The Wedding Bed (The Sun Never Sets, Book One)

The Wedding Bed

By

Ava Archer Payne

Copyright 2014 by Ava Archer Payne
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced, scanned, or distributed in any manner whatsoever without written permission from the author except in the case of brief quotation embodied in critical articles and reviews.

Chapter One

London
, 1845

The monkey was putting on one hell of a show.

Derek
Arindam Jeffords, Lord Keating, allowed his gaze to drift back to the small, screeching creature for perhaps the third time that hour. Apparently the monkey’s presence at the East India Company’s winter gala had not been deemed titillating enough on its own. Someone had gone the extra step and costumed the creature in the uniform of an Indian sepoy.

As a consequence, the animal
wore a bright red military jacket, a pair of baggy
junghiers
, a cummerbund, and a brilliant blue turban atop its tiny skull. Whoever was responsible for the creature had even thought to provide the beast with a miniature carved wooden rifle, which the monkey had been trained to hold against its left shoulder while it strutted across the table, mimicking the soldier it was meant to portray.

Lord
Henry Carston, sitting beside Derek, let out a loud guffaw at the monkey’s antics. “That’s the thing, isn’t it?” he chortled. “Little beastie looks just like ‘em!”

Derek
lifted his glass of bourbon and swirled his drink, but didn’t bring it to his lips. Keeping his voice carefully neutral, he asked, “Just like who?”

“Why, the natives, of course. Who else would it be?”

“Ah,” Derek returned. “The natives.” He tipped back his glass, enjoying the liquor’s smooth burn as it coursed down his throat.
Let it go
, he told himself.
Let it go.
Perhaps he could have, had he not made the mistake of glancing around the room.

T
hat evening’s gala was slightly different from others preceding it. A select group of Hindus, guests of one of the Directors, had been invited to join the festivities. Honored and excited, the women had arrived outfitted in their finest saris. The men donned silk kurtas, their dress every bit as formal and as colorful as their wives’ native garb.

Unfortunately, t
he evening had been less than a success. After an initial bout of stilted conversation between the English hosts and their Hindu guests, the Hindus had retired to one corner of the room, where they appeared to be making valiant attempts to be amused, rather than offended, by the monkey’s antics. Derek, however, had no difficulty being offended on their behalf.

“Exactly what is it that calls to mind the natives?
” he asked, turning the full force of his gaze on Carston. “The creature’s dark limbs, leering grin, or its excited grunts and squeals?”

Carston blinked in surprise.
“What’s that?” He turned toward Derek, dull confusion written on his face. Slowly realizing his words had somehow caused offense, he shook his head. “Why, I didn’t mean to disparage your countrymen.”

“My countrymen?”

“I, mean… Well…You are one of them, are you not?”

“Them?”

Carston’s eyes darted to the group of Hindus, then back to Derek. He started to speak, but then seemed to think better of it and drained his glass instead.

“I think I follow his meaning,”
put in Jonathon Hollinshed, Viscount Brooksbank. Derek had met Jonathon his first year at Eton, when they’d both been thirteen. A reckless wager—who would be the first to scale the dormitory roof—had resulted in a broken wrist for Jonathon and near expulsion for Derek. But that inauspicious beginning had led to a friendship of surprising depth.

“Do you?” asked Carston.

“Certainly.” Jonathon leaned toward Derek and gave a knowing nod. “I believe he’s referring to your swarthy brethren.”

“Precisely!” gushed Carston,
his relief almost palpable. Obviously mistaking Jonathon’s sarcasm for sincerity, he blurted out, “Not that it’s your fault, Lord Keating. Not at all. No one blames you directly. Had your father known a barony would one day rest upon your shoulders, surely he would not have sullied your blood by marrying a native.”

Stunned silence swept across the table.
Jonathon shattered it with a sharp bark of laughter. “Good God, man. You may be an idiot of the first water, but surely even you’re not stupid enough to malign the man’s mother. At least not directly to his face.”

“I only meant,
er…that is…” Carston stammered. His face drained of color. A fine sheen of perspiration formed on his upper lip.

A
ll eyes swung to Derek.

The man to
Carston’s left—the third son of a grossly indebted earl, who obviously had difficulties enough in his own life to contend with—gave a discreet cough and shifted his chair slightly backward, as though attempting to distance himself from the mayhem he assumed would shortly follow.

He needn’t have bothered.
Derek had no intention of creating a scene. Carston wasn’t worth it. Young and excitable, the man was simply unable to handle the gin he drank in regrettably copious amounts. In truth, his only real crime was being drunk enough to say aloud what nearly every man there already thought.

Still.
Impossible to let the insult go unchallenged. He leaned back in his chair and fixed his gaze on Carston. In a tone of silky menace, he inquired, “Was there a point you were attempting to make?”

Carston
gave a violent shake of his head. “I, I beg your pardon, Lord Keating. I meant no offense. Truly.” He shot to his feet, gave a curt bow and took his leave, scurrying across the room and escaping into the crowd like a rat vanishing through a floorboard.

The rest of the table cleared just as quickly
as the other gentlemen with whom they had been sitting suddenly recalled urgent obligations.

Jonathon cast a glance at the
ir newly vacant chairs, a few of them still rocking at the swiftness of their former occupant’s departures. “Well, that was pleasant,” he drawled, not bothering to mask his smile. “London’s finest. And one wonders why you don’t seek our company more often.”

Derek
released a curt breath that conveyed his utter contempt better than any words possibly could have.

