The Marquess Who Loved Me

Chapter TWENTY-SIX


Hours later, after everyone had retired for the night, Ellie shivered as she pulled a voluminous golden veil over her flowing hair. “If Nick wanted me to catch my death of pneumonia, he needn’t have spent forty thousand pounds,” she muttered. “It’s little wonder there are no seraglios in London. We would all freeze to death.”

Lucia sniffed, her temper still high. Ellie had returned to her chamber ten minutes after midnight and found her maid cursing, with fervor and fluency, over the blackened morals of the Claiborne men. “He doesn’t give a fig for your comfort, my lady. But you do look splendid. I’ll allow that he has taste.”

Ellie tugged down the bottom hem of her bodice, but it ended in the middle of her ribcage. She couldn’t cover her belly unless she wrapped a blanket around herself. “I look like a prime fool. Is this how my guests feel when wearing the costumes I prescribe for them?’

“At least the costumes you demand cover everything,” Lucia said loyally.

Ellie noticed that Lucia didn’t answer the question, but it didn’t matter. The dress Nick had sent wasn’t a dress — it was a fitted bodice and a floor-length skirt as seductive as anything she had seen in paintings of the East. The skirt fastened with a drawstring, the bodice with little hooks down the front — but she wore nothing under either piece. It would be quick work to remove them again.

In another mood she would have loved this ensemble. It was gold, worked throughout with gold thread and thousands of amber-colored beads. Lucia had taken her hair down, per the instructions Nick had sent, and rimmed her eyes with kohl. And she’d reapplied Ellie’s jasmine perfume before handing her the veil. The veil didn’t cover her eyes. It covered her hair instead, with two inches of heavy trim that weighed the veil down over her forehead. Without pins to hold it in place, it would be easy enough to drop for him.

Ellie’s hands fisted in her skirts. She forced herself to relax. Lucia frowned unhappily, but she didn’t say anything — what was there to say?

Ellie nodded briskly, feeling like a colonel trying to calm a frightened recruit. “Go to bed, Lucia. Despite his theatrics, I am quite sure the marquess won’t harm me.”

“Why do I feel like I’ve prepared you for a sacrifice?”

Ellie didn’t answer. She loved Lucia as much as any friend she’d had, but at this moment, familiarity was unhelpful.

She turned to the connecting door. She hadn’t used it as a bride. Charles had died before they had ever ventured beyond London. Later, she had dreamed of using it as Nick’s bride instead. As those chances had dwindled to nothing, she had had nightmares of some other woman walking through that door — of him taking a meek, quiet girl who was too stupid to think of what she wanted from life and, in her amiability, unable to make a choice that might betray him.

She was thinking too much. She couldn’t think if she wanted to survive this. She marched to the door, but the heavy sensuality of her golden skirt and the feel of her bare feet sinking into the carpets slowed her stride.

His note had said not to knock. She turned the key in the lock and opened the door before she changed her mind. It was only later — much later — that she wondered why she had obeyed him. He wouldn’t beat her or humiliate her in public. Theirs was a private game, so what could he possibly do to her if she stopped playing? Impoverish her, yes, but he wouldn’t truly force her into his bed.

But at that moment, her choice was made — whether it was by him or by her own heart didn’t particularly matter. She pushed the door open.

Nick sprawled in an armchair by the fire. She wouldn’t be cold, not with the blaze he’d created for her. She hoped the crackle of burning wood would cover the way her breath hitched. He still wore his evening dress, although he’d tossed his cravat aside and unbuttoned his jacket. Somehow, it only made him more dangerous.

His eyes met hers. “Close the door.”

She pushed it shut behind her.

“Come to me.”

She didn’t break eye contact as she walked toward him — she couldn’t waste any opportunity to read his intentions. But as she reached him, she found his eyes weren’t purely lustful. Yes, she saw lust there — saw how his eyes flickered to her hips, then to where her navel peeked above the waistband of her skirt. It wasn’t all there was to him, though. If all he wanted was to take her, he wouldn’t have wasted time waiting for her to change her dress.

When she reached him, he held out a hand for her. But the flat of his palm ordered her to stay rather than beckoning her closer. She shook her head. “What is your plan, Nick? Why am I here?”

“You can guess. Stay still.”

She sighed. “You are much more cooperative in my paintings.”

He leaned back and clasped his hands behind his head. “If you paint yourself looking exactly as you do now, I’ll give you a hundred pounds.”

She resisted the urge to hug her arms around her bare torso. “Never. This dress is obscene.”

“Do you not like it? Only the highest class of woman could afford such attire. I would have brought you a sari instead, but you would probably spend a week trying to deduce how to wrap it.”

“Why the fixation on clothing? Your note indicated I wouldn’t be wearing anything for long.”

“Always so impatient,” he murmured. “I have dreamed of you like this for a very long time. And if I want to spend all night looking at you, I will.”

He seemed good for it. He examined every inch of her, blatantly, heatedly, with a gaze that tracked across her curves as closely as any hands could. In this garb, she was all curves — her breasts molded by the tight bodice, her hips flaring under the heavy contours of her skirt. It was a dress made for dancing, for pleasure — for a sensuality born in heat and sunlight, not a lurid seduction in a cool English bedchamber.

It was also a dress made for her. He claimed to hate her — but his fantasies told another story.

“You are beautiful, Ellie,” he said, after an eternity. “More beautiful than I remembered. I thought surely my dreams had gilded you more than you warranted. They were gross distortions compared to this.”

She shifted uncomfortably. “Spare the compliments, my lord. You can have me without murmuring sweet nothings in my ear.”

His eyes narrowed. “That’s what you want, isn’t it? For me to f*ck you while you stay aloof and untouched by the whole sordid affair?”

It was hard to keep from breaking when she didn’t know what she wanted, but when her mind couldn’t work, ten years of habit took over. She shrugged. “It’s your affair, not mine. But I’ve guests to see to in the morning, so I hope you don’t take long.”

His restraint was admirable — so calm she almost hated him for it. “I have changed my mind about my revenge.”

Her stomach dropped. Her jaw dropped with it. “Are you letting me go?”

His smile was just as grim as anything she’d seen from him. “Never. But I thought the idea of sharing a bed with me would upset you. It only seems to excite you.”

Ellie still gaped. “I’m not excited. I’m pragmatic. You bought your way into my bed. I may as well enjoy it.”

“That takes the shine off my revenge, doesn’t it?”

“What is your plan, then? Make it so bad I don’t enjoy it?“

He smirked. “It is impossible for me to be that bad.”

“Insufferable,” she muttered.

“Call me any name you like. But every time I take you, you are going to feel something. Pleasure, hatred, ecstasy, regret, joy — feel whatever you want. But you will feel. And in my bed, you won’t be the icy queen you play for everyone else.”

She did hate him then. “That wasn’t part of our agreement.”

“I believe it falls under ‘you will do anything I ask in bed or outside it.’ Or was that not comprehensive enough?”

She suddenly wanted to run. She had thought their first two nights had been an anomaly, with a depth of feeling that was inevitable on their first couplings. Surely by now she should be able to stay disengaged.

But if he saw that her behavior was an anomaly — if he recognized that she never shared herself like that — he was determined to make it a habit.

“You cannot control my feelings, Nick.”

“I won’t tell you what to feel — but you will feel. Now come here.”