The Bride Insists (22 page)

Clare couldn't resist those warm dark eyes or the memory of how happy they'd been together. “I must tell Selina.”

Jamie turned his head and found, as he'd expected, Mrs. Newton's gaze fixed on them. He forced himself to smile at her. “She sees us.” He nodded as if she must understand what he meant to convey and whisked Clare out of the room.

***

It seemed to Clare as if they were wafted out of the house, into a cab, and then out again into a dark street. In a very few minutes, Jamie was offering her a chair in a comfortable sitting room, putting a match to kindling in the fireplace, going to the sideboard and pouring wine. She looked around as she took the glass from his hand. The furnishings were masculine, the colors muted. It felt suddenly as if they had separate residences. “You're living here?”

Jamie sat in the other armchair flanking the hearth. “An old school friend was sent on a mission abroad. He let me borrow this place.”

She sipped her wine and wondered what to say. Once, they'd spoken so easily to each other; then they had disagreed. And now it seemed that any phrase she chose might provoke another quarrel. Sadness washed through her. The small room seemed full of tension.

Sitting opposite Clare in the strange room, washed by candlelight and firelight, Jamie was filled with memories of other nights—of soft murmurs in the dark, of skin touching skin. In one fluid motion, he set aside his wine and surged from his chair to kneel before her. “I can't bear this.” He took her hand. “We were so in harmony with each other. I can't believe that is gone. It isn't! It can't be.” He bent closer, intoxicated by her scent.

Clare put down her glass and gazed into his eyes—a smoldering darkness. His fingers clutching hers felt like a lifeline. Her heart yearned for him. Her blood heated. She swayed closer.

Jamie slipped his arms around her in the chair and leaned in to take her lips with his. All the sweetness and fire he remembered were there. He drew her closer; her arms encircled his neck. As the kiss grew deeper, he pulled her out of the chair to kneel with him. She arched against him. Their bodies pressed together in the warm firelight.

How she'd missed him, Clare thought. It seemed an age had passed since he held her, since she felt this lightning running along her nerves. His hands moved over her body; his lips strayed down her neck to the curve of her shoulder. Her breath caught, and she let her head fall back. Jamie's dark hair tangled in her fingers as he eased her down onto the thick hearth rug. His face above her was warmed by the orange flames. The next kiss made her forget everything but his touch.

Jamie exulted in the arch of her hip, the tumble of her pale hair as pins scattered. He pushed down the sleeve of her evening dress and revealed the luscious curve of her breast. When he set his mouth there, he heard the answering gasp he so loved to rouse. All was well. She wanted him as much as he did her. The only trouble was all these damned clothes. Slipping his hand up the smoothness of her silk stocking, Jamie loosed ties and laces. There was the sound of something ripping, and at last he found his goal. Clare cried out when he reached that liquid warmth, and his own body jerked in reaction.

Sensation drowned Clare. Nothing existed but the two of them as she rose and shattered under his touch. They met in a kiss that said everything words could not. Her own hands grew busy with the fastenings that kept Jamie from her. They resisted, frustrated her, then finally gave way. She cried out again when they came together.

Mad for her, Jamie plunged into ecstasy. The glory of physical sensation, relief at having her in his arms again, fierce tenderness, all joined to overwhelm him. Reality blurred, and he let it go. This was so much better. Together, they found their way to rapturous oblivion.

Afterward, they lay entwined in a tumble of clothing, firelight dancing on glimpses of skin. As their breath slowed and their pulses moderated, Clare became aware of the disarray. Her lovely new gown was twisted and crumpled. Her hair was falling about her face. Jamie's breeches were falling off him. Her cheeks reddened at the spectacle they made, sprawled on the floor. She pushed her skirt down and sat up.

Jamie stretched, smug with satisfaction, the fire warm on his side. “You can go back and pack your things. We'll leave tomorrow.”

“Leave?” Clare pulled the short sleeves of her gown back into place.

“For home.” He watched her adjust her clothing with tolerant amusement.

Clare pushed to her feet and shook out her skirts. The wrinkles stayed. A torn ruffle on her petticoat sagged toward the floor. “So, you've changed your mind? You will honor our marriage agreements after all?” Clare gazed down at him, hope dawning.

Jamie sat up and began to adjust his own attire. “Clare. Do we have to start that ridiculous wrangle up again? Surely we don't need to talk about that now? What just passed between us shows that we—”

“Yes or no?”

Jamie thought of lying to her. He very nearly did. The words were on the tip of his tongue. But before he could speak, he realized that she'd seen the truth in his face. Well, why should he have changed his mind? He was in the right.

The uncomprehending stubbornness in the set of his jaw ripped through her heart. “I see. Your answer is no. In that case, so is mine. I'm staying in London.”

