Deirdre stretched languidly like some replete jungle feline, and she buried herself deeper into the warm depression the weight of her body had formed in the cushion of fragrant hay. A sound which was very close to a purr caught in her throat, and a slow smile of pleasure touched her lips. She felt happier and more relaxed than she had done in a long, long time. Her thoughts drifted, resisting the pull to consciousness, and she turned on her side as if to turn her back on the reality of scores of servants who were turning Belmont Castle upside down and inside out in preparation for the ball which was only a month away.
A small pang of guilt intruded on her pleasant reveries, but she smothered it. They could do without her direction for an hour or two, and she would not reveal her secret retreat above the hayloft in the stables and be at the beck and call of every scullery maid in Belmont for every minute of the day. She filled her lungs, breathing deeply of the comforting aromas of fresh hay, sweating horseflesh, and the mellow tang of old polished leather. Something stroked against her back, and she moved slightly to accommodate it, supposing in her drowsiness that one of the stable cats was seeking her warmth.
Under her palm, she felt her breasts swell, and the bud of a nipple tightened against her stays. Her bodice loosened as if in obedience to her half-formed thought. Her eyelids fluttered, and a small frown furrowed her brow. A hand buried itself in her short-cropped tresses and Deirdre came fully awake. She sat up with a start, and her bodice dropped to her waist, baring her breasts. She looked down in bewilderment, gazing at her nakedness, and at the long masculine fingers which caressed her flesh, indolently kneading the soft mounds to a voluptuous sensitivity.
“You!” she breathed, turning fully to be bathed in the brightness of his languorous, golden gaze. Rathbourne raised himself, and she twisted slightly away from him as if to protect her nudity from his devouring eyes.
“Deirdre,” he murmured against her neck, and he slipped out of his pristine white shirt to reveal the tanned, muscular physique which rippled with each sure movement. “Deirdre,” he said again, and cupped her shoulders, sinking his parted lips into the soft warmth of her nape. She felt the heat of his naked torso as it brushed sensuously against her back, heating her skin to a feverish glow.
She moaned, her scattering thoughts losing focus, and the knot of resentment she had patiently nursed in the weeks since she had last seen him splintered into a thousand fragments.
“Unjust,” she whispered on a breath of a sound, and twisted slightly to block the marauding hands which moved purposefully to cup her breasts. His hands followed her, and his thumbs lazily stroked the swelling nipples, coaxing her body to a sweet oblivion of everything but him.
“Unjust,” she breathed again, shrugging his hands off, her mind groping to hang on to the feeling of ill-usage which was fast slipping from her. “We must talk,” she said slowly and deliberately, but could not recall exactly what it was she wished to say to him.
“Yes,” he agreed, and forced her gently but relentlessly into the hay, “but only love talk. Everything else can wait for this.”
He came down on her, deliberately brushing and teasing the tender rise of her breasts with the soft mat of dark hair on his chest. She groaned, and her lips parted slightly. He swiftly captured them, cupping her chin in both hands, forcing her lips wider as he buried his mouth in her honeyed warmth. The kiss gentled to a slow exploration as if he wished to refresh his senses with the taste of her on his tongue and lips, and awaken her to the pleasure of his body. But passion outstripped reason, and his hands and mouth burned and bruised with his raging haste to possess her. She splayed her fingers against his chest, restraining him, and he released her at once.
She pushed herself to a sitting position, her arms hugging her knees. He was manipulating her into surrender and she fought against it.
He raised on one elbow and ran the fingers of one hand down the length of her bare arm. “Deirdre?” he said coaxingly, his need for her hoarsening his voice to a whisper of liquid sound, “I’ve waited almost two months for this. Even if I wanted to, I don’t think I could let you turn me away now. You can give in gracefully, or…”
His hand grasped her ankle and began a slow and tantalizing exploration beneath the folds of her skirts, and his warm, erratic breath fanned her shoulder. He parted her knees, easily overcoming her slight resistance, and his fingers moved higher and deftly untied the strings of her drawers. His palm burrowed inside to the warmth of her abdomen, languidly massaging the taut muscles till he felt them relax against the flat of his hand.
“Deirdre, love, we don’t want all these clothes between us, do we?” he asked, and soothed her with words of love as he stripped her to her chemise.
