Shayla Black (33 page)

“
He hit you because you did not enjoy sharing his bed?”

Maddie bit her lip again. When she looked at him, her eyes were haunted yet challenging. “I think he was an unhappy man, and preferred to blame me. I was fortunate that he lashed out physically just once, toward the end of our union.”

Brow wrinkled in concentration, Maddie stared at the far wall, seeming to see nothing. Brock simply waited to see what she might say or do next.

“
It was odd, really. During the incident, Colin’s anger only seemed to increase. After he had gone, I worried day and night he would return and unleash his fury on Aimee...”

Thank God the bastard hadn’t. But Brock was not prepared to let the matter be.

He touched Maddie’s hand in solace, only to realize she trembled. He took hold of her arms. They were cold and covered in chill bumps as he pulled her closer. “Tell me everything that happened.”

“
It isn’t important,” she demurred. “I merely wanted you to understand—”

“
I want to hear all of it,” he insisted. His need for the truth clashed with the knowledge that she needed his gentleness. He softened his voice. “What happened?”

Maddie swallowed and glanced down at her feet again. “A week before Colin died, he came to my room. It was very late. He had imbibed much too many spirits. He smelled of another woman’s perfume.”

“
And he wanted his conjugal rights?”

“
No. He wanted to tell me about his mistress and all the sexual acts she enjoyed performing on him and with him. He pointed out that since other women could respond to him, it was clearly my fault that I did not want him.” She hesitated. “He called me a cold fish, which he had done for nearly two years. But this time he became angry and...he struck me until I fell unconscious.”

Releasing a trembling sigh, she looked into the distance again, as if she were seeing into the past. Again, her stormy gray eyes clouded over with tears she refused to let fall. Brock’s fury warred with his need to hold her.

“
Colin left that night and did not return,” she murmured. “I went to my father for help.” She laughed bitterly. “He asked me what I had done to earn Colin’s displeasure and suggested I be a better wife if I wished to avoid such incidents in the future.”

Maddie’s emotionless voice made Brock even more enraged. He’d always thought Lord Avesbury was a bitter, righteous excuse for a man. Maddie’s account of her father’s reaction proved that. How could any man think his own daughter deserved such callous treatment at her husband’s hands?

“
I hid in my rooms until the worst of the bruises were gone,” Maddie continued. “The morning I emerged, it was to the news that Colin had somehow drowned in the Thames. I donned widow’s weeds, but I felt nothing but relief.”

Somehow, Maddie’s tale made Brock feel better... and worse. With memories of nothing but enmity, violence, and distrust in marriage, he understood her reluctance to wed again. He hadn’t exactly been tender and reassuring in his proposal. Brock sighed. He still resented her refusal to marry him. But as he took in the tangled skeins of Maddie’s auburn hair, tender red mouth, and uncertain gaze, he realized that his anger for her refusal had faded like a much-washed shirt.

It was possible she did not disdain him as much as she loathed the institution of marriage. He hardly blamed her.

Heaving a sigh, Brock could not take his gaze from the woman who had haunted him for five long years. Somehow he would overcome her fears and objections. For Maddie had never encountered a man as determined to wed a woman as he was to marry her.

Brock took her hand in his. “I’m sorry, Maddie. When I began buying Sedgewick’s markers, I knew within hours that he was a cad of the first order. I had no idea he had mistreated you so terribly.”

Maddie shook her head, tangled tresses kissing her bare shoulders. “You couldn’t have known.”

“
Why did you marry him?”

Brock had been thinking the question. He certainly hadn’t meant to blurt it aloud. Indeed, Maddie looked frozen by the inquiry. Impatience for the answer burned his gut.

She hesitated, hugging her knees closer. Her eyes turned wide, skittish. “It’s hardly worth speaking of now—”

“
I’d like to know.”
Patience
, he told himself, gritting his teeth. “Please.”

The reluctance did not leave her tense face. Uncertainty shuttered her gray eyes. The beautiful blush that had colored her skin during lovemaking had vanished, leaving her pale cheeks gleaming waxy in the dim light.

“
Maddie?” He touched her cheek.

“
My father...encouraged the match.” She paused, took a deep breath, cast a cautious glance his way. “At the time, the notion of marrying Colin seemed a sensible one.”

At the time.
He mulled over her words, sorting through what he now knew of her marriage to Sedgewick. It was not a love match. She had never responded to her husband’s touch. The match had seemed merely sensible, in the manner of most
ton
marriages. Brock wondered why the union seemed so sensible after she had agreed to marry him. He’d suspect that Maddie had married because she’d been pregnant, except that, according to records, Aimee had been born nearly a full year after his departure from Ashdown Manor. But had Avesbury learned of their tryst and forced her to marry Sedgewick? Brock knew the old man had told Maddie that Brock had taken money to abandon her. After that, he was certain it hadn’t been terribly hard for Avesbury to convince her to wed someone of his choosing, of her own class.

The thought infuriated and frustrated Brock. All the wasted years and nights he had pined for her… But Maddie had been the one to suffer most.

“
Again, I swear that I will never hurt you. But nothing has changed. I still want you for my wife.”
I always have.

Brock swallowed, wondering if Maddie could hear the scream of the unspoken words between them.

Suddenly, she speared him with a direct gaze. “Can you say you love me?”

He hesitated, then dared to give the truth. “Yes.”

Maddie only wrapped her arms around her more tightly. “That is an easy word to utter when a fortune is at stake. Would you give up this grand railroad you have planned to prove it?”

