Blake’s shirtsleeve was soaked with blood. Before Jocelyn could think, or even panic, her ferocious husband kicked the knife from the man’s hands, and it skittered across the floor.
Shouting French curses, the ruffian fled the room, running toward the front of the house. Holding his wounded arm, Blake chased after him—in his stockinged feet!
Torn between the need to calm her little brother and assist Blake, Jocelyn could do neither. Aware that she was barefoot and walking on glass, she returned gingerly to the hall in hopes of dragging the maid and footman from their hiding places. The blood drops staining the newly waxed floors caused her heart to rise up in her throat and impede her breathing.
The sound of a horse galloping away warned her that the thief had escaped. Shaking, she stood at the top of the kitchen stairs and shouted at the useless servants to bring bandages and lend a hand. Finally, they came running.
She met Blake at the front door with a basket of medical supplies, hoping to offer some succor in return for his not yelling. She wanted to start off on the right foot.
He scowled, rejecting her offer of aid, and stalked past her toward the conservatory. Too shaken to argue, she followed, leaving the maid to wipe up the blood.
At discovering Richard senselessly rocking a now quiet parrot, Blake glowered at her, waiting for explanations. As if she had any.
“What happened?” he demanded of her incoherent brother.
Richard shook his head and hugged the parrot cage tighter.
“Did someone harm Percy?” Jocelyn asked, seeing nothing else in the room worth stealing.
Richard reluctantly nodded.
“The thief spoke only French. He refused to say who sent him. Why would he want a parrot?” Blake demanded.
Jocelyn had no answer. “Perhaps Ogilvie sent him to steal the bird back?” She set the basket of bandages down on a bench and waited for her husband to sit so she might dress his wound.
Blake grabbed a cloth and wrapped it around his arm.
Irritated by his rejection, shaken by the emotional and physical upheaval, she fell back on her usual habit of blithely ignoring all conflict. She sat beside Richard and rubbed his arm until he stopped rocking so hard. “Can you tell me what happened?” she asked as gently as she could.
“I hit him,” he attested. “I hit him so he could not steal Percy.”
“Good job,” Blake acknowledged, tying a knot in his makeshift bandage. “I’ll have to teach you to fight with your fists so you don’t nearly cosh his brains out next time.” He nodded to indicate the bloody stick Richard had used on the intruder.
Jocelyn wanted to throw something at him.
Next time!
What did he mean, next time? As if Richard needed to go about punching people. She huffed but bit her tongue. Her heart was still thudding too hard for her to speak coherently.
“Do you think Mr. Ogilvie sent him?” she asked again, not knowing how else to explain a thief stealing a parrot. Or could he have been trying to murder Blake for some reason? She tried not to consider that.
“Ogilvie may have followed your footman the other day when he fetched Percy, then hired someone to break in,” Blake acknowledged grudgingly.
Or followed Richard from the reception. Panic clutched at Jocelyn’s heart at the notion of anyone attacking her little brother for his silly bird.
Blake continued thinking aloud. “Ogilvie is a little obsessive about the bird. The duke must be leaning on him.” He glared at her meaningfully.
But Jocelyn wasn’t about to return Richard’s pet to a man who hired vicious thieves! She might not always be very clear on what was right or wrong, but she was quite clear on the necessity of taking care of innocent creatures that couldn’t defend themselves.
“I suppose we can warn Ogilvie we’ll tell the duke what he’s done if any harm should ever come to Percy,” she suggested.
“That’s certain to stop a desperate man,” Blake said dryly. “Your brother had better take Percy back to his room until we can find a better way of securing the conservatory.”
Relieved that he did not question Richard’s behavior more than that, Jocelyn did as she’d been told.
She didn’t think it necessary to explain that her brother had probably left the conservatory unattended in the first place because he’d heard her screams of pleasure. That would not only be embarrassing but would also lead to lengthy, unpleasant explanations.
She suspected there would be plenty of those in the next few hours.
