Chapter Sixteen #2
Taking his arm, she let him lead her back into the house, but her husband was still nowhere in sight. And when another gentleman hailed the viscount, she let him go, stifling the feeling of abandonment that assailed her, along with a healthy irritation with Grayson.
Once, she had been afraid of fitting into this world. Now she wondered why she had cared. Outwardly, she was at one with these people. Inwardly, she would never be. And where had her elegant clothes and manners gotten her? They had not won her husband’s affection, no matter what Raleigh said.
Lost in her thoughts, Kate did not at first notice the two women whispering behind their fans as they stared at her, but once aware of their scrutiny, she slipped away.
Perhaps she could duck into one of the other rooms and sit down for a bit.
She had just rounded a reasonably quiet corner when she heard her name mentioned, and although she knew that she would probably hear no good, she halted her steps.
“Oh, yes,” said a portly gentleman with thinning hair. “Only Wroth would go looking for a country gel and end up with a beautiful heiress besides.”
“I had heard he was in the market for a wife, but why a provincial?”
“Had a brief interest in Lady Wycliffe during her Season, as I recall, though I never pictured Wroth as the sort to embrace a vicar in the family.” He laughed loudly, and Kate stepped back.
“A fresh-faced virgin to set up his nursery. Bet she’ll be fat with the heir before long.”
Kate could listen no more, her heart sinking even lower as she turned away. Was she to be nothing except a broodmare? A graceless green girl who filled Wroth’s requirements for a mother-to-be? She frowned as another question pushed aside all the others. Who was Lady Wycliffe?
Fighting a surprising stab of jealousy, Kate did not see Lady Coxbury bearing down on her until it was too late. Swallowing a resigned sigh, she allowed the matron to present two gentlemen who immediately began spewing compliments at her head and fawning over her hand in a ridiculous manner.
They were not like Raleigh, for their eyes held no sincerity, only a lascivious hunger that told her just what type of friendship they were interested in pursuing.
Where was Grayson? How could he leave her to the attentions of wretches such as these?
Kate looked around the room, wondering if he was paying court to some other woman, a sophisticated sort who was too exciting to be relegated to a life in his nursery.
Had the future she envisioned already arrived?
Grayson wandered restlessly through the Coxburys’ lavish home, telling himself that he did not need to keep Kate within view.
Already there was talk of how the great Wroth danced attendance upon his wife, and although Grayson had never been one to heed rumors, these came too close to his own concerns for comfort.
Naturally, he had stayed by Kate’s side since their arrival in London, for had he not promised to show her the sights? And if he had delayed their attendance at the inevitable balls and soirees, it was because he wanted to wait until the gossip about his sudden marriage died down a bit.
It had nothing to do with Raleigh’s sly predictions.
Grayson stalked the length of the card room, but the play held no interest for him. His thoughts kept returning to Kate, feeding his annoyance. Could he not leave her even for a few minutes?
He had always scoffed at those men who made cakes of themselves over the Season’s reigning beauties. But this evening he felt like one of them, chafing at the minutes he spent in any other company than Kate’s.
It was absurd. Ridiculous. Mortifying. Unconscionable. And he would not have it!
“La, Wroth, you look like a thundercloud! Whatever is the matter? That new wife of yours causing you trouble already?” An aging dowager eyed him with some amusement, and Grayson realized that his hands were balled into fists.
Deliberately, he relaxed his fingers and fixed her with a contemptuous glare that sent her hiding behind her fan.
Stifling the unruly urge to knock her on her fat behind, he stalked away, toward where he had given Kate over to Lady Coxbury. Although he had been momentarily diverted, his initial problem remained.
This need for Kate was eating him up inside.
No matter how he might deny it, Grayson wanted her: her body, her scent, her soft voice, her quiet strength, her quick wit. Her elegance went bone-deep and had nothing to do with her attire. It was a grace of spirit.
She had become his addiction, and the more he fed it, the hungrier he grew.
So he fought his desire, unwilling to give up the control he had wielded all his life.
It was a trial such as he had never known.
He could not avoid her, for he had promised to show her London, and he was not keen on leaving her to her own devices after his talk with Raleigh.
So he suffered the very tempting Kate all day and night.
But he held firm, though he wanted her anywhere and everywhere: in the library, across the breakfast table.
and off the darkened paths of Vauxhall. So far, he had given in only at night, rationalizing that any newly wedded man would not deny himself the pleasure of his marriage bed.
Pleasure. It was a feeble word to describe what he felt when she was in his arms. Grayson shuddered as his blood quickened in response, and he silently cursed his lack of restraint.
But it went deeper than sex.
Grayson knew that was only a part of his addiction.
Like the primitive he feared he had become, he coveted every last inch of her, every whisper of her breath, every glance from those amazing eyes.
And the milieu in which he had once moved so easily now seemed like a trap, designed to keep her from him.
Snatching up a glass from a passing servant, he took a gulp.
Champagne again. The frothy liquid did little to assuage his appetites.
Nodding coolly to a baron who tried to snare him in conversation, Grayson went on, his gaze traveling ahead, searching, despite his best intentions, for his wife.
And when he found her, he halted abruptly, his heart thundering a protest.
Raleigh was right.
Too right. Grayson could have choked the man then and there as he faced the truth of the viscount’s predictions, for Kate was no longer under the relative protection of Lady Coxbury.
Instead, the poppet was at the center of a small group of rakes, every one of them eyeing her low-cut gown as a starving man would a roast.
He should have known. Kate was a beautiful woman, and, as his wife, she would draw more than her share of attention.
Perhaps it was her many charms that drew them, or, as Raleigh had suggested, the challenge of bedding a famous man’s spouse.
