Trouble at the Wedding (7 page)

“I know, Mama,” Annabel called back, tucking her parasol under her arm long enough to don her hat and slide in her hat pin. “I'll be up in a few minutes. I promise.”

She turned her back, returning her attention to the view of Staten Island and giving Christian the chance to draw a deep breath and comprehend what seemed incomprehensible.

He thought of Rumsford the other night—of his flushed face and naughty-naughty English manner as he'd winked and smirked about having a tryst with a courtesan. At the time, Christian had found Rummy's adolescent behavior both amusing and a bit repugnant, but now as he looked at Miss Wheaton's hourglass curves and thought of her stunning face, he began to understand why the fellow was visiting courtesans. Any man engaged to this woman was bound to spend most of his time prior to the wedding night in a state of acute desperation. Did she realize it? he wondered.

Christian studied her back a moment longer, considering, then he straightened away from the rail, smoothed his tie, and buttoned his jacket. It was time to meet the bride.

A
nnabel had never been on a ship before. The closest thing to it had been a rickety rowboat on Goose Creek, and that rowboat, along with about half a dozen more, would fit inside one of the lifeboats that hung along the sides of the
Atlantic
, with room to spare.

This luxurious ocean liner was as unlike that old rowboat as a ship could be, and she was a long way from being the girl who used to row along Goose Creek and lay catfish bites. But she still wasn't far enough away. Not yet.

The correct prenuptial agreements had been drawn up and signed, much to Uncle Arthur's chagrin. The final wedding arrangements had been made, her dress was pressed and ready, the flowers and the cake were in the refrigerated section of the ship's stores, and the names on the guest list included Maimie Paget and Virginia Vanderbilt.

Six days from now, she'd be a countess. Seven days from now, she'd step off this ship and into a whole new life. She'd be Lady Rumsford, and she'd live on an estate older than her country. Once married, she'd have control of her money, and she'd be able to do so many wonderful things with it. She'd run charities and help with the village school and hospital. She'd help Bernard return Rumsford Castle to the grand estate it had once been, and together, they would hold those lavish parties and balls of which her lawyers so heartily disapproved. Her children would have crumpets and Cornish pasties and English Christmas, just like in a Dickens story. More important, her children would have position and the respect that came with it.

Uncle Arthur didn't quite see it all the way she did, but that was because he had this notion to protect her. What he didn't understand was that she didn't need protecting. She knew what she was getting into, which was why she let all her uncle's arguments roll off her back like water off a duck. Every single thing that Uncle Arthur saw as a flaw in Bernard, she saw as just right.

Yes, he was sort of dull, no denying it. But that was fine with her. A dull man was safe and predictable and easy to manage. Her friend Jennie Carter had married a French marquess, and from what Jennie had written, married women in Europe had far more freedom than married women in America. Here, a woman managed her home and not much else, but over there, a married woman was free to manage near anything she wanted, just as long as she could manage one thing: her husband. Annabel intended to do just that.

And yes, Bernard had already had a mistress or two, but that was long before he'd met her. It wasn't as if she didn't have some peccadilloes in her own past.

She also knew Bernard wouldn't have asked her to marry him if she were poor. Poor girls from no-account families didn't get to marry the boys from the good families. She'd learned that lesson the hard way.

Marry you?
Billy John's incredulous voice echoed through her mind from eight years ago, as clear as if it had all happened yesterday. It didn't hurt now, but she vividly remembered how much it hurt then. She couldn't change her past, but she had damn well been able to learn from it.

She wasn't in love with Bernard, and she hoped to God she would never be in love again. Girls in love were silly, and they made stupid, silly mistakes. She was a woman now, one whose eyes were wide open, and she was just fine with the way things had turned out. Bernard was offering her something more important than love, something she'd been seeking all her life: respect. There was no way she was turning that down.

