27. Chapter 27
After they made love, Sterling finished undressing her, then cleaned her—to her private mortification—with surprisingly gentle hands before removing the rest of his own garments. Then he urged her under the bedsheets and joined her, cocooning her body with his.
Sated, warm, and oh, so, comfortable, a most pleasant lethargy pervaded her, which she likened to what a cat might feel, napping on a sunny pile of hay on a summer day. And based upon Sterling’s slow and steady breaths, she guessed he felt the same.
She did not know how much time passed before her husband gave a low moan and rolled onto his back, arms enfolding her to drag her on top of him. A lazy smile of masculine satisfaction curved his mouth as he gazed at her and buried his fingers in her no doubt tangled tresses.
She stretched, curled into him, and gave herself over to the previously unknown pleasure of his fingers sifting through her hair. From nowhere came the memory of his revelations from earlier. His impressions of her the day they’d met. She’d known there’d been a spark.
But she mustn’t forget he’d resisted the draw because he didn’t like women “like her.”
“I can smell the wood burning from here,” Sterling murmured. The low rumble of his voice vibrated through his chest, tickling her cheek. “What has you thinking so hard, wife?”
Wife. Delight bubbled up inside her at his casually possessive use of the term.
She tilted her head back to meet his dark gaze. She did not want to remind him of his dislike for women “like her.” Not now. Not yet.
“Did you really notice my perfume, all those months ago?”
He snorted. “Please. It’s no perfume. No sachet. It’s you. Some magic elixir that exudes from your pores and renders me putty in your hands.”
She laughed, utterly charmed despite his nonsense. “Now I know you’re teasing me.”
He shook his head. The look in his eyes melted her very bones. She never would have believed she’d glimpse such tenderness from him and directed toward her. If one of them had power over the other, it was he. No one had ever made her feel so…so…wanted.
Abruptly, he emitted a low growl and pinched his eyes shut. “I can’t think straight with you looking at me like that.”
“Oh.” She ducked her head, butting her forehead into his chest so that when he did open his eyes, he wouldn’t see the befuddled smile she could not staunch.
“I’m not lying, you know,” he murmured. “Your scent…intoxicates me.”
She peeked up at him through her lashes. “You’re serious?”
“Completely.”
“I do gather herbs and carry them on my person.”
He shook his head. “There is a distinct bouquet about you. Fresh and sweet, like the air in the kitchens that smells of cream and sugar when Cook bakes. It’s subtle. It’s mouthwatering.” The last he uttered in a tone that made her skin tingle.
“Gaston said I smelled like…” She broke off, trying to recall.
The problem was, he’d first claimed she had a generally offensive odor.
Then later, when she carried the herb-infused pouches, he said she brought to mind a chemist’s shop.
And he wasn’t saying it to be mean. He didn’t know she could hear him half the time.
Sterling’s fingers, twined in her locks, stilled. “Like what?”
“He…er…also noted my unique scent.” She sniffed, not really wanting to share the truth, lest she convince him Gaston had the right of it. “He complained of it—when he thought I could not hear him.”
“Did he?” Sterling asked, expression hardening. “It’s much more likely the only foul thing he smelled was something he’d stepped in.”
His kindness could almost not be borne. She was ridiculously on the verge of tears. Why was he being so nice to her, anyway? Surely this was an anomaly. It wouldn’t do to get accustomed to such treatment.
Better still to nip any false hope in the bud.
“I wondered about something else,” she blurted.
“And what is that, madam wife?”
“You said, when we met, you judged and classified me as the sort you’d learned long ago to avoid. What is it about my sort that you so despise? Is it the conceited part, the flirtatious part, the socially ambitious part, or something else I’ve missed?”
He slanted her a disgruntled look. “You are not like that,” he said, very definitively.
She lifted her chin. “I am exactly like that.”
The cad smiled. He smiled. Then he traced his fingertips over her cheek.
“You are not only like that. You’re a mad combination of any number of traits—some of which, I’ll admit, mark you as a creature of the upper class.
But not all. As it turns out, I like your other parts best—the ones you try to hide. ”
She blinked. “I have no notion what you mean.”
“Your prettiness—inside.”
Babette had been talking to him, clearly.
“You are kind, Annabelle.”
“You think I’m kind?”
“I know you are. And compassionate. And fair-minded.”
She did not know what to say.
