Page 19 of The Marquess Wins a Wife
“It’s not pleasant,” he grunted. “Breathe, Lizzie.”
Her breath whistled through her teeth; a terrible wheeze of sound that irritated her ears as much as it relieved her starved lungs. At last the thread came free, and she laid it aside on the nightstand, reaching for the next.
Another flinch as she began the careful process of removing it. “I’ve written a few letters,” he said, through the grit of his teeth. “You shall need to take them to be posted.”
Though she welcomed the diversion from her disagreeable task, still she bristled be to so commanded. "Post them yourself,” she grumbled. “You’re very nearly healed, my lord. You may leave at your earliest possible convenience.”
“I’m not leaving.” Her fingers jerked at the terse statement, tugging the thread faster than was warranted. “Hell and damnation,Lizzie—”
“You can’tstay.” She reached for the last thread, tamping down her irritation lest she take it out, however unintentionally, upon his ravaged skin.
“I think you’ll find I can do whatever I please.” He stifled a low sound as the thread stuck in his flesh and began to come free only with a stronger tug, producing a slight welling of blood along with it, which she wicked away with the corner of her apron. “For the time being, it pleases me to stay here.”
The blood clotted swiftly with the removal of the last thread and the gentle pressure of her apron to stanch it. “You can’t,” she repeated, chewing her lower lip. The relief that had swelled within her promptly faded as she recalled that there still remained stitches upon the upper swell of his armto remove.
“And how, precisely, had you planned to stop me?” He let her fingers slide free of his as she wriggled out of her awkward position. “I wouldn’t advise shooting me when you’ve just—good God, don’t start turning green againnow.”
Lizzie clapped her hand over her mouth, swallowing fiercely. “Please don’t say such things at the moment,” she managed to say around the cup of her fingers.
“I regret it already.” A droll, dry response. “The gin, if you please. I think we could both use it.”
Anything to give herself a moment of distance, where she could collect herself and, with a little luck, force her stomach out of her throat and back where it belonged. She moved woodenly across the floor, in sharp, awkward paces, toward the desk where the bottle rested. There beside it were a couple of letters, neatly folded to obscure the contents—but across the top of the aged vellum of the first was the inscriptionMr. Cecil Wycombe, followed by a London address.
Her fingers closed upon the neck of the bottle. “You’ve…written to Mr. Wycombe? Why?” The words scratched from her throat, rusty with disbelief. AndCecil! Imogen had gone and gotten herself embroiled with a man calledCecil!
“Revenge,” the marquess said, bluntly, and there was an aggrieved edge to his voice. “Since I’ve gone and done him the favor of taking a ball of lead that was meant for him, the least he can do is wear the manacle you’d have inflicted uponme.” And then, at her blank stare, he rolled his eyes and said, “Awedding ring. I have strings enough to pull to ensure that he comes up to scratch—and happily for your sister, he is not married already.”
Lizzie felt herself go pale. “I hadn’t even considered that.”
“No, I hadn’t thought you would have done.” He nodded toward the letters on the desk. “You’ll post them tomorrow,” he said. “I’ve directed Mr. Wycombe to call upon me here, so if you would like to see your sister safely married ere her child comes…” He let his words trail off into a suggestive silence.
Blackmail.
“It’s your decision, though I would caution you to make it wisely. It’s doubtful he loves her. He’s been cultivating a reputation as something of a rake; he makes his conquest and moves on. It’s likely your sister isn’t the first innocent young girl he’s ruined, and it’sunlikelyshe’ll be the last.” He winced as his remaining stitches pulled with his shrug.
“That’s a bold accusation, my lord,” Lizzie said. “One would think you were arguing from some sort of moral high ground.”
“Not at all,” he said. “Iama rake, but at least I’m honest about it.” The grin that lifted the corner of his lips was so devilish, so unrepentant, that she very nearly laughed in spite of herself. “He’ll do his duty by her,” the marquess said. “But she may find that her grand romance fizzles the moment she becomes a wife.” There was something heavy about the words, something dour and painful lingering within them.
“I think—I think Imogen is more enamored with the idea of what Mr. Wycombe represents than she is with the man himself,” she said. “She’s always hated being tucked away here in the countryside. When she was younger, Papa filled her head with talk of a London Season, of gowns and parties and balls. She was devastated when he left, and then there was no money for a Season, and no one to take her even if there had been.” Imogen had always felt that she had been denied what was due to her, and she had practically seethed with envy every time her friends from the village had gone away for the Season, leaving her behind once more. “I will speak with her—but I suspect she will be less troubled by the prospect of losing Mr. Wycombe’s love when she considers that she will gain entrée to society through her marriage.”
He held out his hand for the bottle of gin still clutched in her hand. “Likely the best she can expect from Wycombe is benign neglect,” he said, pulling the bottle from her fingers to take a drink.
“We’re not unfamiliar with it.” And there was nothing at all Lizzie could do for it—Imogen had made her choice already, and it was a blessing in and of itself that the marquess was willing to prod Mr. Wycombe into doing his duty to Imogen and his child.
She took the bottle he handed back to her. The liquor tore down her throat once more as she took a drink, but the burn was bracing, steadying this time. Her fingers did not tremble as she retrieved the shears from him, and he helpfully turned toward the light, revealing the stitches. She had to kneel to see them properly in the light, and her knees pressed uncomfortably into the hard wood of the floor.
The shears remained stable in her hand as she neatly, carefully, snipped through the remaining threads. She prayed her stomach would remain in its proper place.
“Do you know,” he said, a strange inflection threaded through his voice, “I quite like you here. On your knees.” He hissed in a breath as she tugged at a thread with perhaps a little too much force. “You did that intentionally!”
She hadn’t, actually, but the tone of his voice had suggested a kind of threat, and it had rattled her already-strained nerves. “If you would ceasemaking me nervous—”
“Perhaps Ilikeyou nervous.”
“Perhaps you’re simply a vindictive arse.” The second thread came free, sliding out smoothly, and she reached for the last, catching it in her fingertips.
The scornful rasp of his voice seared her ears. “If you hadn’tshotme—”
