The Untamed Bride Plus Black Cobra 02-03 and Special Excerpt (34 page)

She held his gaze, then her lashes flickered and she looked away. “There’s more.”

She was already married. She was a convicted murderess. She
…clinging to patience, he asked, “What?”

Looking down, she picked at the coverlet lying over her breasts. “You know I wasn’t a virgin.”

He’d noticed, in passing as it were, and been cravenly thankful he hadn’t had to mute his lust, or hers, to ease her through her first time. “You’re what? Twenty-nine? I would have been more surprised if you had been.”

She flicked him a frown. “It was only a few times with one young man, when I was twenty-one.” Her gaze grew distant; then she looked down. “He was the younger son of a viscount, on a repairing lease, although I didn’t know that until later. He was dashing, and charming, and I thought…”

“You thought he loved you?”

She nodded. “And I thought I loved him. I didn’t—I know that now—but I was young and naïve and I thought…so when he wanted me, I agreed. I thought it was all part of our courtship.”

“Only it wasn’t?”

“No. A week later—after quarter day had come—I
heard he was leaving, going south again.” She dragged in a tight breath. “I asked him about us—what would happen. He laughed.” Her voice grew bleaker. “He told me I was a fool—that no gentleman in his right mind would ever marry a lady like me. I was a Long Meg, I was too sharp-tongued, too headstrong, too independent. I was too
everything
—no one would ever have me.”

“He was wrong.” Del made the statement unequivocally. She’d lived with that judgment, that belief, for eight long years. A species of fury boiled up inside him. “What is this younger son of a viscount’s name?”

“The Honorable Melvin Griffiths. But he’s dead now—he died at Waterloo.”

Sparing Del the need to beat the bastard bloody. “Good.”

Her lips twisted; she glanced at him. “That’s what I thought, too.”

He nodded. When she said nothing more, he asked, “Is that all?”

She met his gaze, surprise in hers. “Isn’t that enough?”

“To make me change my mind about marrying you?” He shook his head. “So, will you marry me, Deliah Duncannon?”

She held his gaze for a long moment. Hope and uncertainty warred in her eyes. Then, in a small voice she asked, “Why do you want to marry me?”

He could see all sorts of reasons, surmises, hovering in her mind—waiting for him to confirm them. That he felt he should because he’d ruined her in the eyes of his friends by sharing her bed. That he felt he owed it to her parents—and his aunts—to make an honest woman of her. That…there were dozens of reasons she would consider more likely than the simple truth.

Some part of him was horrified, but he didn’t hesitate.

“I want to marry you because I love you.” Cupping her face in one palm, he looked into her eyes, held her gaze steadily. “I love you, and want you and only you as my wife precisely because you’re not the common sort of lady. You’re more. You’re everything I need, everything I want, everything I
must have to build the future I want—a future I couldn’t even see until we met.”

He paused, watched dawning belief lift the clouds from her jade eyes. “We belong together, you and I. Marry me, and together we’ll create a future that’s ours, that’s rich and vibrant, exciting and fulfilling.”

She raised a hand, touched the back of his. “You make me believe.”

“Because I believe—that I love you, and that you love me.” The twin facts were enshrined in his heart. Set in stone and immutable, they simply were. “So—will you do it? Throw your lot in with mine and see what we can make of life together?”

Her lips slowly curved. To his horror, tears filled her eyes.

But she was smiling.

“Yes.” She blinked, blotted her cheeks as the tears overflowed, then laughed at the look on his face. “I told you I didn’t love Griffiths—I know I didn’t because what I felt for him was nothing, simply nothing, to what I feel for you.”

She sniffed delicately, then smiled mistily up at him. “So yes, I’ll marry you. I’ll put my hand in yours”—she suited the action to the words—“and see where life takes us.”

He stared at her for a moment, then the wondrous reality finally impinged. “Thank God,” he said.

And kissed her.

She laughed through the kiss, wound her arms around his neck—and kissed him back.

