The Chadwick Ring (8 page)

The arm clasping her waist became hard and cold, a fetter of iron. Lord Chadwick said, “No, she can be of no importance to you.”

Even in the poor light Ginevra’s face glowed with outrage. She tore herself from his grasp and stuttered indignantly, “How c-can you say that? I ... I am your wife!”

His eyes narrowed, and he bowed mockingly. “As you say. I have endowed you with my name, my title, and all my worldly goods ... What more do you want?”

What more? Ginevra thought wildly, pivoting away from him, her gown afloat. She crossed her arms in a childish attitude of defiance, hurt and confused. Was she being unreasonable to expect fidelity from her husband, fidelity and respect and ... and love? Did such qualities exist in real marriage, or were they just fantasies contrived by the writers of purple romances? Did no one love? She had always thought her parents shared an ideal relationship, full of tenderness and warmth. Was she wrong about that too? The things she had learned recently about her father made her wonder if any man could be trusted. Small wonder he had had no qualms about forcing her to marry Lord Chadwick, condemning her to be used at the man’s convenience and then discarded. Oh, God, she didn’t think she could stand it! She drooped her head and began to tremble.

The marquess watched the small, quivering figure in silence, his face unreadable. He sighed, “Oh, Ginevra, you are so very young ... Now, in addition, you are tired and overwrought.” He wove his fingers through the gleaming mass of her hair and began to massage her nape. “Come, love,” he urged softly, “you need to rest You’ll feel better after you sleep.” He felt the tense muscles in her neck relax reluctantly under his soothing caress. Brushing aside the sheer silk of her gown, he teased her shoulder with his lips. When the tip of his tongue, trailed lightly over her skin, she jerked convulsively. He murmured, “You must rest, little Ginnie. Come to bed.”

“W-with you?”

“Of course with me.”

Ginevra hesitated. “No,” she said.

Chadwick’s stroking fingers stilled. “I beg your pardon?”

She lifted her head and repeated firmly, “I said no, I don’t want to go to bed with you.”

He grasped her shoulders and slowly turned her around to face him. Ginevra met his gaze, her gold eyes rebellious but wary. He said evenly, “Perhaps you’d better explain yourself.”

“What’s there to ... to explain?” she retorted, stumbling over the words. “I’ve told you, I don’t want to share your bed. I don’t want to become one of your ... your women.”

“My women?” he roared, his grip tightening. “You are my wife!”

She sniffled, “Only because my father made me marry you. Only be-because you wanted Dowerwood. Well, now you have Dowerwood.” Her voice dropped to a husky murmur. “But you don’t need to have me as well.”

He stared down at her, his face white under the tan. “Is that how you see it?” he asked, his tone deceptively silky. “And just exactly what makes you think you know anything about my needs?”

Ginevra blushed but continued resolutely, “I ... I am sure there are others who ... who would suit you much better than I could. I don’t care, as long as ... as long as you leave me alone.”

His blue eyes raked her, stripping away her meager defenses. “Why, you little ... How dare you speak to me that way?” His fingers dug viciously into her shoulders. “You are my wife. This morning you vowed to serve and obey me. Do you know what that means, the form that service takes? If you have any doubts, madam wife, perhaps I’d better show you now.” He swung her into his arms and stalked across the room.

He carried her high, her face buried against his shoulder, muffled in the linen frills of his open shirt, and she lay stunned, stupefied, until he kicked the bedroom door shut behind him. The sharp explosion of sound went through her like an electric shock, and squealing wildly, she began to fight. She thrashed and flailed frantically, pummeling his bare chest with her fists as he carried her with inexorable purpose toward the curtained darkness of the Glovers’ ancestral bed.

He threw her down across the turned-back coverlet, and her hair sprayed in a golden shower over the cool lavender-scented sheets. Even as she tried to twist away from him his body descended onto hers, the hard length of him pinning her to the mattress, making her hotly aware of his arousal. He caught her wrists in a merciless grip, and she squirmed impotently as his cruel gaze swept over her. Her frenzied movements disarranged her negligee and exposed her breasts to his hungry eyes. She could feel him inhale raggedly at the sight, and she sobbed, “No ... no, my lord!”

