A Brooding Beauty (3 page)

The woman had cuckolded him in front of every peer in
London
, and
she
wanted a divorce. Draining the rest of his scotch in one hard swallow, Marcus rose a bit unsteadily to fill his glass again.  

He was about to sit back down when the front door came crashing open and Catherine, soaked to the bone with her hair and clothes in wild disarray, stumbled inside.

Chapter Three
 

Woodsgate was exactly as Catherine remembered it. Small and rustic, the front door opened directly into the sitting room which was currently alight with a roaring fire from the floor to ceiling stone fireplace. Marcus’ mahogany desk, an exact replicate of the one in Kensington, occupied one corner while leather furniture sprawled in haphazard array across the rest of the room. Several bear skin rugs in varying shades of brown and black, trophies left behind by the late Earl of Kensington, Marcus’ Uncle, covered the floor.

Stepping carefully around the largest rug – she had never abided dead things in the house – Catherine pushed her hair back from her eyes, swept up the bedraggled sleeves of her dress, and untied her cloak before letting it fall unceremoniously to the floor. Linking her arms behind her back in an attempt to disguise the trembling of her frozen fingers, she drew a deep breath and finally turned to face her husband.

“The damn coachman left me five miles down the road,” she explained stiffly. “I had to walk the rest of the way.”

“Catherine?” The shock in Marcus’ voice mirrored the shock on his face. He set his glass aside and stood up slowly, bracing his arms against the sides of his chair. “What the hell are you doing here?” His dark eyebrows shot together. “How did you get here?”

The man was foxed, she decided instantly. It came as no surprise. Marcus did like his drink, more so now than ever before. It caused her guilt to know that their separation had driven him to the bottle, but it was only one more reason for them to divorce and get on with their lives. “I
told
you… the coachman stranded me on the side of the road. You will have to go back for my trunks in the morning. If they are not already stolen by then,” she finished darkly. 

Marcus gazed down suspiciously into his half empty glass.

“Oh for the love of…” In three quick strides Catherine marched across the room, plucked the glass from his fingers, and threw it with all her might. She wasn’t usually so volatile, but these were extenuating circumstances.

Marcus watched the glass shatter against the stone fireplace in tight lipped disapproval, and when he spun to glare at her grim recognition gleamed in his eyes.

“That’s right, darling. I am really here,” Catherine said snidely.

“Get the hell out,” he said in a voice so deceptively soft it raised the hairs on the back of Catherine’s neck. Perhaps he was not
quite
as foxed as she had initially thought. Muscles coiled and tightened along the length of his arms and shoulders, making her acutely aware that the only thing her husband wore besides a pair of tightly fitted breeches was a thin cotton shirt with the sleeves rolled up past his elbows and the front unbuttoned down to his chest.

The room grew silent except for the crackle of the fire and the quiet
drip
drip
drip
of water as it fell from her skirts and began to form a puddle on one of the bearskin rugs. Faced with the prospect of staring down her infuriated husband, Catherine could now admit it had been a ridiculously poor idea to come here in the first place. Marcus would have been forced to return to Kensington eventually and she would have been far more comfortable waiting for him at the estate with her own maid and a cook and clothes that weren’t soaked through to the skin and – no, it was best not to think about it. She would leave first thing in the morning, but she was
not
letting her husband throw her out in the middle of the night. The very thought of going back out into the wet and the cold made her shudder, and she thought longingly of her nice dry clothes carefully packed away in her poor abandoned trunks.

“If you would be so kind as to direct me to my sleeping quarters, I will get ready for bed,” she said. The stubborn tilt of her chin challenged Marcus to refute her words, and refute them he did.

“You will not,” he said, looking aghast that she would dare suggest such a thing. Releasing his death grip on the chair he began to pace the floor back and forth in front of the fireplace. The flames licked out to highlight the blackness of his hair and the rugged perfection of his profile and it was all Catherine could do not to gaze at him in wordless longing. Swallowing hard, she forced herself to turn away, yanking off her ruined bonnet and crumpling it in her hand as she did so. If only Marcus had grown unfit and fat with age, but alas he still looked every inch the virile man she had first been attracted to. It had been his handsomeness that had caught her attention in the first place, back when she was a naïve girl of seventeen and
he
a romantic young man of twenty two. He had never looked more beautiful than when she was curled on his lap gazing up at his face, studying the contours of his high cheekbones and the surprisingly soft curve of his lips as he read her Shakespeare or recited poetry.

Now he was more brooding than beautiful and the years had made his face harsher than she ever imagined it could be. His lips no longer smiled and the soft glow that used to enter his eyes whenever he saw her had long ago been extinguished.

Why could he not see that she simply could not bear it? Could not bear the contempt and dislike that hardened his features every time he looked at her, when before they had softened with love and happiness. A divorce between them would be a blessing, not a curse, and a new sense of determination swept through her as she thought of the long lonely nights she had spent by herself since he left.

She deserved to find love again. She was still young, still beautiful. She wanted children.
A family.
She longed to yearn for someone as she had once yearned for Marcus and
he
for her.
Desperately.
Endlessly.
Passionately.
She had so much passion inside of her just waiting to get out. No, she would not leave. She could not, not until what she had come here to see accomplished was done and over with. Squaring her shoulders, she spun on her heel to face him.

“I am not leaving, Marcus. Not until you sign the papers and give me what I want.” She lifted her chin and stared him down with all the bearing of a queen despite her wet, mud splattered clothes and tangled hair.

