Silent Revenge (21 page)

S
imon lifted a handful of Jessica’s satiny-brown hair from her shoulder and let it sift through his fingers. He’d been awake for hours, watching as muted shades of purple and pink and blue gave way to the sun’s vibrant rays. He was waiting for his wife to open her eyes and berating himself because he knew when she did, he would want to kiss her again.

For hours he’d watched her sleep in his arms, her head resting on his chest, a look of contentment on her face. That look tested every ounce of willpower he possessed.

He did not want to feel a softness toward her. He’d learned his lesson long ago. Rosalind had been an excellent teacher.

A disturbing heaviness pressed against his chest when he remembered the way Jessica had opened her arms to take him to her. The way she’d given herself to him, even though she didn’t understand what was happening to her.

Simon brushed a wisp of hair from her cheek and pulled the covers closer around her shoulders. In her sleep, she lifted her hand and rubbed the side of her face where he touched her, then breathed a deep sigh and settled back again with her arm draped across his body.

He filled his lungs with air and closed his eyes. He was not displeased with her. Not at all. Even though he would never allow himself to care for her more than necessary, on the whole, he considered himself lucky. She was more than pleasing to look at. Even beautiful, if he’d take the time to notice, which he would not. And her quick wit and intelligence did not cease to amaze him.

But it was her courage that impressed him most. An inner fortitude that gave her the strength to protect herself and her secret. A strength that would not allow her to admit defeat, no matter how many impossible situations he put in her path.

In less than twenty-four hours she had—for the first time ever—gone for a ride during the daylight where people could see her, conversed with members of the
ton
without making one blunder or giving away the fact that she could not hear what they were saying, accepted two invitations to mingle with society, learned to waltz, and had given her body to him.

Although she’d tried not to show it, Simon knew each experience had terrified her. Watching her stand up to him and question his every demand made his guilt that much more consuming.

He wasn’t proud of the way he’d used her, but she was a means to an end. He needed her wealth to make possible his dream of saving his inheritance. He’d married her to impose the vengeance he’d waited three years to exact. He would take every pound Tanhill thought to steal from Jessica and destroy him with it. He would see Tanhill beg for his life like he’d made Sarai beg for hers.

Simon looked at what was left of his grandmother’s mediocre painting. His courageous wife was also a bit of a spitfire with a better than passable temper.

He leaned his head back against the headboard and chuckled. He liked that about her, too.

“What is so funny?”

Her voice startled him, and he looked down. He didn’t realize she’d woken, and wondered how long she’d been watching him. “Did I wake you?” he asked, sitting up so she could see his lips.

“No.”

She tried to pull away, but he wouldn’t let her. He wasn’t ready to give up the feel of her body next to his. He touched her cheek and then let his fingers trace a line across her determined jaw. “Are you all right? Did I hurt you?”

Her face turned the most alluring shade of crimson, and she lowered her gaze. “No,” she answered, shaking her head. “I’m fine.”

She relaxed when he wrapped his arm around her shoulder and held her close. He’d seen the confusion on her face last night just before he’d taken her. He knew how much it required for her to trust him.

He also saw the passion that blazed in her eyes, but he was more startled by his own reaction.

He’d always been a master at controlling every physical situation. Until last night. Until her.

And he’d seen the astonishment in her gaze when she’d soared over the edge. Her explosive release mirrored his own.

Her fingers touched his skin lightly, then moved to the scar on his chest. “I didn’t know what it would be like between a man and a woman. No one told me.” She leaned up on her elbows to see him.

He breathed a deep sigh. “I know.” He brushed his fingers over her cheek and then cupped her chin to tilt her face upward. “It’s early yet. Go back to sleep.”

“I’m not tired. I’m ready to rise.”

“No. Stay here.” She didn’t move for a moment and then placed her hand back on the scar that angled across his chest. His muscles rippled beneath her fingers.

“How did you get this?” she asked, running a finger along the length of the jagged scar.

He saw concern in her gaze and tried to ignore it. “It’s not important. It happened a long time ago.”

“In India?”

“Yes.”

“It was a very deep wound. You could have died.”

“Does that bother you?”

A frown deepened across her forehead. “Death always bothers me. It would bother anyone.”

“It did not bother the man who did it. He watched the life flow from my body with a smile on his face.”

“He must have hated you very much.”

Even though he tried not to relive the horrors of that day, there were times when his mind refused to obey. How could he tell Jessica that her stepbrother did not need a reason to kill? He enjoyed causing pain.

“Simon?”

“Yes.”

“Will you have an heir now?”

The breath caught in Simon’s throat. “I don’t know.”

“Isn’t that why you came to me last night?”

Simon hesitated. “Yes. But it’s still too early to tell. It often takes time.” He looked at the pretty pink blush coloring her cheeks, and his body hardened in response.

“Melinda said it’s important that you have an heir.”

He told himself he would not take her again. That he was strong enough to fight his desire for her.

He locked his gaze with hers and knew he was losing his battle. Even though he’d had her twice already last night, it hadn’t been enough. His body reacted as if it had been years since he’d last had a woman. As if he were starving for something only the woman beside him could give.

He lowered his head and kissed her, moving from her lips to the sensitive spot behind her ear, then trailing a path down her throat. She was beautiful.

He kissed her mouth once more and held her cheeks in the palms of his hands. “Look at me, Jesse. Open your eyes and look at me.”

She stared at him, the dark look in her eyes glazed with passion, the feel of her hands on him desperate. With a need that totally consumed him, he made love to her again.

Their journey was magnificent, their release violent and earth-shattering.

