The Delicate Matter of Lady Blayne (Intimate Secrets Book 1) Read online

It was fitting punishment for her wickedness.

  Oh, but I cannot bear it! Tears rolled down her cheeks, wetting the sheets.

  The knock at her door brought her out of her self-pity. She scrambled over to the edge of the bed, reached down and jerked the coverlet up and over her nakedness.

  A futile move. She knew that the chamber smelt of her sex, her arousal.

  Shame burnt into her.

  But more than shame, a dry-mouthed, weak-legged sensation crawled over her. Her stomach quavered.

  They were always watchful for signs that she had misbehaved. They would know instantly what she had been about. The telltale scent of her arousal, the flush on her cheeks. They would know.

  Oh God, they would call for Dr. Meeker.

  She had known, too, that it would come to this. But she could never stop herself from trying.

  She longed for release so badly. She ached constantly from the longing.

  She was broken that way.

  No matter that she hadn’t come. That she never did.

  They would still send for Dr. Meeker. Because ladies did not do such depraved things. It was for a man to give or withhold pleasure. A husband.

  Dr. Meeker would try to fix her. There would be an increased frequency of treatments for this lapse.

  Oh God!

  Waves and waves of horror washed over her. Shaking her to the pit of her belly. Sickening her and freezing her to the bone.

  From a distance, Freddy still watched her. She didn’t need to look to know he was still there.

  She could feel him.

  But she knew he wouldn’t stand in the doctor’s way. He never did.

  A wicked girl like her deserved this. And more.

  Punishment without ceasing.

  * * * *

  Steaming fragrance wafted up from the roast beef. It was crispy and brown on the outside, just the right color of pink inside. James sliced through the tender meat with his knife and juice poured forth, spilling onto the fine china plate. Succulent, enticing. He speared a forkful of the meat, lifted it and placed it into his mouth. He chewed slowly, waiting for the pleasure to register.

  It didn’t. He might as well have been eating salt pork and hardtack.

  The lady across from him laughed again at something her companion had said. Too loudly.

  The sound grated on him and he looked up.

  Eyes the color of whisky caught his. She fluttered her lashes. He caught a glimpse of flashing diamonds and emeralds against ivory bosoms swelling above a daringly low bodice. Her eyes held his.

  A blatant invitation there.

  For the new Baron Blayne, of course. He was suddenly quite the eligible titled bachelor. And he must choose a bride from these silly highborn chits, the same ones who would have considered a mere naval officer a lesser choice.

  Oh God, save me from the triteness of it all.

  This dinner party had been held in his honor. To welcome him home. But the other people around him, the polite chatter and restrained laughter, it was all so distant.

  As though drawn by his attention, Donna turned to him. Her full, lush wine-colored lips curved into a smile and her large eyes sparkled with pleasure. She moved closer, her lavender-rose scent settled over him, a beguiling fragrance.

  This evening, his first night back home amongst friends, he had been looking forward to enjoying many things. Especially the fine food.

  His emotions were in a whirl.

  His world had been shattered.

  He had yet to come to grips with it.

  Before he had left Blayne House, his aunt had been all aflutter. Catriona was overset and she would not be able to attend supper but must be sent a small, light meal on a tray.

  What did you say to her? What did you do?! I warned you about how fragile she is now!

  Aunt Frances’ words still rang in his ears. He had upset Sunny that much? His chest constricted and vague queasiness twisted his gut. The last thing he had wanted was to upset Sunny’s peace.

  The sound of Donna delicately clearing her throat pulled him from his tormented thoughts.

  Automatically, he returned her smile, feeling his face stretch painfully as though it were suddenly turned to hardened leather.

  Her smile widened and her eyes brightened even more.

  “Lord Blayne, we have missed you so much.” Her voice was soft. Her claret-scented breath wafted up to him.

  “Ah, Donna, it’s no longer Lord Blayne. ‘Tis the Earl of Greythorn now. Our good friend is soon to be a mighty English peer.”

