Kissed by Shadows by Jane Feather Read Free Book Online Page B

him!
    Shame, guilt, horror swamped him. Denial tumbled from his lips. “Of course you haven't. Of course there's nothing wrong between us. You talk nonsense, Pippa.”
    “Nonsense!”
She spun around to face him. “It is not nonsense, Stuart! Ever since Mary and Philip were married, you have been behaving strangely. Distant with me . . . except when I'm asleep,” she added acidly. “You're always in the company of the Spanish, always obsequious, always deferential. And this afternoon was the last straw! You will lose all your friends and—”
    “Hold your tongue, woman!”
He flung the words at her, in a tone she had never heard him use before. Now he was ashen, his eyes filled with a wild desperation.
    He took a step towards her and Pippa shrank back involuntarily, afraid that he was going to strike her. Something she would never have believed possible until this minute.
    But her sudden movement gave him pause and he stopped some feet from her. “You have a scold's tongue,” he said more moderately. “Oblige me by bridling it.”
    Pippa set her lips. “I am only trying to understand, my lord,” she said, her face taut. “I know there's something amiss and I would put it right.”
    “And I tell you there is nothing,
nothing,
amiss except your refusal to accept that,” he declared. “Now cease your shrewishness, Pippa.”
    Without knowing quite why she did so Pippa walked up to him, placed her hands on his shoulders, and stood on tiptoe to kiss him full on the mouth. His physical recoil was as obvious as the clash of cymbals, then he put his arms around her, but his hold was halfhearted, and she could feel his reluctance in every muscle.
    Slowly she stepped back. “Your pardon, husband,” she said deliberately, and he knew she was not apologizing for her shrewishness. That flinch had been instinctive, uncontrollable.
    “Let us forget it, my dear,” he said, hearing how awkward he sounded. “A trifling quarrel. Let us put it behind us.”
    “Yes,” she said, regarding him now with a dawning comprehension. “Yes, by all means, let us put it behind us.”
    “I must go,” he said. “An engagement . . . I am already late. I'll join you at the banquet.”
    “I think perhaps I shall keep to my chamber this evening,” Pippa said. “I have not felt well all day. My head . . .” She brushed her temples with fleeting fingertips. “I shall retire early.”
    “Very well.” He went to the door, then hesitated, his hand on the latch. “Perhaps you have some . . . some womanly affliction?” he suggested, not turning to look at her.
    Pippa frowned. Stuart had never evinced anything but the most delicate reticence about her monthly cycle. He left her bed when asked and returned six days later, not a word spoken.
    “I don't believe so,” she stated.
    “But should it not soon . . . soon be the time . . .” he stammered, still without turning.
    “You wish for a child, Stuart?” she asked directly.
    “Of course. How could I not?” Abruptly, without waiting for her answer, he left the chamber, the door closing with a snap on his heels.
    Pippa remained standing in the middle of the chamber. They had not kissed since . . . no, during their marriage they had never kissed, she realized. Oh, he gave her the occasional peck on the cheek or the brow, but a full passionate kiss of the kind she had just initiated,
never.
Once or twice in their courtship, but never since their marriage.
    And she had simply accepted his lack of ardor as a fact of their life together. Nothing else had been wanting and she had been so taken up with her own and Elizabeth's peril in the weeks immediately following her wedding, there had been no time to think of anything else. Then, on her release from prison, Stuart had been so deeply involved with the preparations and negotiations for Mary's wedding Pippa had barely seen him except in public. And his lovemaking had been of the solitary kind, as she knew to her cost.
    He had recoiled from