Noble Destiny (11 page)

“Shame you?” He put his hands on her arms and tugged her closer, his frown deepening. “How is marrying me going to shame you?”

She waved one hand toward the church, two tears spilling over lashes suddenly made dark and spiky with sorrow. “There's no one there. No one! How can I tell anyone that we were wed in an empty church, that no one cared enough about us to see us wed but your sister and my friend?” She hiccupped. “How can I face anyone once they know the truth about our wedding, that you didn't care enough about it or me to have a proper wedding?”

He stared at her at a loss for words, unable to understand what she found wrong with the small, intimate wedding necessary due to economies and his own personal preference, but recognizing that whatever troubled her, it was of great importance. He had seen enough crocodile tears to recognize genuine distress when he saw it, and Charlotte's eyes were all but shrieking their pain to him. He took a deep breath, battling with the desire to maintain control of the situation, while unwilling to have her think he was a coldhearted monster who cared little for her desires and wishes.

“Charlotte, even if I wanted to give you what you ask, it's impossible. We are to wed today, almost an hour ago to be precise.” He ran a hand through his hair as he tried to think of how he could delay the wedding, deal with Patricia's upcoming nuptials, and still have time to finish the engine and test it before Whitney arrived. “To invite everyone you know would take days, weeks in the planning. I agreed to wed you now because it falls in well with my plans, but to delay—”

“It doesn't have to be people I know,” she said quietly, one hand on his sleeve, a soft, hopeful look in her eyes that he had never seen. It called to him, drew him, made him want to promise her anything if only she would look at him again like that. “I don't want to delay the wedding any more than you do. I told you I had to be wed before your sister; it's only fitting.”

He rubbed his forehead, willing the headache away as he tried to see a solution. “Then what do you want me to do, fill the church with strangers to witness our marriage?”

She was nodding even before he finished the sentence.

He closed his eyes for a moment against the trembling hope in hers, then opened them again. “This means that much to you?”

She nodded again, sniffling and dabbing at her nose with a delicate handkerchief.

“And if I do this for you, you won't pester me for gowns or more pin money, or the hundreds of other things that I won't be able to give you?”

Charlotte stared at him in surprise, the soft look replaced with a familiar glint that was pure deviltry. “Of course I'll pester you for those things, I'll be your wife. I realize you have not been married before, Alasdair, but truly, I see I must educate you in the duties of a husband. It will be my duty to ask you for things, and for you to refuse me, then to be swayed by my entreaties and encampments and so give me everything I want.”

“
Enticements
,” Dare corrected automatically, even as he struggled to keep his eyes from crossing at just what form those entreaties and enticements would take. He pulled his mind from the vision of Charlotte lying in his bed, her creamy satin skin covered with nothing more than her hair, sated and pleasured until she purred. It took two tries, but at last he could focus on the present, on the woman who didn't care who attended her wedding as long as there were people enough to fill the church. The thought of her plans sobered him immediately. “Charlotte, we are going to have to have a long talk this evening about your expectations. I have tried to explain to you that I'm not a rich man, and you will have to practice the most stringent of economies—”

“Oh, pooh.” She waved away his warning and wiped her eyes, flashing a brief glimpse of dimple. “Papa used to say that to Mama all the time.”

“Charlotte—”

“Will you do this for me, Alasdair?” she asked, her eyes soft and blue as a July sky. “Will you do this little thing I ask?”

Dare prayed for patience, then nodded.

“Oh, thank you, thank you,” she squealed and threw herself in his arms just long enough to kiss him on the corner of his lips. He wanted to keep her there to improve her aim, but before his arms could tighten around her, she hurried back toward the carriage, avoiding as she did a row of tumblers and acrobats flipping themselves over scattered chairs and tables. “He's going to do it,” she bellowed happily to Caroline just before shoving her friend back into the carriage.

