2Rakehell (4 page)

He clung, shivering so hard his teeth chattered. She held
him close and stroked his hair. He’d brought this on himself. She should let
him suffer. On a rational level she wanted to punish him for deserting her, for
embarrassing her in front of her peers. Instead she stroked his head and his
back and cooed to him that everything would be all right—even though she feared
that might be a lie.

His hair stuck to his head in clammy wet strands and though
his skin scorched her palms, at the same time he was drenched in a cold sweat.
A groan tore from his throat and he clutched at his stomach.

“Adam,” she whispered. “What can I do for you? What can I
get you?” Guilt possessed her like a ravenous demon that she’d caused this
misery in him.

His head thrashed from side to side. “No,” he bit out
through clenched teeth. “Promise…me.”

“What, Adam? What?”

His eyes opened and for that instant, he looked clear and
focused. Determined. “I want free of it. Help me be free.”

His strength wavered and he wilted into her arms once more.
Though he hadn’t been specific, Primrose knew what he’d meant. He wanted free
of the drug. Not the chain. Not her. Opium.

Her breath hitched and she pulled the covers higher trying
to warm him but to no avail. His shivering was so terrible, the entire bed
shook. “Adam…let me go and I’ll stoke the fire. It’ll make you warmer.”

“No…” He clutched her tighter, burrowing his head against
her breasts and drawing his knees up to tangle his legs with hers. “Promise. No
doctor. No one…but you.”

“All right, all right,” she soothed. “I promise.”

After an hour or so of tremors—Primrose lost track of
time—he fell into a fitful sleep. She pried herself loose, eased from the bed,
rolled up her sleeves and rekindled the fire. Once it blazed up she
straightened and wiped the back of her wrist across her damp forehead.

She glanced at her husband, curled like a kitten under a
mound of covers. What had she done? Hopelessness pervaded her and sank to her
toes. She debated ringing for the physician regardless of what she’d told Adam.
She wasn’t sure she could do this.

God forbid she accidentally killed him!

She reached for the bell but Adam’s pained gaze on her
prevented her from ringing it.

“Don’t,” he rasped.

Her hand hovered. Indecision gnawed at her but ultimately
she didn’t ring the bell.

His expression twisted, betraying his pain. “I’ll give you
what you desire.”

“A child?” she asked. But even he didn’t deserve to be
blackmailed when he was obviously so ravaged by the drugs he’d grown dependent
upon. “Adam, we can talk about this later when you’re of sound mind.”

With a slight nod, he closed his eyes and drifted back into
a fitful sleep.

* * * * *

When Adam’s eyes opened he couldn’t remember where he was
for a few hazy seconds. His entire body ached. His muscles trembled.

He blinked as slowly his memory washed back over him,
entreating and receding like the tide on the seashore.

A wad of sheets lay in a pile on the floor. On the
nightstand sat a bowl he vaguely remembered retching into. A damp cloth had
been draped over the side of the washbasin. Images of Primrose holding his head
in her lap and bathing his forehead with cool water came back to him. He pushed
himself up and leaned back against the pillows.

Somehow, she’d managed to get him into a nightshirt that was
now soggy and clung to his skin like a cobweb.

He stank. Hell, the entire room stank. Rubbing his temples
he recalled how his wife had cared for him throughout the ordeal. Remorse
plagued him. She’d seen him through the very pits of hell. She’d shown him more
compassion than he deserved.

He shifted and noticed the chain had been removed from his
ankle. The impulse to flee down the servants’ stairs seized him and he flung
back the covers intent on doing just that.

A promise
…

Clapping a hand to his forehead, he squeezed his eyes shut.
“Damn.” Another voice intruded.

He’d never kept a promise before. Why start now? What did it
matter what she thought?

Her soothing voice played in his thoughts.
Adam, you’ll
get through this. Don’t give up.

He hissed a breath as he slid out of the bed. His knees
shook and he cursed. He hated feeling weak. He hated that she’d seen him weak.
Blast it all!

Gripping the bedpost, he stood with as little confidence as
a newborn foal, fearing his legs would give and he’d collapse.

