The Irish Duchess (27 page)

Fiona returned her attention to the priest, but she heard nothing. This was her wedding day. Unlike other girls, she had never planned it. So she didn’t know what she felt now as the words of the ceremony demanded her vow to love this man from this day forth. The “honor and obey” part went right past her head.

Neville’s hand tightened around hers, and nervously, she met his gaze as she murmured “I do.” His response was firmer than hers, but then, men thought “love” something one did in bed. Still, his confidence again bolstered her flagging nerves.

Fiona’s eyes filled with tears as Neville completed his vow by sliding the silver bracelet she’d sold onto her wrist, before placing the ring on her finger. The bracelet was all she had of a grandmother she’d scarcely known. Her mother had passed it on to her the day she died. She’d hated selling it, but feeding the children had more priority than sentimentality. That Neville had guessed how much it meant to her shattered all her defenses. She scarcely noticed the gold band with which he formally claimed her. The bracelet said everything their words had not.

She hoped it was a sign that he respected her and her wishes.

The phrases pronouncing them man and wife reached her through a daze. The brush of Neville’s lips reminded Fiona they had scarcely had time to learn even such a minor part of courtship as kissing. And now they were married, irrevocably tied for eternity.

At least, as Neville had promised, she need not spend her wedding day dreading the night to come. If nothing else good came of this entire fiasco, she knew she could anticipate the pleasure of her husband’s bed.

Her husband. Gulping back her terror, Fiona clung to Neville’s arm as the crowd swarmed around them, kissing, shouting congratulations, crying, patting them on the back. Her husband. His wife.

The moment someone called her Your Grace, the blood drained from her head, and Fiona shot Neville a look of panic. All those times she’d mocked his lordly title, and now she shared it with him.

Obviously reading her expression, the duke raised that damnable shaggy eyebrow of his and grinned. The grin did it. She wanted to smack it off his smug face. She finally let loose of his sleeve.

“Would you prefer Mrs. Perceval, or Lady Duchess?” he whispered, accepting a drink someone shoved into his hand.

“Mrs....” she spluttered, before her entire body stilled. “A complete sentence. You just said a complete sentence,” she marveled.

He held a finger to his lips as someone barged between them, separating them at last.

Fiona scarcely had a moment to question him after that. Every woman in the village had to hug her and whisper words of advice, advice that became increasingly bawdy as the brew flowed and spirits rose. Young boys tried to kiss her cheek. Young girls stared at her gown in awe. The men maintained a wary distance, occasionally touching a forelock in respect, sending Neville a nervous look, or shaking Fiona’s hand with cautious praise.

All except Colin and Eamon. With the kegs of ale flowing freely in one of the empty chambers set aside for refreshments, Colin and Eamon found reckless fortification in the brew and hovered at Fiona’s side.

The fiddle and mouth organ began a reel that set feet tapping, and Fiona searched for Neville in the throng. He stood surrounded by men who argued vociferously with him as they would never do with her. He was still treating them with one word replies. She prayed they were forming a peaceful alliance.

“Let’s have a dance, Fiona, my own,” Eamon called when he noted the direction of her glance. “Let the asses bray while we enjoy the day.”

She should be dancing with Neville. But her anxious glance told her he would be embroiled for a long time to come, and with a sigh, she accepted Eamon’s offer. The day loomed forever long. She might as well make what she could of it.

She skipped up and down the hall with Eamon, spun in a reel with Michael, lifted her skirts and tapped out a jig to beat Colin at his best. The crowd roared with approval and gaiety. After a cup or two of punch to quench her thirst, Fiona’s head spun with the noise, and her laughter flowed as freely as the music and the spirits.

McGonigle took his place in the line of dancers beside her. None of the men had bothered telling her the outcome of their confrontation with the rebel leader, but the fact that they hadn’t thrown him from the castle said Neville had brought him to a truce. She didn’t dislike the man so much as his methods, and for the sake of the orphans, she didn’t object to his presence.

Eamon did, however. With drunken bravado, he lurched into the line beside Fiona, taking the place between her and McGonigle. “My turn, I believe.” He hiccuped.

The burlier man tapped Eamon on the shoulder. “I’ve come to talk with the lady. Out of my way, you whiskey-laden sot.”

