Leah Ball - The Mammoth Book of Regency Romance

He was relentless in his savage need. “Gwendolyn,” he rasped, then threw back his head and let out a guttural moan of pleasure that reverberated throughout her entire body and soul.

That flushed face, partly hidden by the black blindfold, and his heaving, muscled chest boasted of the pleasure he had taken. And she couldn’t help but love it.

He settled silently beside her.

She swallowed, noticing that several candles had flickered out and that shadows were beginning to creep towards where they lay on the floor. Surely now he knew how she felt. How she had always felt.

He raked his ruffled blond hair with a hand, shifting against the floor. “I want to know,” he blurted. “For God’s sake, I have a right to know.”

Her eyes widened. So much for him knowing how she felt. After a few harried tries, she stumbled up and on to her slippered feet, fumbling with the upper section of her gown in an effort to shove her bare arms back into the hanging sleeves. “Is that all you have to say to me?”

“Blast you, Gwendolyn!” He snapped both of his hands up and frantically tugged at the blindfold. “Why do you refuse to answer? Because of guilt?”

“No. Because if I do, I will be acknowledging that you never trusted me to begin with. And if there is no trust between us, what else is left of this marriage? Nothing. Absolutely nothing.” Feeling as though her legs wouldn’t hold her up for much longer, she sank to the floor before him.

When Camden ripped the blindfold away from his face and flung it aside, his eyes were instantly flooded with warm candlelight and the earthy colours of his uncle’s study. It somehow snapped his fuzzy, hazed brain and body back into focus.

He blinked at Gwendolyn, who sat near him on the floor. His heart momentarily stopped beating as he wordlessly stared at the beautiful face he had missed so much.

She continued to gaze straight at him, with those blue-green eyes, and lowered her chin ever so slightly. As if not in the least bit pleased with him.

Several golden-chestnut curls, which had fallen from their pinned places atop her head, lay scattered around her bare, slim shoulders. Shoulders that were not properly covered by the lopsided sleeves of her rose-coloured evening gown.

The room wavered and tipped to the side as he leaned over and snatched hold of his shirt, which lay beside him. Her words about his lack of trust bit into him. For she was right. But that still did not explain why Westbrook had her stocking.

“Camden.” Her strained voice brought him back to reality. “Why are you allowing doubts to destroy the last of us?”

He never had doubts before. Not until they had agreed to a mutual separation. All of these months without her had been consuming the last of his soul.

“If you feel an explanation is too much to ask, I will bid you a goodnight.” He stumbled to his feet, veered over to his clothes scattered across the wooden floor and frantically snatched them up one by one. Cravat. Waistcoat. Collar. Trousers. Coat. Boots.

“Camden,” she insisted hoarsely. “It splinters me no end that you would think the worst of me. Based on a silk stocking. Do you know how ridiculous you are being?”

He kept his back to her, his chest heaving. “And rumours, madam. Rumours of him calling upon you at unconventional hours. All that aside, are you informing me that the silk stocking I received was not yours?”

“It is mine. But Lord Westbrook did not acquire it by stripping it from my body, that I assure you. He bribed one of my servants for it in an effort to make you think the worst of me. I will gladly present that servant to you, whom I have since dismissed, if my word is not enough. Westbrook sought to bed me during our separation, but I never allowed it. Not a touch. Not a kiss. And, because of that, he sought to destroy me, and in turn, us. Though I have been suffering, I have been faithful to you, Camden. The question is, who do you believe? Lord Westbrook? Or me, your wife of four years?”

Camden turned towards her, feeling nauseous. And he knew it had nothing to do with all the spirits still warming his blood. He stared her down and whispered hoarsely, “Swear it. Swear it upon whatever love we ever shared. Swear he never touched you.”

“I swear it upon the love I hope we still share. I would never hurt you in so cruel a manner, and I had hoped you would never hurt me by thinking that I could.” She pleadingly met his gaze from where she knelt on the floor, her muslin gown spread out about her in a puddle of rose-coloured cloth. The backside of her dress, which he had unhooked sometime during the height of his fantasy, was still wide open, exposing a pale-blue corset, the chemise beneath it and a few glimpses of pale, smooth skin.

Having known his Gwendolyn for four years of marriage — and a year of courtship before that — he could tell by her eyes, her demeanour and her voice that she was in fact telling him the truth.

He choked, feeling as if the burden he’d been carrying with him all these months fell away. “Gwendolyn,” he rasped, his knees feeling weak. “Forgive me. After you repeatedly denied me of your bed all these months, I have been nothing short of—”

“No, Camden. I ask that you forgive me. You are right. I was distant for too many months, never allowing you to touch me out of an irrational fear of losing another child. But it never meant I loved you any less. I simply never realized our inability to have children was destroying who I was — destroying us.”

He swallowed. “I will not have you blaming yourself. I wasn’t as understanding as I could have been. I expected too much of you.”

“We both expected too much of each other.” She raised her skirts so as not to stumble, and pushed herself up off the floor.

“I … should dress,” he murmured, throwing his clothes on to a chair in a daze. He snatched up his trousers, shoved in his left leg, then his right, and yanked them up to his waist in a single swoop.

His hands shook as he attempted to button the front flap of his trousers. He focused on staring at the wooden floor beneath him, doing his best not to look at Gwendolyn, afraid this was all an illusion brought on by severe inebriation.

