She glanced over her shoulder at the mullioned windows and weathered gray stones of the house she had called home for the past ten years, surprised by the pang of regret that seized her heart. Had her father felt the same pang on the night he’d run away, leaving this place for the last time? He hadn’t even been allowed the luxury of saying goodbye to his family.
“If you ask me, Mama, we’re well shed of the little tart.” Alice came strolling around the corner of the house with Aunt Margaret, her expression so sour one might have supposed she’d been lapping curdled cream straight from the saucer. She’d traded her elegant dressing gown for a bright yellow walking dress and matching parasol that only made her pinched face look more sallow. “Perhaps without her muddying our good name with her common ways, it will finally be possible for me to make a decent match.”
“I’ve heard the Marquis de Sade is shopping for a new bride to keep him company in the lunatic asylum,” Simon whispered in Catriona’s ear, referring to the notorious author of
Justine
and
Juliette
.
Catriona bit back a smile before murmuring, “I should think he’d be a trifle too staid for Alice’s tastes.”
They turned as one at the sound of hoofbeats. Catriona expected to see the footmen returning from London with Simon’s bags or perhaps Georgina and her husband in their fine carriage, rushing to bid her farewell. But it was a single rider who came thundering down the long, oak-lined drive toward them as if the hounds of hell were snapping at the hooves of his mount.
With the parasol shading her eyes from the glare of the afternoon sun, Alice was the first to recognize him. “Look, Mama! It’s Eddingham. I knew he’d come to his senses and beg me to take him back!”
Without realizing it, Catriona edged even closer to Simon as the rider sawed viciously on the reins, bringing the massive chestnut to a shuddering halt. The poor horse’s sides were heaving and lathered with foam.
As Eddingham threw himself off of the horse, Alice trotted forward, giving her parasol a jaunty little twirl. “I knew you’d come back for me, darling! You’re probably wondering if I could ever find it in my heart to forgive you, but if you’re truly sorry for the deplorable way you treated me, I believe that in time I’ll be able to…” Her face fell as he stormed right past her.
He strode toward Catriona and Simon, slapping his riding crop against his palm in perfect rhythm to the muscle twitching in his jaw.
He halted in front of them and stabbed a finger at Simon, his handsome face mottled with rage. “
You!
”
“Have you ever noticed how many people tend to greet you that way?” Catriona murmured out of the corner of her mouth.
Simon shrugged. “What can I say? It must be a consequence of my dazzling charm.”
Grinning at the marquess, he said, “Hullo, Ed. Have you rushed all the way out here to offer me and my bride your felicitations?”
“Your
bride
?” the marquess spat, looking as if he might very well choke on the word. “So the rumors are true, then?” He turned to Catriona. “When I left here last week, I thought we had an understanding.”
She returned his burning gaze with a cool one of her own. “Oh, I understood you perfectly, my lord. You made your intentions quite clear.”
Simon clapped a hand to his heart. “Why, darling, you never told me I had a rival for your affections!”
“I wasn’t aware you were the jealous sort, dear,” she replied. “But there’s no need to trouble your pretty head about it. Lord Eddingham was only a rival for my dowry, not my affections.”
Simon slid an arm around her shoulders and beamed at Eddingham. “I’m sure it was simply maidenly shyness that prevented Catriona from telling you that she was already spoken for. By me.” Before she could react, he tilted up her chin with one finger and pressed a tender kiss to her lips. He couldn’t have marked his territory any more clearly had he piddled on her kid boots like one of her aunt Margaret’s ill-mannered spaniels.
For a breathless moment, Catriona felt as if she truly belonged to him.
Eddingham’s face looked so stricken that if she believed he had even an ounce of genuine feeling for her, she might have actually pitied him. “It can’t be true, can it?” he demanded of her. “Surely you know of Wescott’s reputation. Why, he’s waltzed his way through half the women in London! Tell me you don’t really intend to marry the…the…”—he spared a sneer for Simon—“
bastard
.”
