The Perfect Bride (6 page)

"Amanda!
You must come right away!"

An
eerie creaking punctuated Felicity's words as the door between their rooms
swung open on hinges that evidently had not been oiled in years. A solitary
candle provided the only light as Felicity stood motionless on the threshold
like an angel of doom.

"What
is it?" Amanda demanded.

"I
heard noises!"

"Nonsense."
But she sat up in bed.

"I
did!"

A
sudden gust of wind kicked up the leaves on the balcony outside a full-length
row of windows, whirling them about in a mad little dance and rattling the
window panes like some ghostly hand. Sommersby Castle provided ample
inspiration for a rampant imagination, Amanda thought wearily.

Rubbing
her eyes, she brought her chamber into focus for the first time since
retreating into the blessed oblivion of sleep. Evidently, the Thorntons' thirst
for blood went beyond merely displaying ancient weapons in the Great Hall. The
same martial air permeated Amanda's room. The heavy walnut wardrobe opposite
her bed seemed to glare at her with knotty black eyes. A vivid painting of a
bloody battle presided over the dressing table. At the fireplace, a carved mantel
depicted grotesque figures in various stages of torture. Outside, the balcony
ran the length of the wing; even a practical woman might be forgiven for
imagining that nocturnal creatures might creep in through the full-length
windows. No wonder her dreams had been grotesque.

Amanda
shivered as her bare feet touched the cold stone floor, but one look at
Felicity's face banished any thought of stopping to find her slippers. As
Felicity held up her solitary candle, the ghostly light illuminated her
cousin's fearful eyes. Amanda hurried to her side.

"I
daresay whatever you heard was only a vivid dream," she reassured her.
"I have had some rather colorful dreams myself tonight."

Felicity
shook her head. "I distinctly heard a noise coming from my wardrobe."

Stepping
through the adjoining door into Felicity's room, Amanda noted that her cousin's
chamber was not half so gruesome as hers. The heavy wardrobe matched the one
that had stared at her so relentlessly, but there were no wild paintings on the
walls to conjure images of war and death, no bare floors to chill the feet. A
comfortable rug covered a large portion of the stone floor, and several
beautiful quilts adorned the bed. Blue damask bed hangings matched the flowing
draperies that framed the balcony windows.

Amanda
frowned. "I cannot see what is so troubling, Felicity. Your room is vastly
more peaceful than mine. Why, you should see the painting on my —"

"Hush!
There it is again!"

A
faint scratching sound met her ears. Amanda forced her pulse to remain steady,
but Felicity's nervous state was contagious. "I daresay these are but the
customary nighttime noises in the castle," she said with a confidence she
was far from feeling.

"I
do not think so. It came from the wardrobe."

"Mice,
no doubt." Taking a deep breath, Amanda threw open the wardrobe doors.

Felicity's
gowns, hung neatly by the maid earlier, proved to be the only contents.

Relieved,
Amanda turned to her cousin. "It is nothing. Our surroundings are a bit
unusual, I will grant you, but I expect that when you get accustomed to the
castle, your fears will vanish."

But
Felicity was staring in horror at a point above Amanda's head. "There!
Something moved!"

Amanda
turned. There was indeed a slight movement on the top of the wardrobe, although
the piece was too high and the room too dark for her to see what caused it. Her
pulse racing, Amanda looked around until her gaze settled on a heavy chair. 

"Hold
the candle up a bit," she commanded, dragging the chair over to the
wardrobe.

"Be
careful," Felicity cautioned as Amanda hitched up her nightrail and
climbed onto the chair.

"I
daresay it is nothing." But Amanda extended one hand over the top of the
wardrobe with no small trepidation. "Hold the candle higher, dear. I
cannot see a thing."

Suddenly
her groping fingers met something solid, furry, and very much alive. An ungodly
wail emerged from the thing as it charged, toppling Amanda and the chair
backward onto the floor. Felicity's scream pierced the night.

