The Handmaiden's Necklace (11 page)

Danielle turned away from the window to look at her aunt. “There is always a chance Rafael will find out about the accident. What will happen then?”

Aunt Flora merely grunted. “Sheffield wronged you and he owes you his name. You were meant to be a duchess. Now you will be.”

She hadn’t told Rafe about the riding accident she had suffered during her years of banishment at Wycombe Park. Aunt Flora was convinced it didn’t matter, that Rafe owed Danielle the protection of his name.

Dani wandered toward the dresser, catching a glimpse of
herself in the mirror. Her hair was still slightly tousled and she wore only her chemise, stockings and garters. “I came here to marry Richard.”

“It was a marriage of convenience. Be honest enough with yourself to admit it.”

“At least it was my decision—not Rafael’s.”

Aunt Flora walked over and caught her hand. “Give it some time, dearest. Things have a way of working out.” She turned toward the door. “I’ll tell the duke you will be down as soon as you are ready.”

Dani crossed her arms and stubbornly sat back down on the stool in front of the dresser. As far as she was concerned, Rafael could wait forever.

Rafe got up from the sofa in the parlor and began to pace back and forth across the rug. A grandfather clock in the corner marked the time, which seemed to be standing still.

After twenty minutes, he pulled his gold watch fob out of the pocket of his white piqué waistcoat, flipped open the lid of his watch and checked to be sure the big clock was working properly. Grumbling, he snapped the timepiece firmly closed and returned it to his pocket.

After thirty minutes, his temper began to heat. She knew he was here. She was avoiding him on purpose!

Forty-five minutes from the time of his arrival, he turned and walked out of the parlor. As he crossed the wide plank floors in the entry, he spotted Dani’s friend, Caroline Loon, coming out of a bedchamber upstairs. Halfway down the staircase, she squeaked in surprise as she saw him coming up.

“Danielle is not yet dressed, Your Grace.”

“That is her problem. I have given her plenty of time to do so.” He climbed the next several stairs.

“Wait! You…you cannot just walk in there!”

Rafe gave her a wolfish smile. “Can’t I?” Brushing past her, he continued toward the top of the staircase, Miss Loon’s wide-eyed blue gaze following his every step. When he reached the landing, he strode down the hall, paused at the door he had seen Miss Loon come out of, knocked brusquely, opened the door and walked in.

“Rafael!” Danielle jumped up from the tapestry stool she perched on in front of her dresser. The book she had been reading tumbled to the floor at her feet.

Lovely feet, he noticed, encased in a pair of sheer white stockings; slender, feminine feet, gracefully arched. Her ankles were lovely, too, trim and elegant. The stockings fit over nicely shaped calves, held in place by pretty lace garters.

“How dare you come barging in here!”

His gaze moved up to her breasts, which had always been full,
plump,
he recalled, in his hand. Desire hit him like a fist and his groin tightened.

“You refused to come down,” he said reasonably. “I had no choice but to come up.”

She grabbed a green silk wrapper off the padded bench at the foot of the bed and pulled it on over her chemise. Lifting her long, softly curling red hair out of the way, she snugged the sash of the robe around her waist. “What is it you want?”

“I came to be certain you had not run away like a scared rabbit—or secretly married that idiot, Richard Clemens.”

“How dare you!”

“I believe you’ve already said that. Be assured, sweeting, I will dare far more if you do not live up to our bargain.”

She made a low, growling sound in her throat. “You are…insufferable. You’re…domineering and…and obstinate…and…and…”

“Determined?” he supplied, one of his dark eyebrows arching up.

“Yes…maddeningly so.”

“And you, my dear Danielle, are quite fetching, even when you’re in a temper. I had forgotten what a terror you could be when you’re angry.” He smiled. “At least being married to you will not be dull.”

Dani crossed her arms over her breasts, but it did nothing to erase the memory of small, pert nipples pressing against her thin chemise, nothing to ease the persistent throbbing in his groin. Now that he knew the truth of her innocence that night, knew she would soon belong to him as she should have before, he wanted her with a need that bordered on pain.