A whole new world was about to open up. She'd have a husband and children to care for, and a house—castle, really—to manage. Her money would be in her control, and she had heaps of plans for what to do with it. Hospitals and orphanages and schools where poor girls could learn a trade. Yes, she was fair bursting with ideas, and she felt as if life was just beginning. She couldn't wait to get started.

A loud, exuberant whistle interrupted her thoughts and Annabel turned her head to see a ship every bit as grand as the
Atlantic
approaching the harbor from the open sea, black smoke spilling from its bright red smokestacks. To her, it was a magnificent sight, for these big ocean liners spoke of adventure and exotic far-off places that she couldn't wait to see. London would be first, of course, and then the rest of England. After that, Bernard had promised to show her Europe and Egypt, maybe even the Orient. A bubble of excitement rose up inside her, and she laughed out loud, anticipating all the wonderful things that lay ahead.

“Best not to stand there, Miss Wheaton.”

She turned at the sound of her name. A man she'd never seen in her life before stood in the doorway that led to the first class cabins of A-deck, one shoulder propped against the jamb in a negligent pose, hands in his trouser pockets, watching her. His lean face, handsome in a dark and wild sort of way, was unfamiliar to her.

She frowned, puzzled. “Do I know you?”

He flashed her a grin. “Would you like to?”

Annabel stiffened. She wasn't unaccustomed to men who got fresh—she'd dealt with men like that plenty of times in the days before society and chaperones, men who thought they could take advantage of a girl.

“No, I wouldn't,” she answered and turned her back, leaning out over the rail again to resume watching the approaching ship.

“I don't blame you a jot,” he said, sounding not the least bit perturbed by her snub. “There are many people who know me who wish they didn't. Still, I have been on enough ocean liners to know you're better off inside with me than you are out there.”

“I doubt it,” she shot back, for she had no intention of putting herself in closer proximity to him than she already was, but when he didn't speak again, she couldn't help glancing over her shoulder, curious to see if he was still in the doorway.

He was, of course, and she watched as he leaned forward to glance at the approaching ship. “Best move quickly, love,” he advised, straightening to look at her again. “You don't have much time. Two minutes at most, I'd say.”

Despite his elegant clothes and well-bred voice, Annabel just knew this man was trouble. She could feel it, and when he shot her an inquiring glance and turned sideways in the doorway, beckoning her to join him in the corridor, she didn't move.

He sighed. “You're a very untrusting sort of girl, aren't you? I can see I shall have to better elucidate my point.”

Stepping over the steel lip that protected the interior of the ship from any incoming water, he started across the promenade deck toward her as the cabin door swung shut behind him. With a hint of alarm, she glanced around, but there wasn't another person in sight. So as he approached, she faced him, lifting her parasol and pointing its tip at the place that would hurt him the most. “Come any closer, sugar, and you'll have to become a Catholic priest.”

He stopped, staring down at where the metal tip of her parasol grazed his trousers, but when he looked up at her, he was smiling a little, a faint smile of amusement that tilted the corners of his vivid, gray-blue eyes and curved the edges of his mouth. “A fate worse than death,” he murmured. “Celibacy, I fear, wouldn't suit me.”

He moved to stand at the rail beside her, careful to maintain the distance set by her parasol, and reached into the breast pocket of his jacket. He pulled out a silver case, and from it, he extracted a cigarette and a match. He put the cigarette to his lips, returned the case to his pocket, and struck the match on the ocean-corroded rail beside him.

“Wind's coming southeast,” he said, cupping his hand around the flame to light the cigarette. Tossing the match overboard, he pulled the cigarette from between his lips, tilted his head back and exhaled, sending a cloud of smoke upward. It caught on the breeze and broke apart, wispy remnants that sailed over his head toward the door he'd just exited. “See?”

She saw the smoke, but didn't see the point. What did it matter which direction the wind was blowing? “Do you do this all the time?” she demanded instead, taking the offensive. “Corner women when they're alone?”

“At every possible opportunity.” He seemed unashamed by the admission. “But at this moment, I'm actually attempting to be chivalrous.”

She made a sound of derision. “In a pig's eye.”

