The Rogue (22 page)

“I will. But she's here, Saint. Close by. I can feel it.”

He did not question his cousin's certainty. He understood it.

A
S THEY ENTERED
the house, the butler informed them that dinner would be served shortly.

“Make my excuses to the doctor and Miss Shaw, will you?” Dylan mumbled. “Can't abide the idea of chitchat tonight.” He paused on the stair, his eyes desolate. “You'll tell her, won't you? And you will let me know what I can do—
anything
—to help?”

Saint watched his cousin ascend the stairs with heavy steps. Then he went to the parlor.

Dr. Shaw and his daughter were bent over a book.

“Constance's callers departed late,” Libby said. “She went up to change, though I thought her afternoon gown pretty enough. Papa, I do not wish to change my gown three times a day. I like only this one. Perhaps I shall become a famous lady physician and never marry.”

Saint went up, rapped on his wife's bedchamber door, and when he heard no response, turned the handle. Across the room, she stood with her foot up on a cushioned stool, entirely naked except for the stocking she was affixing about her thigh with a bright pink ribbon.

Every thought, concern, and piece of news hovering upon Saint's tongue evaporated into the ether.

The door clicked shut behind him at the same moment the maid appeared from the dressing room.

“Sir!” The woman's palm flew to her mouth, Constance looked up, and her ivory skin flushed as pink as the ribbon. She grabbed a garment from the maid and covered herself.

“Thank you, Carla,” she said. “You may go.”

The maid curtsied and passed by him to slip out the door. Constance held the linen over her breasts with one hand and cinched it at her lower back with her other.

“Well?” she said, the color high upon her cheeks and trailing down her neck.

“Well.” He was obliged to clear his throat. “My entrance here was nicely timed.”

Her intoxicating lips pursed and she rolled her eyes to the corner of the room then back to him. “You have, I presume, seen an unclothed woman before?”

“How you imagine that the answer to that question has
any relevance whatsoever to this moment, I cannot fathom. May I assist you with that stocking?”

Now the lips twisted. “Dinner will be served momentarily. I must dress.” She glanced at his boots, then his breeches, pausing momentarily on the inevitable result of his timely entrance. “You too,” she said less evenly. “Go now.”

“You dismissed your maid.” He leaned back against the closed door. “I will button you up.”

“Then turn around.”

“Absolutely not. I am being paid to fill this husband post, after all. It would be shoddy of me to turn my back on my duties so early in the game.”

She narrowed her eyes, but her teeth played with her lower lip. “You shaved off your whiskers.”

He ran his hand over his smooth jaw. “If I am to pretend to be a gentleman, I supposed I should look like one. But I feel downright . . .” He let his gaze travel along her partially exposed thigh and bared calf. “Naked.”

“Do turn around now,” she said firmly.

He folded his arms and smiled. “Dinner is getting cold.”

With a distention of delicate nostrils like a vexed horse, she pivoted and moved into the dressing room.

Saint's heart did a thudding turnover and his smile flattened. He went forward and into the dressing room.

She snapped her head around. “What are you—?”

He grabbed her shoulders and choked down his rising horror as his eyes scanned her back. From her waist to the flare of her hips, straight, slender, brilliant red scars formed a series of parallel lines over the pale skin. Recent scars. No more than a few months old.

He swallowed, and swallowed again over the anger and sudden, searing grief.

“How did you acquire these wounds?”

Her knuckles were white around the fabric covering her buttocks. “I don't remember.”

“You do.”

She jerked out of his grasp and swung away, grabbing up a dressing gown and wrapping it around herself. “Go, please.”

He had had so many fantasies of the moment when he would finally see her body. It seemed he would be continually exchanging dreams for nightmares. Her eyes were too bright and wide, the eyes of cornered prey.

“Constance.”

“Does it repel you?” Defiance prickled across the words.

“No.”

Her slender brows lifted. “No?”