His stomach grumbled and he debated ringing for a servant to
bring him something to eat. What time was it anyway? He ambled toward the
window and looked out at a view so familiar, yet it seemed so long ago that
he’d gazed upon it favorably. The well-manicured gardens and fields stretched
over the rolling hills. Horses grazed on the meadow and sheep trotted in a line
in front of a farmer and a black-and-white dog. A distant rooftop peeping
through the trees was the only evidence of a nearby neighbor.

He’d once looked at these lands with pride. He’d once
assumed all this was to be his.

He couldn’t think about that now or he’d turn to a bottle,
or worse, descend back into the mean alleyways and opium dens of East London.
He thought he’d hoped to die until he’d come face to face with a criminal’s
shiv. Rage had driven him to wrench the knife away from the would-be thief and
turn it on him. And as the man’s life bled out on the cobblestones Adam
realized he’d wanted to live.

No. He’d come too far to surrender to the dragon.

The indistinct memory that Primrose had mentioned the earl
being in poor health flitted in Adam’s thoughts. Although he’d vowed to himself
never to set eyes on Thorley again he couldn’t just leave again without seeing
after the man who’d raised him as if he were his own.

Adam swallowed the bile rising in his throat. Did the earl
know what Adam knew? That he wasn’t the rightful heir? That instead, he, Adam,
was the son of some lowly portrait painter?

His mother’s deathbed confession had stabbed him in the
heart. How could he ever face Thorley who’d been so kind, who’d reared him with
love and compassion as if he’d been his real son?

The most prudent thing to do would be to disappear again, to
go somewhere where he couldn’t be found this time.

He eyed the exit and then went to the wardrobe to see if any
of his old clothes were still here. The hinges creaked as he swung open the
doors to discover all his things hanging and folded as he’d left them five
years prior.

He was in luck.

* * * * *

“You look an absolute fright!” Hamish declared to Primrose
as he blustered into the breakfast room.

“That’s rude!” his wife Fidelis chirped, her birdlike gaze
piercing Hamish. She turned to Primrose and shook her head, setting her pearl
earbobs in motion.

Primrose offered them both a tired smile. She’d spent the
last four days and three nights tending to Adam as his body purged the effects
of opium. For most of that time she’d been gripped with terror that he’d die but
when his fever had broken and he fell into a restorative sleep she’d realized
the worst was over.

Hamish stood at the sideboard, picking through the buffet
the servants had laid out. Though he was younger than Adam, his face bore the
furrows and lines of a much older man. A scar on his chin evidenced a childhood
scuffle of which it seemed he’d never forgiven Adam.

Primrose had always thought Adam resembled the portrait of
his mother that hung prominently in the drawing room. Hamish, on the other
hand, looked more like Thorley but that in itself wasn’t unusual since Hamish
was the son of Thorley’s younger brother.

The cousins however bore no resemblance. Whereas Adam
possessed harder features and almost swarthy skin, Hamish exhibited the pale
countenance and weak chin so prevalent among the aristocracy. Adam’s hair was
slightly wavy, thick and black. Hamish’s short locks were not nearly as dark
but were interspersed with a wealth of silvery strands.

He looked over his shoulder at her. “Rumor is my prodigal cousin
has returned.”

Primrose’s pulse skittered. She’d judiciously not said
anything to anyone other than those to whom it was a necessity. Least of all
snide Hamish and his nattering wife Fidelis.

“Could it be the delayed honeymoon is what has our dear American
cousin-in-law looking so peaked?” he jibed with a leer that made Primrose’s
skin crawl.

She opened her mouth to make excuses, to offer up an
outright lie if she had to but just as she was about to speak Adam strolled
confidently into the room.

“If she looks peaked it’s my fault,” he said, his eyes
moving over her in such a way it made her nipples pebble against her too-tight
stays.

Dressed to perfection in a dark suit that molded to his
tall, lean frame, he looked every bit the heir. His dark hair, though still
unfashionably long, had been combed back. The shadowy stubble was gone from his
chin. The light had returned to his deep-amber eyes and if he still felt the
effects of the past few days he hid it well.

She couldn’t help but admire him.