December 19
Somersham Place, Cambridgeshire

He was still freely thanking all beneficent deities when, in the wee small hours by the faint light of a waning moon, he stetched an arm from beneath the covers and managed to snag his coat from where they’d left it lying on the floor. Deliah slept on, warm and snug beside him. Quietly going
through his pockets, he withdrew the silk scarves he’d poked into them.

Dropping the coat, he turned to her.

She murmured sleepily when he reached over her to tie one long scarf to the bedhead on that side. He dropped a kiss on her temple, another on her bare shoulder as he drew back.

To anchor the second scarf more or less above where his head had been, it was easier to move over her and settle between her thighs—they parted welcomingly, her hips cradling him instinctively.

He reached up, secured the second tether.

Instinctively rocked his hips against her, the head of his erection seeking, finding, sliding into scalding wetness, penetrating her a fraction as he tugged the scarves tight.

After that, it was easier to slide slowly home. To feel her come awake beneath him as he filled her.

To feel her softness fully surrendered, and to instinctively take what was offered.

To bend his head and, as he rocked, find her lips with his. Cover them. Fill her mouth, helplessly yielded, and take that, too.

To lay claim. In the quiet of the night with the dark enfolding them, to love her.

Slowly, silently, she crested beneath him, her cries as she fell from the peak muffled by his lips. He felt the inexorable tug, the clenching of her sheath along his length, but this time resisted the call.

This time waited until she slumped, boneless and spent, beneath him.

Then he withdrew from her.

It was the work of a moment to lash both her wrists, one in each scarf. Dazed, still floating, she turned her head and watched him secure the second, then she looked at him.

Even in the dimness, he could sense her question.

In answer, he reared back on his knees, grasped her hips
and flipped her. He drew her down the bed just enough for the scarves to pull taut, enough to keep her arms extended, her wrists higher than her head.

Then he lifted her hips, rearranged her long legs so she was kneeling on the bed, too, bent over her knees, her arms stretched before her.

He touched between her thighs, found her wet and weeping, set his groin to the luscious curves of her bottom, guided his erection to her entrance, then thrust powerfully into the scalding slickness.

And let instinct rule.

He took her as he wished, hard and deep, slow and thorough, until passion rose and swamped him. Until it drove him, ruthless, relentless, to, with his hands sunk into the bedding on either side of her shoulders, pump into her and fill her.

She shattered again, her strangled cry fracturing the silver silence of the night.

Her body clutched, spasmed, caressed. Lured…

He let go, let her take him. With a roar he muffled in her hair, let ecstacy wrack him.

Until he slumped, as boneless as she, over her.

He couldn’t move, had no strength he could yet command to lift from her. Freeing one hand, he brushed her hair from her face, glanced down at her features.

Noted their softness, the satisfied—sated—curve of her lips.

He remained where he was, savoring the lingering clutch of her body, until he had full command of his limbs. Then he gently drew back from her, reached over her head and tested his restraints, then he slid from beneath the covers, letting them resettle over her.

She woke as his weight left the bed. Watched in silence as he rapidly gathered his clothes. Frowned as he started donning them. “Where are you—” She blinked; straightening her legs, she slid around to fully face him, the scarves twist
ing as she did. She peered at the window. “Is it time to go?”

He glanced at his fob-watch, then slid it back into his waistcoat pocket, reached for his coat. “It’s nearly four o’clock.”

She tried to sit up, but the scarves held her back. Frowning even more, she looked at them, tugged. “You forgot to untie me.”

He stepped into his shoes, and didn’t say anything.

Slowly, she turned her head and looked at him, suspicion dawning in her face, her breasts swelling in incipient outrage, mounding above the upper edge of the covers.

“It was that, or lock you all in your rooms. We thought you’d prefer this way, so Bess—and the other lady’s maids—can release you when they come up, and you can join us at Ely once the action’s over.” Voice low, he hurried on, “We thought you’d like to see what the outcome was, and go with us to Elveden.”

