Slightly Married (13 page)

“Does Colonel Bedwyn know you are here?” she asked. “Does he want me to come to London?”

“Aidan will do his duty,” he told her. “It is something he has always done. Always.”

“Then why did he not come with you?” she asked. “Why did he not at least send a letter with you?”

“I believe,” he said, “my brother feels honor-bound not to intrude upon your life any further. I feel no such compunction.”

He
did
want her to go, then? It was just that he was too honorable a man to try to force her or even ask her himself?

“Aidan does
not
know I have come here,” the duke said.

“He does not want me in his life,” she said. “He would not want me coming to London with you. Is that where he is?”

“I do not have the power to interfere in the inner workings of the marriage even of my own brother,” the Duke of Bewcastle said. “If you choose never to live together, never to consummate your marriage, never to have issue of it, then so be it. But I
am
head of my family, and I will do all in my power to prevent any form of disgrace being brought upon our name. Your failure to appear at your husband's side for the victory celebrations, Lady Aidan, will bring disgrace on my brother and therefore on the whole of the Bedwyn family.”

Eve licked her dry lips. Was it true? She knew so little of aristocratic families and their sense of honor and propriety. But despising her origins as he clearly did, the duke would surely not have come all this way if her appearance in London was not of the most crucial importance. Was she really wavering, then? Was she really thinking of going? It was impossible. She laughed nervously.

“I would bring far more disgrace on you if I
did
go to London with you, your grace,” she said. “I have been given a lady's upbringing and education, but nothing in my background or training or experience has prepared me to move in such elevated circles as those who frequent Carlton House and mingle with the Prince of Wales's set. You may make any excuse you choose—I am indisposed; I have other pressing responsibilities; I am the village idiot; whatever you like. I will not refute you.”

“This,”
he said, “is how you would show your gratitude to my brother, ma'am?”

She stared at him tight-lipped.

“Soon,” he said, “within the next couple of years at the latest, Aidan will be a general. He will reach the very pinnacle of his career and will without any doubt reap honors and glory for himself. He will, if he comports himself wisely and continues to distinguish himself as he has always done, be rewarded with titles and property of his own. Would you inhibit his steady rise to the top, Lady Aidan? Would you deprive him, if only in reputation, of what he had always valued more dearly than life? I refer to his honor.”

The colonel had told her none of this. Perhaps because it was not true? Or perhaps because he was too honorable to burden her with the knowledge of how she had blighted his hopes? How could she know the truth? How could she know his real wishes in this matter?

“This is ridiculous,” she said. “It is unthinkable. I could not possibly do what you ask without embarrassing myself horribly—and therefore embarrassing Colonel Bedwyn too.”

“There will be just time,” he said, “to bring you up to snuff, Lady Aidan. We must hope you are an apt pupil. My aunt is the Marchioness of Rochester. She will sponsor you in your presentation to the queen. She will help you in your choice of a suitable wardrobe for your various appearances, including your court dress. And she will instruct you in any aspects of polite behavior for which your education has not prepared you. There will be time for your presentation and for a ball at Bedwyn House to introduce you to the
ton
before the Carlton House dinner and all the other victory celebrations you will be called upon to attend with Aidan. Only one question remains—or rather, two.
Do
you feel gratitude even when your husband has not demanded it of you? And do you possess the necessary courage?”

There was a lengthy silence, which he showed no sign of breaking.

“If only I could know
his
wishes in this matter,” she said.

The silence stretched again.

“Very well,” she murmured at last. She licked her lips again and spoke more firmly. “I owe Colonel Bedwyn my home and my fortune and the security of many people who are dependent upon me. Most of all, I owe him my children, who mean more to me than life. If a few weeks in London will save him from the censure of his peers, then I will give him those few weeks. But I will do it for
him,
not for you. I will not be browbeaten every moment of every day and scolded whenever I fall. I will do my best—for Colonel Bedwyn's sake.”

“That is all anyone can ask of you, ma'am,” the duke said. “I suppose that inn I passed on the village street is the best accommodation the neighborhood has to offer?”