“Yes ... yes, my lady,” he mocked, and swooping down, he stopped her pleas with his mouth.

The lips that had brushed hers so gently only moments before were hard now, brutal, crushing the breath from her and bruising her tender lips against her clenched teeth. When she attempted to turn her face away, he released her wrists and wove his fingers into her bright tresses, holding her head immobile. She pushed against him without effect, and her fingers caught in the rough hair on his chest. Even in her panic the intimate feel of his skin was so unexpectedly pleasant that she gasped.

The gasp was her undoing. When her lips parted, his tongue invaded her mouth relentlessly, making no concession for her youth and inexperience, ravishing her innocence. Fiery waves began to flow through Ginevra’s veins, stirred by his devastating assault. She was becoming dizzy, faint, losing all powers of resistance. When one of his hands unwound from her hair and slid down to cup the delicate weight of her young breast, she knew with anguish that she was lost. Her own body was turning traitor, succumbing to his expertise as a lover. He was taking her, taking her, and she could fight no more. He would use her as callously as he had used his first wife and that Frenchwoman and all the other women in between—and his skill was such that he might even make her enjoy his touch—but when he was finished he would discard her. He cared nothing for her, she was just an object, a convenient receptacle for his pleasure—and she thought she would die from the shame of it.

Ginevra began to cry.

Scalding tears of despair welled up in her golden eyes and splashed onto her cheeks as she twisted her face back and forth, and the salt stung her raw lips. Her breast shook with silent sobs under his caressing hands, and at the tremor he raised his head to stare at her.

His eyes were obsidian as they raked her bloodless features, the quivering mouth swollen from his attack. He caught his breath and became a leaden weight pressing her into the bed. Finally he choked in a voice so low she might have imagined she heard it, “Damn you, Ginevra, damn you to hell.”

He lifted himself away from her and towered beside the bed, panting hard and watching with pitiless scorn as she tried with shaking fingers to remedy her dishabille. He rasped, “You needn’t fear that a glimpse of your naked body is going to inflame me past all self-control. I have many faults, but raping children is not one of them.” He spun on his heel and stalked toward his door.

Bewildered, Ginevra stammered, “M-my lord?”

“What now, for God’s sake?” His voice was harsh, and he did not look at her.

She whispered lamely, “I’m sorry.” She saw him stiffen. She asked, “What do we do now?”

He shrugged, but his fists were clenched at his sides. He said coldly, “I am going back to London. As for you, you can remain here until ... until you grow up. I would prefer that my friends there do not discover that I have taken to wife a green girl utterly inadequate for the role of Marchioness of Chadwick.” He moved impatiently toward his bedroom door.

Ginevra cringed under his burning contempt, but she steeled herself to ask one last timorous question. “Wh-when you are in London, will ... will you see Amalie de Villeneuve?”

For a moment she thought he would not answer her, but at the doorway he paused. When he turned, his blue eyes were frosty, his smile wolfish. “As I told you earlier,” he said, his deep voice heavy with disdain, “Madame de Villeneuve—and my relationship with her—are none of your concern whatsoever.” Then he was gone.

4

Sunlight streamed across the bed, and soft scented breezes played over the rich hangings, dispelling the lingering aura of musty velvet and melted candle wax. With eyes shadowed by her sleepless night, Ginevra read for the second time the brief note her husband had left her. Her fingers trembled as she carefully replaced the single sheet of cream-colored paper in the envelope and tucked the flap into place. She stared at the bold black handwriting slashing the face of the envelope. The Lady Richard Glover, Marchioness of Chadwick. Remembering his last hateful words of the night before she was sure that he had addressed the letter that way, with her new and obviously undeserved title, to mock her. And why not? she thought tiredly. Her behavior merited his contempt; it already had her own. She was a coward. During the night she had listened with thudding heart while he stalked back and forth in his room like a caged animal, restless and incensed, and each time his hard footsteps hesitated just on the other side of her door she had held her breath painfully as she waited for him to twist the knob. When he did not, she berated herself for lacking the courage to go to him instead. Finally his movements had stilled, and the ominous silence had been broken by a new sound coming from outside the house, in the direction of the stables: the receding thunder of a powerful stallion as it galloped down the long drive into the warm Surrey night.

