Nothing Denied (11 page)

Gathering the sheets around her, she col ected her thoughts. After they made love in his special room, she must have fal en asleep. Certainly the events of the day had exhausted her. If that were true, it meant someone had carried her here. It was possible that someone had been a servant, but in her heart she was certain it had been Gareth.

She shivered. In her sleep, she had been utterly vulnerable. He could have done anything he liked to her body. While she was unaware, she had no idea how long he had looked at her or what he had whispered or even how he had touched her. A shiver moved through her, but she refused to acknowledge any pleasure those thoughts brought her.

She didn’t
like
that she had al owed him that kind of power.

She looked at the clock beside the bed. It was after ten in the morning. How long had he been gone? Or had he slept here at al ?

Wel , it was time to find out. She got up and found that a silken dressing gown had been left for her at the foot of the bed. She stared at the delicate fabric. It wasn’t something from her wardrobe, but it was obviously made for a woman of about her size. Had it once belonged to his late wife or perhaps a mistress?

Or was it something just for her?

Pursing her lips, Beatrice draped it around her shoulders and went to the bel at the door. As she tugged it to summon a servant to assist her in readying for the day, she took a deep breath.

After a few moments, the door opened and a young maid stepped into the room. She gave Beatrice a nervous smile. “May I help you, miss?”

“I wish to dress and then I want to see Lord Highcroft. And let us hurry it along.”

The girl jolted into action and Beatrice sighed as she let her thoughts wander. Today was wel and truly the first day of this arrangement and after last night she was beginning to ful y understand what that meant, both for her body and for her soul. Gareth wanted something from her that she had never remotely considered sharing.

He wanted everything.

Although she had specifical y asked to be taken to Gareth as soon as she was dressed, a footman instead took her to the dining room. She stepped inside and looked around, annoyed to find she was alone.

She turned on the man with a frown. “I told you to take me to your master.”

Unlike most servants, this one looked her right in the eye. He didn’t seem to fear her, though his gaze held a healthy dose of contempt.

“I do what the marquis asks of me, miss. Not you.”

She folded her arms and let out her breath in a huff of outrage, hoping to hide how uncomfortable this situation made her. The other servants pretended not to know that she was Gareth’s whore. This one did not. And it was clear he had little respect for her.

“You shal do whatever your betters say,” Beatrice snapped. “And you shal remember your place. Now what is your name?”

The man simply glared.

She marched forward, but her heart had begun to throb with anxiety. “You heard me. What is your name?”

“Hodges,” came a quiet male voice from the entrance to the dining hal .

Beatrice squeezed her eyes shut as she recognized it as Gareth’s. She also heard the deep disapproval in his tone. With a frown, she turned to face him. Gareth stared at her, though he continued to speak to his servant.

“You may go.”

The footman hesitated for a moment, but then he nodded his agreement and slipped past his master to disappear into the hal way.

“You should put a tighter leash on your servants,”

Beatrice said, turning to harshness to cover her discomfort at being caught speaking to his servants in such a way when it was clear he didn’t approve. Not to mention the strange thril that worked through her at being alone with Gareth after last night’s shocking events. “For a man who craves control, you have none whatsoever over that one.”

Gareth stood in the doorway for a moment and then pushed away and entered the room. He strode to the spread of food laid out for their enjoyment and grabbed a plate from the buffet.

“You are in rare form this morning, aren’t you, Beatrice?” he said as he placed a few items on his plate. “A good morning to you, too.”

She folded her arms, the heat of embarrassment flooding her cheeks. “I don’t know what you mean by

‘rare form,’ sir.”

Actual y, she did, but she wasn’t about to admit she had lashed out needlessly at a servant simply because she was uncomfortable. There was no need to explain herself to this or any other man.

“Don’t you?” he asked, facing her with an arched brow. “I don’t believe you are real y so unaware of yourself. You al but attacked my footman, who did nothing to you but took you exactly where I asked him to.”

