At that moment, someone laid a hand on his arm. Brenn turned, still stunned by the blasted man’s presence at his wedding party, and found himself staring at Stella.
She smiled up at him. “I want you to meet my Aunt Sally. Auntie, this is my new brother-in-law, Brenn Owen, earl of Merton.”
Ancient Aunt Sally held out a shaking hand. “A pleasure, my lord.” But Brenn didn’t take it.
Instead, he demanded, “What is that rake Draycutt doing here?”
Stella blinked at his vehemence. “Tess invited him. I know he is a bit—” She hesitated, as if not knowing the right word.
“Unsavory?” Brenn supplied for her.
“Well, um, he is very amusing.”
As if to punctuate her words, Tess laughed at something Draycutt said to her.
Brenn couldn’t ever recall her laughing at anything he’d ever said, at least not in the way she was over Draycutt’s words. And then Draycutt lifted a hand and brushed a stray strand of Tess’s hair back from her face.
It was a small gesture, almost offhand…and it sent anger roaring through Brenn.
He charged forward.
Tess must have sensed him coming. Weaving slightly, she turned and greeted him. “Brenn, have you met Captain Draycutt?”
That stopped him dead in his tracks. He couldn’t believe his wife would dare to introduce him to her lover.
He glared at Draycutt who straightened and took a cautious step back. “Her name hasn’t crossed my lips,” Draycutt assured him.
Brenn could have cheerfully murdered the man on the spot.
Suddenly, he’d had enough of ceremonies, drunken relatives, nosy gossips, and cavalry officers. He wanted Tess to understand that she belonged to him now. She was his. And no one poached on his territory.
Acting with the swift decisiveness of a man long accustomed to command, he took his wife’s wrist and started for the door.
He’d moved so quickly that she didn’t have time to dig in her heels until they were out in the hallway.
“Where are you taking me?” she demanded.
“To bed,” he replied.
Tess attempted to shake away his hand. “You’re mad!”
Brenn agreed with her. He was feeling very insane at the moment, insanely jealous. He would not be cuckolded at his own wedding.
When her declaration didn’t stop him, she pretended to walk at his side. “We can’t leave yet,” she said with touch of desperation. “The dancing has started. Everyone expects us to be here. Brenn, please, it’s too early.”
He came to an abrupt halt, his hand gripping her wrist. “Madame, for what I have in mind, there is no set time of the day as you well know.”
She sputtered an unintelligible response but he had already started his relentless march to the stairs. She grabbed ahold of a chair to keep from following him. He pulled her along with the chair until she let go of it.
By now, the wedding guests were starting to notice something peculiar was going on. They moved to line the hall, drawn out of curiosity. Stella motioned for a maid to pick up the chair.
Hamlin stood by the front stairs talking to his cronies. As Brenn approached, he hailed him, his eyes bleary from drinking. “Claiming her now, Merton?”
“Aye.”
“Jolly good.”
“Neil!” Tess cried in exasperation. “Stop him!”
“Oh, no, can’t do that, sister dear. Never get in the way of a man on his wedding night.”
“It’s not night!”
Hamlin laughed. “Night is when your husband says it is. Better work on subservience, Tess!”
His words were met with guffaws and shouts of “Good luck” from the guests. Even some of the women laughed. Tess practically spat with outrage.
She grabbed the newel post with her free hand, refusing to climb the stairs with him. Brenn resolved the issue by sweeping her up into his arms so quickly she lost her hold. He proceeded up the steps, his limp barely bothering him.
The guests started to follow, laughing and calling out. But halfway up, he turned to them. “I’ll handle this alone,” he said in a voice no one dared disobey. The beribboned and befeathered guests suddenly sobered…until he climbed a few more steps. Then they continued their good-natured, bawdy comments.
At the top step, he set Tess on her feet. “Which room?”
With an unsteady weave, she hiccuped. “I’m not going to tell you.”
“Then I’ll choose one.” He took her arm.
“Have you no shame?” She tried to twist out of his grip. “Everyone is downstairs. They’ll know what you are doing.”
“Everyone expects us to do it sooner or later.”
At that moment, a maid exited one of the bedrooms. “Which is my lady’s chamber?” he barked.
