Page 59 of The Marquess Wins a Wife
“I’ve had enough pity to last me a lifetime. I don’t wantyoursas well.”
Lizzie reached for one of the water pitchers that had been left for rinsing, shading his eyes with one hand as she poured the water through his hair with the other. “I would feel for anyone in a similar situation,” she said, as she set the pitcher down once more, and found a fresh bar of soap set upon a tray. It smelled like bay rum and something tangy and earthy, and she massaged it through her damp hands to work up a lather. “I just wish I had known.”
His head tilted back into her hands as she ran her fingers through his wet hair. “What difference would it have made? I have not lied to you. I told you what the terms of our marriage would be.”
He had. And she had accepted them. But perhaps there had been a very small part of her that had hoped for better.
“You were honor-bound to wed me anyway,” he said. “Youtossed that coin, Lizzie.”
Yes. She had doomed herself, she supposed. “I did,” she said. “But I didn’t know what I was agreeing to. You made certain I didn’t.” And that stung. That she hadn’t merited even that much respect. “Is this to be the rest of our lives?” she asked. “You’ll stumble home drunk at an incredible hour, and I shall be obliged to see you put to rights before you go out and do it all over again?”
He spluttered as soapy water slipped past her fingers into his eyes. “I didn’taskyou to,” he said, resentfully, glaring up at her.
“But you could spend less time drinking and more time at home,” she said. To her shame, there had been a note of desperation in her voice. How was she meant to explain to him, this man who did notcare, how disconcerting it was to be left to her own devices in an unfamiliar house, an unfamiliar town? Was it too much to ask for just a little of his attention?
“And what? Play parlor games?” He gave a dismissive snort. “No, I thank you.”
Her heart sank again. “I see,” she said, and folded her hands in her lap, unwilling to lower herself to begging.
“It’s for the best,” he said, curling his hands around the edge of the tub. “You’ll find things to amuse yourself. London is filled with entertainments.”
No doubt that was true, but the prospect was daunting. And it wasn’t London’s entertainments she wanted—it was the man he had been in Hatfield. The one who had effortlessly relieved her worries. Who had shown himself to be a better man than first she had expected. A man she might have loved.
His ruined knuckles caught her attention, the skin broken and bruised, still bleeding in spots. “What happened here?” she asked.
“Wycombe’s face,” he said with a shrug. “He’s a member of my club. I spotted him there and made it perfectly clear that I was not well pleased by his failure to respond to my summons.”
“Then, Imogen—”
“Will be married before long. Wycombe will be round to sort out the details in the morning. If he knows what’s good for him.” He scraped his hands through his damp hair. “I suppose I’m sufficiently clean. Be a dear and hand me the towel, would you? I can manage the rest on my own.”
“You’re still drunk,” she said even as she rose to her feet.
“Yes, and somehow I’ve managed to put myself to bed without accidentally killing myself for years before you,” he drawled. “I promise I shall even brush my teeth before I retire.”
“As you wish, then.” She smoothed at the skirts of her nightgown as she moved toward the door. Dismissed, no doubt because he had tired of her questions, her interference. It shouldn’t have felt so much like a rejection. He hadn’t enough feeling for hertoreject her, after all. It would do her no good at all to complain of it. There was no reasontocomplain of it. And still it stung, like salt in a raw wound.
You knew all along what this was, she reminded herself as she closed the door behind her, straightened the rumpled bedclothes, and climbed once more into the massive, cold bed that would be her own. The curtains slid back into place, enshrouding her in a darkness that felt inescapable.Begin as you mean to go on, then. You’re no worse off than you were.
Turning her face into the pillow—far softer than the ancient, battered one in her bedchamber at home in Hatfield—she closed her eyes, willing herself to fall back to sleep.
She had almost succeeded when the bed depressed beside her. A warm arm draped itself over her waist as Luke collapsed beside her, burying his face in her unbound hair with a sigh of relief.
“We’ll have a good marriage,” he said, and the minty scent of tooth powder had erased the last vestiges of liquor that might have lingered on his breath otherwise. “You’ll see.” And then there was the light, rhythmic sound of snoring as he succumbed to sleep.
Somehow, she doubted whether their ideas of what constituted a good marriage would share any similarities whatsoever.
Chapter Twenty Three
Lizzie’s eyes opened sometime in the grey pre-dawn to a strange, languorous heat sweeping through her body. The gentle brush of hands rubbing along her skin and the faint burn of stubble across her throat had roused her from a fitful sleep. There was a warm body at her back, the nudge of hips against her own, pressing a hard ridge of flesh against her bottom.
“Luke?” she whispered, her fingers curling into her pillow as his palm cupped her breast through her nightgown, using the linen to rasp over her nipple.
“I hope you had not been expecting someone else.” There was a curl of amusement in his voice, and he nudged the collar of her nightgown over her shoulder, his warm mouth dragging along the flesh revealed there. “Mm,” he murmured against her shoulder when her nipple beaded in his palm, satisfaction saturating his voice. “Come and kiss me, darling.”
It was only that her mind was still clouded with the remnants of sleep that made her turn her head at his urging and accept the brush of his lips over hers, light caresses deepening into the bold thrust of his tongue into her mouth. His hand drifted from her breast down her belly and lower still, soothing the tension tightening her limbs as he tugged the linen of her nightgown up until he could slip his hand between her legs, stroking through the dark curls until his fingers found the heart of her there.
He groaned into her mouth to find her damp, his fingers sliding smoothly across her aroused flesh. “Yes,” he said, breaking the kiss to shove himself up, rising over her. In the low light that seeped in above the curtains, he looked like a Greek god—a marble statue come to life. Of their own accord, her fingers lifted to that small scar upon his arm, where the lead ball had torn through his flesh. “Yes,” he said again, catching her fingers in his own. “Touchme, Lizzie.”
