For Love of the Earl (5 page)

Sarah finally got a good look at his face, and once more the breath was sucked out of her.
 
She turned around to look up at the man waiting at the altar.
 
The earl obviously hid a laugh behind his hand.
 
Sarah looked back at the man prancing up to the altar.
 
They were identical.
 
Her fists clenched, snapping the stems of the posies.
 

She turned back to the earl, and he caught her looking at him.
 
He shrugged his shoulders.
 

"I'm Nathan Black," he said, extending his hand.
 
"The Earl of Stryden's brother," he gulped on another laugh.
 
"And that's the Earl of Stryden."
 

Sarah swung back to the other man. He had come right up to her and stopped dead.
 
His mouth hung open, and Sarah almost fell over from the stench of alcohol.
 
The bile rose in her throat, and her temper rose in her blood.
 

She opened her mouth to tell this man exactly what she thought of him, but the man beat her to it.
 

"It's you," he whispered and fell backwards, completely passed out with drink.

~

On a ship bound for France

April 1815

"At least we were actually married after that," Alec said, smoothing his hand down her back.
 

Sarah pushed away from him, and Alec let her go, so she could look up at him.
 

"After Nathan roused you from your drunken stupor," she said, her voice amazingly less forceful than he had expected.
 

He reached up and rubbed a smudge of dirt from her cheek.
 
Her head tilted slightly into his palm at his touch, and he wondered if she noticed.
 
Her eyes were much too sharp though, and he figured maybe she didn't notice because she was thinking too hard.
 
He wondered if he could stop that and started to lean in.
 

"You know, I never asked you what you meant," she said before he could get his lips on hers.
 

"What I meant when?"
 

"When you said
it's you
."

Alec felt a trickle of wariness run down his spine.
 
He rubbed his thumb over the skin of Sarah's cheek having forgotten to remove his hand from her face.
 
It seemed she had forgotten as well.
 
Her skin was paler than he would have liked, but considering the situation, she looked pretty good.
 
But not good enough to hear what he had to say yet.
 
He had spent four years remembering a night from very long ago and doing all that he could to never allow Sarah to remember that night.
 
To remember what he had done to protect her.
 
He still could not speak of it.
   

"Just that it was you, the bride.
 
I was scared to death of you."
 

She wrinkled her nose, making the deep lines around her mouth from the overbite wrinkle.
 

"You were afraid of me?"

"Why do you think I was drunk?"
 

"You got drunk because you were afraid of me?"
 

Alec felt his cheeks heating.
 

"It was more that I was afraid to get married.
 
I thought you were going to be a shrew or something."

"A shrew?" Sarah shrilled sitting up.
 

The ceiling of the bunk was much too low, and Alec caught her before she hit her head against it.
 
He drew her neatly down to his chest, pinning her on top of him with his arms around her waist.
 

"I am not a shrew," Sarah huffed, her voice much softer because he had brought her head closer to his with a hand around her neck.
 

He massaged the tight skin there, but the tension quickly raced back even as he rubbed it away.
 

"I know you're not a shrew.
 
Now, at least.
 
I didn't know when the War Office said I was getting married."
 

"You don't think I'm a shrew?" Sarah asked barely loud enough for him to hear.
 

His hand stilled on her neck.
 

Sarah looked insecure.
 
He had never seen her look insecure.
 
She had always been brimming over with confidence that she threw in anyone's face who doubted her, either with a sharp retort or a fist to the gut.
 
He'd experienced both and no longer questioned her ability to fight back even if her confidence lacked solidity.
 
But now her eyes had gone soft, watchful, completely dependent on his response to her quiet question.
 
And he felt a moment of panic, his resolve to say something mature finding its way to the surface.
 

"I don't think you're a shrew," he said, his voice equally as soft.

He thought that a safe response.
 
Very adult of him.
 

"Even though I sometimes get angry with you?"
 

Her voice had not strengthened, and Alec felt himself stepping onto shaky ground.
 
He had never been the dominant one in this relationship, and he wasn't sure what to do.
 
He wanted to swallow the tension in his throat as if that would help bring the conversation to a level he knew how to handle.
 
A level that required a joke and a laugh.
 
He kept his arms firmly around her and told her exactly what he thought.
 

"Because you sometimes get angry with me."
 

She frowned.
 
"What?"
 

"I don't think you're a shrew because you get angry with me.
 
It takes a brave person to point out others' shortcomings in an attempt to improve the person."

She tried to roll off of him, but he tightened his arms.
 

"I'm not a brave person because I pick on you," she said, the rough note back in her voice.
 

Alec felt his heart slow down but also regretted the loss of their momentary reversal of roles.

"You don't pick on me.
 
You try to make me a better person."
 

She slammed her hand against his chest, and the wind rushed out of his lungs.

"Alec, don't lie!
 
I pick on you to make myself feel better!"

As he struggled to regain his breath, he realized her face had gone absolutely ashen.
 
She struck again, violently trying to get away from him.
 
He let her go, and she rolled toward the wall putting her back to him.
 

He tried to rise up on his elbow to look at her face over her stiff shoulder.
 

He raised a hand to reach out for her and said, "Sarah-"
 

"Don't touch me," she cut him off, her voice void of any emotion.
 

