Edith Layton (25 page)

“There, Kate, it’s all right,” he’d said. “No one will know but us.”

She hadn’t been worried about that, she hadn’t thought of anyone but him and what else might lie in store. “But what about you?” she asked hopefully, “Shouldn’t there be more?”

“Oh yes”—he’d chuckled—“much more. My night will come, and then it will be all our days and nights.”

But not soon enough for her, she thought as she paced her bedchamber again, her sheer summer nightgown feeling like grit as it moved over her sensitized skin. She paced until the sun rose enough for her to stop so she could dress and go downstairs and wait for him.

“Two weeks,” he breathed into her hair. “We’ll be man and wife in two weeks,” Alasdair said, loosing his embrace and stepping away. “We can wait until then. So please, go sit over there and smile at me demurely, my dear rogue. It’s raining, we can’t go out. We’re not wed yet, so we have to sit here in this parlor, like lady and gentleman. It’s for the best, your brothers are the most vigilant chaperons, that must be why your parents finally brought them here. They wore me out in the park, and at the Tower, and on the Serpentine, I’m too weary for anything more this evening.” His smile belied that.

“They’re good lads,” he added, taking a seat opposite her.

“They’re mad about you. Thank you for having Leigh tell Simon about the poetry he studied at Oxford. Now he’s on fire to go.”

“I’m glad I could set one Corbet on fire without scandalizing everyone,” he said, leaning back in his chair.

She giggled at the absurdity of that, and he smiled back at her.

“So, two weeks remain. Is all in readiness now?” he asked.

“My mother and father are ready as they’ll ever be, but wistful. They’d have liked the ceremonies at home because London’s so thin of company. I reminded them that home would be even thinner of company now, and they conceded that. Don’t worry, it’s not because they’re opposed to you—just the reverse. They want to make the biggest stir. The boys are in ecstasies because you’re a ‘great gun.’ Lady Swanson doesn’t think things are in order yet, though. But she’d need two years to get the sort of reception she wants prepared. Lord Swanson is just pleased everything’s going forth. Chloe is complaining her gown won’t be ready. Frances keeps muttering about unseemly haste. Harriet’s in a dither about her new slippers and whether they really match her dress.” She frowned. “Sibyl’s trying to be brave, but I know she worries she’ll never see Leigh again after the wedding. Will she?”

Alasdair shrugged. “I don’t know. I don’t think his heart’s engaged, it’s just that his is a soft one. She’s too young anyway. Still, who knows what will come in time? But, Kate, are
you
ready?”

“If you don’t know, maybe
we
aren’t ready!” she yelped.

He laughed. And toyed with his quizzing glass, holding it by its ribbon, letting it swirl in increasingly smaller slow circles before him. “And all the guests have answered?” he asked softly, watching it spin. “Has everyone you’ve invited accepted, even on such short notice?”

“Almost all! It’s amazing. Even on such short notice!”

“Probably the same reason such crowds show up for hangings, to make sure the villain is well and truly turned off,” he commented. “So, all’s well. I’ve got very little family, and those that still breathe are coming. But yours…Everyone else has replied. But are the Scalbys coming?”

She frowned. “We didn’t get
any
answer from them.” She gazed at him worriedly. “Should we send round another invitation? Or should we let it be? Alasdair, can you truly bear to see them?

“I truly wish to,” he said honestly. Then paused, and added, “Let them see how well I’ve done. It’s the best revenge.”

“Well, then, I’d better have Father call on them. It’s his duty, and he can find out.” She hesitated. “You mean to confront them then? I know you must, but…”

“Kate,” he said softly, “trust me. I’ve no desire to ruin our day. I just wanted to know. Forewarned is forearmed. I can’t like seeing them on any day, and I don’t want them to do anything to ruin that one for me. But I want to be prepared for anything.” He caught up his quizzing glass and tucked it away. He looked at his watch. “We have another ten minutes before we’re interrupted. Come over here, wench, let’s see what trouble we can get into in that time.”

She went to him willingly, unwillingly to waste those precious minutes.

A week,
Kate thought as she rode to the dressmakers for the final fitting of the dress she’d wear to her wedding. Just one week left, she realized, as the carriage wheels turned in time with her thoughts:
too long, too long, too long.