“You'll be more comfortable waiting inside,” Dare pointed out as he followed her, stepping over a collection of clubs and torches that would later be lit and juggled by the acrobats. He was a bit exasperated with himself for having given in to her unreasonable demand. If the ease with which she wrapped him around her slightest whim portended their future together…but no, he wouldn't think of that. Down that pathway lay madness. Instead he reassured himself that her request was a minor thing, a fairly simple request, one easily fulfilled in such a way as to keep her happy, and achieve his end as well. “It won't take me long to gather the…er…audience.”

“I shall wait for you to complete your task,” Charlotte said loftily, “and return when all is ready. Caro, instruct the coachman to drive us around the block until that time.”

“I would prefer you wait inside,” Dare said through softly grinding teeth. God's spleen, would she argue with him on every point?

“And have everyone see me waiting? Never!”

“You'll get tired of just riding around and around in a circle. Perhaps Lady Beverly would care to go inside where it is cool.”

Inexplicably, Charlotte dimpled at him. “We're fine as we are. Caro and I were having the most interesting discussion of the Bible just before we arrived. I'm sure she has no objection to continuing it.”

Lady Beverly giggled. Dare shot Charlotte a look that by rights ought to have sent her screaming from him in horror, but she just deepened the smile into a cheeky grin and added in a little eyelash-fluttering action.

“God save me from all women,” he muttered as he turned back toward the church, reluctantly admitting to himself that her smile had kindled an unexpected warmth in his heart. Then he prepared to buy his bride an audience.

***

Charlotte stopped dead at the back of the church after taking one look at the audience her husband-to-be had purchased to witness her Most Important Moment, intending on throwing the tantrum to end all tantrums.

“There is a monkey in the church,” she ground out through her teeth, pointing to where a small monkey in a red hat and gold-fringed jacket was swinging from a sconce in the nave. “I might have been gone from England for five years, but I doubt if it has suddenly become the rage to have primates swinging from the walls at weddings.”

“Er—” Lord Beverly said, gently tugging at her hand, clearly at a loss as to how to get the bride moving down the aisle toward her groom. “Well—”

“And that woman there, the one with the beard, she's positively wailing, and I don't even
know
her. This is supposed to be a joyous occasion.”

“Eh—” Lord Beverly tugged again, shooting a helpless glance over to where Dare stood, his arms crossed over his chest, his eyes on the recalcitrant Charlotte. “I believe Lord Carlisle is waiting for you…”

Charlotte refused to budge, turning her head to glare at the group of musicians in the far corner. “And the band! What on earth are they playing, live cats? Surely this is not suitable marrying music. Surely this is all wrong.”

“Ah—” Lord Beverly took a deep breath, desperate now to fulfill his one (monumental, as it turned out) duty of getting the bride to the altar. “Look, there's the groom. Why don't you just stroll down there and take it up with him, hmm?”

“No,” Charlotte said, flinching as the band hit a particularly sour note. “I won't do it. This just isn't at all what I had imagined. Dare will have to do better than this.”

“'Ere, what's the 'oldup?” one of the rope dancers leaned back to ask. “We've got to do our show for the Tsar this afternoon. Ye're goin' to 'ave to 'itch yer carriage to a faster 'orse else we won't 'ave time to toast yeh with that fine ale 'is lordship there said we'd be gettin'.”

Charlotte pounced on the one word that had any meaning for her. “The Tsar? You're performing for the Tsar? The one from Russia?”

“Isn't no other that I knows of,” the rope dancer sniffed.

The light of victory dawned in Charlotte's eyes. She walked down the aisle quite happily after that, mentally forming exactly how she would tell Lady Jersey and other preeminent ladies of the
ton
how she had to hurry her wedding because the guests, her dear, close, personal friends, had an important audience with the Tsar himself.

She even forgave the monkey later for stealing her small bouquet of roses.

Charlotte looked at her maid with a steely glint in her eye. Her maid looked back at her with a calm countenance. The new Lady Carlisle was not amused.

“You squeak,” she accused. “I've never before had a maid who squeaked, and I don't intend to start now. I believe I shall find a new maid—one who doesn't squeak.”

