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She lay rigid under the wash of outraged frustration. She wasn’t Diana, but she had so much to give… so much more than her sister had ever offered anyone! But Cato was blind to what lay beneath what he saw.
Cato lay beside her rigid frame feeling like a brute. He heard the outrage in her silence. The act had obviously shocked her. Had no one prepared her? He felt as if he’d violated her… raped her… and yet such a concept was ridiculous in the marriage bed.
His mouth set in a thin line as he lay in the darkness. It was done now. And this union, distasteful though it was to both of them, would bring him a son. As soon as that was achieved, he would leave his wife alone.
He thought she was asleep now. The rigidity seemed to have left her, and her breathing had deepened. It had been close to two years since he’d shared his bed with a woman. Diana had been ill for many months before her death. Paradoxically in the circumstances, he found it rather pleasant to have a warm body so close to him.
He drifted to sleep while the sounds of revelry from downstairs continued until well into the night.
When Phoebe awoke in the morning, she was alone in the big bed. And when she went downstairs, there was no sign of her husband and no indication in the quiet, orderly house that she had been married the previous day.
Even her father had left without so much as a word of farewell. Gone back about the business of the war, happy to leave his daughter in the charge of her husband-in more ways than one, Phoebe thought with a bitter little smile. His daughter was no longer his expense.
Chapter 4
“That’s the last one, Gra
“Eh, lass, you’ve got a right good heart on ye,” the elderly woman said. “With the lads at the war, there’s no one to ‘elp a body these days.”
“Any news of your grandsons?” Phoebe hoisted the basket and set off up the garden path towards the kitchen door.
“Nothin‘ since afore Christmas.” Gra
“They’re saying there’s no support left for the Royalists in Cornwall,” Phoebe said, returning from the pantry. “They’ve practically given up. I’m sure you’ll be seeing your grandsons back again soon.”
“Aye, we can but ‘ope and pray, dearie. Ye’ll have a slice of my fruitcake, now, won’t you? And a cup of cider?” Gra
Phoebe did so and took a healthy bite of cake. She knew that while her physical assistance was welcomed by Gra
The chimes of the church clock brought Phoebe to her feet with a mortified cry. “Surely it isn’t eleven-thirty already!”
“Oh, aye, that it is. That old clock never misses a minute,” Gra
“Some chance of that,” Phoebe said with a responding grin. She raised a hand in farewell as she opened the gate. “Nothing’s going to change, Gra
For some reason this statement sent Gra
Phoebe flew down the village street, holding up her skirts to protect them from the mud, although it was already too late, she reflected ruefully. The hem of her brown stuff gown and the once-white petticoat beneath were thickly coated with the mud from the cabbage trench in Gra
As she approached the village green she saw a small knot of people gathered around the stocks. The unmistakable figure of Cato Granville on his bay charger towered over the group.
Phoebe’s heart did its customary erratic dance. He was bareheaded and the wind ruffled the close-cropped dark hair. As usual he wore black, except for the pristine white stock at his throat. And how it suited him! It suited the straight-backed, commanding posture of the soldier. It rendered his dark brown eyes almost black and gave his ta
Her step slowed involuntarily as she drew closer. For all the marquis’s plain dress, everything about him bespoke wealth. He held whip and reins in hands gloved in lace-edged leather. Those hands rested on the pommel of his tooled-leather saddle. His feet were encased in boots of the finest doeskin. The black velvet folds of his cloak were pushed carelessly back from his shoulders, revealing the white shirt with its ruffled sleeves, the lace-edged stock, the great silver buttons on his black coat, and the chased-silver scabbard of the curved cavalry sword at his hip.
How could any man be so beautiful? Phoebe asked herself. Was it his power that drew her? Was it his aura of absolute command that made her knees weak? And if it was, why was it? Why should she be so swept with lust because the man held the world at his feet?
It was absurd! Incomprehensible. And yet it was a fact. A fact not in any way diminished by the vast disappointment that her marriage had brought her.
She realized that she’d been drawing ever closer to the outskirts of the group, without any clear intention of doing so. But at the same moment, she also realized that she didn’t want Cato to see her. If she hurried, she would be ahead of him at the dining table. She turned away, but a moment too late.
Cato, who in his position as Justice of the Peace was overseeing the imprisonment of a vagrant in the stocks, happened to glance up just as Phoebe edged away from the throng. What on earth could have brought her there? It wasn’t meet for a young woman of Phoebe’s position to be wandering on foot and alone through the countryside. And she certainly had no place witnessing the punishment of rogues and ruffians.
He turned his horse aside, leaving the beadle to see that justice was done, and rode after his wife.
Phoebe heard the soft clop of hooves on the damp grass. Her spine prickled and her scalp contracted. She didn’t know whether it was with anticipation or apprehension. She never knew these days whether she wanted to be in Cato’s company or not. She stopped and turned.
“Good morning, my lord.” She greeted him with solemn formality.