Her Missing Marquess Read online

  The night was yet early. The butler had informed him dinner had been served a mere hour ago, and yet she seemed hopelessly sotted. Her guests were no better, ambling about Needham Hall in various states of dishabille and inebriation. He had wandered into an orgy in the picture gallery in his efforts to locate her. The image of Lord Townshend’s hairy prick would haunt him for the rest of his life.

  Nell tipped her head back, caressing his chest in a parody of the way she had once touched him. “Pray, do not pretend you care, Needham. It only makes a mockery of us both. I shan’t fall. You can let me go now.”

  But he could not let her go. Because having her this near, in the mockery of an embrace, made remembrance hit him. “I cannot. I will never let you go, Nell.”

  He needed her to understand that.

  When her letter had come, understanding had flooded him. All this time apart, all these days of forced absentia, of penance, and he had believed she would one day forgive him. That she would one day accept him back into her life. But her intentions, spelled out in the bold, familiar scrawl of her hand—those dot-less letters i, as if she could not be bothered to finish them—had told him how very wrong he had been.

  Their years apart had not been about Nell making him pay for his sins.

  No, they had been about Nell beginning a new life entirely.

  One without him in it.

  “You must,” she snarled. Her hands were on his suddenly, her nails digging into his fingers with vicious persistence. “Release me. Release me from your hold and from this insupportable marriage. I want to be free of you at last.”

  “No.” He held firm.

  It was the only thing he could do. Jack was frozen. Immobile. He felt as if releasing her would send her from him forever. It was a stupid thought. She could not divorce him without his aid in the matter, and he had returned, disproving any claims she could make in relation to abandonment. For his part, even if she had indeed bedded half of London, he would not sue her for divorce on account of adultery.

  “Let me go, Needham.” She scratched him now, clawing at his skin.

  The pain sliced through him. For the second time since his return, she was doing him violence. Making him bleed. But this, too, was penance. He owed her some reparations for what he had done. He would give her what she needed.

  Except letting her go.

  Not that.

  Never that.

  “I cannot,” he admitted, the truth torn from him. “You are my wife, Nell. Nothing will change that.”

  “Divorce will change that, which is what I have asked for.” Her nails raked over him again. “Damn you, Needham, what do you want from me?”

  “I want you to be my wife. Not just in name but in truth.” His fingers tightened on her waist.

  “I was your wife once,” she hissed. “You forfeited the right the day you welcomed Lady Billingsley into your bed.”

  This argument was an old one. How surreal it was that days, weeks, seasons, years could pass, and they were right back where their impasse had begun.

  “I never welcomed her into my bed,” he defended himself. It was the truth, though he had little hope Nell would believe him now when she had not three years ago, and when it was apparent she had spent all the time they had been apart believing him a faithless reprobate.

  “I do not believe your lies any more now than I did then.” Again, she dug her nails into his flesh.

  “Nor do you welcome the truth,” he bit out.

  He could not deny her lack of belief in him hurt. Distance had soothed him. But now that she was once more within reach—now that he was touching her, breathing in the same air—all the stinging agony had returned. The wound had not healed as he had supposed, but rather, it festered.

  “Go to the devil, Needham.” With a feral cry, she tore herself from his grasp.

  He allowed it this time, knowing he was only torturing the both of them with his insistence. He had not returned for a skirmish or even one battle. He had returned to win the war.

  He met her seething gaze. “I have been dwelling in hell for the last three years, darling wife. It is time you joined me there.”

  With that warning, he turned on his heel and stalked from the chamber.

  One way or another, this cursed house party was coming to an end.

  Chapter Two

  Nell woke to a splitting headache.

  And pounding. Dreadful pounding. Horrible, unrelenting pounding.

  “Go to the devil!” she croaked, blindly grappling with the bedclothes about her before seizing a pillow and pressing it over her head.