“I am devastated that I do not meet with your ladyship's most discriminating and no doubt exacting taste. My life, as I have told your husband, is devoted solely and completely to his happiness, a situation which I am thrilled to the very limits of my soul may now also be applied to your own gracious self. In short, my lady, I live to serve you. If you are not happy with the unfortunate noises associated with the new wooden leg, I will immediately dispense with it. I need it not to serve my lady in any capacity she desires of me, be it butler, valet to his lordship, boot boy, or in the most humble role of lady's maid to you. I am quite a prodigious hopper, as your ladyship will see—” Batsfoam hiked up his trouser leg in preparation for removing the offending wooden limb.

Charlotte stopped him the second she realized his intentions. She had no desire to see his leg, wooden or otherwise. “I'm sure you're quite a capable hopper, Batsfoam, but 'tis the truth that although I find the novelty of a squeaking maid difficult to bear, bear it I would if there were not a graver, more serious complaint to be laid at your door.”

Batsfoam reluctantly lowered his trouser leg, his shoulders slumping into their habitual droop. He bowed his head in a close approximation of abject humility. “And that would be what, my lady?”

Charlotte wondered briefly if no one else thought it the least bit peculiar that her husband's butler should offer to serve as her maid. “Perhaps it is because Alasdair is Scottish,” she mused aloud. “Perhaps it is commonplace in that heathen land to the north. You never know about a society that has men in short skirts. On the other hand”—honesty compelled her to add—“I very much enjoyed the time I saw Alasdair in his kilt. And out of it, too, but I suppose that really goes without saying, don't you think?”

“My lady?”

“Hmmm.” Charlotte shook off the image of Dare's naked behind as seen the day Gillian ripped his kilt off, and considered Batsfoam for a moment. He didn't sound particularly Scottish, so perhaps the fault lay elsewhere. She worried about that for a moment, then decided it was more important she turn her mind to other things, such as having a maid, a proper maid, undress her so she could await her husband's connubial attentions. “Batsfoam, while it is true that I appreciate your willingness to help around the house as you can, I simply must draw the line at you serving as a lady's maid.”

“If it is my noisome leg, my lady—”

“No,” Charlotte reassured him as she opened the door to the hallway. Overall, she was pleased with the small room adjoining Dare's that had been assigned as her bedchamber, but she had strong feelings about the person who had shown her the room. “It is not just that. You force me to be blunt, Batsfoam, to wound you with words, something I had hoped to avoid with my new staff, at least for a day or so until we get to know one another better, but perhaps it's for the best that we clear the stair with this issue now and not later—”

“Clear the stair? You wish me to dust the stairway?” Batsfoam looked surprised at the order. “Now, my lady? At this late hour? I believe his lordship will have need of my assistance with the rendering onto paper the design of a newly modified valve, but I will strive to meet your demands for stair care. Nay, say not another word, my lady. You wish the stairs cleared, and so they shall be. Since I cannot serve you as your maid due to the uncouth and raucous noises issuing from my new leg, I shall endeavor to fulfill your every wish, no matter how inexplicable. And now, my lady, I am off to clear the stairs, but before I do so, I will send up another staff member to take my unwanted place as your maid.”

Charlotte, busy thinking about whether it was better to wait for Dare and his much anticipated manly instrument in her bed or his, missed most of Batsfoam's oratory, a fact which did not escape him. Should Charlotte have been looking at him at that exact moment, she would have seen something very akin to a light of challenge dawning in his eye. But she was lost in contemplation of the image of Dare's bronze skin, rippling with muscles and gilded with the finest of golden hairs, so she merely muttered, “Fine, fine.”

It wasn't until later, when Batsfoam sent up Wills the scullery lad to act as lady's maid, that she realized she would have to take charge of the household that very instant or suffer the most improper, and more importantly,
uncomfortable
life with Alasdair's heathenish staff. The good Lord above knew she, in an act fairly reeking of generosity and willingness to cooperate (not to mention desperation to get undressed and ready for the connubial action she anticipated with bated breath and wetted lip) had given Wills a chance, but he proved to be a sore trial to her patience when, asked to comb out her hair, he fainted dead away before even taking out one rosebud.

