Chapter Three

L eonard maintained the close inspection he'd held on her. And did not miss the response that fairly blared from her. Her cheeks went ashen, and he almost ran to catch her if she fell. He saw the brave effort she made not to succumb to it. And then he watched as she firmed her frame again to battle him with a hard look.

Damn it! The look was not the only thing going hard around here.

"Your heir is your second cousin." Low and edgy, her tone told him what she thought of his idea.

It did not surprise him she knew that as she took charge of the earldom's finances. He'd been reading her neat hand on the ledgers as year after year the amounts rose with steady certainty. Thinking on that, it could not have been easy for her to make her leadership at the helm of his properties acknowledged and followed. The old solicitor, the man of business, or even the tenants would not have been soft on her, not when she held no claim to a say in the matter. But she'd done it; and multiplied his wealth beyond imagination.

"Would you like someone not of your blood to harvest the fruit of your diligent work?" He coloured the argument with rationality, but his body was all too engaged in the non-rational process of it.

Her head tilted at a disdainful angle. "Your assets have never been mine to start with." A dismissive smirk followed that. "I care nothing for it."

Of course, she did not. She'd built her own wealth and could live wherever and, worse, however, she saw fit. The mere hint had his guts drenched with jealousy. And with the awareness of her independence, it erupted ten times as intense as the morning he read the scandal sheet.

Not on his watch, no.

"You are bound by your duty to the Earldom." He imprinted the most overbearing stamp on it.

Spitting fire glazed her hazel eyes. "I am bound by nothing !" The last word vibrated with a lividity that made it echo in the study.

He looked at her with a commiseration that he almost felt. "I am afraid you are wrong about that, my lady wife." No need to say anymore. Those few words held the understanding that he, as her husband, was entitled to demand whatever the hell he wanted from her.

Her gaze narrowed on him. "You had eight years to do that." Her hands fisted by her side. "The fact you did not only shows you are not so interested in that as you wish me to believe."

Alas, he wanted to have enjoyed her thoroughly every day, or night, of these eight years. And would have done if he'd only had the chance.

At her quip, he rounded the desk and came to stand before her, a determined glare to him. "We both have a duty to the Ramsgate lineage."

Her eyes strolled over him with a glint to them he did not decipher. It appeared to be a mixture of strangeness and boredom. The first he could understand. But the latter? If the idea of him in her bed bored her, he would have to give the matter some thought.

"Mine expired the minute you left me to my devices." She all but held that grudge against him.

"The law has a different take on such issues," he debated.

Her delicate brows arched. "In which case, you can go and make an heir with the law." She gave a dry curtsy. "My lord." Then pivoted and exited the study with contemptuous dignity.

Leonard stood there, contemplating the empty space and trying to cope with her sassy rebuke.

"He said what?" her cousin asked with a dollop of indignation. Matilda, Elvina, and Ophelia sat in the duchess's drawing room with tea.

Ophelia related the highlights of the pearls her husband had delivered in his study. "That he wants an heir after vanishing for all these years."

"Before making demands, he must explain himself," Elvina commented, referring to a plausible explanation for that.

"For the life of me," Ophelia answered, "that is a subject he makes a point not to bring up." And it intrigued her the reason for that silence. The first thing someone who went missing and then reappeared did was to give a detailed account of their plight if plight it had been. The fact gave Ophelia a clue that her missing husband must have been enjoying life somewhere, not giving a whit about what he left behind. Just like Odysseus revelled in the nymph Calypso's charms on that Greek island in ancient Greece's myth. The Trojan War hero stayed on her island for seven years, not caring that he had a wife and son at home he'd not seen in two decades. Should that be the case, Ophelia preferred not to learn of it and burn with humiliation.

"How convenient, is it not?" Matilda questioned. "Eight years away and now he remembers his duty to the Earldom."

What the Countess of Ramsgate refused to admit was her body's turmoil at the idea of making a child with the very elusive Earl. Added to her general disdain for him, she felt like her person had split into several pieces, the ones yearning for the making and the ones demanding she stay away from him.