T
he bride wore a gown the color of old pearls and had a soft rosy flush on her cheeks. She carried a bouquet of gardenias and wore a matching crown of them on her curls. The keenest-eyed gossip in church couldn’t deny Kate Corbet—now Lady St. Erth, was a slender, graceful sylph of a bride. The gentlemen couldn’t deny that she’d curves enough for any man’s delight. She made a charming bride, and if gossips were disappointed because they couldn’t see if a hasty marriage had been
necessary
, they had nothing to grumble about if they concentrated on the groom.

Damned if the fellow didn’t look dangerous, even in church. “Satan at the holy fount,” one would-be poet had already titled the poem he envisioned as he watched the groom take his vows, in hopes his romantic epic would rival Byron’s wildly successful “Corsair.” Not everyone was stimulated to poetry, but more than one guest remarked that St. Erth was the devil of a fellow. There he stood next to his lovely bride, mar
ried and appearing to be willing to be so, and yet still he looked untamed.

He stood tall and aloof after the ceremony, his dark gaze slicing through the crowd of well-wishers queuing on the reception line; though he smiled, those smiles could have cut diamonds. True, he didn’t look unhappy. And also true that his fierce gaze softened whenever he gazed at his new wife. But where was the joy he should have been showing on this most signal day?

A new groom was expected to look fatuous and permitted to look dazed. Many a fellow looked staggered as he’d stepped down from the altar, as though he’d been hit on the forehead like a bullock at the slaughter. But from the moment St. Erth lifted his fond gaze from his new wife, he seemed, if anything, too aware of his surroundings. He didn’t look happy or sad, only distant, distracted, and abstracted. Although he was everything that was proper, he seemed to be waiting for something other than his wedding night.

But who knew what it meant, or what he was thinking? Who could fathom that devil, now or before?

They aren’t here
, Alasdair thought, fighting to conceal his emotions as he scanned the crowd at the church again.
The damned Scalbys aren’t here
. They’d said they would be. Kate’s father had gone to their house and presented his card. They’d sent word that though they regretted they couldn’t visit with him at that time, they’d certainly be at the church for their cousin’s wedding. And they were not.

He’d prepared for them. The moment he heard they’d be there, he could think of little else. He’d been ecstatic.
Finally
, he finally had them where he’d always dreamed, at his mercy in the bosom of their family and in front of all Society. As they’d had him. He was sure
they’d accepted the invitation because they were sure he’d spare them now that he was to be related to them. That only showed how little they knew him.

He’d planned to bow and smile, pretend there was nothing between them when they met again, at last, after all these years. He’d sat up the whole night before his wedding, not preoccupied with plans for the night to come with his lovely bride-to-be, but instead thrilling at the thought of the game he’d play with her evil cousins today. At four in the morning, after inventing and discarding so many scenarios, he’d finally come up with the perfect one. He’d smile, accept their congratulations, and when they were about to walk off, whisper sweetly: “Not here, not now, but we have much to talk about. As will all London, and soon.” And then turn his head and let them walk away, the way a cat let a mouse it had held in its teeth finally stagger away…for a time.

But they weren’t there.

Alasdair was relieved, furious, still tensed for confrontation.
Damn them to the hell they were bound for!
He stood on the reception line, nodding to praise and congratulations, his jaw clenched, a muscle in it ticking in time to his rising rage. He didn’t think it was possible, but he hated them now more than ever, for ruining his wedding day like this. They’d scored on him once again.

They obviously thought they were still dangerous, at least they were still playing a game. They would pay.

“Alasdair?” Kate asked.

“Yes?” he said at once, turning to her, all his attention now riveted on her because there’d been a troubled note in her voice—he heard it above all the babble.

“Is there anything the matter?”

He gripped her hand more tightly. He hadn’t re
leased it since they’d walked back down the aisle. “No.”

“Then why do you look so fierce?” she whispered, her eyes searching his.

He laughed. “Do I?”