“He's gone too far this time,” she warned the unconscious Wills a few scant seconds before she doused him with her wash water. He sputtered and came to life only to see his new mistress glowering over him, speaking in a voice that got progressively louder and higher with each word that slipped from her cherry-kissed lips. “I have been patient with his eccentric ways, I have been understanding of his pinch-paring habits, I have been everything a good wife could possibly be, but he goes too far in asking me to take on a twelve-year-old boy as my lady's maid!”

“M'lady?” Wills squeaked in concern, scooting backward across the damp rug, praying that Lady Carlisle wasn't about to bring the empty ewer down upon his head.

Char dropped the ewer, grabbed the boy by his wet ear, hauled him to his feet, and demanded to be taken to her husband.

“Oi don' know where 'e is,” the lad cried, flinching as she steered him toward the stairs. “'Onest, m'lady, oi don' know where 'is lordship is!”

Charlotte tightened her grip on the slippery ear. “If you want to see this ear again, you had better find out, hadn't you?”

The boy started to nod, decided that wasn't the wisest course of action when the future of his ear was at stake, and began to wail instead.

“Please, m'lady, Oi've told you Oi don' know where 'e is. You've got to believe me. Oi don' know and that's a fact. Please, m'lady, Oi want me ear, it's the only one Oi've got, don' take it away from me!”

Charlotte paused at the top of the stairs. The boy was openly sniffling now, wiping his nose on his sleeve. She released his ear and took hold of the back of his jacket, turning to march down the opposite end of the hallway, still retaining hold of the boy when she stopped before a door and knocked.

A tiny red-haired maid opened the door, gawked at Wills for a second before bobbing a respectful curtsy to Charlotte. Behind the maid, Patricia rose from where she was seated at a low table, clearly in the process of being readied for bed.

“Charlotte? Is something wrong? Why is Wills crying?”

“He has something wrong with his ear,” Charlotte said abruptly. “Where is your brother?”

Patricia stopped midway across the room, her hands fluttering in distress. “My brother? Dare? You want to know where Dare is? He's not with you?”

Charlotte raised her chin, narrowed her eyes, and pinned her new sister-in-law with a look that had Patricia taking a wary step backward. “He is not with me. Since I have only been in this house for an hour and have not yet been given a tour of the premises and since Wills seems to be obsessed with talk of his ear and wiping his nose on his garments in a manner that makes me want to do nothing so much as wash my hands, I must ask your advice. I am doing so now. Where might I find my husband, your brother, the earl?”

“He's…he's probably working on his engine. He does most evenings,” Patricia offered, a questioning expression on her face. Charlotte was grateful it wasn't pity. She didn't think she could take pity at that moment.

“His engine? Oh, his little hobby. Where does he keep that?”

Patricia blinked a couple of times before shaking her head and stepping forward, smiling at Charlotte as she squeezed her free hand. “Dare works on his engine in what used to be the butler's pantry. It's belowstairs, at the front of the house, where it catches the morning sun. Wills will show you the way.”

Charlotte murmured a polite thanks and was turning away when she paused to frown at the boy in her grasp, setting him to trembling and sniffling again before she turned back to Patricia. “I cannot help but notice that your maid is a female.”

Patricia looked between her maid and Charlotte. “Yeeeees,” she drawled, confusion plainly writ on her face.

Charlotte's nostrils flared for a moment as a militant glint lit her eye. Then she nodded and headed off to the stairs, Wills in tow.

