Chapter Ten
Deo, seeing Emily turn white as a sheet, clasped her arm in alarm.
“Miss Grenfell,” the dandified fellow Kendrick had brought to The Castle with him said with a bow. “What a surprise to see you here.”
“This is my wife, the Countess of Pendrell,” growled Deo.
The other man changed color. “Really? I had no notion. This must have happened very quickly.” His lips compressed into a thin line. “Now I understand why your parents said you were indisposed when I came to call!”
Emily didn’t seem to have a reply to that, but Deo didn’t give her a chance in any case, saying peremptorily, “I believe my wife has a touch of the sun. If you will excuse us.” And he swept her off upstairs.
When they reached the top of the first flight, he picked her up and carried her the rest of the way.
She looked so pale he was afraid she was going to faint again, and he didn’t want her tumbling down the stairs and hurting herself.
“Deo, I can walk,” she protested.
He ignored that and, pushing open the door to the sitting room, he strode in, taking her through to the bedroom, where he laid her down on the bed. Seizing her hat, he tossed it aside, and felt her forehead.
“Do you have a headache?”
“No.”
“You must be dehydrated,” he said. Fetching a glass and pouring her some water from the jug, he offered it to her, helping her to sit up, so she could drink it.
She drank and lay back against the banked pillows.
“Better?” he asked, frowning at her.
“Yes, thank you. I don’t have sunstroke.”
“Then what made you go so white?”
“You recall that there was a gentleman my parents were trying to force me to marry?”
He nodded.
“It was Lord Bidenden.”
“That dandified prig?” he said, revolted.
“Is he? A dandy, I mean? I just thought he cared more for his clothes than anything else.”
“That is the definition of a dandy,” he said shortly. “Why was your mother so set on you marrying him?”
“Apart from the fact that I hadn’t had any other offers? He is the eldest son of the Marquess of Malmsbury,” she said with a sigh.
“Well, I’m glad you had the sense to reject him.” Deo paced away from the bed, unaccountably agitated. Turning back, he barked, “Did he force his attentions on you, behave inappropriately?”
She flinched a little, and he cursed his bad temper.
“No, not really. Mama left us alone and he kissed my hand and my wrist here.” She held her hand out palm up and indicated the soft skin of her inner wrist, and Deo was outraged at the notion of this man touching her with such intimacy.
She went on. “When he proposed, he tried to kiss me. I elbowed him in the ribs and trod on his instep.”
A powerful desire to hit Bidenden in the face for daring to touch her possessed him; and a flare of pride made him smile at her spirit.
“But Mama came back before he could do anything else.”
“Hmph,” he grunted. “Why did you refuse him?”
“Because I knew he was only interested in my fortune, for all his protestations to the contrary. He kept telling me that I was very pretty and he”—she paused, blushing an adorable pink—“that he desired me,” she finished on a low note. “I knew he must be dissembling. I’m not pretty or desirable.”
Deo gaped at her, caught between an overwhelming urge to take her in his arms and kiss her and an almost more powerful urge to march downstairs, drag Bidenden out into the garden, and punch the living daylights out of him.
With a supreme effort of will he did neither, growling instead, “You are both pretty and desirable.” He cleared his throat. “And your fortune has nothing to do with it.”
She stared at him, her color rising again, and her eyes taking on a glow that made him mortally afraid she was going to cry again.
“Oh, Deo,” she said softly, and her tone touched something inside him. That she should look at him so, with . . . admiration and desire? He must be mistaken. The old panic threatened momentarily, and he fought to find some control in the midst of a flood of reactions he didn’t understand.
He turned away, discovering he was shaking. This will never do. I am going to lose control again. What is it about her that brings me undone like this? He muttered something incoherent and left the room.
*
Emily stared after his rapidly retreating back and slumped back onto the pillows.
She was so confused. One minute he was telling her she was pretty and desirable and the next he was fleeing from her as if she were a banshee or a succubus.
She had thought there for a moment he was jealous of Lord Bidenden, which was ridiculous of course.
There was nothing to be jealous about. Lord Bidenden held no attraction for her, especially not compared to Deo, who was not only a God in face and form, but the embodiment of her ideal husband and partner.
She swallowed, feeling her heart swell and burst with emotion. Oh, gosh, I am in love with him . . .
She lay against the pillows, letting the feelings wash over her.
Of course I’m in love with him. How could I not be?
He is perfect! He treats me as a colleague and a friend, a companion.
He is intelligent and learned and as obsessed with antiquities as I am.
We even share a secret passion for Gothic novels!
And his kiss, brief as it was, was wonderful.
If only I could get him to do it again . . .
But if he kept running away from her, how could she? Was she repellent in some way? Physically? But he had said she was pretty and desirable. Was he just saying that so that her feelings wouldn’t be hurt?
No, he had reacted to her physically—she knew that.
