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“Why are you back.” It was not a question. It lacked the intonation and the curiosity that was supposed to come with an innocent, not ill-intended doubt. It was a command. Carla had given him a direct order he found himself unable to ignore.
“I simply wanted to see my wife.” Lord Montgomery's sigh was heavy, his eyes darting to the fire crackling gently in the fireplace. Its light cast a soft glow on the room, darkened by the spell of the night. The flames caught in Carla's dark hair and her emerald eyes as she observed him, sharp, pungent, almost offended at his interruption. “Is that such a bad thing?”
“Do not lie to me.” Carla's eyes shone with the same intensity as the fire. The soft bounce of her long hair as she moved her head caught his attention. Monty had arrived just in time, right before she went to sleep, and her appearance betrayed her. “There is no reason for you to be back here so soon. You've barely spent two weeks in the countryside. Lord Huxley has been appropriately punished for setting us up out of resentment, and I do not believe for a moment that you might have the slightest interest in me, so why are you back? Did your experiments bore you, my lord?” Her tone shifted to one of disdain, one that made his heart ache.
“No, they were successful,” he whispered, clutching his gloves in his hands. He was regretting his decision, but the truth was, he would have died if he had spent a minute longer alone in that hellish holiday house.
“Then? Why, pray tell, must you bother me at this unearthly hour?” Carla placed her hands on her hips, huffing loudly. “Why is it that you must always go out of your way to bother me?”
“I did not wish to bother you. I simply wished to see you.” It was true. There was no hidden meaning behind his actions. Not anymore, and not with her. Carla was the only person in the world he had never felt the need to hide from. Why she thought he had other intentions, he could imagine, but in his ingenuity, he had thought she would understand him well enough by then to know what was happening to him.
Carla stared at him as if he had gone mad, which was also painfully true to a dangerous extent. Her mouth curled into a smile, and then her lips parted and she let out the cruelest, most beautiful chuckle.
“What? Did gambling with the countryside landlords also bore you, my lord? Were you not entertained enough? No interesting ladies to talk to?” She was toeing the line between genuine curiosity and hateful nonchalance and Monty thought it was the prettiest thing he had ever heard. However, her comment about the ladies bothered him greatly and he felt the need to retort.
“No need to talk to other ladies when I have my wife here,” he muttered, aware of how that must sound to her. True to herself, Carla raised a brow.
“We're married on paper.” She was quick to disregard him. “You said it yourself, my lord. I'm nothing short of a nuisance to you.”
The sound of his past words getting thrown back at him by the most angelic creature in the world made his chest constrict in a way that made him think he would end up popping a rib.
“That might have been true in the past,” he whispered, his voice getting quieter by the minute. “It does not mean it is true now.”
Carla's other eyebrow also rose to her hairline, so now she was staring at him as if she was genuinely convinced he had gone mad.
“What… does that mean, Lord Montgomery?” she whispered, the corners of her lips going down in a sort of confused grimace. Monty opened his mouth to explain himself and found there were no words to drag out of his throat, so he was forced to stay silent.
Carla's grimace turned into a grim expression.
“Is this another ploy?” Monty closed his mouth almost immediately. “Another cruel joke? Another way to make me suffer?” Her voice went up with each statement, not enough to be considered yelling but enough to sound as firm as a rock. The fire crackled louder, as if responding to her apparent disappointment.
“My dear…” Monty began shaking his head. He slid his glasses off the bridge of his nose and left them on the table, right next to the bottle of liquor he had requested earlier. He served himself a glass the moment he saw it and drank it in one single gulp, just to give himself the courage to actually have that conversation. “No. I do not intend to trick you. I wish to know about your time without me.” He slid his glasses back on and the blurring disappeared, allowing him to watch her annoyed expression again.
“My time without you has been glorious, my lord,” Carla scoffed, raising her chin proudly. “Calm and tranquil. My maids and I had a lot of fun while you were gone.”
“Really?” Monty turned to her, conscious that she was lying to him. “Because I've been informed about your boredom quite a couple of times since I arrived. The footman claims you tried to set a carriage on fire just to watch it burn.”
Carla's cheeks turned red, and it was noticeable even with the ethereal glow of the fireplace.
“You know I like watching things burn,” she huffed, and Monty nodded his head in agreement.
“I know. And I find your fascination endearing.” Carla's expression fell again the moment the word ‘endearing’ left his lips.
“Stop it.”
“Stop what?”
