Etiquette With The Devil (33 page)

Those happy moments were only lies.
Just one foot in front of the other,
she had repeated to herself. She imagined that was something most brides did not think of as they saw their groom waiting for them at the end of the aisle.

It was a short distance, but when marching toward Bly Ravensdale, it felt as though she were crossing the vast Atlantic in a rowboat. She remembered that night long ago, those days, where she had worried she would drown from having him in her life. Finally, that day had arrived.

“Miss Dawson, perhaps you did not hear. Please repeat after me: to love, honor, and obey.”

The vicar looked to Clara, his bushy eyebrows squished together. She gave another small smile, standing a bit straighter. She refused to say that
obey
to Bly. It would be like handing the world to Napoleon on a silver platter. At one time, she thought it was love. There was no honor between them, but Bly was giving their son the family name, which was honorable enough. But obey? No, Clara had to draw the line somewhere in their ridiculous charade. She would never obey Bly Ravensdale, husband or no.

“It was no mistake. I heard you, Vicar,” she answered as demurely as possible. There was nothing polite about a public set down of the village vicar. “I will not be vowing to obey Mr. Ravensdale. Thank you nonetheless for bringing my omission to light. Please go on.”

The vicar’s face reddened, and he adjusted the collar of his shirt. His discomfort was echoed by the shuffling of feet and soft swish of fabric belonging to the witnesses standing behind the couple.

Clara tightened her sweaty palms around her ribbon-cinched bouquet before finally peering over to Bly.

He stood rigid, his hands clasped in front of him. To others, he might have looked unaffected by her refusal, but Clara knew better than to believe that trick. The muscles along his jaw ticked and there was a jaded smile at his lips. Perhaps if they were not in the middle of their wedding ceremony, he would turn and counter, and they would bicker until he looked like he would kiss her and she would think of kissing him, but walk away.

The vicar darted his eyes between the pair until Bly shrugged. The nervous knot in Clara’s stomach loosened the slightest bit, but the vicar cleared his throat and waited for Bly to push his husbandly right to have his wife obey him. It was proper for a wife to obey her husband.

“Please continue, Vicar,” Bly said. “Miss Dawson is free to do as she wishes as my wife.”

If that were true, Clara thought, she would not be standing in the library of Burton Hall getting married.

*

It never occurred to Bly that at some point in his thirty-five years he would want to be married. He rarely thought marriages to be happy unions. He had his parents to thank for that impression. He laughed at those who, over the years, found themselves sick in love and parading after a woman’s skirts. He mocked those who gave up adventure for the dull lifestyle of a family man. Bly relentlessly teased men like Barnes who fell like the Roman Empire at the fluttering eyelashes of a charming woman.

But he had been the biggest fool, he realized, as Clara entered through the library door in her wedding dress. She was to be his wife. Clara Dawson. The prudish, frustrating, governess of years ago. The mother of his son. She was as ever-changing to him as the as the moon.

He was not anticipating the great wave of nerves that swept over him as he saw the gray of her eyes beneath the lace veil. Nor was he prepared for the uncomfortable tightness in his chest or the thrumming of his pulse in his throat as his gaze remained fixed on Clara in her new satin gown. He had never prepared for the situation because he never thought it to be a possibility.

She was the guiding point on the horizon—the small burst of light in the night’s sky that would rescue the lost. Clara was his light. If only he could help her understand that fact, maybe they could grow to be comfortable being in the same room with each other.

The vicar turned to him, Clara’s put down still ringing in Bly’s ears like a funeral dirge as they exchanged their vows.

Did she have to ruin something he labored to make special for her? He was not entirely surprised, but it upset him nonetheless. He had paid a small fortune to have the best modiste in London alter the dress in time, and although it was only a small group, the wedding breakfast would be lavish. If only he could understand what she needed from him, he would do it, no matter the cost.

“Please continue, Vicar,” he finally said. He swallowed, trying to dislodge whatever was stuck in his throat. Even his collar threatened to strangle him. “Miss Dawson is free to do as she wishes as my wife.”

He cared little if she vowed to obey. That was not important to him. He wished to protect her and the children, especially in light of the news Barnes delivered. The ghosts of his past, the more violent ones, the ones that threatened torture and death—he feared those would follow him to Burton Hall and take away what he had come to hold dear, especially after leaving Graham in India.

As he slipped the ring upon her finger, the light from the stained glass windows arced around Clara and her eyes, and for the briefest moment, they sparked green.
Hope
. That small hint of light gave Bly hope that her love for him would awaken like spring and come alive.

Clara had taken his name without another protest. She had even smiled to the children as she left the library. She smiled during the small wedding breakfast and applauded as Grace and Minnie sang for the newlyweds. She smiled to everyone that day, except to her husband.

