Why had he returned? The answer was simple. He’d made a deal with the devil, and the devil had reneged.
“An inkling of responsibility,” he repeated her words as he slid from the bed. With the formality of a suitor in a drawing room, he bowed to her. “I shall leave you to your slumber, my lady. Until tomorrow.”
Without waiting for her response, he strode to his adjoining chamber, slamming the door at his back. Damn it all to hell. How had he ever imagined this would be straightforward? Nothing about returning to Carrington Hall and the wife he hadn’t wanted was. Here he stood, alone in his unprepared chamber, which he generally disliked even when it had been readied for him and which he vastly disliked when it had not.
The room smelled as though it had been sealed up for quite some time. The lamps were lit, but beyond that, nothing was readied. His valet was likely still overseeing the unpacking of his carriage below, and he was left ringing the bell pull for assistance.
His hands shook. Jesus, she’d unnerved him, his wife. She had a name, of course.Victoria.He’d never spoken it aloud, had never even thought it until this moment with the sting of self-disgust roiling through him. How little he knew of her. How little attention he’d paid her. She came from a well-known New York family and her father had made a fortune on stocks before sending her to London with an immense dowry. She hadn’t been as bold as some of her fellow American heiresses. She had seemed mild of temperament, given to dreadful dresses. Proper and prim, the sort of lady he sought to avoid at house parties and balls.
The sort of lady one might abandon in the country for five months at a time.
Beyond that, he knew nothing. Not nothing, perhaps. He knew she smelled of violets and her hair felt like heavy silk in his fingers. He knew the lush lines of her body. Thinking of her now, her creamy skin and full breasts, the glimpse he’d caught of a pink, erect nipple—made his cock hard all over again. None of it made sense—not his reaction to her, not her transformation, not any damn bit of it. This odd, inconvenient attraction he felt for her was surely the effect of a lack of spirits and a return to his grim ancestral home and all its demons.
After all, he was the Earl of Pembroke, celebrated womanizer and unrepentant rakehell. He preferred fast women who wore bright colors and low décolletages, women who gambled and changed lovers like gowns and had husbands who didn’t mind. His father had hand-selected Victoria as his wife, largely for her marriage settlement of half a million pounds. Not a sum to be sneezed at by anyone these days. Will had been given an ultimatum—marry the chit to restore the familial coffers or be disinherited altogether. He’d swallowed his pride and half a bottle of whisky and made a deal with the devil. Marriage to the little American mouse, then he’d return to his old life once more. And return to his old life he had, with the abandon of the truly dissolute.
Until the summons.
The duke expected him to produce heirs and was not pleased to see his august decree so openly flouted. But Will couldn’t resist perturbing the old bastard with a good scandal. He’d allowed Maria to live in the Belgravia townhouse for two months, and she’d destroyed a number of costly family paintings when he’d informed her that her services would no longer be required.
He’d only succeeded in goading his father too far, however. Once again, the duke had been enraged, and when enraged, he issued threats. He’d sworn to take this moldy heap of family stones back into his care—not that Will particularly gave a damn about it. Carrington House had been neglected and virtually abandoned since his mother had died within its walls, and it held few fond memories for him. But this time, the duke had vowed to do away with his entire inheritance save the entail and had immediately cut off all access to further funds until Will finished his duty and provided the duchy with a proper heir.
A man with no blunt was not a man about town.
Which meant returning to his shy mouse of a wife and bedding her until the deed was well and truly done. He’d imagined the naïf he’d left behind to be awaiting him. He hadn’t precisely envisioned being attacked by a volume of Dickens, or being so affected by the sight of his wifeen dishabille, angry color in her cheeks. Or being so affected by his own bloody shortcomings.
A sneeze interrupted his frustrated musings. Good Lord, was that dust he spied on hisLouis Quinzechair? Where the devil was his valet, anyway? With a sigh of long-suffering impatience, he crossed the chamber and gave the bell pull another forceful yank. He wanted his bed prepared, damn it. He’d traveled all evening and he was tired, and his wife had thrown him out of her sweet-smelling, comfortable high tester.
This was not going to do, none of it. He’d be back in her bed before week’s end, he vowed. And before the month was through, she’d be with child and his time of reluctant duty to his father and the great Cranley duchy would be at an end.
He sneezed yet again. Jesus, it couldn’t happen soon enough.
Her husband had returned.
This knowledge brought Victoria no comfort as she sat for her morning ritual of chocolate and correspondence. Her hands were unsteady as she perused her customary stack of letters. Some from her sisters. One from her mother. She longed for news from home, but it would only make her weak. And she could not afford to be weak now as she faced Pembroke. He had returned for her, he’d said.
I could very easily bend you to my whims, my dear.
His voice had been low and deceptively calm when he’d issued the warning. She thought of his expression, that of a man torn. Something had brought him back to her side, back to her chamber. That something was not her, no matter how much he pretended it was.
I could take you, if I chose.
She shivered, though somehow those words didn’t fill her with trepidation or disgust. What was it that she felt, this awful, unfurling coil deep within? Surely not excitement or a stirring of her old feelings for him. Certainly not desire.
No. He could not take her. She wouldn’t allow it. She wasn’t so weak, so swayed by his lovemaking. Victoria spied the familiar penmanship of her dear childhood friend Maggie, Marchioness of Sandhurst, and slid the envelope open. They’d grown up together in New York and had landed on England’s shores as dollar princesses, as the press had dubbed them. Together, they had navigated the complex terrain of English polite society. It had oft proved more treacherous than the most dangerous passage across the Atlantic ever could.
Maggie’s words swirled beneath her eyes now, blurred by a combination of anger and tears.How dare he?Had he not already treated her poorly enough? A fresh onslaught of betrayal hit her like a runaway carriage. The letter dropped from her numb fingers and she yanked the bell pull.
She scarcely even paid attention to hertoiletteas she dressed with the help of her lady’s maid in unusual speed. By the time she marched into the breakfast room with the letter in hand, she had worked herself into a fine fury.
Pembroke stood at her entrance. He was irritatingly perfect, his well-tailored clothing immaculate, handsome as ever. The utter cad. What right did he have to invade her territory, to make butterflies flit through her stomach even though she knew him for the heartless rake he was? How had he been so brazen to come to her last night, to touch her, to warn her that she was his? She would never, ever be his. What he’d done was beyond the pale.
“Good morning, my lady,” he greeted with his standard charm. He scarcely resembled the semi-wild man she’d seen just before he’d stalked to his chamber last night. This Pembroke was collected. Polished. Cheerful, even.
Victoria ignored him and politely dismissed Wilton, the efficient butler she’d grown to admire over her time at Carrington House. When they were alone, she strode to him, pressing Maggie’s carefully worded missive into his hard chest. “Perhaps you would care to read this.”
He took the letter from her to scan the contents. “The Marchioness of Sandhurst is a damned meddlesome gossip,” he pronounced. “You ought not to know her.”
That was all he offered? No apologies, no explanation. Not even an attempt to dissemble. Merely an insult for dear, sweet Maggie while he was the worst creature she’d ever had the misfortune to meet. Where wasGreat Expectationsto be found when one needed a weapon with which to knock sense into one’s blackguard of a husband? Perhaps she could dump his plate of breakfast into his lap.