“You’re my wife, and I love you,” he reassured, and he quickly divested himself of his pantaloons and hessians. “I want to be as close to you as I can. Words can’t possibly express what I am feeling for you at this moment. I want to show you with my body, and…”
She turned into him on a soft cry, and words became superfluous. He pressed her back and drowned her senses with lavishly bestowed caresses and slow, seductive kisses. He stroked her ceaselessly, as if he would rediscover the imprint of each curve and hollow against his hand, and when she opened herself to him, holding nothing in reserve, he fought to control the hot surge of passion that swept through him like the incoming tide.
“What is it you want from me?” he teased with mock innocence, and his fingers worked their irresistible magic, his touch as light as snow melting on the moist warmth of her skin. Her knees snapped together and she bared her teeth at him. “Gareth Cavanaugh,” she ground out, then she sucked in her breath as he pressed her knees apart and entered her deeply. “Gareth Cavanaugh,” she repeated, but on a breath of a sound as his mouth smothered her lips, swallowing her soft cries as she rose to meet him, the rising tempo of their rhythm heating their feverish skin till it was dewed with moisture.
He tried to prolong their pleasure, but she resisted when he made to still her movements. “No!” she protested when his hands clamped on her hips to hold her passive. “No!” and she moved sinuously, arching herself into him.
He drew his breath on a ragged gasp and his control shattered. He reared over her. “Deirdre, oh Deirdre,” he groaned, his voice a whisper of apology and he drove into her. But she was beyond him, the ripples of sensual pleasure already convulsing her body. She dissolved against him, her nails compulsively raking his back, and he heard his name on her lips as his own cry of release tore from his throat.
She became aware that his idly caressing hands had, by degrees, become purposeful, deliberately brushing against the pleasure pulses of her body. “No,” she said negligently, still savoring the gift of repleteness which his lovemaking always brought to her.
“Yes,” he corrected uncompromisingly, and he swept his hands possessively over her nakedness. She caught them with her own and said on a laugh, “Gareth, it’s too soon.”
His answer was to capture her lips, forcing them open, and the strength of his rising passion stirred her. She made a weak attempt to shake him off, but he held her fast, impervious to her halfhearted protests.
When she determined the earnestness of his purpose, she thought to make him a gift of herself, to let him use her as he would for his own gratification, but the generous gesture was not to his liking. He wanted her breathless with desire, as he was, and he devoted himself to feeding her passion with unlimited patience and skill. When he heard her deep-drawn gasps as her lungs gulped in air, he rewarded her by giving her what her body now demanded.
“Again?” he asked on a low laugh of masculine triumph.
“Gareth,” she warned, and sighed with relief as he brought himself fully into her. “Again,” she pleaded, and locked her arms behind his neck, drawing his head down.
But he had himself well in hand, and seemed to take a perverse pleasure in evading her shy attempts to bring him to climax. It forced her to a boldness which delighted him. Her hands caressed and teased and her softly murmured words of entreaty drove his passion to boiling point. When he finally allowed her lips to connect with his, he tasted the blaze of uninhibited desire on her moistly open mouth and his bridled ardor exploded through him.
The aftermath almost became another prelude, but Deirdre was now sensitive to his mood swings, and she thwarted his intent by scrambling to her knees and warding him off with both hands. He had half moved to catch her and draw her back, but when he saw the determined light in her eyes, he sank back on his haunches, gave a regretful sigh, and resigned himself to what he knew must follow.
She dressed quickly, keeping a wary eye on him as he reluctantly donned his own hastily discarded garments.
“What happened to your hair?” he asked, mentioning her shorn locks for the first time, and his eyes darkened.
She touched one hand guiltily to the wispy gold strands on her nape and shrugged off his black look. “I had it cut. But that’s not what I wish to speak to you about, so don’t try to turn the subject.”
It occurred to her then that she could scarcely ring a peal over him when she had just allowed him to make passionate love to her. She bit her lip, wondering if he had contrived the whole thing for that very purpose. A quick look at the barely suppressed mockery lurking in the depths of his eyes confirmed her suspicion. He would, oh yes, he would!
She surprised herself as much as him by her opening remark. “You didn’t even give me a chance to say ‘welcome home.’”
The eyebrows shot up. “I have no complaint about my welcome home,” and a smile creased his face when he saw the blush come and go under her skin. He picked up a straw and ran his teeth over it, his eyes never leaving hers for an instant.
“Oh, it’s no good taking you to task,” she said petulantly. “You have a plausible explanation for everything. But what you did to me was wrong. You used my fears for Armand to force me to your will.”