Ginevra toyed with the letter. She picked at the red wax of the broken seal until crumbs littered the sheets like drops of blood, and she thought about the virgin stain that should have embellished her marriage bed. No doubt the housemaids who changed the linens would note its absence; probably by nightfall the rumor would be rife belowstairs that the marquess had found his bride unchaste and had abandoned her in his disgust. She winced at the irony of that thought and set the letter on the nightstand.

Two paces back from the bed Emma stood and watched her young mistress impassively. She noted the frown marring Ginevra’s pale face and said in a voice devoid of expression, “My lady, may I say how sorry I am—we all are—that his lordship was called away so suddenly? Of course everyone feels honored to serve a gentleman holding such an important position in the diplomatic corps, yet it seems unfair that he should be forced to curtail his honeymoon...”

Ginevra looked blankly at her maid. “Is that the reason you think he left?”

Emma’s green eyes were frank and cool and revealed : none of the heat with which she had already quelled burgeoning gossip among the staff. “I believe it is the explanation that his lordship asked Hobbs, his valet, to relay to the household.”

“I see,” Ginevra muttered, relaxing against her pillow.

She was filled with reluctant gratitude for the lie. Her husband had covered himself plausibly, with a minimum of embarrassment for either of them; after all, a summons from Whitehall was one that no one could ignore, even on his wedding night. Once the initial rumors subsided, the inhabitants of Queenshaven would accept the marquess’s continued absence stoically. They might even commiserate his neglected young bride.

Ginevra’s amber eyes flickered to the note lying on the stand. Perhaps the more romantic members of the household would imagine that Lord Chadwick had paused in the midst of his hurried leave-taking to pen tender words of consolation before he departed. She alone knew that his letter was a brutally terse outline of the financial arrangements she would need to be aware of in his absence. The lines had been written in an angry scrawl, beginning with an abrupt “Madam” and signed as coldly “Chadwick.” Every period looked as if he had stabbed the
paper with
his quill. No affectionate missive this, and yet ... and yet, what other man, so livid with frustration and rage that he deserted his nuptial bed, would still delay long enough to ensure that his recalcitrant bride was informed of the allowance he had established for her? Ginevra sank deeper into the bedclothes, staring at the heavy rings glittering on her finger. Her throat clogged with the galling taste of self-reproach. She had not wanted this marriage, but regardless of her reluctance she had the very morning before pledged in the sight of God and in the face of that company to live with the marquess as his wife. Had she not been hen hearted, had she not offended him with her missishness, they might have come to terms with the awkward situation. But now she had sent him riding off into the welcoming arms of his mistress, and she did not know what to do.

Emma interrupted Ginevra’s troubled thoughts. “My lady—”

The girl gritted, “Don’t call me that!”

Emma’s carefully neutral mask slipped slightly at the unprecedented sound of her lady’s raised voice. “Miss Ginevra?”

Ginevra blushed. Extending her hand in a gesture of supplication, she pleaded, “Forgive me for snapping at you, Emma, but I ... I just can’t stand the thought of you becoming so formal with me. I don’t think I could endure that, not after everything else that has happened.”

“No, miss.” Emma’s eyes moved over the chaotically jumbled bedclothes, and she recalled the tearstains that had been visible on Ginevra’s cheeks when she first drew back the heavy drapes to admit the morning sun. She fought the impulse to pull the girl into her arms and comfort her. “Shall I ring for breakfast now?” When Ginevra shook her head, Emma went on resolutely, “In that case, may I suggest a hot bath? I’ve taken the liberty of ordering one for you. I thought it might ease any ... discomfort you may be suffering this morning.”

Ginevra glanced sharply at Emma. She colored furiously as the significance of those tactful words sank in. In a low, hoarse voice she whispered, “Yes, I would like to bathe. I’m still very stiff from yesterday’s journey. But there is no need for you to concern yourself with ... with other things.” She drooped her head, and her dark gold hair flowed over her shoulders to curl at her breast as she murmured, “I am no more Lord Chadwick’s wife now than I was at this hour yesterday.”

