Devotion (35 page)

Beautiful women.
The most desirable women in England and the Continent.
Women who wore nothing to bed but their jewels—long strands of pearls and diamonds and sapphires which looped around their exquisite breasts and sparkled with candlelight when they slid over their ivory flesh.

Oh, that ivory flesh—soft, smooth, fragrant like flowers—like violets . . . like Maria.

Yet, he had come to this, a doxy housemaid with dry yellow hair, whose rotten and missing teeth were made more desirable by dim light and shadows, whose overly thin body and sagging breasts smelled of sour sweat.

Molly slid her blouse off over her head, tossed it to the floor. Grinning, she smeared one nipple with cherry syrup, cupped the pendulous breast in one hand and lifted it toward his mouth.

"Give it a try," she crooned and parted her legs so she could press the sensitive mound between her thighs upon his knee and rub.
"Just a lick, Yer Grace.
Might do worlds for
ya.
Ya
never know unless
ya
try, right?" She slid the sticky bud of her nipple across his lower lip.

He turned his head.

She twisted her fingers into his hair and forced his face back around. "You forget yourself," he snapped, and grabbed her wrists, causing her to clench her teeth and hiss.

"
Wot's
wrong, Yer Grace
? '
Fraid
ya
can't
rise
to the occasion? Well that's wot I'm here for, sir. To see if we can't help things along a bit."

"And what, may I
ask,
makes you think I would even consider your advances?"

"Beggars can't be choosers, now can they?"

He flung her backward. She tripped on a rug and spilled heavily onto her butt, her skirt hiked to her knees exposing her sprawled thighs. "Bloody lunatic," she declared. "Don't know what I was thinkin' to agree to such a scheme. I've a good mind to tell '
Er
Grace to—"

"To tell Her Grace what?"

Molly's mouth twisted. Her eyes narrowed and her voice became surly. "
Ya
don't think I come 'ere for me
bleedin
' '
ealth
, do
ya
?"

His body turned rigid.

"That's right," she said.
"To make a man out of
ya
again."

He stared at her fiercely—so fiercely she scrambled away, snatching her blouse before stumbling toward the door, flinging it
open,
and disappearing into the dark.

Teeth clenched, brow sweating, he slid his body off the bed, clung to the bedpost with one shaking hand as he allowed his weight to sway from side to side, forward and backward as he struggled to find his balance, anticipating his legs to give out at any moment—

"Your Grace?"
came
the soft, distressed cry from the threshold of Maria's bedroom, and suddenly she was there, her simple nightgown a shimmery white in the gauzy light of the room. Flinging her arms around his waist, her light body atremble with exertion, she cried, "What can you be thinking, sir? Quickly, allow me to ease you back onto the bed—no, don't struggle—stop fighting or we'll both surely fall."

"Leave me the hell alone," he growled and tried to shove her away.

She clung all the harder, her small face pressed into the hard, sweating musculature of his chest, her hair cascading like moonbeams over her shoulders.

Burying his hand in her hair, he dragged back her head so fiercely she cried out. Her eyes looked hollow, her face gaunt and full of despair. "Odd that you would come flying in here like some angel of mercy when only hours ago you thought me despicable," he sneered through his teeth. "Has she gotten to you as well, Miss Ashton? Just what is your loyalty worth?"

She shook her head frantically. Her features twisted in pain and confusion.

He shoved her away. She spilled to the floor with a stunned and angry cry.

Even as the great house became quiet she paced about her chamber with the smell of burning oil and peat in the hearth giving the air a pungent scent of staleness. Her mouth felt raw, swollen, and bruised.

How could she have done something so daft as to allow him such liberties?
To have kissed her so brazenly?
To have turned her, with one touch of his mouth, into
a
mindless,
compunctionless
hussy like Molly who wanted with every fiber of her being to stretch her body out against his, to give him the freedom to do what he wanted with her mouth, her body, her hand—oh God, her hand.
Beneath the towel.
Fingertips brushing against his flesh and wiry hair . . .

She saw the bed from the corner of her eye, its immense down mattress piled high with silk and tapestry pillows. A small lamp cast enough light to paint only a very small part of the room in a red-orange glow; it splashed gyrating patterns on the floor, the bed, the pile of multicolored cushions.

How could she face him again?

Mayhap she had misread his intentions, just as he had misread hers. She had not fled the room because she found him monstrous—how could he imagine such a thing?—but because the sudden flood of feelings in which she had found herself drowning were too much to bear.
Too much to control.
In a heartbeat she had wanted nothing more than to be as flagrantly willing as Molly—-as free to enjoy the same wild pleasure that would drive a woman to copulate with a man on a kitchen table—so wrapped up in the gratifying act she did not give a flying leap if anyone discovered them.

