Patricia Rice (25 page)

Bea didn’t want children. He’d never given children a thought beyond thinking of them as a necessary byproduct of marriage.

Whack
. A line of tall grass crumpled. A field mouse scampered off to hide elsewhere.

He’d walked into this marriage blindfolded, operating on lust rather than logic. He always got himself into trouble that way.

Whack.
A tangle of weeds
crashed to the ground, along with a briar cane that narrowly missed his
nose. Jumping backward, Mac shook his head and eyed the fallen roses
with disfavor. He would bring order out of this mess if it took him all
day.

He wasn’t sorry he’d married Bea. He’d never met a
woman more suited to his needs. It was his damned needs that were the
problem.

Bea was a lady, and he obviously needed a whore. What in hell had he been thinking?

More rose canes swept past his nose. He grabbed a
wire and began tugging the canes back to their trellis. The place would
go to hell in a handbasket without an influx of cash. He’d better start
locating her father’s bank accounts.

He
owned this place now.

Startled at that realization, Mac leaned on the
scythe handle to study the rolling hills and fields, hedgerows and trees
dotting the landscape as far as his eye could see. This was all his—the
land where Bea had sunk her roots deep. Bea had gifted him with
everything she owned, everything except the one thing he wanted—herself.

She didn’t want children. Hell, he didn’t know if
he
wanted children. Did he?

If it meant having Bea in his bed, there was no
question about it. He’d gladly take as many as came. He’d have a passel
of rusty-mopped, brown-eyed scamps racing around his feet, tumbling from
trees and sliding down banisters.

But Bea would be the one to bear his children, the
one who would stay here with them, the one who would walk the floors at
night while he ventured far and wide.

He was a damned selfish bastard, but then, so was
every other man of his acquaintance. Women had children. Men provided
for the children they created. He could provide for his extremely well.
He could turn this estate around and make it profitable again. He could
give Bea and their children everything their hearts desired.

All he had to do was convince his wife of that.

He needed a plan.

She liked kisses. He would start there.

“Well, children, it’s obvious I’m odd man out around
you lovebirds,” Aunt Constance trilled as she paraded into the parlor
that evening in a filmy shawl that dragged the ground.

She kissed Bea’s cheek, and turned to a taciturn Mac
leaning against the mantel. “Now that everything is suitably arranged,
you won’t need me anymore.”

Nerves already worn to a frazzle, Bea didn’t
respond, and continued seeking a tune at the piano. An
uncharacteristically idle Mac picked up a brass statuette on the mantel
and put it down again. Every once in a while, she caught him looking at
her, but she remained bent over the piano, not meeting his gaze. His
dark blue tailed coat molded to his shoulders. In combination with his
black velvet waistcoat, it made him look exceedingly elegant, not to
mention dangerously masculine—even if Bitsy had chewed a wet spot into
his cravat.

“Bea would be devastated without your company,” Mac said politely, bowing.

The courteous argument continued throughout dinner,
but all concerned knew how it would end. Aunt Constance was ready for
London. Her duty here had been done.

“I shall find out what Coventry knows,” she declared
as she prepared to leave them alone after dinner. “I doubt that rascal
son of his has told him the truth. And I’ll seek a proper governess for
the children. Just you see, I’ll be quite useful to you, and I’ll be
back before you know it.”

“Actually, my lady,” Mac interjected, “I’ve been
writing a letter to the earl. Perhaps if you learn his location, you
could post it for me.”

“I knew you would come around to seeing the sense of the situation.” She patted his cheek, kissed Bea, and swept from the room.

He was writing to the earl, Bea thought. What did that signify?

She looked up from her music, but her husband was
pacing the room. He’d memorized the location of her father’s card table,
the tripod stand with the Chinese vase, and the side table with her
Wedgwood collection, dodging them without visible notice. Even the
heavily ornate velvet chairs her father had ordered last spring seemed
dwarfed by her husband’s size. He was like a hawk beating his wings
against a beautifully designed canary cage.

He belonged on a sailing ship.