“Stop trying to pretend I interest you. Stop trying to pretend you're worried about me. Stop trying to pretend you're here for me.” Carla pulled at her sleeping gown, fidgeting with the fabric absentmindedly and rolling it between her fingers.
“... But I am here for you, Carla.” Monty took a step forward and was delighted when she didn't try to step back. “I swear.”
Carla's eyes seemed to soften for a moment. Her eyelashes fell beautifully over her cheeks when she closed her eyes, her plush lips pursing enchantingly. Monty's eyes zeroed in on them and he unconsciously licked his own, wondering, in his stupor, how that soft, pillowy flesh would feel against his skin.
“... I fear I do not understand, my lord.” Her voice was way too dangerously, aggressively appealing, way too warm and intense, surrounding him in an all too familiar way.
“There is nothing to understand. I simply wished to be in your presence.” Monty's eyes met hers. Then, he allowed himself to take another step forward. This time, though, he found harsh rejection in the shape of his wife taking a step back, clearly displeased.
“How…” she whispered, and that time, it did sound like a real question. “How can you say that?”
Monty knew it was coming. He knew it, but he still tried to deny it.
“Pardon?”
“How can you say something like that? How can you say you wish to be in my presence when you have spent most of your life claiming you wished someone would spare you the torture of seeing me?” Carla's eyebrows knitted together, her lips parting as her breathing became shallower, less relaxed, more alert. Her cheeks were tinted red and Monty wanted nothing more than to kiss them.
“Carla.” Another step forward, and another step back from her.
“How can you even think that?” Carla scoffed, unbelieving, her expression morphing into a humorless smile. “How can you stand there, high and mighty, lord of this house, Earl of Appleton, and tell me you wished to be in my presence so very desperately, you rode a horse for eight hours under the rain just to get to me before I went to bed? After spending all your life claiming the act of watching me could cause a blind physical pain?”
Monty flinched at the cruelty of a comment he was fully aware he had made not too long ago.
“I… I hope you know I rarely meant the things I said,” he mumbled, knowing there was no way she would accept an apology.
“Do not give me that.” Her tone was somber, almost violent in a way. Monty stared into her eyes again and saw the darkness in them, the bottomless pit of resentment he doubted she would be able to get his image out of. “You and I both know you meant them, my lord, so there's no need to fake regret. You have no right to come here and make me stand in this room, in this house, and tell me all these lies.”
“It is not a lie, my dear.”
“Stop calling me that. I am not your dear nothing. I never wanted to be. We were dragged into a scandal by a resentful man, we were forced to marry, we got our revenge together, now we're simply obligated to stand each other. So do not lie to me.” Carla took a deep breath. Her eyes were getting glossy and she blinked the shine away. “I do not need you to be a man you will never be able to be. I could have married a man I loved, but that opportunity was taken from me and I am not upset. That is the way life goes. I do not need your pity.”
Monty frowned at this, feeling her anger, her rage, seep out and envelop him like a holy punishment.
“There is only one liar in this room, and it is not me.” He knew he was playing with fire with what he was saying, but the satisfaction he felt when he saw her confused expression was enough to get him to keep going. “You are upset. I can feel it.”
Carla looked away, closing her fists and digging her nails into her palms. There was nothing Monty wanted more than to pull her against his chest and hug all those shadows away, hug them so hard they evaporated, hug them so hard they stopped chasing her in dreams, but he knew he couldn't. Not yet. Not right then.
“... It was taken from me,” she whispered. “I was forced to marry a man I hated and who hated me, just to prove to society a virtue I have kept intact and which was doubted unjustly. So, yes, I happen to be upset. I still do not need your pity, or for you to pretend you wish to be with me.”
“But I wish to.” Monty felt the need to insist. He needed to insist. He needed her to understand what she was doing to him.
“But I don't understand why!” Carla's voice surprised him into silence. Her expression was now worried, almost desperate, her eyes shining with confusion, anger, sadness, guilt. “I simply do not understand, why? Why do you wish to be in my presence? Why do you treat me so kindly? Why do you come back to me if you so desperately hate me?”
“I do not hate you, Carla,” Monty whispered, trying to order his mouth to close and his jaw to quit being slack. “I do not. I love you.”
“You love me?!” Carla seemed almost scandalized. “Oh, do not give me that, my lord! That is a cruel way to make fun of me!”
“It is not my intention to make fun of you, Carla.”
“Then why?!” Carla finally raised her voice enough to scream, stomping her foot against the floor like a little girl. “Why do you say you love me?! Why do you act like you love me after all these years of hate?!”