“A few moments ago you were in my arms. Do you expect me to believe that you didn't enjoy it?”

“Of course not. I enjoyed it very much. As you did. But it doesn't change anything.”

“But you… we… you're my wife, damn it!”

“I am. On the terms we set out together, which you now wish to ignore. It's just like breaking a wedding vow, Jamie.”

“It's no such thing!”

“It is to me!” Clare snatched up her cloak and flung it around her. She fought tears as she marched from the room.

Jamie went after her, but luck had gone against him. By the time he reached the bottom of the stairs, Clare had found a cab and was climbing into it. She paid no attention to his shout. He ran a few futile steps behind the moving carriage, then stopped. There was no way to catch her on foot, and no other cab in sight. Jamie turned back, only to find his landlady on the doorstep.

“My lord! I declare I didn't believe my Sam when he said you'd brought some… young person to your rooms. And now I see with my own eyes. This is not the sort of behavior I'm used to. I can't permit it.” She looked him up and down, making Jamie aware of his disheveled appearance.

“You don't understand. It was my wife.”

“Your wife, my lord?” She stood in the door, blocking his way inside.

“Yes. Lady Trehearth. We… we have no house in London as yet, and she is staying with friends near Grosvenor Square.”

The address clearly impressed her. “You wouldn't be trying to cozen me, my lord?”

“I swear I am not. I will introduce her to you the next time she visits.”
Would
there
be
a
next
time?
Jamie wondered.

“Well…”

“I promise you it is the truth.”

“It's quite irregular, my lord.”

He could see she was weakening. “A temporary situation, I assure you.” Which it had to be. This couldn't go on.

“All right then.” She stepped aside and let him through. “I'm trusting you, my lord.”

As he started up the stairs, Jamie wondered why the blazes his wife could not do the same.

One morning soon after this, a maid came to Selina's bedchamber to say that a caller was asking for her particularly. For a moment Selina feared it might be Lord Trehearth, come to reproach or argue with her, but when she inquired, she was told it was a young lady. Puzzled, since morning callers always asked for Clare or Martha, she made her way down to the drawing room. A tall, thin, sandy-haired woman of perhaps twenty-five rose from the sofa. She wore a well-cut but not terribly fashionable dress in a rose shade that flattered her skin and fixed on Selina with sharply curious blue eyes. “Good morning,” Selina said, trying not to sound perplexed at facing a total stranger.

“Hello,” the caller replied. “I am Mary Finch, Edward Carew's daughter.”

“Oh.” Now that she knew the relationship, Selina could see a resemblance. Surprise, and a mild nervousness, replaced her bewilderment. “I didn't realize… how kind of you to call.”

“We're passing through London on the way to Bath, so that my husband's mother can drink the waters. I took the opportunity to meet you.”

“I am so happy you did. Please sit down.” As they settled themselves, Selina endured the younger woman's close scrutiny. Of course she would want to evaluate the woman her father meant to marry.

There was a short silence.

“I hope your journey so far has been pleasant,” Selina said.

“Yes, thank you.” The younger woman's mouth curved in a half smile, the expression very reminiscent of Edward Carew. “This is rather odd. My father and I had several conversations over the years concerning gentlemen who might, or might not, want to marry me. But I have never been… on the other side of the fence, so to speak.”

Her wry tone, her gestures, all reminded Selina of her father and made her feel rather wistful.

“You haven't known my father long,” Mary Finch continued.

Or
he
me
, Selina supplied silently. “It's true. I was surprised myself at how quickly we established a… close connection. He is such an admirable, amiable man.” She couldn't keep her tender feelings out of her voice, and Mary Finch's face softened at her tone.

“And you think you will like living in a country parsonage far from the, er, gaieties of London?” She eyed Selina's very modish gown as she said it.

Selina smiled at her. “I grew up in a country parsonage, just as far from town. And I was very happy there. My father was a clergyman.”

“Indeed?” Mary's blue eyes met her hazel ones. Something in the gaze seemed to satisfy the young woman, and she sat back more comfortably. “My father's letters sound so happy,” she admitted. “I'm glad for him, for you both.”

“Thank you.” Selina's heart felt full.

“But when are you going back to Cornwall? Papa is all eagerness to go forward and set a wedding date.”

This sounded like one of Edward's letters, and Selina almost sighed. It was hard to be continually urged to do something you very much wanted to do, and remain unable to comply. “I'm here in town with a young friend,” she explained.

“Lady Trehearth? Papa mentioned her.”

“Yes. She is having a somewhat… difficult time, and I have been lending her support.”

“You've known her a long time, I suppose?” Mary probed.

“Ah, well, no. Only a few months.”

“But you are obligated to her in some way?”

Selina wondered if Edward had primed her for this interview. “As a friend.”