For
Amanda, the next moments were a rush of blurred impressions — the fleeting
small shadow that raced by them, a wrenching spasm of pain, Felicity's
hysterical cries. The stocky chair pinned her to the floor, and she could not
muster the strength to move it.

Dimly
she caught a movement on the balcony outside the bay of windows. Amanda's heart
leapt to her throat as a masculine figure came sharply into focus.

Like
a ghostly apparition summoned from the night, the figure stood in silhouette on
the balcony. Shadows obscured his face, but Amanda could see distinctly the
enormous sword he held, poised at the ready. Moonlight lent the weapon an
unearthly silver radiance, suggesting it had been forged by some celestial
hand.

Responding
instantly to his touch, a window swung open. The intruder stepped into the
room.

Felicity's
terrified shriek could have waked the dead, but Amanda felt no fear, only a
riveting thrill as he paused to regard them silently. Even in scant
candlelight, he was the most beautiful man she had ever seen.

He
wore no shirt. His bare chest and rippling muscles paid tribute to all that was
primitive in male power. He stood fierce and tall, as regal as Zeus in the
moment before wreaking vengeful justice on some hapless mortal. The massive
sword looked to have demanded the strength of two men, but his corded arms held
it effortlessly.

Slowly,
the flickering candle unveiled his features. Amanda inhaled sharply at the
clean, uncompromising jawline, piercing crystalline eyes, and blazing red hair
that framed the shadowed contours of his face. Thick and untamed, his windblown
mane stood in stark contrast to the still discipline that radiated from every
tensed muscle, as if wild passions warred with steely control.

Not
Zeus, Amanda amended.
Ares
. A warrior to the bone. Primitive.
Bloodlusty.

For
an assessing moment he stood motionless, balancing on the balls of his feet,
gauging, perhaps, whether there was need for that luminous broadsword he wielded
so easily.

Then,
in one masculine stride, he closed the distance between them and with one hand lifted
the heavy chair off Amanda as if it were a feather. Laying the great sword
beside him, he knelt down to assess her injuries. Amanda felt every muscular
fiber of his fingers as they moved over her battered legs.

As
Felicity watched mutely, Amanda remained motionless, pinned not by her injury
so much as by the heat of his sure, probing fingers and the unabashed intimacy
of his touch. Robbed of rational thought, she stared at him, marveling as what
was left of her mind spun all measure of fantasies. Truly he might have been a
god, come down from the heavens to rescue them from their nocturnal demons. As
he worked over her limbs, she drank in every movement of his perfectly shaped
muscles, giddy in the unexpected, unimaginable pleasure.

When
his fingers reached her ankle, however, she winced. He looked up.

Their
gazes held. Amanda's pain vanished in those green depths. Where his hand rested
on her ankle, her skin burned with a different sort of warmth.

   A
spark leapt the space between them and caught her fast. Amanda could scarcely
breathe.

"I
hope I did not frighten you," he said. His voice was low, mellifluent, and
it resonated with an intimacy meant only for her. "I am Sommersby."

And
I
,
she thought weakly,
am your devoted slave
.

***

Like
Pack at Quatre Bras when the French cavalry moved in on his flank bound for the
crest at Waterloo, Simon felt utterly exposed. Among all his Royals and
Highlanders, Pack could only muster 1,400 bayonets; Simon's solitary sword
stood as an equally insubstantial weapon against the strangely overwhelming
force that emanated from somewhere behind Miss Fitzhugh's eyes.

His
pulse pounded wildly. His breathing felt labored. Battle-readiness did that to
a man, and though he had not faced fire in months, some things a man never
forgot.

Like
confronting a murderous brigade of French cuirassiers with only rum-soaked
Dragoons at his back. Like the look in a woman's eyes that threatened a
discipline hardened by charging Napoleon's twelve-pounders and taunting death
more times than he could count.

Bursting
half-naked into the room brandishing the relic of a sword snatched from his
bedside wall was not the usual introduction to one’s prospective bride — or her
chaperon. No wonder Miss Fitzhugh looked at him so strangely.