"The arrogance is baffling, to say the least," Elvina said.

"Cousin mine," Matilda started. "I hate to remind you of this, but did you not move heaven and earth to get a marriage certificate for the very reason of experiencing motherhood?"

Matilda held the right of it. Ophelia had gone through the whole circus because she'd deemed it time to give it a try. With her comfortable wealth and unwillingness to watch the years go by until it became too late, she'd acted. "Indeed." A delicate hand rubbed at her temple with a drop of unease at the contradiction. "But at least I chose the impending father." A gentleman whose unquestionable looks did nothing for her, along with the safety that he would not hurt her because she did not engage more feelings than necessary for the task. A mild attraction and milder consideration. In that, Mr Hamilton proved to be undaunting and as harmless as a puppy. She almost released a laugh at the notion. It described her former betrothed with utter precision.

That same utter precision also gave her the measure of what her husband induced in her. The opposite of safe or settled for that matter. This concept of harmless sat as far from him as the Himalayas and as unsettling. Her heart skipped a beat at the perception. It felt dangerous to even think of it. And there she saw the crux of the issue. The mere thought of producing the said heir, of having that wall of a body as close to hers as it got, the scent of cumin and man caused her cheeks to burn with something that did not resemble repulse. Not at all. Her midriff flipped yet again, and she had to lower her head to her delicate cup to hide her reaction from her friends.

At the tail of that came a cooling thought. The one experience in the area had informed her that there was little in the whole affair for her. With Adonis, she would have gone through it for the sake of the reward. The certainty that what the Earl bloomed in her would come to less than nothing helped her put the plight in perspective. He might stir her fantasies, but in the end, she would be as cold as he left her on that fateful wedding night.

"I dare say that a husband makes everything less complicated," Elvina opined.

Ophelia refrained from answering and guided the conversation to more palatable topics.

Later that evening, the Countess sat in the dining room, eyes fixed on her plate while she tried not to notice that the Earl sat on the other side of the long table, intent on enjoying the meal. She'd made herself take a few forkfuls for the sake of nourishment since the mixed feelings involving him churned her insides to the point she could focus on little else.

She risked a glance at him dressed in dark blue; the tailcoat hugging his muscles in a way impossible to ignore. He lifted his head and caught her observing him. Their eyes met and held, creating a force field that got to her even sitting as far from him as the table allowed. They had only exchanged the standard pleasantries from the minute the meal began, and she did not make any effort to further it.

"Pleasant day?" he asked with a look that told her he noticed her unwillingness to converse.

She could not avoid pursing her lips before she answered. Those falcon eyes fell on them, and she had to lock her nerves not to sink her teeth into the lower one in a sign of tension. "Tea with my lady friends," she replied at last, letting it clear that the pleasant part happened away from him.

"My club has not changed." His comment came without her reciprocating his question.

"I do not think it would," she agreed in a casual tone. Gentlemen's clubs held no reason to change, and noblemen did not care for it.

"It is positive to see that some things remain as solid as ever." He took a draught of wine.

Their marriage did not seem to be one of them, though she did not voice the mordant retort. But she must have sent him a quelling look because one masculine eyebrow arched as though he'd heard her, regardless.

Ophelia kept silent as she moved the food around her plate. An injustice to her skilful cook and one she did not perform often.

"You did not redecorate this house." He spoke again, meaning that he saw no changes here either.

Her hands rested on either side of her plate. "I redecorated the one I bought." Her quip came dripping in a sort of indifference that told him she never intended to remain here.

A side grin pulled his sensuous lips. "I would like to see it."

For that, she would have to invite him, which she would not, of course. She'd favoured practicality and comfort over luxury or ostentation. "James quite liked it." Her needling had his expression darkening to a grim one. She called the gentleman by his first name to make a point. Spot on, by the looks of it.

"Beggars can't be choosers now, can they?" he tossed his wine as his glacial gaze returned to her. "It is good I stopped you from a dull marriage."

