Page 8 of Passions of a Wicked Earl
“I’m not crying,” she said, swiping at the tears trailing down her cheeks. “It’s just that”—she spun away from him—”I barely know your brother. And the things that will … pass between us … I don’t know. I only wish I were more comfortable with him.”
“Tell him. Tell him you’re not ready to be a wife.”
She turned back to him. “Do you think he’ll listen?”
“No, unfortunately. He needs this marriage, Claire, needs the dowry that comes with it. He’ll want to ensure nothing will take it from him. He’ll no doubt feel obliged to, well, to do his duty.”
Duty? Was that all it would be to him? No passion, no fire? Just cold duty?
He touched her cheek. “How truly frightened are you?”
“Truly, truly.”
“Well, then. We just have to ensure that he doesn’t want you tonight.”
“How do we do that?”
He gave her a devilish grin. “Do you trust me?”
“With my life.”
“Good girl. Then listen carefully. Prepare yourself for bed, place a lamp in the window when you’re ready, then leave it all to me.”
And she had left it all to him, she mused now. She’d not wanted to take responsibility for meekly accepting her marriage, so she gladly accepted his offer to make everything all right. In the end, they’d done little more than step onto a path leading to disaster.
She didn’t want to make that mistake again, but God help her, she didn’t know how to avoid it.
The residence was quiet when Westcliffe returned. Servants all abed, and with any luck, his wife was as well. He supposed it would behoove him to stop thinking of her as such. He walked past the parlor. Something caught his eye. He doubled back. A lamp had been left burning on a small table, but that hadn’t drawn his attention. The room appeared somehow more welcoming, but he couldn’t put his finger on exactly why it was.
Inhaling deeply, he detected the faint scent of roses. Claire had been in here. What had she done? Or was her mere presence enough to bring warmth to his residence?
Don’t be ridiculous. It’s because someone left the damned lamp burning.
He extinguished the flame, sending the room into shadowed darkness, the only light now coming from the entryway and the outside gas lamps. Why did the residence have a different feel to it? Because he knew she was here. It was no more than that.
He strode to the library, where no footman waited. The only one to greet him was his faithful dog, who began struggling to his feet.
“Stay, old boy.”
Cooper dropped back down. Westcliffe thought he might have even sighed with relief. He poured two tumblers of whiskey before joining Cooper on the floor, pressing his back against his favorite chair. He dipped two fingers into one tumbler before extending them toward Cooper, who licked them. Westcliffe savored his own glass and released his own sigh.
Claire had blossomed into a beauty. Not that there’d been anything lacking in her when she was barely seventeen—except for loyalty and devotion—but she’d still had the willowiness of a child. She’d been as flat as a well-planed plank of wood. Now she was enticing curves. Her eyes had lost their innocence, and he regretted whatever role he might have played in that transition. Although he suspected Stephen was more at fault there. He doubted his brother had kept in touch with her over the years, as no one else in the family had received letters from him.
In anger over Stephen’s betrayal and his family’s disappointment in what they had considered the young man’s lack of character, Westcliffe and Ainsley had purchased him a commission in a regiment. Ainsley inquired with the War Office from time to time regarding his brother’s whereabouts, but then that was Ainsley’s way, to want to give the appearance that he was a member of a caring and loving family when the truth was they were all much better off going their own way.
Westcliffe saw Ainsley with a bit more frequency of late. It was gratifying to no longer have to hold out his hand. He’d taken Claire’s dowry and invested it, until it had grown into a substantial amount. It seemed he had a knack for determining sound investments. He’d never again be dependent on Ainsley—or anyone—for anything. He’d acquired what he’d always desired: total independence. He couldn’t understand why he felt something was lacking in his life.
He remembered the satisfaction he’d felt when he’d handed over the money for this residence. It was the first thing of any significance he’d purchased without help from Ainsley. That night he’d gotten drunk to celebrate. Alone. Because he had no one who could understand how liberating it had been to require no assistance from anyone. Only now the woman who had made it all possible was sleeping here, in a bedchamber upstairs, her eyes closed, her breaths quietly puffing.
With the help of Claire’s substantial dowry, Westcliffe had been able to rise above his beginnings, to become his own man, to step out from beneath his brother’s long-reaching, suffocating shadow.
“What are we going to do about her, Cooper? Without her dowry, we’d have not had the means to purchase this house or make investments. And you saw the estate each time we visited. She may have avoided us”—her avoidance had actually begun to amuse him—”but I clearly saw evidence of her efforts.”
His overseer, his manager, and his solicitor had often come to him with requests from Claire for funds regarding improvements she wished to make. He’d approved them all. He’d fought not to admit even to himself how much he’d anticipated their visits, reading her letters to them, knowing what she was about. She might have been a silly girl when she married him, but he’d never been able to find fault with the manner in which she’d handled the estate.
Perhaps she’d known that as long as she did a fair job of it, he’d stay in London for the most part and leave her be. Only now she needed him.
He gathered more whiskey on his fingers and extended them to Cooper, who took the offering, his intelligent gaze never leaving Westcliffe. “Damnation, you think I owe her this blasted Season for her sister.”