“Look at my face. You know I bear other scars as well. I have so many scars from six years at war and twenty-five years of the sword that I haven't even bothered counting them lately. Now ask me that question again.”

“But . . .” Her voice dipped. “I am a woman. I am . . .” Beneath her hands clenched in the silk of the dressing gown, her breasts rose and fell. “Beautiful.”

“You certainly are. Did the man you told me about make those cuts on your back?”

“I am not a maiden.”

The words fell into silence.

But from what she had told him in the stable at Castle Read—and what she had done there—he already suspected this.

“All right.”

“Because of certain experiences I have had . . .” Her chin ticked up. “It is possible that I cannot share intimacies with a man.” Her bright eyes remained firmly in his.

“I am fairly certain that you already have shared intimacies with a man,” he said. “I was there. I remember it. Quite well. We are married because of it.”

She blinked. Once. Twice. Then her brow creased. “You understand what I am telling you.”

“Do you know for certain?”

The dart between her brows deepened. “Know?”

“Have you actually tested this theory? Have you invited a man inside you?”

She closed her eyes. “No. Not since.” Her fist clutched over her middle, pulling the silk tight against her breasts. Her nipples showed taut through the fabric, but her lips grimaced.

“What's wrong? Are you unwell?”

“I feel ill.” Her eyes opened. “You speak like this, so frankly, and I
want
you. I feel the desire, the heat and awakening. And my stomach churns. My throat crimps up. My skin erupts in cold sweat.”

He blew out a hard breath. “Well, at least part of that is good news.”

“This is
not
a laughing matter.”

“Believe me, I'm not laughing.” He bent his head and ran his hand over the back of his neck.

“I know you were wary of secrets when you agreed to marry me,” she said. “But you did not expect this. You have sufficient grounds for an annulment.”

His head came up. “
Annulment?
We have been married a single day and you are already speaking of an annulment?”

“We had been married only hours when you spoke of it last night.”

“Clearly I was prescient.”

Her gaze remained steady. Passionless.

“I see.” He nodded. “Upon what grounds would I bring my case?”

“Upon whatever grounds you choose.” She spoke without the music that made him hear her voice in every flutter of breeze through leaves and every ripple of creek water over rounded stones. For six years he had heard her everywhere, in everything. He had stayed far away from her, but his memory had never lost the music of her.

“Marriage under false premises?” he said.

“I suspect adultery would find more sympathetic ears from those who are already shocked that my father allowed me to remain unwed for so long.”

“No. Adultery won't do.”

“Why not?”

“What man wants to admit publicly that his wife has chosen another over him?”

“Then perhaps the truth: that I am spoiled. Unfit. Unwilling. Unable.”

“Or too mad to bed. I could lock you in the attic and bring the bishop to witness you frothing at the mouth.”

“It is cruel to jest about this.”

“I suppose it is.”

“We could separate. Quietly. I have no real wish to be married, and married men often do as they like anyway. I could remain here and you could live wherever you please, do whatever you wish. It would be more civilized than an annulment.”

“I would rather lock you in the attic.” He leaned a shoulder into the door frame. “Consider the advantage it would give me. All the maidens of tender heart would weep. ‘Poor Mr. Sterling!' they would cry. ‘He believed himself the luckiest man alive, to have the most beautiful and the richest wife in the land. Yet see how he is trapped now, bound to a woman who does not even know herself, let alone him.'” He smiled. “They would be competing for the chance to give me solace by Michaelmas.”

She peered at him across the dressing closet. “You cannot.”

“I cannot lock you in the attic?”

“You cannot
not
cast me off.”

A sensation of disjointed certainty crept over him.

“Did you marry me yesterday knowing that this moment would come?” he said slowly. “That after gaining entrance to Sir Lorian's club you would make this revelation to me and I would repudiate you? Was that your plan?”

“No,” she said, but her lips pressed together.