“But
I
asked him to take me to you,” she snapped, folding her arms. “I was very specific in my instructions.

”

“But I pay his salary,” Gareth said, his soft and even tone a counterpoint to the tremor in her own. She pursed her lips, for she had no answer for him. It was exactly as the servant, himself, had said. In truth, until she was marchioness over this house, if that ever indeed happened, there was no reason for any servant to do anything she asked.

Which meant Gareth had more power than she did in one more way.

“Now, wil you sit?” he asked, motioning to the seat beside his.

She hesitated, but then her stomach rumbled and she scowled. She did want to eat, so there was no choice. She trudged to the table and sat. To her surprise, Gareth set the plate he had prepared in front of her.

“Would you like tea?” he asked, motioning to the pot in the middle of the table.

She nodded and he poured first for her and then for himself. When he sat down, she took a bite of toast and watched him while she chewed.

“What is that look for?” he asked with a smile.

“I was just thinking, wasn’t I supposed to be
your
slave?” She motioned to the food before her. “And yet you are serving me.”

“You mistake politeness and care for slavery,” he said with another irritating smile. “You are my guest, I wish for you to be comfortable. That has nothing to do with your ultimate surrender in my bedroom.”

As much as she wished she could concoct one, Beatrice had very little response to Gareth’s quiet claim. At least none that wouldn’t make her look even worse than she already did. And for whatever reason, she didn’t want Gareth to view her in an even poorer light.

They sat quietly for a while. Gareth sipped his tea and thumbed through a stack of papers from London that had been set at his place before either of them even entered the room. Beatrice picked through her food, enjoying the fresh fruits, perfectly baked pastries and wel -done meats his staff had prepared. If she lived here, there was no doubt she would grow fat with such fare.

Through the silence, she waited. She watched. And after a quarter of an hour of comfortable silence had passed, she final y set her fork aside and stared at him.

“You are the most frustrating man in al the country,”

she snapped.

He lifted his gaze from his paper and stared at her.

“How in the world have I transgressed against you now? I have been quietly reading my paper while you had your breakfast. Or do you not approve of
The
Highcroft Weekly?
It is a local gazette and I admit it leaves something to be desired in both content and the quality of its writing, but—”

“You know I don’t care one bit about your sil y paper,”

Beatrice interrupted with a sigh. “But we have been sitting here for Lord knows how long and you haven’t…

”

He raised his eyebrows in encouragement when she trailed off with a heated blush. “Haven’t?”

“You haven’t even tried to seduce me!” Beatrice final y huffed out. “Is that not why I am here? To see if we are compatible in a physical way? I somehow doubt that the two tumbles we had yesterday are enough to satisfy your curiosity about the subject. Not after how you built up what you want to such heights of drama.”

Gareth leaned back. “Beatrice, do you not think this is a seduction?”

“Of course it isn’t!” She tossed her napkin aside and pushed to her feet. “We are sitting having the most pushed to her feet. “We are sitting having the most mundane morning imaginable. I have sat at my own dining table with my mother like this a thousand times, though granted, it was, blessedly, more quiet here with you.”

He did not move, even when she paced away to the closest window in frustration.

“But when you sat with your mother al those times, were you thinking of sex?” he asked mildly.

She turned on him with an outraged gasp. “Of course not.”

“And yet this morning you were clearly thinking of seduction, because you spoke of it.” He tilted his head.

“Were you waiting for me to touch you, perhaps beneath the table? Or to whisper how much I wanted to bury my cock deep inside your pussy?”

Beatrice stiffened. She had never heard that term before, but she could wel imagine what he meant from its context.

“Were you?” he pressed.

She jerked out a nod. “Yes. You brought me here for sex. Of course I was thinking about it.”

“Then we
are
engaged in a seduction, my dear.” He final y pushed to his feet and moved toward her with a lazy possessiveness in his eyes.

Beatrice wanted to turn away from it, but remained rooted in her spot.