“I came to tell you that all is in readiness for tomorrow. I’ve arranged for a minister to perform the ceremony. He’ll arrive at one o’clock tomorrow afternoon. As soon as we’re married, we’ll collect our things and board the ship. The
Nimble
sails with the tide first thing Saturday morning.”

Max had already sailed. He’d sent a note relaying his regret that he would have to miss the wedding, then left aboard the first ship out of the harbor bound for England. Rafe hoped Max would be able to convince the prime minister that the threat posed by the Baltimore Clippers should not be ignored.

Danielle still stood there, her arms crossed over her very lovely breasts. She cast him a glance, eyeing him from beneath a row of thick burnished lashes. “I don’t believe I remember you being quite so dictatorial.”

His mouth faintly curved. “Perhaps there wasn’t a need.”

“Or perhaps you were merely younger, not so set in your ways.”

“Undoubtedly.” He moved toward her, just to see if she would move away. He thought of Mary Rose and imagined her trembling.

Dani stood her ground, looking up at him with fire in her pretty green eyes. “May I remind you, sir, we are not yet wed?”

“And even if we were, I would be forbidden by my vow to do what I am thinking about right now.” He stood directly in front of her, so close he could smell her perfume, sweetly floral, stirring a memory of apple blossoms. He remembered she had worn it that night in the gazebo when he had kissed her.

His shaft filled, turned thick and heavy, pressed uncomfortably against the front of his breeches.

“You gave me your word.”

“And I intend to keep it. But there are things I am not forbidden to do.” He lifted a deep red curl off her shoulder, bent and pressed his mouth against the spot where the heavy coil had lain, heard her swift intake of breath. Beneath her silk robe, he saw that her nipples had tightened.

“There is hope for us, I think,” he said softly, for he didn’t believe she had ever responded to Richard Clemens as she did to him.

Danielle stepped away. “You needn’t fear. Our bargain is struck. I won’t run away.”

“I suppose, deep down, I knew that you would not. I once doubted your word, but I have never doubted your courage.”

He reached into his pocket and pulled out a red satin pouch. “I brought you something. It’s a wedding gift.” He still couldn’t believe he had brought the necklace with him all the way to America, wouldn’t have, except that Grace had insisted. Perhaps she knew even before he did that he would give the lovely pearl-and-diamond necklace to Danielle.

He took the necklace from the pouch and moved behind her, the pearls cool and smooth in his palm. Draping the ancient necklace around her slender throat, he fastened the diamond clasp. “It would please me if you wore these tomorrow.”

Danielle’s fingers came up to the necklace, testing the weight and shape of each perfect pearl. Between each one, a single diamond glittered in the sunlight slanting in through the window.

She gazed in the mirror at her reflection. “They’re beautiful. They’re the most beautiful pearls I’ve ever seen.”

“It’s called the Bride’s Necklace. It’s extremely old, thirteenth century, a gift from Lord Fallon to his future bride, Lady Ariana of Merrick. There is a legend about it. I’ll tell you sometime.”

But there wasn’t time today. He looked up to see Lady Wycombe standing very solidly in the doorway.

“This is highly inappropriate, Your Grace. You are not yet Danielle’s husband.”

Rafe made her an extravagant bow. “I beg your pardon, my lady. I was just leaving.” He moved away from Danielle toward the door, walked past her aunt and stepped out into
the hallway. “I look forward to seeing you both tomorrow afternoon.”

His eyes found Dani’s one last time. Her gaze looked troubled, as they hadn’t until he’d walked in.

His faint smile slid away. He told himself he would make things right between them, win at least her affection if not her love.

But something deep inside him warned it would not be easy.

I
t was her wedding day. After the awful scandal five years ago, Danielle had never thought to marry. In the past two weeks, she had twice been engaged.

Today Rafael Saunders would become her husband, the last man on earth she wished to wed.

