The Unintended Bride (10 page)

"I realize that such an attitude is absurd to the two of us. But I fear it is not to the duke. In fact" — she lowered her voice as she continued — "I know that is the only reason he married Miranda — even though he loved her quite desperately, of course."

He seemed quite unshocked by the news. "I had heard the rumors, but I did not want to credit them as the truth. It seemed none of my business. They are, after all, quite well suited to each other."

"Exactly. Which is why their misadventure did not become a disaster. But our misadventure —" She dared not pause too long for breath, for fear that he would argue that they were indeed well suited — or for fear that he would not. So she continued, "We must swear Mr. Beasley to silence and we must agree to it ourselves."

He pulled the shelf from the wall at last, and staggered back with it in his arms. Cradling it, he stilled, and searched her face. "Would you find it so awful to be my wife, then, should the duke discover our misadventure?"

She tried to make light of the potential for disaster. The last thing she wanted for him to feel was a sense of obligation to her for this predicament. "Could you imagine — Juliet would not be pleased if my misadventure became known and resulted in her number of suitors being so drastically reduced."

"Mr. Digby would be distressed as well."

Digby. "But he will know nothing if we do not tell him. Our family is another matter. They well know we were not at home as we should have been last night."

Abruptly, Arthur grew grim. "Don't worry about your reputation — or Juliet's suitors." Then he added, "No one will know of this. I will pay what I must to make certain of that."

"And Mr. Beasley — "

"Mr. Beasley will have no choice," he said firmly. "Especially since we can tell of this interesting collection he has up in his attic. Such news would likely cause him some embarrassment."

"Do you suppose he would get in trouble?" Hero looked at the books, and blushed at the thought of what she had read.

He shook his head firmly. "No. He would simply find that the young ladies who visited his shop no longer were allowed to by their parents. But perhaps he would gain some clients as well."

"Yes, it would be quite awful if — do you think Miss Delagrace would be too upset with you?" She wondered if she had been too forward, the way he looked so forbiddingly at her at the mention of Gwen Delagrace's name. Perhaps she had overstepped by mentioning it aloud?

His answer struck her like a blow. "No more than Mr. Digby would be with you, I imagine."

Hero realized that she had made a decision sometime in the night regarding Gabriel Digby. He was not the man for her. Nevertheless, she felt obliged to defend his character. "Mr. Digby is a sensible man. He would believe me when I told him that we were as safe together as brother and sister."

He grimaced. "Miss Delagrace would believe me, as well." He seemed about to add something to that sentiment, but then he did not.

Hero quashed her hope that he would tell her that he no longer wanted to marry Gwen Delagrace, that he wanted to marry her instead. "That is well, then. But it would be best, still, if we could sneak home and not have it remarked upon."

He looked at her in astonishment. "Your family may well assume I was rude enough to spend the evening elsewhere without sending word, but do you think they will not remark your absence?"

She answered miserably, "No. I expect they are scouring all the bookshops in London right now to find me. But once I explain the whole situation, Miranda will understand that it must be handled discreetly."

"Are you certain?"

"Yes, I know my sister. She would not want to have me gossiped about for something I had no control over, especially considering what happened to her."

"So you will prefer Digby not know ever, then?"

She could not tell if he disapproved of such a plan or not.

"No. I will tell him." Hero bowed her head to hide her expression. If fate were truly kind, Digby would rail at her and refuse to speak to her ever again. But no doubt he would believe every word she said and forgive her without question — except for asking her to marry him, of course. And then she would be in a pickle. How could she justify refusing to marry a man who showed such faith in her as that? She didn't know the answer, only that she would refuse him, sensible or not.

"That is brave of you. He could choose to believe you lied. That something had happened between us."

Wickedly, she wished that she did have something to regret from this night alone with Arthur. That he had opened one of those books and they had spent the night wantonly trying each and every illustration's pose. She blushed at the thought, the India-ink images so clear in her brain suddenly superimposed with her face — and Arthur's as well.