“It is,” she said.

“As I suspected.” He finished his tea, set down his cup and saucer, and got to his feet. “You will be ready to leave when I return in the morning, Lady Aidan.”

It was a command, pure and simple. Eve wished heartily that the Three Feathers was renowned for its fleas and rats instead of only for its insipid fare.

W
HEN
A
IDAN RETURNED FROM AN AFTERNOON RIDE
in Hyde Park with Freyja and Alleyne, he was feeling moderately cheerful. In the course of the day he had met a number of old acquaintances, including some military colleagues. All had conversed with him on a variety of topics. None had mentioned his marriage. So Wulf had been wrong. It was not general knowledge. There was not going to be any embarrassment and certainly no scandal. He was glad he had made the decision not to tell his other brothers and sisters.

He was feeling invigorated. His family had always been neck-or-nothing riders, including the girls. The three of them had galloped the length of Rotten Row several times without stopping instead of mincing along—Freyja's words—as most riders did, more intent on cutting a figure and impressing the pedestrians beyond the rails than in exercising their horses and themselves.

Fleming, Bewcastle's butler, was in the hall at Bedwyn House when they arrived, having come from Lindsey Hall the day before with several of the other servants and mountains of baggage.

“Has Bewcastle arrived yet?” Freyja asked him, pulling off her riding hat and shaking out her unruly curls. It had surprised all of them when they arrived yesterday to discover that Wulf was not yet in residence. Freyja had assumed out loud, quite unabashed, that he must have gone straight to his mistress's house upon his arrival in London.

“He has, my lady,” Fleming replied with one of his peculiar stiff bows. “He has requested that Colonel Bedwyn attend him in the library immediately upon his return and that you and Lord Alleyne join him for tea in the drawing room one half hour from now.”

“Requested,”
Alleyne said with a chuckle. “
Immediately.
You are on the carpet over something, Aidan. At least Freyja and I have time to wash our hands before entering the august presence.”

The butler led the way to the library, knocked lightly, opened the door, and stood to one side while Aidan strode in.

She was seated to one side of the hearth, clothed in gray, her hair dressed severely in a knot at the back of her neck. Her complexion was pale, almost pasty. When she rose to her feet he was given the impression that she had lost weight. She gazed at him with wide eyes and compressed lips, and he stared back. It was only when he caught movement with his peripheral vision that he realized they were not alone. Bewcastle had got up from a sofa. Aidan turned his eyes on his brother.

“What is this?” he demanded.

“This?”
Wulf asked with faint hauteur. “Is Lady Aidan inanimate, Aidan? I have brought you your wife.”

“That is where you have been?” Aidan asked, feeling cold fury gathering in his chest. “To Ringwood? Against my specific command?”

The ducal eyebrows went up. “Dear me,” he said. “Since when have I taken my orders from a younger brother? I believe you mistake me for one of your enlisted men, Aidan.”

“I
do
have the power to command my own wife,” Aidan said, taking one menacing step closer to his brother. “I told you she was to be left at Ringwood. I told you I did not want her here. And I told you I was not to be shaken in that resolve.”

“You might be advised,” Bewcastle said softly, “that neither Lady Aidan nor I am deaf, Aidan—at least, I assume that the lady is not. You will reserve that voice for the battlefield, if you please. I explained to you the necessity of your wife's being at your side during the coming weeks. I do not intend to repeat the explanation. The business of my family is my domain.”

“You will have her conveyed back home,” Aidan said icily. “Immediately. Better yet, I will do it myself.” He turned on his heel to stalk from the room, angrier than he had been for a long time—perhaps since his last leave and his encounter then with Bewcastle's stubborn, autocratic will.

A flutter of movement caught his eye and he turned his head to see his wife sit back down on her chair, her back straight, her eyes on the floor in front of her, her face chalk-white and expressionless. Deuce take it, what had he just said in her hearing? He had been so furious . . . He stood still, looking at her.

