At Your Pleasure

  She slept deeply. Her hand was small where it curled atop his chest. He placed his own over it, covering it more tightly when he felt how the coolness of the room had settled into her skin. Her fingers were slim but not soft; her ragged cuticles betrayed how quickly she had left behind the soft routines of court life. Her body beneath the embroidered quilt lent it more beauty than it deserved, shaping it with the slopes and valleys of her curving flesh.

  Last night he had been struck dumb by her. What he had not felt in the chapel, the breath of grace too pure for earthly corruption, had fallen across him in this bed. For the briefest moment, beholding her naked, he had wondered at himself, feeling almost unmanned—reluctant even to touch her, lest the history collected in his skin, the dark deeds in his bones, somehow bring her to ruin.

  But he was only a man, not a saint; and even divinity could not restrain for too long the baser hunger in him, the need to possess her rearing so ferociously that only her eyes, fastened wide and luminous on his, had recalled to him the strain of sanity required not to crush her; to use her thoroughly but not forcefully; to ensure that her sleep now remained undisturbed by the bruising of his grip.

  He looked upon her for long minutes, seeing more and more to wonder at: the shades of her hair, changing from purest night to the shadows of evening, cobalt to inky black, and the faint tracery of veins beneath her pale skin. He felt as Saul must have done when a great light burned the scales from his eyes—newly exalted by the sight of the world, liberated again to true vision. Her wrists were slim as saplings’ branches. The curve of her arm might have taught grace to birds in flight. But her calf over his weighed solidly, a sweet provocation, and the plush give of her thigh was the sweetest submission he had ever known.

  The fear stole over him like the first breath of night, at first a subtle chill on his nape, and then a spreading, sharpening cold that made his gut contract and his breath come short.

  She had spoken truly. He had sinned against her by forcing her into wedlock. Did she know how easily she might punish him for it? Her slim, small hands held his future now, and with a single twist, they could shatter it.

  A logical man—the man he’d supposed himself to be—never would have touched her, never would have given her such power over him. As his wife, her actions were his. Her treason would be counted his treason. Her mistakes could end his fortune—his family—everything he had fought to build and safeguard.

  Yet . . . with her, he was no logical man, and so this was not the true source of his fear.

  He had told himself that he could bear her hatred so long as she was safe. Yet it came to him now that her esteem was also . . . beyond price to him. If he had sacrificed the chance to recover her love—if she never found it in herself to forgive his crime, if her hatred was all that remained to him . . .

  She would nevertheless be safe. For that alone, he could entertain no regrets. But as for himself . . . with all her hatred and none of her love, he could see no way to prosper. Truly, he would be destroyed.

  At last, he removed himself from her side, moving slowly lest he wake her, pausing in his retreat to clear the hair that crossed her eyes, and to press his lips to hers—just once, for if this morning never started, then the night ahead would never come.

  He was not a patient man. The urge to woo her, to begin the persuasion of reconciling her to this marriage, pressed him hard. But he would give her the span of the day. He would wait until darkness to seduce her again.

  He marshaled his discipline, forcing his thoughts toward other matters as he dressed himself. But at the door, he could not help but turn back.

  The first ray of sunrise had crossed her bare arm. As he watched it spread, coloring her like honey, his wonder condensed into a weight in his chest. He remembered now why men prayed; why earth-made miracles caused them to cast their eyes to heaven in search of reassurance that their great good fortune would not be snatched away.

  On a long, shaken breath, he stepped out of the chamber.

  Nora woke alone to a morning fractured by a nightingale’s distant melody and, closer at hand, the sharp slap of her maid’s slippers across the floor.

  She pushed herself up on one elbow, turmoil rising instantly within her. He had forced her . . . He had said he loved her . . . He had seduced her despite herself. And she had been willing.

  He was not here.

  She was relieved.

  She was . . . disappointed.

  Dear God in heaven. She could not bear to look into her own mind just yet. “Grizel,” she said.

  The maid gasped and wheeled back from the far end of the room. “Oh, my lady—” She rushed forward, one hand clutching her cap to keep it in place, and fell to her knees beside the bed. With clammy fingers she enfolded Nora’s hand and carried it to her breast. “Was he cruel to you?”

  “No,” Nora said slowly. Or did she mean yes? His body, his attentions, had been the furthest thing from cruel. But the manner in which he had secured her—that had been cruel indeed.

  As for the manner in which she had received his attentions—the ferocious, joyous, terrible hunger that had driven her, and that he had satisfied so expertly, again and again—what did that say of her?

  She realized that Grizel’s speculative gaze was wandering the rumpled sheets. This bed loudly spoke that the night had not been chaste.

  Blushing, Nora pulled free of the maid’s grasp. “How did you know to find me here?”

  “But where else would you have been, after such words? I could hardly credit them—the whole house is on its ear. Mr. Colville lifted his voice; he threatened to cut his lordship’s throat; only his lordship invited him to do so, and then Mr. Colville got very quiet. But how did it happen, madam? When did he marry you?”

  This breathless recital left Nora in a daze. “Mr. Colville? But how did he—and how did you learn of it?”