  James forced a smile, though it felt his face would crack with the effort. He waved at Sir Carson dismissively. “Not yet.”

  Sir Carson raised his bushy blond brows. “But soon.”

  “Soon. However, I have yet to become accustomed to being called Lord Blayne.” He frowned. “Somehow that will always make me think of Freddy.”

  James hated himself for his pettiness. He hated having feelings he couldn’t control. But he detested feeling as though he were walking in Freddy’s footsteps in any way, shape or form.

  But others wouldn’t understand that. Murmurs of sympathy and platitudes rumbled in the wake of his words. Cousin Freddy had been a handsome, charming, well-liked young man. Raised as the heir, he’d been petted and spoiled by his arrogant, English-born mother. He’d grown up selfish, unable to deny himself even when it meant consigning Sunny to a life as wife to an invalid and an early widowhood.

  Freddy had begun courting Sunny when she was only fifteen. He had ingratiated himself with her. Had insinuated himself into her affections before she knew her own mind. Not to mention the heaps of obligation and loyalty that Sunny had been encouraged to feel toward Aunt Frances.

  By the time James had met her, she was eighteen and fully committed to being Freddy’s wife.

  She hadn’t ever had a fair chance at making her own choices. Leading her own life.

  She hadn’t even been allowed a Season.

  Not even a Season.

  The thought tore into his heart.

  “I suppose you prefer Rear-Admiral Blayne?” Carson asked, pulling him out of his thoughts.

  “I am more used to that.” It had been all he’d been raised to expect. And didn’t he wish he could have stayed at sea? Aunt Frances ruled over Landbrae with an iron fist—iron, albeit swathed in the finest velvet. Part of him hated to crush her pride by yanking that power from her grasp. Yes, he might have left Landbrae alone for quite a while. Until age dulled Aunt Frances’ wits and took her vigor away. But his new, sizable English estate required his management. The Greythorn earldom, once it was bestowed, would make him an English peer. He needed to take his place in the House of Lords. There was also the matter of an heir.

  And now there was the thorny matter of Lady Catriona Blayne.

  “Well, once again,” Donna said, flashing him a beautiful smile, “have you been enjoying your freedom since leaving the navy, Lord Blayne?”

  “Immensely.” James managed to inject enthusiasm into his voice. Yet, inside, he was still caught in a whirl. Seeing Sunny had proved as painful as a blow to the stomach…

  “You must tell us all about everything you have seen and done since we last saw you,” Donna said. “All your grand battles.” She flashed him another smile. “All your wonderful victories.”

  “Yes, to your wondrous victories.” Sir Carson lifted his wine glass and a toast went round the table.

  God help him. He wouldn’t be able to bear hearing himself speak one word about it. People romanticized it all so. They tended to treat him like he was now some Godlike being, an attitude that filled him with disgust. They didn’t know about the moments of doubt, of desperation. He’d been just a man, pitted against nature and war. He’d had to make the best decisions he could on the spur of the moment, over and over again, risking devastating consequences. But what other choice had he, or the men who had served beneath him, who put all their faith and trust in his judgment? Wars were won one battle at a time.
And battle after battle, he’d done whatever he had to win.

  They knew nothing of a ship being rocked by merciless assault waves of cannon fire. They knew nothing of decks washed with blood. They knew nothing of dreams full of the agonized cries of men and boys.

  No, he had no wish to tell stories of bloody battles to satisfy the sensationalist appetites of people who could never understand the true nature of warfare.

  And frankly, he would prefer to forget.

  If he ever could.

  “We followed your actions in the newspapers,” Donna said, still beaming.

  Her smile was beautiful. But it couldn’t warm him one bit. In his mind, he kept seeing her.

  Sunny. That stricken look that had stabbed him in the heart.

  Seeing her. God, seeing her…

  After all these years.

  It had shattered him. He hadn’t a clue as to how to gather the pieces and put them together.

  * * * *

  “Is what Mrs. Tibbs tells me true, Catriona?” Dr. Meeker asked.

