A Brooding Beauty Read online

  “Get back down here this instant!” she demanded, rounding furiously on the driver who was now sitting atop the carriage. Plunking her hands on her hips she tossed him her haughtiest glare, a glare which had never failed to send servants scurrying to do her bidding, but this odious man was not so easily cowed.

  “Yer bluidy trunks are too heavy, ye wee daft lass. Meh horses canna pull wit em,” he shouted down at her. Giving his team of matching bays a sharp crack with the reins, he hooted something in his native tongue and the carriage began to move.

  “What? What did you say? Stop, I say. Stop RIGHT NOW!” Unable to believe she was being stranded in the middle of Scotland, Catherine tried to run after the carriage, but her rain soaked skirts and the deep mud held her captive in the ditch and by the time she managed to haul herself out, the driver and carriage had disappeared over a hill.

  “Oh damn and blast,” she cursed, stamping her foot in pure frustration. More mud splattered up, covering her cheeks and the tip of her nose. “Perfect,” she muttered, her shoulders drooping in defeat. “Just absolutely perfect.”

  The rain was not relenting, and it was starting to get dark. Soon the sun would set completely and although Catherine did not know very much about Scotland, she did know that even in the middle of summer the nights got very cold. She would have to find shelter before she caught a chill and, with her luck, pneumonia.

  Promising her trunks she would return for them soon, she gathered up her water logged skirts the best she could and struck out down the road in what she prayed was the right direction.

  The wind was howling fiercely and the rain lashing bitterly against the windows as Marcus stood to put another log on the fire. A quick glance at his pocket watch revealed the hour to be well past midnight, but despite his bloodshot eyes and the shadows beneath them, he did not feel tired. Moving to the narrow stretch of windows that looked down across the valley he watched the storm in silence, his thoughts hidden behind a mask of indifference.

  He had been sleeping poorly ever since he had come to Woodsgate, and for that he blamed his wife. He could not close his eyes without seeing her face. He could not walk into the bedroom they had once shared without inhaling her scent. It was here they had come after they were wed and it was here she had shyly given him her innocence. She was everywhere and no where, haunting him as no ghost ever had.

  Perhaps he should simply grant her the divorce and be done with it. She would return to London and he could remain at Kensington in peace and quiet. Their paths would rarely, if ever, cross. But that would not, he grimly suspected, purge his ever present thoughts of her.

  Suddenly feeling restless, Marcus turned to the liquor cabinet and poured himself a glass of scotch. He knew he drank too much, but it was the only thing that seemed to numb the ache inside of his body. Settling into a generously upholstered leather chair that faced the fireplace he sipped the drink slowly as he wearily contemplated what had brought him to his point.

  He and Catherine had been so bloody happy in the beginning. It had been his fourth season, her first. Initially he had been drawn to her because of her beauty, but his interest had only been further aroused by her charm and wit. She was intelligent and amusing; entertaining him endlessly with stories and poems during the long walks they took with each other in the beginning of their courtship. When he had stolen his first kiss from her in the shadows of VauxhallGardens during a ball she had actually slapped him full across the face, and then had the gall to lean forward and kiss him. It was, Marcus realized with a faint smile, one of his fondest memories of her. Taking another liberal sip of scotch, his expression abruptly darkened as he recalled the events that had transpired shortly after their wedding.

  He had brought her to Woodsgate for their honeymoon, where they frolicked like children during the day and learned the secrets of each other’s bodies by night. His wife’s shyness had thrilled him, but it had been her sensuality that stunned him.

  Marcus had never claimed to be a saint, and had bedded his fair share of women before marrying Catherine. He had anticipated his wedding night to be filled with tears and vapors, as most virgins were wont to carry on in some dramatic fashion before and after the deed was done, but he should have known better. Nothing about Catherine was ever typical, and their wedding night had been so exception. She had winced when he penetrated her, but then it had been her grasping arms, not the thrust of his hips, which had drawn him into her fully.