Simon collapsed against her and buried his face against her neck while he gasped for air. Loving her was incredible. Like never before.

He lifted himself up and looked into her eyes. Hopeful anticipation stared back at him, and he knew she was waiting for some sort of declaration from him of…what? Love? Hardly.

“Go to sleep, Jesse.”

Simon pulled away from her and rolled to the other side of the bed. With his arm beneath his head, he stared at the panels in the ceiling and cursed the way his body had betrayed him. He didn’t want it to be this way. Never thought it would be.

He kept his gaze from finding hers again. He knew if he looked, he’d see her hurt and confusion. He let the old barriers surround his heart and told himself he didn’t care. He would not let himself care. No woman would have that power over him ever again.

When he was sure she was asleep, he crawled out of bed and tiptoed across the room, careful not to disturb her. He stopped in midstride. What did it matter how much noise he made? She would never know.

Why did he keep forgetting she couldn’t hear?

Simon opened the door to the last wardrobe. Empty. He looked back to his sleeping wife on the bed and stuffed his hands into the pockets of his breeches. He’d been up and dressed for nearly an hour, but evidently his wife needed more rest. He didn’t bother to hide his smile of satisfaction while he resumed the search of his wife’s wardrobe.

He found three very worn day dresses with frayed collars and cuffs, and three more better dresses in dark, lifeless colors. He recognized the dark dress he’d seen her in the first time she came to him. And the striped dress she’d worn yesterday to the park. And the pretty, yet plain, dress in which she’d been married.

Where were the rest of her clothes? The party gowns? The fancy clothes she would wear when they went out?

Simon left the wardrobe doors ajar and walked out to the hall.

“Beatrice,” he said to the maid coming up the stairs. “Where does your mistress keep her ball gowns?”

“Her ball gowns?” The puzzled look on her face was almost comical.

“Yes. Her gowns. The gowns she wears when she goes out.”

“Oh.” The maid clasped her hands at her waist. “The mistress hardly ever goes out.”

“I know,” Simon admitted in frustration, “but surely she has something else to wear other than what is hanging in her room. Every woman has spare closets filled with useless clothing.”

“Not the mistress, my lord. She is very frugal.”

“She does not have another room where she stores her gowns?”

The maid shook her head.

Simon looked down the hall and saw only rooms with doors standing open. He knew what was in each. All except the room at the end of the hall. He walked down the long corridor and lifted the latch. It was locked.

“What does your mistress keep in this room?”

Beatrice’s eyes opened wide, and she twisted her hands in her apron. “Things, my lord. Just the mistress’s things.”

“Things?” Simon raised his brows and leveled the nervous maid with an icy glare. “What sort of things, Beatrice?”

“Oh, I’m not at liberty to say, my lord. They’re the mistress’s personal things.”

“Do you have a key?”

“Oh no, my lord. Only the mistress has a key.” Beatrice twisted her apron tighter. “But the mistress keeps none of her gowns in the room. Just her personal things.”

“No gowns?”

“No, my lord.”

Simon turned on his heel and walked back to his room. Where did his wife keep the rest of her clothes? Surely she had some. And exactly what sort of personal things did she have that had to be kept under lock and key?

Simon turned back to face the wide-eyed maid. “Beatrice. Have a hot bath sent up for your mistress and a cup of chocolate.”

“Yes, my lord. Right away.”

Before Simon could tell the flighty maid to have the cook make Jessica a slice of toast, she was halfway down the stairs, well out of earshot.

Simon walked back to his wife. When he entered the room, Jessica was just waking. She stretched her arms above her head like a lazy cat stirring after a long nap, then rolled to the other side of the bed. The sunlight shone on her coffee-colored hair that was fanned out on the pillow like it had been last night. Simon held the breath that caught in his chest and pushed away the urge to pull off his clothes and climb back in bed with her.

Bloody hell. She was a sight to wake up to.

“Are you looking for something?” Her gaze scanned the open wardrobe doors as she covered her mouth to hide a yawn. She modestly pulled the covers under her chin and sat up in bed.

She looked irresistible. “Yes. I’m looking for your gowns.”

She pointed to the other wardrobe. The one with the six dresses hanging in it.

“No. Your good gowns. The ones that might be appropriate to wear to the Milebankes’ on Friday.”

“Those are the only gowns I own.” She sat straighter and tucked her knees close to her chest. She looked back at the wardrobe containing the pathetic collection of gowns at the same time he did.

Simon stared at her in disbelief. He remembered her request for a monthly allowance of fifteen pounds to purchase a new gown upon occasion. Jessica Warland, Countess of Northcote, one of the richest women in England, had six dresses to her name, none of which were appropriate to wear out of the house.

The temper he usually kept well under control threatened to show itself. “What do you plan to wear to the Milebankes’ on Friday, Jessica?”

Her eyes sparked with a hint of anger. “
If
I go, I will wear the navy gown. It’s the newest.”

“That is your best gown?”

“Yes. When I go out in public, I sit where I’m not noticed and stay only a little while. I hardly need an expensive gown to sit off to the side.”

Simon raised his gaze to the ceiling. He locked his jaw and took a breath of air that hissed through his clenched teeth. “That is what you intend to wear when I introduce you to society?”

She hesitated. “I have not decided whether or not I will go.”

“You have not decided?” A flash of anger exploded in him as violent as a shot from a cannon. “The decision is not yours to make, my lady. I have decided you will go, and by God, you will.”

She stared at him, the gleam in her eyes dangerous. “Be careful how much you demand, my lord. You seem to be making all the decisions concerning our future, and I do not appreciate the double intent of your actions.”