Chapter 32
32
Marcus and Luna put off retiring to bed for as long as they could, both painfully aware of the imminent sleeping arrangements. But in the end, as the clock struck ten, they climbed the stairs together.
They were in the habit of taking a lamp each, knowing they would part outside the master bedroom, but this night, there was just one lamp between them. He opened the door for her as she carried it carefully across the room and placed it on the mantelpiece, whilst he lit the chamberstick by the bed.
‘What did your aunt say about me?’ she asked, no longer able to hide her curiosity.
‘She asked me what was going on.’
‘In what way?’ That was not the response she’d expected, rather that the old lady had proclaimed her not to be Luna, or demanded her immediate removal from the house.
‘In the way that she knows something isn’t right but can’t put her finger on what. We can try to win her around again tomorrow.’
‘She clearly made her mind up about me a long time ago. But she’s worried about you. Your face is a permanent frown.’
‘I have a lot of things on my mind right now, not least of which is my desperate desire for her to like you, because whilst I love her dearly I can’t have her spoiling things.’ By this she understood that he meant exposing her for the fraud that she was.
She shrugged. ‘There’s nothing we can do except show her that I am better.’ All afternoon they had played their parts, and whatever suspicions Great-Aunt Elspeth might have, she surely could not doubt the affection between them.
There was a moment of silence as they stood opposite each other, neither knowing what to do next.
‘I can take the floor,’ he said.
‘Don’t be ridiculous. There is a perfectly good bed here; we can share. It’s what husbands and wives do.’
Surely, two people could lie alongside each other without having to be intimate, she reasoned. Just because she desperately wanted something more to happen, didn’t mean that it must. Unfortunately.
‘I have slept alone for many years.’ His brows knitted together. ‘I am not used to sharing.’
‘Then I promise not to wriggle or steal the counterpane,’ she said, hoping humour would ease the tension. ‘I’m sure we can be sensible about this.’
She picked up a silver-backed hairbrush from the dressing table and heard him lump down on the bed as she began to pull it through her hair. Risking a quick glance in the oval mirror before her, she could see a million troubles scored into the lines and contortions of his face. After tugging the last of the knots out, she placed the brush on the glass tray and turned back to him. He smiled, pretending all was well.
‘Thank you. For everything these past few months. You’ve made a very difficult time for me more bearable.’
‘We have both helped each other.’ She shrugged. ‘And I appreciate that you’ve never once asked me any questions about my?— ’
Marcus stood back up and raised his hand to stop her saying anything further.
‘Leave the past where it belongs. It’s not our truth. I want to live in the world where Marcus and Luna Greybourne are happily married and their future is full of unwritten possibilities.’
This was the closest he’d come in a while to acknowledging the lie they were perpetuating. She also wanted this to be their truth more than anything, but was not unrealistic enough to believe that the past would not catch them up and cleave them apart. Even if his great-aunt failed to recognise Luna was an imposter, there were others who knew: the tinker, Mrs Cole, the doctor…
‘Then Marcus and Luna Greybourne will have no problems sharing a bed without making a fuss.’ She tipped her head to one side to make her point.
‘Of course.’ He nodded.
‘And remember, darling,’ Luna said, unable to resist teasing him again. ‘I sleep on the right.’
‘As do I. This will be interesting.’
His eyes twinkled and they exchanged a smile until, without taking his eyes from hers, his face became more serious. She noticed his Adam’s apple bob down as he swallowed hard.
They were going to do this, she realised; they were actually going to sleep alongside each other, with both of them carrying the knowledge that there was a romantic attraction.
He unknotted the white bow tie from his winged collar. Luna watched mesmerised as he tugged at one end, and the other slid up his shirtfront and disappeared around his neck. He threw it onto the covers and began to tackle the row of small mother-of-pearl buttons on his shirt with his thick fingers. Embarrassed, she turned away. There was nowhere to hide; no folding draught screen to duck behind, or dressing room to slink into, reappearing moments later in her nightgown. In for a penny, she decided, and began to unbutton the bodice of her dress. If he wanted the fiction to be real, then she would do her best to follow suit. Didn’t he deserve some happiness? She had allowed herself to become his wife in nearly every way possible. There was nothing untoward about them undressing in the same room. And she could hardly fall pregnant from a covetous look.
She shrugged off the bodice and turned her attention to the hooks and eyes of her skirt, conscious that he’d stopped moving behind her, and suspected that he was watching her disrobe. She took a determined breath and continued to remove her layers, until all that remained was her linen shift. When she turned back to the bed, he spun quickly away, knowing he’d been caught. In turn, she assessed his broad back, noticing for the first time a deep jagged scar across his left shoulder blade. She thought back to the day they had met and his discomfort with that arm. He had never talked of the injury, but it appeared to have healed well enough.
Ever-practical, and knowing herself how a thoughtless mistress could make extra work for staff, she gathered up her dress and took it to the wardrobe. Delaying the moment when she would have to climb into bed beside him, she fiddled about, placing the garments on hangers, aware of his frantic scrabble to remove the remainder of his clothing. When she turned back, he was once again sitting on the foot of the bed, this time in just his long cotton drawers, his nightshirt folded beside him. She glanced at his broad chest and the scatter of dark hairs across it, feeling a flip of her stomach.