Emma’s mask fell away completely. “Not at all?” she gasped. “But ... but his lordship...”

Ginevra lifted her lashes and regarded her friend ironically. “Don’t look so shocked, Emma. I assure you there is nothing wrong with my husband’s manhood. The fault is entirely mine. It appears I am more like my father than I suspected. I seem to acquire obligations that I am incapable of fulfilling.”

She twisted her hands together tightly until the knuckles blanched and the fragile bones creaked in protest. Slowly she unplaited her slender fingers and splayed them on the sheet, studying them impersonally as the blush of color returned. Her hands were small and well-shaped, but they were not a “lady’s” hands, pale and smooth and soft. Ginevra’s nails were not delicate ovals, but were cut short and blunt, for cleanliness, because at Bryant House she had never known when she might be called to bind up a wound or tend a sick child. Countless needlepricks had roughened the pads of her fingertips, and across the back of her left hand a straight brown scar recalled the time when she had burned herself while helping Cook manipulate the roasting spit. Despite the rich rings, they were not really the kind of hands to wear jewels, not the kind of hands that Frenchwomen no doubt had, hands to stroke and inflame a man’s lean, hard body. Ginevra’s were the hands of a woman who worked, as she had worked in her father’s house since she was twelve years old. From childhood she had been mistress there—and now she was mistress of Queenshaven, and as such, she had obligations not only to her husband but also to the household. Even if the marquess never came to her again, there remained many duties for her to perform.

Ginevra straightened her slight shoulders and brushed her curls back from her face. She swung her head around so that the gleaming mass of her hair streamed down her back in a golden torrent. As she looked up at Emma, who was watching her with tender concern, Ginevra said, her voice low and firm, “I’ve changed my mind about breakfast. Please ring for it. The bath, as well. And kindly inform the housekeeper that after I am dressed I shall wish to meet the staff. It’s time we became acquainted.”

Behind the satin hangings of the bed, the air was sultry with the honey-and-ammonia odor of sex and the cloying scent of patchouli. As the Marquess of Chadwick stared upward into the shadows cast by the wavering candlelight, he grimaced with distaste and wondered how much of that betraying perfume clung to his own skin. His elegantly starched cravat that now lay in a limp wad on the Aubusson carpet already reeked of brandy; by the time he dressed and made his way back to his own house, his clothes were going to stink like the rags of a whore in a Haymarket stew.

Now that the spasm of anger and lust had been slaked, Chadwick was impatient to return home, where the long-suffering Hobbs, still aching from his unexpected journey back from Surrey, would rise from his own bed to ensure that his master had a hot bath and fresh linen awaiting him. Good Christian soul that he was, he would tend the marquess’s needs silently but with a speaking air of reproach, as if to remind him that he was too old for such unruly behavior.

Chadwick shifted his weight restlessly, and the woman beside him wriggled closer in her sleep. She was warm and velvety against his own cool hardness, and where their naked bodies touched, her lush flesh was slightly damp. When he stirred again she flung one arm across his broad chest possessively, as if to restrain him, in a gesture he found strangely irritating. Her long carmine fingernails dug into the heavy muscles of his shoulder, and the glittering bracelet on her wrist caught at the dark hair on his chest. He must have made some sound of protest, because her liquid black eyes opened suddenly and blinked at him, still hazy with sleep. “
Cheri, qu’as-tu
,”
she murmured drowsily.

“It’s that damned bracelet, Amalie,” he grumbled, dismissing a trinket whose value could have supported a rural village for a year. “You’re scratching me with it. You know I hate for you to wear jewelry to bed.”

She gurgled with amusement and sat up beside him, her legs just touching his arm, and the coverlet fell away from her tawny body. “
Pardon
, Richard. I only do it to show you how much I like my present.” Like a pagan priestess she extended her arms so that the bracelet caught the light, the gems a sparkling contrast to her matte skin, the rubies gleaming with a fire that was reflected in her hair. She had the most exotic coloring the marquess had ever seen: black eyes, golden skin, and hair like a flame. When he first met her he had assumed that her hair was dyed, albeit skillfully, with the same henna she used to tint her nails—but that was before she came under his protection and he became intimately acquainted with the dark auburn triangle between her thighs. Sometimes he had mused about the possible heritage that could have produced such a barbaric combination. Amalie denied being anything but pure French, the daughter of a Creole planter, raised in the West Indies not far from the island where Marie-Josephine-Rose Tascher de la Pagerie began her own life, before she scaled the heights as the Empress Josephine. While Amalie did concede that one of her ancestors could have been a Spanish sailor, shipwrecked during a hurricane and nursed back to health and potency by the mistress of the plantation, Chadwick was more inclined to think that her ebony eyes and warm-hued skin resulted from the master’s coupling with one of the housemaids.

