Bexley-Smythe Quintet 02 - Rhyme and Reason (9 page)

“But my sister’s dowry is held in trust
. It can’t be delivered to anyone but her husband,” the marquess stammered.

Thomas
ground his jaw together. “If she’ll agree, Mattie and I will marry. Her dowry will be delivered to me, and in turn I’ll give it to Sir Lester, provided he releases her this very moment, never harms her in any way again, and agrees to cancel any remaining debt you might owe him.” He looked straight at Mattie and no other. “I’m not a man of great means, but Danby has provided me with a settlement and a living. It’s not what you’re accustomed to—”

“I don’t care,” Mattie said in a rush, and his heart lurched. “I don’t need much. Only—”

“Stalbridge owes more than double her dowry, and that is only what he owes me.” Despite his arguments, Hammond’s grip upon Mattie’s arm was loosening by the moment. “God only knows how many others he’s indebted to. Even if I agree to your terms, what will stop the rest from doing the same as I intend or worse? There are other sisters.”

He couldn’t worry about what might happen in the future, though
, and he couldn’t try to save them all. All he had the time or energy to deal with was the present—he had to ensure Mattie’s safety in the here and now.

“There’s nothing I can do about that,” Thomas said carefully. “And if you’re right about how many people Lord Stalbridge is indebted to, then the likelihood you’ll ever see a ha’penny more than what I’ve offered is extremely slim. If you want to walk away with anything at all, I urge you to accept my terms.”

Hammond ran his free hand through his hair roughly. “But—”

“Yes,” Mattie said.
She pushed herself away from Hammond and crossed to stand before Thomas. “Yes, I’ll marry you.”

In the haze of emotion converging on him, Thomas
hardly recognized Hammond’s voice in the background yelling that he must purchase a license and marry Mattie tomorrow and immediately hand over the funds, or Stalbridge blubbering about how he couldn’t allow Mattie’s dowry to go to the blackguard, or even Miss Emery and her squeals of delight over their betrothal.

Tomorrow was almost too long to wait, when he wasn’t sure he trusted Hammond enough to let Mattie out of his sight for more than a few moments.

She was smiling up at him, and her hands were somehow in his.

“You’ll marry me?” he repeated, still dumbfounded at all the twists and turns his life had taken over the last few days.
“Even though I can’t give you all that—”

“Yes.”
Her voice was hardly more than a whisper, yet the single word washed over him like a summer rain. “You have already given me all that I need.”

But he hadn’t given her a thing. Thomas shook his head. “I don’t understand.”

“I feel safe with you. That’s something I haven’t felt in a very long time.” Mattie stretched up on her toes and placed a very chaste kiss on his jaw. “I’ve had all I want and more of London and gossip and scandal. Now what I want…what I
need
…is to feel safe and protected.”

He cupped her cheek, desperate to touch some small part of her, though knowing he shouldn’t. “But you fell—”

“And you carried me to safety, and made sure someone sent for the doctor.”

Stalbridge and Hammond were still arguing in the background, so Thomas took Mattie by the elbow and guided her away from the noise. She was so sure of him. He wasn’t quite certain
how to respond to that.

“But today…Hammond could have—”

“But he didn’t. No harm came to me, and you arrived as soon as you could to make sure of it.” She stopped once they had passed a few trees and were alone. “Thomas, my brother has created a mass of problems so enormous he can’t sort out how to get himself out of it. The idea of being able to protect me and my sisters from it is beyond his capability to resolve. But you knew what to do. And you did it. I feel safe with you,” she repeated more firmly.

“Is that enough to base a marriage upon?” Even though he doubted she could possibly believe it was, he couldn’t stop himself from hoping.

Twining her fingers between his, she lifted his hand to her cheek again. “It’s enough to start a marriage. Especially since there is more.”

Now he truly felt lost. “More?”

A sly smile stole over her lips, and she stretched up on her toes. Before he could brace himself, her lips were on his and her free hand was gripping his coat for support.

Mattie kissed with a fervent innocence which threatened to rob him of his sanity. Her lips were softe
r than silk, full and sinfully inviting. A rich laugh bubbled up from deep in her throat when he lifted her with one arm, crushing her against him as he’d been dreaming of since he first met her.

It was pure torture to pull himself away, but eventually he put her back on her feet. The sweet taste of her mouth lingered on his lip, making it even more difficult not to pull her back into his arms to kiss her all over again.

“See?” she said playfully. Her cheeks were flushed, but all he could see were those rich, chocolate-brown eyes staring at him with fierce resolve. “More.”

“Is it wrong that your
more
only makes me want more, and more, and more?”

“On the contrary—” Mattie batted those eyes at him and took two steps back toward the clearing, where the others still remained— “
I think that is only right.”

The carriage rolled slowly toward an immense castle ahead, its stone turrets and towers jutting up into a gray, cloudy sky. Mattie took one more look at the letter from her sister Freddie, and then placed it carefully into the reticule by her side.