“Well, of course we want that, but…” She tugged at the bonds. “We were supposed to go with you—as you well know.”

“No, you weren’t.” He took a step back.

It wasn’t just outrage that lit her face. “You can’t leave me tied up like this!”

“Not just you—all the ladies.”

She stopped struggling, stared again. “All?”

He saluted and backed another step. “Every last one. So there’s no point shrieking or calling for help. Everyone left on this level will be tied up, too.”

Turning, he had his hand on the doorknob when she said, “Delborough, so help me, if you leave me here like this, I’ll…I’ll…”

On a muttered curse he swung back into the room. Returned to the bed, leaned over her—and kissed her soundly.

“Be good.” He was at the door before she’d managed to draw breath. With a last salute, he opened it. “I’ll see you at Ely.” He walked out and shut the door behind him.

Listened. An ominous silence was all he heard.

Lips twisting, reassured by her promise to be his wife, he strode down the corridor.

Returning to his room, he quickly changed into breeches, boots and donned a heavier coat, then rendezvoused as arranged with the other men at the bottom of the main stairs. Devil was the last to join them, still shrugging on his coat as he came, a grin still lingering about his mobile lips. He waved them all on, then fell into step beside Del.

There was a strong sense of déjà vu as they strode out to the stables and saddled up. They’d done this before, he and Devil at the head of a group of men, many of whom were Cynsters, going out to face an enemy.

And bring him down.

They led their horses out to the stable yard, mounted, all but oblivious to the icy breeze, the crisp crust on the cobbles, the coldness of the white drifts all around. Cobby and Sligo had come out to see them on their way.

In his saddle, Del looked up at the window behind which Deliah lay.

Sated, but almost certainly stewing.

Very likely planning retribution.

But that was for later.

With everyone mounted, Devil looked at Del. Grinned. “Lead on, Colonel.”

With an answering grin, Del wheeled his horse and smartly led the way out.

December 19
Ely, Cambridgeshire

In an icy misery of overwhelming dampness carried by a desolate, sleeting wind, the group reached Ely in the last of the long night.

Leaving their horses tethered in a field outside the town, they slipped through the shadows in twos and threes, ap
proaching the massive bulk of the cathedral from the north, as planned.

The main doors would be unlocked, but they didn’t want to risk being seen. Gabriel picked the lock on one of the side doors, and they slid quietly inside.

To Del, who had been inside only once decades before, the cathedral, with its soaring arches and massive walls, felt like the belly of a sleeping stone giant. They all walked slowly around, getting their bearings and familiarizing themselves with the layout, with the numerous corridors, major and minor, the rooms giving off them, and, most importantly, the location of the doors that led outside.

Finally, wraithlike, they drifted to their assigned places.

The soft slap of their footsteps on the stone floor ceased.

They settled in for a long wait.

Silence descended.

December 19
Somersham Place, Cambridgeshire

D
eliah roused from a fitful sleep to find Bess supervising one of the housemaids making up the fire. A glance at the window, at the narrow slit between the curtains, showed the faintest trace of gray light outside; it was barely dawn.

Courtesy of her earlier, futile efforts to loosen Del’s silken bonds, the pillows now hid said bonds from view. She’d look as if she’d simply fallen asleep with her arms splayed out. Which was what, furious and defeated, she’d eventually done.

She feigned sleep until the housemaid left. Then she called Bess. “Don’t ask questions—just come and untie me.”

“
Untie
you?” Eyes wide, Bess hurried over.

Deliah raised her arms, displaying the scarves wound about her wrists.

Bess’s eyes widened even more. “Oh, my.”

“No questions.” Deliah waggled one wrist.

Bess fell to picking apart the knot securing it.

Del had gauged the bonds so while she’d had some play in
her arms, she hadn’t been able to reach one hand to her other wrist, and undo the knot herself. She’d tried every contortion possible, to no avail.