"
Sommersby
?"
she stammered.

There
was something different about her. It was not just the fact that her usually severe
hair fell wildly around her shoulders. It was the look in her eyes, a
bewildered and almost sensual vulnerability.

"We
were not expecting you, that is, not until tomorrow." She stared from him
to the window and back again. Her lips parted slightly as her gaze dropped to
his hand — which, Simon belatedly realized, still lingered on her ankle.

Jerking
his fingers away, Simon disciplined his thoughts.  "I did not mean to
startle you," he said. "I heard screams. My room opens along the same
balcony." He rose and placed a respectable distance between them. The
heavy broadsword felt good and solid in his hands, although it would have been
as cumbersome as a cudgel in a real attack. Since leaving the army, he no
longer slept with his efficient sabre at his side and had simply seized the
nearest weapon at hand.

Simon
was acutely conscious of his lack of clothing as Miss Fitzhugh regarded him unblinkingly
from her position on the floor. Miss Biddle, however, suddenly found her voice.

"We
are indebted to you for coming to our rescue, Lord Sommersby." Miss Biddle
did not look at him directly, but fixed her gaze somewhere on the wall behind
him.

Simon
was grateful for her discretion. He supposed he ought to apologize for his lack
of attire, but to speak of the matter outright would undoubtedly shock the
ladies’ delicate sensibilities. And so he said nothing, merely tried to appear
as if there was nothing at all out of the ordinary.

"When
Amanda climbed up to investigate a movement on the wardrobe, that...
creature
jumped at her." Miss Biddle pointed, and Simon saw a tail twitching back
and forth under the bed, where a large orange tabby had taken refuge.

"That
is quite enough, Felicity," Miss Fitzhugh said, reaching for her cousin's
hand. "I am certain Lord Sommersby wishes he were back in his own bed.
Help me to my feet, please."

   Miss
Biddle wore a vague gaze, and the delicate hand she extended was not up to the
task. Simon strode over to Miss Fitzhugh again and lifted her into his arms.

In
the moment he brought her against his chest, he knew he had committed a grave
error. The room's shadows had obscured the fact that she wore only a thin
nightrail. The gauzy fabric settled around her like a caress. What of her
feminine curves it did not reveal to his eye were readily apparent to his touch
as he held her. Her hair flowed over her shoulders in waves, and some of the
silky tresses clung to his face.

Miss
Fitzhugh seemed not to know what to do with her hands, but after an awkward
moment placed them around his neck for balance. In such an intimate embrace did
they remain, two relative strangers, until Simon had the presence of mind to
ask her whether her ankle could bear any weight.

"Oh,
yes, I imagine so," she quickly replied. When he lowered her to the floor,
however, she grimaced in pain.

Much
as he had carried wounded soldiers off the field, he carried Miss Fitzhugh to
her bed in the next room — acutely aware of how very unlike those soldiers she
was.

Her
weight was nothing to him; nevertheless, breathing suddenly proved difficult.
That a scantily dressed female would provoke such a primitive response seemed
logical, perhaps, but wildly inappropriate and something to be immediately
willed away.

Slow
and steady, that was the key. Men ruled by passion died in battle. Men who
disciplined themselves stood a chance.

Simon
was not proud of the raw, uncivilized side of him, for it sometimes warred with
honor. He had always controlled that side, never allowing it to interfere with a
mission or turn him into one of those bloodlusty soldiers driven to kill for
the sport of it. Years of battle had taught him that discipline could be had
for a price, and he was more than willing to pay it.

But
he was not at war any more. Miss Fitzhugh was the spinster cousin and chaperon
of his likely bride-to-be. As such, there was no reason for him to be
experiencing something very like desire as he gingerly set her down upon the
bed. Nor was there reason to contemplate the way the fabric of her gown fell
into place around her as she lay back against the pillow, her strong chin and
high cheekbones giving her anything but a fragile appearance. Despite the
somewhat dazed manner in which she regarded him, Miss Fitzhugh radiated
strength.