperate wishful thinking.”

  She felt the slide of hot tears and knew he must feel their dampness on his chest. Her voice was growing choked. But still he stroked her hair gently, and she found his hand soothing.

  She swallowed and finished her sad story. “But I hadn’t been long with my brother Ernest when I woke in the middle of the night with blood on my thighs. I bled for five days, very heavily, and after that it was gone. My baby was dead.”

  Melisande stopped because her throat had swelled with emotions and she could no longer talk. She closed her eyes and let the tears overflow, running down her temple and onto his chest. She sobbed once and then no more. She simply lay there and trembled with her grief. This was an old wound, but one that appeared fresh and new at odd moments, catching her off guard with its sharp pain. She’d held the possibility of life once, but that life had been taken away.

  “I’m sorry,” Vale rumbled beneath her. “I’m so sorry you lost your baby.”

  She couldn’t speak. She could only nod.

  He tilted her head up so he could see her face. His turquoise eyes were intense. “I will give you a baby, my dearest heart. As many babies as you wish, I swear it on my honor.”

  She stared at him in wonder. She wasn’t ashamed of what had happened—of who she was—but she’d expected anger, not sympathy, from him.

  He kissed her, his lips moving gently over hers, and it was like a pledge between them, sacred and right. Vale pulled the coverlet over them, carefully tucking it along her side, and hugged her closer. “Go to sleep, my lady wife.”

  His gruff words and tender hands comforted her. Melisande closed her eyes, the last of her tears finally stopping, and listened to the beat of Jasper’s heart under her ear. It was steady and strong, and she drifted into sleep on its rhythm.

  THE NEXT MORNING dawned sullenly, the skies gray with a drizzling rain. Aunt Esther sent them off with a hearty breakfast and much calling and waving good-bye. When at last they turned a corner and Aunt Esther’s town house was out of sight, Melisande turned from the window and looked at Vale.

  “When will we arrive at Sir Alistair’s house?”

  “Today, I think, if we travel well,” Vale replied.

  His legs were canted across the carriage floor as usual, and his body lounged bonelessly on the seat, but his wide mouth was turned down at one corner in a small frown. What did he think of her? He hadn’t treated her any differently this morning as they’d risen, dressed, and eaten, but her confession last night must’ve come as a shock. A man didn’t expect his maiden bride to have taken a lover once upon a time and, what’s more, to have been impregnated by that lover.

  Melisande glanced away from Vale and stared blindly out the window. Vale had received the revelation well enough, but when he had time to think about it, would it bother him? Would the knowledge that she hadn’t been a virgin on their wedding night begin to fester within him? Would he turn against her? She didn’t know, and with a troubled mind, she watched the highland hills roll by.

  They stopped for a late luncheon by a wide, clear stream and ate the cold ham, bread, cheese, and wine that Aunt Esther’s cook had packed for them. Mouse ran about and barked at some nearby highland cows—shaggy things with hair in their eyes—until Vale shouted at him to stop. Then the terrier came over and lay down to gnaw on a ham bone.

  They traveled all that afternoon, and by the time night began to fall, Melisande could see that Vale was restless.

  “Have we lost our way?” she asked him.

  “The coachman assured me he knew where we were when last we stopped,” Vale replied.

  “You’ve never been to see Sir Alistair before?”

  “No.”

  They rode another half hour or so, Suchlike dozing beside Melisande. The road was obviously rutted and poorly maintained, for the carriage rocked and jounced. Finally, just as the last light faded, they heard a shout from one of the men. Melisande peered out the window and thought she saw the dim outlines of a huge building.

  “Does your friend live in a castle?”

  Vale was peering now too. “It would appear so.”

  The carriage slowly turned into a narrow drive, and then they were bouncing toward the manor. Suchlike woke with a gasp. Melisande couldn’t see a light in the building anywhere.

  “Sir Alistair does know we’re coming, doesn’t he?”

  “I wrote him,” Vale said.

  Melisande stared suspiciously at her husband. “Did he reply?”

  But Vale pretended not to hear her, and then they’d rolled to a stop in front of the massive building. There was a shout outside and some scrambling, and after a pause, the carriage door opened.

  Mr. Pynch held a lantern high, the light casting ominous shadows across his gloomy face. “No one answers the door, my lord.”

