Tempting the Marquess (18 page)

He eased one hand beneath the hem of her chemise and slowly trailed his fingers up her calf. He felt his way around her garter, seeking the ribbon ties, and then wrenched his hand away at the sharp pain the action caused. He looked at his finger and saw a bead of blood welling up.

She rose up on her elbows. “What’s the matter?”

“You stabbed me.”

“I beg your pardon?”

He showed her the blood on his finger, and then popped it into his mouth to soothe the hurt. Even though his lips were nowhere near her, Olivia’s entire body arched up as though he were sucking on her.

His eyes darkened in response.

“There must be a bloody pin somewhere. Come, let me find it and take it out before you hurt yourself on it.”

Olivia scrambled up, shaking her head. “No, you tend your finger. I’ll get it.”

She looked almost . . . afraid?

“I am quite able to remove a pin, you know. And I shall take care not to prick my finger a second time.”

“I really think it would be best if I did it,” she said.

What the devil was she hiding?

“Don’t be ridiculous,” he told her. “I’ll have done in a moment.”

When she saw that he was quite determined, she laid back and flung an arm over her eyes.

In a moment, he understood why.

Though he hadn’t seen it since he’d hidden it away all those years ago, Jason knew the brooch at once. He’d have to be blind not to, since the damned thing held his profile.

“Where did you get this?” he demanded angrily.

She scrambled away from him, fumbling to draw her chemise back over her breasts.

“Come, Miss Weston, don’t you think it is a bit late for maidenly modesty? Now answer me!”

“I found it when I was in Scotland. W-when I was organizing the library. I took all the books off the shelves and your note fell out. I knew it was wrong, but I had to find where the clues led. I can’t be sorry that they led me to you.”

“And you said nothing, not a single word the whole bloody time you’ve been here. It’s all been a lie.”

“No!” she protested. “Please, Jason, you must listen to me. I wanted to tell you, honestly I did.”

“Then why didn’t you?”

“When? You weren’t exactly a model of understanding and compassion when I arrived. If I had told you then, you would have tossed me out on my ear. And then . . . Then, I just couldn’t. I was too scared you would hate me,” she whispered.

“What makes you think I don’t?”

“Don’t say that,” she begged. “I know it seems like I’ve trespassed on your marriage. I never meant to try to take Laura’s place. I only wanted you to be happy again. I know you loved her, but how long will you punish yourself with this unending grief?”

Jason rose slowly and donned his banyan in silence. He wanted to rant and rage, but doing so would allow her to win. He called on his former icy reserve. “I fear you’ve been laboring under a misapprehension, my dear. I am not mourning my late wife.”

Her brows drew together in puzzlement. “You—You’re not?”

“Women aren’t worth grieving after. As you and Callista have both so thoughtfully reminded me this evening, you’re all lying, manipulative bitches.”

She gasped and took a step back as if he had hit her. Her eyes were huge in her face, bewildered and bright with tears. Despite knowing she had lied to him from the start, Jason wanted to draw her close and kiss her until that look was once again one of dazed passion. Until she was lost to anything and everything but his touch and the passion that flared between them.

But more than anything he wanted to punish her for making him feel all those tender, protective feelings, even though she had betrayed him . . . just as Laura had betrayed him.

“Do you know where my wife was going the morning she was killed?” he demanded. “She was leaving me.”

“What?”

It was his turn to nod, and he took no little delight in her complete horror at his revelation. The bitter truth had been bottled up inside him so long that he took a sick pleasure in releasing it, in spewing the acid venom at someone else.

“It was no accident that Lord Verney found her body. He was supposed to meet her in the park that morning. They were lovers.”

She stared at him, totally aghast. “I believe you’re mad.”

“Cursed is the more popular theory, though I must confess it’s their brides, rather than the Trahernes themselves, who seem cursed. They’re the ones who wind up dead, after all.”

The anger in her eyes astounded him. She was livid.

“Does that not suit your romantic longings? It’s the sort of tripe that might have come out of one of those gothic novels you’re so enamored of.”

“What proof can you give me that your wife was involved with Lord Verney?” she demanded furiously.

Jason crossed his arms over his chest. “I don’t need to defend myself to you, though I must admit to being surprised by your belief in my wife’s innocence. I thought women were always eager to think the worst of each other. Of course, I suppose it must be galling to hear that another of your gender failed to uphold her marriage vows, but you may as well come to terms with the matter. Women simply can’t help themselves. Eve herself was too weak to resist the serpent’s temptation.”

“I—You—” she spluttered.