  “Do you want me to stop?” he had gasped, his face strained with the effort of holding himself back. Her sweet, innocent kisses and wandering touches had aroused him beyond measure and it was all he could do to stop himself from taking her like some rutting beast.

  Unable to express the feelings that were building up inside of her she had looked up at him pleadingly and with a low chuckle he had dipped even further inside of her before pulling back out, causing her eyes to round and her breath to catch.

  “Is that all?” she had whispered, her voice thick with ill disguised disappointment.

  “No,” Marcus had replied huskily as he lowered his head to nuzzle between her breasts. “That is most certainly not all. Climb on top of me, darling.”

  “On top of you?”

  “Yes. Like this,” he had said as he deftly rolled them both over and held her astride his hips. Her hair had rained down like a golden waterfall, grazing the tips of his nipples as she remained poised above him, uncertain of what to do next. Capturing her lips in a searing kiss that left them both breathless, Marcus gently positioned her over his swollen manhood.

  “You can… do it like this?” she has asked uncertainly.

  His grin had been positively wicked. “You can do it any way imaginable, love. Now ride me. Yes, that’s it. Oh, yes,” he had gasped as she established a thrusting rhythm with her hips, “yes, just like that.”

  Five short days later they returned to Kensington and Marcus had resumed his strenuous work schedule. Unlike many of his peers, he understood that industrialization was growing and times were changing. He did not want to merely sit around and use up everything his ancestors had gotten him by way of titles and bloodlines; he wanted to invest in new inventions and new ideas. For that, he needed to go to America.

  He had not planned on being away from his new bride for so long. When he received Catherine’s letters he had browsed through them and put them away in his desk drawer, too preoccupied to read them in their entirety. Perhaps if he had he would have been prepared for what he would face upon his return. As it was, when he came back to discover his wife was not at Kensington where he had left her, but was rather in London indulging in a myriad of tête-à-têtes with unmarried (and a few married) men, his fury and jealousy had known no bounds. He had left her in the city with barely a word spoken between them, and thus their separation had begun.

  The woman had cuckolded him in front of every peer in London, and she wanted a divorce. Draining the rest of his scotch in one hard swallow, Marcus rose a bit unsteadily to fill his glass again.

  He was about to sit back down when the front door came crashing open and Catherine, soaked to the bone with her hair and clothes in wild disarray, stumbled inside.

  Chapter Three

  Woodsgate was exactly as Catherine remembered it. Small and rustic, the front door opened directly into the sitting room which was currently alight with a roaring fire from the floor to ceiling stone fireplace. Marcus’ mahogany desk, an exact replicate of the one in Kensington, occupied one corner while leather furniture sprawled in haphazard array across the rest of the room. Several bear skin rugs in varying shades of brown and black, trophies left behind by the late Earl of Kensington, Marcus’ Uncle, covered the floor.

  Stepping carefully around the largest rug – she had never abided dead things in the house – Catherine pushed her hair back from her eyes, swept up the bedraggled sleeves of her dress, and untied her cloak before letting it fall unceremoniously to the floor. Linking her arms behind her back in an attempt to
disguise the trembling of her frozen fingers, she drew a deep breath and finally turned to face her husband.

  “The damn coachman left me five miles down the road,” she explained stiffly. “I had to walk the rest of the way.”

  “Catherine?” The shock in Marcus’ voice mirrored the shock on his face. He set his glass aside and stood up slowly, bracing his arms against the sides of his chair. “What the hell are you doing here?” His dark eyebrows shot together. “How did you get here?”

  The man was foxed, she decided instantly. It came as no surprise. Marcus did like his drink, more so now than ever before. It caused her guilt to know that their separation had driven him to the bottle, but it was only one more reason for them to divorce and get on with their lives. “I told you… the coachman stranded me on the side of the road. You will have to go back for my trunks in the morning. If they are not already stolen by then,” she finished darkly.