It had been a pleasant fantasy, believing she finally had someone to stand at her side, but the reality was that she had a brother who required constant attention and a husband who was determined to get himself killed.
Once again, she stood alone, and her heart ached.
“Don’t!” Blake ordered, entering the bedchamber to discover his bride pulling a plain round gown over her head.
He was frustrated on too many levels to be polite. He needed a horse to chase after the thieving wretch. He needed to send for a magistrate. He needed
explanations.
What the devil was that scene below all about? Why had there been a Frenchman in the house stealing a damned bird? What the devil was wrong with her brother? And what had he done by marrying a woman who apparently accepted this madness as normal?
Jocelyn left her wedding dress on the floor and struggled to pull the day gown into place before he could so much as glimpse the bare flesh above her stockings. He had been granted a glimpse of heaven and was slavering for more. He’d even allowed a thief to go free because he’d been in a hurry to return to his bride. Despite the pain from the knife wound, he was ready to rip off her gown. His lack of control shocked him.
Crossing his arms in a semblance of composure, Blake studied Jocelyn. Her brother’s tantrum had not flustered her, but
he
seemed to do so. She was deliberately not facing him, but fumbled with the drawstrings of the morning gown rather than look at him. He had only to think of his own sisters and couldn’t bear to berate her. If he could not have what he wanted, he would at least get some explanations.
“What are you not telling me,
Josie
?”
“I had rather hoped we would stay elsewhere for our honeymoon,” she said with forced nonchalance. “I did not think you liked it out here.”
“I thought you
preferred
to be in Chelsea,” he said with caution, attempting to discover if she objected to his lovemaking or was simply anxious about the intruder.
She sent him a quick glance over her shoulder, and at his scowl, returned to her dressing. “That was generous of you to think of my preferences.”
“Are you pacifying me?” he asked. He really couldn’t challenge his wife to a duel or a bout in the ring—his usual choices when he had the urge to throttle someone.
“I do that when men scowl. I’m really trying to cure myself of the habit.” Finally satisfied that her dress was secure, she shoved strands of hair behind her ears and swung to face him. “I can’t do this,” she said stiffly, glaring at his bandaged arm.
He’d been interrupted in making love to his wife by a howling adolescent, stabbed by a bird thief, and was damned if he could make any sense of events, and
she
couldn’t do this? “Do what?” he asked stupidly.
“I can’t watch you bleed and not want to help. I can’t watch my troubles become yours. And I bloody well can’t keep you alive when you are determined to get killed! You attacked an armed thief while in your bare feet! I want a
home
, a safe home, a place that is mine so the only person I have to care for is Richard. He’s all I can manage. I can’t do any more! And you are determined to lose my home by getting yourself killed!” His smiling, sweet-voiced bride ended her tirade on a shrill note that would make a fishwife proud.
Below, the door knocker rapped, and a moment later, familiar feminine voices drifted up the stairs. Blake groaned.
Before he could so much as walk out and roar at his mother to get the hell out, Jocelyn swept past him, head held high, saying carelessly, “I’ll dispose of them.”
Shocked, Blake watched her sail out like a ship to battle, as if she hadn’t just been putty in his hands before all the commotion ensued. What in hell manner of woman had he married?
One who intended to
dispose
of his interfering family? For
his
sake?
Aware he was half undressed and unable to follow her down, he caught only a glimpse of the top of his wife’s blond head as she descended the open staircase. He halted at the upper handrail to look below, and sure enough, there was his mother’s beribboned bonnet. He heard Agatha and Frances nattering frantically, he trusted in apology. Jocelyn’s voice sounded warm and reassuring and very, very firm. He’d like to hear what she was saying, but he had no particular desire for his mother to see him with blood staining his shirt. She would post guards and never leave.
In resignation, he watched Richard emerge from a chamber at the end of the corridor. The boy joined him in leaning over the balustrade to watch the proceedings in the foyer below. Really, he should have known marriage to Jocelyn meant—at the very least—living in a circus. She had mentioned her brother living with them. She had not mentioned Richard was . . . temperamental?