Danielle sighed as she moved restlessly around the bedchamber. Her wedding gown, pale topaz silk trimmed with bands of forest-green satin, lay on the bed. Caro had woven the same dark green ribbon into the heavy red curls she had pinned atop Dani’s head. Matching kid slippers sat on the floor next to the bed, waiting to be slid on over her cream silk stockings.

Dani told herself it was time to finish dressing, to summon her courage and accept the future fate had forced upon her. Instead, she gazed out the window into the garden, watching the birds wind their way through the leaves on the sycamore, feeling lethargic and utterly depressed.

She barely heard the sound of the door opening behind her, the light footsteps that signaled Caro had come into the room.

For a moment Caro said nothing. Then she sighed. “I knew I shouldn’t have left you. Dear Lord, you have not yet finished getting dressed.”

But Dani had needed some time alone, time to come to grips with a future as Rafael’s wife.

“Everyone is waiting,” Caro said. “You know what the duke did the last time you refused to come downstairs.”

Dani’s head came up. Rafe would haul her down in her chemise if she didn’t obey his dictates. When had he become so demanding? How difficult would it be to live with such a man? And why did the thought of becoming his wife make her heart squeeze oddly inside her?

“All right, you win. Help me put this on.”

She was ready, except for her gown and slippers. It didn’t take long to do up the small pearl buttons at the back of the dress and slide her stockinged feet into her shoes. She took a last look at herself in the mirror, tried to smooth the worry lines from between her russet eyebrows, then turned toward the door.

“Wait! Your necklace!” Caro raced for the jewelry box on the bureau and pulled out the beautiful pearl-and-diamond necklace that had been Rafe’s wedding gift. She held the necklace up to examine it in the sunlight. “It is so very lovely… I’ve never seen anything quite like it.”

“Rafe says it’s very old. He says there is a legend about it.”

“A legend? I wonder what it is.” Caro urged her down on the stool in front of the mirror, and Dani sat while Caro settled the pearls around her neck and fastened the diamond clasp.

“You should see the way the light glints on the diamonds,” Caro said. “It is almost as if they are lit from within.”

Dani’s fingers ran over the multifaceted stones. “I know what you mean. There is something very special about it…something…I can’t exactly figure out what it is. I wonder where he got it.”

“Why don’t you ask him…after the wedding!” Caro hauled her up from the stool and tugged her toward the door. “I’ve got to go to the parlor and take my seat.” She glanced up. “Remember, if you don’t come down—”

“You needn’t worry. I’ve finally accepted my fate.” Though she resented Rafe for it. She had wanted to choose her own life, her own future, not have it forced upon her.

Caro leaned over and gave her a sympathetic hug. “You loved him once. Perhaps you can learn to love him again.”

Unexpected tears sprang into Dani’s eyes. “I won’t let that happen—not ever. As long as I don’t love him, he can’t hurt me again.”

Caro’s eyes misted. Her gaze held a trace of pity. “Everything is going to be all right. I know it in here.” Caro placed a hand over her heart. Then she turned and hurried out of the bedchamber.

With a slow, steadying breath, Dani turned to face the door and her uncertain future. She prayed with all her heart that Caro’s words would prove true.

But thinking of the man Rafe had become, a hard man determined to get his way no matter the cost, she didn’t really believe it.

Hoping his nervousness didn’t show, Rafe waited at the bottom of the staircase, his legs braced a little apart, hands crossed in front of him.

The wedding guests were few, just Lady Wycombe and
Caroline Loon; the minister, Reverend Dobbs, and his wife, Mary Ann. Danielle deserved far more than the simple ceremony that would make them man and wife. Rafe vowed that once they reached London, he would see that she got the finest wedding money could provide.

He looked toward the top of the staircase, saw Caroline Loon descending the stairs in a flutter of pale blue skirts. She was Danielle’s lady’s maid and yet he had learned she was far more than that.

Lady Wycombe had explained the girl’s circumstances, that she was the daughter of a vicar and his wife, a gently reared young woman left orphaned and penniless when her parents suddenly died. Lady Wycombe had hired her to work as Dani’s maid, but soon the two had become fast friends. Caro had helped Danielle through the most difficult ordeal of her life—the scandal Rafe had unwittingly brought down upon her.