Her pulse ran amok as he strode straight to her, bent and
bestowed a kiss on her cheek before he straightened and faced his cousin. “I
daresay your assumption is correct, Hamish.”

Heat flushed Primrose’s cheeks. Her heart thudded and she
had to set down her fork to hide her trembling hand in her lap.

Both Hamish and Fidelis gaped as Adam moved to the sideboard
and prepared a plate.

“Well, well!” Hamish cleared his throat. “The conquering
hero has returned. You made the papers, you know. That’s quite a bruise you’ve
got there.”

“Yes, well,” Adam said blandly. “The other fellow fared far
worse.”

Hamish’s expression faded into a restrained coolness. “I
suspect something else brought you back to Scarborough Hall.”

Adam glanced at Primrose and his leering smile sent a warm
shiver up her spine.

“What else?” he asked. “Or rather who else? Besides, I’ve
only just learned my father is ill.”

“He’s been asking for you,” Fidelis interjected as she
buttered her toast.

Hamish shot her a black look before turning a tense smile toward
his cousin once more. “He feared you’d ended up pressed into service on a
freighter.”

At that Adam chuckled softly.

Stunned, Primrose watched as Adam assimilated back into the
day-to-day life at Scarborough Hall as if he’d never left—as if she hadn’t held
his head while he vomited until nothing came up but bile, as if he hadn’t
begged her for laudanum, for whiskey or to end his life to put him out of his
misery—as if the worst five years of her own life had not happened.

She didn’t know how to sort out her emotions.

Hamish exchanged puzzled looks with his wife, who blinked
several times in rapid succession, a nervous habit Primrose had come to
associate with her.

“When did you arrive?” Fidelis asked and though she sounded
interested, Primrose was acquainted with her cousin-in-law well enough to
recognize prodding when she saw it.

“During the night earlier this week. I was ill when I
arrived and asked Primrose not to alert anyone. More than anything I required
rest.” He sat his plate on the table and sank into his chair as a servant
rushed forward with a glass of juice.

Hamish joined them. “Are you planning on staying?”

Adam’s gaze clashed with Primrose’s. Normally she would have
averted her eyes when confronted with such a probing stare. Yearning to know the
answer prevented her from looking away.

He sipped his juice and slowly returned the glass to its
spot on the table. “For the time being.” He gave Primrose a tiny smile that
made her blood run cold, for his expression bespoke an obligation rather than…desire.

But what did she care as long as he gave her what she wanted
and made Thorley happy during his last days?

She tore her gaze from his and stirred her coddled eggs with
the tines of her fork.

“And how is the earl?” Adam asked.

“Your father?” Hamish corrected. “He’s not well at all. Been
seized by a brain fog.”

“At times, he doesn’t remember any of us. Not even Hamish,”
Fidelis added with a woeful shake of her head.

“He’s recently been calling for you,” Primrose said quietly,
hoping to soften Adam’s steely facade. “I’ll take you in to see him if you
like.

Again something bleak and dark flashed in Adam’s eyes.
Primrose’s intuition told her his anger stemmed from something far deeper than
the fact Thorley had tricked him into marriage. But what?

“Very well,” he muttered.

His hands trembled slightly as he lifted his fork to his
mouth but if Hamish or Fidelis noticed they made no mention of it. They
chattered uncomfortably with him and although his answers were polite but short
Primrose gathered that he’d rather be anywhere else than here—with her.

Just when she’d resigned herself to the fact she’d probably
never see him again, his return opened old wounds, leaving her feeling as
vulnerable as a fox cornered by the hounds. The brush of his lips still lingered
on her cheek and she battled the urge to touch the spot with her fingertips. He
may have fooled the others. Not her. That kiss left her both sweltering and
chilled.

Confused.

After they finished breakfast Primrose stood. “If you’ll
excuse me…”

Hamish and Adam rose as well. Whereas Hamish intended to
remain and finish reading the paper, Adam skirted the table and took her arm.
“I should like to visit the earl now, and afterward it seems as I recall a
promise that I’d like very much to make good on if you’re up to the task.”