Five minutes later she was escorted by a remarkably cheerful Batsfoam into a small, dank room so far distant from the living areas of the house it seemed to be buried in the bowels of the earth. The room stank with the nose-wrinkling acid smell of burnt oil, mildew, dirt, and blacking, but what caught Charlotte's attention as she ducked to enter the low wooden door was not the smell, or the sight of a mammoth black machine that took up most of the available space, or the tables ringing the room, filled with strange tools, filthy rags, and pots of substances she couldn't begin to fathom. No, what caught and held her eye was the sight of her husband of five hours bent over a shaft sprouting out the side of the machine. He had stripped down to just his shirt and trousers, a fact Charlotte greatly appreciated as she stood blocking the doorway, her gaze happily feasting on the sight of material stretched tight across the long, muscled length of his leg. Not to mention the lovely contours of his behind. Charlotte took one look at that behind and instantly her womanly parts started clamoring for attention.

His attention.

“Oh,” she said. “Oh.”

Dare straightened up at the interruption and looked over his shoulder. His handsome face bore a familiar scowl, but Charlotte was too busy looking from his bare arms and neck to the large expanse of magnificent chest clearly visible through the shirt glued with sweat to every curve and contour to notice the scowl. A subdued cough at her back reminded her where she was, along with the latest round of grievous injuries done to her by the annoying, if mouthwatering, man in front of her. She tightened her hold on Wills and shoved him through the door ahead of her, looking around the small, dusty room as she did so.

“So that is an engine,” she said, trying to sound interested in the horrible-looking conglomeration of mechanical bits that apparently held more allure than his bride.

“No, madam,” Dare replied, reaching for a dirt-encrusted cloth to wipe the grease from his hands. Charlotte made a mental note to have his engine cloths replaced at the soonest possible moment. “This is an air pump, condenser, and boiler. It is part of my steam engine.”

“That's what I said, it's an engine. It all looks so very”—Awful. Dirty. Boring.—“fascinating.”

Dare stopped scowling and gave her a long, considering look. There was something in his eyes that suddenly had her anger melting, replaced with an odd, and hitherto inexperienced, desire to please him. She struggled for a moment with this strange new emotion.

“It is fascinating,” Dare replied gruffly, giving her another long look before noticing the man standing behind her. “Ah, there you are, Batsfoam. You have yet to finish the drawing of the revised boiler. I'll need that before we run the first trial. Er…Charlotte?”

Charlotte, having just come to the decision that her tender feelings for her new husband were due to novelty and nothing more, remembered just why she was standing in a smoky, ill-lit room, and so did not notice the note of hesitancy in her husband's voice as he spoke her name.

“Did you want me to show you what I'm working on?”

She opened her mouth to make a scathing comment, but the strange need to please him grew within her. Somewhat abruptly, she realized that Dare was no longer scowling, that his voice was warm and caressing, and his eyes were glittering with some glad emotion. She glanced at the machinery. She truly had no desire to hear about it, no desire in the least; she simply wanted to complain to her husband about his servants, get his approval to make the changes she deemed necessary, and have someone undress her so she could go to bed and enjoy the benefits of being married to a man who stole her breath every time she looked at him.

“I…I…” The last of her annoyance evaporated as his eyebrows rose in hopeful expectation. How could she refuse such an offer? She couldn't. Something inside her melted to a warm, satisfying emotion as she answered. “Why, yes, Alasdair, I would very much like for you to show me your project.” Still maintaining a hold on Wills, she moved over to stand next to Dare and peered down at the open row of cylinders. “It looks very complicated.”

“It is complicated. Marine engines are infinitely more difficult to design than traditional engines because of the problem of deterioration due to the constant exposure to salt water.”

Charlotte eyed the engine with misgiving, tugging Wills over to examine the back side of the machine. “Is it dangerous?”

“There is always a danger when working with engines, Charlotte,” Dare answered calmly. “However, I am confident I have located and fixed any flaws that might result in disaster.”

“Naturally, I am concerned, but I must admit that it
looks
rather benign. Why is it you have chosen this project upon which to bestow your free time?”

Her emphasis on the last two words evidently did not register with Dare. He cocked an eyebrow at the grip she maintained on the back of Wills's jacket. “Is there something you want the lad to do, Charlotte?”