She knew enough to know that heat meant something.
But she also knew that gentlemen could feel that kind of desire without more tender emotions.
Her governess had warned her of that, warned her against being taken in by protestations of false love by gentlemen.
She sighed. Is it just his scruples that keep him away from me? Or is it the fact that I lied to him and broke his trust? Does he despise me for that?
Tears stung her lids at the thought, and regret seared her heart.
How she wished she could meet him again for the first time and tell him the truth from the start.
But if she had, would he have married her or packed her off home immediately?
She wiped her eyes. How can I regain his trust?
Her heart ached. Is my perfect love affair over before it even begins?
Deo reappeared in the doorway and said stiffly, “Luncheon is being served downstairs. We should join them, if you’re fully recovered.”
She rose hastily. “Yes, I am fine.” She splashed some water on her face and tidied her hair before joining him.
Silence reigned between them as they descended the stairs.
She desperately wanted to say something to break it, but her tongue had cleaved to the roof of her mouth and her head was empty of anything sensible to say.
*
Deo sat through luncheon barely aware of what was going on around him.
The knowledge that it was Bidenden she had fled from had rattled him to the core.
She had made it clear she wasn’t interested in Bidenden, which ought to reassure him, yet .
. . He glanced surreptitiously across the table at the other man.
He had denounced him as a dandified fribble, but the man was attractive in a dark and brooding sort of way.
Deo understood females often had a weakness for such a style of male.
But Emily had run away to escape his attentions, so she surely wasn’t one of them.
But the man was clearly experienced with women, in a way that Deo wasn’t.
While his boldness might not have been welcomed by Emily, it spoke of a confidence that Deo lacked and made him feel at a disadvantage.
His only comfort was that Emily was his wife.
She had agreed to marry him. She couldn’t be having second thoughts about that, could she?
He glanced sideways at her, but her head was turned away from him.
They hadn’t spoken since they sat down to eat.
All their previous camaraderie was broken.
How could they go from this morning’s blissful accord to this state of discord in such a short time?
He was inclined to blame the man on the other side of the table for casting a shadow between them, even if he didn’t fully understand how he had done it.
He glowered at Bidenden, and the man’s eyes clashed with his.
Bidenden raised a dark eyebrow, and his lips curved in a sneer.
He took a sip of his wine and looked away, but not before Deo caught the flash of contempt in his gaze. It lashed him, rubbing him raw.
*
Somehow Emily got through luncheon, but she was unequal to eating anything but a mouthful; and Deo for once didn’t attempt to fill her plate or tell her to eat up. In fact, he said nothing to her at all. And to make it worse, she felt Lord Bidenden’s eyes on her for most of the meal.
It was agreed over luncheon that the gentlemen would all assist with the raising of the cross.
But the silence between herself and Deo was making her wretched, and at the end of the meal, she vowed she had to do something to fix it or all her peace and happiness would be destroyed.
Thus, when they left the dining room, she dragged him into an adjoining antechamber and blurted, “Are you still angry with me about the deception over my age and identity?”
“Not precisely, no,” he said. “I am simply concerned that it may have invalidated our marriage. I sent a letter to my solicitor this morning, seeking his advice on the matter. Fortunately, we have not consummated the marriage, so no irrevocable harm has been done. We must await his advice before I can take any steps to rectify the matter.”
“Rectify—? What do you mean?”
Deo flushed. “I mean that in the event the marriage is invalid, we would either need to repeat our vows or, under the terms of our agreement, we could part ways, no harm done.”
“Why would I do that? I’ve no wish to return to my parents’ house. You know that!”
“I am simply giving you the option,” he said doggedly.
“Oh! You wish to be rid of me?” Anguish gripped her heart along with a lick of anger.
“No!” he barked. “No, nothing of the sort. I simply wish to be fair to you. You have another suitor—” He swallowed visibly, and she thought for a moment he was going to be ill. “If he is more to your taste—”
“You know he isn’t! Deo, why are you being like this?” she almost wailed.
*
Deo stared into her face, his heart thudding hard in his chest. He was being irrational, he knew it, but his brain was scrambled.
He was assailed by so many different damnable sensations and emotions at once—jealousy, anxiety, fear—he didn’t know if he was on his head or his heels, and he didn’t like it.
Not one bit. Everything in his life to date had taught him that if he followed the rigid set of rules he had laid out for himself, if he was true to his principles, then his life would proceed in an orderly fashion.
He would remain in control, and he would not be humiliated or hurt by the actions of others.
Right now, he felt perilously close to both.
He swallowed again and said quietly, “I told you that I am not an emotional man, that I do not feel as others do! I think you chose not to believe me at the time, but it is true.” It has to be.
“I’m sorry.” He gave her a bow and left the room, almost running into Lord Bidenden in the hallway.
Deo glared at him, shucked his cuffs, and strode off.