Lord Braybrook’s Penniless Bride (17 page)

‘You
fool
!’ ground out Alcaston. ‘Go to the devil your own way!’

He stalked out, slamming the door.

Julian clung to the remaining shreds of his self-discipline. Frogmarching Alcaston through the house and flinging him down the front steps was out of the question. Instead he turned to Christy.

She looked calm, unmoved, as though her father had not just denounced and disowned her without so much as speaking her name. As though nothing had shifted in her world. Perhaps it
hadn’t. Yet he could feel her fingers digging into his arm. Fury? Hurt? As though reading his mind, she relaxed her hold.

‘Thank you, my lord.’

‘You’re welcome. Come, sit down.’ He urged her to a chair and then turned away to a small side table and poured a glass of brandy from a decanter there. ‘Here—drink it. You’ll feel better.’

She sniffed it suspiciously. ‘I don’t need it.’

‘The hell you—’ He broke off.

‘Lost for words, my lord?’

He ran a hand through his hair, smiling ruefully. ‘Having just called your fa—’ Something in her eyes stopped him. He rephrased what he had been about to say. ‘Having called Alcaston to account for swearing in front of you, it would be the outside of enough to do it myself.’

Behind the spectacles something glimmered. He swallowed, turned away to pour himself a brandy.

‘He’s no father to me,’ she said softly. ‘My father would have attended Sarah’s funeral.’

Sarah? Her sister? His heart twisted. ‘I don’t blame you,’ he said. ‘Christy, you’ve never told me about your mother. I didn’t want to pry, but—’

‘You have every right,’ she said. He wasn’t entirely sure that was true.

‘After all,’ she continued bitterly, ‘she might have been a back-alley whore or a notorious courtesan.’

He shook his head. ‘Unlikely. No back-alley whore could have raised you to be what you are—a lady. And if your mother
had
been a notorious courtesan, then it’s unlikely Alcaston could have kept your existence quiet. Nor,’ he added, ‘would your mother have had to pretend to be a widow. Tell me.’

She was silent for a moment, but he did not think it was the silence of refusal. Her eyes were distant, remembering, thinking. At last she met his gaze and sighed. ‘This is only in part what Mama told me. Some of it I pieced together from old letters and her diary.’

He nodded, and she continued. ‘Mama was the daughter of
lesser gentry living near Alcaston’s principal seat. Her name was Catherine. Catherine Louisa Daventry.’

‘It was her real name?’

She frowned. ‘Yes. There were a couple of letters from my grandfather, and a diary she had kept before and just after her elopement.’

‘Good.’ Safer to ask. A false name could call the validity of their marriage into question later.

‘From the diary she believed that Alcaston intended to marry her, but since the previous duke had contracted enormous debts, he contracted to marry the only daughter of an extremely wealthy merchant. Naturally he did not tell my mother this when they eloped. By the time her family found her, Alcaston was married to his heiress and I was on the way.’ She shivered. ‘There was a letter from her father disowning her.’

‘They cast her off?’

She frowned. ‘I think…when I was about six—it was after Harry was born—a man came to visit. We were in Bath by then. I think he was Mama’s brother; she said at first to call him Uncle Harry, but that made him angry. After he left Mama said we’d be all right now. I suppose he gave her money. There was an annuity that died with her.’

He nodded. ‘Did Alcaston support her?’

She bit her lip. ‘After a fashion. He didn’t visit often after Sarah was born. That was when he moved us to Bristol.’ Her cheeks reddened. ‘Easier to maintain the “widow” fiction if he moved us during each pregnancy.’

He didn’t know what to say.

She continued. ‘After Sarah died, he tired of Mama, but gave her the Bristol house.’ Coldly, she added, ‘Guilt, probably.’

Julian thought back over all he knew of Alcaston. Fear of exposure might have had something to do with it. It was common knowledge that Alcaston’s father-in-law had been particularly strict on such matters. He’d have pulled the ducal purse strings uncomfortably tight had he suspected this. Probably Catherine’s family had used that to force Alcaston to support her.