  Grizel leapt back to her feet. “Oh! It is true, then! And as for how I know—why, he called us all to the great hall, he did, and pronounced the news—”

  “All of you?” Nora slipped off the bed. “The whole household?”

  Grizel hesitated. “Was he wrong to do so, my lady? I did grow worried when you made no appearance—”

  Nora held up a hand for silence. These tidings unsettled her extremely. Calling her household to order while she had lain asleep upstairs—it was not simply highhanded, but part of his larger strategy. He had bedded her last night and made certain this morning that the entire house knew enough to testify to it.

  Such cold-blooded calculation! How could she match it with the hot tenderness of his kisses?

  She put her arms around herself, feeling suddenly cold. “I don’t . . .”

  I don’t know what I should feel, or what I must do.

  This was not a sentiment to be shared with one’s maid.

  “I need to bathe,” she said. “Arrange for it.”

  “Aye, my lady. Here, or in your own—” Grizel stopped. “That is,” she said more cautiously, “will these be your chambers from now forward, my lady?”

  “I don’t know!”

  The words burst from her too sharply. “Forgive me,” she said. “I am—I have yet to decide on these matters. But I will bathe in my own chambers.”

  At least, she thought blackly, he had spared her the right to make that decision for herself.

  In the midst of her bath it came to her with a start that she had abandoned the cloak bag in the entresol. Her frantic inquiry of Grizel, who had helped her to pack it, yielded a quick reassurance: the contents had been returned to the steward for safekeeping.

  But on such a day, Nora could not take assurance for certainty. After dressing, she went to confirm for herself that Montrose had secured the deeds.

  The door to her steward’s office stood ajar. She entered, expecting to find him at solitary work, but he had company: her new husband sat at the desk while Montrose hung about his elbow, solicitously attending Adrian’s inspection of some document.


  Glancing up, Adrian offered her a lazy smile. “Good day, lady wife.”

  While it was a proper greeting for a husband to offer, in the context of these strange events, it seemed as much a challenge as a welcome. “Good day,” she said, but felt too uncertain of herself to smile.

  Moreover, her steward’s reaction puzzled her: as she stepped inside, he recoiled from Adrian’s side. Had he not heard news of the marriage? How had he avoided Adrian’s announcement?

  She followed his glance downward.

  Her cloak bag sat open by Adrian’s feet.

  The documents spread before him assumed new, shocking significance. He was inspecting the deeds and rent rolls! No wonder Montrose looked at her with hangdog eyes!

  “Those are not for you,” she burst out. “What business have you with those?”

  “I suppose that depends,” Adrian said, leaning back in his chair. “Where did you mean to take them?”

  “Away,” she said. “To safety. They are no business for outsiders!” She cast a sharp look toward Montrose, who busied himself in a close scrutiny of his own hands.

  “And where did you think to find this safety?” Adrian asked.

  If the softness of his question was intended to convey a warning, it worked the opposite effect. His presumption was stupendous; she would not be cowed in her correction of it. “That does not concern you! A soused parson might give you possession of me, but he cannot put Hodderby into your hands!”

  He laid down the ancient parchment and stared at her. “Indeed. And yet, still I wonder: to whom did you seek to carry this proof of Hodderby’s possession?”

  Oh, ho. Did he think he had gained the right to know everything in her brain? “You may deprive me of sleep again, if you like. You may demand the answer after two or three nights of my misery. But I promise you, you will receive the same answer as you did before. It does not concern you!”

  He lifted a brow. “It was no demand, only a question. I hadn’t imagined that the answer might be so interesting as to merit your circumspection.”

  “Demand or no, you overstep yourself. Merely because I—” She cast a glance toward Montrose, unwilling to speak so plainly in the steward’s presence.

  Adrian understood. With a nod to the man, he said, “I will finish here.”

  Montrose rose.

  “I have not given you permission to leave,” she said sharply.

  The steward divided a miserable glance between them. In a flash of bitter, black humor, she foresaw how it would go next: Adrian’s imminent nod would send her steward stumbling out, his quick exit further undercutting her authority.

  She did not wait for it. “Go,” she said.

  Montrose fled, tugging the door closed behind him.

  In the opening silence, she turned away from Adrian’s laconic regard and went to the window. The sight of orderly fields could not soothe her, but the rain dappling the glass, and the gray sky overhead, matched her mood perfectly.

  On a deep breath, she tried to collect herself. This marriage was a fact. What she said next would be crucial to how it developed. She had held her tongue a thousand, thousand times with Towe, but she could not learn to break her own spine again.

  Not for him.

  Not for a man who managed, despite her own best efforts of resistance, to make her long for his presence when he was absent.

  Towe’s opinion had never mattered to her. But to crush her own will and spirit for Adrian’s sake—it would destroy her. She would never recover any measure of independence.

  “Do me the favor of completing your remark,” he said behind her. “I expect to find it instructive.”

  His composure pricked her own temper sorely. She turned on her heel. “I let you have your way in the marriage bed,” she said through her teeth. “That does not mean you may trammel me in aught else. I am still the mistress of this household, and in its service I do not answer to you!”

