Helen Dickson (22 page)

He cursed himself for his utter stupidity, and the fury inside him was almost beyond bearing. A moment ago he hadn’t thought he could be angrier than he’d been when he’d learned she had become betrothed to Carlyle. However, the realisation that he’d been duped by his own wife surpassed even that.

L
aura lay on her side and stared at the empty place beside her. Never had she felt so wretched or so desolate in her life. She rolled onto her back and looked up at the canopy above the bed, thinking of Lucas. The driving weight of his body lingered in her mind, and she blushed at the exquisite sensation to which she had responded with so much love and abandon. He had told her that when he finally made love to her again it would be different from that other time. And it had been. He had wanted her for herself, not just because she was his wife and it was his right. There were moments when she had almost told him that she loved him, but she hadn’t because she knew he would not say it back.

The memory of his whispered words of praise, his passion, and his kisses, came back to her. She couldn’t believe that she, who had never known the beauty of passion or the delight that could be derived from the physical pleasure to be achieved with another human being, had been swept along into the realms where torture and bliss were one and the same, where her whole being had reached out to the fulfilment of desire. A fulfilment Lucas had, with expert ease, withheld and promised and withheld again, before yielding to her needs and finally granting it to her at last.

But then remembrance of how their union had come about overrode the sensuous memories. All the emotions of a tortured being surged and eddied in her mind until, unable to endure such thoughts, she pushed back the covers and rose.

Self-hate, shame and a bitter regret overwhelmed her. Their union had been engineered by her. She had used her body as a carnal weapon to entrap her husband, employing her sex as a tool. Her control shattered with full realisation of the enormity of what she had done, and in vain she fought to control the tears that threatened to brim and flow down her cheeks. Wrapping her arms around her waist, she caught a blurred vision of herself in the mirror, and the treachery and guilt she saw in the face that looked back tore at the very fabric of her soul.

Unable to bear to look any longer, she slumped onto the bed, tears flowing easily now, the sleek lines of her body shuddering with each racking sob. When her tears were spent she sat up and brushed the hair from her wet cheeks. Rising from the bed, she crossed to the dressing room and washed her face in cold water and calmly dressed, preparing to confront her husband, to tell him of the awful thing she had done—which she must, otherwise she would be unable to live with herself—even though he would despise her for it.

Pleading a headache, she sent Susan away and remained in her room, where she waited in a state of suspended anguish and misery for her husband to come home.

By the time Lucas reached the house his fury had been reduced to a dangerous calm. He entered the bedchamber he now shared with his wife omnipotent and contemptuous of what she had done. In cold, frigid silence, for an endless moment their gazes locked as they assessed one another.

Everything about Lucas exuded an unbending will, and that in turn made Laura feel even more wretched and help
less as she searched the forbidding countenance for some sign that he still cared. But there was none. His face was frozen into a hardened mask of rage, and his grey eyes, having turned to an icy, metallic silver, impaled her, accusing her of complicity and treachery, leaving her in no doubt that he knew what she had done.

Her fear escalated to panic. She could imagine how his mind must be recoiling from it, but all she saw were the hard lines of his face, the tautness of his jaw. Shaking beneath the blast of his gaze, at the cost of a violent effort of will, she made herself walk towards him on legs that were wooden. He looked down at her.

‘You have been crying. Since you seem to enjoy keeping secrets from me, perhaps you would tell me why? Come, I imagine you are ready to explain. Let us not pretend. Do not play the innocent,’ he said, his voice quiet, with all the deadly calm of approaching peril. ‘Let me congratulate you. You are as clever as I credited you as being. You are a consummate deceiver, Laura, and a magnificent actress. I confess you had me fooled. But you did not have to go to such extremes to lure me into your bed.’

‘Lucas, I am so sorry,’ she whispered brokenly. ‘What crime are you going to punish me for first?’

‘How many crimes are you guilty of?’ he demanded, unmoved by her obvious fright.

In a state of acute misery, she swallowed convulsively. ‘Two.’

‘Which are?’

‘Complying to Edward’s demands—and for deceiving you.’

His eyes slashed her like razors. ‘So, you don’t deny that you knew all along about the landing last night?’

She shook her head dejectedly as he began to pace the carpet in exasperation. ‘No.’

