Midnight's Wild Passion, page 22
The sweetness of his kiss bolstered her to continue her difficult confession. Her voice was somber as she struggled to contain the dark memories. “It was exciting to have such a handsome young man in the house. My life had been secluded and very dull up until then. Johnny was the first gentleman to pay me any attention.”
“Benton always set female hearts aflutter.” Nicholas’s eyes narrowed to an angry ebony gleam. “And of course you imagine you still love the blackguard.”
His voice was rough with disapproval. And certainty.
Chapter Twenty-one
“Don’t be absurd.” Outrage made Antonia stiffen against the elaborately carved headboard. With unsteady hands, she clutched the sheet to her bare breasts. Talking about Johnny left her feeling naked, both physically and emotionally, and she hated the vulnerability.
Nicholas shot her a disbelieving look from under his lowered dark brows. “You must have thought you loved him at the time.”
“At the time, I was insane,” she said flatly.
“Is that your excuse?” He watched her with such concentration, she felt he counted the pores in her skin.
The silence extended, became uncomfortable. Nicholas lay beside her, his gaze fixed on her and his long body tense with displeasure. If he were any man other than the Marquess of Ranelaw, she’d imagine he was jealous. But she was bleakly aware that he didn’t care enough about her to feel possessive.
Mustering her courage, she told herself without conviction that she’d survive a confession of her sins. Biting her lip, she stared down to where one hand pleated and smoothed the sheet. She sucked in a shaky breath and made herself continue.
“I was bored, and curious about a wider world I was afraid I’d never see. Johnny descended like a visitation from a god, which given what he’s really like contains more than a touch of irony. I was sure a man who wrote reams of poetry must have a great soul.” Her tone soured with self-denigration. “I dreamed of loving someone with a great soul. The people in my immediate vicinity only talked about farming and foxhunting.”
“You were a romantic.”
She winced, although Nicholas hadn’t sounded critical. “That was knocked out of me, at least.”
Except tragically that was far from the truth.
In spite of the ensuing misery, her dreams hadn’t changed much since she was a girl. She still cherished fantasies of everlasting love, even if no respectable man would ever consider marrying her. In the depths of night, she dreamed of a knight in shining armor rescuing her from her barren existence and showing her all the excitement she’d imagined life with Johnny offered.
“Surely someone as smart as you saw through Benton.” Nicholas snapped Johnny’s name between his sharp white teeth as though it tasted rotten. “Once you get past how the bugger looks, he’s not that interesting.”
Nicholas’s anger reminded her she had good reason to loathe Johnny Benton. But her hatred seemed unimportant compared to the disgrace she’d brought on herself and the pain she’d caused her family.
“He swept me off my feet. He promised to show me the Colosseum by moonlight, the Bay of Naples at sunrise, the temple at Delphi.”
“His bed,” Nicholas said harshly, his brows drawing together in a frown.
Her lips twisted with acid humor. “He was vague about his physical demands. He kissed me before we eloped, but he was careful not to frighten me until he had me to himself.”
“The bastard raped you?” Furious horror darkened Nicholas’s expression and his question emerged cutting as a whiplash.
“Good God, no.” She grabbed his hand, which had fisted in the sheets as if to pound Johnny to a pulp. “No, Nicholas. No.”
“Not far off,” he snarled, his black eyes flashing with savagery.
For all Johnny’s legion of sins against her, he’d never forced her. “I always knew Johnny wanted me. I wasn’t that green, even as a seventeen-year-old virgin. He didn’t hurt me. Or not that way. The most shocking part of it all was that I was sure he’d marry me before he took my maidenhead. I was at least that conventional. And innocent. It’s just that the . . . the promise of seeing those places was more of a lure than becoming his lover. He made them sound so marvelous.”
“He told you what you wanted to hear,” Ranelaw said grimly. The hand under hers was taut with anger.
“Yes, he did. I didn’t look beneath the surface. Someone that handsome had to be beautiful inside and out, surely.” Derision for young Antonia’s stupidity edged her words.