He stretched out in a leisurely manner, and clasped his hands behind his head. “That was a mistake,” he said calmly, “an impulse that I regretted almost as soon as I indulged it. I’ve been in Intelligence work too long, I suppose, and find it hard not to carry the methods I use there into my private life. I beg your pardon.”
Her expression was arrested. “You were in Intelligence work? You never said a word to me.”
“That, my dear, is the nature of the game; cloak and dagger stuff. It was safer for you not to know, given the fact that my interest in you was common knowledge.”
“What a whisker! It was your liaison with Mrs. Dewinters that was common knowledge, and don’t try to deny it!”
He looked at her with amused indulgence. “Did I gammon you too? I confess that my bruised pride was soothed by your jealousy.” He saw the dangerous glitter in her eyes and his smile deepened. “Nevertheless, my fictionary affair with Maria was to throw sand in the eyes of the watching world and to protect you. I told you many times that there was nothing between us. You wouldn’t listen. Am I to be blamed for your lack of faith in me?”
The man had an answer for everything. But Deirdre was determined to keep him in the wrong.
“Was that fair to her?”
He shrugged negligently. “Maria was one of our best agents. She understood the risks she was running. We’ve worked together before.”
She sat looking at him in silence for some moments. He could almost hear her mind working as she absorbed this piece of information and reviewed his past iniquities one by one. He was not overly troubled. He had spent two months perfecting the responses he would make to every possible accusation she could come up with.
“Why are you telling me this now?” she said finally.
“Because now it is safe to tell you. Bonaparte is now far away on the island of St. Helena. In Brussels, with Napoleon and his cohorts practically on our doorstep, you were in danger. It was better for you to be in ignorance of my activities. Even now, you must treat what I have told you with the utmost confidence. Some people have long memories and carry a grudge. But I thought I owed you an explanation.”
“Thank you, that is very generous of you,” she said scathingly, and he suppressed a smile.
He watched in fascination as she chewed on her lower lip. He had taken the wind out of her sails and he could see that she was not best pleased by it.
“Are you satisfied now, love?”
“No! Everything is just too pat.” Her face brightened a little and instinct warned him to be cautious. “To get back to Armand,” she said in dulcet accents. “If you regretted the impulse to use him to blackmail me, as you say, why did you not tell me at once? Why did you let me go on thinking the worst?”
“Because explanations would have taken time and led us into all kinds of difficulties. We had less than two hours together. I had better things to do with my time than quarrel with you about your brother. It was, for God’s sake, our wedding night.”
“But to let me think that he would be safe, when all the time he was with you and—”
“I know. I took the coward’s way out. But I couldn’t stop the boy, and I honestly did my best. I set O’Toole to guard him with his life. When Armand took a scratch, I put him in the infirmary. I thought I had done my duty. O’Toole was with him. He left him for an hour or so, and when he went back to check on him, Armand was gone. I didn’t know what to think. We heard after the battle that he had fallen on the field with a friend who went to help him. O’Toole and I looked for him all that night, but there were so many corpses, so many wounded. It was hopeless. Can you imagine what I went through thinking that I might have to face you with your brother’s death?”
His eyes were very frank and his expression somber. That part of his story she had verified for herself. She shuddered, remembering the events of that day and the long night of terror.
“And Armand’s affair with your sister had nothing to do with your decision to let him enlist?”
His face darkened, but he said easily enough, “So that’s what you thought! It never ceases to amaze me how swift you are to think the worst. No. And the decision to enlist was his, not mine. You may defile me as you will for my attempt to blackmail you. That I deserve. But acquit me at least of wishing your brother ill.”
She looked slightly shamefaced, and he continued more gently, “Good God, Deirdre, I think I have some excuse for doing everything in my power to give you the protection of my name. You, I know, will say I was only doing what suited me. Think again. No man wishes to be tied to a woman who hates him, or worse, is indifferent to him. I was thinking of your happiness as much as my own. Perhaps I was high-handed. Very well, I admit I was, if you say so. But only because the obstacles to overcoming your objections to me were as ridiculous as they were immovable. I knew that you loved me five years ago before I went to Spain. You look surprised. I assure you Deirdre, I knew. No woman ever responded to my kisses with such unpracticed though unwilling ardor. It inflamed me; captivated me; enslaved me. I thought I could easily overcome your resistance. But I didn’t understand the nature of the barriers between us.” He stretched and rose to his feet with feline grace, then went to stand at the open dormer window with his back to her. Deirdre remained on her knees, drinking in his lean muscled form and the glints of gold in his hair where the sun touched it.