And for Caro’s unflagging loyalty to Dani, she had won Rafe’s lifelong gratitude.

“Miss Loon,” he said, making her a bow as she reached the bottom of the staircase.

She looked anxiously back toward the top. “There’s no need for you to go up, Your Grace. Danielle will be right down.”

He almost smiled. She would be down, all right. She knew he would haul her down over his shoulder if he had to. Glancing up at the landing, he saw her bedchamber door open a second time, and Danielle stepped into the hall.

Rafe’s pulse quickened. She was wearing a topaz silk gown banded with dark green satin, her flame-red hair laced with ribbons of the same dark green. She looked pale and fragile, and as lovely as he had ever seen her.

She descended the stairs, head held high, every inch the duchess that she would soon become, and her eyes caught his. He could read the turbulence there and his chest squeezed. Soon she would be his, as fate seemed to have decreed, and yet he wondered if she ever truly would be. If she could ever trust him again, ever come to care for him again.

He watched her walking toward him and wondered at the future he had forced upon her, wondered if he could find a way through the coil of events that had brought them to this place and time.

He met her at the bottom of the stairs, took her gloved hand and brought it to his lips. “You look beautiful,” he said, and thought how inadequate the words. She was utterly enchanting, achingly lovely, completely divine.

“Thank you, Your Grace.”

“Rafael,” he softly corrected, wishing she had said his name, said something that would ease his troubled mind.

He couldn’t miss the worry in her eyes, the faint traces of uncertainty that must have kept her awake long into the night. He wished he’d had more time, a chance to woo her instead of coerce her into the marriage. Still, he was convinced that as a husband for Danielle, he was far better suited than Richard Clemens.

He took her hand, placed it on the sleeve of his dark blue tailcoat and felt her tremble. He wished he knew how to reassure her, but only time could do that. He owed her his name and he meant to see it done, but he wanted more than simply to right a wrong. He wanted to make her happy.

Time,
he told himself.

Patience,
his mind whispered, and he prayed that with patience, in time he would succeed.

“You wore the necklace,” he said, feeling oddly pleased. “It suits you.”

“You asked me to wear it.”

His mouth edged up. “I told you there was a legend.”

A hint of curiosity entered her expression. “Yes…”

“The legend says that whoever shall own the necklace shall know great happiness or great tragedy, depending upon whether or not his heart is pure.”

She looked up at him, the green of her eyes enhanced by the dark green ribbons in her hair. “And you believe my heart is pure?”

“I doubted it once. I never will again.”

She glanced away.

In the silence that fell, Lady Wycombe bustled nervously up to where they stood. “The minister is waiting. Is everything all right?”

Rafe looked at Dani and prayed that it was. “Everything is fine.”

“Come, then,” Lady Wycombe said. “It is time to begin the ceremony.”

Danielle had no father to escort her down the aisle, no close male friend to do the honors. Instead, she walked beside Rafe, out into the garden, her hand trembling on the sleeve of his coat. They paused beneath a white-painted arch covered with alabaster roses that had been set at one end of the terrace.

Reverend Dobbs stood behind a pedestal draped with a cloth of white satin, a Bible sitting open on top. A few feet away, his petite wife stood next to Lady Wycombe and Caroline Loon, who each held a small floral nosegay.

“If you are ready,” the minister said, a stout little man
with a shock of gray hair and spectacles, “we may proceed.”

Rafe looked at Dani and hoped she could read the care in his eyes, the determination to make their marriage work. “Are you ready, love?”

Moisture collected in her eyes. She wasn’t ready at all, he thought, but it made him no less determined. Dani took a deep breath and nodded, ready to face whatever lay ahead. Caroline Loon hurried forward and placed a nosegay of white roses laced with green ribbon into her hands, then returned to her place next to Lady Wycombe.

“You may begin, Reverend Dobbs,” Rafe said, wishing, for Dani’s sake, the ceremony was already over.