  How much port had she consumed yesterday? Had she said anything offensive to her guests? Shown anyone her drawers? Cast up her accounts? Kissed any of the lords in attendance? More importantly, was the pounding coming from within her skull or from somewhere else?

  Issuing a pathetic moan, she rolled over onto her stomach.

  “Nell?”

  There was a masculine voice coming from somewhere. The pounding had stopped, thank heavens. The unmistakable sound of window dressings being pulled aside invaded her chamber next. And light.

  Godawful, violent, head-splitting light.

  “No,” she groaned, grappling for another pillow, her eyes shut tight.

  The soft sack of feathers buffeted her head, blocking out the brightness. She inhaled slowly, trying to gather her wits. Like so many house parties before, she had drowned her sorrows in drink. There was always the initial warm glow, then the wild abandon of overindulgence. Followed by the morning of megrims and regret.

  “Nell.”

  The voice was back. Alongside her bed. Insistent. Muffled by the pillow soothing her aching head. Just who was this interloper?

  And where the devil was her lady’s maid? Had Tom arrived early? What time was it?

  “Tom?” she mumbled, still clutching the pillow. “Do close the curtains, if you please. My head aches.”

  What had happened last night? She recalled dinner. Followed by a great deal of port. Then a table. She had been dancing. Singing as well…

  The pillow was torn from her head abruptly.

  “Not. Bloody. Tom.”

  “Mmm.” She burrowed her face in the mattress in an effort to keep out the intrusive light.

  Had he said he was not bloody Tom? Had he growled those words at her? What the devil was going on, and who was in her chamber? Dear Lord, she had not actually taken someone to her bed, had she? Three years of chastity, and months of denying Tom at every turn. He would never forgive her if she had allowed another man into her bed. Nor would she forgive herself. She had been drinking far too much in the past few months, and well she knew it, but she could not bear to believe she would ever betray Tom.

  Would she?

  Kisses and flirtation were one matter.

  Bedding was another.

  No one knew that better than Nell, who had been disgustingly, ridiculously faithful to her very unfaithful husband these last three years…

  Her husband.

  Jack.

  Memory surged. She had been dancing on the table, and she had fallen, only to be caught in a pair of strong, unrelenting arms. Jack’s. Surely not? Surely that had been a nightmare…

  “Nell.”

  There was the voice again, and without the muffling caused by her pillow, it was undeniable.

  Recognizable.

  It had not been a dream.

  Her head jerked up. She blinked at the harsh light, her head pounding anew as a wave of biliousness washed over her. She had not imagined it. Needham hovered over her bedside, his handsome face severe and harsh.

  She reached for her pillow. Her hand met with its supple softness. Her fingers tightened. Her arm raised. She tossed her missile. It hit him, though only in his chest.

  “Get out of my chamber,” she ordered.

  He bent, retrieving her pillow, and whipped it back to her bed. “No.”

  “I want Tom,” she told him, reveling in the way he
flinched at those three words, the mentioning of the man she wanted to marry.

  A man who had once been his friend.

  She would be lying if she said Tom’s original appeal had not been his friendship with her husband. Initially, she had been so devastated, like a wounded beast, trying to defend herself in whatever fashion she could. But as time had gone on, Tom had proven his mettle and his devotion. He was a good man.

  Pity she did not love him.

  But love was stupid. And fickle. Love was not ruled by order, reason, or even whether or not the person upon whom it was bestowed was worthy of it. In her case, Needham had most assuredly not been worthy.

  Tom loved her, and she was not worthy, either.

  Suiting.

  “Sidmouth has yet to arrive,” clipped her husband.

  Her husband for now.

  Because she remained intent upon divorcing his miserable arse.

  “Why are you still here?” she demanded. “You have no right to be in my chamber.”

  His jaw clenched. “I have every right to be in your chamber, Nell. And I am here because I was worried. It is half past noon, and you are still abed. I thought something was amiss.”

  Something was amiss.

