The Next Best Bride (8 page)

Quickly, before the old man could make a pronouncement he would feel duty bound to adhere to, Rand added with a wink he knew would give the old man indigestion, "So that I can chase my bride around the rooms in quest of an heir without disturbing the peace of the manor house and its master."

His grandfather pondered his answer so long, Rand thought he would refuse. Fortunately, he did not. Instead he beamed with delight, as if the idea had been his own. ''I'll send a message home this very minute. You can move in at once."

"You are too kind, my lord." Helena smiled at the old man, already showing signs of being smitten with his grandfather's charm. The glance she gave Rand froze his toes off. He supposed she found him somewhat less charming than she did his grandfather. He pushed aside his disappointment. In that, she was no different than most other people he knew.

Rand sighed. "Wait until you have children, my love; then you will see how he dotes upon you."

His grandfather eyed him shrewdly at the casual "my love" that had slipped from his lips, and Rand's heart chilled. He had forgotten to be on guard. Helena's defection into the old man's camp had rattled him. He hoped he had not put her in danger. But no, there would be no danger for her until his grandfather had the heir he wanted. And there would be no danger at all if Rand proved he did not care for his bride as more than a broodmare for his heirs.

The tension in Helena had drawn very fine. He could see her glance at her sister and the duke as if to judge what they made of her new husband. She would have to learn to think less of other people's judgment if she were to be happy.

He took her hand and lifted it to his mouth for a kiss. "Now that we have settled the matter of where we shall live, I must take my leave, dear wife."

"Your leave?" Her hand trembled in his, before she thought to snatch it away.

He smiled in false apology. "The cards are calling me."

"You are going to gamble?" Helena's voice was calm, but her face revealed her shocked dismay.

Rand longed to comfort her. "As my wife, you will have to accept that my cards are my mistress, and a well-loved one at that." With a peck on the cheek, Rand left the room — and his bride — behind.

Helena watched in shock as her new husband walked away from her. For a moment she forgot there was anyone else in the room. And then the full public humiliation of his actions came clear as the marquess said gruffly, "I am sorry, my dear. I had hoped marriage would curb his gambling ways."

The marquess's expression was sympathetic. But something in his tone made Helena wonder if he truly had believed marriage could change his grandson. She was suddenly very grateful that she had entered this marriage with no illusions of love.

"We have an understanding," Helena assured him. "I will not curb his gambling and he will not ask me to give up my art."

"You are an artist?" Though the marquess's smile did not disappear, his lips compressed until they were pale. Helena did not know the man well, but she had no doubt what that expression signaled. Definite disapproval. She wished Rand had not disappeared. Perhaps he could convince his grandfather her drawing was not something to concern the marquess.

Miranda stepped in quickly. "Helena has always been able to capture in her drawings that indefinable something in a person. She is quite talented."

"An artist?" The marquess studied Helena for a few moments. "Perhaps that is why Rand chose you over your sister at the last minute. He has always had a weakness for women in the arts."

"I believe he chose me because my sister wished to break the engagement," Helena confessed. "I was the next best bride for him."

"Ah. I'm glad to hear he didn't cozen you by claiming to love you beyond pearls."

"Most certainly not!" Helena protested, and then realized how her words must sound to the gentle old man and her already worried sister. She hastened to add, "I am certain we will come to have affection for each other, in time."

There was no offense in the shrewd eyes of the old man assessing her. "You'd be better to save your affections for your children." The marquess shook his head. "I hope you're not a silly chit who believes in all that love claptrap. I've never known the boy to love anything or anyone beyond himself."

''I'm certain they will find a satisfactory arrangement." Miranda frowned at the marquess, putting an arm around Helena's shoulder tightly. "Now, if you will excuse us, my lord. At the moment I need my sister's advice on a family matter."

Helena did not understand her sister's urgency as she pulled her toward the empty library. No, it was not empty, she saw. The duke stood by the fire in the regal stance of lord of the manor. Beside him was Ros, one hip resting against the back of a chair. Both were looking directly at Helena as she entered the room.