‘And that was the reason behind this whole charade—of moving my things in here and making sure I didn’t see
what was going on in the cove, wasn’t it? Wasn’t it?’ he repeated in a terrible voice when she didn’t reply. ‘Answer me. Don’t make things worse for yourself than they are already.’

‘Yes,’ she whispered past a hard lump that had appeared in her throat, his words hitting her like a whip. ‘But—I deeply regret what I’ve done, and I had made up my mind to tell you.’

Jamming his hands into his pockets, Lucas stopped pacing and stood looking down at her. His contemptuous gaze raked her. ‘When, Laura? When did you intend telling me? When it was too late?’

The tone was merciless and cutting. Why, oh, why did she have to love him so desperately? ‘H-how did you find out?’

‘I’ve seen the evidence in the cove with my own eyes—marks of hooves and wagon wheels, clearly heavily laden with contraband from our friends across the Channel.’ He moved closer, looking down at her, his eyes hard, glittering and accusing, the eyes of a stranger.

‘I was puzzled, wondering how it was possible for such a task to be undertaken without my knowledge. It didn’t take me long to work out that my own wife had colluded with the smugglers. For my stupidity in trusting you, when I realised what you’d done I couldn’t make up my mind if you were simple-minded or devious. I now know it was both.

‘Because of you, Carlyle has succeeded in flouting the law yet again. Don’t you realise what you’ve done—that it was a criminal act? It will be the joke of Carlyle and his friends that I was duped by my own wife.’ Naked pain sliced across his features in the instant before his whole body went rigid, tensing against it. ‘I have been subjected to a tremendous humiliation as a result of your behaviour. Why, in God’s name, did you do it?’

‘Because I was desperate and frightened,’ she admitted,
breathing in shallow, suffocating breaths, quite beside herself with wretchedness as she met his penetrating gaze head-on. Never in her life had she witnessed such controlled, menacing fury. His anger was justifiable. Her conscience reminded her that her bargain with Edward had not only damaged Lucas’s pride, but that it had also been inexcusable.

‘And do you mind telling me when it was that you spoke to Carlyle and where? Was it while I was lying abed recovering from the wound
he
inflicted on me?’

Nodding, she could almost feel the effort he was exerting to keep his rage under control. ‘It was on the day Caroline and I walked to Roslyn. He—he saw Caroline and recognised her.’

The dawning of understanding filled Lucas’s eyes. ‘So, that’s it. Because of your recklessness he now knows Caroline and Louis are living under my roof. I don’t think I need impress on you the danger you have placed them both in—and that it is extremely likely that when Jean de Mournier knows where to find them he will descend on Roslyn like a thousand devils,’ he said with derisive scorn, his eyes glittering down at her from a face white with rage.

‘Do you think I don’t know that?’ she uttered miserably.

‘You little fool. I told you not to venture far—and I specifically told you not to speak to Carlyle on any account. It doesn’t matter how he persuaded you to disobey me. It makes no difference, for the facts speak for themselves. As your husband I have every right to give you orders, but even if it was too much to hope that you would have enough loyalty and self-discipline to do as you were told, I thought you would have enough sense than to disobey me and drag Caroline with you. Did Carlyle come looking for you—threaten you in some way?’

‘Yes—yes, he did,’ she emphatically declared.

Lucas’s jaw clenched. ‘And did he become abusive?’

‘No—at least, not physically so.’

‘Are you still frightened of him?’

‘Yes,’ she cried. ‘I am afraid of him. I am afraid of what he will do. He told me there are to be two landings in the cove, and he made me promise to distract you when they came, otherwise he would tell Jean de Mournier where Caroline and Louis are hiding. I couldn’t ignore the threat—the fear—which hung over my head like the threatening blade of an executioner’s axe. Please understand that I had no choice, Lucas. No choice at all.’

‘Oh, but you did,’ he corrected her coldly. ‘You could have come to me.’ His eyes narrowed. ‘Two landings, you say. Was last night’s the first?’

She nodded.

‘So—there is to be one more,’ he said, his mind already calculating what had to be done to catch Carlyle out. ‘Why did Caroline not say anything, since she was there at the time?’

