Chapter 15

CHAPTER15

“She does not mean to take a lover. She does not mean to disobey her vows,” Edwin whispered to himself, alone in the library where the sound of his aunt’s bellowing laughter could not reach him. “Why is she refusing to listen? Why would she willingly be miserable instead of free?”

He was shocked by what he had heard in the drawing room, yet nothing had tugged upon his heart more than hearing that she had witnessed a poor example of marriage. He could not pretend to have noticed any affection between Joanna’s mother and father, but then had barely acknowledged either of them, nor was affection something he paid much attention to.

“What have I done?” he muttered, confused by the intensity of the regret and remorse that flowed thickly through him, roiling his stomach. “I should have sought a lady with a reputation. I should have sought someone trying to escape a scandal, not… her.”

He could not fathom how he had inadvertently chosen to marry the one lady who did not wish to seek love and liberty on her own terms. She could have done anything, loved anyone, yet she wished to stick to her vows.

“Time may change her mind,” he told himself. “It has not been long since we married. Her resolve might weaken when she meets someone who tempts her.”

Yet, deep down, he knew she was not that sort of lady. Her pride rested upon her loyalty, and he had a feeling it would destroy her if she betrayed her vows.

“I have ruined another life,” he murmured, holding his head in his hands.

* * *

Terror roused Edwin from a fitful nap, in which Joanna had invaded his dreams once more. But instead of a pleasant scene in the gardens, his mind had woven her into his usual nightmares, putting her in his father’s study, in place of his father, and the rope back in Edwin’s hands.

He awoke gasping, staring down at his hands to ensure they did not hold anything that could do anyone any harm, that could do Joanna any harm.

“A bad dream?” her voice sang, causing him to blink in confusion. Was he still dreaming? Was his awakening a cruel twist in the nightmare, allowing him to think he had escaped it while he was still in the midst of it?

Joanna chuckled, drawing his gaze toward the fireplace, where she lay stretched out upon an old sheepskin rug, a book open at her side. Her fingertips held the page where she had ceased reading, her eyes peering at him with a concern that did not match her smile.

Is this her taking my aunt’s advice? Edwin’s stomach dropped, for he did not want Joanna to persevere or attempt to thaw his heart. If anything, he wanted her to return to her childhood home and surround herself with family and friends, before he began to care for her. But he thought about the lock he had removed, the heavy lintel he had dragged away with his bare hands, and the panic with which he had run to her the night the eastern wing crumbled further, and wondered if it was already too late.

“What are you doing here?” he asked gruffly, unable to tell her how ethereal she looked, lying on her side like an artist’s muse in the soft glow of the firelight. But his loins knew all too well how tempting she looked, as they began to burn with a desire that he did not know he possessed.

She propped herself up on her elbow. “Watching over you.”

“Why?”

“First, I came to tell you that your aunt has retired to her chambers, but you were sleeping, and you looked so peaceful that I did not want to wake you. So, I decided to read to make myself sleepy, but it has not worked,” she paused. “You were talking in your sleep. Do you do that often?”

His heart jolted in dread. “I would not know.”

Why are you asking such a question? It is not as though we will ever share a bedchamber… His throat tightened, his mind wandering to places it should not. But how could his mind help from wandering when she was in repose like that, her skin glistening, her slender figure revealed by the way her dress draped.

“No, I suppose not,” Joanna considered, sitting up.

Edwin lamented the change of position, but perhaps it was for the best. He did not want to have to excuse himself again, unable to control the hunger that surged through him whenever his thoughts veered too far toward desire.

“Did you enjoy tea with my aunt?” he decided to change the subject to safer territory.

Joanna smiled, her eyes brightening. “She is quite a woman. I believe we shall be firm friends, though I assure you, it is not to annoy you.” She paused. “She hopes to come to Lord Rotherham’s ball with us, if you are amenable. I have also written to my family, to see if they might join us. I know it is not much notice, but…”

“You miss them?” he said when she trailed off.

She nodded slowly. “Ridiculous, really. I have been away for them for less than a week, but time is distorted in this manor.”

“On that, we are agreed,” he conceded. “There are parts of the manor that stand still, parts that move too quickly, and parts that do not move quickly enough. Yet, in this room, I do not mind the loss of time.”

Joanna tapped the book she had been reading. “On that, too, we are agreed.”

A thick silence stretched between them as they held one another’s gaze, and while Edwin could not speak for Joanna, he did not want to be the first to look away. She had the most captivating eyes—eyes that could make time stand still too, if he were to allow himself to get lost in them. And if he was gazing into her eyes, he was not at risk of gazing anywhere else that might bring on intrusive thoughts.

“Might I ask something?” she said, a short while later.

Edwin nodded.

“We are in this room filled with stories, but there is one story that I do not know. Or, rather, I have reason to believe that I have been given the wrong edition, brimming with mistakes and missing pages.” She drew in a nervous breath that made her bosom rise and fall in a most disarming manner, flooding Edwin’s mind with dreams of her in the garden. “Would you tell it to me, Edwin?”

The sound of his name, spoken in her soft, sultry voice weaved a spell upon him that made his heart race and his blood ignite. His skin flushed with heat, while dormant embers began to pulse in his loins, begging for the breath of passion to stoke them into an inferno.

“Which story are you referring to?” he asked thickly, struggling to restrain his mind and body.

“Your story, husband of mine.” Joanna grazed her teeth against her lower lip. “I understand what this marriage is, but that does not mean we have to be strangers. I would know you, I would know what manner of man you are, from your own mouth, even if you do not deem it necessary.”