Stop it, she ordered herself. "Digby will believe me. He is just that kind of man."

Apparently, Arthur had no such thoughts, however, because he said quietly, "Digby is the right man for you, then. He will make you happy, I have no doubt. He is a paragon, is he not?" She was wrong, she realized. He was not unaffected by the nature of the books surrounding them. His expression was odd. His face ever so close to hers as he spoke, and she could see something behind his eyes. Something puzzling. Something that stole her breath.

Even as he said the words, practically pushing her into Digby's arms with each one, Arthur leaned forward and kissed her.

As naturally as taking a breath, she responded to his kiss and lost herself in the feel of his lips pressing warm against hers. At her response, he let the shelf slip to the floor and his arms came around her to hold her tight to him. His mouth slanted hard upon hers, demanding a further response, which she gladly gave.

After a frenzied moment, he pulled away. His hand closed over hers, squeezing her fingers. "I shouldn't have done that," he said on a rush of breath.

"No," she agreed shakily, though inside herself she acknowledged that she had been wanting him to do just that for years. "You shouldn't have."

There was a glint of recklessness in his gaze. "I wanted to see what it felt like for a frog to kiss a princess. Just once."

Hero gripped his hand with hers. "I am no princess, and you are no frog."

The sound of boots pounding up the stairs broke them apart in guilty haste.

Arthur stood, prepared to defend them with the shelf if he must, but Hero could hear Miranda's voice over the sound of steps.

Determined that she should not ruin things for him, Hero forced herself to smile. "I shall leave the part about the kiss out of the story I tell to Digby, and you need not inform Miss Delagrace. Agreed?"

The strong footsteps pounding up the stairs did not suggest the elderly, hesitant Mr. Beasley. Arthur stood fighting the rush of blood in his veins. One moment before, he was reacting to the stir of desire, and now danger had triggered an even more violent urge. He pushed Hero behind him and held the shelf as a battering weapon. The lock rattled as someone began to undo it from the other side, and he held the shelf at the ready as the door swung open.

To his relief, the man who stood in the door frame was none other than the Duke of Kerstone. He set the shelf down and moved aside so that Simon could see Hero was safe. Unfortunately, he could do nothing about the fact that she looked like a woman who had been quite thoroughly kissed not long before. In some primitive way it even pleased him, though her words had taken some of the joy of the moment from him by reminding him that it was Digby she wanted.

"Arthur." His cousin gazed at him with a puzzlement that mirrored his own.

"Simon." He wondered if there was anyone in London he wished less had been the one to find them in this delicate predicament.

The duke's eyes focused on Hero, and then he glanced around the room as if he expected to find another person with them. At last his eyes focused on Arthur and he asked brusquely, "What are you doing here?"

"We were trapped here overnight. Someone locked us in — " He broke off, suddenly wondering why Simon had searched for them here. "How did you know — "

"I received a note." He looked between Hero and Arthur again for a moment, his brow creased by a frown. "Is Gabriel Digby not here, then?"

"Digby?" Arthur did not understand. What did Digby have to do with this?

Impatient with the confusion in the room, his as well as theirs, the duke snapped, "Yes, Digby. I received a note saying that I would find Hero here with Gabriel Digby. Instead, I find you and no Gabriel Digby at all."

Hero interrupted. "I have not seen Mr. Digby since the day before yesterday." She moved slightly farther from Arthur as she spoke, putting even more distance between them than she had when Simon came into the room. "Arthur and I came to search out a book and were locked in."

"Overnight?" Simon was barking out questions now, barely waiting for an answer, a habit left over from his army days.

"We were locked in — " Hero began an explanation.

Simon interrupted with another question. "How did that happen?"

"I had hoped to pick up a book here." Arthur wondered what he could say to ease his cousin's wrath.

"And I wanted to browse, of course. When do I not want to visit a bookshop?" Hero laughed just a trifle nervously, but Simon's eyes were sharp upon her.

"And Mr. Beasley?"