“You’re too hard on yourself,” Nicholas bit out. “I can guess how the cur pursued you.”
She released his hand and resumed playing with the sheet. “Of course you can guess. You’re another rake.”
He bared his teeth. “I doubt anyone believes I have a beautiful soul.”
Once she might have agreed. After the last days, she wasn’t so sure. The man who saved her from scandal, who took the care to show her such ecstasy, who fumed on her behalf now, was more heroic than he realized.
“I was a naïve little fool.” Her voice frayed with regret. “I thought I’d return in triumph from my adventures, the wife and inspiration to a literary lion.”
“I still don’t understand why he didn’t marry you.” Nicholas reached to still her fidgeting. More kindness although she knew he’d scoff if she expressed any gratitude. His touch soothed her restless movements even as rage sharpened his features. “Ten years ago, he wasn’t much more than a boy himself, although that’s no excuse for what he did. I still wouldn’t say that Benton’s hardened in evil.” Nicholas paused and she knew he struggled against adding, “Like I am.”
Again her foolish heart insisted Nicholas was a better man than he acknowledged. “No, Johnny’s not deliberately evil. He’s just selfish and weak and convinced the world owes him everything he wants because he’s beautiful.”
She paused. After all these years, she still cringed to revisit her greatest shame. She drew strength from the clasp of Nicholas’s hand. Longstanding humiliation roughened her voice. “He didn’t marry me because he retained at least that much honor. He was married already.”
Nicholas jerked upright. His grip clenched painfully hard. “The devil, you say. I had no idea.”
“Nor did anyone else.” She struggled to keep her voice even, although Nicholas must guess she hated revealing this final evidence of her gullibility. “He’d kept an actress as his mistress before going up to Oxford and he’d got a child on her. I’m surprised the woman got him to marry her—coercion must have been involved. Johnny wasn’t exactly brave when someone threatened his famous profile.”
She paused and moistened a dry mouth. Her idiocy when it came to Johnny’s lies still made her want to cringe away from the light. “I don’t know what happened to the child. Johnny always claimed ignorance.”
Nicholas growled low in his throat. Abruptly he released her and rolled out of bed. Even through her distress, she couldn’t help admiring his complete lack of self-consciousness. There was something breathtakingly animal about the marquess.
She watched him prowl in naked magnificence toward the mahogany chest of drawers. Excitement shivered through her when she noticed the bloody marks her nails had left on his back. For ten lonely years passion had been lost to her. For good or ill, she’d rediscovered passion with Nicholas. The experience was so rich, she couldn’t regret what they’d shared.
“When did you find out?” With restrained violence, he lifted a decanter of claret from the tray.
She tugged the sheet higher over her breasts and told herself she’d come this far, she was strong enough to complete her sordid story. However painful the last part of her confession.
“My father tracked us to Vicenza within about four weeks. We were living in utter penury.” Old humiliation choked her. Through a haze, she watched Nicholas pour two glasses of wine. She drew a shuddering breath and forced herself to go on. “I didn’t see Rome by moonlight or the Bay of Naples. The idea that he needed funds before he eloped with his best friend’s sister never occurred to Johnny.”
Nicholas left his wine on the sideboard while he carried a glass across to her. Sightlessly she stared at it until he took one hand and curled it around the stem. She trembled so badly, the claret threatened to spill. She inhaled and strove for control as Nicholas returned for his glass.
“Useless clodpole.” Nicholas’s mouth thinned with anger even as she read unstinting compassion for her plight in his black eyes.
Her heart lurched against her chest. She didn’t deserve sympathy, but it was sinfully sweet to know he comprehended her grief and anger. She’d never imagined anyone would take her side, least of all this spectacular, profligate man. It was terrifying what his lack of condemnation meant to her.