“Love is awful, isn’t it? When I first found you, I thought I was the luckiest man alive. But you, even loving me, thought I was like the dirt beneath your feet. So—I was a womanizer and a gambler, and all the other things you called me. What of it? It had nothing to do with us. Do you suppose I was happy with that sort of life? I was as miserable as hell! And lonely too, for all my boon companions.” He turned to look at her, and her eyes dropped under the blaze of his. “Your love could have made all the difference in the world to me, but you withheld it, for no damn good reason! And I, God help me, let you. When I found you again, things were exactly the same between us. I knew then that I would be a fool to let you go a second time. Your aunt explained something of your background to me. And I quizzed your friend, Serena. I knew that you would not be persuaded by logic or by your own heart. So, I stooped to other means—cheating, abduction, blackmail. Not very gentlemanly, I grant you, but I make no apology for what I did.”
She heard the soft tread of his boots as he crossed the floor to her. He knelt down beside her and his long fingers clasped her chin and brought her head up. She raised her eyes to his and saw the bright laughter mocking her.
“No, I make no apologies,” he repeated softly. “For you, my love, are very, very pregnant, and I am the happiest man in the world.”
She tried to snatch his hand away, but he held her securely. A faint blush colored her complexion. “I am not very, very pregnant,” she protested. “Only two months. And I don’t see how you can tell. And furthermore, I don’t want to know how you can tell either,” she concluded hurriedly when she saw the devilish glint in his eyes.
“Are you happy, love?”
Something in his voice gave her pause. There was no change in either his expression or his posture, but there was a tension there that betrayed he was hanging on her words.
“More than I deserve,” she said, and was rewarded for her honesty by being tumbled into his arms and pressed backward into the soft bed of hay.
“Is that all you can think about?” she asked weakly when he began to disrobe her.
He made no answer, but as very soon afterward it was all that Deirdre could think about as well, she decided wisely that the question had become irrelevant and did not press him for an answer.
Dinner was not the unqualified success that Deirdre had hoped it would be. The undercurrents that eddied back and forth between various family members put a definite dampener on what ought to have been a joyful homecoming. Lady Caro and Armand had obviously had a falling-out and pointedly ignored each other. Armand and her husband exchanged wary glances like two dogs circling each other before a fight, and the Dowager and Rathbourne were at loggerheads within minutes of the first course being served. The burden of conversation fell on Deirdre and Guy Landron.
The meal itself, as well as the service, was excellent, however, and Rathbourne commented on it.
“Did you finally get rid of Mrs. Petrie?” he asked Deirdre as he savored a mouthful of baked turbot smothered in a smooth lobster sauce.
“No. We are merely the beneficiaries of her attempts to persuade me that there is no need to hire a chef from London for our Tenants’ and Servants’ Ball.”
Beecham entered with two footmen, and Rathbourne watched with veiled interest as they served the next course with a precision which was as welcome to him as it was unfamiliar.
When the servants withdrew, Rathbourne looked down the length of the table at Deirdre and drawled, “I think I’ve divined your strategy. A Tenants’ and Servants’ Ball, you say? Doesn’t that come close to corrupting the innocent? And who, may I ask, is going to pay the shot for this Bacchanalian revelry? Dee, I’m shocked at your deviousness.”
Mistaking the nature of this gentle cajolery, the Dowager interrupted her flow of small talk with Mr. Landron and, turning on her son, said in withering accents, “Hold your tongue, sir, if you cannot find anything good to say of the girl. You’ve been so much in petticoat company that your address begins to smack of the gutter. In the month that she has been here, Deirdre has done wonders at Belmont, and everyone knows it. If you had been home, as you ought to have been, instead of gallivanting all over Europe with those disreputable friends of yours, things might never have come to this sorry pass. Why, my gooddaughter has done more to see to my comfort and peace of mind than my own flesh and blood.”
Visibly smarting under his mother’s staggering tirade, Rathbourne bristled, but his voice, when he spoke, betrayed no emotion. “Thank you. And now that you have vented your spleen on my character and comrades, perhaps you would be so kind as to tell me why a mere slip of a girl should accomplish in one month what you could not do in five years?”
