For a man accustomed to being in charge, this was not an auspicious start.
"Thank you, Jane." Kendra smiled at her kindly, plain-faced maid and put a hand to her carefully coiffed hair. "You did a lovely job."
Even if it was for nothing, she added silently.
As Jane left, she crossed her bedchamber with a sigh. Pushing the drapes aside, she gazed out the diamond-paned window. In Cainewood's quadrangle below, her "betrothed" chatted with her three brothers and a clergyman—or someone dressed like one, anyway.
"No, poppet." Amy Chase disentangled her eleven-month-old's hands from her ebony tresses and set the baby on her unsteady feet. Jewel had just started walking last week. "Kendra. They're waiting."
"I can see that." Letting the curtain drop, she focused on her sister-in-law. "But what they're waiting
for
, I can only imagine. To laugh their heads off at me, I'm thinking."
"Laugh?" In a rustle of dusky rose satin, Caithren came close and tweaked one of Kendra's long curls into place. "Why would they laugh?"
"This has to be a jest. Very well done, I must admit, but there isn't a chance they'll make me go through with it."
"No, Jewel, don't eat that." Amy took an ivory comb from her daughter's mouth and set it back on the dressing table. "I'm not too sure they'd joke about this."
Kendra brushed at the silver tissue underskirt that gleamed from beneath the split front of the blue silk gown she had dressed in for her "wedding." "It's so like them to make me get all ready, isn't it? Their idea of justice, having found me in a seemingly compromising position. But they won't actually make me wed a highwayman."
"I don't think he's just a highwayman, Kendra." Cait's hazel eyes looked concerned. "He must be suitable. Jason seemed dead serious to me."
"He's serious about scaring me, making me come to a decision. This will be called off at the last minute, at which point Jason will expect me to happily choose one of the other men who has offered. As for Trick being
just
a highwayman, I couldn't say. I don't know the first thing about him."
"But you like him, aye?"
"He's...interesting." A vast understatement. Kendra only hoped her sisters-in-law wouldn't ask for elaboration.
"I like the way you say
interesting
." Amy's grin was too knowing for Kendra's comfort. "Sometimes we find love in unexpected places." Her fine features softened as she doubtless considered her own unconventional marriage, that of a shopgirl and a nobleman.
"Aye, she's right." Cait nodded her agreement. "If you'd told me I'd ever be in love with a man and living in
England
"—despite her love for both Jason and their home, she pronounced the word with a mild distaste—"I'd have said you were sodie-heid for certain." Her gaze narrowed at the puzzled look on Amy's face. "Featherbrained," she added in translation.
Inwardly, Kendra sighed. While it was true she yearned for the kind of happiness both her sisters-in-law had found, she didn't think she would find it in a sham marriage to a highwayman. No matter how much she burned for his kiss or fancied herself in love.
"Up," Jewel demanded, providing a welcome distraction as she toddled over to her mother.
Amy perched her on one violet-taffeta-clad hip. "Did you know Colin called on Trick last night? He offered him a chance to back out of this arrangement, but he turned it down."
"Or so Colin told you." Could the amber highwayman actually want her? She didn't think so, and she knew for sure that the little leap of excitement she felt was all wrong. "If Colin did call on him, I'm sure it was to plot this absurd, elaborate ruse. Colin is nothing if not the ultimate prankster."
"Maybe you're right, and this wedding is naught but a jest. But just in case"—Cait held out a silver coin—"you'll want to put this in your shoe."
"There she goes with her superstitions." An indulgent smile curving her lips, Kendra took the coin and tucked it into one high-heeled satin slipper. "What other old wives' tales might you be worrying about?"
"I've never said I believe it, mind you, but you know what they say. Something old, something new, something borrowed, something blue..."
"This gown fills three of those requirements. Old, borrowed, and blue." There'd been no time to have a wedding dress made, so Kendra was wearing Cait's. She brushed again at the shimmering silk skirts. "I always wanted to wear green for my wedding."
"I've told you, you wouldn't want to do that," Cait admonished. "Green is the choice of the fairies."
As though that explained anything.
"And as for something new..." Amy moved closer, trying to maneuver an object out of her pocket.