‘When did your magic become so powerful?’ he asked, looking up at her.
Her quizzical expression invited further explanation.
‘This spell you have cast on me,’ he said. Despite his great size and thirty years, he suddenly looked like a child, asking what kept the moon from falling out of the sky.
‘You don’t believe in any of that,’ she said, walking over to the bed and coming to a halt directly in front of him, looking down at his troubled face. ‘You’ve repeatedly insisted that magic – good or bad – isn’t real.’
‘Then what is this unfathomable thing consuming me? Making me unable to eat, sleep and barely even remember to breathe?’
He put his hands on the bed, either side of his wide hips, and pushed himself up. Their gazes held as he rose from being level with her stomach, to towering over her so that she had to tilt her head up to his. It was both exhilarating and frightening being so close to his naked torso. She felt so small in that moment, so vulnerable. Her own chest was constricting and her heartbeat racing, much like the day she had tumbled into him. But this was not from the fear he would hand her over to the police. This was from the fear that he would be able to read her thoughts and know that she longed for his touch and ached for his body.
‘Perhaps it is simply that, after ten long years…’ he began to answer his own question, ‘…I have finally fallen in love with my wife?’ His low voice and raised vein pulsing noticeably in his neck suggested he was as nervous as she.
He had taken the bravest step – spoken openly of the feelings they both knew were there. The night he prevented her from fleeing Ravenswood had proved that. His courage gave her courage. She knew he would make no further move without her consent, and belatedly suspected this was why there had been nothing other than passionate kisses between them. It had to come from her, so what was she stalling for? They were alone and he had laid his heart on the Persian rug between them. She could either trample on it or admit these were the words she’d been hoping to hear. The silence of the room, save the ticking of the clock, was as voltaic as the atmosphere every time they locked eyes.
She reached up for his cheek, rough where his whiskers were growing .
‘Then know that she is equally in love with you. And she wants nothing more than for you to be her husband – in every sense of the word.’ She swallowed. ‘Make love to me?’ It was the boldest sentence she’d ever uttered, and the most reckless. Her hopes rose in her chest like a hot air balloon.
‘No.’ He shook his head and everything crashed to the floor as her head dropped. He didn’t want her. He was playing some game she was too naive to understand. Reaching out, he cupped her chin and tipped it back to his face. ‘Not until you are perfectly clear that whatever name you go by and even though everyone understands you to be Luna, I do know you are not her and I do not want you to be her. I never loved her but I have fallen utterly and completely for you.’
He gripped her by the shoulders and his stare went deeper than she thought possible. She nodded and he leaned down to her to let his forehead rest against her own.
‘She was always a rough bed mate, and the things she enjoyed only frightened me and caused me pain. This will be different. I will lead and I will be gentle.’
Luna had destroyed this poor man before her in every possible way, and yet he still had the capacity to trust and to hope. Her heart had been his for longer than she cared to admit, but now she knew it would never belong to anyone else. Between them they would find a way to heal each other.
‘I’m so sorry for all the pain you went through in the past.’ Her voice was now a shaky whisper. ‘I only want to bring you pleasure…’
A deep groan rose up from his throat as he anticipated her honouring this statement.
He pulled back to engage her eyes and then tucked a long strand of her loose hair behind her ear, before bending back down towards her mouth as their lips bumped together. It was different from the urgency of their kiss by the gate, or their recently exchanged kisses – it was a prelude to something far more monumental. There was no hurry; they had the whole night ahead of them.
A sudden gust of wind moved the curtains. Was Luna somehow aware of what was about to take place in this room? Marcus may be dismissive of his wife’s magic but she could not shake her belief in the woman’s supernatural powers. The intimacy between them had unsettled the Ravenswood Witch – she felt it as surely as she felt the desperate and fierce longing of the man before her. He moved to the window and pulled the sash down. Neither Bran nor anyone from the spirit world would be floating through the open window and joining them that night.
Before returning to her, he blew out the lamp that she’d stood on the mantel, leaving just a smaller dancing flame from the chamberstick by her side of the bed. The reduced light made the whole situation even more intimate, and when he stood before her this time, his hesitancy and shyness had dissolved into the dark shadowy corners of the room. But the guilt of her past tapped on her shoulder and she knew they could not commit to each other in this most intimate of ways if she was not honest with him.
‘There’s something I have to?—’
He raised his hand to silence her a second time.
‘We’ve talked for long enough.’ He stifled her admission by swooping down on her mouth and easing her gently back onto the bed. She tumbled onto the pillows and allowed her arms to fall above her head. He paused for a moment, his whole body hovering above hers, as his eyes focused on her wedding band. Manoeuvring to free his left hand, his thumb briefly caressed the ring, before he returned his gaze to her face. He released her fingers and then slid his large hand from her knee to her thigh, taking the hem of the shift with it. Finally he spoke, never once breaking eye contact .
‘With this ring I thee wed, with my body I thee worship, with all my worldly goods I thee endow.’
And barely a moment later, with swift and definite movements, the two lost and broken people lying across the shared bed in a house haunted by shadow, made their own light, as they became man and wife in the eyes of God.