Miranda closed the door gently behind them, and Helena felt as if she had been trapped with wild creatures who looked tame enough but hid a penchant for mayhem. Miranda moved to stand beside her husband. She, too, said nothing, just stood looking at Helena as if she expected a confession of some sort. "What is the matter?"

"Ros wants to go to America."

Helena examined a small stain upon her bodice as she answered as nonchalantly as possible. "Ros has always wanted to go adventuring. America strikes her as a grand adventure, this week."

"No. It is more than idle talk this time." Miranda shook her head and glanced at Ros, who lifted her eyebrows in a gesture of defiant resistance. Miranda gazed at Helena pleadingly. "You must help talk sense into her. Simon caught her trying to run away."

How many times had they played out this scenario? Ros and Helena against Miranda and Simon — or back at Anderlin, against Valentine, their elder brother. This was one thing she would not miss when Ros was gone. When she began her life as Rand's countess. "She is going to America." Helena could have used a lilt at the end to make her sentence a question. But she did not.

Miranda pressed her lips together a moment before saying, "You knew?"

"Yes." Helena nodded, fighting back shame. Ros felt no shame, so why should she? "That is why she asked me to marry Rand in her place."

"How could you —" Confusion clouded Miranda's features. "I thought you and Rand —"

Helena did not want to discuss the details of the fiction that Rand had created of a couple who had been indiscreet before their wedding ceremony. Close scrutiny would tell her sister that things were not as they seemed. Quickly, she interposed, "Who has ever stopped Ros from doing what she wished?"

Miranda might have pursued the matter, but Ros stepped in and said firmly, "I'm going to America, and if arguing with you causes me to miss my ship, I will merely find another."

"Ros —"

Miranda's distress must have softened Ros, for she gave up open defiance for an appeal to Miranda's understanding of her sister's true nature. "Miranda, I am not made for this society. Do you deny it?"

"No."

"How can you ask me to stay?"

"Then you must go to Juliet." The duke stepped in. "You are too young to go to a strange country on your own." Helena held her breath, hoping her twin would be swayed to the idea. Ros would be safe with Juliet and R.J.

Ros seemed startled at how quickly she had persuaded them to her side. But she was not so easily swayed to give up her idea of solo adventure. "Boston is too proper, if R.J. is anything to judge the city by."

Miranda stared at Ros for a full minute before answering firmly, "The dowager says that the Carolinians are not so proper. I will write you a letter and she will take you in."

Ros shook her head impatiently, bowing to the sense of it at last. "Then write it quickly." Helena suppressed a sigh of relief, fearing it would make her sister change her mind once more.

"The safe harbor of people who love you is not so terrible, Ros," she said softly, aware that she would be leaving her family behind when she left with Rand for Parsleigh.

"It can be, if the people who love you will not let you follow your dreams," Ros answered sharply.

"You are going to America," Helena replied. "No one is preventing you. And I wouldn't, even if I could. Even though I wish you would be here for me."

"You will be fine." Ros hesitated, and then in a gesture uncharacteristic of her taciturn nature she pulled Helena into a tight hug. "If you need anything, write me and I will come immediately."

"You will be in America."

"If I were on the highest mountain in China, I would come like the wind. I promise."

Helena returned her sister's embrace fiercely. "I know. It will be good for me to be apart from you, I suppose. I will learn to fend for myself." She stepped away and turned her back for a moment to wipe away the tears she knew would only exasperate her twin. "I don't suppose I should count on my husband for such things. Do you know he has gone gambling — on his wedding night."

Ros gripped her shoulder and turned her until their gazes met. "He is a better man than many think, Helena. Do not hesitate to trust him in grave matters, even if you find he disappoints you in the everyday."

"Trust needs to be built," Helena said doubtfully. "If he cannot be trusted in small things, how could I ever believe in him when matters become grave?"

Rosaline did not seem to have an answer to that. At last she sighed and said, "You trust me, do you not?"

"Yes." Helena gave a mock glare. "Even though you pawned off your bridegroom on me, in a bargain I shall likely regret."

