He was driving into her, drawing her upward to meet him again, when she managed to look up into his face, harsh in the dim light of the tack room, his eyes glazed, and suddenly, it seemed that he was in immense pain. His jaw was locked, his cheeks flushed, the flesh taut over his bones. He grew still. She could feel him deep inside her, heavy, jerking slightly. Then, in the next instant, he wrenched away from her, heaving, groaning as if he were in pain, cursing, his hands digging into her hips to support himself, and she didn’t understand, couldn’t begin to realize what he was doing until she felt the wet of his seed on her belly, felt him jerking over her until finally, he was on his knees between her legs, his head bowed, his eyes closed, his breathing ragged.
She said nothing, merely stared at him, the pleasure from such a short time before now as cold as ashes on a summer grate. She felt nothing but a vast emptiness that would consume her, she knew it as certainly as she now understood him and what he had planned the previous night but had failed to carry out.
She saw his seed on her belly. She held perfectly still. If she remained perfectly still, said naught, not a single word, maybe the pain would diminish, maybe he would say something that wouldn’t tear her apart.
He rose, standing naked over her. “I’ll get my handkerchief.” She closed her eyes and turned onto her side, drawing her legs up. She didn’t care that she was naked, that he would look at her, it just didn’t matter. She felt him coming back down on his knees, felt his hands on her shoulder and hip, turning her back to him. She felt the handkerchief wiping his seed from her.
“Don’t you dare cry, Duchess,” he said low, his face bending close to her head. “Don’t you dare weep your damned woman’s tears and say that I abused you, that you didn’t gain pleasure from me. You had great pleasure if your screams were any measure, and believe me, they were. I didn’t cheat you out of anything save my seed, but you know I intended to do that. If you didn’t understand what I meant, you do now. I told you that you won’t bear any child of mine to follow in that bastard’s footsteps. It is done. Get up now and get dressed.”
He tossed the handkerchief beside her on her riding skirt. She watched him as he dressed, his movements as graceful as they always were, oblivious of her now, as if she had been naught but a receptacle for his man’s lust, and since he was through with her, why bother then regarding her anymore. Then she saw his hands, hard and large, yet when they touched her, they . . . she closed her eyes. He was in full control, both of himself and of her. She had no control at all, indeed, at that moment, she had nothing.
Slowly, she sat up, drawing her now wrinkled chemise over her head. She stared at a beautiful Spanish saddle as she said, “Badger is preparing dinner himself tonight.”
Marcus eyed her with some surprise. He shouldn’t be surprised, he thought, no tears for the Duchess, no sign of anything, except when she wanted him to pleasure her. No, no sign of anything because emotion was too messy, it would reduce her in her own eyes to show anyone anything save her immense calm, that damnable aloofness of hers. He said, “What is he preparing?”
“Roasted lamb with apricot sauce. He says it takes too long a time to hash a shoulder of mutton properly so instead he has marinated the mutton all day.”
Marcus grunted as he pulled on his coat. He walked to a chair, sat down, and pulled on his boots.
“He is also making a cherry and almond cake. It was always one of my mother’s favorites. And cassia biscuits. They have castor sugar and currants in them.”
He rose then and looked down at her sitting cross-legged on her riding skirt, his damp wadded-up handkerchief beside her, her chemise pulled over her head to fall only to her thighs, those white legs of hers so beautifully shaped. Her hair was tumbled about her head. She looked so lovely and yet so desperate in her calmness, he felt a stab of alarm. He shook his head. No, not the Duchess, she wouldn’t feel anything that would interfere with the smoothness of her breath, save when he took her and stroked her. And that gave him power over her. That pleased him. He could shatter her calm in those precious minutes. He took a step toward her, then stopped suddenly, frowning. “Do you not think it a bit odd to speak about Badger’s recipes so soon after having sex with me?”
“Would you prefer that I said nothing?”
“It is what you usually say. Holding cold and detached is your specialty. It is what I expected.”