  He was not supposed to be here. Not just here at Needham Hall but here in England. He was supposed to be very far away. Seeing him reminded her of too much.

  She glared at him. “I was sleeping, Needham.”

  “I suppose I ought to thank you for that, as it made sending your guests home easier.” He was still hovering over her bed, so tall, his face a study in disapproval.

  She sat up with far too much haste, clutching the bedclothes to her chest as she realized she was naked beneath them. Her head swam. “The house party has only just begun.”

  Above his dark, neatly trimmed beard, the scratches she had made on his cheek last night were visible. More scratches marred his hand as he passed it over his jaw. “I will not countenance a house filled with guests, Nell. We have much to discuss, and none of it requires an audience. When the rest of your guests arrive today, Sidmouth included, they will be turned away as well.”

  Irritation flared, chasing the incessant pounding in her skull for a moment. “You cannot turn away my guests. Especially not Tom.”

  She wondered how he knew more guests were arriving today. How he knew Tom was one of them. The butler, Reeves, she supposed. Or the housekeeper, Mrs. Harris. They were stalwart old retainers, and neither of them had ever approved of her house parties.

  “I will not host your lover. Sidmouth is not welcome here at Needham Hall. Ever.”

  The succinct, angry words gave her pause. Surely Needham was not jealous of Tom, when he had undoubtedly been enjoying the charms of any number of ladies himself during their separation?

  “Of course he is welcome here,” she countered. “This is my home. You cannot simply appear in the dining room and start acting the despot. You have been gone for three years.”

  “At your request.” He was grim, all harsh angles.

  Irritatingly beautiful.

  “Because you bedded Lady Billingsley,” she reminded him. “Do not dare to act as if you are an angel, my lord. We both know you are not. Now, kindly remove yourself from my chamber. It is too early in the morning for me to be dealing with faithless scoundrels.”

  “It is afternoon,” he returned, his voice still cold. “And I did not bed Lady Billingsley.”

  Lies. That was all he had ever given her. She was not as easily fooled as she had once been. Lady Billingsley had gone to her rewards, but her death had not undone what had happened. Nell would never forget.

  “Do shut up, Needham.” Her patience was waning. Her mouth was sour and felt as if it had been stuffed with cotton. So, too, her head. Her stomach clenched, threatening to cast up her accounts.

  And this, she would not do before him. Retching into a chamber pot after a night of overindulgence was shameful enough without an audience.

  “Your manners have suffered in my absence,” he observed, unperturbed.

  Why did he linger? Was it his intention to torture her?

  “My manners are negatively impacted by the hatred I feel for you.” She pinned him with a glare as two different sorts of agony skewered her: emotional and physical. “To say nothing of the fact that I am about two minutes away from retching all over you.”

  She was never drinking port again.

  His lips quirked into a small smile. “Giving the bottle a black eye is not nearly as enjoyable come morning, is it darling?”

  “You ought to know,” she muttered, thinking of all the late nights of wickedness they had once shared.

  How wild they had been, once upon a time.

  His smile faded. “No longer. I do not drink spirits. If you had not been so sotted last night, perhaps you would recall our conversation.”

  Ah, yes. He had told her he was a teetotaler now, hadn’t he? Was that the reason for his superciliousness? For all that she had once known him so well, he seemed a stranger to her now. If only her old memories of familiarity could be killed.

  Or at least maimed.

  She frowned at him. “Smugness ill suits you, Needham.”

  “So does being cuckolded,” he shot back in frosty diction.

  His accusation nettled. “Indeed? Well, betrayal makes me bilious. Come any nearer, and I shall vomit all over you.”

  “Charming as ever, Lady Needham.” He bowed with a courtly air that belied the strange intimacy of the moment.

  She gritted her teeth against another wave of nausea. “How many times must I repeat myself before you get out? If you insist upon speaking with me, let it be after I am dressed.”

  His gaze flicked over her, assessing. And damn him, but she felt that stare like a caress. How was it possible for her to feel something for him after everything that had happened? Where did that most unwanted frisson of desire, unfurling down her spine, emerge from?