When Bess had both her wrists free, she nodded with what dignity she could muster. “Thank you.”

Sitting up against the pillows, she rubbed her wrists, then noticed Bess was frowning. “What?”

Her expression disapproving, Bess gathered the scarves and set them on the dresser. “I don’t know as I hold with tying up, no matter the reason. I had thought the colonel quite gentlemanly.” Bess was quite a few years older than Deliah, and occasionally, when she deemed it necessary, could become quite motherly on Deliah’s behalf.

Deliah waved Bess to her robe. “If you must know, he tied me up so I couldn’t go with him, or follow him to the cathedral. Not until all the action is over—then, mind you, I’m supposed to join him. Huh!”

“Oh.” Returning to the bed with the robe, Bess looked thoughtful. “So he was protecting you—that’s why he tied you up.” She held up the robe as Deliah slid from the bed. “If that’s the case, I don’t suppose I can hold it against him.”

Belting the robe, Deliah leveled a narrow-eyed look at her maid. “You don’t have to.
I’m
holding it against him enough for us both.”

With a frustrated humph, she headed for her washstand. “Incidentally, apparently it wasn’t only me who was tied up. You might slip downstairs and make sure all the other lady’s maids have gone up to free their mistresses.”

Bess had followed her. Deliah heard a smothered giggle from behind her, then Bess said, “Yes, miss. I’ll just slip down, if you don’t need me for a moment?”

With haughty grace, Deliah inclined her head.

Left alone, she washed, then poked in her armoire, wondering what to wear.

Wondering how she felt.

Her principal conclusion was that she felt far too much.

Elated because she and Del were to marry—that he loved
her, actually
loved
her! Her, the lady with so many character flaws that no gentleman was supposed to be able to overlook them.

But perhaps that was what love was, what it did? Presumably it was love that made Del overlook all her flaws…no. He’d said he loved her
because of
, not in spite of, her unconventional traits.

Even better. The fiend.

He loved her, and he’d made her love him—set her free to openly love him. She’d already loved him before, but now…

Now she loved him unreservedly.

And now she was worried. Now she was afraid.

For him. The damned man had gone off to face who knew what without her to watch his back. No her to step out of a carriage with a sword this time. So who was going to distract the enemy for him today?

She pulled out a forest-green pelisse, frogged with gold braid, that she’d yet to wear. That he’d paid an exorbitant sum for it was a point in its favor. Tossing it on the bed and resuming her hunt for a gown to go beneath it, she reminded herself that Del had the other men with him.

Presumably Devil and the others would watch his back, as she had no doubt he would theirs.

But…this loving someone, being free to love someone and therefore fall victim to all the accompanying feelings, was new to her.

Fear for another—another who now meant a very great deal to her—was new to her.

And she wasn’t at all sure she liked it.

She pulled out an elegant gown in pale green wool. It had long sleeves and was closed to the throat. If she was to go to the cathedral, she would need all the warmth she could wear, and hadn’t he said something about going on to Wolverstone’s residence afterward? In which case, she’d need the elegance, too. Laying the gown on the bed, she went to find underclothes.

Bess returned, breathless. Deliah suspected it was from laughing, not running.

“All the other maids have gone up and freed their mistresses. The duchess has called a meeting in the breakfast parlor as soon as maybe—they’re rushing to serve breakfast now—so we’d better get you dressed and ready.” Bess hurried to help her tie off her petticoat, then lifted the gown over her head.

Gowned and laced, Deliah sat at the dressing table, let Bess brush and braid her hair, and wondered what the other ladies thought. She strongly suspected they’d be as unimpressed with their spouses’ actions as she was with her spouse-to-be’s.

While she’d lain in the bed tied to the headboard waiting for dawn to arrive, she’d had plenty of time to consider the timing of Del’s offer for her hand. Being a spouse-to-be gave him certain rights—one of which he’d claimed mere hours later.