"He must have locked us in, not realizing that we were up here."

"And what were you doing up here?"

"Looking for Mr. Beasley, as it happened. We looked all over the shop for him and could not find him, and then we heard a banging sound from above and we thought it might be him . . ." Hero's words trailed away as she seemed to become aware of her own nervousness and exactly how intensely Simon was assessing them both.

"Mr. Beasley is at home with the grippe," Simon said in clipped tones. "I saw him when I obtained the keys to the shop. He was in no condition to have climbed these stairs to lock you in, I assure you."

Arthur realized, with a sudden dread, that it had to have been the note sender. But why? What could possibly be gained ....

Simon looked at the pair of them with fury. "Do you know how frantic Miranda has been?" She is downstairs even now certain that you have been abducted or worse.

Prodded by his statement, Hero hurried through the door and down the stairs. "We can discuss all this later, Simon. I must let her see with her own eyes that we are well."

The duke surveyed the two rooms, his glance landing for a long moment where Hero's cloak and Arthur's jacket had made last night's bed.

Arthur stopped the supposition tumbling through his mind for a moment, aware that he needed to deal with Simon at once, before his cousin expired of apoplexy. "It was innocent, I assure you. Miss Fenster and I have agreed to keep this matter quiet, except for necessity of telling Digby, and Miss Delagrace, of course. It is for the best if we tell no one who might think something less than innocent had gone on."

Simon gave him a pitying look. "You'll not get away with that story, I'm afraid. The note I received told me that Gabriel Digby was no better than he should be and suggested I look to an item in this morning's gossip rag."

"What did it say?"

Simon took a torn piece of newsprint from his coat pocket and handed it to him silently.

Arthur read it, twice, and then again.
Which aspiring leader of the Round Table Society particularly likes to take ladies to the scandalous and very private third floor of an exclusive book shop? This time he may find himself forced to the altar at last, because the lady in question is a close relative to a powerful paragon of society.

"How would anyone have known?" Arthur struggled to make sense of it all. First the note. Then being locked in, and now this item in the scandal sheets. But…. "Why would someone have given you Digby's name when I was the one summoned to the bookshop?"

"Does that matter? It does not change the facts of the situation."

No. It did not. The choice had been made for them by fate. He patted his cousin's shoulder stiffly. " All will be well. I will do what is necessary."

"You will?" Simon seemed to relax as he nodded once firmly. "I would never have doubted it, cousin." He frowned. "No, it is Hero's intentions I fear. Let us both pray she is not as stubborn as her sister, or we may have our work cut out for us to get you to the altar without further scandal."

Hero felt as if she had stumbled into a nightmare. Could there have been any worse savior for them than the duke himself? She loved her sister's husband dearly. He had been nothing but kind to her. But his notion of how to fix this mess diverged wildly from hers.

Miranda had been overjoyed to see her alive and well, but no one had even given Hero a chance to change into clean clothes and wash up before the decision was made. She and Arthur were to marry.

She felt the innate stubbornness that she had inherited from her father take hold of her. She looked her brother-in-law and her sister full in the eye, one after the other. "This is absurd. You cannot think to force me to marry a man because we were tricked into an unfortunate circumstance?"

She took a breath. She was making the argument of her life and she could not afford to be less than compelling. "We can assure you that there is no reason for any hasty decision upon the subject of marriage." She looked at Arthur and felt herself blush hotly as she remembered the kiss.

She might as well have not even spoken. Simon was adamant in his reply. "That argument is no more persuasive than it ever was." He glanced at Miranda as he spoke, and Hero saw an exchange of understanding pass between them. "You must marry."

"To build a marriage on something so flimsy is more than foolish, it is heartless."

"Is it so flimsy, then?" He stared at her, but she had a feeling his gaze was somewhere in the past. And then he snapped back to the present and his eyes bored into hers. "I don't understand why you even argue over the matter. You and Arthur get along well enough."

"Get along well enough!" What an argument. "Is that what a marriage should be?"