  Those emerald eyes seemed to linger upon her breasts. “Perhaps you forget I have already seen every inch of you, darling wife.”

  Even as dreadful as she felt, her nipples had hardened at his stare, and his words sent a surprising bolt of heat through her. “I hope your memory is pristine, my lord, because you shall never see me again in such a state. Now get out.”

  He flashed her a half grin. The sort that once had made her ache to kiss him. “How wrong you are, wife. I cannot get an heir on you if I cannot see you.”

  I cannot get an heir on you.

  Those words seemed to take all the air from the room.

  Shock robbed her of the ability to speak. With another lingering look, he turned and sauntered across her chamber, heading for the door joining their apartments.

  “There will be no heirs from me!” she called after him at last.

  But it was too late. By the time she found her tongue, Needham had already closed the door, leaving her alone. Her stomach heaved.

  Nell scarcely made it to the chamber pot in time.

  Strangely, of all the homecomings Jack had envisioned—and there had been many, after his decision had been reached—he had failed to imagine one involving a debauched house filled with guests, a drunken Nell dancing on the table, and facing the man who had been warming his wife’s bed in his absence.

  A man who had once been his friend.

  He clasped his hands behind his back to keep the temptation to plant Viscount Sidmouth a facer at bay. “You cannot remain here.”

  Sidmouth’s jaw tightened. “If I cannot remain, Nell shall come with me.”

  Nell.

  Her given name was a small reminder of this man’s familiarity with Jack’s own wife. “Lady Needham shall remain in residence with me. Need I remind you which of us is her husband and which of us possesses all the rights where she is concerned?”

  They were in the study, a room which had not changed much since he had last used it, aside from the notable absence of any of his personal effects. There were more reli
cs of his father’s than he had recalled, and far too many pastorals and hunting scenes gracing the walls. The furniture was all from last century. And the stale scent on the air suggested Nell had not used it whilst he had been gone. Small mercies, he supposed.

  “I do not understand, Needham,” Sidmouth said now. “Nell wrote to you of our plans, and she said you agreed.”

  “I agreed we needed to speak,” he corrected, irritated at the man’s insistence upon familiarity. “I agreed I would return so we could discuss the nature of our marriage. However, I did not agree to a divorce so she could marry you.”

  Sidmouth looked like a lad watching his puppy being drowned in a river. “That is not what Nell said.”

  “Perhaps Nell should have read the letter I sent her more carefully,” he suggested, trying and failing to tamp down his rage. “Perhaps you ought to find a lady who is not already married to become your wife.”

  Sidmouth pinned him with a glare, teeming with the same fury Jack had no doubt was reflected in his eyes. “You abandoned her.”

  “I returned.”

  “She despises you.”

  Hearing this news from his wife’s lover made Jack flinch. Of course, he knew she hated him. She had already told him so. And he knew all the reasons why.

  His lip curled. “That is unfortunate for her. However, marriages have been existing regardless of the tender emotions of the men and women involved for centuries. A loveless union is hardly anything new.”

  Sidmouth’s hands clenched into fists at his sides. “I love her, damn you. Let her go. Let her be happy.”

  Would Sidmouth make Nell happy? The notion gave Jack pause. Somehow, it had been easier to ignore the relationship his wife had built with the viscount before the man stood before him.

  “You are in good company,” he told the viscount grimly. “I love her, too.”

  Though the emotion did him not one whit of good.

  Sidmouth frowned. “If you love her, you have the devil’s own way of showing it. No man who would spend the last few years on the Continent rather than at Nell’s side is worthy of her.”

  Jack had never been worthy of her. He knew that. When they had first met, he had been a no-account wastrel more concerned with getting his prick wet and drinking himself to oblivion than aught else. Not much had changed after they had married, aside from his falling deeper into drink and his determination to remain faithful to their vows.