“I spoke about food to break the silence, to give you background noise while you dressed again. Would you rather I had spoken of something else?”
“Yes. Of me and what I did to you, of what I gave to you. Of yourself, and what I will teach you to do to me. Right now you are taking, Duchess, naught but taking. Are you willing to give as well?”
She looked beyond his right shoulder. “Do you know how pippins and plums are candied?”
“No, I don’t know.”
“You mustn’t forget that a good cook, which Badger is, also knows how to use foods to prepare remedies for illnesses.”
He hunkered down beside her. He took her chin in his palm. “Shut up.”
She became still as a stone.
He kissed her, forcing her mouth open, but he didn’t savage her, no, not at all. She felt his tongue gently come into her mouth, lightly touching hers, demanding nothing. She closed her eyes, forcing herself to ignore the burgeoning warmth deep in her belly. It was humiliating, that damned warmth that he drew so effortlessly from her.
Then he was gone, rising to stand over her. “Dress yourself. I imagine that all our stable lads know exactly what we’ve been doing. Come, I’ll help you. There is straw in your hair. I suppose I should take that handkerchief. It smells of me and of you and I wouldn’t want to make you remember that you are as wild as a mare when a stallion comes over her.”
Suddenly, something else shattered deep inside her, broke wide apart, and rage such as she’d never felt in her nineteen years poured through her. She knew it was rage even though she’d never recognized it within herself before. Ah, yes, she knew, and she let it feed on itself, let it grow stronger and stronger still. She could feel the rage pounding in every part of her body, unleashing itself in her, pushing her and pushing harder and harder.
The stillness, the hard-won calm and serenity she’d shown to the world since that long-ago day when she’d heard the upstairs maid tell the Tweenie that she was a bastard flared bright and hot in her mind. She could see the two of them, hear their voices talking about her. She saw herself, small and so very frightened, so utterly alone in this huge mansion, seeking out her father’s wife, knowing she would tell her the truth, just not realizing the depths of the countess’s hatred of her, of her very existence. It was more than just hatred, it was vile and cold and contemptuous, what the countess of Chase felt for her, a nine-year-old girl who’d just found out she was a bastard. It spewed over her, drowning her in it and she hadn’t been able to bear it.
And then Marcus had named her the Duchess and all that calm, that stillness, that haughty reserve that others applauded in her, indeed poured approval upon her because of it, seeped into her very soul. And she nurtured it as she would a precious rose in her mother’s garden, until it was, quite simply, natural. It became her, and she a reflection of it; she was it. She became the Duchess.
Until now. The rage bubbled and flamed. She was stripped, everything in her naked and hard and cold and eager for violence. She stared at him, letting her rage at what he’d done to her continue to build.
She rose slowly to her feet, smoothing down her wrinkled, soiled chemise. She saw that her hands were shaking, but not with timidity, but with the cleansing sweet anger. And it was sweet, that rage that she’d buried deep as her very soul so many years before. She watched him as he walked back to his chair and sat down. He crossed his legs and his arms over his chest.
“Dress,” he said. “You might try some feminine wiles on me, I’d like to see if you have talent for it. You don’t understand, Duchess? Well, dress slowly, tease me with a tos
s of your head, raise your breasts, perhaps show me some cleavage, move your hips in a seductive way. Are you capable of such a thing? I wonder.”
She just stared at him, this man to whom she’d given herself, this man she’d saved, truth be told, she had saved him, saved the future of the Wyndham line, and he was a tyrant, a fool, a savage who had humiliated her more than she’d believed one human being could humiliate another. He’d withdrawn from her because of his hatred of her father. He’d treated her like nothing more than a vessel for his lust and even that he hadn’t allowed. He scorned her womb because it represented a tie to the uncle he hated so very much. He scorned her for it, even though she’d been naught but a bastard, and perhaps that was why he did. He simply didn’t care what he did to her. And he knew she would simply accept whatever he meted out to her.