“You have just recently arrived, ma'am?” he asked unnecessarily. “You made the whole journey today?”

She looked slowly up at him until their eyes met. Her own were flat and unreadable. “If you please,” she said, her words crisp and quite icy, “one of you will find out the name and direction of the inn from which the next stagecoach to Oxfordshire departs. I will need a hackney coach to take me there. Perhaps you will be so good as to call me one immediately. One of you.”

“Ma'am,” Aidan said, “I beg your pardon. I did not—”

“Immediately.” She got to her feet again.

Aidan glared at Bewcastle, but his brother had turned nonchalantly away as if he had not been the cause of all this.

“Perhaps,” Aidan said, “we should—”

“Immediately.”

“Perhaps we should cool down,” he said, “and discuss this.”

“If I were any cooler,” she said, “I would turn into an iceberg. I am leaving. I am going upstairs to fetch my bag. When I come back down I will expect to find a hackney coach at the door. If I do not, I will simply walk away until I find one myself.”

She crossed the room toward Aidan, made a wide detour around him, and went out through the door before shutting it behind her. Bewcastle turned and looked at the door.

“My carriage is available to you,” he said.

“Blast you, Wulf,” Aidan said viciously, “I would like nothing better than to ram all your teeth down your throat. She wants a damned hackney coach. That is what she will get.”

He turned and strode from the room without waiting for a reply.

C
HAPTER XI

E
VE DID NOT GO BACK DOWNSTAIRS IMMEDIATELY.
She wanted to give them time to call a hackney coach for her. She did not want to have to wait in the hall until one came. She paced the sitting room of the sumptuous suite to which the housekeeper had shown her on her arrival earlier.

She was angry and humiliated. More angry than humiliated. Angry at
him
. Furious at herself.

I told you she was to be left at Ringwood.

As if she were some unwanted, discarded package.

I told you I did not want her here.

Brutal frankness, considering the fact that she had been there to hear him. But she had known that. There had never been any pretense between them that either wanted the other. Oh, she was
so
angry at herself.

I do have the power to command my own wife.

How could he! There had never been any question . . . How
incensed
she was with him.

And the Duke of Bewcastle. He had sat opposite her in the carriage all day—in retrospect it was surprising that he had not made
her
sit with her back to the horses—haughtily silent much of the time, talking about his family and its illustrious history when he
did
deign to converse with her, as if she were a particularly ignorant and uncouth pupil who needed educating in the important things of life. She would not be surprised to discover that if he were cut it would be ice water rather than blood that flowed from his veins. He was a shudderingly horrid man.

She could not
wait
to be back at Ringwood. Why had she left it in the first place? It had been agony to leave the children. Becky had clung wordlessly to her neck, unconsoled even by the promise of presents. Davy had gazed at her with silent reproach, as if to say that he had known all along she would prefer flitting off to the pleasures of London than staying with children who were not her own and whom no one else had wanted since the death of his parents.

Finally, when she considered that she had allowed enough time to elapse, she picked up her bag—the duke had instructed her to bring only a few changes of clothing—and went resolutely down the stairs. It was not an easy thing to do. She fully expected them to be standing shoulder to shoulder in the hall, dark and menacing and bad-tempered, to order her to do her duty. But only the stiff, stately butler was there with a couple of footmen, one of whom immediately relieved her of her bag.

“Is there a hackney coach awaiting me?” she asked.

“There is, my lady.” The butler bowed and opened the front doors.

“And does the coachman know to which inn to take me?”

“He does, my lady.”

She swept past him out the door and down the steps to the pavement, her chin up, thinking illogically that he could at least have come to bid her farewell. And then she saw that he
had
come, that he was standing at the carriage door, while the coachman was sitting up on the box. He opened the door as she approached and she climbed inside without either looking at him or availing herself of his offered hand. She was disappointed in him. Yes, indeed she was. She had begun to like him back at Ringwood. At the same time she felt guilty and humiliated—she had complicated his life by coming unbidden after he had thought himself free of her forever.

