Cottage by the Sea (33 page)

   She stared steadily into the troubled gray eyes of her confessor and saw him sigh. Then he raised his hand in benediction.

   "Dearly beloved," he intoned, "we are gathered together here in the sight of God…"

A few hours later, Blythe heard the door to her late father's bedroom close with a thump. Then the key rattled and the lock clicked. Muffled male laughter could be heard receding down the hallway.

   She turned to face her groom and said nothing. The enormous Barton Bed, regally hung with red velvet drapery, newly purchased in honor of their nuptials, loomed against the wall opposite.

   "You must be greatly tired," Kit ventured, nervously patting the top of a wing-backed chair positioned near the matching velvet window curtains, closed snugly against the night air.

   Flakes of face powder had fallen like snow on the shoulders of his handsome blue coat, purchased specifically for his wedding day. His neck linen had wilted, and his forehead was sheened with perspiration, as it had been during the entire day's festivities.

   As if one could call the dirge that had substituted for a marriage celebration festive, Blythe thought darkly.

   She and her groom of one day had sat stonily beside one another during their wedding lunch and then retired to separate wings of Barton Hall to "refresh themselves" before the marriage feast. Hollow toasts had been drunk to their health, after which they had been escorted to their bedchamber by a raucous gaggle of men organized by Blythe's guardian, doubling as the groom's father.

   As promised, Ennis had been nowhere in sight. Nor had Garrett. Rosamund Barton had been composed and distant, as if she were preoccupied with some future plans of her own.

   Now the two newlyweds had been locked like prisoners in a tower, expected to "do their duty," as Collis had leeringly informed her over his fifth glass of champagne.

   "I am tired," Blythe agreed in a low voice. "Sick and tired. Tired and sick!" she repeated, trying to keep the edge of hysteria out of her voice. "Which leads me to some terribly disappointing news for you."

   Kit stared at her, mute, as usual.

   "I've started my courses this day," she declared.

   He continued to gaze at her without reply.

   "You do know what they are, don't you?" she demanded, pacing up and down in front of the fireplace. "The Red Flood? A time every month when a woman is unavailable to be put to stud," she said, tilting her chin and casting him a challenging glare.

   "I do know, actually, what you're saying," Kit mumbled, blushing crimson beneath the remnants of his powder. "I work with farm animals, you know…" He swallowed nervously. "It does not matter, as there will be blood in any case, and…"

   His words drifted off as he continued to gaze at her,

looking utterly miserable.

   "Farm animals!" she spat. "That's about all I would expect you to know about the marriage state!" She ceased her pacing and took a step toward Kit, her fists clenched. "I fear that I have another bit of disheartening information to impart to you." She smiled, perversely enjoying her announcement. "I come to you in no respect a virgin."

   Her statement hung in the air between them, and she was pleased to see Kit's own hand ball into a fist.

   "Who had you first?" he said in a low voice. "I have a right to know!"

   "Are you absolutely sure you wish to know?" she mocked him.

   "Such a transparent ruse cannot alter the path we tread tonight," he said abruptly, and crossed the room in a few swift strides. "You are now my wife!" he declared, seizing her hands in his own. "We are promised to each other, before God. And, by St. Goran, I am willing to do my best by it!"

   Then he pulled her close and began to kiss her with frenzied passion, as if it were in his power to infuse her with his own feverish desire.

   "Kit!" Blythe protested, shoving her hands against his chest.

   "Please, Blythe… please… please," he murmured, strengthening his grip as his arms pressed against her sides and his hands became a stone wall at her back. "I shall be a good husband to you, I swear," he whispered hoarsely. Then he parted his lips and attempted to thrust his tongue against her clenched teeth.

   "No!" Blythe cried, and turned her head away, a move that only provided him the means to kiss her throat and the hollow at the base of her neck. Suddenly she ceased to struggle against him.

   Blythe knew perfectly well that she still possessed the physical strength to fight her groom's righteous, ardent advances even if she hadn't an ounce of mental energy remaining to her. She was utterly exhausted by the effort it had taken to keep from screaming her protests in front of the assembled guests and the Reverend Mr. Kent at the altar of St. Goran's Church. As she felt Kit's erection bloom against her thigh, she simply allowed her mind to go blank and her body limp.

   She was done fighting them all, she thought, allowing her mind to drift to visions of the waves crashing on Hemmick Beach. Soon she would sleep and, on the morrow, confer with Garrett concerning their flight to Plymouth and an escape by ship to America.

   Kit appeared to sense her shift in mood and her sudden acquiescence and scooped her into his arms, placing her in the center of the magnificent Barton Bed. How many hapless Barton brides would be deflowered upon its goose-down mattress? Blythe wondered. She would not be among them, she contemplated proudly. A man
she
had chosen had pierced her maidenhead, and she would always be glad of it.

   She watched with something akin to pity as Ennis's brother fumbled to divest himself of his coat, linen neck cloth, and shirt.

   "Would you like to undress?" he inquired of her softly, blowing out the candle on the nightstand

   But Blythe didn't answer. She was determined to prevent any intrusion on her thoughts, which now floated in her mind like wispy clouds drifting lazily off Dodman Point. Illuminated only by the banked fire glowing on the hearth, Kit's silhouette, comparable in height to Ennis's, now cast a shadow against the far wall. The red velvet coverlet on which she lay felt as soft as the grassy verge near the stream where she had lain, this very day, with her husband's brother.

   Blythe voiced no protest when Kit swiftly unfastened her silk wedding gown, her stays, and the various ties securing her muslin undergarments. Inside the majestic Barton Bed, curtains were drawn on three sides. Shadows cloaked her body, now naked, except for the small wad of rags wedged between her thighs. Resignedly she retrieved the stained cotton cloths and tossed them onto the floor as a rustling sound signaled that Kit was removing his breeches.