She realized that his hatred of her father wasn’t close to the rage that consumed her now, this fine rage that was making her mind cold and hard and so very clear. She stoked it with memories from her childhood and more recent memories of his humiliating treatment of her.
She even smiled as she looked around the tack room, smiled even as she felt the rage turning inside her to something more forthright, something pure and cold as ice, something really quite vicious. If she’d had a gun, she would have shot him. She grabbed a riding crop from the desk, raised it high and ran at him, yelling in a wonderfully demented voice, “You damned bastard! You think I will remain silent and allow you to humiliate me? You think you can treat me as you would a person of no account at all? I hate you, do you hear me, Marcus, you bloody damned bastard! Never will you abuse me again and take it as your right, your privilege, never again!”
She struck his chest and shoulder with the riding crop. For an instant he didn’t move, just stared at her, unwilling to believe what he’d just heard from her mouth or the pain from her slashing riding crop. He simply couldn’t connect this virago, this frenzied creature, to the Duchess, to the female he’d known for ten years.
She was panting hard, as if she’d been running until she was ready to vomit with the strain, panting and heaving. “You want me to act the seductress? Prance in front you as if you’re my master, my owner? You’re a filthy bastard!” She struck him again and he felt his riding jacket split open, felt the lash cut through his lawn shirt to his flesh beneath.
He roared and jumped up. “Enough, damn you! What the hell is wrong with you? Just a moment ago you were as placid as a stupid cow, sitting there silently as you always do, obeying me, quoting Badger’s menu to me, for God’s sake. Nothing on your mind save what you deemed appropriate and proper.”
“Don’t you dare call me a stupid cow, you fool!” She struck him again. He lunged for her, but she jumped back just beyond his reach, hitting out at him again, missing this time, but if she had connected, it would have slashed through his flesh.
He stopped cold in his tracks. He couldn’t believe what was happening. The proof was in the pain of the two slashes she managed, but still . . . He said, his voice colder and harder than what he’d used to get his men into battle, “You won’t strike me again, Duchess, not again. I will make you regret striking me at all.”
“You try it and I’ll gullet you, you stupid, ungrateful sod. God, to think that I saved you, that I felt that I owed you your heritage. You don’t deserve anything, Marcus, save a beating that will bring you to your knees, humiliation, in short, God, that’s what you deserve, that’s what you need!”
She threw the crop at him, grabbed up a bridle and began swinging it at him with all her strength. She felt the instant the metal bit struck his flesh, felt the iron bit strike his skull, and it was clean that blow, clean and pure and he deserved it. She watched him weave where he stood, his hand on the side of his head, and he stood there just staring at her utterly disbelieving, then he dropped like a stone to his knees, then keeled over onto his side, quite unconscious.
She was panting hard, feeling stronger than the mightiest Amazon of legend. She gently laid down the bridle, went down on her knees and felt his heart. The beat was steady. He would be fine, the damnable bastard. God, she hoped he would have a headache to rival the worst bellyache she’d ever suffered.
She rose, smoothed down her chemise once more, then quite calmly, dressed herself. She gave him one last look, smiling at the two rents in his clothes from the riding crop and left the tack room, quietly closing the door behind her.
It was raining, the afternoon prematurely dark, the wind blowing hard, the branches of the maple and lime trees tearing at themselves. “It is like Beltane night the monk wrote about,” she said aloud, then laughed, throwing her head back and letting the rain wash over her face and hair. She felt wonderful. She felt strong. She felt whole.
18
THE GREEN CUBE Room was cozy with its fire blazing and the heavy draperies drawn across the windows. It was late afternoon and she was alone. This time, it felt quite good to be alone. She spared only a passing thought for Marcus. If he was conscious, then what was he doing? What was he thinking? Perhaps he was staggering back to the house even now. Perhaps she should go and meet him. No, if she did, she’d laugh in his face. Instead, she smiled into the flames, feeling herself grow as warm on the inside as on the outside.
“Hello, Duchess. You’re alone. May I speak to you?”
She turned slowly and looked at Trevor. How very handsome he was, she thought, and not at all a fool or an idiot like her husband. “Do come in,” she said.
