The Mammoth Book of Regency Romance Page 5

“Let’s get you into the warmth.” He gestured for her to precede him inside as a groom rushed to take their horse.

  Alicia had expected him to spend the journey haranguing her on her wantonness – or at the very least her stupidity for setting out for the wilds of Yorkshire so ill prepared for disaster. But he’d remained quiet.

  How she wished he had berated her. She’d spent ten years convinced she’d been right to leave him. A moment’s kindness shouldn’t change that.

  But when his back offered her a warm anchor and his adept hands unerringly guided their horse to safety, her resentment proved fiendishly difficult to cling to. And when she wasn’t constantly sniping at him, it was harder to ignore his physical presence. He’d been a handsome boy. He was a splendid man, with his clean, male scent – horses, leather, soap, fresh air – and the lean strength of his body. The muscles under her hands were hard, even through his thick clothing.

  She’d forgotten how powerfully he affected her. And the pity of it was that it would take her too long to forget again. He made every other man she’d met pale into insignificance.

  It was vilely irritating.

  The landlord greeted them at the door, clearly overwhelmed to have the quality staying. The tap room was crowded to the rafters with people bundled up for an uncomfortable night on chairs and benches. A few hardy souls hunched near the fire drinking and smoking. Alicia drew her hood around her face before she moved closer to the blaze. The sudden warmth penetrated her frozen extremities with painful force. Even holding tight to the radiating heat of Kinvarra’s big, strong body, the ride had been frozen purgatory.

  For all that she remained standing, she’d drifted into a half-doze when she became aware of Kinvarra at her side. He spoke in a low voice to save them from eavesdroppers. “My Lady, there’s a difficulty.”

  Blinking, trying to return to alertness, she slowly turned to face him. “I’m happy to accept any accommodation. Surely you don’t intend to go on tonight.”

  He shook his head. He’d taken off his hat and light sheened across his thick dark hair. “The weather will get worse before it gets better. And my horse needs the stable. There isn’t another village for miles.”

  “Then of course we’ll stay.”

  “There’s only one room.”

  She drew away in dismay. “Surely . . . surely you could sleep in the tap room.”

  She felt like the world’s most ungrateful creature the moment she made the suggestion. Her husband had rescued her in extremely good spirit, given the compromising circumstances. He was as tired and cold and hungry as she. It wasn’t fair to consign him to a hard floor and the company of a parcel of rustics, not to mention the vermin that flourished on their persons.

  His lips twisted in a wry smile. “As you can see, there’s no space in the tap room. Even if there was, I won’t leave you on your own with the place full of God knows what ruffians.”

  Aghast, she looked at him fully. She’d suspect him of some design, if she didn’t know he too must recall the wretchedness of their lives together. He must be as eager as she for this unexpected meeting to end so they could both return to their separate lives. “But we can’t share a room.”

  His eyes glinted with sardonic amusement. “I don’t see why not. You’re my wife. It’s too late to play Miss Propriety. After all, you were about to hop into bed with Herbert.”

  “Harold,” she said automatically, a blush rising in her cheeks.

  “I hope to hell he hasn’t sampled your favours already or I’ll think even less of his stalwart behaviour.”

  “We hadn’t . . . we hadn’t . . .” She stopped and glared at him. “That is none of your concern, My Lord.”

  She didn’t imagine the sudden smugness in Kinvarra’s expression. Curse her for admitting that she was still to all intents faithful to him.

  The cad didn’t deserve it. He never had.

  “Can’t we hire a chaise?” she asked on a note of desperation.

  Suddenly the prospect of a night at the inn wasn’t so welcome. Tonight had left her too exposed. Easy to play the indifferent spouse when she met the earl in a crowded ballroom. Much more difficult when she’d just spent an hour cuddled up to him and he sounded like a reasonable man instead of the spoilt young man she recalled from their brief cohabitation.

  At least he wouldn’t touch her. She was safe from that.