And then he climbed in after her, shut the door, and seated himself beside her. The seat was narrow. He pressed against her arm and her thigh, converting her anger from coldness to instant heat.

“If this is gallantry, Colonel Bedwyn,” she said, “It is misplaced. I do not need your escort.”

“Nevertheless,” he said, “you have it, ma'am. I will see you safely settled at your inn.”

She averted her head pointedly to gaze out at the busy streets of London, which had so enthralled her less than three weeks ago. Could it really be so short a time? It seemed like an age ago, a lifetime ago. Neither of them attempted any conversation.

She intended to dismiss him quite firmly as soon as they arrived at their destination, to tell him to remain in the coach and return to Bedwyn House. But The Green Man and Still was such a large inn and the cobbled yard so bustling with noise and activity that truth to tell she was bewildered by it all. She made no protest when the colonel, having descended first in order to take down her bag and hand her out, strode off in the direction of the door through which most of the human traffic seemed to be proceeding. The hackney coach drove away. He must have paid the fare in advance.

She went and stood inside the door while the colonel spoke to the man behind the counter. This inn was far more crowded and noisy than the Pulteney had been but just as daunting in its own way. She felt like a cowering country mouse.

“I have taken a room for you,” the colonel said when he came back to her. “It is on the second floor facing the street. It should be a little quieter than one overlooking the yard.”

“Did you pay for it?” she asked him.

“Of course,” he said.

She opened her reticule. “How much?”

There was a slight pause. “There is no need for this,” he said.

“On the contrary.” She looked up at him. “There is every need. And thanks to you, I am not impoverished, am I?”

His jaw tightened. He looked more than usually grim. “I will take care of my wife's needs when I am in company with her, ma'am,” he said.

“Does that include her need to be treated with respect?” she asked, snapping her reticule shut and stooping to pick up her bag. His hand closed about her wrist.

“Much more of this,” he said, “and we will be attracting attention. If we must quarrel, at least let us do it in the privacy of your room.”

“I am quite capable of finding my way there if you will tell me the room number,” she said. “I will not keep you from the rest of your life one moment longer, Colonel Bedwyn.”

But he had possessed himself of her bag again and was striding off with it in the direction of the wide wooden staircase. Eve went trotting after him, doing a far poorer job than he of avoiding bumping into hurrying guests and servants. They climbed to the second story and walked the length of a long gallery before stopping outside a door at the very end of it. He opened the door and she stepped into the room ahead of him.

It was not large or ornate or crowded with furniture—it was nothing to compare with the Pulteney. There were just a large bed, a chest of drawers, a washstand, and one chair. But at least everything looked clean. And some of the noise of the inn seemed to recede after he had come in behind her and closed the door.

There was no need for him to have come inside. Eve removed her bonnet and gloves and set them on the dresser, her back to him.

“Why did you come?” he asked. “Or does the question need to be asked? Bewcastle went to fetch you, and very few people can withstand Bewcastle's will when he has his mind set upon something. How did he persuade you?”

“It does not matter,” she said. “Tomorrow I will be back at Ringwood and you will never see or hear from me again—or I you. You will be no worse for today except for the cost of an inn room and a hackney coach.”

“The devil of it is,” he said, “that I cannot remember exactly what I said to Wulf when I saw you there in the library and realized what he had done. Something about having told him to leave you where you were, I believe.”

She went to stand by the window, as far away from him as she could get and set both hands on the windowsill. Below her a coach and four was slowing, about to make the turn out of the street into the inn yard.

“You said,” she reminded him, “that you did not want me here. That is quite understandable. I do not want to be here either. It was part of our agreement that neither of us wished to spend any more time in the other's company than was strictly necessary.”

She heard him set down her bag. She did not want to turn and look at him. He was wearing his uniform—the old, almost shabby one—and was looking altogether too formidable to be dealt with in such a restricted space.

“But the words were ill-chosen and ill-mannered,” he said. “I did not mean them quite the way they sounded.”

