Chapter 12

CHAPTER 12

L ionel stared at the letter in his hands and saw nothing of it. He sat at his desk in the study adjoining his suite of rooms. A fire was burning low behind him, untended, the fresh logs left by Blackwood beside it forgotten. He had decided to fill his mind with correspondence that had been neglected due to the need to prepare for the wedding and the day itself. Now he tried to read, tried to deal with the normal business of his estates, but his mind was elsewhere.

With an exasperated sigh, he flung the paper down, staring across the room. The head of a stag, a twelve-pointer, hung on the wall opposite. He and Arthur had stalked it. Both had taken their shot and neither could be sure which had felled the magnificent brute. Arthur had insisted it was Lionel, and Lionel that it was Arthur. In the end, the toss of a coin had decided where the trophy would hang, Penrose or Thornhill. Lionel stood, walking towards the trophy, remembering the day.

"What would you advise me now, old friend?" he whispered to the ghost of Arthur.

The eyes of the stag gleamed in the light cast by the guttering fire. Gleamed brightly for a moment before returning to the dullness of death. Arthur was not here. He was long gone, snatched away by the malice of a man whose enmity Lionel did not understand. There had been no further attempts on his life, even when he was vulnerable and effectively paralyzed. Attempts after his recovery to speak to Lord Thorpe had been met by a brick wall of silence.

Lionel gritted his teeth. If Arthur could hear him and was seeing him, he would slap his face for the way Lionel had treated Cecilia.

"I am sorry for my weakness. I intended this to be a bloodless, passionless marriage. A matter of weeks to allow the scandal to die. I do not know how to trust!"

"You bloody fool," Arthur's laughing voice was in his head but could have been in the room with him, "she adores you and has done since you first met. If your eyes hadn't been blinded by that trollop Arabella Wycliff, you would have seen it. Stop being a jackass and go and talk to her."

Lionel turned away from the now accusing stare of the stag. He strode angrily across the room to a decanter on a table. Pouring himself an unhealthy measure of Scotch, he tried to put Cecilia from his mind. It was easier said than done.

Three nights ago, she had called to him with a siren song. Bewitched him. His will had broken and he had been unable to resist but equally unable to leave himself vulnerable and open to her. Sister of his best friend or not, she had been years in the company of the Hamilton Hall Sinclairs. He certainly did not trust that branch of the Sinclair family. The circumstances of the scandal that had ensnared him were just so convenient. Too convenient.

His mind was a muddle and he could hear Arthur's incredulous, mocking laughter at his foolishness. Cecilia was by far the most beautiful, intelligent, and fascinating woman he had ever met. She had drawn his eyes on that fateful day, five years ago and had not let go. But, Lionel had long ago decided there was only room for one passion in his life. One goal. Revenge for the murder of his friend and the failed attempt to take his life.

For three days and nights, he had managed to avoid her, dining alone and occupying himself either with the business of the Dukedom or his own, more private business. Now it was telling on him. He knew she was there, within reach. Knew that he had only to visit her chambers and she would welcome him, as she had done that night. The knowledge that such pleasure, such happiness was within such simple reach was maddening. Because he could not trust that it was not a trap. Because he had made a promise over the body of Arthur Sinclair. Nothing could be allowed to interfere with that. He simply needed to remain strong, to keep Cecilia at arm's length. To forget that sweet, angelic voice.

The melody haunted the air around him and he tossed back the Scotch in an attempt to drown it out. The burning liquid scalded his throat and began to heat his stomach. But it did nothing to distract him.

With the voice came a body. A body he had touched and tasted. A body he had used and allowed himself to be used by. Pale in the darkness of night. Moaning and whispering his name. Writhing and clawing at him, leaving scratches that burned his back and shoulders. He poured another drink and it swiftly followed the first.

A knock came at the door and for one wild moment, he believed it to be Cecilia, pursuing him after their meeting earlier in the music room. He felt too weak to face her and resist, the thought skeins of wool in the paws of a cat. Then reason asserted itself. The knock had been a heavy rap, announcing Blackwood. Carrying his glass, Lionel went back to the desk, throwing himself down into the chair and taking a swallow of the amber liquid.

"Come in!" he bellowed.

"I shall, without the need for shouting," Blackwood grumbled as he entered the room.

"I am rather busy, Blackwood," Lionel muttered, spreading his hand over the letters on the desk.

"Aye, I can see with what," Blackwood replied, looking from the decanter to the half-empty glass in Lionel's hand.

"What is it?" Lionel asked.

"I thought you should know, Your Grace, that your wife is moving the paintings from outside the music room."

Lionel sat up straight, thudding the glass down on the table. The contents spilled across his hand. The music room and its surroundings had been left alone since his father's death. He had rarely visited it. Today he had gone there on a whim, driven by an instinct he did not quite understand. And had found Cecilia there. His conversation with her, more brusque than he had intended, had driven from his mind the need to tell her.

"She does not know about the prohibition. But your staff should," he snarled.

"She is moving them herself with Peggy's help. I cannot say if Peggy is aware of your feelings about the music room," Blackwood continued.

Lionel stood abruptly. "I will not attach blame to a young girl who knows no better. But you will ensure she knows in the future. Where are the paintings being moved to?"

"Her Grace's quarters, Your Grace," Blackwood replied.

