“Two months ago I was trying to keep you at your damn
distance! I failed at that but I will not fail at this. Did you think I would
blithely sail away and never worry whether you paid your fine or went to prison
or carried my child? The choice was made long since.”
“Alex!” Evelyn glared at him in horror at the lengths to
which his anger carried him. She could not look at the earl as he rose from the
desk.
“Child? If there is any question of a child, then this
argument is ended right now. Set the date and settle your differences later.”
The earl’s tone was harsh as he, too, glared at Alex.
“One week from today,” Alex announced firmly, not turning
from Evelyn.
His jaw was set with grim purpose, and Evelyn felt a tremor
of real fear, fear of her own raw emotions. She really was marrying him. She
couldn’t quite believe it, but looking at Alex with his jaw muscles pulled taut
and his dark eyes glaring arrows, she knew she could not say him nay. She had
thought he would be more relieved than hurt when offered an excuse to cry off.
She had been wrong.
Still, she wouldn’t let him order her about as if he owned
her. She might as well make that clear right now. “You will have to bind me
hand and foot and drag me screaming down the aisle,” she warned.
A gleam leapt to Alex’s eyes. “I believe last week it also
required a branding iron. Perhaps by next week you will be so submissive I need
only drag you by the hair.”
“You will be lucky if you have any hair left should you try
such a thing! If we are to marry, you might as well learn that I am not
accustomed to being given orders.”
“If we are to marry, you might as well learn that I am
accustomed to beating disobedient little chits!”
The earl watched with considerable bemusement as they ranted
and railed, but only recently having married for the second time, he was no
stranger to the undercurrent flowing beneath the words. The looks this pair
sent each other would be sufficient to sizzle a man to bacon should he be
foolhardy enough to come between them. Discreetly he inched his way from the
room.
In the hall he was met by Evelyn’s anxious mother, who
twisted her hands nervously at the sound of upraised voices beyond the door. At
her glance, Cranville shook his head.
“How have you kept your sanity with the two of them about? I
thought when I first met Alex that I had never met a more arrogant, opinionated
ass in all my life. I fear he has met his match in your daughter’s
stubbornness.”
Hearing the voices on the other side of the door subside to
giggles and chuckles, Amanda smiled. “As long as you do not oppose the match,
they will take care of each other. Our only difficulty now will be keeping them
apart until they are wedded.” She nodded toward the door, from which now came
only an ominous silence.
Cranville lifted his eyebrow as he recalled his heir’s
words. He wouldn’t give a ha’pence for their chances of keeping those two
apart. He smiled as he offered the widow his arm. “There are wedding plans to
be made, madam, and I fear we are the only ones to make them. Shall we begin?”
The night before the wedding, the small Wellington front
parlor was filled to overflowing with females garbed in their best petticoats
and ribbons, giggling and gossiping and lending their words of wisdom to the
bride-to-be. The men had migrated to the newly cleaned study to sip their port
and argue over politics, with an occasional spicy jest for the groom. For this
last gathering before the nuptials, only the bride’s closest friends had been
invited, and there was a surprising lack of powdered hair and wigs, perfumes,
and silk.
Alex leaned against the bookshelves and sipped his wine, but
he kept his conversation to a minimum while listening to the ladies in the next
room. This last week of tension had been pure hell. He was still uncertain that
Evelyn meant to go through with the ceremony and not disappear in a puff of
smoke or a rain of cannonballs.
The tinkling notes of a spinet from the front room gave Alex
his reason to leave. Several of the younger men followed him out. Music was
made for dancing and there was a room full of attractive ladies waiting to be
chosen.
Alex found his lady escaping into the kitchen. He caught her
elbow, and Evelyn glanced up in surprise, but she didn’t seem displeased.
She smiled and set aside her teacup. “I thought if I heard
one more smirking reference to our wedding night, I would have to inform the
company that I was already acquainted with my wifely duties and enjoyed them
very well. I fear I have not been blushing properly.”
Relief swept through Alex that she really meant to go
through with the wedding. With a smile, he steered her toward the back door. “Shall
I restore your blushes for you? I rather enjoy them, you know.”