The minister surveyed the small group standing in the garden. “Dearly beloved…we are gathered here today to join in holy matrimony this man, Rafael Saunders, and this woman, Danielle Duval. If there is anyone here who can show cause why this man and woman should not be joined, let him speak now or forever hold his peace.”

For an instant, Rafe’s heart slowed to a dull rhythm that pulsed almost painfully inside his chest. When no one spoke up, when no other man dared to claim her, Rafe began, for the very first time, to believe that Danielle would finally become his wife.

The ceremony continued, though Dani barely heard the words. She thought that she responded in the appropriate places and prayed it would soon be over. Her mind kept wandering. She forced herself to concentrate.

The minister spoke to the groom. “Do you, Rafael, take this woman, Danielle, to be your lawful wedded wife? Do
you promise to love her in sickness and in health, for richer, for poorer, for better or for worse and forsaking all others, so long as you both shall live?”

“I do,” Rafe said strongly.

Reverend Dobbs asked the question of Danielle.

“I…do,” she said softly.

“Do you have the ring?” the minister asked Rafe, and for a wild instant, Dani thought that surely there hadn’t been time for him to buy one, and without a ring perhaps the ceremony could not go on.

But Rafe reached into the pocket of his waistcoat and withdrew a glittering gold band inset with diamonds.

The minister spoke the vow and Rafe repeated the words.

“With this ring, I thee wed.” Reaching out, he caught her trembling hand and slipped the ring on her finger. Rafe captured her fingers with his and gave them a gentle squeeze.

With the ceremony over at last, Reverend Dobbs relaxed and a warm smile lit his face. “By the authority vested in me by the State of Pennsylvania, I now pronounce you man and wife. You may kiss your bride,” Dobbs said to Rafael.

Danielle closed her eyes as his arm slid around her waist, easing her closer. If she had expected a sweet, gentlemanly kiss, she was surprised to find herself swept solidly against his chest and kissed very soundly, indeed.

His lips took firm possession, telling her in no uncertain terms that she was his. Her heart stuttered, began a galloping rhythm, and for an instant she gave in to the kiss. She could feel his hunger, his barely leashed control, and desire stirred inside her.

For the span of several heartbeats, she kissed him back, her lips parting under his, beginning to tremble as she
breathed him in. Rafe ended the kiss and both of them broke away.

He looked down at her, his eyes so incredibly blue, and she saw the heat there, the white-hot, scorching desire. Then his gaze grew shuttered and he glanced away, leaving her light-headed, fighting the wild urge to run from the room. His hand remained possessively at the small of her back, lending her support, and for once she was grateful.

Dear God, how could she have forgotten the power he exuded? The heady rush of desire he could stir with a single glance? Had she really believed her dislike of him would protect her from the magnetic attraction she had always felt when he was near?

Trembling once more, she let him guide her over to a linen-draped table where bottles of champagne sat chilling in silver buckets. Servants scurried about, filling crystal goblets and delivering them on silver trays, others arriving with platters overflowing with an array of mouthwatering foods: roasted goose, beefsteak, creamed peas and buttered carrots, cold meats and pasties, candied fruits and custards, which were set down on the table.

Apparently Rafael and Aunt Flora had conspired to make a celebration feast for the small group of wedding guests. Dani forced herself to smile and accept congratulations, prepared to eat at least some small portion of the food, though she feared her stomach might rebel.

Once she had yearned to become Rafe’s wife. Now falling once more under his spell was the last thing Dani wanted.

She was a different woman than she had been before, an independent woman who knew the risks of loving a man like
Rafael, a man who could destroy a life with the snap of his fingers. She vowed she would never let it happen again.

He bent down, spoke softly in her ear. “Soon it will be time to leave. I’ve asked Miss Loon to see to your final packing. Perhaps you should go up and change into something more serviceable for boarding the ship.”

She nodded, eager for the chance to escape. “Yes, I believe that is a very good idea.” Making her way out of the garden back inside the house, she headed for the stairs in the entry and hurried up to her room.

Caro was waiting when she walked in. “Here… Let me help you.”