‘Do you wish me to approach your mother’s family?’

Some of her brandy spilt. ‘
No
. I wrote for her when she was ill, dying. A note came back from a Henry Daventry saying that he had no sister. I wrote again when she died and received no reply.’

He nodded. Families hid a daughter’s disgrace at all costs. And sometimes the innocent paid.

‘We’ll ignore them,’ he told her.

The ghost of a smile touched her lips. ‘I doubt they’ll notice.’

‘Their loss,’ he said lightly. And meant it.

Two days later Christy faced the altar of the village church as the Vicar expounded the reasons for matrimony, the words she had already heard that morning piercing her.

‘Thirdly, it was ordained for the mutual society, help and comfort, that the one ought to have of the other, both in prosperity and adversity. Into which holy estate these two persons present come now to be joined…’

Early that morning Serena had married Nigel Havergal with only the family present. Their faces had been alight with happiness, the rightness of their union unquestionable. The Vicar’s words had been a blessing, a confirmation of joy.

But now those same words sounded a warning…

‘Therefore if any man can show any just cause why they may not be lawfully joined together, let him now speak, or else hereafter forever hold his peace…’

She half-expected Alcaston to reappear. Folly. There was no legal impediment to the marriage. Merely social convention. She dragged in a breath to give her responses. Was she doing the right thing? Harry’s belligerence suggested her chances of talking him out of challenging Braybrook had been non-existent. Braybrook himself appeared completely unmoved, and for some unstated reason Serena was delighted, welcoming the betrothal, dismissing her birth.

Unfortunate, but since you are exactly what he needs there is no point dwelling on it. It is nobody’s business but your own.

Kind, generous words, but how could a bastard, a woman he had wanted as his mistress, be what he needed in a bride?

Harry was placing her hand in the Vicar’s. A moment later the Vicar gave her hand into Braybrook’s keeping. He took it in a firm, steady clasp. Just that formal touch demanded by the ritual, and her senses sang with awareness. His height, his strength, the hard line of his jaw, the hint of sandalwood and the spicy, masculine tang that was
him
. Every nerve thrummed with a terrifying anticipation…

The Vicar was speaking again.

‘Wilt thou have this woman…?’

Had it been a foolish impulse on his part? Did he regret his decision already, or would that come later? A shiver ran through her.

Beside her, he frowned, the dark brows snapping together. She lifted her chin and met the piercing blue gaze.

‘…and forsaking all other, keep thee only unto her, as long as ye both shall live?’

The frown deepened…then his fingers tightened.

‘I will.’

Her heart shook as he made vows she doubted he intended to keep. Yet, unbidden, her fingers returned his clasp, and trembled as his thumb stroked gently over the back of her hand.

The wedding guests were gone except for those staying in the house and Christy stared out of her bedchamber window. The western sky flamed pink and gold on deep, deep blue, the trees beyond the park standing black against the glowing embers of day. The whole world, the very air was flushed golden pink. She leaned out, pushing the casement wide. It was still relatively early. Far too early to be in her nightgown. But her newly appointed maid had been waiting when she came up, had seemed to think that she ought to be arrayed in her nightgown. Ready.

Acquiescence was easier and a hot bath was unaccustomed luxury even without the various oils Beth the maid tipped into the steaming water.

Her ladyship—Mrs Havergal, that is, gave them to me spe
cially, my lady. For tonight.
A conspiratorial smile had accompanied the words.

There had been soap as well, its delicate fragrance a match for the bath oil. She would have loved it, even with Beth hovering, making sure everything was just so. But the rising, scented steam reminded her mercilessly that this was a ritual, that she was being readied. Adorned. Made fit for her husband.

She had rebelled, though, at the gauzy froth of silk and lace laid out for her on the downturned bed. Serena had given it to her, but the thought of appearing before Braybrook in the intimacy of her bedchamber half-naked sent panic skittering down her nerves. Her husband had been bedding London’s beauties for years. She had no idea of inviting comparison. Instead she had folded it carefully away, selecting instead plain, modest, high-necked linen. It gave at least the illusion of safety.