Deirdre and Armand exchanged a quick glance. His face showed only mild amusement, but his sister was deeply embarrassed. She felt like an eavesdropper and wished only to escape from a quarrel that would have been better conducted in private. She stole a quick glance at Landron and Caro. Both were pretending an inordinate interest in the food on the plate in front of them. She opened her mouth to make a comment, any comment about the dinner, the room, the weather, but the Dowager was before her.
She sniffed and said in a voice that was tremulous with emotion. “The servants never paid me any mind. Why should they, when my own son made it very plain that I was only in his house on sufferance? I had no authority, and everyone knew it, from the girl who cleans out the grates to old Beecham, who never liked me even when your father was alive. Your instructions to me were that none of the older retainers were to be let go unless you authorized it. How could you authorize it when you were not here? Perhaps I was not as clever as Deirdre. I admit it. But I was here as seldom as possible. After I lost Andrew, I could not bear all the memories of the happier times we shared in Belmont.”
As the Dowager spoke, a pall descended on the table, each person uncomfortably aware that he was intruding upon a private grief. It was Deirdre who broke the protracted silence.
“Well, I hope you will recall those happier times, goodmother,” she said prosaically, “and share them with your grandchildren. It’s very likely that another Andrew will be running around this fortress in a year of two.” Then she added very gently, “You will be depriving him of his birthright if you deny him your memories, especially those of his namesake. Memories can be very comforting if you cherish the happy ones. And now,” she continued with forced brightness as her eyes traveled the arrested faces of the guests at her board, “shall we repair to the tapestry room to have coffee and brandy? I refuse to relinquish my husband to the obligatory port on his first night home.”
“Do you mean the library?” asked Rathbourne as he offered Deirdre his arm.
“No, I mean the tapestry room. You’ll soon get the hang of it, Rathbourne. The servants did, and it’s made life so much easier. The library is the room with books in it; the tapestry room has tapestries hanging on the walls; the dining room—”
“Don’t tell me. It’s the room where we dine.”
“You’ve got it. Simple, isn’t it? It was so confusing to ask the servants to serve coffee in the library and have them deliver trays to the new library which used to be the old dining room, and if you said that you would see someone in the drawing room, Beecham might or might not show them into the tapestry room when you meant the blue saloon, and—”
“Yes,” he interrupted with a laugh, “I get your drift. We Cavanaughs, from one generation to another, have changed rooms around to suit our own convenience. Somehow the old names stuck. I see how the servants might have taken advantage.”
“Oh, not ‘might,’ Gareth. Did, unashamedly and invariably,” she responded with a twinkle.
He smiled at her with a tenderness which made her heart constrict. “Do you know, I love your proprietary air? I am beginning to feel that I really belong to you at last. Now tell me what you think of Belmont.”
As they slowly mounted the Great Hall staircase in retinue, Deirdre surreptitiously ran her fingers over the balustrade and was glad to note that not a trace of dust adhered to her fingers. Rathbourne’s keen eyes missed nothing. He grinned.
“Well?” he demanded.
“I found Belmont a bit daunting at first, like its master,” she confided archly. “But I intend to lick them both into shape.”
“I hope you mean that literally,” he said in an undertone. “At least with respect to the master.” Deirdre colored and turned on him wrathfully. “I know,” he interposed. “Male crudity again. Better get used to it, Dee. I shall be as crude as I please.” He flicked her mischievously on her upturned nose. “You make the temptation irresistible, you know.”
The remainder of the evening began only marginally more comfortably. Deirdre, now alert to the barbs which flew between mother and son, contrived to deflect each thrust before any irreparable damage could be done. She felt like a governess presiding over the nursery, and longed to knock their heads together. It was not in her power, however, and she was forced to resort to diplomacy, never one of her strong suits.
She recognized the similarity of temperament and that unbending will which was common to both and which inevitably led to confrontation. Their history of bad feelings and cruel words, she knew, could not be easily overcome or forgiven. Roderick Ogilvie had told her that the estrangement had begun when Andrew, the younger son, had lost his life in the climbing accident in Scotland, but she could not believe that Rathbourne and his mother had ever been on terms of intimacy. It seemed to her, as she observed the thrust and parry of their verbal exchanges, that what was needed were some happy memories that they could both look back on with pleasure. She hoped she could find a way to provide some.
Her eyes shifted to Lady Caro, and her heart sank. The chit was unashamedly flirting with Guy Landron. Nor was that provoking gentleman averse to playing her game. Armand’s dark eyes smoldered and his lips were set in a thin line.