"I'll take her," Caithren offered, reaching for Jewel. Kendra thought she cuddled her niece rather wistfully. Cait and Jason had been married for nearly a year, yet there was still no sign of a babe.
Amy finally extricated a bracelet from her pocket—smooth-polished ovals of amber set in heavy gold links. Studded with sparkling diamonds, the circlet glittered in her hand. "A wedding gift," she said, "from your future husband. Colin asked me to pass it on to you."
"This isn't a real wedding. And as for new, it doesn't look it."
"It isn't," Amy said in the confident tones of a skilled jeweler. "The cut of the diamonds tells me it's actually very old. But new to you. And it cannot hurt to wear it." The golden stones seemed to glow from within, secrets of past centuries locked inside their translucent depths. "When Colin gave it to me, he said it would be quite fitting."
Amy looked curious, but Kendra wasn't about to admit she thought of Trick as the amber highwayman. How had Colin known? Had she said something inadvertently? She was usually careful about such things.
"I cannot believe the lengths your husband will go to in planning his practical jokes." She reluctantly held out her arm. "It
is
beautiful."
After Amy fastened the clasp, Kendra turned her wrist, watching the diamonds catch the light. Surely the bracelet wasn't really Trick's, which meant she could make her brothers let her keep it after this farce of a wedding was called off. For putting her through this, they owed her that much.
It would remind her of the amber man, of the passion she'd felt ever so briefly in his arms. It would remind her not to settle for less—not to let her brothers pressure her into a loveless marriage, no matter how hard they tried.
She touched the amber pensively—warm, it somehow seemed—and drifted over to her dressing table. Watching herself in the mirror, she settled a gossamer lace veil over her hair and drew it down, tucking the ends into the sides of her neckline to secure it.
Her brothers wanted her to play the part of a blushing bride, and a blushing bride they'd get. She leaned closer. Pale, too. Which was ridiculous—this was but a game.
"No, poppet," Amy said, reattaching one of the tabs on Caithren's stomacher where Jewel's pudgy fingers had managed to unfasten it.
Kendra turned to the door. "Shall we get this little drama over with?"
"Nervous, man?"
"Hell, no." Trick shot Ford a smile—a confident one, he hoped. The shakiness in his legs must be a symptom of last night's overindulgence. He clenched his fists to keep his hands from giving him away, then shoved them into the pockets of his midnight blue velvet surcoat.
More fitted than the current style, he'd last worn the suit a few years ago in Paris, for one of those blasted social occasions his father insisted he attend to further the "business." A time in his life that Trick would rather not remember, but he had only one other formal suit at his home in the countryside, and he'd be damned if he'd wed in his highwayman clothes.
His gaze swept over the groomed lawn of Cainewood Castle's quadrangle, then darted away when he spotted the parson, hands clasped behind his back. He seemed a kind enough sort, but the sight of him made Trick's stomach lurch. He looked back to Ford...but, nay, he'd as soon not look at Ford, either. Kendra's twin and most certainly the man who knew her best.
Instead he focused on the ancient keep, the worn stone a comforting reminder of the strength of Kendra's line. Four hundred years the Chases had lived here, save during the Commonwealth. Unlike himself, Kendra knew who she was and what she had come from.
Aye, their children would surely benefit from that sort of security. Lord knew he had nothing of the kind to offer. He'd always thought of himself as a mongrel.
A mangy one.
Distracted by the bang of a thick oak door, he turned to see Kendra descending Cainewood's front steps.
A vision in a sky-blue gown, she glided his way. The shimmering silk overskirt opened down the front to reveal an underskirt of costly silver tissue—he knew the expense, having bolts of the very fabric stacked in his London warehouse. The sleeves were double-puffed with a spill of silver lace at the wrists, which had made its way from Italy, if he didn't miss his guess.
Swathed within the lace, her hands looked small. In fact, everything about her looked small. He hadn't noticed that before.
He hadn't had time to notice much of anything, he told himself, watching the blush creep up from her low, scooped neckline. He met her eyes. A pretty shade of light green, they looked nervous and wary, but as they locked with his, a hint of interest—and maybe desire?—seemed to kindle in their depths.