She faced his gaze with one of hers. "I will be the judge of that." He would gain no gratitude from her for that.

"You do not agree?" His rumble implied his view held the obvious truth.

"I had my plans laid out in detail." Not that she owed him any explanation, not after his disappearance.

"What would you do with him? Decorate your drawing room?" Amusement replaced his grimness.

With dead seriousness, she threw her napkin on the tablecloth. "I refuse to discuss this with you." Ladylike as you please, she stood up, excusing herself and exited the room.

Her husband had no right to question her, and she would not allow him. The annoyance he begot in her made her seek fresh air in the garden. The later sunset poured light on the colourful flowers even if her attention lay far from them. She'd been trying to set her life in an acceptable direction, groping in the dark to find a suitable solution that would bring her some semblance of contentment; along with the thankless moral standard of the ton assigned to women. She would not apologise for that, even less to the husband who saw fit to return from who knew where at his convenience.

She filled her lungs with the cool breeze blowing on the gentle foliage. It made her feel less strummed as her slippers crunched the pebbles back towards the house. The slippers stopped in their tracks as her gaze collided with her husband standing in her way, legs braced, arms crossed, staring at her in the lamp by a flower bed. When next she inhaled the night air, it did nothing to dispel the flaming colour on her cheeks. Her eyes sought the twilight pouring on his dark hair, making him look like a buccaneer, despite his civilised clothes.

"Have you thought about our talk in the morning?" His rasp bathed her ears in more warmth.

She'd not spared a minute to do that and did not feel shame for it. Her chin tilted up, her stare taking him head-on. "You can adopt some bastard you spawned in these years away."

Those falcon eyes narrowed on her. "I have no bastards." Low and ominous, his retort indicated he did not like her proposition.

Her scoff reverberated in the twilight. "So sure, are you?"

In slow deliberation, his arms fell to his sides, his glare dead on her. "Yes, very sure."

She tilted her head, blonde hair twisted in an elaborate curl. "One wonders how."

"Easy." His fixed inspection took her from hair shining in the remaining light to slippers digging in the gravel and back to her. "The last woman I bedded stands before me."

An unfortunate fact that anyone from here to the docks might hear her gasp. If of indignation or surprise, she had yet to say. "And I am the queen of England." To cover her reaction, she chose this sassy quip.

Rougher than the gravel, his chuckle caressed her skin like sandpaper, causing her to wonder how that bristled jaw would feel on her—everywhere. "Not even the queen had as much fun as a certain lady in these last years."

Her palm flew before she could prevent it from making slapping contact with his unforgiving jaw. And before she could even draw breath, his hands held her shoulders and pulled her to him. Fast, their breaths mingled under the rising stars.

"How dare you?" Her heated snap fumed between them even if her involuntary hands rested on his wall of a chest and would have gone on an expedition had she not kept them still.

Her husband snorted, and she sensed his warm breath soaked in wine. "Only the others had fun, I gather." One arm laced her tiny waist. "We will have to remedy that."

When he kissed her, it was not savage. No, it was all kinds of uncivilised. He did not take it; rather coaxed her lips. And rubbed them with his own and extracted a sound from her that those dock workers would have called a moan. And a wanton one at that. His mouth was firm and skilled, the bristles contrasting with it in such a mindless manner. The whimper, she knew not whence it came. But his knowing groan seemed to understand.

His head lifted mere inches as his eyes studied her jaw dropped and eyes in a haze. Appearing satisfied with what he witnessed, his palm cradled the back of her head, and his mouth came to feast on hers. He took advantage of her open lips and kissed her like she'd never been kissed before. He invaded her in search of her tongue to paint it with his, making her every nerve to respond to him. After that, her lashes fell, and she became pure instinct. Her palms slid up to his shoulders as his arm tightened around her; their too many layers of fabric glued everywhere.

She opened more for him, and he made good on the chance to explore her further. Their tongues danced an elaborate waltz, the blood racing in her veins and producing sheer music. Her fingers dived into his dark strands as they locked into each other with more eagerness.

