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‘After you produce the thumbscrews?’ she flashed, flinging open the nearest door and marching through it. ‘Drag me down to the dungeons? No doubt this house has them—to go with the warders who appear every time I walk anywhere alone.’
‘The footmen are there for your protection and I very much regret the house has no dungeons,’ he said with what she could swear was real feeling.
‘I am sure you do— Oh!’ She had found the Long Gallery, yards of windows on her left, their panes black onto the winter night and, on her right, portrait after portrait, ranks of them filling the space between the waist-heigh panelling and the ornately plastered ceiling, interrupted only by candle sconces and the carved stone of the fireplace. Charmed into forgetting their quarrel, she stood and stared.
‘Let us call a truce and look at the pictures,’ Marcus suggested, coming to her side. He made no effort to take her arm, but began to walk slowly, glancing up at the wall as he went. ‘That’s the first earl. A dull man with a genius for toadying to Queen Anne. There’s the wife of the Tudor viscount with her eldest son.’
‘Who looks nothing like Henry VIII,’ Nell pointed out.
‘All babies look like Henry VIII,’ Marcus said. ‘These are the early-eighteenth-century portraits.’ Nell dutifully studied a number of sombre gentlemen in magnificent waistcoats and even more splendid wigs, flanked by their ladies who displayed considerably more bosom than she felt was strictly necessary.
‘My father,’ Marcus said, stopping beneath a full-length portrait of a young man holding the bridle of a stallion against a background of rolling parkland. The house could be glimpsed in the distance.
Lord Narborough was extremely handsome in those days. ‘You resemble him closely,’ Nell observed, not adding that the man in the painting looked as though he had not a care in the world while the one standing next to her had two sharp lines between his brows when he frowned. And he frowned a lot, mostly at her it seemed.
‘Thank you, but you flatter me. I do have his colouring,’ Marcus conceded. ‘And here, at the end, are all of us together.’ The family group showed a young couple, a baby in the wife’s arms—that must be Verity—a small boy and girl playing with a puppy—Honoria and the absent Hal—and a serious boy leaning against the arm of his mother’s chair. So, Marcus was frowning even at the age of nine or ten.
‘Delightful,’ she said politely. Somewhere, long since lost, there had been a portrait of her own family. She could just recall having to sit very still on Mama’s knee, bribed with sweetmeats. ‘When was this painted?’
‘Ninety-four. I was nine. It was shortly afterwards that my father become…unwell.’
The year before Papa was hanged. Was he unfaithful to Mama even as they posed for their own portrait? Was he the man Lord Narborough began to refer to at dinner? And had Lord Narborough been so judgemental about this sin that he refused to help Papa when he was in danger of his life? Or was there more to all this? She must read all of the letters and the diary, however painful it would be. She had opened Pandora’s box; now she was incapable of keeping the truths and the hurt locked away. A stab of grief lanced through her, almost upsetting her careful poise.
‘What is it, Nell?’ Something must have shown on her face as she turned from that happy family group, sitting in their sunlit garden. Marcus put out his hand to catch hers.
‘You know where you belong, don’t you?’ she demanded, her own misery and confusion spilling out. ‘Where you come from, who you are.’
‘Of course.’ He was puzzled. Naturally. He had always known who he was, no inner uncertainty of identity or purpose ever rocked Marcus Carlow’s world. ‘And you do not?’
Somehow he had pulled her gently to stand in front of him, his hand on her shoulder. It seemed the most natural thing in the world to take the one step forward that brought her close enough to lay her palm against his chest, and then, she was not sure how, her forehead was against the cool blue silk of his waistcoat.
He was so solid, so capable, so male. She wanted to touch him, to soak up that strength and certainty. She wanted to be held, to have someone stronger, more powerful than herself say that it would all be well, that she need not fight any longer, that there would be enough money for food and the rent, that there were no mysteries. She wanted someone to tell her that the past was past and could not hurt her any more. To tell her sweet lies, give her comfort. She knew it was fantasy, that she could not rely on anyone but herself and yet…
‘Nell?’ His voice was muffled by her hair, gentler than she had heard it before. Something thrummed through her, bone-deep, like the vibration of a great bell, felt rather than heard.
‘I just want to be held.’ The words spilled out as his arms came round her.
‘Shh.’ He rocked her gently, one hand cupping the back of her head, the other circling her shoulders. ‘Let go of it, Nell. You don’t have to fight all the time.’
He understands. It’s so hard alone, so lonely. So cold. She tipped up her face to look at him, to tell him that and found no need for words as his mouth came down and took hers in a kiss that soothed and stroked and lulled her into a dream of safety and certainty.
Marcus’s lips were warm, oh so warm. They caressed her mouth with a gentle pressure until she opened to him with a sigh that was like coming home and she leaned into the strength and the heat and felt her body turn to silk and flame and still he simply held her and spoke, silently, with his lips and his tongue and his strength while she melted, surrendering. At last, at last.
Gradually his breathing quickened; she felt his body tense against hers, and the hand that had curved protectively around her shoulders moved, urgent, seeking, found the swell of her hip, the dip of her waist, up to the curve of her breast and he became just man, just another male wanting her body, wanting her secrets, wanting her surrender.
‘No!’ She pushed him away, as desperate as she had felt in the carriage, the panic clogging her lungs, the pulse wild in her throat. ‘Stop! Stop now!’
Marcus threw up his hands, stepped back, his eyes dark, his lips parted. They looked swollen. Hers must be too. That kiss, that foolish kiss, had been no simple brush of the lips.
It was insanity to have relaxed, to have trusted, to have dreamt. She could rely on no one but herself. Ever. To believe anything else was a delusion. How could she have let herself become so weak? How could she have let herself trust?
‘Nell?’ He reached for her and she batted his hand away.
‘No. No. I am tired. Tired. I did not mean… How can I trust you? Any of you?’ She turned and ran and knew he stood there watching her go.
Marcus flung himself down onto one of the sofas flanking the fireplace and ran both hands through his hair. His shoulder muscles spasmed with pain, but he ignored it. What had just happened? That had been more than just a kiss and far more than a simple response to a woman who seemed unhappy and confused. Why had he done that? God, he had wanted her. Wanted to comfort her,
wanted to protect her and then, compellingly, wanted to take her.