Adam’s stomach clenched into a knot, making him wish he
hadn’t eaten that second slice of marmalade-laden toast. In truth he’d sorely
missed Cook’s food and made a mental note to stop by the kitchen to speak to the
beloved servant who’d slipped him sweets as a child when he hadn’t been partial
to the regular fare.

When Primrose gripped the handle to Thorley’s door all those
pleasant memories evaporated. Adam didn’t know what to expect and the idea of
it terrified him. He liked to control situations. He liked to know everything
down to the last detail. He hated surprises.

In a flare of panic he put his hand over Primrose’s and
stopped her. “I don’t want to be unprepared,” he whispered.

Her gaze moved from their hands to his eyes. “He’s aged. I
won’t lead you astray on that. He’s frail. Shockingly so. But worst of all his
mind is gone. He might not even remember who you are.”

That might be a good thing.
Adam nodded.

“He’s at the end,” Primrose said bluntly. “You must know, I
feel responsible for the rift between you and—”

“You’re not,” Adam interjected. “You’re not responsible—for
that. Nor is he for that matter.”

Her brow furrowed—until Adam pushed down on her hand and
opened the door. He took her elbow and walked her into the room with him.

A sleepy housemaid they’d enlisted to act as a nurse sat
beside the bed. Rail-thin and tall, she darted to her feet and curtsied. “Lord
Black,” she said, her voice but a gasp. Her beady-eyed gaze lifted to take him
in. She might have been deemed attractive were it not for her habit of blinking
in rapid succession. “Lady Black,” she mumbled as if it were an afterthought.

“Irene,” Primrose greeted politely. “How is his lordship
this morning?”

“He done eat a wee bit this mornin’,” the nurse said,
wringing her hands in her apron. Her gaze flicked back and forth between them.
“I gave him a draft of his remedy and he’s been restin’ fitful-like ever
since.”

“Leave us,” Adam said tersely, daring to look at the man
he’d called father until his mother’s deathbed confession.

Primrose started to turn but Adam caught her arm. “Not you.
You stay.”

She nodded and sat gingerly on the side of the bed. With a
tender display of affection she bent and kissed the old man’s age-spotted
forehead. Placing a hand over the earl’s gnarled hands, she whispered in his
ear. “Father, there’s someone here to see you.”

Father…

The sound of the endearing term coming from her lips caused
the breath to catch in Adam’s chest.

Thorley’s eyes opened and obviously bewildered, he stared.
“Do I know you?” The old man’s gaze swiveled to Adam’s and a spark flickered
there. The earl squinted at Adam. “I know you.”

Adam cleared his throat. “Hello…F-Father.” He didn’t know
what else to call him. Guilt rose with the bile in his throat.

Thorley’s eyes narrowed slightly and then flooded with
recognition. He turned Primrose’s hands loose and reached for Adam.

Adroitly she slid out of the way and practically pushed Adam
into the earl’s arms. “He knows you. This is wonderful.” The light in her eyes
tugged hard on Adam’s soul.

He swallowed against the lump in his throat as he stooped to
embrace the ailing earl.

“My son, my son,” the old man wept piteously, refusing to
let go. “I didn’t know where you were. I didn’t—”

“Hush,” Adam soothed. “I’m here now.” He sat on the side of
the bed and didn’t try to pull away when Thorley clutched his hand tighter. He
hadn’t thought the old man capable of such a hearty grip.

Tears poured down Thorley’s weathered cheeks and Adam fought
the compulsion to look away. Behind him, he heard a catch in Primrose’s breath.

“I’m sorry.” Adam reached deep for the anger he’d harbored
for the earl’s part in forcing him to marry but it wasn’t there. Shaking, Adam
wished he hadn’t asked Primrose to accompany him. The sight of a man who’d
always been generously kind and loving to him in this decrepit state was enough
to render Adam utterly undone.

He blinked hard against burning tears.

Thorley’s expression turned grave. Earnest.

Desperate.

“You must do your duty, son. You must produce an heir.
Promise me.”

Adam exchanged a glance with Primrose. He drew in a tight
breath, willing emotion to fade, aching to chase the dragon, to descend back
into that bliss-filled abyss.