“The fog clears,” he murmured, “then it descends again.” He turned about in the doorway, this time putting his back to her fully and lifting a hand to grip the back of his neck. “What of Loch Irvine?”

“What of him?”

“You intended to wed him.”

“My goal in allowing him to court me was specific. It was never to remain with him.”

Abruptly he dropped his arm and pivoted to her. “I have given some thought to these options you have suggested, and I have come to the conclusion—”

“Some thought? Just now?”

“—that they don't entirely suit me.”

“What option would suit you better?”

“Keeping my wife.”

“No.”

“My wife who is clever, beautiful, brave, passionate, and of course very, very rich.”

“An annulment would bring you an ample settlement. More than ample.”

“Not as much as I have as your husband. I've read the contract. I signed the contract.” He shook his head. “No. I believe I will keep you. And don't think of running away. I have friends the length and breadth of Britain, not to mention abroad. I would enlist their aid and I would find you. Swiftly, no doubt. Women as beautiful as my wife do not exactly blend into crowds.”

“
Saint.
”

“Wife?”

“This is not playacting. I have told you the truth.”

He moved close to her. “You are mad. I will swear this to anyone, anywhere. But not in a church court. Not in any court. Drag me there and I will cut out my tongue before denying you. However, give me true reason for repudiating you, tell me you pluck the wings off butterflies, that you pinch infants to hear them wail, or that you are a witch bent on transforming me into a toad. Then I might take my case to a bishop. But this does not suffice.” With his gaze he traced the tilt of her nose, the curve of her lips, the arc of her throat, and down to her hand bunched in the fabric over her breasts. “At this time, Lady Constance Sterling, I am keeping you.”

“Your lust is dictating your decisions again.”

“Partially.”

“Saint.” Her face remained immobile but her eyes glittered with tears she would not shed. “I don't want to be
touched
.”

Carefully he stroked the pad of his thumb over her cheek, allowing his fingertips to linger. “You allow me to touch you. You make me touch you.”

She drew her face away.

“Constance, trust that I will not harm you. I could not harm you.”

“Will you allow me to dress in privacy now?”

He went into her bedchamber. “I will remain here to button and pin and tie and do whatever maids do,” he said, sitting down on a chair by the fire and stretching his legs out.

“But you must change too,” she said, muffled, and he imagined her body bared as she exchanged dressing gown for undergarment. “Viking will swoon when he sees the state of your boots. Or scold. And why are you wearing your sword in the house?”

He straightened up, rubbed his fingers into his eyes, and told her Dylan's news.

“Oh, no. This is worrisome.” She came to the dressing room door wearing a gown of blue several shades lighter than her eyes, holding it together in the back as she had done with the shift.

“It is.” He stood and went to her.

“We will make it clear to everyone that we hope to receive invitations to Sir Lorian's secret society,” she said. “We should invite probable members here. Entertain them.”

“How swiftly the bride forgets her own wedding celebration yesterday.”

“That was my father's party.” She turned around. “We will host parties with select guest lists.”

One by one he fastened the tiny buttons that ran up the center of her back. He took his time, allowing his gaze to linger on the sweet curve of her waist and the nape of her neck.

“Your father departed early today, without bidding anyone adieu,” he remarked.

She looked over her shoulder. “You cannot possibly be complaining about him leaving.”

He watched her lips, so somber, unsmiling, and wanted to hear her laughter.

“No, ma'am,” he said and, trailing his fingertips down the line of buttons along her spine, stepped away. He took up the dagger from the desk and unsheathed it. “Now, allow me to put a smile back on those lips.”

She glanced warily at the blade.

For the first time in decades, Saint nearly dropped a weapon.

“I am off to the shops tomorrow with Lady Hughes and Mrs. Westin,” he said, forcing lightness into his voice. “We made an appointment to purchase shirts, I believe.” He extended the hilt to her. “Pray kill me now.”

She laughed, and inside him it felt like honey and gold and a long, hard release.