Wicked in the Regency Ballroom: The Wicked Earl / Untouched Mistress. Margaret McPhee
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had lied. Everything had changed. He knew very well what he wanted: his wife. Lucien’s jaw clenched harder. That wasn’t supposed to be part of the deal. He looked at her for a moment longer, then allowed himself one chaste kiss against her hair, her long glorious hair, all tousled from sleep. Quietly he slipped from the bed.
Madeline reached for the warm reassurance of her husband’s body and found only bare sheets. Her fingers pressed to the coolness of the empty linen. Gone. She sat up with a start, eyes squinting against the sunlight filtering through and around the limp square of material that passed for a curtain. His name shaped upon her lips, worry wrinkled at her nose.
‘Good morning, Madeline.’ He was lounging back as best he could in the small chair, watching her.
Surely she must still be dreaming? Madeline watched while his mouth stretched to a smile. A tingling warmth responded within her belly. Most definitely this could only be a dream. Part of the same nocturnal imaginings in which she had lain safe within Lucien’s strong arms all the night through, shared his warmth, and felt his hand upon her breast. Madeline blushed at the visions swimming through her mind, rubbed at her eyes and cast a rather suspicious look in his direction. ‘Lucien?’
‘I thought I might have to carry you sleeping out into the coach. You seemed most resistant to my efforts to wake you.’ He was fully dressed, his hair teased to some semblance of order; even the blue shadow of growth upon his chin had disappeared. Her gaze lingered over the strong lines of his jaw and the chiselled fullness of his lips.
Madeline’s blush deepened as she remembered exactly what she had been dreaming about. ‘I must have been very tired to sleep so long. I’m normally awake with the lark. I don’t usually lie abed.’
‘You appear to be mastering the art well,’ said her husband with a wry smile. ‘Did you sleep well?’
Madeline’s heart skipped a beat. Had last night been real? Or a wonderful dream that followed hard on the heels of a hellish nightmare? The touch of him, the smell of him, the chill in those long powerful limbs. No, she couldn’t have imagined that, could she? ‘Yes. After you … after the nightmare passed, I slept very well, thank you.’
The smile dropped and his voice gentled. ‘Do you dream of Farquharson every night?’
‘How did you know?’
‘You uttered his name aloud.’
They looked at one another. Warm honey brown and pale blue ice.
‘I did not mean to wake you,’ she said.
‘I was awake anyway. As you correctly observed, the chair does not make the most comfortable of sleeping places.’ He paused. ‘You have not answered my question.’
There was a difference about his face this morning. Nothing that she could define exactly, just something that wasn’t the same as yesterday. ‘Yes. He has haunted my dreams since I first met him. Even before … before he tried to …’ She let the sentence trail off unfinished. ‘Every night without fail, he’s there waiting in the darkness. I know it sounds foolish, but sometimes I’m afraid to fall asleep.’
Understanding flickered in Lucien’s eyes. ‘He would have to come through me to reach you, Madeline, and that will only happen over my dead body.’
It seemed that in the moment that he said it a cloud obliterated the sun, and a cold hand squeezed upon her heart. ‘Pray God that it never happens,’ she said.
‘It won’t,’ he said with absolute certainty. ‘I’ll have stopped him long before.’
‘We’ll be safe in Cornwall, though. He won’t follow us there, will he?’
Lucien did not answer her question, just deflected it and changed the subject. ‘Put Farquharson from your thoughts. The fresh water was delivered only a few minutes ago; it should still be warm.’ He gestured towards the pitcher. ‘I’ll go and order us breakfast. Will fifteen minutes suffice to have yourself ready?’
Madeline nodded, and watched the tall figure of her husband disappear through the doorway. So, even down in Cornwall, so far away from London, the threat of Cyril Farquharson would continue.
The hours passed in a blur. At least the weather held fine until the light began to drain from the day. Then a fine smirr of rain set up as the darkness closed, and they sought the sanctuary of the New London Inn in Exeter. It was the same pattern as the previous two nights. He had promised that they would reach Trethevyn by tomorrow. This would be their last night on the road, his last excuse to share her bedchamber. Lucien thrust the thought away and denied its truth. His presence was just a measure of protection. Or so he persuaded himself. If Lucien had learned anything in the years he’d spent waiting, it was to leave nothing to chance. The busy throng within a coaching inn provided opportunity for Farquharson, not safety from him.
Sharing a bed with Madeline had been an unforeseen complication. Lucien’s loins tightened with the memory. He tried to turn his mind to other matters, but memory persisted. No matter how damnably uncomfortable the chair, or the sweet allure of her voice, or, worse still, her soft welcoming arms … Lucien’s teeth ground firm. He’d be damned to the devil if he was stupid enough to make the same mistake twice. Take the chair, not the bed, he thought, and made his way up the scuffed wooden staircase of the New London Inn.
Surprisingly the room was not in darkness. The fire still blazed and a candle flickered by the side of the bed. The small room welcomed and warmed him. Still hanging grimly on to his determination, he made his way over to the chair and slipped out of his coat. Not once did he permit his gaze to wander in the direction of the bed and the woman that lay within it. He just kept his focus on the chair, that damned wooden chair, and started to undress.
‘Lucien,’ she said in a quiet voice.
He stilled, his boot dangling in his hand. Temptation beckoned. His eyes slid across to hers … and found that she was sitting up, watching him, her hands encircling the covers around her bent legs, her chin resting atop her blanketed knees. ‘Is something wrong?’ he asked, hoping that she would not notice the huskiness in his voice.
‘I wondered if you might … if you would …’ The candlelight showed the rosy stain that scalded her cheeks.
Oh, Lord! Lucien knew what it was that his wife was about to ask.
‘I thought perhaps if you were here that … that Farquharson … that the nightmares might not come …’ She glanced away, her face aflame, her manner stilted.
Lucien felt her awkwardness as keenly as if it were his own. How much had it cost her to make such a request? Hell, but she had no idea of the effect that she had upon him. She was an innocent. The boot slipped from Lucien’s fingers. He raked a hand roughly through his hair, oblivious to the wild ruffle of dark feathers that fanned in its wake. ‘Madeline,’ he said gruffly, ‘you don’t know what it is that you ask.’
She gestured towards the empty half of the bed. ‘It seems silly that you should be cold and uncomfortable on a hard rickety chair when there is plenty room for both of us in this bed.’
Better that than risk the temptation that lay in what she was so innocently offering. Lucien opened his mouth to deny it.
‘I do trust you, Lucien.’
She trusted him, but the question was—did he trust himself? The warmth of her sweet gaze razed his refusal before it had formed.
‘Madeline,’ he tried again, raking his hair worse than ever.
She smiled, and pulled the bedcovers open on the empty side of the bed, his side of the bed. ‘And it’s not as if my reputation can be ruined by our sleeping in the same bed. We are at least married.’ She snuggled down under the covers and waited expectantly.
Lucien knew that he was lost. Could not refuse her. Swore to himself that he would not touch her. Still wearing his shirt and pantaloons, he climbed in beside her.
Madeline felt the mattress dip beneath his weight.