Taken aback by his gruff manner, the maid dropped the linen towels she carried and pointed to the door she had just exited. “This is the one we set up for the wedding night, my lord.”
“Good. We’ll use it now.” He stomped past her, dragging a reluctant Tess behind him.
“May, tell Willa I need her—” Tess started.
But Brenn interrupted. “She needs no one.” He slammed the door in the maid’s face and released his wife.
Tess scrambled back from him, rubbing her wrist. Her eyes sparkled with rage. “I have never been so humiliated in all my life!”
“You are foxed,” he said, shrugging off his finely tailored jacket.
“I am not a fox,” she shot back crossly. “Here now, stop getting undressed. We are going back down.
We’ve got to dance.”
She started for the door but he blocked her way with his arm. “I don’t dance, Tess. And I’m tired of smiling and pretending. The time has come for you to set aside any thoughts of Draycutt.”
That stopped her cold. Her brows came together in confusion. “Draycutt? What does he have to do with any of this?” She raised her hand to unsuccessfully stifle another hiccup.
He lowered his arm and jerked his shirt hem out from his breeches. “My hat is off to you, madame. You could earn a living as an actress with the skills you have demonstrated. But it is too late. I know your secret, Tess.”
She frowned boozily and sat down on the bed with a small bounce. “No, you don’t know the secret. If you did, you would be furious with me.”
Brenn walked over to the side of the bed. “More furious than I am that Draycutt is your lover?”
She looked up at him, her expression one of misery. “Yes.” She slurred the word from a high pitch to a low.
“Ah, Tess.” She looked so miserable he couldn’t help but feel a bit sorry for her.
He sat down on the bed beside her, intending to reassure her. She smelled of champagne and woman…and his anger was replaced by a very real desire for her. “You are my responsibility now. I am your protector.”
“I don’t deserve that.”
“You deserve it and so much more.” Then he did what he’d ached to do from the first moment he’d seen her. He pulled one of the emerald-tipped pins from her hair, and then another, and another. Her hair tumbled down past her shoulders, just as he had dreamed it would.
He ran her hair through his fingers. “Your hair is like fire,” he whispered reverently. She was his. This beautiful, vibrant woman was his.
She watched him, her expression guarded.
He tipped up her chin. “You have no need to fear me, Tess. Your secret will remain between us. For better or worse,” he reminded her gently. He then brought his lips down on top of hers, catching her in mid-hiccup.
He couldn’t help but laugh. This was a far cry from how he had imagined his wedding night.
She pulled back with surprise and then ever so slowly, her lips curved into a smile. “You are the most amazing man.”
“And you are an amazing woman,” he answered. Damn, but he wanted her and, at this moment, he didn’t care how many men she’d slept with or for what reasons.
He kissed her again, only this time with more passion. Her lips parted. An invitation. She started to hiccup again but it turned into a low moan.
Brenn bent her back toward the bed, deepening the kiss. He stroked her with his tongue. Once, twice, and then felt her tentative response. She copied his motions.
Oh, sweet, sweet Tess!
He was already hard for her. He pressed her back against the mattress, taking the kiss deeper, letting it become more demanding.
Following the line of her body, he cupped her breast, feeling her nipple hard and tight against his palm.
With his other hand, he began searching for the laces of her dress.
Tess broke the kiss. “I’m dizzy.” Her eyes were heavy-lidded and drowsy from kissing.
“The world will right in a moment,” he promised and kissed the sensitive skin where her collarbone met her neck.
She gasped. He soothed the spot with his tongue and then kissed lower.
Her hand came up to stop him but he nudged it aside. At last his searching fingers found the laces and he began untying them.
Tess started to rise. “I don’t know—”
He interrupted her with a kiss and gently forced her back down, resting his leg over hers. He kissed her again and again while edging her dress down over one shoulder.
“Dear God, I want you,” he whispered against her skin.
She shivered, goose bumps forming along her arm. “Please, Brenn, I’m afraid. I’m not certain what to do.”
“Trust me.”
“But your stick? Will that hurt? It can, can’t it?”
“Stick?” Brenn frowned. He rose up on one elbow. “Someone has used a stick on you?”
“No!” she said swiftly. “Not yet but—”
“I’ve never taken a stick to a woman and I never will. If Draycutt treated you in that manner, I will put a hole in his black heart.”