She bit her lip and turned to the next page. She’d left the cage door open. He could fly away anytime he liked. “I know of a—”

“Bea, I’ve—”

Their gazes met and held. He looked so very worried.
And frustrated. Bea tried to ignore the pounding of her heart, but just
thinking of anything remotely in the vicinity of her chest returned the
memory of last night, and her cheeks flushed. He had touched her
breasts, done things to them that she had never imagined could be done.
And now they ached to feel his touch again. She should have spoken to
her aunt, and asked if her feelings were normal.

If she didn’t look at him, her mind’s eye conjured
him in dressing robe and little else, as he had been last night. She’d
seen glimpses of his bare chest. She couldn’t even look at his waistcoat
without wondering what it would be like to touch him, to feel the
muscles hidden there, to know the heat of his skin against hers.

“Bea, look at me, please,” he pleaded. “I cannot carry on a conversation with an ostrich.”

Cheeks pink, she darted a glance in his direction.
He was leaning against the piano beside her. She could reach out and
touch his knee. The tops of his... limbs... were twice the size of hers.
She started to look away, but he reached over and caught her hand.

“Bea, I’m not your father.”

No, he most certainly was not. She had never been
aware that her father had... limbs. Never even thought about it. And now
she couldn’t look away from Mac’s.

She tried to pry loose the lump clogging her throat,
but she managed only a strangled sound. She stared at their clasped
hands. His had faint golden hairs on the back. His hands were large and
hard and brown—and they held hers very gently.

“Look at me, Bea.” He sounded less patient than before.

Obediently, she raised her gaze again. He had
amazingly green eyes, and they swallowed her whole. Even though he kept
his gaze on her face, she knew that wasn’t all he saw.

She’d worn a high-necked gown this evening, but she
couldn’t hide the way it curved outward, practically offering her to his
touch. She’d never thought about how women’s clothes were designed, but
she understood them better now. She rather felt like a goose that Cook
had browned and trimmed and presented for his delectation.

“Bea, I’ve thought about it. I’ve done nothing else but think about it all day.”

She didn’t even have to ask what he’d meant. She’d done nothing else but think about it all day as well.

“I want children.”

She froze. She studied his serious expression. He
looked almost as panicky as she felt, but his jaw had set with
determination. She knew that look. Her heart pounded a little louder.
Surely he must hear it.

“I...” Her tongue seemed too big for her mouth. She
had to say something. “I don’t know what to say,” she finally whispered.
That was brilliantly useful and intelligent.

He looked weary but accepting. “I know. I’ve bungled
this badly. I’m sorry. I knew what I wanted, but I didn’t even think
about what you might want. I’m completely confident that I can make you a
good husband, that I can return your estate to a profit, that I won’t
be here to embarrass you or tell you what to do, just as you planned.
But I thought you understood what marriage entailed.”

She tried to shrink away, but he held her hand too
firmly. She’d said all she could last night and had no courage left to
say it again.

He stroked her hand with his thumb, and faint tingles shivered up her arm.

“I’ve seen you with Bitsy and Bud—”

“Percy and Pamela,” she corrected stiffly.

“I’ll not call the poor kid Percy,” he objected,
then plowed on before she could argue. “That’s not the point. You’re
good with children. You would be a wonderful mother. I hadn’t thought
about it, I know, because I had other things on my mind.”

She knew what other things. She tried to pull her
hand away, but he wasn’t having any of it. “I think I may have found a
governess,” she said curtly, hoping to distract him.

She succeeded. He looked eager. “Where?”

“The Widow Black’s sister is a teacher. She’s
unhappy with her current situation. I don’t know if she’s willing to
sail to America, though.”

“You’ll write to her?” he asked anxiously. “I’d rather have them on board ship before the earl shows up on our doorstep.”

She nodded in understanding. This was a topic she
could handle. “He doesn’t sound as if he’d be a good parent, and if he’s
not married, he’ll hand the children over to nursemaids.”

