Chapter 25
Chapter Twenty-Five
They did not leave the master bedchamber for four entire days.
For all that they had done together over the years, Rosalie had never seen her husband fully nude.
Needless to say, Lucian remedied this within the first minute of their entering the master bedchamber at Deverell House.
He looked like one of the sculptures at the British Museum, not overly bulky, but with beautiful, well-defined muscles covering every inch of his body.
She hesitated even to touch him at first, so much did he resemble a living, breathing work of art.
Lucian would have none of that, of course, and demanded to have her hands all over him.
And when he pulled her naked body to him and pressed it against his…
Rosalie had no words to describe the pleasure.
Rosalie had thought Lucian skilled before, but their previous encounters were a pale shadow of what he was capable of doing when he was not confined to a closet or a cold stone bench.
Lucian was everything that was solicitous, both during and between the marriage act.
It seemed that he took the “With my body, I thee worship” portion of the marriage vows very seriously indeed, and he brought Rosalie to climax, with both his mouth and his cock between her legs, over and over again.
But even when they were not in the throes of passion, he was everything she could have hoped for in a bridegroom.
He held her in his arms. He told her over and over again how delightful he found her, and how happy he was that they were married at last. Rosalie could detect no trace of insincerity.
He hung on her every word, laughed at every ridiculous story she told about her childhood, and asked her hundreds of questions, as if he wanted to know everything about her.
He even bathed her and washed her hair, literally waiting on her hand and foot!
Although he may have had ulterior motives for his ministrations ended in yet another vigorous bout of lovemaking.
They should have been the happiest days of her life.
And yet, she found herself unable to relax, unable to fully trust him.
She had believed he cared for her once before, only to have him utter the cruelest words imaginable a few days later.
How could she be certain he would not do it again? And what had Robin uncovered?
Speaking of Robin, he called upon them every day. Lucian’s butler, Collins, let them know each day when the servants entered the room with a breakfast tray and to put fresh sheets on the bed.
Sitting at the table by the window, dressed in his banyan, Lucian always laughed. “It’s good of him to check on his sister. But we’re not yet ready to receive callers.” He swept Rosalie with a lurid look. “Please reassure my brother-in-law that I am seeing to his sister’s every need.”
Rosalie always forced a laugh. But inside, her heart pounded. What could Robin be so desperate to tell her?
On the fourth day after their wedding, Rosalie awoke early. Pale light filtered from around the edges of the curtains. The thought crossed her sleepy mind that it was Valentine’s Day.
She tried to roll over and go back to sleep, but she couldn’t seem to settle. That was when she detected a faint tapping sound against the window.
Slipping from the warm cocoon of the bedclothes, she tiptoed across the room. She drew the curtains back an inch and peered outside.
Snow had fallen overnight. Robin stood in the garden below, his arm drawn back as if to throw something. A pebble, Rosalie realized. That had been the tapping sound that had awoken her.
She opened the window. “Robin!” she hissed. “What are you doing here?”
“I need to speak with you,” he said. “It’s urgent!”
Rosalie glanced across the room. Lucian was still abed, looking rumpled and somehow even more handsome with the dark stubble that had formed upon his jaw.
She turned back to Robin. “I can’t just leave.”
“Come down,” he pleaded. “Just for five minutes.”
She blew out a breath. “Oh, all right. But just for five minutes!”
She shut the window, then slipped through the connecting door that led to the viscountess’s chamber.
She hastily pulled on the simple white cotton morning dress her maid had laid out for her.
Her everyday cloaks were downstairs in a closet near the front door, but she found an evening cloak of pale blue velvet in the wardrobe that would do in a pinch.
She did not yet know her way around Deverell House very well, but she found the back servants’ stairs easily enough. She managed to slip downstairs and out into the garden without encountering anyone.
Her feet turned to ice immediately in the thin slippers she had stepped into, but she hurried over to her brother. “Quick,” he said, taking her hand and leading her to a little gazebo set away from the house.
Rosalie sat next to him on the cold wooden bench. “Now, will you finally tell me whatever it is that’s so important that you called me away from my marriage bed?”
Lucian awoke to find bright sunlight peeking around the corners of the curtains.
He rolled over, reaching for Rosalie, but her side of the bed was empty.
He closed his eyes and lay back on the pillow. She had probably repaired to the viscountess’s chambers next door to relieve herself, which she seemed to prefer to using the chamber pot behind the screen in the corner.
He didn’t fall back asleep right away. After a few minutes, he called out, “Rosalie? Darling? Are you almost done?”
There was no reply from behind the connecting door.
He stretched lazily. After a minute, he called, “I miss you.”
His arm strayed across her pillow. It was cold to the touch.
He sat up in bed, then climbed out. “Rosalie?” he called, reaching for his banyan. “Where are you?”