“Percy faring well?” Blake asked with a sense of fatality.
“He has almost stopped plucking out his feathers,” Richard said solemnly. “You should visit him. Greys become attached to their companions.”
“I don’t suppose you know why my family is here?” he asked idly.
That question apparently took some thought. Finally Richard replied, “I don’t know.”
“Women are a confusing lot,” Blake said. To his amazement, the voices below seemed to be saying farewell. “Jocelyn is very good at manipulating people.”
Richard nodded. “She takes care of us.”
That said it all, Blake decided. That’s what she’d been shrieking about. Beneath that vacuous, doll-like look she often hid behind, his wife took care of everyone and everything within her range. The bird, the house, her brother—
him
.
That wouldn’t do at all. But
taking care
of him was what she was damned well doing downstairs now. He’d objected to his family, so she was getting rid of them. For him. Because, on her own, she would have welcomed them with open arms and probably invited them to dinner and made a match between Frances and Richard and then given them all kittens for presents.
Cursing at his observation, Blake shoved his hand through his hair and stalked back to the bedroom. He hadn’t married to acquire another mother. And she’d made it plain that she hadn’t married for more than the house. She’d accommodate him because that’s what she did—please people to get what she wanted.
He had the strength and the right to demand marital relations. But demanding her reluctant obedience went against all his principles. He’d deal later with the humiliation of knowing his wife didn’t want him, when he had a wall to bash his head against.
Except he damned well couldn’t leave Jocelyn alone when knife-wielding bird snatchers were around. So, she considered him another responsibility, a liability to the safe little nest she wanted to create. Outrage welled where lust had been. To hell with women. He had no intention of spending the next thirty years in the same henpecked manner as the last thirty.
He’d lost sight of his purpose for a while, but he knew from experience that even lust could be conquered if he applied his mind to it.
Money, officer’s colors, code, and England
. Priorities. He’d visit the bank in the morning and start the process before he was distracted again.
He didn’t have to pack. He’d never removed anything from his rooms except a few of his clothes.
Of course
his wife had thought he hadn’t meant to stay.
By the time she returned to their chamber, Blake had tucked in his shirt, donned his waistcoat, and was tugging on his coat.
Jocelyn looked at him with bewilderment. “Where are you going?”
“After notifying the magistrate of the intruder, I’ll take the room over the carriage house. Unless you care to give up the parrot, I can’t leave you alone. I’ll have to give up my rooms in town.”
“But . . .” She glanced at the rumpled bed, and Blake felt a tug of despair.
“There are ways to make love without making babies,” he told her, hoping that would relieve at least one of her fears. “But I will give you more time,” he conceded grudgingly. “In the meantime, I’ll endeavor not to drop dead over the next year. In case I do, let me apologize in advance. I believe we agreed on the sum for an ensign’s colors. I’ll go up to town in the morning and arrange for the papers. Under the terms of the settlement, they’ll need your signature agreeing to the expenditure.”
She looked so crestfallen, standing there, that Blake was reminded that she was very young. He bent and kissed her cheek, placed his hat on his head, and strode out without farewell.
21
There were ways of making love without making babies.
She really, really didn’t want to think about that just now. Left alone in her wedding chamber, Jocelyn forced her knees not to buckle and angrily rubbed the moisture from her eyes. He’d given her the most amazing experience of her life and then just walked out as if it meant nothing. Her fault. It was always her fault.
After a lifetime of keeping her desperation to herself, why had she shouted at Blake now? She had so hoped that she could at least make him like her.
But when would she ever be allowed to do and say as
she
wanted, and not what everyone wanted of her? All she’d sought to do was see that he wasn’t bleeding to death. But the man was so prickly he might as well be a damned hedgehog.
She’d known this was the way it would be. She couldn’t expect a few minutes of exquisite pleasure to change the habits of a lifetime. She kicked her beautiful wedding dress, then picked it up and angrily folded it over a chair.