Lionel drained the last of his Scotch and strode from the room. He had not asked which paintings she was moving but an instinct told him which it would be. When he reached the hallway leading to her rooms, he found Cecilia and Peggy struggling to lift one of the landscapes that he had painted. It was sizable and, with its gilt frame, heavy.

As he approached, Peggy looked around and the movement was enough to disrupt her grip. A corner of the frame slipped from her hand. Lionel caught it before it could hit the floor. Peggy stepped away as he took the full weight, muscles bursting out in his neck from the strain. From around the frame, his eyes met Cecilia's. She still held her share of the weight and her fingers slipped down the frame to his own.

"You should not have tried to lift something so heavy without aid," Lionel grated.

"We managed it this far. But the effort was tiring," Cecilia began.

With a grunt and a sharp pulse in his weak leg, he pulled it from her and laid it to rest against a wall.

"Peggy, the music room and its hallway are out of bounds. Blackwood will tell you as much," Lionel said, "go along now, about your duties."

Peggy looked alarmed, face flushed. She dropped into a curtsy and scurried away.

"She should not get into any trouble over this. She was obeying my orders," Cecilia defended.

"I understand, and she will not. I would not punish someone when they did not know they did wrong."

"And why is it wrong? These paintings are very fine indeed. Works of great skill."

"Amateur daubing," Lionel said dismissively.

He looked at the pictures she had already hung. There had been half a dozen in the music room hallway and the same again in the music room itself. Cecilia seemed to have found almost all of them.

"Hardly. I am no expert but I love all of them. Especially the picture of Penrose," Cecilia murmured as she turned her gaze to the painting too.

Lionel's eyes scanned the walls for the painting in question but he could not see it.

"Where is it?" he asked.

"I have hung it inside. I'll show you."

She opened a door and disappeared inside. Lionel followed her to her bedchamber, seeing the picture hung opposite the bed, where Cecilia might look at it as she lay, awaiting sleep.

"When did you paint it?" she asked. "I do not recognize it as belonging to Arthur's time as lord."

"It was as a present to him on his inheritance. I found some engravings of the house from the time your family acquired it, during the reign of William and Mary."

"And from that, you created this?" Cecilia cooed in awe, drifting a hand across the surface. "It is remarkable."

"As I said, I am no painter."

Cecilia rounded on him. "Your modesty is ill-placed given the evidence I can see with my own eyes."

"Nevertheless. I did not tell you but I do not care to see these pictures. That is why they have been left in the music room. That area of the castle is out of bounds," Lionel replied.

"Why?" Cecilia asked.

"Because those are my orders!" Lionel snapped.

He saw the fire flaring in Cecilia's eyes then. She stepped towards him, chin raised. He did not like to be defied, it was not a state of affairs that he was accustomed to. But he could not deny that she was magnificent when roused. Cecilia stood facing him with defiance in her expression.

"Well, that is not good enough. I am not your servant. I am your wife. You may think that makes me your property and the conventions of our society may agree with you. But I am not. The women of my family are equal to the men. That is how it is and how it should be. If you would care to tell me why I am prohibited from going to the music room, after you gave me leave to use it three days ago, then perhaps I shall consider it."

"Three days ago…" Lionel began.

But he could not finish. He was being irrational and he knew it. When he had heard Cecilia singing, he had been entranced. When he recognized that fact, he had wanted nothing more than to be away from her lest the spell take firmer hold. At the moment in which he stood there listening to her sweet voice, he would have given her anything. To hear her sing for just a few moments more he would have paid a king's ransom.

Now he ran a hand through his hair, turning away. Or trying to. Cecilia put herself in front of him as he did, one hand resting on his chest. The physical contact seemed to anchor him. She barely touched him but might as well have thrown him into chains. His eyes met hers and he did not want to look away. He became lost in them, so wide and bright. So deep and gentle while at the same time blazing with the force of her will.

"I was not myself in that moment," he whispered.

"Are you yourself now?" Cecilia replied.

Her voice carried as much barely controlled emotion as Lionel himself felt. She was mere inches from him, though she had not taken a step. It was a shock to realize that it was he who had moved, drawn to her. A flush rose in her pale cheeks, evidence of the same excitement he could see in her eyes. Her lips parted and her breath came in quick gasps. Lionel felt his own heart racing, hands twitching from the desire to hold her. He wavered on the brink of self-control, feeling as though he held on by his fingernails only.

Then the control was gone. His hands went about her waist and his lips found hers. For a glorious moment, reason fled along with time. There was only the feeling of her warm lips against his, of her soft, curving body in his hands. Then he was pushing against his chest roughly. He stepped back. Cecilia danced away from him, a hand to her lips.

"No. Not again," she started, "I will not be used. I will either be your wife or not. There is no halfway."

Lionel felt a tearing wrench within him. Denying the passion that had risen within him was nearly impossible. It raged through his veins, demanding satisfaction. Shutting off that desire was like trying to dam a river in full flood.

But Cecilia was right. He could not use her like this. Nor allow himself to be used. They could not be what she wanted. What they both wanted. Never . There was no room in his life for it.

"You're right. No halfway," he murmured. "Keep the paintings here if you wish, and feel free to use the music room. In a few months, this will all be over." With that, he spun and left the room without awaiting her response.