She nodded. She’d dared mention it to him because there was one of those sudden inexplicable pauses in the wave of guests coming to congratulate them, and she wanted to make use of it. She tried to come up with a jest. Anything to get that terrible look off his face. “You look so grim,” she whispered. “And my cousins haven’t even congratulated us yet.”

He grinned. She relaxed.

“Maybe it’s because I like to be on the periphery of the crowd looking in, rather than being the focus of all eyes,” he invented quickly. “Everyone watching me so close makes me begin to think I should be doing something worthy of entertaining them. Like juggling, or eating fire.”

“Fire eating? That wouldn’t be anything new,” Leigh laughed as he came up to the newlyweds. “Now, juggling would be capital! Shall I get you some oranges, or would you rather wait for the reception? You
are
going to feed us aren’t you?” He clapped Alasdair on the back. “Congratulations, my friend,” he said with sincerity. “You’re a very lucky man, and the good thing is that you know it. See you don’t forget it!”

“As if I could,” Alasdair said.

“And, my lady, thank you for taking him,” Leigh went on, taking her hand in his and smiling down at her. “Now I can rest easy because I know he’s in good hands. You’re a charitable lady. I wish you nothing but bright days and beautiful nights, and a score of bright and beautiful children who take after you.”

That made everyone within earshot laugh.

“Oh, Kate, I’m so happy for you!” Sibyl said as she hugged her cousin. “And,” she whispered into Kate’s ear as they embraced, “I’m
so
glad we saved him from the clutches of evil, now aren’t you?”

Just thinking of Alasdair’s clutches made Kate shiver. “Oh, yes!” she answered Sibyl fervently. “Who says virtue is its own reward? Just look at what I got for it!”

At least she couldn’t stop looking.

She gazed at Alasdair throughout the whole long wedding feast. So handsome, so graceful, so big and imposing and yet elegant and charming—when he wished to be. So amusing, and kind, and hers! She could scarcely believe her good luck.

Others couldn’t either.

“I never thought you’d actually land him,” her cousin Harriet commented when she and her sisters got Kate alone for a minute, when she left Alasdair’s side to go to the withdrawing room.

“Thought you were going to have to go home with your tail between your legs, and actually felt sorry for you,” Frances said grudgingly.

“
Told
you she’d nab him,” Chloe said mournfully.

“How did you do it?” Frances asked Kate. “You can tell us. Not as though it matters anymore, you’ve got him, you’re leaving, we won’t see you for a while. He had his pick of the most marriageable and passed them all up. Had his fill of the best demireps, too. What did you do to make him want you?”

“Don’t tell us you were compromised at that inn, because we won’t believe it, even if you were,” Harriet said. “Much that would matter to him. He’s slipped out of tighter knots.”

They stood around her, enclosing her, glaring at her, and yet she saw a look of entreaty in their eyes and
heard a note of what almost sounded like begging in their gruff voices. They really needed to know. It was something Kate had thought a lot about, too.

She cocked her head to the side. “I’m not sure. I know what you mean, though. And I agree, I certainly don’t deserve him.”

“We didn’t say that,” Frances protested. “None of us did.”

Her sisters nodded.

“I know,” Kate said, touched that they’d worry about her feelings. “But I don’t know what to answer. I didn’t go out of my way to nab him,” she told Chloe. She paused. “I think when you empty yourself of expectations and simply go out and meet life, you stand a good chance of finding what you’re looking for, even if you don’t know that’s what you’re doing. I tried to do a good thing and met him, almost by mistake.”

She saw their looks of puzzlement, and remembered that they couldn’t and wouldn’t ever know about either Lady Eleanora and how Kate had saved him from her, or the strange bargain she’d made with Alasdair after that. “I mean,” she said quickly, “even though he terrified me with his sophistication, I made an effort to make light conversation with him when we first met, because he seemed so terribly bored.”

“Well, of course,” Chloe said. “He always seemed so, before he met you.”

Kate nodded, relieved, and went on to firmer ground, the truth. “Yes. And when we met, there was a connection made. I don’t know why. I’ll never know, I suppose. But when you meet your match, you feel it long before you know it. It’s one thing to feel attraction, this is something very different. It’s like a coming home.” They were listening quietly, intently. “Yes,” she went on, sensing the rightness of what she said as she
said it, “there was a sense of knowing, a sharing, a sympathy. That’s much more than attraction, though believe me, attraction was not lacking!”