Whatever the lure, they surrounded her and leered at her in a manner that set Grayson’s teeth on edge.
He shouldn’t care. Throughout the crowded rooms were many husbands whose wives were flirting with other men.
He had never marked it before and should not now, for it meant nothing.
Worldly-wise since childhood, Grayson did not blink at even the most outrageous behavior, yet his gnawing need for Kate made the sight of her with other men intolerable.
Drawing in a deep breath, Grayson told himself that she was handling her admirers with her usual aplomb. In fact, her manner was noticeably cooler than could be said of any of the other women, half of whom were falling out of their gowns in their eagerness to be noticed.
Not Kate. Still, it bothered him to watch her turning toward them, listening to them, gifting them with a smile… His fingers closed around the empty glass he still clutched tightly.
“I see your wife has made some conquests already.”
Grayson did not turn at the sound of Raleigh’s amused tone, his attention riveted on one particularly bold fellow, who leaned close to whisper in Kate’s ear. Was his breath touching her? Grayson’s hand tightened.
“Let me take that,” Raleigh said, prying his fingers loose from the crystal. “Can’t go around breaking these, Wroth. It’s a waste of perfectly good glassware, you know.”
Grayson hardly heard the viscount. He was intent upon the man who stood too near to his wife. Grayson had met him before, a disreputable character always chasing after the newest bit of muslin. Larkin was his name, but Grayson could think of other, more appropriate epithets.
While he watched, Kate inched away, but Larkin followed. When he reached over to lightly touch the bare skin of her shoulder, Grayson’s banked rage ignited. Throwing off Raleigh’s restraining hold, he stepped forward, ignoring Kate’s startled expression to put himself between her and Larkin.
“Don’t touch my wife,” he warned softly.
“I beg your pardon, Wroth. I didn’t realize you were so possessive,” the man said, smiling slyly.
Grayson fought down the primitive urge to beat the fellow to a pulp, though his hands itched to strike. “Touch her again, and I’ll kill you.”
He heard the gasps of the onlookers, but paid them no heed as he bowed slightly to Kate. “Shall we go?”
At her curt nod, he took her arm and strode through the gaping crowd, ignoring the expressions of shocked amazement that met his abrupt departure. Neither did he acknowledge a farewell from Raleigh, who stood staring thoughtfully after them.
He was too angry to notice. Another man had felt the smooth satin of his wife’s skin, and his newly awakened barbaric streak was crying for murder. He could do it, too. A duel would do no damage to his reputation; he was too powerful.
He should have called out the bastard.
Thrusting Kate into the coach, Grayson took a seat across from her, to avoid the temptation of sitting too close. It did little good, because he still wanted her, now more than ever.
The ceaseless need grated in him, feeding his ire, and he wanted to lash out at something to protest his helplessness.
He glanced over at the subject of his obsession.
She looked out the darkened window with perfect poise, and he longed to shatter that composure, to make her into the same helpless slave to passion that he had become.
Didn’t she feel it, too? Muttering a curse, he fixed her with a glare that denied his longing. “I do not want my wife’s name bandied about. Whether you desired it or not, you have a position to uphold,” he snapped.
Her bright eyes met his fearlessly, as always. “Whatever are you talking about?”
“I’m talking about letting other men fondle you in public.
” Ignoring her outraged gasp, Grayson went on, desiring only to punish her for his own lack of constraint.
“I won’t have it. Nor will I have a breath of scandal attached to your name.
The rogues who flatter and fawn over you do so because you are my wife.
To them you are nothing but a trophy to be won and flaunted for your name. Do you understand?”
The brief flicker of pain that passed across her face pricked him, and Grayson looked away, unwilling to see the results of his handiwork. He blew out a long, low breath that bespoke his rapidly falling opinion of himself.
“Yes, I understand my role perfectly, but what of you, Grayson? Do you intend to honor the vows you forced me to take back at Hargate?”
Grayson’s gaze swiveled back to her, annoyed at her insinuation. “Do you doubt my word, poppet?”
“No, but this world is vastly different from my own, and I have discovered that in it few men are faithful. Will you follow the fashion and take someone else’s wife to your bed?”
The question was absurd. Every drop of blood in his body burned for her and only her, but Grayson would not submit meekly to her power over him. “You wound me, Kate, when you cast me in with the rest of the rabble,” he said coolly. “I have never had any desire to be fashionable.”
She lifted her chin in the show of strength he had come to know so well. “What of a mistress, then? Will you have one? The dowagers whisper of men’s needs, as if such behavior is inevitable.”
Needs. The word touched a nerve, and Grayson drew in a harsh, angry breath, unwilling to admit where his weakness lay. “Are you afraid you cannot satisfy me, poppet?” he drawled.
The mocking question hit its mark, for he could see her flush, even in the dimness of the coach.
And although Grayson knew he was being unreasonable, he continued, driven to get a little of his own back, however he could.
“I have no mistress,” he said baldly. “Nor is my life ordered by the whims of my cock.”
Once his claim would have been the truth, for nothing except his powerful intellect had ever ruled him—until he met Kate. She had made a liar of him, but she did not know it. He saw her flinch at the taunt, so he went on like a man possessed.
“Let us be clear on something, poppet. I don’t need anything.” The vehement denial gave him perverse pleasure, as if just repeating the falsehood would lend it substance. Perhaps if he convinced her of his invincibility, he would regain it.
Fixing her with a fierce and certain gaze, the kind that shattered his opponents and affirmed his power, Grayson spoke the lie that kept her from binding him to her.
“I have never needed anything. Or anyone.”