At least Mama and her sisters Freddie and Edie would have a good Christmas, even if Percy had not changed his ways in the least. The letter allowed Mattie to rest her fears, at least for the time being so she could enjoy Christmas at Danby Castle with Thomas and his family.

“You’re sure Robert won’t be here?” she asked him again. He’d told her at least a dozen times or more than his elder brother was unable to leave his new position as a butler for Lord
Upton Grey, and so he wouldn’t be joining the duke’s other grandchildren for the holiday. It was just that she’d so been hoping to meet him finally.

“I’m sure, my love.” Thomas’s big, strong hand rested lightly over the swell of her belly
. “But we can plan a trip so you can meet him after the baby is born.”

Even though there were still many months remaining before her lying in, Thomas had almost refused Danby’s summons for Christmas. She had to promise him many, many times that she would be fine. She wouldn’t quite say that he was hovering over her, but his concern for her welfare seemed to know no bounds.

But then again, his hesitation to travel to Danby Castle might not be solely due to her condition.

The duke couldn’t very well give him another marriage license this time, though. Mattie chuckled to herself, thinking of how strongly Thomas had resisted his gra
ndfather’s matchmaking efforts.

Yet Danby was the one wh
o had arranged for their match. Clearly the duke knew something of what was best for his offspring, even if they didn’t want to believe it.

“What’s so amusing?” Thomas asked. The castle loomed ever larger out of the dusty windows of their carriage. With each clop of a horse’s hoof, her husband’s tension grew.

Mattie just shook her head, then kissed him on the chin. “Do you realize we might never have met if not for His Grace?”

“You mean you might never have almost fallen to your death on the cliffs and suffered a concussion, if not for his interference?”

She merely smiled. Once they were inside, with the rest of his family—once he could see that his grandfather had no more intention of meddling in his affairs—she was sure he would relax again and be the man she had come to know and love over the last many months.

Mattie put both her hands over his and settled more comfortably in his arms. Times like these were when she felt the most safe, more secure than she could remember feeling since she was a little girl in her father’s arms.

“Thank goodness you were there to catch me,” she finally said.

And she knew, without a doubt, that he always would be.

I hope you have enjoyed reading RHYME AND REASON as much as I enjoyed writing it. If you have, would you be so kind as to leave a positive review at the site where you purchased the e-book? Thank you so much!

All my best,

Catherine Gayle

Thick as Thieves, the third Bexley-Smythe Quintet novella, will be available November 1, 2013 as part of the anthology, A Pact Between Gentlemen.

Here’s a special sneak peek.

The corridor was empty and rather dark, as expected. A few of the sconces held lit candles, but not nearly as many as one would find in the occupied parts of the great house when guests were present.

What did surprise him, however, was the fact that the study’s door was open. Hadn’t they closed it when they left this afternoon? He was certain they had.

Preston slowed his gait as he drew closer to the doorway, listening to determine if someone was still inside. Perhaps a servant was cleaning? Though the thought of that at such an hour seemed unlikely.

No matter how closely he listened, he heard nothing.

Yet, once he was mere feet away, a faint light was recognizable, filtering gently through the open doorway.

He knew without a doubt that they hadn’t left a candle burning when they’d quit the room earlier. More damning still, the efficacy with which Goddard ran the house left no possibility for a servant to have forgotten such a potentially hazardous detail as leaving a candle unattended in an unoccupied room after cleaning within.

Someone was most assuredly inside, and that someone almost certainly had vocalized the gasp he’d heard from the hallway this afternoon—the very gasp which Upton Grey had sworn was merely a figment of Preston’s imagination.

To the contrary, his imagination had never been so vocal before. Preston held sincere doubt it would have begun to effect such peculiar behavior at this moment or any other.

No, someone had absolutely, unequivocally gasped.

Not simply
someone
. It had to be none other than Lady Frederica Bexley-Smythe, given the fact that only she had supposedly
retired
for the night other than Preston himself.

What in God’s name was she doing?

Preston stifled a groan and said a quick prayer for favor, and in particular for the sort of favor which might involve the lack of suitable weapons being held in the lady’s hands, and then he entered the study.

The flickering light from her flame and the faint glow of the moon pouring through the windows illuminated the golden reliquary in the otherwise black-as-pitch room, and then bounced back to shimmer within the silvery and golden hues of her hair. She held the candlestick aloft in one hand, the other caressing the reliquary almost as one would caress a lover, her delicate and elegant fingers trailing along the ridges of its detailed edges.

His heart lurched at the vision, and then it lurched again at the direction his thoughts had taken. Allowing himself to think about any young lady’s touch as a lover’s caress was akin to asking for problems he wasn’t prepared to remedy. Marriage was not to be in his future—not after what had happened to Arrington—and marriageable-aged misses always had marriage upon the mind.