“Johnny was more disappointed at the collapse of his romantical notions than I.” Again she tried to inject a note of sardonic humor into her voice. Again it rang completely false. “I was always a practical creature, or so I discovered when I had to exist on a pittance in a foreign country. I was lucky Johnny didn’t whore me to the highest bidder. Although it could have come to that if my father hadn’t settled our debts.”
Nicholas stood beside the bed and took a mouthful of his wine. Antonia feared she’d gag if she drank. She stared up at Nicholas. A muscle jerked in his cheek and he studied her with unfathomable black eyes.
“Your father wanted you back?”
A bitter laugh escaped. “Now who’s being romantical? No, he called me a filthy slut and said I was dead to him.” Just speaking the words felt like slicing her skin with razors. “As far as family and neighbors were concerned, I literally was dead. My father put it about that I caught a fever while visiting France with a cousin. When he disowned me, he informed me that my gallant lover was married.”
“The sod claims he still loves you.” Nicholas’s voice dripped disgust. “He went to your family home, but your brother told him you were dead.”
She was too inured to Johnny’s weakness to be either surprised or angry. How typical that after wrecking her life, he pined artistically for ten years.
“Johnny’s just wallowing in the drama.” She didn’t have to pretend ruthlessness. “No man treats a woman he loves as he treated me.”
Nicholas’s hands tightened on his glass until the knuckles shone white. “But do you love him?”
Odd, before this she’d never believed Nicholas had much truck with the idea of love. She stared him direct in the eye and spoke with complete certainty. “I don’t love Johnny Benton. I didn’t love him at the time, although I convinced myself I did. What I loved was the excitement of playing at grand passion.” Her voice lowered into self-loathing. “I was stupid to run away with him. I realized my mistake within a couple of days. And it was a mistake I couldn’t fix by offering my parents contrition and the promise of better behavior.”
Nicholas frowned into his wine. “You were very young.”
“Old enough to know better,” she bit out. “At least my father prevented a scandal. He kept everything quiet. In all these years, I’ve never heard a whisper. Not that hushing everything up would have been difficult. Almost nobody outside neighbors and family knew I existed. I didn’t go to school, I had governesses instead. I hadn’t been to London. Goodness, I hadn’t been as far as Newcastle.”
His regard was searching. “No wonder you felt stifled. It’s cruel to shut a high-spirited, intelligent female away like a pariah.”
“That’s very progressive of you,” she said with a hint of cynicism. And surprise. Yet again Nicholas confounded her easy expectations. She’d never pictured this reprobate as an advocate of women’s rights.
“I have a gaggle of sisters and half sisters. I know the trouble an inadequately occupied woman can cause. If your father possessed a modicum of sense, he’d have realized a dazzling creature like you needed a wider stage.”
Her heart stuttered at his swift defense. Still Nicholas sought to excuse her rashness. And called her a dazzling creature besides. “Thank you.”
He touched her cheek with a glancing caress that she felt to her toes. “You’re welcome, my darling.”
He’d called her his darling once before, when he’d kept her from running headlong into Johnny at the Merriweather ball. The endearment still set her trembling with yearning. Before she could summon any response, pleasure, gratitude, protest, he continued. “Given nobody knew, why didn’t your family take you back?”
“Because I’d rebelled and had to pay the price,” she said bitterly. She swallowed to ease her tight throat. The pain of her banishment stabbed, even a decade later. “My father didn’t want a headstrong trollop as his daughter.”
“So he abandoned you to Benton?” Censure weighted Nicholas’s question.
She shrugged, although she felt anything but indifference when she remembered that awful day Lord Aveson slammed into their shabby room in Vicenza. He’d been so determined to forbid her from coming anywhere near the family again, he’d undertaken the arduous journey through Italy to tell her himself. He wanted no doubts in her mind that he’d ever relent and accept her back at Blaydon Park.
He vastly underestimated his daughter’s understanding. Antonia immediately realized when he arrived and addressed her as if she were lower than the dirt beneath his feet that her actions forever severed all links between them. The revelation of Johnny’s secret marriage had tolled the final grim note in her grand adventure’s death knell.
