Page 49 of The Marquess' Wicked Wager
Someone had lit a fire in the massive hearth at the center of the room, nestled between two sets of curved stairs. She had neverseena more majestic home though it was empty and dusted over.
“It’s not much, I realize,” Albert said as their driver hurried in with their affairs. “I have secured a maid and a housekeeper for our stay who will tend to our meals. There is the groom of course, and his son and the groundskeeper live not too far in a lodge of his own.”
Edna held her coat tightly shut, hoping to ward off the cold. “How long do mean for us to stay?” she asked, stepping toward the middle of the room. Each footstep echoed around them.
“As long as it takes for you to realize how foolish you’ve been for following me up here.” He smiled and pulled her in close. “I’m teasing you, Blue.”
“Right, of course.” Maybe shewasa fool. It was not that she wanted to be Albert’s any less for their traveling. It was not that the castle was not perfect. She had left her family behind without nary a word, and the guilt had seeped its way into her mind with each mile they had ticked off. “Do you think I might write to my father and to Violet before…?”Before I break their hearts.
Albert nodded, a little crestfallen. “Of course, Edna. There should be a quill and set in your room. If you change your mind—”
“I won’t,” she protested. “I promise you, I have never wanted anything more in my life.”
“Good,” Albert sighed into her hair. “I am so glad.”
He drew her up the creaking staircases and into their wing. The hallways were paneled with wood, and the walls played host to an innumerable number of forgotten portraits. She wondered whether she might find some similarity between their sitters and Albert, but the generations had been kind to the Clarks to say the least. Although…
“Was this your father’s seat?” Edna asked as they snaked through the corridors to their rooms.
Albert shook his head, his hands behind his back. “My mother’s. Well, my uncle’sreally, but my grandfather left it to my mother as part of her dowry. My father had no interest in a rotting keep on the border.” He sucked in a breath. “If memory serves, Jonathan and my mother grew up here for summers at a time.”
“Then these people…” She motioned for the paintings.
“Maternal ancestors, aye.”
“You never told me her name.”
Albert stopped before a door at the end of the hallway. “Whose?”
“Your mother’s.”
He creaked open the door. “Her name is June,” he breathed and snaked inside.
The room was beautiful, much cleaner than the rest of the estate. Its walls were high trimmed with wood and coated with blue tapestry. A wide, bowing window was on the other side of the room. The ceilings were low, so much so that the four-poster bed grazed against the beams.
“This is yours if you’ll take it.” Edna settled atop the bed while Albert lingered by the door.
“And where will you sleep?” He nodded to a door behind her. They were joined rooms, just like at the inn.
“It’s a little prudent, don’t you think? If we are soon to be wed.”
“It might surprise you to learn that I want to do things right, Edna.” He drifted to the already blazing fire and saw to lighting the sconces. “And that includes not making you my own before it is right to do so.”
At the mere mention of the act, heat pooled beneath her skirts. She had to calm her racing heart, watching him amble from candle to candle, his tall, graceful frame casting shadow on the walls. How the tables had turned…
“I was promised a rogue,” she teased then abruptly regretted it. Perhaps she had been mistaken in thinking Albert a rake, at least in his affection for her. Certainly, they had been clumsy, rash, and blasphemous in their time together...but he had never been anything but respectful.
“I shan’t turn a saint for our wedding, Miss Worthington.” He threw the rushlight into the fire and came to stand before her. He leaned over Edna, one arm at each side of her body, pressing her down until her back was flush with the bed. She thought he might have his way with her then and then, his eyes narrowing for his lust, until he pressed his mouth to her forehead. It was quite possibly thelastplace she wanted those lips. “You shall ease the devil from me in time.”
He pried himself away, and Edna had to stifle a cry as he walked toward the door to his supposed room, bowed, and whispered, “Rest well.”
* * *
By the time Edna had managed to pen her letter and send it off, the sun had risen and fallen again in the sky. She stood by the stables as she watched the secondary groom ride off with her missive. A trifling thing of no consequence, really. She had apologized to her father. She had explained her elopement, knowing he would not understand. It seemed the fate of a daughter to crush her father’s dreams.
Turning back toward the house, she was surprised to find Albert leaning at the entrance to the kitchens. Between them lay a small vegetable garden, but he made no effort to traverse it, choosing to watch her instead with a gentle smile. She had barely slept that night, well, thatmorning, knowing he was so close and yet unattainable, her hunger hounding her without cease. She had never before been so overcome with desire for a man, foranything,and it was an entirely bodily experience. Their wedding could not come soon enough.
“Did Maxim get off all right?” he asked of the rider when she was within earshot.