Had he made the offer so he would have the right to do what he felt he had to to protect her? Was that why he’d offered for her hand?

The uncertainty tried to insinuate itself into her mind. She considered it, but rejected it. Felt confident enough to reject it. Del was too practical a man to, as it were, sacrifice his future merely to protect a woman he considered to be in his charge—a woman he had no real feelings for. He could have tied her up without her promise to marry him, risking her wrath and subsequent alienation, if he’d had no feelings for her. If he hadn’t wanted a future with her.

She remembered enough of his words, his declarations of the night. He’d been sincere and absolute in his wishes and wants, his view of them together as the cornerstone of his future.

And the very fact that he’d gone to exceedingly domineering lengths to protect her was an irrefutable indication that he did, indeed, harbor strong feelings for her.

But she didn’t like being tied up, helpless to help him.

That, she was going to make very clear, simply would not do.

“There.” Bess slid the last pin into place. She glanced at the pelisse. “Will you be going out later?”

“Yes.” Deliah rose, tweaked her gown straight. “And I suspect it will be sooner rather than later.”

Turning, she headed for the door and the breakfast parlor. “I’m going to see what the other ladies think.”

On more than one front.

“So he proposed, and then he tied you up? Congratulations!” Eyes twinkling, Alathea beamed at Deliah. “On the proposal front, I mean. As for the rest.” Wryly, she glanced around the table. “Welcome to the club.”

Deliah glanced at the other ladies gathered about the long table in the breakfast parlor. All seemed to share Alathea’s sentiments. “So we really were
all
tied up?”

Nods and affirmations came from every occupied seat. It transpired their men had been rather inventive in their choice of restraints—silk scarves, cravats, silk curtain cords, even silk stockings.

“And,” Honoria said, eying them all from her position at the end of the table, “not one of us got free. For that, they’ll all have to pay.”

“Hear, hear,” echoed around the table.

Having discovered, the instant she’d smelled food, that she was ravenous, Deliah made steady inroads into the selections she’d heaped on her plate, and tried to assess the other ladies’ thoughts and intentions. In the end, she simply asked, “What do you mean by pay?”

Honoria’s fine gray eyes came to rest on her face. “After behaving in such a high-handed fashion, they’ll expect us to react. They’ll be expecting us to extract our ounce of flesh”—she paused to smile—“in one way or another. And, of course, we will, not least because we would never want them to believe we’d grown resigned, or, heaven help us, were no longer annoyed by said high-handed ways.”

“If they ever thought that, we’d be in dire straits.” Patience sipped her tea.

“But,” Deliah allowed her inner frown to show, “you don’t seem all that annoyed. You
do
seem rather resigned. Much more so than I. When Del first left, I was furious.”

“That’s because you’re new to this…for want of a better description, emotional game.” Phyllida toasted Deliah with her teacup.

“The emotional game of being married to a strong, dominant, possessive—and protective—gentleman,” Flick added. “Sadly, you can’t take the protective-to-a-serious-fault characteristic out of the mix. It’s an inescapable part of who they are—the sort of men they are.”

“Exactly.” Chin propped in one hand, Alathea nodded. “If we want all their other characteristics exactly as they are—as we do—then we have to accept their sometimes overactive protectiveness.”

“Especially,” Catriona said, “when you realize that that protectiveness, and its sometimes extreme nature, is a direct reflection of how much we mean to them.” She smiled at Deliah. “They’re really quite simple and straightforward in that way.”

“Mind you.” Honoria set down her teacup with a definite click. “That does not mean that they get to exercise that protectiveness to the extreme without paying us our due.” She met Deliah’s eyes. “Over the years, we’ve grown increasingly shrewd. Anything you ask—and if you’re wise you can extend the boon time to quite a few days—he’ll feel forced to grant.”

“To make up for his high-handedness,” Flick explained. “I once managed to get Demon to take me to a horse fair he never would have countenanced me attending otherwise.”

Alathea nodded. “I’ve managed to get Gabriel to more than one ball on the strength of an overprotective incident.”