  “Then we shall just have to knock louder,” Vale said.

  He jumped from the carriage and turned to help Melisande out. Suchlike climbed carefully down, and Mouse scrambled out and ran to some bushes to relieve himself. The night was very dark indeed, and a cold wind was whistling across the drive, causing Melisande to shiver.

  “Here.” Vale reached back inside the carriage and took out a cloak from under her seat. He wrapped it around her shoulders and then offered her his arm. “Shall we, my lady wife?”

  She took his arm and leaned close to whisper, “Jasper, what shall we do if Sir Alistair isn’t at home?”

  “Oh, someone will be about, never fear.”

  He led her up wide, stone steps so old they had a worn dip in the middle where countless feet had trod before. The door was a massive thing at least ten feet high and bound with great iron hinges.

  Vale pounded his fist on the door. “Oy! Open up! There’s travelers without who want a hot fire and a soft bed. Oy! Munroe! Come and let us in!”

  He kept up this racket for a good five minutes or more and then suddenly stopped, his fist still raised in midair.

  Melisande looked at him. “What—?”

  “Shh.”

  And then she heard. From deep inside the house there came a dull scraping, as if some subterranean creature had stirred.

  Vale slammed his fist into the door, making Melisande start. “Oy! Come and let us in!”

  A bolt shot back with a thump, and the door slowly creaked open. A short little man stood in the doorway. He was rather stout, and his graying ginger hair sprang out on either side of his head like the down on a dandelion. The top of his head was completely bald. He wore a long nightshirt and boots, and he scowled up at them.

  “Wot?”

  Vale smiled charmingly. “I am Viscount Vale, and this is my lady wife. We’ve come to stay with your master.”

  “No, you ain’t,” the creature said, and began to swing shut the door.

  Vale put out a hand and stopped the door. “Yes, we are.”

  The little man strained against the door, trying to close it, but it wouldn’t budge. “No one’s tol’ me about no visitors. We ain’t got the rooms cleaned nor victuals stocked in. You’ll just have to go away again.”

  By this time, Vale had lost his smile. “Let us in and we’ll settle the accommodations later.”

  The little man opened his mouth, obviously quite prepared to do further battle, but at that moment, Mouse finally rejoined them. The terrier took one look a Sir Alistair’s servant and decided he was the enemy. He barked at the man so vigorously that
all four legs bounced off the ground. The ginger-haired little man gave a high-pitched squeal and jumped back. That was all Vale needed. He slammed open the door and crowded in with Mr. Pynch by his side.

  “Stay by the carriage until we’re ready,” Melisande instructed Suchlike, and then she entered the castle more sedately behind the men.

  “You can’t! You can’t! You can’t!” the little man was shrieking.

  “Where is Sir Alistair?” Vale demanded.

  “Out! He’s gone out riding and might not be back for hours.”

  “He rides in the dark?” Melisande asked, startled. The countryside they’d been driving through was rugged, rocky, and hilly. She wouldn’t have thought it safe to ride about alone and at night.

  But the little man was scurrying ahead of them, down a wide hallway. They followed and stopped when he flung open a door. “You can wait in here, if you like. It makes no difference to me.”

  He turned to leave, but Vale caught him by the collar. “Wait.” Vale looked at Melisande. “Can you stay here with Mouse while Pynch and I find bedrooms and some food?”

  The room was dark and not at all welcoming, but Melisande lifted her chin. “Certainly.”

  “Brave, my sweet wife.” Jasper brushed his lips across her cheek. “Pynch, light some candles for her ladyship, and then we’ll have this fine fellow give us a tour.”

  “Yes, my lord.” Mr. Pynch lit four candles—all the room held—from his lantern and the men left.

  Melisande listened to their retreating footsteps and then shivered and looked around her. She was in a kind of sitting room, but it wasn’t very pleasant. Here and there were groupings of chairs—very old and very ugly. The carved wood ceiling was terribly high, and the candlelight didn’t entirely pierce the dark overhead. Melisande thought she saw wisps of old spiderwebs hanging down. The walls were also of dark, carved wood and had been decorated by stuffed animal heads—several moth-eaten deer, a badger, and a fox. Their glass eyes were eerie in the gloom.