Deirdre went into action. She opened the card table and retrieved a pack of cards from a drawer. No sooner had she begun to shuffle them than she was joined, as she knew she would be, by her husband and her brother.
“Sit down, Rathbourne,” she commanded. “These are cards I brought with me from Brussels. I’d like to see what you can do when everything is above board. Armand can look out for my interests and keep tally.”
He chuckled and slid into the seat next to hers. “I could beat you blindfolded,” he challenged outrageously. Something caught his eye and his hand closed over the back of her wrist. He turned her arm over and his eyes traveled the ugly red scar which ran from elbow to armpit.
“How did this come about?” he asked, and his eyes became alert when Deirdre and Armand exchanged wary glances.
“It’s only a scratch,” she answered, and tried to pull her arm away.
“Who did the embroidery?” His tone was casual—too casual by half for Deirdre’s comfort.
To evade a straight answer was one thing, but Deirdre had no wish to begin her married life on lies and subterfuge. He would be angry, but she could weather that. “One of the army doctors at Waterloo. I forget his name. It’s a long story. I’ll tell you later when we are alone,” she said quietly.
He let her go and picked up the cards she had dealt him. “What stakes do we play for?”
Deirdre breathed more easily. “No stakes. The loser pays a forfeit. It’s more fun that way.”
“What kind of forfeit?”
“Heavens, I don’t know. Armand, what kind of forfeits did we pay when we were children?”
“Horrid ones,” he said, and a grin tugged at the corners of his mouth. “You once made me kiss Farmer Sykes’s prize sow. For that peccadillo I got a beating from Papa.”
“Nonsense!” said Deirdre unsympathetically. “You got the beating for rolling about in the pigsty in your Sunday best.”
“Well, she wouldn’t hold still!”
The game commenced and before very long the hilarity at the card table attracted the other members of the party. Soon everyone had joined in. The forfeits for the losers were chosen with a view to making them appear as ridiculous as possible. Deirdre and Mr. Landron, who were both known to be indifferent musicians, were made to sing one verse of “Greensleeves” in harmony, a labor which set everyone to groaning and covering their ears with their hands. Armand and Lady Caro, at Deirdre’s instigation, and with much prompting, were compelled to recite “The Lovesick Frog,” a ditty which lent itself to the substitution of the names of persons present, a circumstance which the young couple used to good effect, roasting everyone in turn. And the Dowager, who foolishly owned to lapsing into a childish lisp when she became excited, was made to twist her tongue around some piece of nonsense having to do with silly servants shining silver shoes in Simon’s sunny solarium. It brought the house down. Only Rathbourne, as the unbeaten champion, stood aloof from the absurd antics of his companions. It was Armand who remarked upon it with a look which Rathbourne immediately distrusted.
“When we were children,” Armand reminded Deirdre, flicking a malevolent glance at his brother-in-law, “the winner was made to stand on the roof of the outside privy and shout, ‘I’m the king of the castle,’ and the losers had to bow down and chant ‘Amen! Amen! Amen!’”
“Not a chance,” Rathbourne interjected, and he shifted uneasily under the hard stares of five pairs of interested eyes.
“It’s Deirdre’s game, Gareth,” said his mother on her dignity. “She should decide what’s to become of you.”
Everyone looked to Deirdre for direction. She walked slowly in a circle round the Earl as if deep in thought.
“He can choose his own forfeit,” she said finally, and silenced the derisive hoots with a slight movement of her hand. “After all, when we were children, who didn’t want to stand on top of the privy and be king of the castle? Show us then, my Lord Rathbourne, what you are made of. Take your seats, ladies and gentlemen. And Gareth,” she added softly, “this had better be good.”
They took their places, and all eyes turned expectantly upon the Earl. “Caro, ring for Beecham if you would be so kind,” he drawled, and negligently adjusted the lace at his sleeve. “Ah, Beecham, a glass of Drambuie, if you please.”
Within minutes, a small crystal goblet filled to the brim with the amber liquid was tendered to the Earl on a spotless silver tray. He removed a linen handkerchief from his coat pocket and wrapped it round the stem of the glass. Beecham then lit a taper from one of the candles and brought it to his master. Rathbourne put the taper to the goblet, and the heated Drambuie burst into flame. He put the fiery liquid to his lips and drank it back in one gulp, emptying the glass. He replaced the empty goblet on the tray and said affably, “Thank you, Beecham. That will be all.”