They kept at it for long minutes until they had to come up for air, their breathless mouths not going farther than a few inches as though unwilling to stay away from each other longer than necessary. Her lashes lifted with foggy slowness.

Under the lamp, his scrutiny took every pore on her face. "That sets the record straight." His rumble fanned her face.

"What?" she breathed as her mind tried to catch up with the onslaught of sensations.

"Our extreme compatibility." His tenor washed over her. "It will make everything much easier, don't you think?"

When her blurred head registered his meaning, her arms pushed him away. She glared her anger at him. "You are a manipulative bastard! That is what I think." Her skirts brushed past him as she gained the hallway, marching to her chambers and beating herself up for being such a fool.

"Ramsgate!" The Duke of Brunswick greeted him as the butler showed the newcomer into the duke's study. "Your visit is timely."

Only now did Leonard see the Duke of Rutherford sitting before the large mahogany desk. The Earl nodded to both men as he took the other chair by Rutherford. "You told me to come see you when I could."

In all honesty, Leonard preferred not to put his finger on this nasty wound, but Brunswick held close relations with the Foreign Office, and Leonard had yet to report on the latest news he carried. He'd delayed this for as long as he could. Now he had to face the music.

As a former transported prisoner, Hadrian also supplied valuable information on the affairs in the south seas, though he did not involve himself as Leonard ended up doing, involuntary as it had been.

"I trust you already started writing a detailed report to the Lord Secretary," Brunswick prodded.

The Earl raked a hand through his rather longish hair. "Yes, well, it has been hectic."

Last night he sat in his study planning to do that exact piece of writing, but the image of his wife kept intruding on his concentration, or lack thereof, to be precise. On his seat, he recollected every single inch of her and those lips that made him almost lose his mind with pleasure.

Both Brunswick and Rutherford sent him an understanding look. They might have an idea of Leonard's plight, but they were not the ones who stayed away for eight years to come back to a wife who wished to have nothing to do with her husband. Even though the aforementioned wife had allowed him to kiss her senseless, and he almost lost it and took her on the grass for whichever servant cared to watch.

He even felt a twisted gratefulness for the escapades that made her so well-versed in the whole thing. But as he sat the night away at his desk, he marvelled at her eagerness, coupled with a certain lack of guile that did not figure in an experienced woman like her. It appeared she'd kept a part of her hidden from the world that she showed only for the fortunate few. And glory of glories, she'd included him in this rarefied list last night.

It became clear to him he had no right to blame her for finding diversions in the years he could not provide it for her, lamentable as he thought it. The very unexpected side-effect of that was that she blew him away with her kiss. Instead of having to teach her way into the bedsheets, he would be ripping the rewards that others had sowed. And who would complain? Not him, for one. Given a half chance, he might taste all of it. Not that it looked like he would succeed, disinclined as she was to further the Ramsgate line. Or to have anything to do with him in any capacity, let alone being his wife in every sense.

"Did you call for the ransom to be paid?" Hadrian broke into Leonard's musings.

The Earl shook his head. "I was incommunicado, remember?"

"But how did you—?" Titus started and had to halt as two women invaded the study like a horde of Huns.

"Enough of this secluded business," Philippa, the Duchess of Brunswick, declared. "Luncheon is served."

Linked arms with her was the Duchess of Rutherford sending a gaze of reprimand to her husband. "You have hidden here for hours!" she protested.

"My love, the Earl has just arrived." Rutherford defended.

"Without my dear cousin, I see." It was Leonard's turn to receive her reproach.

"She had a busy morning." Leonard's excuse came skin deep. He'd not seen his wife, only hearing from Knott that she'd left early on some unspecified errand. If he thought himself the centre of the world, he would say she made it a point to avoid him after that explosive encounter in the garden at sunset. He gave an inner scoff. They should do more of it, if he had a say in the matter. Much more. Even if he had to receive her furious glares every time they were in the same room. The fire she disclosed to him on those occasions got him coming for more. The woman was a coal mine ready to go off at the slightest provocation. And who was he to refrain from it? He wanted the entire world to go aflame. There lay the purest truth.