Most men would have reacted to the insult as if Eddingham had whipped his riding crop across their cheek. But Simon’s smile simply deepened a dangerous degree. “I can assure you that Catriona is well aware of my character flaws…and the fact that I was born on the wrong side of the blanket. We have no intention of allowing the same fate to befall our first child, which is why we’re making for Gretna Green in such haste.”
At Simon’s blatant implication that he had already shared her bed—and her body—
Eddingham took a step backward, his face paling. The look he cast her was beyond contempt. “The two of you deserve each other. I hope you both burn in hell.” He started to turn away, then paused, a nasty smile twisting his lips. “Oh, and Miss Kincaid? If you happen to see any of your Scottish kin during your honeymoon, make sure and give them my regards.”
He turned on the heel of his polished boot and went striding past Aunt Margaret and the crestfallen Alice as if they weren’t even there. Flinging himself on the back of his horse, he drove his spurs into the beast’s sides with a force that made Catriona wince in sympathy.
“Charming fellow,” Simon murmured. “Even more amiable than I remembered.”
As they watched him gallop across her uncle’s immaculately groomed lawn, his gelding’s hooves churning up raw clots of turf, Catriona sighed. “So who did you seduce? Was it his sister? His maiden aunt? His second cousin thrice removed?”
Simon’s profile was uncharacteristically grim. “He thinks I seduced his fiancée. But believe it or not, I was innocent and so was she. Our dalliance was nothing more than a harmless flirtation after she accidentally dropped a glove in my path at Almack’s nearly three years ago. She was in love with Eddingham and had every intention of going through with her marriage to him. But only a few days after he witnessed our exchange, she took a nasty tumble from her horse during an afternoon ride in Hyde Park and broke her neck.”
Catriona shivered, a sudden chill dulling the warmth of the spring sun. “The poor girl.
You don’t think he had anything to do with her death, do you?”
“I’ve always had my suspicions, but nothing I’ve ever been able to prove.” His voice betrayed its first trace of bitterness. “After all, who would believe the wild accusations of a bastard over the word of such an upstanding
gentleman
?” Catching her troubled frown from the corner of his eye, Simon gave her shoulders a comforting squeeze. “Don’t worry, love,” he assured her, the casual endearment that flowed so easily to his lips stinging more deeply than any of Eddingham’s insults. “He can’t hurt either one of us now.”
Catriona watched the marquess ride away, her heart heavy with dread. If she told Simon just how very wrong he was, she might have to watch him disappear over the horizon as well.
C
atriona’s traveling companions sat in opposite corners of the carriage, balefully eyeing each other across the gap between the seats.
“You never told me about Eddingham or
him
,” Simon said, folding his arms over his chest and shifting his accusing glare to Catriona. She was sitting directly opposite him, having thrown herself clearly and without compunction into the camp of his rival.
Without lowering the leather-bound book she’d dug out of her portmanteau to pass the long hours on the Great North Road, she shrugged. “Since the two of you had met before, I hardly felt a formal introduction was necessary.”
“I wouldn’t have recognized him. What have you been feeding him? Ponies?”
Catriona gave Simon a disapproving look over the top of her book. “It’s hardly sporting of you to mock his girth. He’s quite sensitive about it, you know.”
“What is he going to do if I offend him? Eat me?”
She slammed the book shut and tossed it on the carriage seat. “Why, Mr. Wescott, you ought to be ashamed of yourself! I realize that my Robert is a bonny fine fellow who is certainly worthy of your jealousy, but all the same, it hardly becomes you.”
Still glaring at him, she reached over and hauled the enormous orange cat curled up on the seat beside her into her lap. As she began to gently stroke his coarse fur, a deafening purr rumbled up from his throat. He rested his monstrous head on his paws and blinked at Simon with his somnolent golden eyes, gloating like a paunchy sultan who had just laid claim to the last virgin in the harem.
Simon rolled his eyes. “You forget that the last time we met, he tried to bite off my finger. I’ve still got the scar.”
She sniffed. “He was simply defending my honor, which is what a hero is
supposed
to do.”