He looked at his hand no longer sure what to do.
   

His wife had finally let him in, but now she had not only thrown him out but slammed and locked the door in his face.
 
He thought he had said all the proper and mature things the situation called for.
 
He eased down on the bed, shifting as close as possible to her without actually touching her.
 
The narrowness of the bunk helped in his endeavor, but she only moved further away from him.
 
He stopped when she was almost up against the wall.
 

Her stifled breath mixed with the sound of the water hitting the sides of the ship as it floundered in the Channel.
 
And he tried again.
 

"Sarah, why do you have to make yourself feel better?"
 

She took three whole breaths, and Alec thought she wasn't going to answer.
 
But then she did.
 

"Because I'm not an earl."
 

Her voice had returned to that insecure tone, and Alec felt his hopes rising.
 
If she was insecure enough about something, perhaps he could get her to talk to him.
 
He nestled closer, not actually moving closer, but in his head, he was closer to her.
 

"Sarah, I don't think you can ever be an earl.
 
You're a girl," he said, feeling the return of his usual demeanor.
 

A sound emerged from her that resembled a laugh, but it was muffled by what sounded like a sob.
 
Sarah was crying?
 
Now Alec did move closer.
 

"Sarah?
 
Please tell me what's wrong."
 

He had never asked her that question.
 
He'd never been brave enough to.
 
A question like that was bound to get a necessary extremity ripped off.
 
But if he didn't ask now, he knew he would never ask.
 

"You deserve a lady," she whispered.
 

He leaned his head over her shoulder, resting it gently there so he could hear her better.
 
She didn't recoil from the touch, and he carefully slipped an arm over her waist, not pulling her back against him, just letting it rest there so she would be physically aware of him.
 

"You are a lady, Sarah."
 

She sniffled, and he leaned in a little more, adding a little more weight to his hold on her.

"No, I'm not.
 
I'm a...a...bastard."
 

Alec turned his face into her hair, which incidentally smelled horrible, but he held his breath and nuzzled into her neck, forcing her to not shrink mentally away from him.
 

"Nathan's the bastard, love," he said automatically and cringed when he realized he had brushed off a genuine concern of hers because he had accidentally resorted to a familial response about his brother.
 

But then Sarah let out a soft laugh that ended on a hiccup, and Alec felt his insides unwind.
 

"We're both bastards," Sarah said.
 

Alec shook his head, letting it fall back on her shoulder so he could see part of her face in the dim.
 

"Maybe technically, but Nathan really is a bastard."
 

Sarah turned her head and smiled briefly at him.
 
He barely caught the sight of the tear tracks down her cheeks before she turned back to the wall.
 

"Ah, Sarah, I don't know why your birth matters so much.
 
I don't care who you were.
 
I only care about what you've become.
 
And I love what you've become."
 

"You do?" Sarah whispered, not looking up at him.
 

"I do.
 
Very much."
 

He settled back down on the bed then, pulling her against him so he cradled her in his arms.
 
Her disgusting hair ended up his face, but he pushed it away without gagging.
 
He was sure he smelled equally as delightful and was not going to hold it against her.
 
He let the silence fill the berth, simply enjoying the feel of Sarah.
 

"Alec?" Sarah whispered after a while.
 

"Mmm?" he said, watching the lantern swing shadows over the ceiling of the bunk.
 

"It matters to other people."

Alec's resolve faltered slightly, unsure of what she was speaking.
 
It was true there were often whispers about the previous life of the now Countess of Stryden, but Alec had simply ignored them.
 
What society thought of his wife meant little to him.
 
He only cared how
he
felt about his wife, and he was certain from the day he met her that he loved her.
 

"I don't care," he finally said, hoping that would end the conversation.

But something tickled at the back of his brain.
 
For four years he had tried to get his wife to love him.
 
He had felt her loathing for him at a deep level, an instinctual level.
 
The same primal unease he had felt as a boy after his mother had died giving birth to him.
 
That struggle to justify his existence because he had killed his own mother, and he had tried everything to ensure his father loved him.
 
He was certain his father did love him now, but a part of Alec was also certain that it all depended on Alec's ability to make his father laugh.
 
He had tried the same tactic with Sarah, but it only seemed to make her angrier, leaving him unable to talk to his own wife.
 

But why would Sarah care so deeply about what society thought of her as an earl's wife?
 

"I care.
 
I don't want people thinking you married below your station."
 

Alec felt the words like a punch to his gut.
 
He got up on his elbow and pulled her shoulder so she could see him.
 
Her face was blotted with red, and her eyes were watery.
 

"You think I married below my station?"
 

Her sad expression turned to one of bewilderment at his words.

"If anything I married a woman who is far too good for me," he continued, "And I pray everyday that she doesn't realize."
 

Sarah didn't say anything.
 
Her mouth was open, but nothing came out.
 
Alec worried that he had said too much.
 
After all, he'd never been in a position to say what he was thinking.
 
It was rare that Sarah didn't display her feelings with a right cross, so he had always kept his thoughts to himself.
 
But now, Sarah merely lay beneath him, completely sapped of all signs of life.
 
It seemed like the perfect time to bear his soul without a joke or a laugh, but whether or not Sarah believed him was apparently a different matter.