Even now, hours later, her disquieted state of mind and body kept her pacing—a stranger to herself—that ember of sexual appetency becoming more discomforting by the moment. It gripped her—her chest, her stomach, and low, deep between her legs—a pressure that roused any time she thought of him, which was constantly.

She felt insane.

Dear God, would she never again experience a moment's peace? Would she never again manage to put this apparent obsession from her mind—this mindless devotion for a man who despised her literally?

When, exactly, had the fear she had first experienced over his appearance and savagery turned into willful duty; when had duty become comradeship; when had comradeship become fondness, and fondness into . . . what?

"No," she said aloud. "Daft girl, don't admit it even to
yourself
. You've not fallen in love with Salterdon. You wouldn't dare! To even falsely acknowledge such a ridiculous thought would force you to pack your pitiful bag and flee Thorn Rose this very minute. Imagine his reaction if he got wind of such an asinine thing. Imagine his grandmother's reaction!"

Imagine her
body's
reaction if he touched her again.

*
   
 
*
   
 
*

The morning dawned dreary and cold. Upon rising Maria wearily sponged herself the best she could with water from the ewer. She splashed her face, allowed the water to trickle down her neck while flashes of the day before paraded, one after another, across her mind's eye.

She thought
,
I must be truly insane for remaining here. I should have insisted that Her Grace see me to Haworth. From there I could have gone anywhere—to London or Liverpool—far away from this awful lunacy. How can I face him again? How do I occupy the same room, the same house, the same damned country without being reminded of what / had nearly allowed to happen? Had he sat out to intentionally crush me he couldn't have succeeded more
thoroughly.

She walked to her window and nudged aside the heavy damask drape. The panes were coated with frosty ice; she rubbed a circle in it and peered out onto the bleak countryside. The house was silent yet.
As silent as the gray hills.

A distant lantern from some tenant's house winked faintly in the mist and she recalled a time when she and Paul would sneak out of their bedroom window and run, with vapor pouring through their lips, to the cemetery at the top of the hill. From there, they would play a game of guessing which neighbor's window would flicker with light first, then second, then third . . . she always won, though she suspected Paul had allowed it. After all, she had never known anyone as clever as her brother. He had a solution for every problem.

If he were only here now, perhaps he could explain what was happening to her. Why she would continue to sacrifice her own sense of dignity in an attempt to help and encourage a man who wanted neither. Why she continued to tolerate his sarcasm, his taunts, his belligerence, his degrading insinuations. Why had her philanthropic objectives (not to mention her duties as companion) suddenly become confused with this all- consuming ache to be physically near him every waking minute—despite his extreme arrogance, and bitterness— despite his behavior last evening . . .
because
of his behavior last evening.

Heaven help her.

Sighing, she turned away from the window and froze. Molly stood just inside the room, hip cocked to one side and her arms crossed over her chest. As usual, her cap looked crumpled and her hair streamed in strands from beneath it.

"Well now," Molly declared.
"Seems yer just full of surprises, Miss Ashton."

"What are you talking about? And who gave you permission to come into my room without knocking?"

"I'm
takin
' 'bout '
im
,
o'course
.
Yer
vis'tor
."

"Visitor?"

"
Ya
mean
ya
ain't heard?" Molly chuckled. "I reckon not
. '
E arrived fairly late last
evenin
'. You
was
a'ready
abed, I suppose."

"Not my father," she said aloud, the panic in her voice causing Molly's eyebrows to lift.

"I reckon
ye'll
find out soon enough
. '
E's
takin
' coffee in the blue salon with the duchess."

With that, Molly turned on her heels, and with a last taunting laugh, left the room.

Dear God, not her father.
Surely not her father.
He would not dare antagonize the duchess by coming here unannounced.

She dressed quickly, then brushed out her hair, braiding it so tightly her head began to ache, making certain every hair was in place before scrubbing her face once, then twice, until she reminded herself that she was not a child any longer and would not be forced to stand still for his inspections, terrified that he would discover a solitary smudge of dirt—cleanliness was next to godliness, of course.

Should she check on Salterdon?

No. Not yet. She would need all of her strength for the confrontation ahead.

She fled the room, running almost blindly down the dimly lit corridor. Why had he come?
To force her to return home?
Perhaps her mother was ill—oh, please, not her mother . . .

The door of the blue salon was closed. Her heart pounding, her body shaking, Maria paused at the threshold, briefly closed her eyes,
then
pushed open the door.

At the distant end of the salon a man sat with his back to her, conversing softly with the duchess, who looked up from her regal chair and acknowledged Maria with a lift of one eyebrow.

"She's here now,"
came
the duchess's muted voice.

The visitor stood and turned.

"John!" she cried, relief causing her knees to slightly buckle; then she ran down the long room, forgetting all propriety, and, as she had since she was a child, flung herself into his outstretched arms.