“I don't know.” Monty's answer shocked her into silence as well, so for a while, the only sound that could be heard was the soft crackling of the fireplace as it consumed yet another piece of wood. “I do not know,” Monty followed, taking a deep breath. His stomach was fluttering in fear. “All I know is that I didn't know you, and now I do. And when I didn't know you, you were just another debutant who happened to be even more annoying than the others. But now that I know you, my lady, I know your intelligence, your wit, your sharpness, your calculated mind, the way you plan your strategies so you always end up victorious. I know your beauty, the way you hate your hair being touched but you still sit in front of the mirror every day so the maids can put it up for you. The way you ask them to paint your lips a color you despise every time there is any kind of social function you must attend. I know the books you read, how you speak, how you see the world, and I know there is so much more to know, and I wish to know it. I wish to scratch the surface of you so desperately. I wish…”
He stopped to take a breath, but when he went to speak, his words got stuck deep in his lungs. Carla did not look like she wanted him to continue talking, but there was something else he wanted to say.
“I want to love you. All of you. I know this love was already hidden deep down somewhere, maybe taking an appearance I couldn't comprehend, but now I do. I understand. All this time, all these fights, all these years, all I wanted from you was to love you. To feel you. To live you. Carla, you're the only person in the world who's ever made me feel this electric, this alive inside. I need you. I love you.”
With every word, he got a little bit closer and Carla stepped a little bit away from him, until she bumped against the small green velvet sofa and almost sat her butt on it accidentally. She couldn't run away anymore, so she was forced to endure him getting closer to her in the heat of the moment.
“... If what you're saying is true, my lord, then your idea of love must be so very twisted,” she whispered, frowning. “How can you say you love me after all that has happened between us?”
“I know, I know, and I apologize, but…”
“Apologizing doesn't erase the insults, nor the bad feelings,” Carla huffed, making the hairs in front of her face fly away from her eyes. “For either of us.”
“I know…”
“Love is not supposed to be this painful. This is not how love is supposed to feel like. Someone I love is not supposed to make me literally insane!” She screamed that last part, then looked away in embarrassment almost immediately. The tip of her nose turned a bright shade of red that made Monty feel something primal inside, something that made his pupils widen and take up most of his blue irises. He gently grabbed one of her naked hands and cradled it carefully, scared she might run off and he might never get the chance to talk to her like that again.
“I am aware that the way that I treated you does not deserve to be forgiven,” he started again, caressing the inside of her wrist. “And my confusion regarding my feelings is not an excuse. I degraded your name and treated you badly, and for that, I apologize. However, be sure I am getting adequately punished for my actions.”
Carla looked up at him with curiosity and confusion, her eyes shining like a pair of uncut emeralds. Her hair fell over her face in funny little swirls and Monty had to physically restrain himself from doing something that would surely get him to be despised for the rest of his life.
“... What do you mean?” the girl whispered, her lips moving hypnotically. Monty followed them, followed the careful, gentle sway of her hair, followed the fiery glint in her eyes. His hand twitched holding hers and he tightened his grip.
He had never wanted someone so scandalously.
“I meant every single word that’s come out of my mouth tonight,” he continued speaking, his whole body wrecked with shivers despite the heat in the room. “My days in the holiday house should have been as calm and as tranquil as your days here, but nothing further from the truth. You were on my mind, Carla. Constantly. All day, every day. Every moment I spent far from you felt like a mundane waste of my time. All the experiments I used to enjoy, I didn't anymore. I couldn't get you out of my head, your voice came to me in soft whispers in the breeze, I saw the color of your eyes in every single ancient tree, everything was dull and somber without your smile, without your cocky remarks, without you. The reason I wished to be in your presence was because I was dying without you, Carla. Nothing made me feel like you make me feel. Nothing at all, not anymore. I missed you desperately, missed your little evil grin, your fascination with things that explode, your curiosity, your revelry. Missed the way you would talk to me like my title was just a mindless addition to my name. Missed your disdainful playfulness, your courage, even your manipulation. I missed it all. I was dying.”
He didn't stop to take a single breath as he read through his improvised mental speech. Carla was positively stunned, paralyzed, her hand in his as he rubbed the inside of her wrist more and more aggressively, as if wanting to erase the mark of a past he wanted her to forget about.