"No." Rosaline disagreed. "I don't believe you will regret it — any more than any woman must regret putting herself under a man's thumb."

"Ros —" Helena did not know what to say in the face of her sister's unwavering belief that marriage was not for her.

"Trust me. You can be happy. I know it. You are made differently than I am, no matter that we look alike." The blue of her eyes burned when she added, "Trust Rand because I tell you that you can." There was such conviction in her that Helena was almost convinced. If only Ros hadn't added, "But only when matters are at their gravest."

Helena did not find her sister's words reassuring, but she did not want to quibble when they had so little time left before they were separated by a distance so great she could not really comprehend it. About trusting her husband, she would have to see — assuming that he ever returned from his gambling to collect his wife.

* * * * *

Dawn was breaking when he came to their room.

Helena stirred when the door latch snicked into place. Rand stood still, hoping she would return to a deeper slumber. He would prefer she not know the hour he returned. Too soon for the maid. Much too late for a bridegroom who wished to get an heir in an expedient manner. The old man would know, however. His grandfather's spies would work as well in the duke's household as they did elsewhere in London, Rand was certain.

When there were no further sounds of movement from the bed, he dared move away from the door, toward his dressing room.

She sat up. "Good evening, my lord. Or should I say good morning."

The reality of a bride in his bed became startlingly clear for Rand. He must come up with an excuse. No, no excuse, he decided abruptly. Simply an apology. "Helena. I am sorry if I disturbed you."

She waited for a moment, as if she thought he might follow his rather short apology with an excuse. And then she said, with all the grace of a long-suffering wife, "Did you forget that we set out for Parsleigh today? Your grandfather says it is a hard three days' travel. You will not like to begin it without sleep."

"Then I will not do so." He leaned wearily against the bedpost, staring into the shadows where she sat watching him. Where had she learned that manner, when she had yet to be a wife for a full day?

"We must start out early to get full use of the day," she argued.

In his eagerness for the advantage of a wife in his bed, he had forgotten the disadvantage. She must be placated before he could rest. "Only if we insist on taxing ourselves."

"Surely we do not want to be on the road longer than we need be."

He had not moved from the foot of the bed as they spoke. The shadows in the room made him feel as if he might be talking to a ghost his imagination had conjured up. But she was no ghost. She was his wife. He wondered if she felt the same uneasy fluttering in her stomach at that fact as he did. "There is no true hurry. We will travel slowly. There are inns aplenty along the road. We will find a good one to shelter us each night." A wicked thought chased away the weariness for a moment, as he reflected that he was not married to a ghost, but a flesh-and-blood woman. "And, as I promised, a new lesson each day."

She stirred restlessly at that statement. Did she remember too well the feel of his hands gliding over her ankle, her leg? What would she do if he joined her in bed and —

She interrupted his thoughts with a very curt, "I need no lessons from you, my lord."

"I must say you have mastered the skills of harpy wife well," he replied. "But I wish a wife who responds to my kisses with more pleasure and less shame."

"I am indisposed," she said hastily, as if she believed he would leap on her then and there. The thought was surprisingly tempting. "I supposed that was why you saw no reason to retire early."

"I have not forgotten, Helena." He had, however, considered showing her there were still pleasures to be found in the marriage bed. But it had suited his purpose better not to come to bed before dawn. "Just as I have not forgotten the promise I made to you earlier. I always keep my promises."

She said quickly, "I had heard otherwise."

He pretended her words had no impact on him. No matter that he heard the fear behind them, and knew that she would hear worse things about him in the future. "Liars all. I simply make very few promises." Turning away, he carelessly discarded his waistcoat.

She moved, as if she would leave the bed, and then hesitated. Crawling back safely under the covers, she asked, "Should I ring for your valet?"

He shook his head sharply and then groaned at the resulting pain. "No. Leave Griggson to his bed. Poor man does hate to travel so. He could use a few hours more rest. I can manage —" He broke off. He could manage by himself. In fact, he had done so many times before. But he need not do so today. "This would make an excellent lesson for the day, would it not?" he asked, anticipating one of the advantages of a wife in one's bed.