   Blythe was aware that her groom of only a few hours had slipped between the sheets. She wondered absently how an untried boy would do a man's job.

   "I don't wish to hurt you," said a disembodied voice hovering above her.

   "You won't," she sighed.

   And then she felt him find her center without impediment.

   Kit lay absolutely still, his body an oppressive weight against the length of her own. Silence reined in the bedchamber, and Blythe's detachment transported her from this plush velvet prison to a cool, imaginary glen where Ennis awaited her.

   "Slut!"

   The epithet reverberated inside the scarlet tomb of her ancestors.

   Immediately Blythe felt cold air pimple her flesh as Kit bolted from their bed. Startled from her reverie, she announced in the direction of his retreating back, "I am not a slut. I am merely another man's lover. Surely you can't complain I didn't warn you."

   "I thought you were merely being waspish," came Kit's shaken response. "So it's true. You have no maidenhead."

   "Perhaps next time you will favor my words with

more attention."

   She watched as he reached for a taper, ignited it in the glowing hearth, and lighted a candle that stood in a wall sconce next to the mantelpiece. Long, narrow shadows danced across the Persian carpet on the floor.

   "I never took you for a common whore," he said, turning to stare at her across the bedchamber.

   "How extraordinary," Blythe replied coldly, staring at his nakedness with a look of contempt, "for I took you for a fool, and lo, it appears my judgment was correct." She sat up in bed and pulled the coverlet under her arms. She was fully engaged now in the battle, and a latent fury boiled suddenly in her veins. "As a matter of fact, I was being waspish," she declared. "As waspish and cruel as I could be so that you could finally understand how deeply I resent what has happened here today!"

   "And you think I'd choose a wife who abhorred the sight of me!" he retorted in a strangled voice.

   "'Twas up to you to confront your father—like a man!" she cried as her pent-up rage at the day's events burst forth unchecked. "Surely you must realize no pathetic woman could deter Collis Trevelyan from his course! But you, too, are beguiled by the thought of such a handsome estate being handed down to your heirs, aren't you?" she accused him. "'Tis all about money and land, and the concerns of men!"

   "I demand to know who bedded you first!" Kit bellowed across the room, mimicking his father's penchant for voluble denunciation.

   "Ah… it always comes down to that, doesn't it, rooster?" she spat venomously. "The great question of the ages: who reached the henhouse first?"

   Kit strode across the chamber and loomed over her

menacingly. "Well, who did?"

   He appeared to have quite forgotten that he was bare as a babe, or that his erection had not been assuaged by their brief physical encounter.

   Blythe narrowed her eyes and met his glance steadily. She would need time to marshal her resources, she thought as her heart thudded in her chest. There was no point burning every bridge that might eventually provide an escape. She would protect Ennis.

   "A stable boy was my first," she lied airily, "last year. He ran away, after my father died."

   "Slut," Kit repeated in a choked voice.

   "And I must tell you, husband mine," Blythe retorted recklessly, "that the lad's lovemaking was vastly superior to what I've just sampled."

   In response to this sally, Kit's deeply scarred features twisted into a grotesque mask of outrage and despair. Steadily meeting his furious visage, Blythe made a deliberate show of yawning like a bored cat and glancing disdainfully at her bridegroom's exposed manhood.

   To Kit's complete mortification, the Trevelyan family flag swiftly fell to half-mast.

   "You appear quite tired, suddenly," she said with mock sweetness. "Good night,
husband
."

   Then, pulling the bedcovers up to her neck, she turned her back on her humiliated groom. She smiled to herself in the dark, wishing only that Collis Trevelyan had witnessed the consummation of this misbegotten marriage that the avaricious blackguard had so cruelly masterminded.

Blythe? Blythe! A-Are you all right?"

   Startled, she turned her head sharply toward the library door.

   "Dicken! What are you doing up?"

   Lucas's ten-year-old son, clothed in flannel pajamas, stood at the threshold.

   "I heard someone go down the stairs… and they didn't come back up."

   Blythe rose from the spot on Luke's desk she'd been leaning against and collected herself. How long had she been staring at the genealogy chart? More to the point, what had Dicken witnessed of her "trance"?

   "I'm fine, sweetie. I'm just sorry I woke you up," she apologized, flipping on the desk light. She studied Richard's face. The boy looked pale and somehow fragile. "Were you scared just now?"

   "A little, when you didn't answer me at first," he admitted, walking farther into the book-lined room. "I woke up and couldn't go back to sleep."

   "So you wanted some company?" She smiled, holding out her hand. He reached for it and then allowed her to give him a quick hug. They sat down at the card table where the half-completed puzzle was spread out on top of its leather surface.

   "You're already dressed," he commented, looking at her slacks and blouse.

   "I couldn't sleep either." She shrugged, smiling. "Does that happen to you very often?"

   "Sometimes," he said in a small voice.

   "Sometimes?" Blythe asked carefully.

   "Since Mummy died."

   He stared down at the top of the card table and then at a puzzle piece he had grasped between his fingers.

   "I'll bet you miss your mom a lot," Blythe said gently.

   "I do."

   "I miss my mom a lot too."

   Richard gave her a searching look.

   "Did your mummy die too?"

   "Yes… and my grandmother too, who died recently, so I know how much you must wish your mom was still here."

   "When did your mummy die?" he asked, and then quickly lowered his gaze to the tabletop again.

   "It happened way before you were born. I was just a year older than you are now."

   "And your grandmother?" he asked earnestly.

   "She died just last November. She was like a mother to me in a lot of ways. She was also my special friend and taught me about gardening and herbs. But she was very old and tired," Blythe added softly, "and one day last autumn she just closed her eyes and didn't wake up."