“And you said,” she continued more deliberately, turning after all to glare accusingly at him, “that you
do
have the power to command your own wife. That was more than despicable, Colonel. We married for our mutual convenience. We parted with every intention of never communicating again. The question of your mastery and my subservience was never raised between us, the reason being that I am
not
your wife. Not in any way that matters.”

He was angry too now. She could see it in the hardness of his jaw and the narrow set of his eyes. “Perhaps, ma'am,” he said, “that is where we made our mistake.”

“Mistake?”

“Agreeing to a marriage in name only,” he said. “We should at least have made a real marriage of it even if we were to live the rest of our lives apart. Then there would be none of this ridiculous debate about whether you are really my wife or not, about whether I should pay certain of your bills or not, about whether I have the right to command my brother to leave you in peace or not. Perhaps we ought to have carried our wedding day to its natural conclusion.”

She stared at him, her cheeks hot. But during the precious seconds she should have used to find words with which to express her outrage, she instead paused to feel the physical effects of his words—a certain loss of breath, a tightening in her breasts, a pulsing ache between her thighs and up inside her, and a weakness about the knees.

“It would have been wrong,” she said. “Neither of us wanted that.”

“
Wrong?
We are man and woman,” he said harshly, “and a few weeks ago we married. Men and women, especially married ones, go to bed together. They satisfy certain needs there. Have you never felt such needs?”

She licked her lips and swallowed. She wished the window were open. The room felt airless.

He made an impatient sound then and came striding across the room toward her, detouring about the foot of the bed. She set her back firmly against the windowsill and gripped it from behind with both hands. He stood before her, his legs braced apart, his large hands coming up to cup her face. She closed her eyes and his mouth descended on hers, closed, hard, pressing her lips rather painfully against her teeth. But almost immediately the pressure became lighter as he parted his lips over hers and licked at the seam with his tongue, coaxing a response and causing a sharp sensation there and a deeper throbbing between her legs.

When her lips parted, and then her teeth, he pressed his tongue deep into her mouth, exploring its surfaces with the tip. One of his hands was splayed against the back of her head, holding it close.

Her first conscious thought was that she was being disloyal, unfaithful. But unfaithful to whom? Colonel Bedwyn was her husband. She was
married
to him. If she did not do these things with him now, she would never do them with anyone. Ever. The thought brought with it a desperate yearning and she moved her hands to his shoulders. They were impossibly broad and hard-muscled, even allowing for his heavy military coat. She kissed him back, angling her head, opening her mouth wider, touching his tongue with her own. She allowed herself to acknowledge her own desire.

Heat flared between them in a rush of passion. His hands had moved away from her head. One arm was wrapped about her waist. The other hand was spread behind her hips. It drew her firmly against him so that she was breathlessly aware of heavy leather boots, hard, muscled thighs, and masculinity. Her arms clasped him about the neck while her body strained toward his, desperate to move closer, closer . . .

When he lifted his head and looked down at her, she was jolted for a moment by the realization of just what was happening and with whom. His hook-nosed face was as dark, as harsh as ever. She should have been a little frightened, perhaps a little repelled. Instead she felt only more deeply aroused, especially when she looked into his heavy-lidded eyes and saw an answering passion there.

“We are going to consummate this marriage of ours,” he said, “on that bed behind me. If you do not want it, say so now. I am not issuing any commands.”

It had not been a part of their bargain. Indeed, it had seemed very important at the time—to both of them—that they be married in name only, that they part as soon after the ceremony as they could. She could no longer remember their reasons. She would later when she was thinking more rationally. She would hate herself later if she continued now, if she gave in to sheer lust. But why would she? If there
was
a reason, she could not think what it could be. They were, after all, man and wife.

“I want it,” she said, surprised by the low huskiness of her voice. But she held up a staying hand almost immediately. “There is something you must know first, though.”

She almost lost her nerve. He raised his eyebrows.

“I am not a virgin.”

He went very still and searched her eyes with his own while she listened to the echo of her words, appalled. She had never once dreamed that she would have to confess
that
to him.