His eyes narrowed. “Miss Weston, did you ever meet my wife? Is there some past connection that I am unaware of?”

For a moment he thought she was going to answer in the affirmative, but she shook her head.

“No . . .” she said slowly. “I may not have known your wife, but my aunt knew her. The staff here and at Haile Castle knew her. Servants talk, and I have never heard a hint of gossip about your wife to suggest she was anything other than loving and devoted to you and your son.” She braced her hands on her hips. “You wonder why I am so ready to believe in your wife’s innocence? I wonder why, as the husband who loved her, you are so quick to find her guilty?”

Something inside Jason snapped. He grabbed her shoulders. “Do you think any of this makes me happy? Do you think I was pleased to realize my wife was leaving me? To learn that even if she no longer cared for me she didn’t love our son enough to stay and be a mother to him?”

He punctuated each question with a small shake.

“But this is life, Miss Weston, and facts have to be faced, even if they don’t work out into the happy ending you wish them to.” He let go of her. “I advise you to stick to your books. No relationship will ever measure up to the pretty portrait of perfection you’ve painted in your head. But I think you’ll find books to be cold comfort when you lie awake at night, remembering the pleasure I gave you tonight—”

She slapped him.

The little hellcat had actually slapped him.

“I want you out of here,” he told her.

“I don’t particularly want to be here,” she spat, “but I don’t see another alternative.”

“Then look harder. I don’t care what lies you have to tell Katherine, but you are no longer welcome to reside under this roof. I have some business to attend to in Cardiff. I was planning on putting it off until you left, but I’ll leave in the morning. I will be away for two nights, possibly more. I expect you to be gone by the time I return. Is that clear?”

She shook her head, swiping the back of her hand at the tears coursing freely down her cheeks. “Nothing is clear anymore.” She gave him one last searching look and then bolted from the room.

He watched her go, unable to shake the feeling that he had somehow failed her.

Damn her
.

Damn the treacherous hearts of women.

He headed for his chamber to pack. The sooner he got away from here—from her—the better.

He needed to leave before she could look at him again with those big, beseeching blue eyes. Before she made him feel things he didn’t want to feel. Before he was tempted to turn and look back.

“Good heavens, darling, what’s the matter? Are you ill?” Her aunt ushered her into the room.

Olivia shook her head.

“Come sit near the fire. Let me fetch you a dressing gown before you take a chill.”

Her aunt wrapped her in a cozy quilted robe, and then sat beside Livvy, rubbing her back until her sobs quieted to sniffles and the occasional shuddering breath.

“I suppose you must be wondering why I woke you,” Olivia said. “I’m sorry, but I didn’t know whom else to—”

“Hush. Clearly something has upset you. I would be hurt if you felt you could not come to me, no matter what the hour. As to what has caused this upset, I trust you will tell me when you’re ready.”

“I am afraid something has come up. I need to leave here as soon as can be arranged.”

“I see.” Her aunt looked at her, assessing. “And might this ‘something’ have to do with my stepson?”

“It might,” Olivia allowed.

Aunt Kate took her hand. “I can tell you care for him, and I believe he cares for you.”

She ignored Livvy’s snort of disbelief.

“Do not let him scare you off. Beneath that gruff exterior is a man who needs love and is quite capable of giving it in return.”

“I’m not being scared off so much as I’m being run off the premises. We had a . . . a bit of a disagreement this evening. He—” She took a deep breath. “He doesn’t want to see me again. Ever. He’s planning on leaving as soon as possible, and he will not return until I am gone from this place.”

“That seems most extreme. This argument must have been quite serious.”

Olivia twirled a lock of hair around her finger.

“I wouldn’t call it an argument precisely.” Unable to meet her aunt’s gaze, she rose and walked over to the bed. She climbed up and sprawled on her back, hugging a pillow to her chest. She stared at the intricately embroidered bed curtains as she searched for the right words.

“I am still finding it hard to believe. The change was so sudden. Everything was going so well, I thought—” Her throat swelled. “Well, regardless of what I thought, I feel certain he was making progress.”

“You are speaking of Jason, I take it, but progress toward what?”

“In moving past his grief,” Olivia explained. “That was one of the reasons why I wanted to come here, you know.”

“I confess I did not. You told me that you wanted an adventure.”

“I did, but I wanted to help Jason, too. I suppose he was to be part of my adventure in a way. For all the novels I’ve read, I never really believed in divine plans and the like, but I know I was meant to come here.” She rolled over onto her side so she could see her aunt. “Fate sent me. Or perhaps it was Laura.”