Camden yanked his shirt over his head, pulling it into place, and stuffed the ends into his trousers. He pulled on his waistcoat and his coat, and then shoved his feet into his shoes, not caring that his stockings were missing. He looped his cravat around his neck, barely aware of what he was doing.

“Camden, the only good to have come of our separation is that it made me realize I cannot lead a life without you. Please tell me you cannot lead a life without me and that our inability to have children will not keep you from loving me.” Her tear-streaked blue-green eyes met his, causing his chest to tighten.

Her words, at this moment, held everything he had ever wanted from them. But, as always, he couldn’t put his cursed emotions into words for fear they wouldn’t match what was truly in his heart.

The clock chimed once, announcing it was half past eleven. Then there was nothing but the annoying sound of his heart beating against his ears. The mingling of laughter and voices drifted towards them from a distance.

Gwendolyn glanced over at the clock. “I suppose you have nothing to say,” she whispered. She turned and made her way slowly to the locked doors.

He stiffened. No. No, no, no. She couldn’t leave. Not now. Not ever again. He would find the right words to say. He would. And that was his vow to her and to himself from this night forth.

Camden sprinted towards her. He slid to a rapid halt before her — or what should have been a halt. The soles of his shoes skidded across the remaining length of the wooden floor until his backside slammed against the double doors with a loud thud.

He winced and stilled his large frame against the door, trying to appear cool, calm and collected despite the fact that he was anything but. He crossed his arms over his unevenly buttoned waistcoat, cleared his throat and eyed her. “I know I’ve always been a man of few words, which has always been my greatest sin against you. But I … I love you. I don’t need children to make me happy. I need you to make me happy. I didn’t want to admit even to myself that we were incapable of having children. So I can only imagine what you must be enduring.”

Tears glistened in her eyes and her full lips trembled. “Come home with me,” she whispered. “Where you belong. We will find the words we both lack. I know we will.” She sniffed and then rolled her eyes, as if trying to draw attention away from her own sadness. She yanked her sleeves back up her shoulders and turned, exposing the open back of the gown to him. “Would you mind securing all the hooks back into place?”

God help him, what he really wanted to do was rip off the damn dress and take her again. Without a blindfold this time. So he could see everything and show her exactly what she made him feel every time he looked at her. Show her how she put his body and his mind into a state of constant weakness. Even after all these years.

She looked back at him from over her right shoulder, expectantly. She held the back of her gown together with one hand, pulling long strands of her loose hair out of the way with the other.

He stepped towards her and pushed all of her feathery soft curls to the side, so he could see better. His fingers and palms brushed against the sides of her muslin gown as he slid his hands up to her corseted waist. He managed to find the first hook at the very bottom, just above the curve of her backside. He hooked the material together one by one, up the entire back of her gown, revelling in the moment. He was her husband again. It was all he’d ever wanted and needed. That he knew.

As he reached the top part of her gown, just beneath her neck, his bare fingers brushing against the warmth of her soft skin, she whispered, “We must learn to find new ways to love each other. Seeing it will only be us.”

He wrapped his arms around her waist, pulling her backside against him and leaned towards her ear, nuzzling against the warmth of her throat. “We will find endless ways. That I know.”

She caught his hands and squeezed them.

His arms tightened. “By the by, I plan on gutting Westbrook tomorrow morning at eight.”

She stilled. “You … don’t actually mean that, do you? Mind you, yes, he deserves it. But I would rather not see you hang. That would be rather pointless, wouldn’t it?”

That it would. “Then what do you propose I do? I am not letting that bastard walk away from this.”

She nestled back against him, placing her head in the curve of his throat. “I propose we avenge ourselves by living happily ever after and making him look quite the fool.”

He smirked. “I prefer to gut him and move to France.”

She shifted towards him and grinned. “Are you being serious?”

He chuckled and shook his head. “I wish I were. I suppose making him look quite the fool will have to do.” He paused, then added, “For now.” He eyed the clock in the study and then drawled, “Do you think we have enough time to play French Intuition again? Before my uncle returns?”

She turned fully in his arms, her hands sliding up his shoulders and grinned. “I believe we do. Only this time, I intend to wear the blindfold.”

He quirked a brow. “How about we put it around your mouth instead? To keep things quiet.”

Her eyes widened as she smacked him. “Camden!”

He laughed. “It was just a thought.”

“Yes. And how very few of those you have.”

He smirked. “Why do I suddenly feel married again?”

She grinned. “It’s good to see you, too.”

“I think we ought to go home. So we don’t have to rush. What do you think?”

“Even better.” She held out her hand.

“Oh. But before we go—” Camden jogged over and snatched up the pieces of black velvet. He shoved them into his evening coat pocket, sheepishly cleared his throat and strode back over. “For later.”

A sharp breeze tossed the simple cambric skirts of the petite lady walking along George Street, threatening to display much more than her dainty ankles. Her apparel, while not of the first water of fashion, displayed a certain elegance. Dark hair curled becomingly about a pale heart-shaped face, and big blue eyes were shadowed with tiredness.

“Plain and simple” were Lady March’s watchwords when it came to visiting the dressmaker with her eldest niece. “Clarinda is too old now for frills and furbelows. And of what use are they to her anyway, when her place is by my side?”