He turned his saturnine countenance full face toward his open-mouthed audience. “It’s nothing, really,” he said with a deprecatory shrug of his broad shoulders. “I learned the trick at Oxford when I joined the Holy Grail Society, now defunct of course.”
No one moved and he felt impelled to add, “It’s one of the initiation rites.”
As the door closed on the departing butler, Landron got to his feet and raised his glass in a toast. “For he’s the king of the castle,” he intoned solemnly, and five awestruck voices chanted, “Amen! Amen! Amen!”
Deirdre had little hope that her husband would forget about the scar on her arm, nor did he. They were undressing for bed when he asked her again to explain the cause of the injury she had suffered. Deirdre, though determined to make a clean breast of everything, began to describe the horror of the battle and its aftermath with an understatement which made the whole sorry episode sound ludicrous even to her own ears. It did not fool him for an instant. He asked a few terse questions which she answered evasively. When he pressed her, however, she concealed nothing. He was at first thunderstruck, and then he exploded with a white hot anger.
“It was you who was seen going to Armand’s aid when he was attacked by lancers, wasn’t it?” he demanded furiously.
She tried to placate him, but her calm assurances seemed only to invite him to a greater wrath.
“Do you think I will permit my wife to endanger her life in that wanton fashion? You flaunted my express wishes! How dared you expose yourself to such peril? Of course, Armand! That explains everything!” He grabbed her by the arms and shook her roughly. “When are you going to allow that brother of yours to stand on his own two feet?” He threw her from him, and she fell against the bed. She made no move to rise, but remained on her knees, meekly accepting the chastisement she felt in some sort she had deserved.
He turned on her. His eyes were flashing and his mouth was tight-lipped. “What you did, for whatever reason, was an intolerable breach of my trust. Must I remind you that you are my wife? By God, you had better remember it in future or it will be very much the worse for you. I will have your obedience, or you shall feel the weight of my hand. Do I make myself clear?” and he raised his hand as if to strike her.
Deirdre had prepared herself to accept the rough edge of his tongue. She knew that he would be sorely provoked by her conduct. But this vicious form of address shocked her to the core. In a moment, her anger blazed to as great a heat as his own.
“How dare you threaten me! Doesn’t it mean anything to you that I saved Armand’s life? The doctor said—”
“I’m not interested in excuses. Nor am I interested in St. Jean. A husband takes precedence over a brother. Remember that in future, or by God, I’ll take steps to see that you do.”
“Then I wish I had never married you,” she lashed out, and turned her back on him.
In a castle with more bedchambers than Deirdre could number, she had expected Rathbourne to have his own suite of rooms. His baggage, however, was strewn around the floor, making it very obvious that where she was, he intended to be also. She wished she could slam out of the door and find a quiet hole where she could be miserable in comfort, but no other rooms were ready to receive guests and it seemed ill advised to test a temper that was already at boiling point. She climbed into the high tester bed with as much dignity as she could muster and curled herself into a ball on the far edge of the mattress.
She was to discover that though quarreling might make her averse to the intimacies of married life, it had no such effect on her husband. She tried to remain cold and impassive in his arms, but he seduced her to passion with mortifying ease. Though he was gentle with her, she was never in any doubt that he meant to show her who was master and exact his own peculiar retribution for the last angry words she had flung at him. It was a long time before he finally gave in to her distracted pleas for release from a torment that was driving her to delirium.
When it was over, she burst into tears. He cradled her in his arms, cherishing her with unending caresses, soothing her with extravagant endearments.
“Deirdre, don’t cry. There’s no need. You know I would cut off my arm sooner than hurt you. But what you did was wrong. My God, if I had lost you…”
His ragged voice and trembling limbs betrayed the strength of his emotion. It was a long time before Deirdre could find the means to comfort him. Words proved inadequate. Their protracted lovemaking was as inevitable as it was necessary, but it could not heal the one serious difference that still divided them.
Sleep, when it came to Deirdre, was fitful and filled with terrifying presentiments. She was mounted on Lustre, riding madly into battle to ward off one of the French lancers who threatened Armand’s back. Armand went down, and Deirdre screamed. The lancer turned to face her and drew back his lance to finish her off. And she saw that it was Rathbourne. He smiled grotesquely and he aimed the bloodied point of his spear at her breast. She leveled her pistol, but her fingers refused to pull the trigger.