“While I sat beside you,” he murmured. “Al I could think about was the scent of you. It’s beginning to seep into me, and just the whiff of your skin makes me hard as a rock. I was watching you as you bent over your plate. Did you know even that slight motion gave me a tiny view of your cleavage in that gown?”

Beatrice looked down with a gasp.

“That little glimpse made me hot to bare your skin and touch you. But part of the seduction is waiting, Beatrice. It’s wondering when the moment wil come, because that makes the moment al the more enjoyable. Don’t you like waiting? Wondering when we wil once again melt into the passion we shared last night?”

Beatrice stared at him. He was closer than ever, just a pace’s length in front of her. She could feel his body heat, she could smel his skin just as he said he could smel hers. It was exciting and confusing and frustrating al at once.

“I don’t know,” she admitted as she wet her lips. He nodded as he reached out to trail just a fingertip down her cheekbone. She wanted to sigh into it, close her eyes, but she refused to show that weakness to him.

“That is very honest. Perhaps the first honest thing you have ever said to me.”

She wrinkled her brow. People despised her because she was too honest, didn’t they?

“What do you mean?” she asked.

He was damnably calm. “I think you are far less of a shrew than you wish people to believe.”

Beatrice flinched. She hated when he implied that he could see more of her than anyone else. The arrogance rankled her. And worse, she feared it might be true. She didn’t want him to see more. She didn’t want him to know her.

And so she pushed him away the only way she knew how. She blurted out, “Are
you
less of a murderer, my lord?”

The moment she said it, the moment Gareth’s eyes went hard as steel, she wished she could take it back. Because it had been a mistake and God knew how she would now pay.

Even though Beatrice’s sharp words did exactly as she had intended when she said them and cut him to the bone, Gareth did not react. Despite an anger that boiled up within him, he simply stared at her. Even. Focused. He found control and clung to it.

Beatrice turned her face. “Stop looking at me like that,” she whispered. He did not reply, but held his gaze steady. She shot him a glare from the corner of her eye. “
Stop!
”

Stil , he remained steadfast. He stayed up against her, not al owing her to move, and he stared. Because he knew it would break her more than a thousand retorts could ever do. His focused, undivided attention was more punishment to Beatrice than anything else in the world.

He wanted to know why.

“I–I’m sorry,” she final y whispered, shifting uncomfortably. Her eyes darted up and he nodded.

“Thank you,” he whispered. Then he tilted his head slightly. “Why are you like this, Beatrice?”

She frowned and for the first time he truly saw her wal come down. The anger, the sharpness, the ferocity bled away, and it left in its wake a sadness that she al owed for only a brief moment.

“I don’t know,” she final y said. “My father died when I was very young. I suppose it…”

She trailed off as if she didn’t know how to finish the sentence. Gareth nodded, thinking of the devastation of his own parents’ deaths. Only he had been left with a beloved grandmother who made every effort to ease his pain. Beatrice had been left with only her sisters and a mother who was difficult at best. Somehow he couldn’t picture Dorthea Albright offering comfort or sound guidance.

“It must have been difficult for you,” he said softly and he took a step back.

She slipped past him in the space he had afforded her and walked away slowly. With her back to him, she said, “It was. I was his princess. When he was gone, I lost everything I knew. Everything I was.”

She hesitated and he al owed her whatever thoughts had stopped her. Final y she turned and he actual y saw the hardness return to her stare, washing away the vulnerability she had shown him. If anything, she was more distant now than ever before.

“But I am being foolish. That was many years ago and it is unimportant now.”

Gareth chose not to argue or push, for it was clear those actions would garner him nothing but more of a fight. He had won his prize already. For the first time since he met her, he had seen something
real
in Beatrice. Something human that she might want to crush, but stil lived in her.

She might not want to give that to him, but he could take it. Through her body, he could steal that vulnerability and mold it.

“What is important, then, Beatrice?” he asked softly. He stepped up behind her at the window and leaned in, letting his body brush hers. She sighed very softly as their bodies touched, but did not answer.