The late-October night was frosty, but they wore velvets and
wools and carried the heat from the house with them. The spinet had been joined
by a fiddle. Soon they would be missed, but not just yet. Alex swept Evelyn
into his arms and carried her through the steps of a jig in sheer jubilation,
swinging her until her laugh broke through the night air.
This was their last day of freedom. Tomorrow they would be
wedded for eternity. Their exhilaration was needed to keep fears at bay.
She was soft and sweet in his arms, a swaying reed that
filled Alex’s senses with seductive music. He gazed down into liquid violet
eyes and drew his hand through the silkiness of disheveled chestnut tresses.
It seemed incredible to believe that he could find a woman
as lovely and intelligent as this one and that she would agree to marry him,
even knowing of his dubious past. He didn’t deserve this reward for bad
behavior, and he greatly feared losing her, but for now he would enjoy the
promise while he could.
When the reel ended, Alex pulled Evelyn into his arms to
seek the kiss she had been avoiding all week. He knew Cranville’s aristocratic
presence made her nervous, but he would no longer be denied. He growled in
pleasure as she melted against him and returned his kiss with a matching
passion.
Her lips burned against his flesh. The honey of her breath
engulfed him. He ached with need for the vulnerable slenderness cradled in his
arms. Nipping kisses at the corners of her mouth, he retreated, still keeping
her warm in his embrace.
“I’m trying to do the honorable thing by waiting for our
wedding night, but you are making this damnably difficult for me.”
Evelyn threaded her hands through the hair at Alex’s nape. “They
will be looking for us. We have to go in. It’s only one more night.”
One more night! Alex couldn’t help a shudder of hunger imagining
having her in his bed for an entire night. To be able to wake with her at his
side was all the future he craved right now. He cursed the glare of light from
the house and contemplated drawing her to the garden bench, where he could teach
her a third method of making love. Riding his hands up the sides of her
breasts, he resisted temptation. For one night and for Evelyn’s sake, he would
try it.
“I shall imagine you sleeping in our bed tonight and not be
able to sleep a wink.” He pressed a kiss to Evelyn’s temple.
She blushed, and he hoped she was thinking of the big double
bed he’d had delivered to her room. Her mother and Jacob had accepted the
invitations to stay with friends while the household was prepared for closing
for an extended period. The earl was staying at her uncle’s home. They would
have the house to themselves on the morrow.
“It will seem very strange sleeping in such a bed. You
shouldn’t have gone to such expense for so short a time. Other arrangements
could have been made.”
Alex had seen the pleased look on Evelyn’s face when the bed
had been delivered. He ignored her polite protests now. “It will not be wasted.
The bed goes with us. Our marriage bed will be the same one our children are
delivered in. You need only decide whether you wish that to be Cornwall or
London. Both places are filled with ancient furniture that has been used by my
ancestors for centuries. I mean no disrespect, but I wish to have something of
my own in those halls. A Yankee bed is perfect.”
Evelyn laughed and leaned her head against his shoulder. “I
trust a Yankee bed and a Yankee wife will be sufficient. I do not want you
seeking out Cornwall beds and London beds and women for them.”
“I make you no promises,” Alex warned. “I would like to
start anew with you. I want us to be able to trust one another. I would be less
than honest if I made promises I’m not certain I can keep.” He tasted tears on
Evelyn’s cheeks as she buried her face against his shoulder. He held her
tightly, wishing he could offer more.
“I don’t take vows lightly, Alex,” she murmured, choosing
not to argue. “But we can live one day at a time. I’ll have you to myself all
the way to England. Mayhap by then you will be prepared to admit defeat.”
Alex smiled and crushed her close in relief. “If anyone can
make an honorable man of me, it is you, my dear.” He broke the solemnity with a
leer. “Do you have any idea what I can do with you while you’re trapped for six
weeks in a cabin with me?”
Evelyn blushed and shoved away at calls from inside the
house. “I don’t even want to think about it.”
“Ummm, but like me, that’s all you can think about, isn’t
it?” Alex laughed as she lifted her skirts and flew toward the door. He would
have to cool off before he could follow her.
