Promise Me Heaven (41 page)

Thomas was leaving.
Why?
Her shaking legs unable to support her any further, she sank to the ground beside the bed. If she hadn’t heard the words in Thomas’s own voice, clear, imperative, unshakable in their conviction, she would not have believed them.

The days of companionable dialogue, the debates, the affability, the laughter… But now, in view of what she’d heard, she revisited his formality, his polite distance, replayed the moment he disengaged her hand to put it on his sleeve. She had thought he was trying to forestall gossip. That
had
been what he had been doing, wasn’t it? She begged herself to answer yes. But another seed, one of black uncertainty, had taken root.

But the nights! Surely such intensity could not be feigned? Surely here was proof of his… what?

Feigned?
the voice of idiot reason argued.
Why must it be feigned?
Thomas was a man associated with all matters of sexuality. He was a rake. Was it so surprising he would make the best of the situation in whatever way he could?

Perhaps the care he took in pleasuring her was merely what all his other lovers had experienced. It made abundantly clear how he had achieved his reputation. For Cat could not imagine a more skilled, tender, or impassioned lover.

But had he ever spoken of love
? the voice continued.
Have I?
she countered.

Her mind became a tumultuous explosion of questions. Her perspective shifted with bewildering speed as she struggled to bring meaning to the meaningless words she had heard Thomas utter. She had the sensation of being suspended high above an eroding precipice, the future suddenly yawning threateningly before her.

I am not thinking clearly. I must think what to do. But how can I confront him when I am in terror of his answers? I cannot stay waiting for him to abandon me. I cannot think here. Not with Thomas so close. I must go
.

Rising unsteadily to her feet, Cat forced herself to straighten. She went to the small desk and penned a note, then rang for Annette to start packing her things. Marcus was departing for Bellingcourt in the afternoon. She would go with him. She would go home.

A sudden thought finally caused her sobs to erupt, strangling in her throat.

She could go to Bellingcourt. But it wasn’t home anymore.

Chapter 33

W
ell
, thought Cat looking around her old bedchamber at Bellingcourt,
this was a stupid idea
.

It looked unfamiliar but felt alien, as though some stranger lived there. It was filled with her youthful leavings and empty of those things that now defined her. She stared out of the rain-sheeted window, into the night, pulling the satin ribbons from her hair and preparing for sleep. If only she
could
sleep.

She’d been at Bellingcourt for two days. It had started to rain the evening she and Marcus had arrived. And it had rained ever since, relentless deluge that swirled from the leaden skies buffeted by strong spring winds.

She plucked at the fastening to her gown. She had left Annette in Brighton, unwilling to take the shocked, so proper maid to her family seat. Annette wouldn’t have lasted a day here, anyway.

Her family had greeted her with all the enthusiasm her long sojourn merited. Only Timon and Simon were not there to greet her, Simon having purchased a commission in the Lancers with Thomas’s moneys and Timon enrolled at Oxford on a similar boon. Cat hadn’t known. Thomas had never told her he had begun to bolster the flagging estate as long ago as last autumn. And he had sworn the rest of her family to secrecy.

Thomas’s aid had extended to her sisters, too. Enid was to be presented this season, Thomas having persuaded a dignified matron to champion her. Even little Marianne was filled with tales of the wondrous generosity of Cat’s husband.

Husband
. Thomas would be amused to learn her new title caused so much joy in her family. Even in cousin Emmaline.

Emmaline had received Cat at the door, expressing a patently insincere welcome home and immediately following the greeting with a query as to how long Cat intended to stay before she rejoined “kind Mr. Montrose.” Cat did all she could to assuage the older woman’s obvious fear of being shipped, posthaste, back to Wales.

Wearily, she began unlacing her boots. She was exhausted. For two days she had been at the tender mercies of her family. Two days of her sweet, good-natured sisters’ heavy-handed interrogation. It was driving her mad.

This morning Marcus had taken her on a tour of Bellingcourt, pointing through the pouring rain the various improvements he had implemented, the repairs that had been made to the home farm and were being done on the stables. He even made her sit for ten minutes while he proudly inspected a flock of—heaven help her—dolefully dripping sheep in the lower pasture. Apparently Marcus had procured “a loan made by Mr. Thomas Montrose which is being repaid quarterly at a rate agreeable to both lender and borrower.”

Cat unhooked the pearl choker Thomas had given her on their wedding day, feathering her fingertips over the satiny balls.

“Wear them close to the skin and they shall develop a sheen as glorious as your skin,” he had whispered.

They were not the words of a man on the verge of abandoning his wife.

Other phrases, small gestures, arose as she finally drew the bedclothes over her tired body. Sleepless hour after sleepless hour, she tossed, his words haunting her to sleep.

“You are the most attentive of husbands, Thomas,” she had teased him at the end of one long, wonderful day. “You must need a rest from me.”

“But, m’dear, the only ease I find is in your company.”

His voice gave way to his image, the memories of their nights together pursuing her: His body pressing into hers. His hands ever eager to bring her pleasure. His voice compelling her as she spiraled upwards toward the inevitable release.

He tantalized her with the climax he controlled, sating her only to reawaken the hunger within minutes of completion, bringing her again and again to rapture.