A fragile illusion. Braybrook’s chamber was next to this one with a connecting door and she had heard faint sounds of movement. Indistinct male voices. She had dismissed Beth at once, and the maid had departed with a curtsy, and barely concealed smile at the closed connecting door. That had been bad enough, but had Braybrook appeared with the maid still in the room…

A throat was cleared. ‘Christy?’

J
ulian watched her from the door as she leaned out of the window, limned in light. The way she was seated sideways on the window ledge had his blood heating. One bare foot remained on the floor, steadying her; the demure nightgown—which should have concealed, but instead hugged breast, slender waist and curving hip—had slid up to expose a dainty ankle, part of her calf, graceful, shapely…She was half-turned away, her face hidden as she gazed out.

Desire bucked, but he hesitated; she had been nervous in the church. Yet during the hours since her composure had been absolute. A façade, he knew, something that could be broken. He had once wondered what it would take to break her quiet self-possession.

A wedding night was almost guaranteed to leave her self-possession in tatters.

And what about
your
self-possession?

He dismissed that.
His
self-possession had never been in doubt. Not with any woman. It was not now.

He cleared his throat. ‘Christy?’

She did not move, yet where she had been still before, her stillness now held the quality of force. And when she turned to face him, the control in her movement cried tension. In the dimly lit room and with the flaring sky to frame her, he could not read her expression.

‘My lord?’

That stung.

He came further into the room as she slipped from the window ledge and the nightgown fell around her in modest concealment. He gestured towards the door. ‘Shall we?’

She looked blankly from him to the door. ‘I beg your pardon?’

‘Our wedding night. Or had you forgot?’

She flushed. ‘Of course not! I…I just thought—’ Her gaze flickered to the turned-down bed and he saw where her confusion lay.

‘My bed,’ he said quietly. Tonight at least it seemed fitting.

Her eyes widened, the faintest chink in her calm. Without a word she moved around the room, snuffing candles until the only light was from the window and the doorway behind him. She made to catch up the dressing gown lying across a chair.

‘You won’t need that,’ he informed her. She wouldn’t need the nightgown either, but he supposed it would be a bit much to tell her to leave that behind. As it was, she stilled and her head came up.

For an instant her hand hovered over the dressing gown, then dropped and she came towards him. He stepped back to allow her to pass through the doorway. Roses and honeysuckle, and soft, warm woman drifted by, the fragrance humming through him. He hardened his jaw against the instinct to haul her into his arms there and then.

What was the matter with him? She was a woman like any other. Why did she burn at his self-control? He forced his arms to remain at his sides. Better not to give her any hint of his urgency. She was probably nervous enough. Besides which, without a measure of control he would hurt her more than was inevitable in the loss of her innocence. And the thought of hurting her in any way lashed at him. How could he keep this marriage on a manageable footing when the thought of that unavoidable, and probably slight, hurt knotted his gut?

He remained at the door, watching as she crossed the room. The chaste gown hid everything. In the dancing firelight there was not the slightest shadow cast through the heavy linen. No hint of the lissom body he knew was there. The long, slender legs,
the rounded bottom and swell of her hips, made for a man’s hand to slide over and possess. Why did he want
her
more than he had ever wanted another, so that desire itself burned anew?

He had always assumed that he would desire his eventual wife and enjoy taking her to bed. In a friendly, comfortable sort of way. Rather like his aristocratic lovers, but without the inconvenience of constant discretion. He’d also assumed his wife would be a woman of his world, bringing wealth and important connections to the marriage.

Christy was different—she brought nothing to the marriage. And all the power was his, to give or to withhold whatever he pleased. So why did he feel so at sea? As though he were in the grip of something larger than either of them? Something that swung him to and fro, bobbing like a cork in a tempest.

And why the hell did he feel that in some odd way, without even realising it, his powerless, inconvenient bride held the reins? Because he couldn’t take his eyes off that demure nightgown? Because just watching her walk unhestitatingly straight to his bed had him hard and aching?