“I want to love you,” he kept whispering. “I want to adore you, to cherish you, to treasure you. I…” His eyes drifted to her lips again and he had to stop, close his eyes and breathe through his nose just to clear his head. “God. I want to have you. I wish to have you so desperately, I desire you. At night, in that hellish house, I would lay down in bed and imagine you were there with me, and you allowed me to touch you, to feel you, and for a moment, I was a happy man. My dreams were the happiest because you were in them, and I showed you how deeply I loved you in the most beautiful way you could ever imagine. It was precisely the knowledge that I could only ever desire you in dreams that was slowly maddening me. My skin burns for yours but I know I am undeserving of it. I am undeserving of you, Carla, but you have infected my brain and clouded my judgement to the point where I can not tell what is right or wrong anymore. You… this is the punishment for how I treated you. Your disdain, when I desire you so much, I feel insane. This torture… I wouldn't wish it on my worst enemy. Being desperately in love with a woman who has every right to despise me.”
Carla listened. She actually listened, attentively, put her whole body and soul into the act of hearing him narrate the torture she was inflicting on him. It reached a point where he could clearly see she enjoyed the things he was telling her, but was trying to conceal it. When he finished, her lips had curled into the smallest of smiles, and he couldn't help but feel honored he had managed to get her to smile again, even if it was like that.
“Please,” he whispered, taking her hand in his and slowly bringing her arm up to his mouth. He placed the smallest, most tender kiss on her forearm, relishing the touch of her skin against his. “Take this suffering as my heavenly punishment. Have mercy on me. There is only so much a man like me can endure.”
“If what you're saying is true, my lord, then I enjoy your suffering.” Carla chuckled just the tiniest bit. Monty significantly calmed down when he saw that her anger had subsided.
Monty pressed his nose against her skin, breathing in her scent. His eyes opened just enough to glance at her, heavy, charged with a dark, unspoken desire.
“I knew you would,” he whispered, nuzzling against her forearm. “You're an evil woman.” He allowed himself to joke.
“Does my evilness bother you?” she asked, now smiling widely.
“... No.” Monty smiled back, satisfied he had managed to calm her down and reassure her. “No, it never has. In fact, I have always found myself quite bewitched by it.”
Carla actually laughed, watching him as he kept placing soft kisses on her forearm. Some of them caused her skin to tingle and Monty felt the shivers wrecking her, and he basked in how sinful the situation was. He wanted to ravage that woman. He wanted her to destroy him, to use him however she desired, to mistreat him and hate him as freely as she wanted. He wanted all of her punishments and all of her praise, all her attention, all her orders and commands. He wanted her. All of her, and he couldn't keep the thought to himself.
“I want you,” he whispered, almost melting at the soft sigh that escaped her the moment he caressed her forearm with the tip of his nose. “I might die if I do not have you. Use me. Toy with me. Punish me for all my mistakes. I'm all yours to keep and torture however you desire, my lady.”
She took a while to respond, so he slowly pulled away, thinking he might have gone too far. However, he was met with the prettiest sight he had ever witnessed: Carla, with her cheeks reddish, her lips parted in a soft sigh, her green eyes shining with pure, unabashed lust. Her mouth curled up into a smile and she actually giggled, now dangerously close to his face.
“Is this another way to get back at Lord Huxley?” she whispered, and Monty's heart stopped beating for a beautiful moment. “Admitting this reluctant union might be found enjoyable?”
“Lord Huxley can come bite my ass,” Monty whispered back, speaking his words straight from the heart. “All I know is that the most beautiful woman in the whole world does not seem bothered by my futile attempt at expressing my adoration for her.”
“It is an adorable attempt indeed,” Carla chuckled. “But…”
Monty embraced the obvious upcoming rejection he would surely have to suffer, since, in his mind, there was no way Carla would ever reciprocate what he was feeling. However, he was met with a beautiful surprise.
“... I believe I desire your presence as well, my lord.”
Monty opened his eyes just slightly to glance at her again. Their lips were almost touching, just an inch away, so very close.
“... You do?” he whispered, taking his time to process her words.
“I do,” Carla whispered, her hands reaching out and taking his face carefully. “I missed you as well. I have been bored without you. My maids are entertaining the first few days, but none of them can do your experiments and none of them have read the books I enjoy, none of them talk or look like you, and none of them irritate me like you do. And, of course, none of them wanted to plot and prepare my enemies’ downfall with me.”
Monty chuckled at that, feeling her hands on his face.
“I'm never going away without you again,” he whispered. “I love you.”
“...” Carla took another tortuously long while to respond. This scared Monty, who tried to pull away. However, she didn't let him.