  Marcus gazed down suspiciously into his half empty glass.

  “Oh for the love of…” In three quick strides Catherine marched across the room, plucked the glass from his fingers, and threw it with all her might. She wasn’t usually so volatile, but these were extenuating circumstances.

  Marcus watched the glass shatter against the stone fireplace in tight lipped disapproval, and when he spun to glare at her grim recognition gleamed in his eyes.

  “That’s right, darling. I am really here,” Catherine said snidely.

  “Get the hell out,” he said in a voice so deceptively soft it raised the hairs on the back of Catherine’s neck. Perhaps he was not quite as foxed as she had initially thought. Muscles coiled and tightened along the length of his arms and shoulders, making her acutely aware that the only thing her husband wore besides a pair of tightly fitted breeches was a thin cotton shirt with the sleeves rolled up past his elbows and the front unbuttoned down to his chest.

  The room grew silent except for the crackle of the fire and the quiet drip drip drip of water as it fell from her skirts and began to form a puddle on one of the bearskin rugs. Faced with the prospect of staring down her infuriated husband, Catherine could now admit it had been a ridiculously poor idea to come here in the first place. Marcus would have been forced to return to Kensington eventually and she would have been far more comfortable waiting for him at the estate with her own maid and a cook and clothes that weren’t soaked through to the skin and – no, it was best not to think about it. She would leave first thing in the morning, but she was not letting her husband throw her out in the middle of the night. The very thought of going back out into the wet and the cold made her shudder, and she thought longingly of her nice dry clothes carefully packed away in her poor abandoned trunks.

  “If you would be so kind as to direct me to my sleeping quarters, I will get ready for bed,” she said. The stubborn tilt of her chin challenged Marcus to refute her words, and refute them he did.

  “You will not,” he said, looking aghast that she would dare suggest such a thing. Releasing his death grip on the chair he began to pace the floor back and forth in front of the fireplace. The flames licked out to highlight the blackness of his hair and the rugged perfection of his profile and it was all Catherine could do not to gaze at him in wordless longing. Swallowing hard, she forced herself to turn away, yanking off her ruined bonnet and crumpling it in her hand as she did so. If only Marcus had grown unfit and fat with age, but alas he still looked every inch the virile man she had first been attracted to. It had been his handsomeness that had caught her attention in the first place, back when she was a naïve girl of seventeen and he a romantic young man of twenty two. He had never looked more beautiful than when she was curled on his lap gazing up at his face, studying the contours of his high cheekbones and the surprisingly soft curve of his lips as he read her Shakespeare or recited poetry.

  Now he was more brooding than beautiful and the years had made his face harsher than she ever imagined it could be. His lips no longer smiled and the soft glow that used to enter his eyes whenever he saw her had long ago been extinguished.

  Why could he not see that she simply could not bear it? Could not bear the contempt and dislike that hardened his features every time he looked at her, when before they had softened with love and happiness. A divorce between them would be a blessing, not a curse, and a new sense of determination swept through her as she thought of the long lonely nights she had spent by herself since he left.

  She deserved to find love again. She was still young, still beautiful. She wanted children. A family. She longed to yearn for someone as she had once yearned for Marcus and he for her. Desperately. Endlessly. Passionately. She had so much passion inside of her just waiting to get out. No, she would not leave. She could not, not until what she had come here to see accomplished was done and over with. Squaring her shoulders, she spun on her heel to face him.

  “I am not leaving, Marcus. Not until you sign the papers and give me what I want.” She lifted her chin and stared him down with all the bearing of a queen despite her wet, mud splattered clothes and tangled hair.

  “Well, you are not staying here!” Marcus turned from the fire to fix her with an icy glare, every muscle in his body tensed and ready for a fight.