As long as she lived, she’d never forget the repugnance in her father’s face when he surveyed their squalid bower. He’d found her half dressed trying to mend one of Johnny’s shirts so he was fit to be seen on the street. Johnny lolled in their tumbled bed as the sun rose toward noon.
“My father flung some money at me and told me not to contact anyone from my former life. He told me . . .” She swallowed again as excruciating recollection surged. “He told me he’d shoot me himself if I dared approach the family.”
His face vivid with compassion, Nicholas sat on the bed and took her hand. Immediate warmth flowed into her, combating icy desolation. “But what was to become of you?”
“I doubt he cared.”
Nicholas frowned. “What about your mother, your brother? Surely they weren’t so inflexible?”
“I’d humbled my father’s pride. There was no chance of insinuating myself back into the family.” She smiled sadly and returned the clasp of Nicholas’s hand. Ridiculous really how his touch eased old hurt. “Without Godfrey Demarest, I don’t know what would have become of me.”
Abruptly a bristling silence descended. An unfamiliar expression crossed Nicholas’s face, replacing compassion and warmth. An expression that lanced a chill through her. She couldn’t be sure but it looked like a flash of pure hatred.
Briefly he wasn’t the man who had made love to her. He became a stranger. A frightening stranger.
“Nicholas?” she asked uncertainly, tightening her grip on his hand.
“Yes?” He was back to looking like her ardent lover.
“Nothing.” She must have imagined the loathing. She withdrew her hand from his and steeled herself to finish her sorry tale. “Without Johnny’s protection, I couldn’t stay in Italy. I came back to England.”
She quailed to recall the horrors of that journey. She’d been heartbroken, frightened, almost penniless. Only once she left Vicenza did the full implications of her reckless actions sink in. When she ran away with Johnny, she’d told herself she was daring and brave. After her father disowned her, she knew herself for a foolish wanton, at the mercy of any man who looked her way.
This time she couldn’t mistake the fury blazing in Nicholas’s face. “That bastard Benton could have made sure you were safe.”
“My father threatened Johnny with ruin if he set foot in England.”
“No excuse. I wish I’d bloody shot the worm.”
She’d forgotten what it was to have a champion. “Thank you.”
He looked puzzled. “For what?”
Emotion pinched her throat. By admitting how his understanding comforted her poor bruised heart, she made her vulnerability too clear. “For . . . for listening to me. For not saying I deserved what I got. For . . . for standing up for me.”
“Damned lot of good it does,” he said grimly, snatching her hand and pressing a quick kiss to her palm.
“It’s too late to change what happened,” she said sadly, even as the flick of his tongue on her skin heated her blood. “My father died without setting eyes on me again.”
“Can’t you go back now?”
She shook her head. “I promised I wouldn’t. I disgraced them, whether the world knows or not. My mother died not long after I eloped. My brother inherited. I’m sure he’d rather preserve the family name than welcome a wayward sister. Where could he say I’d been all this time? Too many questions would arise.”
“Questions can be answered,” Nicholas said sharply. “Your brother may not even know you’re alive.”
“Do you think I haven’t told myself that? That I haven’t longed to see my brother again? But my actions place me beyond forgiveness. I must make my way alone.” She blinked away stinging tears and raised her chin. Her voice steadied. “I have a home with the Demarests. Luckily Mr. Demarest recognized me on the packet from Calais and immediately came to my assistance. I owe him my life.”
It was pure chance that she’d shared the vessel with her second cousin, who returned from one of his regular forays into the Paris demimonde. Although they’d met only occasionally, he recognized her immediately. The Hilliard coloring made her noticeable, she supposed.
She’d never deceived herself that Demarest’s kindness was anything less than a careless act of the moment, and in return she’d devoted years of service to his daughter and his estate. But the prodigal thoughtlessness that so often drove her to distraction meant also that he paid no heed to her disgrace. It had cost him little to offer her shelter, and in return, he’d enjoyed playing the gallant rescuer.