  He shook his head. “There are none. And even if there were, I’m not going to risk my neck – and yours – on a night like this. Face it, madam, you’ve returned to the bonds of holy wedlock for the night. I’m sure you’ll survive the experience.”

  She wasn’t so sure. Leaving him ten years ago had nearly destroyed her. All this propinquity now only reopened old wounds. But what choice did she have?

  She raised her head and stared into his striking face. “Very well.”

  “I’ll tell the landlord we’ll take his last chamber.” He bowed briefly and strode away with a smooth, powerful gait. He’d grown into his power over the last years. As a young man, he’d been almost sinfully beautiful with his black hair and eyes, but the man of thirty-two was formidable and in command of himself in a way his younger self had never been.

  She watched him go, wanting to turn away but unable to shift her gaze. What would she make of him if they met for the first time now? Honesty compelled her to admit she would probably like him. She’d certainly notice him – no woman could ignore such a handsome man with his air of authority and competence.

  She hated to say it, but she was glad Kinvarra had arrived to rescue her from that ditch. Harold would have left everything to her. They’d probably still be standing by the roadside.

  Given the shambles downstairs, the bedchamber was surprisingly clean and wonderfully snug to a woman shivering with cold. A troupe of maids delivered hot water and a substantial supper, then disappeared.

  Silently, Alicia removed her gloves, slid her cloak from her shoulders, folded it and placed it on top of a carved wooden chest. It seemed ridiculous to feel shy in the presence of the man she’d married eleven years ago, but she did. She tried not to look at the massive tester bed in the corner. Did he mean to share that bed with her? If he did, what would her response be? She shivered, but whether with nerves or anticipation, she couldn’t have said.

  Kinvarra poured himself a glass of claret and took a mouthful, then turned to watch her lower herself gingerly into an oak chair with heavy arms. He strode towards her, frowning with concern. “You told me you weren’t hurt.”

  She shook her head, even as she relished the blessed relief of sitting on something that didn’t move. “I’m bruised and stiff from cold and riding so long, but, no, I’m not hurt.”

  “You were lucky. The curricle is beyond repair. I know the road was icy but the going wasn’t hazardous, for all that. Was Henry driving too fast?”

  “Perhaps.” She paused before she reluctantly admitted, “And we were quarrelling.”

  “You? Quarrelling with a man?” Without shifting his gaze from her face, Kinvarra dropped to his knees before her. Clearly he meant to help her remove her boots. “I find that hard to imagine.”

  Her lips curved upwards in a smile as she looked down into eyes alight with sardonic amusement. Nobody had ever teased her. Even Kinvarra when they’d lived together had been too intense at first, then too angry. She found she liked his playful humour.

  “Shocking, isn’t it?”

  He extended his half-full glass and she accepted it. His focus didn’t waver when she raised it to her lips. Warmth seeped into her veins. From the wine or from the unspoken intimacy of drinking from the place his lips had touched? It was almost like sharing a kiss.

  Stop it, Alicia. You’re letting the situation go to your head.

  “What were you quarrelling about?” Kinvarra asked with an idleness that his grave attention contradicted.

  Still smiling, she returned the glass. “I decided I’d been reckless to take up Lord Harold’s invitation to visi
t his hunting lodge. I was trying to get him to take me back to York.”

  She prepared to suffer Kinvarra’s triumphant gloating. He didn’t want her. But she’d always known he didn’t want her sharing her body with anyone else either.

  Her husband’s serious, almost searching expression didn’t change. “I’m glad to hear that,” he said quietly.

  She tried to sit up and glare at him but the effort was beyond her. Instead she tilted her head back against the chair. She closed her eyes, partly from weariness, partly because she didn’t want to read messages that couldn’t possibly be true in his dark, dark stare.

  “He wasn’t worthy of you, you know, Alicia.” Kinvarra’s soft voice echoed in her heart, as did his use of her Christian name. He hadn’t called her Alicia since the early days of their marriage when they’d both still hoped they might make something good from their union. “Why in God’s name choose him of all men?”