  “Trammel?” He rose, his chair scraping over the stone. “And was it a trammeling, then, that I delivered in that bed?”

  She retreated a pace, her hips colliding with the sharp ledge of the windowsill. “Leave that be,” she said, for his intent expression now threatened, with the promise of touches and kisses, to undo her purpose here. “We must come to an understanding!”

  “I believed we had come to one,” he said. “With my mouth on your quim, you seemed agreeable to the prospect of mastery. Shall I remind you of it?”

  A strangled sound escaped her. He should not speak of such things. He was—more than wanton; he was pagan! In his face as he walked toward her now she saw his intentions very clearly.

  He would take her here, in her own steward’s office.

  “Stop!” She threw up a hand to halt him—physically, if need be—but the gesture was unneeded, for he did pause, just out of reach.

  The stamp of his features, the new tension in his face, did not require interpretation. An entrant now might have scented it in the air, this lust that leapt between their bodies and stifled her wits. The longer their eyes held, the looser felt her bones and joints.

  She swallowed hard. “I did not come here to trifle with you. I did not come here expecting you at all! You have no right to interrogate my steward—”

  “So many interrogations,” he purred. “You seem enamored of the exercise. I do wonder, Nora, where your imagination takes you.”

  Her mouth went dry. It would be a girl’s mistake to think his effect on her boded well for their future. Instead of wondering at the desire she felt for him, she should deplore it as a singular weapon he alone held against her. “I must—” She paused, wanting her voice to be steady. “I must have your respect, Adrian. I must feel—I must feel as though I am not only a woman to you, but a person, a . . .” Her fists knotted in her skirts. It did not require his baffled silence to know how nonsensical she sounded. She shook her head, too dispirited to continue.

  “Go on,” he said quietly.

  She remembered suddenly their conversation in the beehouse. Then, too, she had hesitated, and he had prompted her. He was not . . . indifferent to her opinions.

  He was not Towe.

  “I am your wife,” she said slowly. God above. How strange it seemed. “But I am my own, as well. I must remain so. Do you understand what I mean?”

  “I believe so,” he said, just as slowly.

  She took a deep breath, knowing her next words were an open invitation for his mockery. “Then . . . can you think of my needs? Can you . . . respect them, as much as your own?”

  “But your needs are precisely my concern here,” he said.

  Hearing in these words a lewd double meaning, she felt her heart sink. But then, studying her, he frowned and turned to fetch the stack of documents. “Hark,” he said as he turned back. “The tallies of your harvest. The number of dependents who rely on those stores, and the names of families whose yields may not suffice for the winter months. I was calculating with your steward what aid you and yours might require. As I told you, Beddleston has more than it requires.”

  This speech left her dumbfounded. She had not imagined such a motive. This was nothing but a kindness, for what difference did it make to him how Hodderby fared?

  I have loved you for a very long time, he had said.

  Wonder prickled through her. Perhaps . . . perhaps he meant those words.

  Ah, God, but were these not the most dangerous words to hear from him? For now he had put them into her brain, they would lurk there forever, waiting for moments such as these to seduce her into forgetting what he had done rather than said.

  “That is a most thoughtful and generous offer,” she said softly. “But you should have put it to me, not to my man.”

  He laid the documents back on the table. “So I intended. But before I offered, I wished to make certain that Beddleston’s stores could meet your whole need. Otherwise it would be a churlish thing to hold out hope to you for nothing.”

  She hesitated, torn between pre
ssing her point again and the more immediate question, to which she surrendered with a sigh. “And what did you discover? Can you supply our requirements?”

  “Happily, yes. No one need starve in the coming year.”

  The news overwhelmed her. Pressing her lips together, she nodded once. Not knowing what showed in her face, she turned away from his close regard and stared blindly into the fields.

  This was . . . an unexpected boon, indeed. Until this moment she had not realized what a great weight these harvest worries had put upon her.

  His footsteps approached; his hands closed on her shoulders, massaging them.

  It felt then as though something inside her broke open. A shiver passed through her.

  This was how she had imagined it would be between them, so many years ago. Tender consideration. A partnership of equals.

  She felt cast into a dream. A dream. He had come here hunting for her brother. This dream would not end happily.

  “I have every respect for you,” he said quietly. “But where lies disrespect in my offer of aid? Your worries are mine own now, Nora.”

  What a seductive idea. His hands felt blissful. She recognized the tension she had carried only as it began to ease away under the strength of his grip. A man in love might indeed make a woman’s worries his own.

  But she could not surrender all her cares to him. “My brother’s welfare does not worry you,” she whispered.

  His hands paused. “Must we revisit this question?”

  That he needed to ask boded ill. Could she not make him see what an impossible position he had made for her, in seeking to remove her from her bind?

  She laid her hand over his where it closed on her shoulder. “Where is my cousin Cosmo? As his host, I find it odd that he has not offered his felicitations to me.”

  “Your cousin felt the need to start his journey very early. He conveys his best wishes to you.”

  She shrugged out from his touch and turned on him. He had come so close that her body brushed his; she was trapped between his chest and the deep ledge of the window. He made no move to retreat, forcing her to hike her chin to meet his eyes.