The Bexley-Smythe sisters surely weren’t an exception to the rule, especially when one considered the muddle of things Stalbridge had created for them all. Finding a way to secure appropriate matches, and sooner rather than later, had to be at the forefront of all their minds.

But why was this sister here, caressing his reliquary, when she ought to be in her chamber nursing an aching head?

Just then, her fingers curled around the top of the cross and lifted it free, exposing the interior to her view. “Blast,” she muttered beneath her breath.

“Expecting to find a relic still inside?”

She jumped, allowing both the golden piece in her hand and her candlestick to crash to the floor. The drop extinguished the candle, thank the lord, but it left them in total darkness. He’d caught sight of her huge, brown eyes in that brief moment of surprise, though, wide as cannon balls and as expressive as he’d ever seen.

Her expression wasn’t nearly as amusing and intriguing as the curse that came from her lips just then. “You ought to give a lady some warning instead of coming upon her unawares like that.”

He imagined her holding her hands upon her hips in an action reminiscent of a willful governess. The image did nothing to quell the sudden lustful urges he’d acquired. Damn, but something would have to be done about that.

Preston gritted his teeth, as though that could somehow put a block on his desire. “I’ll keep that in mind for next time I discover a lady handling something of mine in an unused room where she oughtn’t to be, particularly when the lady in question
should
be upstairs in her bed.”

Taking cautious steps in the dark, he moved closer to the center of the room. His thigh brushed against the table, so he stopped and bent over to retrieve her discarded items. For a long moment, his hand swiped fruitlessly through the air, only making purchase with the legs of the table. He shifted closer and tried again.

She harrumphed, but then squeaked in shock when he grabbed what he’d hoped was the warm candlestick but in reality was her ankle. As soon as he realized what he’d taken hold of he tried to release her.

He wasn’t fast enough.

She jerked back, pulling the both of them toward her in such an awkward manner he toppled onto her.

In attempting to brace himself in order to prevent crushing her beneath his weight, his hand fell upon the golden top of the reliquary which she’d dropped, which hurt like the dickens. He did manage, at least, to hold most of his body aloft.

“If you do not remove yourself from my person right this instant, I’ll scream.”

Based on the unwavering sincerity in her voice, Preston didn’t doubt her threat for a moment. And since the very last thing in the world he wanted to happen was to be trapped into a marriage—any marriage—he rolled away as fast as he could…then bit back a curse, as he’d rolled over the candlestick she’d dropped. The silver bit into his back, causing an excruciating new form of torment he would have sooner gone his entire life without knowing.

He tried to catch his breath and roll further to alleviate the pain. The skirts of Lady Frederica’s gown were trapped beneath him. She tugged just as he’d almost come free of the candlestick, which forced him fully back onto it. His intake of breath came as a hiss.

“Off! Get off my gown!” Her voice had risen to a dangerous pitch already. They would hear her if he didn’t silence her.

“God’s teeth, woman, be still.” Somehow amidst all her flailing, Preston managed to extricate himself and move away, taking care to remove both the candlestick and the top of the reliquary as he did so. After placing them both on the table, lest she take it upon herself to use either of them against him, he reached down to assist her. “Give me your hand.”

“I’d sooner plant you a facer.”

Why must the females of the species conspire against him so? He was merely trying to be of assistance, yet she was reacting as though he’d been attempting to ravish her. With a beleaguered sigh, he bent at the waist and bodily lifted her to her feet, setting her well away from him and even further away from the table full of potentially dangerous items.

“I’m sure if we spend enough time in one another’s company,” he said as calmly as he could manage, “you’ll likely do precisely that. But for now, I’m sure you wouldn’t care to explain to your mother and my brother-in-law just why I might be spouting blood from the nose when we both ought to be in our respective chambers.”

“It would be from the mouth, my lord,” she said primly. “I daresay your great height might prove to be a disadvantage in this circumstance, but I’m sure your lips would heal eventually.”

“Either way—” Preston put another pace between them, trying to scour the room in the pale moonlight shining through the windows for any other potential weapons “—would it not behoove us both to prevent anyone from knowing of our midnight tryst? Or would you prefer to explain to everyone why you are here, in a part of my brother-in-law’s home which is not open for guests? And why you are not upstairs in your bed after seemingly feigning illness?”

“A part of his home you’re likewise in, my lord. I’ll be glad to inform them of how you knocked me to the floor and rolled atop me,” she snapped.

“You’re in such a rush to get to the altar, then?”

She let out a laugh which sent chills racing through Preston’s veins. “Not exactly, no.”

What on earth could possibly be so funny? A protracted silence fell upon them, then, which only caused his anxiety to reach new heights.

She took in a loud breath as though attempting to calm herself. “I do believe I might be in a hurry to see
you
at the altar, though.”

The chill which stole through Preston’s veins was liable to freeze him to the spot.