The question caught him off guard. He searched for a blithe answer that would appease her while maintaining a shred of honesty—and he came up empty.

“
As I thought.” Maddie pulled away and donned her dress as best she could by herself, side-stepping him when he tried to assist.

“
Damnation!” he cursed. “Cropthorne and the others are depending upon me. There is an ungodly fortune to be made! The railroad will be of great value to our economy and our nation.”

“
Well, then, God save the King.”

Brock sighed in frustration. “Maddie, I cannot stop this project now. I fought for the Royal assent and every investor. Nearly every farthing I’ve ever earned is tied up in this. If I bow out now, I will have nothing, not even my reputation. We’re laying the first of the track in less than a week.”

That news clearly took her aback. One look at her face told him that he’d said the wrong thing again.

“
Laying track already? You’re awfully certain of my ultimate surrender.”

Brock sighed. He was handling this all wrong, he knew. “I must be. I have no other choice.”

She made for the door and threw a derisive glance over her shoulder. “Hell will freeze over before I marry you.”

CHAPTER FIFTEEN

“
Mr. Taylor’s coach is here for you,” said Aunt Edith.

Sitting up slowly from her reclining position on the sofa, Maddie set aside the book she had tried all evening to read. Though she had been unaccountably weary all day, the mention of Brock brought her senses alert.

She peered up to find the older woman hovering over her, expression both speculative and uncommonly serious.

Maddie’s heart stopped, then began beating all too quickly. Brock had returned from Birmingham? Finally, after three long weeks. And he’d sent his coach, making his expectations clear.

His assumption should have bothered her. It did not.

Giddy anticipation, which she chastised herself for, mixed with alarm. Aunt Edith knew of her frequent sojourns in Brock’s coach? Certainly her aunt did not know what took place between she and Brock. But perhaps she guessed...

Maddie cast a cautious glance at the older woman, uncertain how to respond.

Edith spoke into her hesitant silence. “His coach had not come in over a fortnight, so I assumed you had finally convinced him that you did not wish to be his bride.”

Though phrased as a statement, her aunt sought answers as surely as the sun would rise tomorrow.

“
No. He’s merely been attending to business elsewhere.”

“
And now he’s returned for you,” said Edith. “Will you go?”

“
Yes.” She had little choice.

Maddie rose to her feet.

She wished she could refuse Brock, wished that she did not yearn for him. But such a refusal was neither practical nor possible. She had given him the right to her body. In turn, he had awakened her passions, enslaved her with them.

Why else would she have difficulty thinking of anything other than him?

“
Vema and I observed some time ago that you succeeded in seducing the man. She said you had the look of a well-satisfied woman. I observed that when he dined here with us some weeks ago. The air between you all but sizzled.”

Though Maddie knew her aunt was not blind or naïve, the reality that Edith and Vema knew she had been intimate with Brock made her flush. If they could guess even half of the exquisite pleasures Brock had introduced her to, Maddie feared she would perish from mortification.

“
I shall take that pink color in your pretty cheeks as a yes.” Edith smiled and pushed a stray ribbon from her blue and lace bonnet away from her face. “Are you aware that you look at the man as if he’s both heaven and hell?”

Startled, Maddie’s gaze zipped to her aunt’s face. “I often think he is. I’m certain he is more one than the other. At the moment, I cannot say which.”

“
My guess is that you have missed him these past weeks.” No hint of a question rang in her voice.

“
I have,” she admitted softly.

These past three weeks had been a trial. She should at least be able to distrust a man who sought to use her for financial gain again. Yet, when Brock held her, he made the harsh truth disappear, made her think only of the care in his touch...

Even in his absence, he haunted her. Since their last parting, Maddie had spent countless hours wondering if he actually loved her, as he’d claimed. When he’d confessed his feelings, Maddie had known a desperate wish for his words to be true. And what did that say about her feelings for him?

Then she remembered all the reasons such a lie would benefit him and shoved the question aside.

“
I understand why you have missed him. Those green eyes are adoring and quite lustful.” The older woman smiled, a combination of something both secretive and wistful.

“
Aunt Edith!”

“
At my age, lust is a treat.” She laughed, her expression self-deprecating.

“
Lust is fleeting and a foolish reason to enter into marriage,” she disparaged.

“
Yes,” Edith conceded. “But I believe he loves you.”

Maddie feared she would never know for certain. In less than five months, they would part ways. Brock would rise in fortune, contrary to his fears, while she...would somehow find enough money to see Aimee to womanhood and herself to the grave.

Maddie frowned at the picture. It seemed bare...lonely.

“
You certainly care for Mr. Taylor far more than you did the odious Sedgewick,” Edith pointed out.

Truer words had never been spoken. She cared for Brock very much, unfortunately. Perhaps too much...

“
He is Aimee’s father,” her aunt pointed out.

Maddie sighed. As if she could forget that fact.

Edith placed a placating hand on her shoulder. “Madeline, your mother was gone to you at such a young age. And I don’t imagine your father was any help in matters of the heart.”

No, Lord Avesbury had always been imminently practical and wanted the same of her. And always, she had been unable to ignore the pullings of sentiment. Blast, why was she so weak?

“
Why not marry Mr. Taylor?” Edith suggested. “He loves you. You more than admire him. And you share a daughter. Put aside your pride, your anger, your fear—whatever stands between you. Life gives one few opportunities to truly know love. Why waste yours?”

Before Maddie could respond, Aunt Edith turned and quit the room, gray head—silly hat and all—held regal and high. In that moment, she seemed neither old nor doddering.