  Reclining upon her bed, swathed from neck to ankles in safe, heavy wool flannel, Sunny glanced up. A man of medium height, his slender build and broad shoulders, as well as his dark physician’s clothing, gave him the appearance of being taller. From behind him, a single lamp on her dressing table cast an unholy yellow glow upon his silver hair.

  The shadows and dim light distorted the finer details of a face that was at once both aged yet still handsome in a distinguished way. A high forehead made to look even higher by the slightly thinning silver hair. A long, narrow nose. Thin cheeks.

  Upon their first meeting, despite the vast difference in their ages, she had thought him rather attractive.

  Even in the dim light, she could picture those eyes, a brown so dark that they appeared black against the whites of his eyes, cold and hard as lumps of coal strewn on new fallen snow, probing hers intensely.

  Seeking to know all her secrets.

  She turned her head away.

  “Catriona?”

  “Of course you know it is true, so why ask?”

  “I don’t care for your tone.”

  She remained silent.

  He sighed. “You cannot hope to get any better if you continue to indulge your carnal drives. If you continue to nurture impure thoughts, you will never regain control of yourself—never.”

  She rolled one shoulder but refused to return her attention to that cold dark stare.

  “Feeling rebellious today, are you?”

  “Perhaps I am.”

  “This has something to with Lord Blayne’s sudden reappearance.”

  “Well, there’s nothing sudden about it. He’s been home for months, and we’ve been expecting his visit for some time.”

  “Ah, you resent that he waited so long to come from London?”

  Sunny studied the ceiling. “I resent nothing.”

  “The dowager tells me there was some disagreement between you and Lord Blayne, years ago. She thinks this is why he waited so long to return.”

  Oh, Dr. Meeker wouldn’t give up until she told him something plausible. She searched for just the right way to put it. “He was a brash young man. He stepped beyond the bounds once and I rebuffed him. His pride was injured. It was no great matter.”

  There was a long pause, then Dr. Meeker let his breath out slowly. “So, now you will keep secrets from me?”

  Secrets.

  Everyone kept secrets. Everyone had a right to their own mental privacy.

  Except for Sunny. She had proven herself undeserving of keeping her own secrets.

  Trust, once broken, was the hardest thing to earn back.

  The bed ropes creaked softly as he sat near her. Once, she had taken so much comfort from his presence. His understated, refined masculinity, enhanced by his soothing voice and calm, intelligent personality, had drawn her to him.

  Now, something within her recoiled at his closeness.

  And the refined, dignified features, the narrow nose and thin lips, reminded her more and more of a reptile.

  “There’s nothing to keep secret,” she lied. Yes, there had been a time when she’d been utterly lost, when she’d told Meeker all. Things she hadn’t thought she’d ever tell another living soul.

  Things no lady should ever mention.

  But some secrets were too dear. And unaccountably, it felt as though she would be betraying James to tell anyone of the shocking liberties he had taken. The scandalous caresses they had exchanged that one night in the Landbrae garden.

  “He was a very passionate young man, eh?”

  She started. “What makes you say that?”

  “Because, my dear, I know you.” He laughed softly. “Vain girl! Vain, needy, desperate girl! A wife’s place is to serve and obey, not to be needed with desperate passion.”

  She closed her eyes and compressed her lips. Yes, he knew all her weaknesses. Her selfish sense of disappointment in her marriage, something she’d never dared admit to anyone else.

  He tapped his fingers on her hand. “I can easily surmise what happened. James Blayne saw the unnatural hunger in you. He ran. Believe me, Catriona, he ran.”

  He ran.

  The words echoed in her ears with damning accusation.

  James had stayed away from Landbrae. Away from Scotland entirely. Even when he’d had leave between assignments, he’d chosen to stay in London. Aunt Frances said it was because all the light-skirts were more plentiful and cheaply acquired in London.

  Sunny laughed softly, hearing the wicked lilt, the womanly bravado that came from someplace within her that felt alien. But it covered her weaknesses in moments like this. “You think he ran from me?”