Catriona smiled serenely. “And then there’s the other, more personal benefits.”

All the ladies smiled in what was clearly fond memory, and equally fond anticipation.

Deliah blinked, imagined…. “I see.”

“Indeed.” Honoria folded her napkin and laid it beside her plate. “And, of course, they’re all together.”

“We would be much more exercised if it was any of them alone,” Phyllida told Deliah, “or even just two of them against unknown others.”

“In this case,” Honoria said, “we don’t need to actually worry for their safety—they’re as safe as they could be even were we there to watch over them. However, while I will admit us being anywhere near the cathedral while they’re dealing with this Black Cobra person would distract them utterly—and we don’t want to forget they have Sangay to protect—there’s no reason I can see that we shouldn’t arrive the instant the action’s over.”

“Which by my calculation,” Patience said, “means we should leave as soon as possible.”

“My thoughts exactly.” Flick glanced around the table. “So—how many horses, how many gigs?”

Del sat on the floor of one of the stalls around the octagon in Ely Cathedral and prayed he wouldn’t get a cramp. At least the stall floor was timber, not stone. The cathedral—so much massive stone in the depths of winter—was as cold as the proverbial tomb.

Waiting for time to pass—it was exactly like being on picket duty. Not that he’d been a picket all that often, let alone recently, yet at least in war, there was an element of omnipresent danger to help keep one alert. Here…they all knew nothing would happen until after Sangay arrived.

Which would be shortly, Del hoped. Shifting silently in the confined space, he pulled out his fob-watch. It was almost nine o’clock. Outside the stained-glass windows of the octagonal tower, it was full daylight—or as full as the light was going to be that day.

Settling back into his hunched position, he found himself staring at the hilt of his sword. The sheathed blade lay on the floor beside him. He had a loaded pistol, too. Many of them
had elected to carry one, just in case Larkins resorted to firearms. The cultists, thank heaven, abjured such weapons on some convoluted religious grounds, which was all to the good. He had no doubt that, regardless of how many came to the cathedral, his side would see victory, at least of a sorts, that day.

He was in a mood for victories. Succeeding in gaining Deliah’s promise to marry him had meant more to him than he’d thought it would. He’d intended to ask her regardless and had told himself he’d been asking then because of the necessity of his mission—because he’d needed the right to ensure she didn’t arrive at the cathedral too soon.

While all of that had been true, he’d needed to know she was his on some much more crucial, personal plane. Knowing she’d agreed had filled him with a…certainty. A jubilation, an assurance and an absolute conviction that this—all of this—was proceeding exactly as fate decreed. Exactly as it was supposed to be.

His only remaining uncertainty was a small, tiny, niggling one. He hoped his and Deliah’s exchange of promises would be strong enough to stand against the inevitable ramifications of his morning’s actions. He hoped she’d understand that he’d simply had to do it, that given what she meant to him, he’d had no choice.

Regardless, he thought, as he shifted awkwardly again, he couldn’t regret tying her to the bed. She was safe, and in his new world—the future he’d taken his first steps into last night—that, to him, was the most important thing.

A loud creak had him raising his head, listening, straining his ears.

Light shafted above his head, then slowly faded as the sound of a heavy door closing reached him.

Someone had just entered through the main doors at the end of the nave. Sangay? Or someone else?

Carefully shifting into a crouch, he slowly raised his head, until he could look out over the front lip of the stall. His line of sight was across the octagon, past the altar, and down the
nave. He could see Gervase in his borrowed monk’s robe seated halfway along a pew three rows from the front, head bowed, apparently deep in prayer. Glancing to his right, Del saw Tony, also garbed as a monk, all but invisible, seated at prayer in the shadows of one of the stalls across the octagon from Del’s position. Gyles, the other monk, Del couldn’t see, but he knew Gyles was sitting or kneeling in prayerful attitude beyond one of the columns on the other side of the nave.