“Have it your way.” He took another pull on the cigarette, then flicked it overboard and glanced again at the approaching ship before he turned away. “You now have about fifteen seconds,” he told her over his shoulder as he retraced his steps, resumed his place, and settled one shoulder against the open door to keep it propped wide. “At that point, the smashing Worth creation you're wearing will be utterly ruined, but it's your choice.”

Comprehension dawned, and with an alarmed glance at the ship now directly to starboard and the black smuts pouring from its smokestacks, Annabel raced for the doorway. The man took several steps back, fingertips holding the door open for her, and she followed him inside. The door had barely closed behind them before a thick, black cloud poured over the promenade right where they'd been standing. She watched it through the door's pane of window glass, and she could only imagine how awful her beautiful yellow dress would look now, had she remained out on deck.

“That was a near shave, wasn't it?” he murmured behind her, his voice near to her ear.

Though he was not touching her, Annabel was acutely aware of how close he was to her. His body seemed to emanate heat she could feel even through her clothes, the kind of heat she hadn't felt for eight years, the kind of heat that fired up a girl from the inside out, flared out of control, and left her as scorched and empty as a burnt-out shack.

She would have hightailed it out of there as fast as she could, but for the moment there was nowhere to go. So she turned around, met his eyes, and kept a firm grip on her parasol, just in case it was needed again.

“Beastly stuff, coal dust,” he murmured. “It penetrates right through your clothes and puts a dingy film on your skin.” His lashes, thick and straight and as black as the soot he was discussing, lowered as he cast a glance over her, and the heat radiating through her body flooded into her face. She recognized that look. It was the same one Billy John always had, that slow, sliding sort of glance that could make her weak in the knees.

“In fact,” he went on, returning his gaze to her face, still smiling a little, “I doubt even the steam of a Turkish bath would do the trick.”

Those words doused her susceptibility to hot looks from heartbreakers as effectively as a flood of water doused a fire. “You were eavesdroppin' on me and my sister?”

“Sorry. Couldn't help it.” He pointed directly above their heads. “The balcony of my cabin is right up there.”

Annabel glanced up at the ceiling, then back at him, frowning. “That's my uncle's suite.”

“It was, yes. Urgent business called me back to England unexpectedly, and because of your wedding, I could not obtain a stateroom in first class. Hearing of my difficulty, Mr. Ransom kindly offered his suite to us and agreed to take my sister's cabin in exchange.”

“Uncle Arthur isn't kind, not kind like that, not to strangers.”

“Ah, but I'm not a stranger, Miss Wheaton.”

“You are to me, and how do you know my name?”

“I know your fiancé,” he said as if that was an answer to her question. “It's not uncommon for a duke and an earl to know each other.”

“You're a duke?” Annabel sniffed, not believing it for a second. Despite his fine suit of clothes, accent, and access to first class, he had a touch of the tar brush about him that seemed at odds with the high and noble rank he claimed. Besides, a duke surely wouldn't eavesdrop on a woman's intimate conversations, and even if he did, he'd never be so uncouth as to mention it to the woman afterward.

“Difficult to imagine, I know.” He reached again into his jacket pocket, this time extracting a card. “The Duke of Scarborough, at your service,” he said, presenting it to her with a bow.

She hesitated, not taking it. She knew who the Duke of Scarborough was, of course. His sister, Lady Sylvia Shaw, was one of the guests Bernard had included on their invitation list. But she found it hard to believe this man was the brother of a lady like that. Why, he wasn't even wearing gloves, she realized, staring at his long, strong fingers. How could he be a duke? How could he even be a gentleman? A gentleman, she knew, always wore gloves.

With skepticism, Annabel took the card, an elegant one of white linen edged with silver that supported his contention of a ducal title, not that an elegant card meant much. Hers were every bit as fancy as these, but they weren't what would make her a lady.

“Christian Du Ques—” She paused over his surname, sure she was about to make a mistake in the pronunciation, and when she glanced up, his widening smile told her she already had.