Answering warmth stole up his neck, and he knew he was turning a dusky red. Deliberately looking away, Kendra walked toward the family's small private chapel, Jason and Colin at her sides. Their wives trailed behind, a tiny, pink-dressed girl holding their hands, tripping along and giggling between them.
In no time at all, Trick found himself mounting the chapel's stone steps. Inside, sunshine streamed through brilliant-colored windows to cast the sanctuary in rainbow hues. Squaring his shoulders, he went to face the parson. Jason and Colin kissed their sister before Ford walked her to join Trick at the altar, delivering her into his care with a kiss and a hug and something whispered into her ear that Trick wished he could hear.
Kendra shook her head and rolled her eyes as she pulled away.
Every inch of Trick was aware of her proximity. Just standing beside her, his body heated. Her fiery hair was covered by a fine lace veil that framed her face, the ends tucked into her neckline. Trick reached for her hand, feeling it cold and clammy in his.
"Wait," he said, and pulled her to the side of the sanctuary, ignoring the questioning looks on her siblings' faces.
"You don't have to go through with this," he told her in a whisper.
She looked even more at a loss than before. "I...I don't think—"
"I'll be asked to take my vows first. When the time comes, if you wish to call this off, just shake your head
no
and I won't say 'I will.'"
Lifting her hand, he ran his fingers over the bracelet's amber stones, feeling slightly disoriented at the sight of the family heirloom on her wrist. It made this all seem so real, yet unreal at the same time.
He looked up. "I don't expect they can actually force us to marry," he added, thinking of Colin's sword and hoping he was right.
She peeked around at her brothers, then lifted her chin. "If you're willing, then I am, too."
He had his reasons to be willing...he just wondered what hers were. What was wrong with her, then, that she thought she couldn't do better than a robber for a husband? He wasn't really one, of course, but he was aware she didn't know that—doubly aware, since her brothers had made a point of keeping his identity from her, to the extent of asking this afternoon if it would be acceptable for his title to be left out of the proceedings.
She had a problem with dukes, they'd said, and since he didn't care for the title either, he hardly thought it mattered. Married was married.
"Very well, then." He nodded, and they returned to the altar.
The clergyman began the ceremony, and Kendra kept looking around, as though she expected something unforeseen to happen. Not that Trick could blame her. He found this more than a little disconcerting himself.
The preliminaries went entirely too quickly. Nobody showed just cause why they could not be lawfully joined together, and before Trick knew it, the parson was reciting the vows.
"Patrick Iain Caldwell, wilt thou have this woman to thy wedded wife, to live together after God's ordinance in the holy estate of matrimony? Wilt thou love her, comfort her, honor, and keep her in sickness and in health; and, forsaking all others, keep thee only unto her, so long as ye both shall live?"
Trick slanted Kendra a glance, but she didn't shake her head. "I will," he said, and his heart flip-flopped with the enormity of the step he was taking, but also with a sudden realization.
His arms itched to hold her; his mouth ached to take hers. And thanks to her scheming brothers, she had no idea he was a duke.
Whatever her reasons, she wasn't marrying him for his title or his money. She didn't know he had either. She wasn't marrying the Duke of Amberley—she was marrying Trick Caldwell.
Despite the bizarre circumstances, the thought lit a hidden place in his heart.
A few more words, a simple gold band slid onto Kendra's finger, and Trick's arms slipped around her waist, just as they had yesterday. He bent his head toward hers, toward those soft lips that had been tempting him since he'd first laid eyes on her.
As his mouth met hers, she melted against him, her lavender scent surrounding him like a cloud. Every bit as responsive as he'd hoped, she kissed him back, untutored but amazingly eager. And so far as she knew, she was kissing plain Trick Caldwell.
When her brothers cleared their throats, he reluctantly pulled away. He couldn't wait to see what pleasures lay in store when he brought her to the cottage tonight.
She wouldn't discover until tomorrow that she was a duchess.
An impromptu wedding feast was set out on the mahogany table in Cainewood's dining room. Kendra sat beside her new husband, her head still spinning with disbelief.