And she had not joined him for dinner. He'd returned home planning to catch her at the meal. His intentions did not bear fruit, alas. No surprise there.

Her absence made him stride to her private drawing room. Upon knocking, he entered. Only to see her perched on a fluffy armchair, book in hand, legs under her. She looked cosy and at home in a simple dove-grey dress, blonde hair coiled in a bun at the top of her head.

Her head lifted from the book as he closed them inside. The look she cast him appeared rather quizzical. "Is there not enough brandy?" The question came as the only reason she imagined for his presence here, a flaw in the housekeeping.

Leonard had had his share of spirits back in the day. At present, he favoured moderation. "There is plenty of the best." By the looks of it, his wife had been managing the house with skill and attention to detail.

"What do I owe your precious visit to, then?" She allowed her hazel beacons to clasp to him, and the elephant in the room was almost palpable.

Their encounter in the garden lay between them, loud and unspoken. Her delicate skin became tinted with pink, even if she did not divert her gaze. His guts clamoured for a repeat and the very sight of her intensified it.

He walked farther into the room, his eyes never leaving hers. That she did not want to feel this charged pull to him held no secret. But she'd walled herself in this aloof stance of hers and it said of her disappointment in him. "I hope you have reconsidered our duty to the earldom."

His advance or his question caused her to straighten on the armchair, her feet reaching the carpet as though she would uncoil and fight him. "Of course not."

As he reached the twin armchair, he took a seat. "Would you contemplate making a deal?" His elbows rested on his knees, his torso inclining towards her.

Her brows arched. "Do I look like someone who would trust you to the point of making a deal?"

His gaze strode over her, though he knew he should not indulge in her beauty. "An heir and a spare."

For a split second, her eyes widened, and her spine snapped even straighter. Did he read interest there? The expression vanished, and a knowing one replaced it. "Getting desperate, are you?"

His fingers laced together as he pretended not to heed her comment. "After that, you are free to do as you please."

Her brows pleated, her eyes narrowing. "You mean, you are going to do the disappearing act again?" Her tone laced with what he interpreted as hopefulness. But he detected a hint of disappointment at the back of it, too.

A side grin drew his lips. "I could not promise that, but I would be out of your way."

A gleam of suspicion crossed her face. "You are asking me to donate another three to four years of my life to your interests." And that would be if they were fortunate enough to speed up the process from conception to weaning, with or without a wet nurse.

He made his shoulders do a slight lifting and falling. "Yes, well. I can't hasten nature."

Her chin tilted up. "Why would I do that for a virtual stranger?"

His Countess had the right of it. They were strangers to each other, and there was nothing they could do about it. "Just as we were when we married," he defended.

"Not by my hand, I should emphasise." She joined her hands on her very proper lap.

In these years away, Leonard had thought of his wife and what his absence might mean to her. For good or for bad, now he learned that. "I am in favour of dealing with the facts." Indicating the situation they found themselves in at that moment.

Even the unladylike snort did not mar her impeccable poise. "How convenient."

Sooner or later, he understood that he would have to tell her what he'd been up to all this time. He, however, would not do it before talking it through with Brunswick. Until then, he had to tackle her obvious bitterness at his estrangement. "You have to agree that we will both get something from it."

A slow nod moved her head as several moments elapsed between them. "And what of the children?" Her question caught him unawares. Noble people did not care much for the rearing of children, leaving it to the staff. That she mentioned it told of her thoughtfulness in this. And what he should do with it escaped him.

Leonard chose to avoid going that far into the future, unwilling to admit that his children deserved a mother like her. "We can decide about that when the time comes."

Her head gave a decisive shake. "That is not good enough." Her stare met his head-on. "I am not about to leave loose ends only for you to change the rules in the middle of … everything."

He gifted her with a rather smug smirk. "Does that mean you are considering it?"