“Well, you are not staying here!” Marcus turned from the fire to fix her with an icy glare, every muscle in his body tensed and ready for a fight.

Catherine glared right back. Her husband’s intimidation tactics had stopped working on her long ago. He had raised his voice to her countless times before in anger but he had never resorted to physical violence, and she was confidant he never would. Her jaw hardened as she clenched her teeth. He would not be able to send her scampering out of the room this time. This time she would have her way, her husband be damned.    

“You would send your
wife
back out in this weather?” she asked, gesturing towards the front windows where the rain continued to pound and lash against the glass. “That would be in poor taste, Marcus, even for you. But if I was no longer your wife…” She gave the idea time to sink and settle before pressing on. “Well then certainly you would have every right to turn me out.” Holding her breath, she waited for his answer. Catherine did not want to suffer the elements, but if it meant being free of her husband once and for all she would suffer nearly everything.

Marcus rubbed his faintly
stubbled
chin and stared back into the flames, his expression shuttered. “Is this truly what you want, Catherine?”

“Yes! Oh, yes it is, Marcus. We are not good together,” she cried, wringing her hands. “Can you not see that? We are not happy anymore. We have not been happy in a long time.”

A bitter smile twisted his mouth. “Is that what a marriage is supposed to be?
Happy?
I believe ours is quite conventional by the
Ton’s
standards, do you not agree?”

“NO!” she burst out, surprising them both with the sheer intensity of her voice. Marcus’ eyes widened and he actually took a step back. “No,” she repeated more quietly, taking a deep breath to compose herself. It wouldn’t do to lose her temper now. Her heart beat like the wings of a tiny songbird, fluttery and quick, as if her entire body could sense that which she so desired was nearly in her grasp. Throwing pride to the wind, she clasped her hands in front of her in a pleading gesture and gazed at him beseechingly. “If you ever loved me at all you will do this for me Marcus. Please.
Please.
It is for the best.”

“
For the best
,” he echoed mockingly. One dark eyebrow lifted. “Was it for the best when you went tramping around
London
, lifting your skirts for any rich man who would have you?”

Catherine gasped and jerked as if he had slapped her. Marcus’ cheeks flared with color, as if his cruel words had shocked even him. Turning, he faced the fireplace, casting his rigid profile into shadow. Seconds stretched into minutes, and minutes into what seemed like hours before he finally spoke.

“I will grant you your damned divorce, but you will do something for me first,” he gritted out.

“Anything,” said Catherine immediately. Her heart slammed against her ribcage as a wave of elated euphoria swept over her.
Finally...
Finally
she was but one favor away from being free of her husband forever.

Stretching out his long arms Marcus braced his hands against the wooden mantle and leaned into the flames, letting them bath his face in flickering light. Once again he took his time gathering his thoughts, as if he wanted to weigh and measure each word before it was said aloud.

“I do not wish to marry again,” he began at last. “I have found I have neither the patience nor the time a wife requires, and a mistress will suit my needs just as well. But a mistress cannot give me a male heir, at least not a legitimate one, and with no other siblings the responsibility of ensuring the Kensington title stays with the Windfair’s rests on my shoulders alone. Grant me a son and I shall grant you a divorce. A fair arrangement, do you not agree?”

Poor Catherine was so stunned her lips parted half a dozen times before sound finally emerged.
“I… you…
no
, Marcus.
No! I will not. Do not ask this of me.”

He sighed and cast
her a
pitying glance over his shoulder before crossing the room to pour a new glass of scotch. Raising it to his lips he drank deeply and finished half of it in one hard swallow. “Then we shall continue as we have been.
You in the city, myself in the country.
It really is an ideal arrangement, my dear darling wife. I do not understand why it burdens you so.”

Her mind whirling, Catherine bit down on her bottom lip and worried it between her teeth. A child… She and Marcus had tried to conceive after their wedding, but had been unable. She was afraid she was barren, but had never shared her secret fear with her husband. Was the use of her body too high a price to pay for her freedom?

“I am waiting, Catherine.”

“Fine!” she snapped out, glaring at him with eyes that shot blue fire. “I will do as you ask, but on one condition.”

His glass of scotch paused halfway to his lips. “You will?”

“Yes,” she hissed, tossing her head back. “I will. If this is the only way I can be free of you than I shall do it, but I will take no pleasure from the act.”

“That is fine. I shall take enough for the both of us,” he said crudely.

Her fingers balled into tiny fists of anger. Fighting to school the flurry of emotions that struggled to run rampant across her face, she took a deep breath. “But I have one condition. If after two months I have no conceived, you will agree to a divorce.”

 “That is not the agreement I offered.”

“No, but it is the only one I shall give.” Catherine drew herself to her full height and stared at him without
blinking,
drawing strength from the idea that in two months she would be free from Marcus forever. She was not concerned an actual child would come of their intimacy; if she had not conceived before she would hardly do so now. Why, one of her closest friends had been trying for a child for
years
without success. It was not an ideal situation, being forced to lie beneath her husband again, but it was something she would gladly suffer through if it meant being granted her independence.

“One year,” said Marcus.

“Two months,” Catherine countered swiftly.

“Six months.”

“One.”

“Fine,” he grumbled. “Two it is.”

She hid her smile behind a cupped hand.

Marcus scowled. “Go clean
yourself
up and change out of that filthy dress,” he said. “I do not want mud on my sheets.”

Catherine’s smile vanished. “Y-you want to sleep together t-tonight?” she stuttered. She felt the blood drain from her cheeks, along with her carefully constructed layers of control.