She hesitated, not certain she ought to broach the
subject that played at the back of her mind. “If he would... I mean, I
could...” Flustered, she tried to find her tongue. “I would keep them,
if I could,” she blurted out hastily.

“Even knowing they’re unabashed rascals and that you know nothing of raising children?” he asked.

She ducked her head again. “You’re right. I’d need nursemaids and—”

He stroked her cheek and lifted her chin until she
looked at him again. “I would give you all the nursemaids and
governesses you would need, but my mother would be devastated if I left
them here. I’ve already told her I’m bringing them. Now I’ll have to
return and tell her I have a wife she’ll never see unless she crosses an
ocean. Unless you’re willing to sail with me...?”

She shook her head sadly. “I’m being selfish.”

“You don’t know the meaning of selfish, Bea. I’m the
one who bears that blame. If you don’t mind caring for my sister’s
brats, then children aren’t the problem, are they?”

No, she supposed they weren’t, not the loving of them anyway. The getting and having of them, however...

He didn’t release her, and she met his gaze without answering.

He stroked her jaw with his thumb, and nodded. “When
the time comes, I’ll give you nursemaids. For the rest—I’ll teach you
to want what I want. Now go on up to bed. I’ll be up shortly.”

He let her go, and, quivering, Bea hastily escaped.

Shaking, she undressed, washed, and donned her
nightgown and a robe. She sat before the mirror she’d used as a girl,
stroking her hair with the silver-backed brush her father had given her
on her twelfth birthday. The familiar objects didn’t soothe her.

She was in her mother’s room. Her husband had a room
on the other side of that door. Her husband. She’d been mad to agree to
this. What had she been thinking?

That she liked his kisses. That he made her feel as
no man ever had. That she didn’t want him to lose those lovely children
to a drunken father and an indifferent grandfather.

So at least one reason had been sensible and altruistic.

She started to braid her hair, but the door beside her dressing table opened, and she could only stare as Mac walked through.

“Don’t,” he said quietly, reaching for the brush. “Leave it down.”

She froze as he lifted her hair off her nape and
carefully unwrapped the braid she’d started. His dressing robe hung to
the ground, but she could tell he wore trousers and slippers. She
wondered what he would look like without them.

He pulled the brush through her hair, then arranged
it over the front of her robe. Cautiously, she looked in the mirror. The
tanned column of his throat rose above the broad expanse of his equally
brown chest. He brushed his knuckles over her cheeks as if he, too,
were looking in the mirror.

“You’re afraid of what you don’t know, Bea.”

Of course she was. Any sensible person would be.

“You didn’t know about kissing until I taught you, did you?”

She could see where this was heading. She scooted to
the edge of her bench and stood up, hoping to find some escape. Mac
stepped into the path between bed and wall, blocking her way. Her gaze
fell to the satin collar of his partially open robe. She could see a
golden brown curl there. Men had hair on their chests.

What else did they have that she didn’t know about?

She looked up rather than consider that question. His broad shoulders filled her field of vision.

He smiled grimly. “I’m not any good at courtship,
Bea. I’m not much better at pretty words. I don’t know how to persuade
you, and I won’t force you. But I want a real marriage, and I think you
will, too, once you understand what that means.”

She would almost rather he forced her. Then it would
be over, and she’d know what to expect. Taking a deep breath,
regretting it the moment his glance dipped to the neckline of her robe,
she sought a sensible reply.

“I don’t think there can be a real marriage if
you’re not here most of the time. And I don’t think children ought to be
left without a father. I’m sorry if I misunderstood what you had in
mind. Please, could we not go back to the way things were? And when
you’re ready, you can sail away and forget this ever happened.”

Mac’s mouth took on a devilish curve she’d not
noticed before, and he shook his head. “Uh-uh, Bea. Now that I have you,
I don’t want any other woman. I like having a wife who fits in my arms,
and melts at my kisses, and makes funny moans in her throat when I
touch her.”

She stared at him warily, even as her insides
ignited like dry tinder at his words. She bumped into the bench as she
tried to back away when he reached for her.