“You might be a tad overconfident. You might enjoy the fruits of your disproportionately advantageous winsomeness a little too much. But one can hardly fault you for being born ravishing…”
She opened her mouth to inform him that she hadn’t always been attractive. But he went on.
“And so my sister informed me on numerous occasions following our first meeting—even though I did just that. I also labeled you conniving, manipulative, grasping, and let us not forget, shallow.”
She glared at him, regretting her impulse to broach the subject.
“According to my family, I’m…particularly quick to judge. Especially where the ladies of the ton are concerned.”
“I see.” She wanted to hold on to her pique, but her curiosity got the better of her. “I assume there’s something behind that?”
He studied her, the corners of his eyes tightening as if he weighed the merits of revealing his secrets to her. “There was an incident that, shall we say, predisposed me against women who display certain tell-tale traits.”
“You refer to the incident Lady Caroline mentioned, the one involving your friend?”
His entire body went rigid beneath hers. “She had no business discussing that with you.”
“She did not divulge any details, my lord.”
“Hm.”
“If you do not care to tell me, it’s no affair of mine,” she said, striving for a cavalier tone.
Several seconds ticked by. Then, to her surprise, he started his tale.
“I was eighteen or nineteen. A man, physically, but not in the ways that matter.
I thought I knew everything, of course. Thought my crowd the pinnacle of enlightenment.
We were master philosophers, chivalrous heroes, and honorable knights.
“And leading the pack was Dillon—Lord Ramsey, future Earl of Greywood. He was the best of us. Wise beyond his years. Everyone wanted to know him. Everyone wanted to be him.
“A perfect life seemed laid out before him. He would inherit a vast estate, control untold wealth, all with a perfect countess on his arm. Lady Constance Merriweather, with whom he had a longstanding agreement.”
“What happened?”
“She did.”
A sick feeling pervaded her stomach. This was the woman of whom she reminded him.
“She thought it fun to play games with men’s lives. Though promised to Dillon, she chose to dance the waltz, twice, with an out-and-outer, an industrialist, new on the scene, named Lawrence Biddington.”
A newcomer. Not someone like Sterling’s family and all the others of the ton, with longstanding titles and wealth. No. Biddington was new wealth and new to Society. Like her family. Guilt, or maybe more aptly, shame trickled through her, because she was like Biddington. For Sterling.
“Dillon called the man out for his disrespect. A duel ensued. Dillon died. And did she mourn? Did she rue the day she’d flirted and danced and made a spectacle of herself, and by default, Dillon? No.”
Bitterness underscored his every word, even after all these years. He stared off into the distance, seemingly somewhere else.
Caroline had implied he’d changed after the event. She’d also—just once, but Annabelle had never forgotten—very plainly stated she thought Sterling suffered a guilty conscience over it.
He’d claimed otherwise when she’d broached the subject the night of her arrival—something she now wished she hadn’t done.
“What did Lady Constance do?” Annabelle asked, creeping higher up his chest, to bring their faces even. He blinked and tilted his head to look at her as if surprised to see her there. “After.”
A muscle in his jaw twitched. “She married the blackguard.”
Annabelle rested her chin on his shoulder and stroked his bare chest, trying to communicate her sorrow for his loss through her touch. “I suppose a case could be made that she was not a worthy bride for your friend.”
He glared at her. “A case? It’s plain as the nose on your face.”
Annabelle dropped her gaze. Then she lifted it again and said softly, “There are not a lot of avenues open to women, other than marriage, Sterling.”
“I cannot argue your point,” he muttered, though his stormy expression belied his statement. “But I still say the fact she married the one responsible for her intended’s death revealed her low character.”
She nodded and searched his face. She wanted to know this man she’d married. Wanted to be privy to his inner world. “Sterling?”
A wary light glinted in his eyes. “Yes?”
She traced his collar bone. “Why does Lady Caroline think you feel responsible for what happened?”
His jaw tensed. “I don’t.”
She waited.
“I don’t,” he insisted with more vehemence.
Dancing her fingertips over his Adam’s apple, the hollow at his throat, she waited, sensing more would come.
“I was one of his seconds.”
She nodded and slowly reached to smooth his hair back from his forehead. He seemed to draw away for a moment, but then tilted his head into her touch. His skin was supple and warm, smooth under her fingers.
“I was there the day he challenged Biddington. He told me and the others present—Zeke, Jeremy, and one or two more—what he intended to do.