He stopped beside her chair, then moved to stand beside the fireplace, leaning his shoulder against the mantel. “You know, Duchess, you can speak to me. I also know that I’m more a stranger to you than not, but then again, strangers aren’t bad sorts sometimes. They can be trusted. They can be discreet. Something bothers you.”
“There is nothing wrong with me,” she said. “At least not anymore there isn’t. Why would you possibly think that?”
“Your stillness,” he said slowly. “When you become silent as a stone and as unmoving as that beautiful painting over the mantel, I know that you are distressed.”
To his surprise, she laughed. “Actually you’re very observant, Trevor, but my stillness now, well, it’s not the kind of stillness it was yesterday or even this morning or even two hours ago. Now it is just simple stillness because, frankly, I’m tired. So, believe me, sir, there is nothing at all wrong with me now, nothing at all.”
“You’re right,” he said slowly. “Something has changed, you’re different somehow. I was thinking when I saw you sitting there, so still, so quiet, that Marcus has known you since you were a child, yet he never realized your quiet pose was just that, a pose, a shield you’d fashioned over the years to protect yourself from hurt. He sees it as arrogance, as your way of playing the queen and keeping the peasants at their distance. It enrages him, you know.”
“You are more than observant, you’re frightening. As you said, something has happened, and that girl you just described has thankfully fallen behind the wainscoting. She no longer exists. If I am silent now, or overly quiet, it is because it is what I feel like being. God, life can be quite satisfying, can it not? I will see you at dinner, Trevor.”
The Duchess rose from her winged chair and walked from the room, whistling one of the military ditties she’d heard Spears singing. He could but stare. What had happened? He wondered where the hell Marcus was.
“What were you speaking to that little trollop about, Trevor?”
He raised his eyes to his mother’s face as she walked briskly into the room. “She isn’t a trollop. She’s the countess of Chase. She is a lady and she has a kindness I’ve never before seen in another person.” He paused a moment at his mother’s loud hrmmph, then added, “Indeed, if you don’t find some conciliatory remark to flit out of your mouth, it’s possible that she will simply order us out of here.”
“She wouldn’t dare. She’s a bastard and the earl doesn’t even like her. She has no power here. She is nothing. Besides the ea
rl finds me quite to his liking.”
Trevor could only stare at his fond parent. She was actually patting the tight sausage curls over her left ear. He sighed, saying, “I assure you that Marcus is quite fond of the Duchess.” He wished he could add that Marcus’s fondness had quite likely extended itself to very physical demonstrations a short time ago, but he held his tongue. If Marcus had done the job even adequately, why was there such a transformation in her now? There was an unleashed power in her that she couldn’t hide. It was controlled, but now it would be loosed when she chose. He found it fascinating. But what had happened to bring about this change in her? Surely Marcus couldn’t have bungled his lovemaking all that badly. Maybe, he thought, just maybe it was that Marcus hadn’t bungled anything. Maybe she was a pleasured woman and that had made all the difference in her, for her.
Trevor eyed his mother. He realized that he didn’t know his mother all that well. Since his eighteenth year, he’d not lived at his parents’ home in Baltimore. He’d made his home in Washington. Indeed, he’d fought like the devil himself when the British had landed and stormed the capital. He’d turned twenty-two during those blood-soaked weary days, then when it was all over, he’d gone back to Baltimore and married the richest most beautiful girl Baltimorean society had to offer a hungry young man. Her name was Helen and she was more lovely than her legendary namesake. He saw her in his mind’s eye—dead, lying there on her back, her eyes open, her flesh like gray wax.
“I’m going to be twenty-five next Tuesday,” he said to no one in particular.
“I thought you were only twenty-three, Trevor. Mayhap twenty-two.”
“No, Mother.”
“I have told my friends that you are younger.”
He grinned, realizing that his age made her too ancient and she suffered for it. “I won’t tell anyone back home,” he said. “Now, have you seen James?”