He did not hear any sounds from the viscountess’s bedchamber as he crossed the room. He rapped on the door. “Rosalie?”
When he received no answer, he opened the door and peered inside. The room was dark and empty.
Well. It wasn’t a problem. Rosalie was his wife. Naturally, she had the run of the house. Perhaps she had grown bored of waiting for him to awaken and had gone down to the library in search of a book.
He opened the door and found a footman stationed in the corridor. “Ah, Hamish. Good morning. Where is my wife?”
Hamish looked startled. “Is she nae with ye?”
Lucian’s gut clenched. Where the devil was she?
He drew in a slow breath. Nothing was wrong! No doubt she had slipped out before Hamish had come on duty.
He kept his voice cool. “I suspect she went downstairs in search of a book or some such. I’m sure Collins knows where she is.”
But Collins was as bewildered as Lucian, as were the rest of the servants. A cursory search of the most likely rooms revealed nothing, and the footman who had been watching the front door since dawn had not seen anything.
“Search the house,” Lucian said tightly. “Check every room.”
He commenced pacing the foyer while the servants scattered. If this was Rosalie’s idea of a joke, it wasn’t funny.
“My lord!” A middle-aged woman came rushing down the stairs. It took Lucian a beat to place her as Rosalie’s lady’s maid. Bernadette, that was her name.
Bernadette wrung her hands. “I had laid a dress out in the viscountess’s chambers for her ladyship. It’s gone, my lord, along with one of her cloaks.”
A cloak suggested that she had left the house. Why the devil would she do that? It had snowed last night, for Christ’s sake!
“My lord!” Another voice, this one masculine, and accompanied by the pounding of boots on the foyer’s marble tiles.
Lucian wheeled around to see that it was Timmy. “Did you find her?” he demanded without preamble.
“No, my lord.” Timmy bent over, hands on his thighs, his breath heaving. “But out in the garden, there are footprints in the snow.”
“Footprints?” Lucian could scarcely believe his ears. Rosalie had gone outside? In the snow?
He wracked his brain, trying to figure out what he had done to incense her. He had been on his best behavior, damn it!
He quickly reviewed everything he had done since their wedding.
Maybe she was mad that he… spent so much time licking her pussy?
It seemed unlikely, but he was hard pressed to think of much else he had done for the past four days.
Had she been too sensitive? She hadn’t said anything about it.
In fact, she had given every appearance of enjoying it.
“My lord.” Timmy’s expression was fraught, as if he dreaded to deliver his next piece of news.
“What is it, Timmy?” Lucian asked, his voice gravelly.
“Out in the garden—there were two sets of footprints. One was small, like a lady’s slipper.” Timmy swallowed thickly. “The other was larger, like a man’s boot.”
Lucian’s head was swimming. “Was there any sign of a struggle?”
Timmy’s eyes were sad. “None, my lord. The footprints led to the garden gate. The one that leads out to the street.”
Oh, God. What was he going to do? By all appearances, Rosalie had run away with another man!
It didn’t make any sense. She had been on the cusp of marrying Lysander, but she had admitted that was a pragmatic arrangement.
Plus, she had recently learned what Lysander was really like, so she would hardly have run away with him.
She wouldn’t have agreed to marry Lysander if she had been in love with anyone else.
So, the only reason she could have for leaving was that she found being married to him intolerable…
A strong hand grasped his upper arm. “You should sit, my lord,” Collins said, attempting to lead him toward the nearby parlor.
Collins had a point. Lucian was none too steady on his feet. But he didn’t want to leave the foyer. He wanted to be there when Rosalie got back. She was coming back.
Wasn’t she?
“Bring a chair,” Lucian said, his voice hoarse. “I wish to wait for her here.”
He ignored the looks the servants were exchanging. Hamish brought a chair from the parlor, and Lucian settled in to wait.
Had she really been unhappy? The thought was worse than lowering.
Because Lucian knew full well that she was the only woman on the face of this earth with whom he could be happy.
He had done everything, absolutely everything, within his power to make her happy, too. And if she couldn’t be happy with him…
What the fuck was he going to do?
He was sitting in that chair, head in his hands, thoughts hopelessly tangled, when a blast of cold air swept over him.
Cold air… as if someone had opened the door.
He glanced up, and—thank fuck—there she was, handing her cloak to Hamish.
“Rosalie!” he croaked, surging to his feet. The important thing was that she was back. Now that she was back, he could ask her what the hell he’d done wrong and never do it again.
There was nothing he would not do for this woman. Nothing.
She turned to face him, and he froze as he saw that she was on the verge of tears.
“Rosalie,” he said, stumbling toward her, reaching for her hands. “Darling. What’s—”
She balled her hands into fists rather than allow him to take them. Icy fury radiated from her pale blue eyes.
“You lied to me!” were the words she hurled his way.