A Kiss Before the Wedding - A Pembroke Palace Short Story (4 page)

Desire flowed through him as he breathed in the
sweet scent of her skin and felt the soft silk of her hair upon his
cheeks. He was so overwhelmed by her touch that the ground shifted
beneath him, and he regretted ever leaving Yorkshire. Regretted it
terribly, for he knew this was the end.

She was saying good-bye.

Quickly, she stepped back before he could do
anything to prevent it. “I must go before someone discovers I am
missing and sends out the dogs.”

She might as well have reached into his chest
and ripped his heart out.

“We cannot have that,” he gallantly replied,
while he fought to control his agony. He was not ready to give up.
There had to be a way to stop this tragedy from playing out.

When they reached the maze entrance, he took
hold of her hand, raised it to his lips, and laid a soft kiss upon
her knuckles. His heart pounded feverishly, and when he spoke, his
voice shook.

“I will always love you, Adelaide.”

As she withdrew her hand from his grasp, all joy
left his body.

Then he felt her palm upon his cheek. It was
soft and gentle in the night.

Slowly, his eyes lifted. He laid his hand on top
of hers and gazed at her with heated lust, which was wildly
improper and indiscreet, but he could hide nothing from this
woman.

Her eyes glistened with wetness, and a tear fell
across her cheek.

Ah, Adelaide
...

Turning his lips into her palm, he kissed it
firmly, lingeringly. When she offered no resistance, he kissed her
slender wrist, then traveled up the soft flesh of her inner arm
until he reached the inside crook of her elbow.

She sucked in a breath of shock, but it was
mixed with desire.

A wild sense of satisfaction filled him. Unable
to control his lust for her, he took her face in his hands and
claimed her sweet, succulent mouth with his own.

Her lips parted for him. They were moist and hot
beneath the ravenous heat of his kiss. While his tongue mingled
with hers, his hands traveled down her neck and across her
shoulders until he slid the silken shawl away. It fluttered lightly
to the ground. Adelaide moaned with pleasure as she rose up on her
toes to wrap her arms around his neck.

The increased pace of her breathing and the
intoxicating evidence of her pleasure sent a firestorm of arousal
into William’s core, and he pulled her tighter against him.

She trembled and went weak in his arms, and
surrendered at last to what had always existed between them but had
never been explored.

“Oh William,” she sighed as she threw her head
back in rapture.

His blood coursed hotly through his veins. As he
dragged his voracious mouth to the front of her throat, he moaned
and blazed a trail of hot kisses down to her collarbone. His tongue
darted out to savor the sweet essence of her skin.

“You’re mine, Adelaide,” he whispered, his voice
husky and low. He drew back and took her face in his hands. “Follow
your heart and come away with me. We will go to Italy together. I
will marry you and love you forever.”

Bewildered and shaking, she wet her lips and
clung to his jacket collar as if pleading with him. “Why didn’t you
say all of this before? Why did you wait so long, when now it is
too late?”

He touched his forehead to hers and shut his
eyes. “It is not too late.”

“Yes, it is. I do love you, William. I always
have, but I just don’t know...”

His eyes flew open. “Yes, you
do
know.
You must think of your own happiness. There is more to life than
duty. Let us go now,” he pressed.

“No, I cannot. I must think first...”

“Then meet me tomorrow,” he said.

When she continued to hesitate, he pulled the
ruby ring from his finger, placed it into her open palm, and closed
her fingers over it. “This is my promise to you, before God. I
will
be your husband, Adelaide, if only you will come to
me.”

Holding the ring in a tight fist, she pressed it
to her heart.

“Yes,” she said at last, and the whole world
turned bright before his eyes. “Wait for me tomorrow at the lake
house.” She began to back away from him. “I will come to you after
dark.”

He stepped forward to follow, desperate not to
lose her. “Do you promise?”

“Yes. I swear it. Nothing will keep me from
you.” Then she turned to go, waving one last time before she broke
into a run.

And just like that, joy flooded back into his
body, and his heart exploded into a thousand stars as he dropped to
his knees in relief.

Five

Shortly after sunset the following
day, Adelaide gathered her hat in her hands, placed it on her head,
and tied the ribbon under her chin. She crossed her bedchamber and
opened the door, but sucked in a breath of shock when she found her
father leaning against the opposite wall in the corridor, arms
folded over his chest, nostrils flaring as he gazed at her.

“Where do you think you’re going?” he asked
accusingly as he pushed away from the wall and crowded her back
into her bedchamber.

“It’s a lovely evening for a walk,” she calmly
explained.

He entered the room and shut the door behind
him. He was a tall man and he towered over her like a giant. “Do
not lie to me, Adelaide. I know where you were last night. I know
you went to the maze at midnight to meet Mr. Thomas. Margarite told
me everything.”

Adelaide frowned. How had Margarite known?
Adelaide had assured her sister that she would not go to meet
William. At the time, she had believed in her own heart that she
could, and would, resist seeing him again. But in the end she had
left her room with the utmost urgency and gone dashing across the
moonlit gardens to reach him.

Margarite must have expected her to change her
mind. She may even have spied on her.

“I did nothing wrong,” she told her father. “Mr.
Thomas is a friend. I felt I owed him an explanation.”

“Why?”

“Because he...” She paused, then raised her
chin, squared her shoulders, and spoke with a purposeful degree of
condescension. “Because as you must know, he fancies himself in
love with me. I had to set him straight, and make sure he
understood that I had made up my mind, and we could never be
together.”