When breakfast finished, she had hurried away to her room and remained there, even refusing dinner. Bly did not appreciate Clara’s tantrum, but he would take it in stride. He was not so much of an ass that he expected her to forgive his wrongs and submit to him on their wedding night though he wished they could share a happy marriage bed in time.

He understood her pointed refusals after what he subjected her to the last time. But he would remain now. He would strive to be everything a husband could be to a wife. Bly would do anything to make her happy. He would move heaven and earth for her, if only she would look him in the eye and not flinch at merest suggestion of his touch.

With a sigh, he shoved off his jacket and headed toward his dressing room, where he could enter her quarters. She needn’t share his bed, but she could acknowledge the union with a word or two. She could strive to be civil.

*

Clara spent her wedding day in bed, and not in the delightful way one might associate with the happy event.

She had barely looked at the bridegroom during their breakfast. The few glimpses she had caught revealed a man who appeared happy and handsome, and that broke her heart all the more. Seeing him as such begged the question as to why she could not love Bly. It was a conflicting matter between her logical mind and her heart. She saw no clear end in sight.

She always thought it strange when she read of heartbreak, until she experienced the condition for herself. There was truth to that illogical claim—her heart no longer worked properly. It stopped and sputtered at the strangest times. It constricted in pain whenever Clara remembered some small detail pertaining to their time together, when they had been happy, however briefly. Her heart ached for him, even as her more logical self screamed to let their connection remain an affair of the past, best left alone and forgotten, allowed to wither and die given enough time.

Clara left before they had a chance to dance. That was some seven or eleven hours ago. The sun had set since then and darkness claimed her room. Dinner had been announced. Life continued, but she remained motionless in her wedding dress, staring out the windows opposite her new bed.

A sound startled her from her dreary reverie. To the left of the fireplace, a hidden door opened in the wall’s paneling. So he had come to her after all—her husband. The very idea made her stomach flop.

She pulled the bed sheets higher and sunk into bed, stilling as his silhouette came into focus in the doorway. By the dim light of the gas lamps, she caught a glimpse of his face, stern and watchful. Clara held her breath.

Bly leaned against the doorway, kicking one leg in front of the other and crossing his arms in study. She held her tongue and waited for him to speak. Instead, he loosened the tie, still studying at her with a careful insistence.

“You looked beautiful today,” he said in a low, guarded voice.

She did not want him in her bed. She did not want his touch or his kiss. She barely made it through the wedding ceremony without emptying the contents of her stomach at his feet. How would they ever be a proper husband and wife if she detested him so?

“I would have told you earlier, but you ran away.”

She could have responded to that. The answer was there on her lips, but she remained silent. He moved as if he would take the first step into her room, but as he did so, she drew in a breath and covered herself completely with the quilt.

“I see,” Bly breathed. He stumbled back an awkward step. “Are you hungry?”

“No,” she answered, feeling her knuckles grow white as they grasped more tightly at the sheets. The metal band slipped around her ring finger threatened to slip off her knuckle, its fit too big for her hand. Wrong.

“Hmm.” He closed the door firmly behind him without another word. After a few minutes passed, and it was clear he would not enter again, she scrambled out of bed and pushed the desk across the room to barricade the newly discovered door that connected their rooms.

Clara had no desire of further visits from her husband.

*

“You can’t bully the woman into marriage and expect her to be warm toward you.”

Barnes nagged like a woman. All morning he had schooled Bly on curbing his temper and approaching Clara with more finesse. The bloody confusing part of it all: Bly thought he had done just that.

“I did no such thing.”

“That is exactly what you did. You heard there might be someone after you and you married the poor woman as soon as she was well enough to stand. She hardly had a chance to reconcile the man who hurt her with the man you’ve become.”

“Why did I need to wait?”

Barnes tossed two cards down onto the pile between them, and tilted his head.

“She can have whatever she wants,” Bly continued, “but she wants nothing. I paid a good price for her new rooms and the wedding. I’ve taken the steps to repair the nursery as well as acquire new clothes and toys for the children. I’ll spend all the bloody money I have if only she’ll look at me without appearing as if she would be ill.” He shuffled his cards, moving them around to make a winning hand. “And damn these cards. You’re going to win again, you bloody bastard.”

Barnes threw his head back and laughed. “She wants you to love her.”

Bly turned around sharply, his muscles tightening at the word
love
. “I can’t,” he answered. He threw the cards at Barnes from across the table, grabbed a cigar from his pocket, and paced across his office, madly puffing at his cigar.

She needed family, she needed someone who she could confide in. “I want her mother found,” Bly said, stopping halfway across the room. “A mistress of…” he shut his eyes tight and tried to think of the register, but she had left that blank on their wedding day. “Well, find her mother. Are you writing this down?” Bly snapped. A woman must need her mother, and maybe, just maybe, that would help win over her favor.