The earl found him some minutes later, leaning against a
tree and staring at an upstairs window.
“The Hampton name might be carried on yet, for what it’s
worth,” Cranville said with a grin, following his heir’s gaze.
“You could have married sooner, if that’s your concern,”
Alex said shortly, brought back to the mundane. “What brings you in search of
me?”
“Upton’s been questioning me about your plans for the
warehouse. It seems your bride has complete control over a very expensive and
important property. The community will be harmed if it is left to stand idle.
As a concerned citizen, he would like to know your intentions.”
Alex shrugged. “As his friend the lawyer will tell him, her
father left that investment very neatly tied up in trust. I cannot touch it and
would not if my life depended on it. I have suggested leaving a man I know in
charge, however. Upton won’t like that answer, so I suggest you delay giving it
to him.”
The earl eyed him shrewdly. “Will you tell Evelyn that her
uncle is responsible for the smuggling?”
Alex grimaced and returned to staring at the upper-story
windows. “Do you have any idea what her reaction would be if I told her?”
“She would deny it?” Cranville suggested.
“She would be forced to make a decision. To protect her
family and Upton’s family from ruin, she could tell me to keep my knowledge
quiet. Or she could get furiously angry, take the charges and her uncle to
court, rip open the town with the scandal, call the crown down upon her head,
and clear her name. Which do you think she will do?”
The earl grunted. “I see what you mean. Better keep it quiet
for now. We’ll get her out of here and safe, then decide how to handle it. I’ll
see about having the charges against her dropped when we reach London.”
Alex offered a crooked grin. “I always knew you were an
intelligent man.”
They returned to the house in mutual agreement. Trouble had
its own way of appearing; there was no sense in seeking it.
***
Evelyn nervously smoothed the deep blue silk of her
robe à la
française
. The pagoda
sleeves held back with bows revealed yards of creamy lace to match the ivory
satin of her underskirt. Panniers held the skirt and robe in drapes at her
side, revealing tiny blue slippers when she walked. For this formal ceremony,
her mother had insisted she powder her hair, and it was now dressed neatly
against her head and adorned with only small gold pins. Catching a glimpse of
herself in the hall mirror, she wasn’t at all certain that she was the same
person she had thought she was.
Within a week she would be a married woman on her way to
England with a man who had just walked into her life a few short months ago.
Everything that was familiar to her would be lost. It was an unnerving thought
even if Alex were the kind and considerate gentleman she had vaguely imagined
one day marrying. The fact that he was moody and intemperate and didn’t love
her made her question her sanity.
Of course, the alternative was being marched ignominiously
to some filthy prison for years. Alex had promised she wouldn’t have to sell
the warehouse, but every time she saw a soldier she feared he had come for her.
There was still nearly a week left before she need pay the fine. Surely the
Neptune
would be ready to sail before then.
The only reason she didn’t run fleeing into the night was
the knowledge that Alex needed her as much as she needed him. She didn’t think
his kisses lied.
The Upton carriage arrived to carry them to the church. With
tears in her eyes, Evelyn embraced her mother; then, erasing all trace of
weakness with a handkerchief, she maneuvered her full skirt into the narrow
coach and waited for Amanda to join her.
The afternoon was fading fast as the carriage arrived at the
church. Rain clouds hung on the horizon. The few people remaining outside
helped them from the carriage and hurried them into the church.
The minutes flew even faster once inside. The music started.
Her uncle appeared to escort her. Her mother hurried down the aisle. And then
it was Evelyn’s turn.
Her fingers shook as she took her uncle’s arm and took the
first few steps toward her future. When she reached the center aisle, she located
Alex standing tall at the far end beside his cousin, the earl. She focused on Alex.
For the sake of convention, he wore his powdered wig with the black satin bow
in back, but it only served to emphasize his dark features. His black silk coat
was cut away at the front to reveal an elegant silver-gray vest and breeches.
The severity of the cut was accentuated by the lace at throat and wrist. Never
had he looked more handsome, and Evelyn clung to the intensity of his gaze as
he followed her progress.