"It means I want to be clear about where I would stand." She could not be frostier if she tried.

He made a show of rubbing his jaw. "The law says the children belong to the father."

His reply made her stand from the armchair. "That decides it, in this case." And trudged to the exit.

In response, he unfurled himself from his seat. "Wait." Good, that his tone came more command than begging, even if the latter prevailed over the former in his guts. She halted and turned to him. "We can both have a say in their upbringing," he compromised, that being what he conceived to be the right thing to do, pun intended.

Those hazel eyes launched an unconcerned look at him. "Let us have that written, shall we? And I will have it sent to Mr Gresham, my solicitor."

"Fair enough." He allowed for a pause before he continued. "We leave for the country as soon as it can be arranged. Healthier and more private." His observant gaze stayed on his wife until she narrowed her eyes but nodded at last.

And then he watched as she left him behind yet again.

Ophelia looked at the dresses she'd spread on the bed, deciding which she should put in her trunks. She'd sent Ann, her lady's maid, downstairs to polish her walking boots.

She'd not travelled to Oxfordshire in a while. When she managed to assert her authority with the men in charge of her husband's assets, she'd had them send the paperwork to her in town. She did enjoy the country and had invited friends over a few times. But she never regarded the Earl's seat as something of her own. Why get used to its luxuries when the law might declare her a widow and implant a distant heir to take possession of it? She'd planned to buy herself one when her investments bore more fruit. Then and only then would she allow herself to become attached to a country home.

The view of the trunks and dresses syphoned the talk with her husband in her drawing room into her memory. Lifting her head from the book to see his imposing presence looming in the dainty place had unsettled her almost to distraction.

She'd not hidden from her closest friends that her purpose in marrying Mr Hamilton had been the wish to experience motherhood. But then again, the handsome gentleman presented a harmless alternative to the Earl.

That her husband had vanished in thin air infused disappointment in her. Over the years, she'd identified the source for this, and the Earl did not hold centre stage in the matter. What made her feel sorry for his absence had been the awareness that she might never become a mother. At the time of her minute-long wedding night, it did not occur to her she could have conceived. As the weeks elapsed, her mother posed the question, which answer turned out to be negative after all. At eighteen, childbearing had been the last thing on her mind. With her maturing, however, the notion took root, and it hit her she would very much like to try it. With her birthdays slipping through her fingers, she feared it could never happen. She'd witnessed women becoming with child up to their mid-forties, but they'd been matrons with a string of offspring to show for it. That made her guess that the body kept going if it started young.

She'd considered adoption in case the Earldom's heir took over and she moved into her properties at last. Orphanages were full of children whose mothers had to make the hardest choice for lack of conditions to keep their infants. A child, even two, would have brought the fulfilment she sought; she felt certain of it. First, though, she imagined trying it herself, whence the fiasco-filled second wedding.

The moment her husband made that proposal fall between them like a cannonball, everything in her went haywire. With some luck, she would have children to dote on just like she'd dreamed. The catch in the whole affair sat on the father in question. The man erupted all kinds of emotions in her. And he was the very opposite of safe. More so now that he seemed to have ditched that carefree air she'd remembered him by, with the unforgiving body and hardened stance to go with.

Her cheeks burned with the mere notion of, say, the process of begetting an heir and a spare. Scratch that; her entire body went up in flames. As he dropped in the deal, she had to sit with utter stillness so as not to swoon like a ninny at his feet. That she succeeded in putting on a mask of nonchalance was a feat worthy of the ancient Greek heroine Atalanta, for all her insides rebelled against her wishes.

And now, she would accompany the Earl to his seat to fulfil a long-time wish with a man she predicted she would not see ever again; wanted not to see even again. Despite the reactions he bloomed in her with his proximity, she consoled herself that those underwhelming events would be bearable if she kept her eye on the prize, that of holding a newborn in her arms.

With that in mind, she stuffed the most practical dresses from the pile in her trunk and thumped the lid as though she could lock her frets inside and forget about them. As if…