“Of course.” Mary smiled at her. “Your dedication to friendship is admirable. But if Lady Trehearth knew of your plans, would she not urge you to go? As a friend to you?”

“Did Edw… your father provide you with a list of arguments?” Selina asked.

Mary Finch laughed. “I may have echoed some of the sentiments in his letters.”

Selina contemplated the figured carpet. Her visitor obviously put her father's concerns first, as any good daughter would. But when it came down to it, how did Selina explain lingering in London when she longed to go to Cornwall? Had she become so accustomed to catering to others' needs that she didn't know how to meet her own? “At some point, I will simply go,” she said, realizing the truth of the statement as it came out of her mouth.

Mary Finch heard it. “When?” she asked softly.

Was
she
actually
helping
Clare?
Selina wondered. She'd seen no change in the rift between the Trehearths, and she didn't know how to promote one. If she was doing no good, could she not address her own happiness instead? When, indeed?

Before she could find an answer, Clare came into the drawing room. “Selina, I was thinking we could… Oh, I beg your pardon. I didn't realize we had a visitor.”

Selina sprang to her feet like a schoolgirl caught in some infraction. Her introductions were clumsy, and at any other time in her life Clare would have noticed and wondered at it. But today, her mind was wholly occupied with her own concerns. She was aware of mild surprise that the vicar's daughter had called, and she managed to play her part in the commonplace conversation that followed. Most of her attention remained elsewhere.

Mary Finch departed soon after, and Clare was able to offer her suggestion that they take a walk in the park. She longed to be outdoors, to breathe deep and move quickly. The park was a poor substitute for a brisk tramp in the countryside, but it was the only choice.

The outing did little to calm her, however. The London season was not so entertaining when you were always on edge, waiting to see whether one person would appear. One darkly handsome person whom you longed to see, and yet also wanted to avoid. It roused such turmoil in Clare's breast that she didn't even notice Selina Newton's pensive silence.

Over the next week, Clare and Jamie had a series of unsatisfactory encounters at parties and balls. Clare engaged in empty conversations, offending a few high sticklers when she lost the thread as Jamie approached her. When they talked, they got nowhere, repeating the same litany that had brought them to this pass. When they were silent, tension vibrated between them, even across a crowded reception room. Jamie took to leaning on walls and brooding over the chattering crowds like Lord Byron.

Clare grew more and more afraid that he would make a scene in public. He was like a tempest brewing on the horizon of various fashionable reception rooms. Cataclysm loomed, with no way to predict when it would break over her. On top of all this, she had at last noticed that Selina grew quieter and more preoccupied every day. Clare wondered if her friend was thinking of leaving to set up on her own. She would not have blamed her if she was, yet she feared to hear it. This new tension between them curtailed their private conversations and made Clare feel even more lost. Even an encounter with her former employer, Edwina Benson, and daughter Bella, in which they fawned over her in a blatant attempt to benefit from her change in fortune, did not amuse her. Her current position felt like a trap. She missed Trehearth and the twins and all the plans she'd been making there, but she couldn't go back as things stood with Jamie.

In the end, Clare simply turned away from all these buzzing questions and pretended she was enjoying the entertainments Martha Howland was kind enough to arrange. She was charming to Selina to convince her to stay. She spoke to Jamie when he called and evaded every important topic. And soon, she felt that everything she did was to placate other people and sustain an unhappy situation for fear of worse.

Harry and Andrew observed the stalemate between Jamie and his lovely wife, and finally threw up their hands, at their wits' end. Their old friend had always been convivial, but now he'd ventured far beyond the line. A gentleman didn't stumble home through the streets, barely able to walk for drink. They got tired of helping Jamie back to his rooms and having their heads snapped off when they tried to curb his excesses. “What do you do,” Andrew asked Harry, “with a friend who refuses to hear a word you say?” Harry had no satisfactory answer.

***

As he stood in yet another overheated ballroom, on yet another vastly frustrating night, Jamie scowled at the rotating dancers and consigned them all to perdition—his wife and her interfering friends, his own equally nosy comrades, and the whole of London society for that matter. He simply didn't know what to do. It felt like earlier times, when he'd been about to lose Trehearth, and there was no way to avert calamity. Or even before that, when his parents had been ripped from his life, and he'd been left alone to pick up the pieces. The fears and desperations of his younger self threatened to drown him. It felt as if his only option was to stifle them first. He snagged his fifth glass of champagne from a tray and held it like a lifeline. So far, it wasn't helping.

“Good evening, Lord Trehearth.”

Jamie turned his head and discovered Clare's cousin standing next to him. The fellow kept popping up in odd corners at parties, always ready to chat or to keep silent, always with a sympathetic look. Lately, he was one of the few people who was pleasant to him. Jamie nodded a greeting and drank.