Before Fiona could gather her spinning thoughts, Eamon’s fist shot out, McGonigle retaliated, and a woman screamed.

The melee spread quickly. Someone attempting to separate the combatants got hit, roared with rage, and launched into the fracas. Another jumped in to help him. With blood riding high on liquor and the tension of the past days of army occupation, tempers frayed rapidly.

Accustomed to the swift degeneration of frivolity into violence, Fiona backed away. They’d all be weeping in their beer and singing mournful ballads together before the day ended, but she’d had enough violent emotion for one day. If she didn’t escape soon, she might surrender to the temptation of smacking someone. Her missing husband might be a good one to start with.

She saw Colin fighting his way through the mob in her direction, but she would have none of the slippery bastard. He had a wife big with child at home. That’s where he belonged. She wanted Neville, and if her husband didn’t have sense enough to know that, she would take herself out of here.

She smacked off Colin’s hand as he reached for her. “Leave off and let me by, Colin.”

“Let me take you out of this,
cailin
. I’d have a word with you, if I might.”

“Not with my wife, you won’t.”

Before Fiona’s wondering gaze, Colin rose several inches into the air. Her eyes widened as she realized Neville held him by the back of his neckcloth. The duke appeared perfectly calm, but Colin’s face was turning blue. Her already shredded nerves and temper gave way.

“If I’m supposed to be impressed by your prowess, my lord husband, let me assure you, I am not. But by all means, don’t let me disturb the two of you. Go about your games without me.”

She shoved past, lifting the nuisance of her heavy train and all but running from the room, her head pounding in fury, her eyes filled with tears. Nothing, but
nothing
was going right. The whole damned world was run by apes.

As his wife ran from the room, Neville exploded with the frustration that had been building within him for two days. Torn from her side by McGonigle and his demands, forced to watch every man in the room dance with his bride—while he grunted inane responses to political diatribes and Michael talked them into reason—Neville could no longer keep the volcano of his long dormant emotions from erupting.

Slamming Colin against the wall and letting him slide to the massive ebony table beneath, Neville clenched his fists and ran after his wife.

He’d be damned if he let Fiona escape again.

Twenty-six

Neville found Fiona in her bedchamber, heaving clothes into a trunk. She looked up when he slammed the door behind him, then ignored him by defiantly flinging her mantilla into the trunk’s rummage heap and reaching for another garment from the stack upon the bed.

Neville swept the entire stack from the bed and in the general direction of the trunk. Clothes tumbled in disarray all across the floor. “No more running away!” he yelled.

Not one to be caught off balance, she scowled again. “I’m not running!” she shouted back, kicking the trunk out of the mess he’d created and bending over to retrieve her scattered garments. The wooden trunk scraped against the wooden floor, but the rising noise of the fracas below drowned out the worst of it.

“Dammit, you just did.” Neville finally gave in to the need to punch something by striking at a moldering tapestry on the wall. He choked on the clouds of dust billowing from the ancient cloth, then pounded it again in retaliation. The rusted chain holding it in place broke, and the heavy piece collapsed on the floor in another storm of dust.

“Look at what you’ve bloody well done!” Fiona screamed, heaving a crewel work pillow at the wall where the tapestry had been instead of the more obvious target of his head.

“I’ll take the damned thing and wrap it around the clothheads downstairs.” With a remarkably cleansing fury surging through his veins, Neville dug his fists into a matching tapestry and ripped it from the wall. The chain shrieked with protest before snapping. He heaved the heavy cloth toward its companion piece as if it weighed nothing. “If I ever see that piece of scum near you again, so help me I’ll...” He kicked the entire stack of cloth toward the door, effectively barring exit or entrance.

“To which piece of scum do ye refer, yer lordship?” Fiona asked mockingly, grabbing a handful of clothes from a wardrobe and flinging them at the already overflowing trunk. “The ones who danced with me when my husband wouldn’t? The ones who brought me punch when my throat grew dry explaining why I didn’t dance with my own damned husband?”

“The ones who make demands of me on my wedding day!” Neville shouted back, sweeping his hand in an angry gesture. An assortment of ornaments from the mantel followed the path of his arm, crashing and bouncing across the stone hearth with metallic jangles. Momentarily astonished as a pewter mug rolled across his toe, he recovered and defiantly smacked the last tottering candlestick onto the hearth with the rest. He’d never had a tantrum before and found it heartily enlightening. “The ones who danced with you when I should have been the one at your side.”