“Why do you keep talking about Draycutt?” she demanded, struggling to sit up.
He gently pushed her back down. “Because I detest men like him who use a woman without teaching her about pleasure.” Now was his chance to distinguish himself from the selfish cavalry officer. Before this night was out, he’d make his wife forget she’d ever known Draycutt.
“Marriage is union, Tess. It’s two people working together to build a life together. Do you understand?”
She nodded her head in solemn silence and then used her palm to rub her nose. It was an unaffected gesture, a far cry from the sophisticated woman who’d reigned over Society, and it softened his heart.
Sober, she was a rare beauty; tipsy, she was adorable.
“I can make you very happy, Tess. I want to make you happy.”
She nodded, her expression as trusting as a child’s.
He rolled on his stomach. “Ah, Tess…we are going to wake up each morning in each other’s arms. We’
re going to build a life for ourselves and raise a family. I can picture them now. We’ll have little girls with your clear blue eyes and red-gold hair. The boys will probably look like me. Well,” he conceded, “they might have your eyes instead of my dark Welsh ones…but they’ll be tall and bold and strong. I can even hear their laughter. Someday they will be grown and leave to seek their fortune but they’ll always come back because Erwynn Keep will be home. It will be a haven, a place of peace.”
“I don’t want you to worry about that wee babe you are carrying. Of course, if it is a lad, he won’t be able to inherit the title, but that will be the only difference between him and his brothers.”
He wasn’t accustomed to such long speech and was almost afraid to look at her. Instead, he waited, expecting her to express gratitude. When she didn’t speak, he reiterated, “Do you understand what I’m saying, Tess? I accept this child as my own.”
Still she didn’t respond. He was pouring his soul out to her, agreeing to concessions beyond the rationale of any sane man…and she had no comment?
Brenn shoved aside his flash of irritation and rolled over to face her. “Tess, have you nothing to say?”
Her hair covered her face. But her mouth was open and from it came a soft snore.
Brenn stared at her, unable to believe that she had passed out on him. He shook her. “Tess?”
She didn’t wake.
She wouldn’t wake, either. He knew the drowsiness of too much champagne. She’d sleep like the dead for hours.
What a bloody fool he was! He sat up, wondering if his dreams for Erwynn Keep were worth shackling himself to her. He had no desire to be one more man ruined by the antics of a fickle woman.
And if she thought she’d escape consummating this marriage, she was mistaken.
Tess woke in stages. There was light. At first she thought it was morning, and then realized it was the flame of four candles burning brightly on the table in the corner of the room. Squinting, she looked away.
Her mouth felt like she’d been chewing her shoes. She wanted a drink of clear, fresh water. Anything to erase the taste.
What time was it?
She began to remember. The wedding. Her wedding. She’d been nervous. They’d married and then come to the house. She had visions of herself sipping champagne. She’d never had a head for wine. No wonder she felt so miserable.
She was still wearing her dress…but the laces were undone. It was night. She knew that now—
“Good evening,” Brenn’s low, gravelly voice came from across the room.
She turned her head. He sat in the circle of light dressed in his fancy dress breeches and white lawn shirt.
He’d removed his neckcloth.
Tess looked down and was almost embarrassed to see that he wore no shoes. The sight of his toes though the white silk stockings was disturbingly intimate. She’d never been in the presence of a man so casually dressed.
With almost meticulous precision, he refilled his brandy glass from the bottle on the table beside him.
She hesitated a moment before asking, “Did we marry or did I dream it?”
“We married.” He drained the brandy glass.
“Oh.” Tess watched him warily. She wanted to ask if the marriage had already been consummated.
However, taking a quick mental inventory of things, she decided they had not. Certainly she didn’t feel any differently than she had earlier, other than having a wine headache.
He answered the question for her. “We haven’t done it yet.”
She didn’t need to ask to know what “it” he meant. And they still had yet to do “it.”
Anxiety caused her stomach to knot. “Excuse me,” she murmured, fearing she would be sick. Practically crawling off the bed, she stood. The world spun and then settled. She hurried to disappear behind the small privacy screen modestly set up in the corner of the room. Over the top of it hung a nightdress of the finest white lawn and lace. She was to have worn it to her marriage bed.