  Shock held her unmoving as she felt Kinvarra’s bare hand slide over hers where it rested on the arm of the chair. His palm was warm and slightly calloused. Harold’s hand had been softer than a woman’s. She cursed herself for making the comparison.

  She opened her eyes and stared into her husband’s saturnine face. Into the black eyes that for once appeared sincere and kind.

  And she chanced an honest answer.

  “I chose him because he was everything you are not, My Lord.”

  Even more shocking than the touch of his hand, she watched him whiten under his tan. She hadn’t realized she had the power to hurt him. It seemed she was mistaken about that too.

  He drew back on his heels, removing his hand from hers. She tried not to miss that casual, comforting touch. The distance between them felt like a gaping chasm of ice.

  “I . . . see.” His voice was harder when he went on. “At least I’d never leave a woman alone to face down an angry husband with a snowstorm about to descend upon her.”

  Shamed heat stung her cheeks. She’d felt so brave and free and self-righteous when she’d arranged to go away with a lover. After ten barren years of fidelity to a man who hardly cared she was alive.

  But in retrospect, her behaviour seemed shabby. Ill-advised. Bravado had kept her to her course until she’d reached York and that journey across the moors with no company but Harold and her screaming conscience. She hadn’t wanted to feel guilty, but she had. And with every mile they’d covered, she’d become more convinced she’d made a horrific mistake in succumbing to Harold’s blandishments.

  “You wouldn’t hurt me,” she said with complete certainty.

  “No, but Harold didn’t know that.”

  She noted that he was upset enough to use Harold’s correct name. She tried to make light of the subject but her voice emerged as brittle and too high. “Anyway, no harm was done. I’m still the impossibly virtuous Countess of Kinvarra who doesn’t even lie with her husband. You can sleep easy in your bed, My Lord, knowing your wife’s reputation remains unblemished.”

  An emotion too complex for mere anger crossed his face, but his voice remained steady. “Why now, Alicia? What changed?”

  “I was lonely.” Her face still prickled with heat and she knew from his expression that her shrug didn’t convince. “I thought I needed to do something to mark that I was a free woman. It was, in a way, our ten year anniversary.”

  A muscle flickered in his cheek. “And you wanted to punish me.”

  Did she? Even after all this time, turbulent emotion swirled beneath their interactions. She spoke with difficulty. “It’s been over ten years since I had a man in my bed. I’m twenty-eight years old. I thought . . . I thought it was time I tested the waters again.”

  “With that cream puff?” He released a huff of contemptuous laughter and made a slashing, contemptuous gesture with one hand. “If you’re going to kick over the traces, my girl, at least choose a man with blood in his veins.”

  “I’ve had a man with blood in his veins,” she said in a low voice. “I didn’t like it.”

  That couldn’t be regret in his face, could it? One thing she remembered about Kinvarra was that he never accepted he was in the wrong. But when he spoke, he confounded her expectations.

  “No, that’s not true. You had a selfish, impulsive boy in your bed, Alicia. Never mistake that.”

  Astonished, she stared at him kneeling before her. “You blamed me for everything. You said touching me was . . . was like making love to a log of wood.”

  This time it was his turn to flush and glance away. “I’m sorry you remembered that.”

  “It was rather memorable.”

  “No wonder you hated me.”

  She shrugged again, uncomfortable with the turn of the conversation. She hadn’t always hated him. During most of their year together, she’d believed she loved him. And every cruel word he’d spoken had scarred her youthful heart.

  His unexpected honesty now forced her to recall how she’d called him a filthy, rutting animal and how she’d barred him from her bedroom when he’d accused her of lacking womanly passion.

  He’d had provocation for his cruelty. And he’d been young too. At the time, his four years seniority had seemed a lifetime. Now she realized he’d been a young man of twenty-one coping with a difficult wife, immature even for her seventeen years.

  No wonder he’d been glad to see the back of her.

  She swallowed the lump in her throat that felt like tears. “There’s no point going over all this history. Really we’re just chance-met strangers.”