Her father’s eyes narrowed until he was
squinting at her. “Then where are you going tonight?”

“Nowhere,” she replied too quickly. “A walk.
There is no cause for alarm. I was firm with Mr. Thomas, and he is
gone now. I suspect he is already halfway to Italy.”

Her heart was pounding violently in her chest
and she prayed her father could not recognize her panic.

For a long moment he studied her expression.
Then his eyes softened and he moved closer. He took her shoulders
in his hands and spoke compassionately, as if she were still a
child and she had just lost her puppy.

“I know how it is between you and Mr. Thomas,”
he gently said. “There is a bond there, for you grew up together,
but I cannot let you make this mistake, Adelaide. It is only
because he has been away for so long that you romanticize what you
were to each other.”

She shook her head and argued, “I am not
romanticizing—”

He raised a finger to his lips. “Shh. You must
listen to reason. Look around you. You have made it all the way to
Pembroke Palace. It is your destiny to become duchess here. The
duke adores you. He would have paid any sum to have you. You must
let go of the past and walk down the aisle tomorrow to marry the
man who is meant to be your husband. Surely you feel it. Surely you
understand that Mr. Thomas is merely a distraction.”

Adelaide swallowed painfully over a lump in her
throat. “Of course I know that,” she replied. “I am not a fool,
Father.”

“Good.” He dropped his hands to his sides and
headed for the door. “But just to be sure...” He paused at the
threshold. “I am going to lock you in.”

Adelaide’s eyes widened with shock. A burning
mix of rage and terror flared through her body as she lunged
forward to stop him.

The door slammed shut before she could reach it.
The key turned in the lock.

“Father, no!” She pounded hard against it.

“It is for your own protection,” he said from
the other side. “You will thank me later. You’ll see.”

“No, I will not! I will never thank you! You
mustn’t do this!” She wrestled with the latch and kicked the door
repeatedly.

“I will tell the duke that you are unwell this
evening,” her father said, “and that you must rest. If you shout or
continue to act like a spoiled child, Adelaide, I will come in
there and beat you senseless. Do you understand?”

Adelaide felt suddenly light-headed, for she
knew her father well. He did not make idle threats, and he had
beaten her once before. Only once, however, for she had learned her
lesson the first time and had never defied him again.

Or rather, she had never been
caught
defying him.

Slowly she backed away from the door while her
heart pounded like a hammer.
Please God... This cannot be
happening
.

She turned and rushed to the window to look
outside. The sun had set in splashes of pink and orange on the
distant horizon. Soon it would be dark and William would expect her
at the lake house.

How long would he wait?

What if she could not escape and he believed she
had changed her mind?

She opened the window and leaned out. Was it
possible to jump or climb to freedom?

No. She was too high up and would surely die in
the attempt.

Adelaide shut the window again. Her gaze darted
about the room desperately to seek some means of escape. Her father
had said it was her destiny to marry the duke, but she could not
believe it.

She loved William. She would
always
love
William, and she knew in the deepest realms of her soul that it was
her destiny to grow old with him. But how... how would she ever
reach him?

Perhaps it was not her destiny
after all, Adelaide thought miserably as she slipped into bed at
nearly two in the morning.

She had tried everything. She had pulled the
velvet rope and rang for her maid, pleaded every excuse she could
think of to get out of her room, but her father was always there,
sitting outside her bedchamber, watching her with hooded eyes,
listening to every word she spoke.

Eventually she had done exactly what he warned
her against. She had screamed and pounded on the door and cried for
help, and her father had proven true to his word. He walked in,
shut the door behind him, and slapped her hard across the face. He
threatened worse if she did not keep quiet.

Then he said something that made her blood run
cold. He promised to direct his wrath and violence toward William
if she did not do her duty and walk down the aisle as planned.

It was now three o’clock in the morning, and her
wedding would take place that very day, in eight hours’ time.

Her heart had broken to pieces.

Had William given up on her yet? Did he believe
she had changed her mind, or would he gallop through the chapel
doors on his great black steed in the morning, like a courageous
medieval knight, and spirit her away before the vicar could begin
the ceremony?

Oh, now she was just being foolish, dreaming of
fairy tales and what could never be...

Adelaide squeezed her eyes shut.

William... if you can hear me across the
distance, know that I love you and I tried to reach you. I will
never forget the magic of our kiss in the moonlight...

Then a cool breeze wafted across the bed and
fluttered her hair. There was a creaking sound, like a door opening
and closing.

Adelaide sat up in the darkness and glanced at
the door, but it was still locked.

A sudden panic filled her, for she had heard the
stories about the spirit monks who haunted the subterranean
passages of this palace. She had never believed in ghosts before,
but a keen awareness tingled down her spine—a sense of something
about to happen.

Then a hand covered her mouth and her heart
leapt into her throat. Once she calmed, the hand loosened and she
knew in her heart who had come for her...

“William?”

Was she dreaming? Was he truly there, standing
beside her bed, or was it some spirit from beyond?

He was cloaked in shadow, but somehow she knew
he was real. She could feel him in her soul.

“You must be very quiet,” he whispered as he sat
down on the edge of the bed.

She nodded in agreement, her spine ramrod
straight.

He took his hand away from her mouth and cupped
her cheek. “Are you all right?”

“Yes,” she whispered. “I wanted to come to you.
I tried.”

“I know.”

“Father locked me in.”