Their eyes met for a charged moment, both of them remembering that dangerous yet intoxicating moment in her rumpled bed when Simon had nearly stolen her virtue instead of defending it.
Then Simon muttered an unintelligible retort beneath his breath and sank deeper into his seat. As he scowled out the carriage window at the passing countryside, Catriona retrieved her book and lifted it to hide her smile. In truth, she rather fancied the idea of Simon being jealous, even if it was only of a cat.
She was thankful for the distraction of both book and cat. This was the first time they’d been completely alone since she’d awakened that morning with his mouth on hers and his hands…well, perhaps it would be wiser not to think about where his hands—or his fingers—had ended up.
Earning a disgruntled chirrup from Robert the Bruce, she leaned forward and shoved open the nearest carriage window. “It’s getting a bit stuffy in here, don’t you think?” she asked, bathing her flushed cheeks in the fresh air.
Simon simply lifted one eyebrow. The air had grown steadily brisker as they traveled north toward Scotland.
He nodded toward the portmanteau sitting on the floor at her feet. “Have you any other books in there?”
Remembering the rosewood box still tucked beneath the undergarments she had so hastily packed the previous night, Catriona felt a flare of panic. “No!” she exclaimed, making a frantic grab for the brocaded bag at the exact moment he caught the ivory handle on the opposite side of it.
Plainly intrigued by her violent reaction, he gave the bag a tug. “I’d be perfectly happy with a newspaper or a scandal sheet to while away the hours until we reach our lodgings for the night.”
“Well, I haven’t either one.” She tugged back, desperation giving her the strength she needed to wrench the bag out of his grip and whisk it safely onto the seat beside her.
Simon leaned back and stretched out his long legs, looking even more smug than if he had won the humiliating little contest. “Why so secretive, darling? Is that where you’re hiding my money?”
“Here. You can have this book.” She tossed her book at him; he caught it without so much as a flinch.
He frowned down at the gilt lettering on the spine. “
Pilgrim’s Progress?
I was rather hoping for something more…stimulating.”
“Like
The Randy Adventures of Naughty Nell
, perhaps?”
“Oh, I’ve already read that one twice.” A wicked smile flirted with his lips. “Rumor has it that the author based the character of Nell’s most dashing and accomplished lover on me.”
Trying not to remember just how
accomplished
he had proved himself in her bed, she nodded toward the book. “There’s a character based on you in that book as well. They call him Satan.”
Now that she had nothing to read, it was Catriona’s turn to scowl out the carriage window. After several minutes of stony silence, she stole a look at Simon. He had drawn a pair of steel-framed spectacles from the pocket of his waistcoat and appeared to be thoroughly engrossed in the story. She felt her expression soften. With the spectacles perched low on his nose and a stray lock of hair falling over his brow, he looked less like a libertine and more like a professor from some hallowed university. She could only too easily imagine the subjects he would excel at teaching—dueling, gambling, flirting, wenching.
Breaking hearts.
Her smile faded. By tomorrow night, she would be his wife. She couldn’t help but think how different this journey might have been if their impending marriage was more than just a business arrangement. She would probably be cuddled up in his lap right now with no need of a book to while away the tedious hours of traveling.
She sighed. She could no longer afford to indulge in such dangerous fantasies. She had promised him a marriage of convenience and she had an obligation to deliver on that promise, no matter how inconvenient to her yearning heart. She would simply have to do everything in her power to hide that heart from him.
Simon glanced up to catch her studying him. She quickly dropped her gaze to her lap, devoting all of her attention to stroking Robert the Bruce’s velvety ears.
“Shall I read aloud?” he offered.
“If it pleases you,” she replied, trying to sound as disinterested as possible although there was nothing she would have liked better.
He flipped back to the very first page of the book and began to read. He had a fine and expressive baritone, honed by his years of observing the actors at the opera house. As the rich music of his voice cast an irresistible spell over her, Catriona soon found herself immersed in Bunyan’s grand old story as if she were experiencing it for the very first time.