Christy stopped at the bed. Shock at being summoned to his room had propelled her across the vast expanse of his bedchamber. It was not sufficient to get her into that enormous bed.

Her legs rebelled and refused to go a step further.

Nothing in her experience gave any clue to what she should do next. She took a deep breath and another. But her insides still quaked. She knew what happened in the bed, but how was she to get into it? Climb in? Wait to be invited? She felt a complete fool that he’d had to summon her to her duty, but how was she to know where they were to…she didn’t even know what to call it.
Making love
seemed inappropriate in the extreme. Consummate the marriage?

She turned and swallowed; he wore only a banyan. Beneath the heavy crimson silk was bare chest. She stared. His feet were bare too. Presumably he intended to remove his robe. Would he remove her nightgown? Or should she take it off?

Suddenly he looked larger, more powerful, his face harder, etched in shadows. A trick of the firelight, surely. He might resent the marriage, but he was not a man who would use his physical strength against a woman.

She supposed he would be careful in…in taking his pleasure, that he would not hurt her intentionally. There was nothing to fear—except even now, with him still on the other side of the room, she could feel her body’s treacherous yearning, the melting heat. The memory of his fingers on her breasts sent heat curling through her. Would he expect her to touch him? Or would it disgust him?

She felt cold. Lost.

He had wanted her as his mistress. And had been forced to take her as his bride. She knew, none better, the yawning gulf between the woman a man would take as his mistress and the woman he would take willingly as his bride.

His gaze raked her from head to foot. And still he said nothing, made no move towards her. Perhaps she didn’t look pretty enough. Perhaps she should have worn that confection of lace and gauzy silk—except she would have felt more exposed than if she had been naked. Bad enough standing here before him in this all-enveloping linen.

She still wore her spectacles. Slowly, hands shaking slightly, she removed them, and set them carefully folded on the bedside table. The room dissolved into a firelit blur, her husband—oh, God! her
husband
—an indistinct shadow near the door.

Julian took an uncertain breath as she laid her spectacles down. In a career dotted with beautiful women draped in various alluring poses and degrees of undress, he had never seen anything more erotically tempting. His bride, shrouded from neck to toes in plain, white linen, her soft tawny curls confined in a single braid hanging over her left shoulder almost to her breast. Christy, blinking at him uncertainly without her spectacles. His mouth dried.

She said nothing. Just waited. She was his, and his blood burned with wanting her. Every law and precept, all custom and
tradition, said she was his. His by undeniable right. He started towards her, half-expecting her to step back. She didn’t, but he could see the tension, the self-control she exerted not to do so. Instead her arms came up to cross defensively over her breasts.

He stopped, desire a heated ache, thickening in his groin. A hunger that he would soon assuage in the soft body of his bride.

She stood before him—a pale offering against the dark hangings of his bed.

‘Our wedding night, Christy.’ The words were out before he knew it, leaving him wondering why he had said them at all.

Silence stretched between them.

‘Yes.’ Her voice was quiet, expressionless. As if she merely agreed with his statement of fact. But something about her very stillness told him it was more than that. That in one word she had voiced her acceptance, her submission to what would take place in the shadows of the bed behind her.

Desire flexed its claws and he took the final steps to stand directly in front of her. She met his gaze unflinchingly, but her throat moved convulsively, the tip of her tongue moistening soft, trembling lips.

He fought the immediate, feudal urge to take and possess that mouth, ravishing it utterly. His self-discipline hung by a thread—if he touched her now, let alone tasted her, they would be on the bed. If he didn’t just tumble her to the floor and take her there. He forced desire back into its cage. She was his bride—he had all night.

Slowly he raised one hand and set it to the ribbon securing the neckline of her nightgown. A gentle tug, and the bow surrendered. Need clawed at him. A row of buttons marched down the bodice of the gown to disappear under her tightly crossed arms. One by one he encircled her wrists in a careful grip, lifting them away from her breasts. Her eyes widened, dilating as he drew her hands down, holding them slightly away from her body. He kept his touch light, aware of the tension flickering through her, although she had not resisted.

‘I wish to see you.’