  “Any sane man would have.”

  “But I was just girl.”

  “I am sure the seeds of your current state were there. Under the surface and visible to others. You must learn to cool your passions. You must sublimate that unholy passion of yours.”

  Dr. Meeker took her hand in his.

  Sunny stared at her bare hand, folded between two gray gloves of fine kid leather. She could imagine the cold, clammy flesh, the gnarled hands with the bright blue veins beneath the cloth.

  She shuddered. Oh God, those deathly cold hands.

  “You cannot hope to recover without me,” he intoned gently but firmly.

  She nodded. But she still wouldn’t look at him. Wouldn’t let him probe for her secrets.

  “I always have your best interests at heart. Do you think I don’t care? Do you think because I am an old man that I am made of stone?”

  Her throat began to burn. There had been a time when this man had saved her from herself. A time when she had seriously considered the supremest sin and he had pulled her back from the abyss.

  Was she so ungrateful now?

  “I do care for you, Catriona. I do. Do you realize that?”

  She swallowed, hard, and nodded. Tears pricked at the corners of her eyes. She was so ungrateful.

  Ungrateful!

  “Yet today you don’t trust me.” His voice was smooth as silk.

  What could she say? She had begun to distrust his methods for some time now. However, most days, she rejected those doubts. Oh, she was ungrateful to distrust this man who had worked so hard to heal her troubled mind and body. But some days, she couldn’t quiet her doubts. On those days, a certain lucidity—was it lucidity?—gave her a rare clarity. It seemed to her that if he cared for her, he wouldn’t seek to hurt her. He wouldn’t insist on treatments that were a torment to her.

  If only she didn’t need his horrid treatments! If only she could escape his care!

  But she was too frightened of sinking back into that terrible blackness again.

  Or of becoming completely debauched. Wildly out of control of herself.

  “If I am to cure you,” Dr. Meeker’s voice cut into her thoughts. “Then you must trust me. You must trust me completely.”

  “Well, I am not any better, am I?” She spat the w
ords at him defiantly.

  “Whose fault is that?”

  “Indeed, whose fault is it?”

  “You must trust me, implicitly. Completely. If you will not open yourself to me, if you will not give me that ultimate—”

  “I am broken,” she whispered, letting all her anguish into the statement.

  “You are determined to withhold yourself from me. Determined to defy me at every—”

  She turned to him and jerked her hands from his grasp.

  He started and placed a gloved hand to his lapel. “Such a wild, angry expression. Do I deserve that? I am the one who is devoted to helping you.”

  “I. Am. Broken!” The words exploded from her.

  “Abuse now, Catriona?”

  She panted, unable to still the racing of her heart.

  He returned her glare calmly. “Take care, my dear. You don’t want to alienate me.”

  “I am broken—why won’t you accept that? I shall never be healed, I shall never be whole again.”

  “I am the only man who shall ever care for you in a purehearted way. I daresay even your own father could not possibly care for you with my depth of feeling.”

  The intense probing of his black stare became too much and she turned away again.

  “No, do not turn from me.”

  “Are you going to administer—” She swallowed hard. “—treatment today?”

  He shook his head. “No, I think a little laudanum will suffice. You look tired. You need a good night’s sleep. I shall return in the morning and administer treatment.”

  “Oh.”

  “See, I am not without a heart. I shan’t drive you harder than you can bear.” He took her hand again. “You must try to stay open to me. It would hurt me too much, for I know, even more than you can, how badly you need my guidance. I sacrifice so much for you, but I do it gladly. I know you cannot hope to recover, indeed you cannot hope to survive without me.”

  She couldn’t be sure of that. Maybe he was right, but dear Lord, she longed to be free of him and his treatments. She wanted to be her old self. He said she could never be whole again without his help.

  She felt guilty for doubting him. Yes, there had been that time when she was close to the final despair, and he had been the only person she could turn to. He had brought her back from the very edge.