“Promise me,” Thorley repeated, his voice so filled with pleading
Adam could not refuse him.

He nodded. “Yes. I promise.”

“There’s something…something else…” the earl began but his
voice trailed off as he obviously grasped for his memory.

Suddenly Thorley’s eyes rounded. “Where’s your mother?”

Stunned, Adam stared. Uncertain of what to say he looked
urgently to Primrose for help. She rushed forward and as she eased onto the
side of the bed next to him Adam noticed the dampness on her cheeks. She’d been
crying. His heart tightened into a hard knot in his chest.

She took Thorley’s other hand in both hers. “She’s gone to
heaven, Father. You know that. You just forgot is all.”

The earl’s eyes misted and his face contorted as he
obviously tried to sort out his thoughts. He nodded. But then looked perplexed
once more. “When?”

“Many years ago. Before Primrose came to England,” Adam said
gently.

She twisted to look back at him, her bottom coming into
contact with his thigh as she did. “I’ll ring for Irene to return. I hate to
tire him when he’s like this. She can give him a tincture to help him rest.”

Adam nodded.

The two minutes it took the nurse to return seemed unending
to Adam. He watched as she stooped to spoon a dark liquid into Thorley’s mouth,
and when the old man relaxed back into the pillows Adam looked at Primrose and
gestured silently toward the door.

When she’d first tendered her proposal for a child Adam had
wanted to refuse. But right now there was nothing that he wanted more than to
lose himself in a woman’s body, to forget if only for a few moments what he’d
seen in this room.

As soon as the door closed behind them he turned to her. “Go
to your room and undress and we shall discuss my terms.”

Her eyes widened for a moment before she nodded dumbly and
disappeared down the hall in a whirl of skirts and lemon verbena.

He tightened then flexed his fingers as blood pumped thickly
through his veins. Unfortunately she’d probably regret her decision to bed him
because he highly doubted she knew of his baser needs—the need to control, to
be in control.

A strange sense of calm washed over him as he thought about
bending his comely wife to his will, about watching her surrender to untold
pleasures because he’d stripped away her power.

He released a deep breath and strode toward his room to
prepare.

* * * * *

Primrose trembled as her maid undid the endless row of
buttons on the back of her bodice. Her cheeks flamed at the idea of the staff
suspecting what was about to happen. Primrose knew her excuse of having a
headache and needing a nap had not been convincing.

Every noise, every tick of the clock, set her on edge.

My terms…

What had he meant?

The image of Lady Beckham bent over Adam’s knee flitted
through Primrose’s thoughts. Suddenly her chamber was too hot, too close.

Not waiting for her maid, she ripped her bodice from her
chest but found little relief in the still air of the room.

“You’re burning up, ma’am,” the maid declared. “Should I
send for the physician?”

“No!” Primrose blurted. She tried to restore calm but
failed. “I’m just a pinch overheated is all. I’ll be perfectly fine once I lie
down.”

Once the dress was discarded the maid returned to remove
Primrose’s underpinnings until she stood clad only in her thin lawn chemise.

“Shall I remove your hairpins, ma’am?” the maid inquired.

“No thank you.” Anxiety for the maid to hurry and leave
filled Primrose’s breast. It wouldn’t do for Adam to barge in. Then the staff
would know she and her husband were about to behave like libertines in broad
daylight. She’d be the subject of gossip—and Primrose had learned all those years
ago that being the topic of scandal was not as enjoyable as she’d once assumed.

In fact this whole idea of reuniting physically with Adam
didn’t seem so palatable anymore.

My terms…

“That’ll be all, Midge,” she told the maid in hopes of
ushering her out.

“I should put your dress away first…”

“No!” Primrose reined herself in and forced herself to speak
more evenly. “No. I’m sure I won’t nap considerably long and will want to put
it back on. No sense in going to the extra trouble. I’ll ring for you when I awaken.”

Midge stared, obviously perplexed but she bobbed into a
curtsy, draped the gown over a chair and disappeared through the servants’
entrance.