  Catherine glared right back. Her husband’s intimidation tactics had stopped working on her long ago. He had raised his voice to her countless times before in anger but he had never resorted to physical violence, and she was confidant he never would. Her jaw hardened as she clenched her teeth. He would not be able to send her scampering out of the room this time. This time she would have her way, her husband be damned.

  “You would send your wife back out in this weather?” she asked, gesturing towards the front windows where the rain continued to pound and lash against the glass. “That would be in poor taste, Marcus, even for you. But if I was no longer your wife…” She gave the idea time to sink and settle before pressing on. “Well then certainly you would have every right to turn me out.” Holding her breath, she waited for his answer. Catherine did not want to suffer the elements, but if it meant being free of her husband once and for all she would suffer nearly everything.

  Marcus rubbed his faintly stubbled chin and stared back into the flames, his expression shuttered. “Is this truly what you want, Catherine?”

  “Yes! Oh, yes it is, Marcus. We are not good together,” she cried, wringing her hands. “Can you not see that? We are not happy anymore. We have not been happy in a long time.”

  A bitter smile twisted his mouth. “Is that what a marriage is supposed to be? Happy? I believe ours is quite conventional by the Ton’s standards, do you not agree?”

  “NO!” she burst out, surprising them both with the sheer intensity of her voice. Marcus’ eyes widened and he actually took a step back. “No,” she repeated more quietly, taking a deep breath to compose herself. It wouldn’t do to lose her temper now. Her heart beat like the wings of a tiny songbird, fluttery and quick, as if her entire body could sense that which she so desired was nearly in her grasp. Throwing pride to the wind, she clasped her hands in front of her in a pleading gesture and gazed at him beseechingly. “If you ever loved me at all you will do this for me Marcus. Please. Please. It is for the best.”

  “For the best,” he echoed mockingly. One dark eyebrow lifted. “Was it for the best when you went tramping around London, lifting your skirts for any rich man who would have you?”

  Catherine gasped and jerked as if he had slapped her. Marcus’ cheeks flared with color, as if his cruel words had shocked even him. Turning, he faced the fireplace, casting his rigid profile into shadow. Seconds stretched into minutes, and minutes into what seemed like hours before he finally spoke.

  “I will grant you your damned divorce, but you will do something for me first,” he gritted out.

  “Anything,” said Catherine immediately. Her heart slammed against her ribcage as a wave of elated euphoria swept over her. Finally... Finally she was but one favor away from being free of her husband forever.<
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  Stretching out his long arms Marcus braced his hands against the wooden mantle and leaned into the flames, letting them bath his face in flickering light. Once again he took his time gathering his thoughts, as if he wanted to weigh and measure each word before it was said aloud.

  “I do not wish to marry again,” he began at last. “I have found I have neither the patience nor the time a wife requires, and a mistress will suit my needs just as well. But a mistress cannot give me a male heir, at least not a legitimate one, and with no other siblings the responsibility of ensuring the Kensington title stays with the Windfair’s rests on my shoulders alone. Grant me a son and I shall grant you a divorce. A fair arrangement, do you not agree?”

  Poor Catherine was so stunned her lips parted half a dozen times before sound finally emerged. “I… you… no, Marcus. No! I will not. Do not ask this of me.”

  He sighed and cast her a pitying glance over his shoulder before crossing the room to pour a new glass of scotch. Raising it to his lips he drank deeply and finished half of it in one hard swallow. “Then we shall continue as we have been. You in the city, myself in the country. It really is an ideal arrangement, my dear darling wife. I do not understand why it burdens you so.”

  Her mind whirling, Catherine bit down on her bottom lip and worried it between her teeth. A child… She and Marcus had tried to conceive after their wedding, but had been unable. She was afraid she was barren, but had never shared her secret fear with her husband. Was the use of her body too high a price to pay for her freedom?

  “I am waiting, Catherine.”

  “Fine!” she snapped out, glaring at him with eyes that shot blue fire. “I will do as you ask, but on one condition.”

  His glass of scotch paused halfway to his lips. “You will?”