At last report, the city of
London was estimated to enjoy a population of nearly two million souls. Yet he seemed fated to spending his time with the same group of idle sycophants, bloated men and their heavily jeweled wives, trailed by an endless parade of preening sons and empty-headed daughters. The exalted society of the East India Company.

But then, he had not come to enjoy their hospitality. Especially when he was tired and edgy and had enjoyed precious little sleep in the past forty-eight hours.
He’d over-leveraged his most recent cargo and was anxious to find a buyer. It was commerce he sought, not companionship. In retrospect, it was foolish in the extreme to have come at all. It had been a hunch—an ill-formed hunch, admittedly—that had led him there. A vague conviction that when the talk turned to trade, some sort of agreeable barter could be reached.

Obviously that wasn’t going to happen.
Not that evening. And certainly not with the honorable gentlemen in attendance.

Returning his attention to Jonathon, he said,
“You know, it’s beginning to occur to me that my welcome here may not be as warm as I’d hoped.”

“As if you give a damn.”

“I don’t.”

“A fact that is as gloriously obvious as the rouge on Miss Bellingham’s nipples. Remarkable, no?”

Derek followed Jonathon’s gaze toward the lady in question. A notable actress had taken the shocking liberty of darkening her nipples before stepping onstage in a costume of filmy white gauze, causing an overnight sensation. In the weeks that followed, it was all the rage for society’s more daring young ladies to follow her example. Miss Bellingham, outfitted in a pale yellow gown, had clearly taken pains to ensure her breasts received the same fervent attention.

“Remarkable,”
Derek allowed, though his voice was devoid of any real interest. The sport of seducing and bedding beautiful women—a game that had kept them happily occupied for more years than Derek wanted to acknowledge—had recently begun to loose its appeal.

He scanned the room one last time
, not sure what he was looking for, just
something
. Once again, his gaze came to rest on the damned monkey. The admiring crowd had only served to heighten the creature’s excitement. It screeched and leered, bouncing up and down. It lifted its tiny wooden rifle and pointed it, but rather than firing, the animal squatted and blew its lips together as though passing wind, drawing gales of laughter from its audience. 

Derek
clamped his jaw shut. He needed to leave. But first—he slipped a five pound note on a passing waiter’s tray. “Bring me the monkey.”

“Yes, s
ahib.”

Jonathon cocked a brow at him but said nothing
. Derek watched as the waiter, an elderly native dressed in the formal livery of a footman, returned moments later with the tiny beast clinging to his shoulder.

“Remove its costume.”

“Yes, sahib.”

The waited did as instructed
, placing the discarded garments on the table. Derek stood. He reached for the monkey and held it firmly in his hands. The creature was desperately over-stimulated, its tiny heart drumming wildly against its chest. Derek waited, holding the squirming monkey until its panting ceased and its heartbeat settled into what he assumed was a more regular rhythm.

“
Ahem. Pardon me. Lord Keating?”

Sir Philip Crawley stood scowling
across the table. Crawley, a retired colonel with Her Majesty’s 32
nd
Regiment, was a short man, his florid face framed by thick blond mutton-chop whiskers. His ego was as swollen as his belly. Gathered behind him was a group of assorted hangers-on, presumably the same group that had thrilled at the monkey’s antics just moments earlier.  

“
I assume this creature belongs to you, Crawley?”

“Indeed. No need to send a man over. If you’d wanted a closer look, you might have just—
”

“I think we’ve all seen enough.”

Crawley
’s eyes narrowed. He cut a glance over his shoulder at his audience of rapt onlookers, then turned back to Derek. A superior smirk lifted the corners of his mouth.

“
It’s just a bit of harmless levity. Surely even you can appreciate that, Keating. No harm done. Why, the creature’s not even male. It’s a girl.”

He reached for the monkey, but
Derek regarded him stonily, as though silently daring him to attempt to remove it from his grasp. Crawley hesitated, his cheeks flushing crimson as he lowered his arms.

“
Female is it,” Derek murmured, returning his attention to the tiny beast.

A crystal bowl
brimming with an assortment of exotic fruit sat in the center of the table. Flanking the dish was a pair of flickering tapers. Derek overturned the bowl with his free hand, carelessly spilling the fruit across the table. He gathered up the discarded sepoy uniform and dropped the miniature garments in the bowl.

“
In that case,” Derek continued, “if you insist on costuming the creature, might I suggest a dress. As well as a velvet robe, crown and scepter. And a name. Perhaps…Victoria.”

Shocked gasps echoed through the crowd.
Crawley’s jaw fell open. A look of horror overtook his expression.

“The
queen?”
he choked out. “Her royal majesty? Outrageous. I would never presume to—”

“Oh? Why is that?”

“Certainly you’re aware what a grave insult that would be.”

“
Ah. And we wouldn’t want to give offense, now would we? How fortunate that we are both in agreement.”

Derek
doused the tiny uniform with the last of his bourbon, then touched a candle to them. The garments ignited with a satisfying
whoosh
.

Crawley
’s face shifted from deep pink to a magnificent shade of purple. He opened his mouth as if to speak, then seemed to think better of it and snapped his jaw shut. The rasp of his grinding molars was audible.

Shrugging,
Derek turned. He lifted a fig from the spilled fruit and fed it to the monkey. The creature grabbed it with a shriek of delight and scampered up a potted palm. It leapt into in an enormous crystal chandelier and settled in to enjoy its bounty.

“Enjoy your evening,
Crawley.” Derek bowed politely, then sent a parting nod to Jonathon. “Brooksbank.”

He
strode away, leaving Crawley clenching his fists behind him and Jonathon, thoroughly amused, lifting his glass in a silent salute.