Primrose’s hand flew to her heart and she dragged in great
gulps of air. If she’d still been wearing her corset she would have surely
swooned. She paced to the window. Light bathed the garden below, making her
terribly aware that she stood in dishabille in the middle of the morning. To
add to her distress memories of the one night she’d spent with her husband battered
her like a wild surf against the rocks.

He’d held some sort of power over her. A wicked thrall that
had rendered her helpless but to do anything for him.

Everything.

Her lashes fluttered and a little squeak escaped her throat.

His hands had felt so foreign and yet so amazingly right on
her skin. The look in his eyes that night—that look of hungry desire—had both
frightened her and thrilled her. For that fleeting moment she’d felt cherished
and powerful in her femininity. At the same time a sense of helplessness in the
knowledge he had but to ask to receive anything she had to offer had consumed
her.

His command of her heart and her body seemed a dark and
dangerous thing. His ability to evoke carnal reactions, to render her to her
most base form…

She was a fool to revisit it. Common sense condemned her for
not putting a hasty end to this. Her body prevented her from taking a step
toward the doors connecting their chambers.

A gasp stuck in her chest when she heard the door handle
turn. She whirled in time to see him step into the room.

His eyes raked her. “I said undressed. Naked. Nude. Bare.
Get that thing off.”

Oh yes…

She wanted to obey. Every instinct she possessed implored
her to relinquish all control to him. Instead she straightened. “No.”

Now that she’d refused, would he entreat her to bend over
his knee the way he’d done Lady Beckham?

Primrose immediately shut the thought down. It was a sin to
entertain such licentious behavior. She felt naughty even knowing about it.

And yet, some rebellious part of her wanted to refuse him,
to make him take what he wanted from her.

A muscle in his jaw clenched. They stood, squared off for
several seconds before he turned on his heel and started to leave the room.

“Wait,” Primrose blurted. After all, he hadn’t even broached
the subject of his terms yet.

Looking triumphant, he stopped and turned.

Holding his icy gaze, she stripped the chemise off over her
head and started to hold it in front of her body but he wagged a finger at her.
“Uh, uh, uh. Drop it.”

She hesitated.

“I know you want to. I see it in your eyes,” he said, his
voice barely above a whisper that seemed to hypnotize her.

The soft, warm cotton slipped from her fingers and floated
to the carpet. Again, his eyes appraised her, making her shiver with pleasure
wherever he looked. Her legs. Her thatch. Her belly and breasts.

Her face.

A sweltering rush of heat infused her cheeks and she battled
the need to avert her gaze.

“You’re as lovely as I remembered,” he mused aloud. “But
this time it will be different. I am no longer your cuckold.”

“No, my lord.”

“And you, my dear, are mine to command.” The fierceness that
flashed in his whiskey-colored eyes should have terrified her.

Instead that feral possessiveness excited her. The tips of
her breasts puckered and hardened. She pulsed between her legs.

“I have dark needs, darling wife. I realize that at first
those needs might be a tad intense for your tastes, but if you are to go
through with this scheme of yours you will have to do it my way.”

Her mouth went so dry, she couldn’t even swallow. “Needs?”

He came closer and she tensed, refusing to bolt against
every instinct she possessed. Heat radiated through his clothes. The scent of
his hair, his skin—of him—permeated her senses. She needed to focus, to listen
to whatever his terms entailed but his very presence unraveled her at the
seams.

His fingers trailed along her jawline and her lashes
fluttered at the exquisite pleasure that simple touch evoked in her.

“It’s so plainly obvious,” he said, his voice but a low whisper
that caressed her body and soul.

“What’s obvious?”

“Your desire to be dominated.”

A shudder seized her spine and rattled her to the core. “I
don’t understand.”

“Of course you don’t. Not yet.” His gaze stroked her face as
if he found her utterly beautiful. “But you will.”

His fingers swept lower, down the column of her neck, and
then across her collarbone. “You’re as curious as a cat.”

“I don’t—”

“Don’t pretend you didn’t see me,” he said with the tiniest
of grins.

“See you?” She felt like a stammering idiot, and all she
wanted in the world was for that hand to touch her in other places. Lower
places. Now.

“In the garden with Lady Beckham.”

Her secret had been exposed. Shame swamped her.