“Laura?” Aunt Kate sounded startled. “Do you mean Jason’s wife? What could she possibly have to do with your coming here?” She gave Livvy a worried frown. “I know I said the Marchioness’s Chambers had a ghost the first day we came, but I didn’t mean it literally. I only mean that the memory of her is still very strong here.”

Olivia sighed. “Yes, that’s just the problem.”

“My dear child, I am afraid you have quite lost me. I think perhaps you had best start at the beginning.”

“It might take some time,” Livvy warned her.

“Then you had best begin now, had you not? I can hardly help you without understanding the situation.”

“I suppose it all truly began while I was reorganizing the library at Haile Castle. I pulled one of the volumes off the shelf and out fell a bit of foolscap, folded and sealed with a dab of wax.”

“Why do I doubt you had the fortitude to put it back unread?”

“It might have been important. In any case, the wax needed to be removed. It was making a terrible mess of the endpapers.”

“Your concern for the endpapers prompted you to read a private correspondence?”

“Well, I might also have been the tiniest bit curious as to the contents.”

“I confess I would have been as well. Come now, do not keep me in suspense. You cannot dangle a juicy morsel like that without expecting me to bite.” She moved to sit with Livvy on the bed, and for a moment Olivia felt as though she were home, sitting up late to gossip with her sister.

“It was a riddle to a hidden treasure!” Even in the retelling, Livvy could not help but get excited.

“How intriguing! Were you able to solve it?”

“I know I shouldn’t have even tried, since the treasure wasn’t meant to be found by me, but I couldn’t help myself.”

“Well, did you find a treasure?”

Livvy nodded. “It was a little brooch with a shadow portrait. The back had a bit of engraving on it, so tiny I needed a magnifying glass to read it.” She quoted the verse that had become etched upon her heart: “ ‘So we shall be one, and one another’s all.’ ”

“Shakespeare?”

Livvy rolled her eyes at her aunt’s guess. “I should hardly consider
that
a treasure. No, the poet is Donne. The final clue was hidden in a volume of his verse.”

“Donne,” Aunt Kate murmured. “He was William’s favorite poet. Jason’s, too, I think. There were many evenings when he and Jason took turns reading aloud from one of his books while Laura and I worked at our embroidery. . . .” Her eyes widened and she looked at Olivia in dawning horror.

“When you said that you knew that the treasure wasn’t for you, were you being hypothetical or did you know whom the treasure was actually meant for?”

Livvy licked her dry lips. “There was a name on the paper that fell out of the book,” she whispered.

“Laura.” It wasn’t a question.

Olivia jerked her head in assent.

“I trust that is the whole story?”

Olivia shook her head. “Not quite. I was fascinated by Jason. Any man who took such time and care planning a surprise for his wife must have loved her very deeply. From what little you had said of him, I suspected he grieved as deeply as he had loved. It sounded as if his grief was destroying him. I wanted to help him in some way, though I hadn’t the faintest idea how to go about it. I meant everything I said about wanting an adventure as well. When I asked to come to Wales with you and Charlotte, I thought to accomplish both. I just hated the thought of him languishing here.”

She wiped at her eyes. “And then, just before we were to leave, when I was putting the last of the books away in the library, I came upon a diary. Actually, it was Izzie who found it, but as soon as I realized whose it was I wouldn’t let her read it.”

“And whose was it?”

“Laura’s,” Livvy whispered. “What clearer sign could there be? I felt more certain than ever that someone or something wanted me to come here.”

“I take it you read the diary?”

Olivia stared at her, as if to say,
Do you really need to ask?

“And Jason knows all of this?”

“Oh, no! I suppose I should be quite dead if that were the case. He only knows that I found the brooch . . . and the clues. The brooch was hidden behind the frame of an old painting, so he would never believe I just happened upon it.”

Her aunt pressed her index fingers to her temples. “But how would he know you found the brooch in the first place? You wouldn’t be so stupid as to tell him!”

“Of course not!” Olivia said scornfully. “But I don’t think you really wish to know how he found out.”

Aunt Kate looked at her blankly.

“I kept the brooch pinned to one of my garters. It seemed quite safe there, as it was imperceptible underneath my dress and petticoats. You never noticed it, did you?”

“Obviously not, but if the brooch was, as you say, imperceptible, then how did Jason see it?”

Olivia bit her lip. “He didn’t. See it, that is. Not at first. Unfortunately one of Jason’s fingers met with the point of the pin, and . . .” She shrugged.