He tore his gaze away, for fear of what he might do if he held it a moment longer. The way she bit her lip, the way her bosom heaved, the way her legs were bent to the side of her, elongating her waist and highlighting her hip; it was too much in a room so warm and private, with a comfortable chaise-longue that would have made an ideal, temporary bed.

He took a moment to gather his thoughts, concentrating on a gnarl in the floorboards below. “What would you like to know?” he conceded.

“What is truth and what is not,” she replied quickly, as if she had been contemplating it for a while.

He took a deep breath, not in the least bit prepared for an interrogation. “I shall answer as best I can.”

“Now, you did say that we were to be entirely, brutally honest with one another, so do not be offended by some of my questions. They are only what I have heard,” she continued, bringing her legs around to the front and crossing them. Edwin glimpsed milky, smooth skin, almost to her knee, and rushed to glance back down at the gnarl on the floor.

“Begin as you please,” he urged, swallowing thickly.

Joanna straightened up and pulled her shoulders back, pushing out her enticing bosom. “Did you kill your brother to steal the dukedom for yourself?”

“No.”

She nodded thoughtfully. “Did you kill your brother?”

“No.”

“What of your father?”

Edwin licked his dry lips. “What do you mean?”

“Did you kill him, as the scandal sheets have accused?”

He closed his eyes, his heart sinking. “Yes, but not intentionally, and not for the reasons the scandal sheets have suggested.”

A feminine gasp cut through his heart, seizing his lungs in a vicious grip, as he realized that the moment he had hoped to avoid forever had come to him anyway. In a way, it was a relief, for he fully expected her to keep her distance once the truth was out.

I should have told her from the beginning. Then, she would not have wanted to know me at all, he reasoned, wondering if this might be the thing that set her free, granting her absolute permission to do as she pleased outside of the marriage.

“Why did you kill him?” Joanna’s frightened voice twisted his stomach into knots, surprising him. Deep down, he did not truly want her to be afraid of him, but he supposed it was too late now.

Edwin kept his eyes closed. “He hurt someone dear to me. A lady.”

“A lover?” Joanna choked.

“Not mine,” Edwin replied evenly. “The lady my brother loved. She was the youngest daughter of Baron Greaves. No wealth, no real station, no fortune, no merits beyond beauty and intellect and humor. They had plans to elope. My father decided to intervene—to ruin her.”

Joanna’s breath caught. “Why would that lead you to kill him?”

“Because he had almost fulfilled his wicked scheme when my brother happened upon him in his study, with her,” Edwin replied, his throat sore from speaking so much, and from the barbed memory of it all. “They fought, and my father very nearly beat my brother to death. He might have succeeded if I had not… done what I did.”

“You were protecting him?”

Edwin pressed a hand to his chest, as if that could stop the tide of pain from rising up. “I tried.”

“But, he survived, did he not?” Joanna pressed, her voice thin and wavering.

“He did, but she did not.” Edwin’s voice hitched, catching on a thorn of regret. “In losing her, he blamed himself. He could not live with what happened. Of course, it was all swept into secrecy with money and lies, until only those who were there actually knew what occurred. A year later, my brother followed his beloved. We went to the river for a picnic at his insistence. He seemed cheerful, he seemed healed, but then he did the unthinkable, and I was left to find him.”

Slowly, he opened his eyes, hoping that he did not see pity in Joanna’s eyes. It was a sentiment he could not abide.

He jolted as he discovered that she had moved while he had been talking and had come to sit directly in front of him. There were tears in her eyes, trickling freely down her pale cheeks, but no pity. Sympathy, perhaps, and sorrow, but no pity.

She reached for his hands, taking hold of them. “I am sorry, Edwin.”

“Why should you be sorry? You were not there,” he muttered, fighting to ignore how soft her bare skin felt against his. She was not wearing gloves, and her hands were warm and silky, squeezing him gently.

She nodded. “I am still sorry. I am sorry that I believed, even a little bit, that you were capable of horrors.” A tear caught in the deep bow of her upper lip. “Now, I understand why everyone has been telling me that you are not what you appear.”

“Who has been saying that?” he narrowed his eyes.

Joanna smiled. “It is not necessary for you to know.”

“You owe me a shilling,” he remarked, removing one hand from hers. Tentatively, he brushed his thumb across that deep, tempting bow in her lips, taking away the tear that had collected.

A hiccupping laugh escaped her throat. “I suppose that is only fair, though it will be simpler if you take it from my plant money.” She touched her fingertips to her mouth, where he had lightly caressed her skin. “I really am sorry.”

“You did not know. As you said, I was a stranger to you,” he replied, his own fingertips itching to touch her again, his arms desperate to pull her into an embrace that might soothe the sting of telling his painful story. “What of you? What is your story?”

He had heard some of her thinly veiled struggles when he had gone to the drawing-room door—not to eavesdrop, exactly, but to ensure that his aunt did not say something untoward. But he thought it best if Joanna told him of her woes himself, just as he had shared some of his.

“Another night,” she said, bringing his hand to her lips. She pressed a tender kiss to his knuckles that stole the breath from his lungs. With a pistol to his head, he could not have recalled the last time anyone kissed him or held him or made him forget the past that haunted him.

With that, she got to her feet, standing over him. “I think I shall retire now.”

“Has my story inspired you to flee?” he could not help but ask.

She smiled. “You shall have to find out for yourself, at breakfast tomorrow morning.”

With a curtsy and a hasty “goodnight,” she left Edwin alone in the library. Staring up at his painting, he searched it for any inconsistencies, wondering if he was still in the midst of one of his dreams, for none of what had just happened felt real.