Her breath came and went in a rush. She nodded and he released her wrists. Her hands remained at her sides. Without the
protection of her arms he could see the veiled hint of sweetly rounded breasts. Soon he would taste them. Soon he would have her beneath him. His own breath shortened. Soon. Very soon.

Her chin lifted, exposing the slender column of her throat. So vulnerable, so tempting. He leaned forwards, touched his lips to the hollow at the base of her throat, flicking out his tongue to taste. Soft female fragrance exploded through him.

He straightened, and saw that her eyes were closed, lips slightly parted. His blood drumming, he set his fingers to the top button of her nightgown and undid it, forcing himself to be slow, deliberate. One by one the buttons fell victim until the gown hung open almost to her waist.

The sight had his blood roaring in his ears. Dainty, rounded breasts, half-hidden by the gown. He set his hands to her and pushed the garment off.

A startled gasp escaped her as she clutched at the gown, catching it at her hips. A simple matter to pull it away, leaving her fully exposed…instead he traced the curve of a creamy, uptilted breast with shaking fingers. Dear God, she was lovely—soft, silky flesh that begged his touch, shadows and firelight dancing over her.

Lightly, he touched one pink nipple; it tightened in reaction. He nearly forgot to breathe as he stroked again. A strangled sound brought his gaze back to her face. Her eyes were tightly shut, her lower lip caught between her teeth.

His conscience murmured. Slamming a door shut on the unwelcome voice, he slid his hand lower, over the gentle swell of her stomach, feeling taut muscles flicker. Pushing beneath the gown at her hips, his fingertips found the soft curls nestled at the juncture of her thighs.

She froze, every muscle locking.

He stopped, no longer able to ignore the truth. She was afraid.

She was his wife. She had not protested. Had not taken so much as one step away, let alone tried to stop him. His fingertips still rested on those soft curls.

Yet even as he watched, a tear slipped from beneath her tightly closed eyelids.

His conscience rebelled.

You can’t! Not like this.

Why not? She is my wife. She has not refused me, and even if she had—she is still mine to take.

You can’t do this. No matter that law and custom say you can. No decent man would take her like this.

He looked at her. She was shaking with the effort to hold herself still, her lower lip still gripped between her teeth.

There was no equivocating. No matter that he had every legal right to take her—he couldn’t do it. It didn’t matter that she had consented, that she was not fighting him, or even protesting.

She was not willing.

She has not refused me.

His conscience scoffed.
Why would she? She knows the law as well as you. She has no rights. She is yours and she knows it.

He took a long look at the sweetly enticing body of his bride. Never in his life had he taken a woman who was anything less than eager.

With a savage curse he withdrew his hand and turned his back.

‘I can’t do this,’ he said tautly. ‘Cover yourself and get back to your room. Quickly.’

Before he changed his mind and tumbled her to the bed. He tasted bitter self-loathing as he realised how close he was to doing that. The temptation hammered in his veins. Every muscle and nerve, every fibre growled in frustration as he listened to the flurry of movement behind him, heard the swift padding of bare feet, and the thud of the door.

Christy stood shaking in the darkness of her bedchamber. She leaned on the panelled door, clutching her spectacles, barely able to stand for the trembling of her limbs. He didn’t want her, had ordered her out.

I can’t do this.

Her breasts ached with need. He had scarcely touched her and she felt…she didn’t understand what she felt. Or did she? Weak—liquid heat pooling low in her belly. An emptiness that
cried within her. Body and soul, she felt as though something had been ripped from her core, leaving her cold and desolate.

Her eyes stinging with unshed tears, she faced the truth: he had scarcely touched her and she had wanted him. She had felt her whole body melting, like heated honey, at his light caresses. Her cheeks burned in the darkness. It had been all she could do to stand, unresponding, and not press against him.

His touch on her breasts, sliding over her belly, lower and lower, had been terror and delight. Knowing that he would soon touch her
there
, where she ached.
There
where she felt…with shaking fingers she touched herself, gasping at the bolt of sensation—
there
where she was wet and hot.