Her aunt closed her eyes. Perhaps she was praying. A miracle was most definitely in order.

“Of course,” Livvy added, unable to stop herself, “if Jason had not been trying to untie my garter, he would never have found it, so this is really all his fault.”

Aunt Kate let out a strangled groan.

“Fine. Mostly his fault,” Olivia conceded.

“I am less concerned with whose fault it is than how much damage has been done. How much do you know of the relations between men and women?”

“Izzie was wretchedly closemouthed, though she did warn me about being alone in a closed carriage with a man. And I have, of course, read a great deal.”

“I see,” her aunt said, with the voice of someone who did not see at all.

“In fact,” Olivia continued with a satisfied smile, “though you must never, ever tell my parents, I was the one who planned Izzie’s compromise.”

She really was pleased at how well that had worked out. Granted, there had been a few moments when she hadn’t been at all sure she’d been wise in urging her sister to follow her heart in such a bold fashion, but it had all come right in the end. And if questioned, Livvy would swear up and down that she had known it would all along.

Aunt Kate was staring at her with a mixture of awe and horror.

“Oh, don’t look at me like that. I knew from the very start that everything would turn out for the best.”

“Mmm-hmm.”

“I did,” Olivia protested.

“Regardless,” her aunt said, “your sister’s compromise is not the issue at hand at present. Yours is.”

Livvy looked at her in surprise. “Mine? But I’ve not been compromised.”

“Are you entirely certain?”

“Entirely, no. Mostly, yes. Not that it matters. I wouldn’t marry him if he asked.”

At least not without some abject groveling. What was she thinking? She could never marry a man with such a low opinion of her sex. And then there was the lamentable fact that he was insane. . . .

But you love him,
some inner voice whispered.
Underneath the anger and hurt, there is love.

No, whatever she had felt for him, it had not been love. She had fooled herself into believing it was love because she had been swept up in the adventure of it all. The fact that she had wanted to comfort him even while he raged at her simply meant she was an extremely compassionate human being.

“Dearest, it is understandable that Jason was upset about finding the brooch. It must have been a shock to him and—”

“I understand that,” Olivia snapped. “And I apologized. Would you believe, I even apologized to him the very first night we were here? I had an idea that Laura’s chamber was some sort of shrine to her memory, and I felt I was trespassing.” She gave a bitter laugh. “How stupid I was!”

“I don’t understand.”

“He’s not grieving,” Livvy shouted, then she lowered her voice. “All this time he hasn’t been grieving for Laura. He doesn’t need help mending his heart. Do you know why? Because he hasn’t got one. Do you know what he thinks Laura was doing the day she died? He thinks she was having an affair, that she was running away with her lover.”

“My God.” Her aunt looked shaken. “No, I cannot believe she—”

“Of course she wasn’t. She was helping Charles by paying off his gambling debts to Lord Verney.
That
is why she was meeting him that morning. She was afraid to tell Jason what she was doing because he’d forbidden her to help Charles out of another scrape. It’s all there in her diary.”

“And have you spoken to Charles about any of this? You two became close friends rather quickly.”

“As you know, I have a dreadful propensity for blurting out whatever is on my mind. It was only a matter of time before I made some suspicious comments, and then I had to explain about the diary.”

“Was he angry?” Aunt Kate inquired.

“Relieved. He’s spent all this time believing himself responsible for his sister’s death. Being able to talk about it, about her, has gone a great way toward easing his mind.”

She saw her aunt had started to cry. She sat up and placed a hand on her shoulder. “Aunt Kate—”

“Oh, that poor boy!”

“Charles will be all right, truly he will,” Olivia assured her.

“I know, my dear.” She wiped at her eyes. “I was speaking of Jason.”

“Jason?”
Livvy was outraged. “I don’t see why you should feel sorry for
him
!”

Aunt Kate took Olivia’s hand. “I know you don’t, love, but there are still many things you don’t know about him. No, before you ask, I am not going to tell you. You will have to wait for Jason to do that. But know that while his accusations regarding Laura are upsetting, they have very little to do with her and a great deal to do with a very old hurt.”

“His mother, you mean?”

“You know about her?” her aunt asked with no little surprise.

“He told me she’d been killed in a carriage accident while running off with her lover.”

“It’s true. Naturally, both families wanted to avoid a scandal, and they might have done had not one of the servants found a note stating, in no uncertain terms, that the marchioness and her lover were running off together.” She shook her head in disgust. “Whomever it was that found the note must have made a tidy sum off it.”