  He sent her the half-smile that had made her seventeen-year-old heart somersault. Her mature self found the smile just as lethal. “Surely more than that.” He raised his glass. “To my wife, the most beautiful woman I know.”

  “Stop it.” She turned away, blinking back tears. This painful weight of emotion in her chest was only weariness. It wasn’t the recognition that she’d sacrificed something precious all those years ago and it was too late to get it back. “We just need to endure tonight, then it will be as though this meeting never happened.”

  Even in her own ears, her voice sounded choked with regret. She’d thought when she accepted Harold’s advances that she was over her inconvenient yen for her husband. How tragically wrong she’d been. Tonight proved she was as susceptible as ever.

  She straightened her backbone against the chair in silent defiance. Kinvarra studied her with a speculative look in his black eyes and she gave a premonitory shiver. If she wasn’t careful, he’d have all her secrets. And she’d have no pride left. “Are you going to drink all that wine yourself?”

  He laughed softly and raised his glass in another silent toast, as if awarding her a point in a contest. “Here. Have this one.”

  He passed her the glass and tugged at her boot. She took a sip of the wine, hoping it would bolster her fortitude. It didn’t. She supposed Kinvarra meant to attempt a seduction. Any man would with a woman in his bedchamber for the night. Although God knew why he’d be interested. If he’d wanted her any time in the past ten years, he could have sent for her. His long silence spoke volumes about his indifference.

  His hands were brisk and efficient, almost impersonal, as he pulled her boots off. Automatically she stretched her legs out and wriggled her toes. A relieved sigh escaped her.

  He looked up with a smile as he sat back. “Better?”

  “Better,” she admitted, taking some more wine. The rich flavour filled her mouth and slipped down her throat, somehow washing away a little more of her bitterness.

  He laid one hand on her ankle. Even through the stocking, she felt the heat of that touch. “You always had cold feet.”

  She closed her eyes, refusing to obey the dictates of common sense telling her to pull back now. That she entered dangerous territory. “I still do.”

  “I’ll warm them up.”

  “Mmm.”

  She was so tired and the cosy room sapped her will. When Kinvarra began to rub her feet, gentle warmth stole up her legs. If his t
ouch even hinted at encroaching further, she’d pull away. But all he did was buff her feet until she wanted to purr with pleasure.

  “Don’t stop,” she whispered even when her feet glowed with heat and he had to reach forwards to rescue the empty wine glass from her loosening hand.

  As he straightened, he laughed softly and she struggled not to hear fondness in the sound.

  Kinvarra wasn’t fond of her. He’d never been fond of her. She’d been foisted on him by family arrangement, an English heiress to fill the coffers of his Scottish earldom. Her foul behaviour during their year together had only confirmed his suspicions that he’d married a brat.

  “Let’s have our supper before it gets cold. You’re exhausted.”

  She let him take her hand and raise her to her feet. It seemed odd that so much touching was involved in sharing this room. She hadn’t expected it. But she was in too much of a daze to protest as he led her to the small table and slid a filled plate before her.

  She was so tired that it hardly registered that Kinvarra acted the perfect companion. When she couldn’t eat much of the hearty but simple fare, he summoned the maids to clear the room. He left without her asking to grant her privacy to prepare for bed. She was too tired to do more than a quick cat wash and she had no intention of removing her clothes. When he returned from the corridor, she was already in bed.

  What happened now? Trepidation tightened her belly and she clutched the sheets to her chest like a nervous virgin.

  He looked across at her, his eyes enigmatic in the candlelight. Inevitably the moment reminded her of her wedding night. He’d been the perfect companion then too. Her gentle knight, the beautiful earl her parents had chosen, the kind, smiling man who made her laugh. And who had taken her body with a painful urgency that had left her hurt and bewildered and crying.

  After that, no matter what he did, she turned rigid with fear when he came to her bed. After a couple of weeks, he’d stopped approaching her. After a couple of months, he’d stopped speaking to her, except to quarrel. After a year, she’d suggested they live apart and he’d agreed without demur. Probably relieved to have his troublesome wife off his hands.