Covertly watching him, Simon Greenough decided that “drunk as a lord” was an apt phrase in this case. Perhaps tonight he would finally winkle some information out of Trehearth. Simon kept trying to get at the nub of what was troubling this marriage, and finding his only informant obscure or resistant. He couldn't leave it alone, though. The childhood years, when he'd been the despised poor relation, would not leave him. He couldn't shake the conviction that Clare, the only one remaining of those privileged relatives, should pay. Her rise in the world chafed at him like a wound that refused to heal. “Clare is looking particularly lovely tonight,” he said, knowing it would goad his companion.

“Huh.” Jamie exchanged his empty glass for a full one as a footman passed by.

“It appears you're staying for the full season, then?” Jamie had told Simon they were not, but he'd shown no sign of departing.

Jamie's fingers tightened on the goblet. “We ought to have been back home weeks ago!”

“Well, why don't you just order her home? If you cut off the funds, she'll have to—”

“Can't,” Jamie growled. “She arranged it so she holds the purse strings. Billingsh… lee… man of business won't listen to me, damn his effrontery.” Jamie had called on his old adviser and received a prosy lecture for his pains. That's what he recalled, anyway; he'd been about half sprung. A pang of shame went through him. Billingsley had been a mainstay when he needed one, and he had not behaved well.

Simon's blue eyes lit. Here was an opening at last. “How can that be? When you married, you naturally assumed control…”

“Made me sh… sign a document.” Jamie scarcely noticed that his voice was slurred. His attention was riveted on Clare a few yards away, and miles from his arms. “Had to. Trehearth going to be taken away.”

“Ah.” Simon could certainly understand Clare's impulse. The thought of someone else getting his hands on one's fortune was intolerable.

Jamie took the single syllable as criticism. “Well, I ash… ashum… I thought she'd change her mind once she was married and settled. Why wouldn't she? Ish unnatural for a woman to manage the money. Don't you think?”

“Indeed.” Simon didn't mention that he was the son of a woman who'd done precisely that, who'd had to scrimp and make do for years because his father was hopeless with money. The point was irrelevant. “You know, I'm certain you could break that agreement if you contested it.” He had no idea if this was true. Truth wasn't the issue here.

“Really?” Jamie gazed at him owlishly.

“Of course. The law is on your side.”

“True.” Jamie nodded, noticed his half-empty glass, and drained it.

“And I know just the man who could arrange it for you. He's done a good deal of that kind of work for me. He's very sharp.”

Jamie tried to force his reeling brain to focus. If he had control of the money, Clare would have to go home. And once she was there… He'd take care of her, treat her like a queen. Anything she wanted. She'd soon see how much better it was, when she was far away from people like Mrs. Howland. Selina Newton, too. Time she was out of his house. They were all against him.

“Why don't I take you to meet him tomorrow?” said Simon Greenough. “You can hear what he has to say and then decide.”

“Well…” Some distant inner voice told Jamie this wasn't a good idea. He should wait until his mind was clearer to decide. But another piped up urging him to be a man and take the reins; that one sounded a bit like his old headmaster at school.

“I'll come for you at ten,” Clare's cousin added smoothly.

“I don't know…”

“Please, it's no trouble at all. I'm happy to help.”

Her own cousin thought he was in the right, Jamie told himself. Still… He turned to tell the man that he must think it over first. But Simon was gone. The footmen weren't, however. One glided by, and Jamie took a fresh glass.

***

Jamie woke the next morning feeling fouler than he ever had before, with no memory of how he'd gotten from last night's ballroom to the tumbled bed in his rooms. His evening clothes were twisted and crumpled around his body, his neckcloth nearly choking off the air. His mouth tasted like putrid ashes. But all of this was as nothing to the fiery pounding in his head.

Jamie sat up, and the room spun. His stomach twisted and threatened to spew its meager contents. He had to struggle to get it under control. He lurched from the bed and into the sitting room, heading for the only quick remedy for his condition—the brandy bottle.

The first sip burned the sour taste from his mouth. After a little while, his body responded to this tonic, and he felt slightly better. He stripped off his wrinkled clothes and splashed his face with cold water from the basin. If he was home at Trehearth, it would be hot, and there would be tea… He clenched the towel and threw it across the room. He searched through the piles of raiment dotting the chamber floor and dressed in an ensemble that might best have gone to the laundress instead of onto his back. He made no request to his landlady for breakfast because he didn't think his stomach would stand it. Dropping into an armchair, he wondered how to face the day. A bottomless sadness threatened, almost palpable. Jamie stood. He had to go somewhere, do something, even though his brain had not yet recovered from the previous night's overindulgence. When the knock came on the outer door, he welcomed the diversion. Though when he opened it to reveal Simon Greenough, perfectly groomed and disgustingly cheery, he very nearly shut it again.