Aware of Chadwick’s appraising glance, Amalie unfastened the offending bracelet and leaned over him, deliberately dragging her full breasts across his chest as she dropped the gems onto the nightstand. When he did not respond to her provocation, her dark eyes narrowed thoughtfully, but she said nothing. Slowly she sat on her heels again, parting her knees slightly to make him aware of the musky recesses of her femininity. With a languid stretching movement she dropped her hands to the bed behind her, lolled her head backward, and arched her body upward until she was a golden bow, tense and vibrant, as if she quivered with desire. Chadwick recognized the posture at once—Leda offering herself to the swan—and he had to admit that she did it well, with all the grace and style that were said to have marked Emma Lyon’s “attitudes,” a diverting spectacle much appreciated among the
ton
in the days before that lady married Lord Hamilton and caught the eye of the great Nelson. But it was the very studied air of Amalie’s gesture that served to dampen any ardor that her deliberately erotic movements might have stirred. He knew her too well now. Although he had never pretended any affection for her, when she first came to him he had been amused and aroused by her apparently unbridled ardor. Only gradually did he become aware of the calculation behind her every action; only as their affair had progressed did he realize that the governing passion of Amalie’s life was greed.

The marquess trailed his long fingers up her thigh and patted the auburn triangle with a dismissive gesture. “I must go now,” he said, and he slid out of bed.

Amalie collapsed into a disgruntled heap. She stared resentfully at Chadwick’s lean naked body. Once she had been so sure of him, so confident of her power, and now he was obviously unmoved. She asked petulantly, “Why must you be in such a hurry? Why can’t you stay the night?”

The marquess frowned at the proprietary note in her voice. He dressed quickly, and he tucked his shirt into his trousers and reached for his waistcoat before he answered, “I think not, Amalie. I would prefer that my carriage did not stand all night at your curb.”

Amalie shrugged. “
Et pourquoi pas?
It wouldn’t be the first time.”

“No, but as yet my presence in Town is not generally known, and I wish to keep it that way.” He picked up his rumpled cravat and draped it around his neck, wrinkling his nose at the unmistakable smell of liquor. He had been deep in his cups earlier in the evening, but now his head was clear, and he was more than a little ashamed of his behavior. When he flung himself out of his London house and ordered his driver to take him across town to Amalie, he had been intent only on easing the frustration and rage that had fermented inside him for two days, ever since Ginevra rejected him. Now he regarded his conduct with distaste, the sort of gutter antics he had put behind him years before. If only to maintain his self-respect, he ought to act more temperately, with a modicum of discretion. His alliance with Amalie was of too long a standing for him to use and discard her like some two-penny jade. He owed her more consideration than that; she had always been a compliant, if expensive, mistress, and as far as he knew she had even been faithful to him, which was more than he expected, perhaps more than he deserved.

As he tied his cravat into some semblance of a knot, he watched Amalie step down from the bed, naked as a wood nymph. She retrieved the bracelet and clasped it around her wrist again before she padded across the room to her dressing table. A diaphanous silk negligee the color of new grass lay slung across the stool. She slipped on the robe and sat down to brush her hair, frowning sulkily at the mirror. Where her heavy swath of hair fell down her back, the fresh green color of the silk made her tresses glow as if burning. Chadwick sighed. Amalie was a very inviting and seductive woman, and their relationship had always been thoroughly satisfactory physically. In addition, it was convenient and comfortable, virtues he found increasingly attractive. She had been there when he wanted her, and beyond her passion for jewels, which he had no aversion to indulging, she had made no demands of him. Until recently.