‘When Edward asked me to do this awful thing she had walked on. I asked her not to mention our meeting with him to you. It was unforgivable of me, I know—and I hated myself for deceiving you. But at the time you were so ill and in no fit state to do anything. I couldn’t tell you because of what Edward might do to you. You were the last person I could have told.’

‘I fail to see why,’ he bit back scathingly.

‘Oh, Lucas—are you so eager to die?’ she cried. ‘He implied that he was the one who shot you, and he threatened he would do so again.’

Lucas’s lips twisted with a crooked, cruel smile. ‘What a poor creature you must think me,’ he said, speaking sarcastically, with a bitter contempt in his voice. ‘Should he try, Carlyle will be in much greater danger from me. And how did he contact you to inform you of the landing? Did you meet him after I strictly forbade you to have any further contact with him?’

‘No. A message came to the house two days ago.’

‘When I was at the mine?’

‘Yes.’ Her voice was a barely audible whisper.

‘I see.’ He threw her a look of unwavering disgust, his tall frame rigid with anger. ‘Tell me, Laura, how long did you intend going on deceiving me?’

Laura actually flinched at the cold, ruthless fury in her husband’s eyes as they raked over her. ‘I didn’t, I swear it. I couldn’t do it again.’

‘How vastly obliging of you,’ he growled.

‘Please, Lucas,’ she implored him, drowning in agony. ‘Haven’t you any pity in your heart?’ She shook her head, tears she could no longer contain spilling down her cheeks. She stretched out her hand in a gesture of mute appeal, then let it fall to her side when it got her nothing but a blast of contempt from his cold eyes. ‘Please believe me and listen to me.’

Her tears failed to move him. ‘Pray continue. I’m listening.’

‘When you came in just now I was ready to admit what I had done. I swear it. I’d never willingly displease you. You have berated me as you saw fit—justifiably so—and I deeply regret that you can no longer hold me in any esteem, that you think I have failed you. But I don’t think I can bear your scorn and contempt.’

‘Do you expect me to act as if nothing has happened?’

She shook her head dejectedly. ‘No. I couldn’t expect that of you. However, your feelings are a matter for your own heart, and whatever you might have thought when you discovered what I had done I cannot blame you. But what I did I did not do willingly. It was wrong—I freely admit that. In trying to protect you and Caroline and Louis I have made you angry. But if only you knew how much I wanted to tell you, how much I needed to confide in you—how I hated and despised myself for the manner in which I deceived you.

‘But, despite my guilt at what I have done, I enjoyed the
things you did to me last night. I took more pleasure than you will ever know in lying with you. The actual bargain I made with Edward was nobly made for Caroline and Louis’s sake. I refuse to believe God will blame me for that,’ she murmured, lowering her eyes.

Her statement was spoken simply and from the heart, and for a moment Lucas felt his resolve weakening. Her head was bent forward, concealing her face from his view, but as he watched she squared her slender shoulders. She looked so small, so vulnerable, that he felt a twinge of conscience, but his mood was not yet ready to be mollified. Recollecting himself quickly, he refused to spare her. He stood directly in front of her, and, taking her chin between his fingers, he raised her face as he had done last night, when he’d kissed her. But he didn’t kiss her now as his eyes stared into hers, as grey and cold as ice floes.

‘Listen to me, Laura, and listen well. If you really believe Carlyle will not inform Jean de Mournier where he can get his hands on Louis you are foolishly mistaken. He is not that noble. He will inform him just as soon as it suits him to do so. Now, there are three things I have to say to you. Firstly, you are not to leave this house. Secondly, any message that is delivered to you passes through me.’

His tone promised such terrible reprisals should she disregard his order that Laura couldn’t imagine what form they might take that threatened terrible consequences.

‘Thirdly, never, ever behave as you did last night. And, yes, you can feel pleased with yourself, for you succeeded admirably.’

‘I don’t,’ she whispered wretchedly. ‘I do not feel pleased with myself. If it makes you feel any better, I hate myself.’

‘You’re right. It doesn’t,’ he stated coldly. ‘I will not have my wife behaving like a common strumpet. When you tempted me into your bed you were nothing but an eager body and an empty heart. It was cheap and dirty and un
worthy of you. I might have been deprived of enjoying the pleasures of the flesh for two long and miserable years, but did you really think I was so desperate for your body that I would accept the temporary loan of it and call it making love?’