Page 22 of Passions of a Wicked Earl
She pulled her feet free of his grasp. Cooper stirred and rolled away from her. She missed the comfort of any touch. Still she plowed ahead. “But you have taken lovers.”
“Our marriage was not consummated. I was a husband in name only. You assured that when you allowed my brother into your bed. If you truly knew my reputation, you could not have expected celibacy of me.”
Shaking her head, she finished her wine in one large gulp that nearly choked her. She waited as the warmth diffused through her. She met his gaze. “Who is she? The lady who smells of lilac.”
“None of your concern.”
“You were with her earlier.”
He finished off his own wine. “I didn’t want her to hear from the gossips that my wife was in London.”
“But you have no qualms about your wife hearing from the gossips that you have lovers? Do you care for her?”
“I’d not spend time with her if I didn’t.”
“Do you intend to flaunt her in front of me?” She felt the tears burn her eyes and forced them back.
He studied her for the longest before saying, “If you knew me at all, you’d know the answer to that.”
“But I don’t know you, Westcliffe, any more than you know me. That is the very reason behind the debacle of our marriage.” His gaze was hard, almost unforgiving, but she didn’t sense that he was angry with her. Rather he was striving to come to terms with something.
Quite abruptly, he was standing over her. “No, Claire, I do not intend to flaunt her.” Bending down, he lifted Cooper into his arms with all the gentleness that one would cradle a child.
Then he was striding from the room, and it was all Claire could do not to call him back.
After settling Cooper into his favorite chair for the night, Westcliffe began removing his clothes, paused, and grinned. His wife, who had feared her wedding night, had watched him undress. He remembered that first night back at Lyons Place and the sense he’d had of being watched. Little voyeur. Perhaps he should have offered to disrobe in closer proximity.
He heard the door to her bedchamber close. He should have assisted her up the stairs. She might not have thought she was foxed, but she was. Otherwise, she’d have not spoken so candidly. Or perhaps she would have. She was correct. He didn’t know her. Everything he knew about her had come from a distance.
He had known that she was the one he’d marry, and he’d assumed she’d fawn over him as all women did. Christ, he’d been an arrogant bastard in his youth to think he didn’t have to woo her at all. He hoped the next man in her life would take more care with her.
He finished stripping down and went to the bathing room. Using water left in the washstand, he thoroughly washed up. When he was finished, he returned to his bedchamber and clambered into bed. He was about to extinguish the lamp when he caught sight of the sheet-covered easel, set at an angle so it faced his bed. “Don’t look,” Leo had ordered.
“Then you shouldn’t have left it, whelp,” Westcliffe murmured as he stretched across the bed, grabbed the sheet, and dragged it down. What he saw shocked him. The artist had only etched in the lines, but he had a deft hand. Claire was looking up at Westcliffe with an expression of soft wonder while he was glowering down at her.
It was a formidable expression. Surely, he didn’t appear that terrifying.
Easing back, he settled against the pillows and continued to study the portrait. Why had Leo chosen to capture that moment? They’d been looking at him for a good part of the sitting. He’d positioned them so the lighting highlighted their best features, so why this? Westcliffe would develop deep furrows in his brow if he wore that expression for every sitting.
His gaze came to rest on Claire. She still appeared young, wary … and yet defiant. She was not brittle like Anne. There was a vulnerability to her. Had he ever truly looked at her, studied her, come to know her?
He was still contemplating the artist’s rendition of them when he heard a distant scraping sound. What the devil?
In spite of the wine that had made her lethargic, Claire couldn’t sleep. Weary of rolling from one side of her bed to the other and staring at the canopy above her head, she’d decided that she might as well determine which bedchamber Beth would have when she arrived.
She’d settled on the one at the far corner, opposite the side where hers was. It provided Beth with the luxury of two sets of windows, and on days when the sun held, an abundance of sunshine. She wanted her sister’s room and her stay to be as bright and cheerful as possible, and she sincerely doubted her husband would play a role in that endeavor.
Upon determining which room would best suit Beth—and place her the farthest from Westcliffe—Claire’s next order of business was to rearrange the furniture. While she knew any sane woman would wait until the morning, when the footmen would be available to assist her, her very presence in Westcliffe’s residence claimed her to be insane, and so she began pushing a chair from the sitting area by the fireplace to a spot in front of the window. How much lovelier it would be to sit in the sun during the summer. She was breathing heavily when she finally had the chair in place. Tucking behind her ear the strands that had worked their way loose of her braid, she charged back over to the sitting area and began shoving the next chair—
“What the devil are you doing?”
She came up so abruptly that she nearly wrenched her back. And she realized that her breathing had not been hard at all, because suddenly drawing in a breath was near impossible. Her husband stood just inside the doorway, wearing nothing except his trousers and a shirt tucked into them. Thank goodness, he’d buttoned his trousers, but he’d not buttoned his shirt, and it hung open to reveal a good part of his chest—displaying a light sprinkling of dark, curling hair. Obviously, she’d not seen as much detail as she’d thought when she’d observed him from her window that long-ago night. Or perhaps he’d only recently acquired it. But it added such an alarming allure of masculinity to his physique. His feet were bare and so large. Why did wearing boots not make them seem so big? Even from this distance, she could see that the ends of his hair were damp, curlier than usual. He should have looked boyish, but nothing about him was anything except manly.
“I, uh—” She cleared her throat. “I was preparing the room for Beth.”
His dark eyebrows drew together. “Is she arriving in the early hours of dawn?”
“No, not for a few more days. But I couldn’t sleep so I thought I might as well …” She let her voice trail off.