With wide-eyed amazement, she watched him strew candlesticks, tinderboxes, and flatirons to the hearth. “Why the divil I ever prayed you’d talk again, I’ll never know. I forgot just how damned arrogant you are!” A half sob, half giggle emerged as she picked up her hairbrush and flung it at the far wall, apparently attempting to emulate the clatter he created. When that didn’t work, she reached for another pillow and flung it directly at him.

Caught by surprise, not so much at the pillow striking him as by the almost helpless noise she’d made, Neville flung the pillow back at her. Resentment soared again as he remembered the remark Eamon had made. “I suppose now that you know my head’s no longer cracked, you’re sorry you married me.”

“That I am!” she raged with more vigor. “I’ve no worth to you but as a brood mare. I cannot roof your tenants’ houses nor buy your farm lands back. You should never have let Michael force us into this.”

“So you know about that now.” Neville jerked off his tailored coat and flung it toward the overflowing trunk, his blood still boiling but his interest taking another direction. “And are you sorry that I’ll not have the coins to feed every orphan you find? Did you really think the likes of your doddering viscount would have done so?”

Fiona had only briefly entertained that notion, but she wouldn’t give him the satisfaction of knowing that. Her heart skipped a beat at the sight of the duke standing there in starched shirt sleeves, his frilled cravat spilling over his white silk waistcoat. She gulped a little at the breadth of his shoulders as he stood arms akimbo, glaring at her. “If I cannot bring you money, then there’s no point in any of this, is there now?” she demanded. The sight of Neville really, truly angry left her breathless, but she fought him for the sheer pleasure of watching his eyes flash with silver.

“Aye, but it’s an excellent brood mare you’re after being, aren’t you now?” he mocked.

Fiona watched with wariness as he unfastened his waistcoat. “And if I’m not? There’s enough penniless hungry children in this world without my bringing in more.”

The waistcoat sailed across the room to join the growing jumble of clothing. Candlelight caught the golden gleam of Neville’s hair as he stalked her. Fiona drew a deep breath of pleasure at the sight. Fired with anger, he was a magnificent beast.

“It’s a little late to think of that now, isn’t it, Fiona, my wife?” His eyes glittered molten fire as he reached for her.

Fiona dodged his grasping hands and clambered over the bed. “What if I don’t want children?” she demanded. “Will you force me?”

Instead of following her over the bed, he placed his fists at his waist and studied her through narrowed eyes. Her pulse raced and her breath came in nervous gulps. She wasn’t afraid, not of Neville. What she feared was the way she felt when he looked at her like that, seeing through every sham and pretense. She didn’t want him seeing what she couldn’t see herself.

“With any other woman, I would walk out of here right now,” he said slowly, as if pondering every word.

Fiona halted her wild flight and watched him. Hope crashed against the walls of her heart like the tide against a flood wall. She said nothing.

“But not with you, Fiona,” he said, his gaze holding her pinned. “I’ve held you in my arms. I don’t think your kisses lie. You can deny it all you like, but there’s something between us that won’t go away as easily as you might wish.”

Fiona shivered and the goosebumps rose on her arms. She stared, trying hard not to believe this marriage was more than a trap.

From below, over the crashing chairs and shouts of the brawl, emerged the sweet sound of a flute.

“Michael,” Fiona whispered, still staring at Neville as if he’d gone mad. “They’ll quiet now.” Even as she said it, a fiddle joined the music of the flute.

Shoving aside the debris he’d created, Neville approached the chaos on her side of the room. “Dance?” he inquired politely.

Carefully, apparently unsure if she approached a madman or a lover, Fiona stepped over the remainder of her clothes. “Yes, please,” she said as politely as he, as if they hadn’t just raged and roared at each other seconds before.

She felt damned good in his arms. Closing his eyes in pure joy as his hands finally encompassed Fiona’s slender waist and slid over her velvet bodice, Neville swayed to the haunting melody of the music below. He had no idea what kind of music it was, what kind of dance it involved. The steps were unimportant. What mattered was the living, breathing woman in his arms.