Chloe laughed. “With St. Erth? How could it be lacking?”

Kate smiled. “But we started as friends, and friends we became, and anything can come from that…. and did.”

The three sisters were silent. Then Chloe spoke up. “Thank you. That makes perfect sense.”

“Does it?’ Kate laughed. “It still seems a miracle to me!”

The happy couple rode off in a flower-decked carriage, waving farewell to their friends and family. The bride’s mama had wept, as had her father, only stopping when they were promised a visit within the month. Her brothers had made merry, pelting the couple with rice and flowers. Few knew where the wedding couple were going on their honeymoon because they’d only made up their minds at the last minute. Not because they were worried about any rambunctious friends planning an embarrassment, hounding the newlyweds on their wedding night with shouts or raucous revelry outside their window. Apart from the fact that the groom’s friends were too sophisticated for such vulgar carrying-on, this was Sir Alasdair. No one would dare.

They were going to his town house, and from there, to the Lake Country the following day. He wasn’t taking her to his family estate. He might never take her there, he thought, sitting back silently, with her in his arms, enjoying this rare quiet moment of peace after so much hullabaloo. But perhaps, he thought now, as he absently petted her hair, once the matter of the Scalbys
was taken care of, he could one day return to Bright-stone. Their social death, caused by his retribution, might vanquish the ghosts that haunted his house, though he doubted it. He kept it in good heart, but never visited. He couldn’t sell the place because it was entailed. But he couldn’t live in it either.

He’d bought a lovely estate in the Lake District, on Lake Windermere. He’d modernized the old place and was proud of it now. It had the lake and a cheerful brook, and a truly beautiful waterfall. He thought of Kate standing with him under that waterfall, and smiled with real anticipation of his honeymoon for the first time that day.

“What?” she murmured, feeling his smile against her cheek.

“I was thinking of our honeymoon,” he said.

She laughed and shivered, and so he kissed her. And kissed her. When the carriage pulled up at his town house, she was eager to go in with him. All her foolish fears about what they’d do that night had been burned away by the heat of the lust he’d ignited in her.

She glanced at the sky as she stepped from the carriage. It was twilight. She paused, frustrated.

He knew her very well. He chuckled, and murmured as he took her hand to help her alight, “So it’s not night. It doesn’t matter. We’ll pull the curtains and pretend it is.”

She went red as a rosebud. “But the servants,” she murmured.

“…Have been given the evening off, to celebrate our marriage. I reckoned that after all our feasting, we’d be too full to want more than a cold collation for dinner, and asked them to leave one out for us. I reasoned we could certainly see to the matter of undress
ing ourselves and getting to bed. Although,” he said, as he tucked her hand under his arm and they mounted the steps to his house, “I do earnestly hope you’ll allow me to assist you. Dangerous stuff, that removing of gowns. You might get a bit of muslin in your eye.”

“You’re the one who always has muslin in your eye,” she laughed.

“Not anymore, not unless you’re wearing it,” he said seriously, causing her heart to gallop by what she saw in his eyes.

What he saw in hers made him forget his anger, forget his plans, even forget the triumph he’d missed that day. He saw desire and excitement. And embarrassment in the way she lowered her eyes when she saw his reaction. She was still shy with him. But she was completely his, he knew it. He’d be her first lover, and her only one, he hoped. He aimed to be sure of it.

Alasdair was fluent enough in the ways of love to know that the first time for anyone could be less than satisfactory, was, in fact, likely to be so. But he was wise enough to know that even so, it was perhaps the most important time for a woman, a thing she’d never forget. He had to make it memorable, if not perfect. That night, no matter how vaunting his desire, his lovemaking had to be done with patience, generosity, and absolute love. For her. And for him, too.

That was why he’d wanted to come to her cleansed of the past. He’d thought to celebrate this beginning by making an end to his long nightmare. He couldn’t do anything about that now. The Scalbys had ruined his perfect joy in his wedding day, he couldn’t let them ruin this night. And since she’d never really know his shame, he was willing, at last, to put down the past, at least for a few more hours.