“... You don't need to say it back.”
“I love you too,” Carla whispered, pulling at his ears playfully. “Even when you annoy me greatly. Even when you make me wish murder was not condemned. I love you, even when it looks like I do not, I do. I do love you. This is how I feel.” She took a deep breath, almost stealing his own breath from him. “This is how I have always felt… against my better judgement.”
“I find that hard to believe,” Monty chuckled, earning, of course, a judgemental look from her.
“I thought you hated me, my lord. When my pride is on the line, feelings do not matter, you should know that. I simply tried to survive,” she whispered, and he stared with pure tenderness in his eyes.
“Allow me to apologize once again,” he mumbled against her mouth, which made her laugh.
“I do not recall ever hearing this many apologies from you, my lord.”
“Not a lot of people deserve an apology from me,” Monty muttered, smirking just a little bit. “You do, nonetheless.”
Carla smiled and, unprompted, placed the softest of kisses to his lips and Monty felt his whole body ignite and begin burning like the fireplace behind them. She pulled away just enough to speak against his lips, laughing when he tried to latch onto her again.
“You want my forgiveness?” Monty nodded obediently, like a little kid. “Beg for it.”
Monty stared into her eyes. Then, a lazy smirk spread on his face and hung from his ears. He pressed a soft kiss to her forehead, then one to the tip of her nose. He then pressed a kiss to her chin and began kneeling down in front of her, letting his hands and his nose slide down her body slowly, almost as if trying to drag her clothing with him. Her hand reached out and buried itself in his hair and he hummed, keeping his eyes closed as he pressed kisses to her stomach. Then, she pulled at his hair and he moaned like a starved man, which clearly caught her off guard.
“Please,” he begged, looking at her with a desire that seemed almost painful. “Please, forgive me. Forgive my insolence and the words I said when I was under the impression there was not a universe where your eyes would ever show benevolence when glancing at me. Please, forgive my audacity and allow me to cherish you like you deserve.”
He buried his nose in her stomach and breathed her in, her sweet scent enveloping him and choking him and making him go wild with lust. He looked up and found her eyes fixated on him, her soft smile, the curve of her nose. She pulled at his hair again and he felt his eyes roll to the back of his skull, the pleasure overwhelming.
“I'm begging you, my dear,” he whispered, clawing at her clothes just so she wouldn't try to pull away. “Please, spare me. Have mercy on me. My heart yearns for you, my mind can not sleep if it is not you I am holding. I need you more than air, more than life. Please, accept my humble apology, for that would surely make me the happiest man in the world.”
Barely a year ago, knowing those words would ever leave his lips would have made the Earl implode. However, right then, he had tunnel vision. There was only one thing he wanted from life and that was for his wife to be happy, healthy and loved so intensely, she drowned in the feeling. Just knowing he was in her presence had already made the tension leave his body, a tension that hadn't left him a moment ever since he arrived at his family's holiday house. Touching her, kissing her, adoring her, talking to her… it felt like the rush that always came with a first glass of liquor.
Her body started trembling in his hands and he raised his head, alarmed by the movement and thinking she might have been crying. She was not, she was simply laughing. Her cheeks were now the same color as blood and it was clear she was trying to avoid his gaze. She slowly pulled away and he chased after her, remaining on his knees with a terrified expression. He wondered if he had done something wrong.
“My God…” she whispered before he got the chance to ask. “You're adorable.”
Her laugh was comforting, so Monty couldn't even find it in him to be upset about the fact that she was making fun of his apology.
“My suffering amuses you, I see,” he smiled at her and she turned her head away, giggling as she nodded.
“It does amuse me. It amuses me greatly,” she grinned, walking to him and kneeling down next to him to wrap her arms around his neck. He placed his hands gently on her hips and parted his lips, speaking against her neck.
“I will keep suffering as long as it keeps making you laugh,” he whispered, placing the softest of smooches against her skin. “And when it stops making you happy, I will find another suffering for you to rejoice in.”
“Until I forgive you?” Carla chuckled, pulling him impossibly closer. She shivered at the touch of his mouth and let out a sigh that put the gentlest gust of air to shame.
“No,” he muttered, making their noses touch. “Until the day we die.”
Carla turned a bright shade of red and turned her head, embarrassed.
“Ugh… do not say that, my lord. Such dramatics,” she mumbled to herself, but she still dove back in to bite his lips, and that was a kiss for the ages.
It could have lasted anywhere between a moment and a thousand years.