Chapter 7 #2
He put the glass aside and pursed his lips as he stared at the leaping flames of the fire. “I’ll do my best to win her over. If she forgives me, she’ll have no reason to speak out against me. And perhaps she’ll enjoy throwing a ball. It’ll certainly be more than she has done before.”
“She is a lady. Don’t the fairer sex live for that sort of thing?”
“Truthfully, Tom,” Frederick said, suddenly exhausted, “I haven’t the faintest what she lives for.”
Alice was in the middle of writing a letter to her aunt, outlining in no uncertain terms how married life had been thus far, when the door opened and Frederick stood in the doorway to the room. She had taken over one of the back parlors as a sitting room where she could write and read.
“Good afternoon,” he greeted, a trifle awkwardly.
She placed her pen down. “Is there something you would like to say to me?”
He advanced a few more steps into the room, watching her with a wariness that was warranted.
These past few days, she’d been accustoming herself to London again—the noise of it, the smoke that sometimes hung over the rooftops, and the knowledge that she could leave the house and go wherever she pleased—but she had yet to do anything about her husband problem.
She turned to look at him now. The room felt significantly smaller with him in it, and his eyes were hooded. Unreadable.
Odd. She’d thought for certain he would order her around as his little wife before now. But perhaps he was here to finally make it clear.
“May I sit?” he asked politely.
She arched a brow. “I am certain you are aware this is your house, Your Grace. You may do whatever you please.”
“Call me Frederick.”
“I would rather not.”
His gaze fell to her leg, and she recalled the last time they’d had any real conversation—when she had all but fallen in front of him.
Her cheeks bloomed with heat, and she detested the feel of his eyes on her.
It made her skin too warm underneath her clothes, the brush of the fabric so sensitized she felt as though she would be happier with everything thrown off.
“I… intend to arrange for a physician to visit you,” he began awkwardly once more. “A specialist from Harley Street. Perhaps there is nothing to be done about your leg, but I think it would be prudent to check.”
More shame piled into her cheeks, igniting the rage in her chest—the anger that was always so close to the surface, so ready to burst. She had spent so long being angry, it was second nature to her.
“Why, ashamed of your crippled wife?” she muttered.
His gaze rose to hers, and the chill in that particular shade of blue made her heart clench. Her stomach flipped. She felt almost dizzy.
“I would prefer it if you did not put words in my mouth,” he said evenly.
She’d had enough of his calm, his evenness. She wanted to see cruelty in him, darkness that stained his soul as thoroughly as it stained hers.
“I know you’re thinking it,” she hissed, so viciously his eyes widened in surprise. “I know it is what everyone thinks when they see me. It’s either pity or disgust. So which is it, Your Grace?”
“You wish to know what I see in you?” he asked, and finally, his composure cracked. A flush appeared, high on his cheeks, and she couldn’t take her eyes off it. Proof that he was human, after all.
Proof she could break him.
“Yes.”
“Very well.”
He crossed the room to stand before her.
Until then, seated as she was, she had never appreciated his full height.
He towered over her. If he wished, he could do whatever he desired to her, and she would be powerless to stop him.
As it was, her heart thundered at the way he lowered his face closer to hers.
Fear. There it was. The barest dregs of fear, left over from her general fear of what he could be capable of.
But underneath that was something else, red-hot and intrigued.
“I see a young lady who has survived despite the odds. I see fierce anger, and I see hurt. And more than that, I see my wife. She is beautiful and determined, and she is capable of whatever she puts her mind to, as she has shown me innumerable times, not least when she showed up to crash my wedding.” He caught her chin, not gently.
“The question is, what is she going to put her mind to now? Is it ruining me?”
She could not have breathed even if she had wanted to. Her lungs seized in her chest. He was everywhere—above her, holding her, one arm braced against the desk behind her. If she reached out, she could palm the expanse of his chest and stomach. Lower, if she had wanted to.
Instead, she was trapped in the power of his gaze.
“Well?” he murmured. “Are you going to ruin me?”
All she had for him—all she would ever have—was the truth.
“Yes,” she whispered.
His eyes darkened, icebergs caught in sunlight, so unspeakably beautiful she caught her breath, and the next moment, his mouth was on hers.
His kiss came suddenly, hard, unforgiving.
As though he wanted to devour and punish her all at once. As though he hated her, wanted her, hated himself for wanting her.
Another emotion stirred in her chest, one not tainted by hate. Something she had gone so long without that she thought she would never feel again. That red-hot feeling, reaching up to swallow her deep below its depths.
Desire…
She didn’t know how it was possible—she hated him, she knew she did, ever since her accident she had been consumed by thoughts of him and how much she despised him. And yet here he was, his mouth opening hers, his tongue claiming her, and it was as though he had branded her irrevocably.
Over the years, she’d had the occasional stolen kiss.
All very delicate, very proper. And never on the lips.
But this kiss was from a man who knew what it meant to want, and the sensation carried her along with it.
She found her hand drifting to his chest, his lapels. Her fist crushed his cravat, and she intended to push him away—she did, she truly did—but his fingers dug into her shoulder, pulling her still closer, and she found herself dragging his body more firmly against hers.
He paused, a hesitancy that she had not expected, and she took the opportunity to shove him back.
He went without question, giving her space. Her entire body felt flushed, a liquid sensation between her legs she had never experienced before. She throbbed for something more than he had just given her.
But along with this newfound, unwelcome desire, there was also shame that she could want someone who had ruined her so desperately. It was a betrayal against herself, her parents, everything she stood for...
And yet she could not deny the calling of her own body...
Guilt flooded her. Shame. Disgust. And more of that forbidden, enticing heat.
“If you were ever under the illusion that I found you repulsive,” he said, his voice smooth, impossibly so given the hectic flush in his cheeks, “please allow me to disabuse you of that notion.”
Her gaze dropped to his breeches, and the definitive bulge there. She would have noticed if it had been there before.
She had done that.
He… wanted her?
The evidence was too much for her to ignore, but for once, it left her scrambling, with no clue how on earth to approach such a thing.
Heavens above, what did one say to that?
“Oh,” she said, lamely, as he strode for the door and opened it. Then he turned back to her.
“We will be hosting a ball here in a week’s time.
I would like you to send the invitations, but if you will not, I shall do so myself.
” His gaze, still heated, traveled across her face.
“I would very much like you to stand beside me as my wife so we can banish these rumors once and for all. What do you say?”
Her senses had been scrambled by his kiss, but she knew one thing for certain. If this went ahead, she might have a chance to ruin him in his own home.
How could she turn that down?
“Of course,” she said breathily, and his eyes narrowed at her. “Anything you say, husband.”