she laughed. My God, she could never have had this conversation with Gerald, not in a million years.
‘And what exactly is our marriage then, my lord, if not a sham?’
The gleam in his pale eyes strengthened. ‘You tell me, Lady Montcliffe.’ Finishing the last of his drink, he placed it on the table before standing and drawing her up to him, only the smallest of spaces left between them. ‘I would also like to thank you for your help today.’
‘Thank me?’ Every part of her body was squeezed into a breathless waiting.
‘It is our wedding night, after all, and even a marriage of convenience should mark the occasion in some way.’
His fingers stroked the sensitive skin on the back of her neck as he looked at her, the gold threads in his eyes easy to see at such a close distance. ‘There are secrets on your face that you might one day tell me and I have my own as well. But right now, here, in this room, there is only the vestige of a difficult evening behind us and the hope of a better day before us. Perhaps we could find it in us to celebrate at least that?’
‘How?’ She was wary.
‘Like this.’
His lips came down across her own with care. He did not force or cajole, he merely waited to see what it was she would do.
A choice, melded with words of thanks and gratitude, a dark night outside and a warmth within. If he had demanded more she might have left, but he did not. The touch of his tongue against her mouth, only asking, and his hand resting lightly against the small of her back.
She did not know what happened between them when they touched, but the same feelings as before rose within her, a longing, an affinity, the woman in her whom Gerald had never discovered pressing forward into the hard edge of his passion, two people melded together in a raw and utter need.
How long had she waited for just this thrall, no rational thought or logic. Her hands went on their own accord to rest on the muscles of his shoulders. Hers. To hold and have. For ever.
But he could not love her back.
The pain of loss rose unexpectedly, spilling into her like ruined wine and making her draw away. She saw need flint in his eyes before distance covered it, the lover swallowed by the soldier as he let her go.
One foot, then two, and although the silence between them screamed with questions she was not brave enough to answer. Yet.
* * *
She looked broken and small. He had noticed this thinness from time to time, but tonight it worried him more, her eyes huge in her face, the shadows beneath them dark.
There was something she was not telling him, the shape of it lingering in fear, her breath forcing panic down to a place where she could manage it. If anyone could understand such things, it was him. He tried to set her at ease.
‘I like kissing you.’
Her blush was expected, but her tears were not. He had never seen a woman cry on a compliment before. She wiped them away with the back of her sleeve, hurriedly, as if she had no time for such emotion.
‘My father has had the first of the money transferred into your account, Lord Wylde. It should go some way in helping with...’ She stopped and breathed out hard, as if she had said too much and did not wish for what would come next.
‘With the agreements. Just that?’
She nodded and he felt something shift inside him. Amethyst had been hurt and badly. By Whitely in all likelihood, the husband she had been married to for sixteen months. If she couldn’t talk about it, he would ask Robert Cameron privately about the man tomorrow.
A log dropped in the fire and a shower of sparks lit the grate. Home and hearth.
‘I want you to know that I would not have married you just for the money.’ He dredged up the rest. ‘I married you because I liked you.’
This time her smile was real, no pretence in it or anger.
‘And perhaps I like you back, Lord Montcliffe.’
‘A good start then?’
She nodded and in her eyes was the swell of decision. ‘Gerald Whitely was not the man I thought him to be and my mistakes have made me wary.’
He could see what this admission had cost her by the quickened blood pulsing at her throat.
‘He came to us as a clerk who was recommended by a friend of my father’s. Papa liked him at first, but then he tried to dissuade me from taking the relationship further. I wanted love in a marriage and permanence.’
‘But you did not get it?’
‘No.’ The violent loss in her eyes darkened them, so that they were almost black in the shadows of the room. There could be no mistaking the hatred lurking at the edges, either.
What the hell had Whitely done to her?
‘At La Corunna I realised fate could be cheated because I should have died there with a bullet through my thigh and the blood running out of me in a stream, but I didn’t. Ever since I have been of the opinion that we each have the choice to worry about what has come before or to forget it.’
A frown marred her brow. ‘What of the pain in your leg—does that allow you to forget?’
Her intent told him the question was important and so he took his time in answering.
‘Sometimes it does not. In the cold of winter, on the dance floor, after a ride of some distance, at these times I remember. But here with you, in a warm room and on my wedding night, it ceases to demand a constant attention and so the ache itself is lessened.’ He stopped for a moment, considering his words. ‘You are safe here, Amethyst. I would not ask from you anything you did not wish to give. At least be assured of that.’
Her half-smile wound about the corners of his heart. ‘Gerald said that to me, too, and I was foolish enough to believe it.’
And then she was gone, turning for the door and running, the skirt of her riding outfit swishing as she went.
* * *
She sat as still as she could and listened. To her heartbeat, to her breathing, to the small sound of her hand as it moved against the silk counterpane.
For so long she had felt...sad. Her father had known of it, but he didn’t understand the truth of why. Nobody did. Yet tonight with Daniel Wylde in a room of books and honesty something had changed, some hard part of guilt, leaving room instead for the fluid movement of truth.
She had told him some of it. Just a little, but enough. He could make of it what he would. She knew he had seen the hatred for Gerald in her eyes that could not be hidden, though she wondered about the shame. Had that remained concealed? She hoped so.
Standing, Amethyst walked across to the full-length mirror and simply looked at herself. Against the dark riding clothes her hair caught the light from the candle in a way that surprised her. She almost looked pretty. She had not thought that of herself before, but tonight she did. Perhaps that came from Daniel’s