“What do you want of me?” she had asked dazedly as he sank his full, hard length into her, the muscles of his chest leaping with exquisite constriction.

“Want?” he had rasped, his midnight gaze riveting her until she felt she would be lost, translated by the intensity of his thrusts into a part of him, absorbed into his great body. “Everything. Heart and body and mind. All of you.”

Bolting upright in her bed, Cat dragged her hands through her hair. Confusion slowly replaced the pain. It did not make sense. He felt something for her. He must. No man who claimed to hate hypocrisy could breathe those words!

But with her own ears she had heard him say he was going to leave her.

Finding no answer for the riddle upon which her future hung, Cat tried once more to make sense of it.

Perhaps he wanted the convenient marriage he had originally proposed. Perhaps he meant merely to begin the pattern of daily life he wished to follow: he, going about his business and she, hers. Perhaps he meant for them to live apart to pursue their own course. Hadn’t his proposal outlined such a plan? Hadn’t he been clear? Had she misread or merely dismissed his plans because she so desperately wanted there to be something else?

Had he seen in her physical abandonment a future in which she clung to him with disgusting tenacity? Did he worry she would cause remark with her undiluted attentions? She already had, hadn’t she? Was she too obvious? She didn’t know!

She knew nothing. Nothing except that she loved Thomas. Loved him enough to want his happiness. His life had been so bereft of it. He was so hard on himself, so contemptuous of his past.

Crawling back beneath the blankets, Cat stared at the high, black ceiling. She knew it well. She had studied each corner for hours during the past two nights.

There was no peace for Cat at Bellingcourt.

The rain had slowed to a fine drizzle, no more than a mist, by the next morning. Cat rose early, unable yet to face the goodwill of her family. Unwilling to offend them with a spoken desire to be alone, she donned a heavy cape and slipped through the back door. Passing the kitchen garden and orchards, she wandered down toward the small creek that traversed the borders of Bellingcourt.

The air was thick and fragrant with the scent of moist soil, new grass, and budding trees. A heavy mist intensified the clarion call of birds, an unseen choir breaking the stillness of the early gray light. The dew saturated her half boots and clung to her thick wool mantle. She paused, experiencing her first real peace since leaving Thomas for Bellingcourt. Perhaps it was no longer home, but it was still beautiful. A sense of calm overtook her.

She would give Thomas what he needed. She would not struggle any longer with questions for which she had no answers. He had said he would leave her. She would accept that. He had also said he would not divorce her and would want heirs. She would accept that. She would learn to welcome him when he appeared. If she must learn to live with only a piece of Thomas, so be it.

She would survive.

“You know, m’dear, I am growing deuced fatigued of all your confounded notes.”

Cat spun around. Thomas stood a few paces from her, leaning against the trunk of a burr oak, his arms folded across his broad chest. “And this onerous habit of bustling off leaving half your clothing behind works havoc with the servants. Annette has given notice.”

The dew caught in his dark hair, curling damply upon his tanned throat. His expression was composed, but his eyes burned in his handsome face.

Her gaze devoured his beloved figure. He was magnificent. His cravatless linen shirt was open at the throat. His greatcoat was flung back over his wide shoulders. His boots were mud-spattered and dull.

“What are you doing here?”

“Why, I’m here with my wife, of course. She seems to have taken a notion to visit her family manse and unaccountably forgot to pack her husband along with the rest of her things. Really, my love, for someone known for her relentless practicality, you show a marked tendency of late for impetuous action.”

“You are supposed to be gone.”

A frown deepened the lines bracketing his well-sculpted lips. He pushed himself off the tree, stalking toward her.

“Gone? Why?”

“Because.” Drat! How could he just stand there, so handsome and nonchalant, when she had been stretched on a rack of misery for three days? Her lower lip started to tremble and she bit it, mindful of the promises she had just made to herself. “Because that is the type of marriage we are to have. You said so yourself. You are to go your way, and I, mine.”

“And this means you can just up and leave me whenever the whim dictates?” He leaned closer to her.

“I left you a note.”

“Oh, yes.” He rocked back on his heels, his eyes becoming shuttered. “And a pretty, nice little bit of noninformation it was, too. ‘
Thomas, I am going to Bellingcourt. I will contact you later. Your wife, Catherine Sinclair.’
And your name, by the way, is
Catherine Montrose
.”

Cat blinked, unprepared for the anger with which his last words erupted. Why would such a simple mistake enrage him so? “Really, Thomas, I don’t know what you are so angry about. I am giving you the freedom you outlined.”

The fire in his eyes died, his expression becoming unreadable. “What freedom?”

Cat was getting angry. She had tried to be sophisticated as well as munificent. But to have the blackguard stand there feigning confusion when not a few days ago she had heard him say he was leaving her was untenable. She wasn’t going to allow him to play this ridiculous game any longer.

“You egotistical, monstrous man! I am referring to your convenient, practical, pathetic excuse for a proposal!”

Thomas’s eyebrows shot up in a nearly comical display of offended dignity. Except Cat didn’t feel like laughing. She felt like clawing him.

“You didn’t like my proposal?” he asked stiffly.

“I
hated
your proposal! ‘We will raise nice sheep together,’ ‘your input as a land manager will be invaluable,’ a ‘civil union’! If you have need of a land steward,
hire one
!”