The Bridegroom Read online

  Looking for a reason to turn around and go home? The sky would make a better one. It is filling with dark clouds. And that frilly parasol you brought along will not do you much good against a hard rain.

  In the end, Becky’s careful toilette proved a waste of time, since it began to pour while she was yet half a mile from Albury Manor. She was wearing a pretty cape, which quickly became soaked, and her straw bonnet began to sag under the weight of the rainwater. With every step she took, her slippers slung mud halfway up her back, and her hem was soon dirtied as well.

  By the time she reached the back door of Albury Manor, Becky did not much care whether Mick was there or not. She doubted seriously whether the bedraggled female arriving on his doorstep would prove an irresistibly tempting feminine morsel. She was so frustrated, she could have cried, except that would only have added reddened eyes and a dripping nose to the list of her deficiencies.

  The medieval stone manor house was much smaller than she had thought it would be, rectangular in shape, with a steeply peaked shingled roof. There were two narrow windows in front and two in back, which she thought must correspond to what could not be more than four rooms on the single floor that comprised the whole of it.

  If she were ever to defy convention and marry Mick, this house—or one very like it, if her father dismissed Mick in outrage, and they had to move away—might be where she lived out the rest of her life. There was not even a separate room for Lily, let alone space for the army of servants who now cared for her needs. It was daunting to contemplate such an existence.

  But she had not been able to resist contemplating it. As she had learned only yesterday, life could end with frightening suddenness. It seemed foolish to deny herself the chance for happiness with Mick simply because people would talk. What she feared—what she doubted—was her own ability to learn how to do all the tasks that servants now performed for her.

  She had decided to start with seducing Mick, and see how things progressed. There would be time enough later to decide whether she would make a good wife for him.

  Becky knocked on the door, and when it was not answered immediately, she realized Mick probably was not at home after all. She had no idea whether he had any servants—there certainly was no room for them to live on the premises—but when she tried the doorknob, it opened without a sound, and she let herself in.

  The house felt empty. The floor was made of uneven stone, so there were not even any creaking boards to give away her presence. She started to call out, but then felt silly. If anyone had been at home, they would have answered the door.

  Becky found herself in a kitchen containing a cooking stove and a counter with a water pump attached. Everything was put away in its place, hanging on the wall or in a cupboard.

  The room looked far larger on the inside than it had from the outside. Perhaps that was because there was so little in it. She set down her basket and wet parasol on the small round table where she suspected Mick ate his meals. The door to the kitchen led to a hall, and she headed for it, intent on finding a fire to warm herself and dry her clothes.

  Directly across from the kitchen she discovered a bedroom, the bed neatly made, the room uncluttered, quite spare in its furnishings. She spied one of Mick’s favorite waistcoats hanging from the bedstead and deduced it was his bedroom.

  Shivering with cold, Becky hurried forward down the hall toward an open door on the left. A quick glance revealed a sofa and chairs, but otherwise the sitting room was empty. The fire had burned down to ashes without the grate being cleared and a new fire being laid. Becky had never shoveled ashes in her life, much less carried wood and laid a fire.

  There were obviously no servants to do the work. If she lived here with Mick, either he must do it, or she must. Becky shivered again. Perhaps there was a fire in the other room or at least some wood near the other fireplace, so she would not have to go back outside hunting for it.

  As she left the sitting room, Becky noticed for the first time that the door on the opposite side of the hall was closed. Was Mick inside? Was the closed door the reason he had not heard her knock?

  It was tempting to let herself out as quietly as she had let herself in. Seeing where Mick lived—how he lived—forced her to acknowledge how difficult it would be for them to have any future together. Even if she could learn to do without, was it fair to subject Lily to such a fate? To be honest, Becky was not sure she could adapt to a life where so much would be expected of her. What if she could not learn? She could not bear to become an additional burden on Mick.

  All roads led back to the one great weakness in her character. It would take courage to give up the familiar. Courage to learn a new way of life. Courage to face the tabbies. And Becky had always been notoriously faint of heart.

  She was standing in the hallway, still uncertain which way to turn, when the door opened, and Mick stood before her.

  “Becky! Good grief, girl. What happened to you? What are you doing here? You’re soaking wet. Come in here by the fire and get warm. Here, let me get that bonnet off of you. Bear with me, the knot is stuck tight.”

  Well, Becky thought, the bonnet has done its job. The rest is up to me.

  She smiled.

  “I’m glad to see you have not lost your sense of humor,” he said. “There, that does it.” He held the sodden bonnet out in front of him. “Perhaps if I set it on the mantel it will regain some of its shape as it dries.” He came right back to her and started to work untying her cape. “This has to go as well. It’s sopping wet.”

  She wondered if it had occurred to him that he was undressing her. She decided not to point it out to him, but concentrated instead on taking off her gloves.

  “Here, sit down in this chair by the fire and let me get those half boots off. You’ll catch your death.”

  She curled her fingers around his hand as he led her over to a ladder-back chair that he pulled away from his desk and angled toward the fire. He pressed her into the chair with a hand on her shoulder, then knelt and took off her muddy half boots one at a time. He wiped the mud from his hands onto his trousers, which she could see were already soiled from whatever physical labor he must have done that morning.

  “Your stockings are damp,” he said, reaching up under her skirt all the way to her knees and pulling first one down and then the other. “Better let them dry out, too.”

  After he had pulled off the second stocking, but before he could rise and move away, Becky reached out and laid a hand on his head, running her fingers through his hair.

  Mick froze.

  She let her hand drop back into her lap. And waited to see what he would do.

  Without looking at her, and without leaving his knee, he carefully untangled her white stockings and laid them across a wrought-iron bar that held tools for the fireplace.

  In case Mick thought she had touched him accidentally, Becky reached out again. This time she brushed the backs of her fingers across his cheek, then traced his lower lip with her thumb. She saw the pulse beating hard and fast in his throat. His eyelids were lowered, hiding his eyes from her.

  Mick reminded her of a wild buck she had come across in the forest that was curious enough to stand and see what she would do, but ready to bolt at the slightest hint of danger.

  “What are you doing, Becky?” he asked in a low, husky voice.

  She put her hand beneath his chin and tipped his face up, forcing him to look at her. Forcing herself to look him in the eye. She tried to smile, but could not get her mouth to cooperate. “I had a hope you might undress me completely in the interest of getting me warm. That would have been a great help in accomplishing what I came here to do.”

  “What was that?” he asked.

  She managed a crooked smile. “Seduce you.”

  She waited for him to smile back, but his eyes had never looked more sober. His face had never looked more serious.

  “I have never wanted anything in my life as much as I want you,” he said. “But—”
/>   She put one hand on his shoulder to keep him from rising, the other across his lips to cut off his speech. “Please don’t say it would not be honorable to lie with me. Please don’t say you owe my father too much to take advantage of me. And don’t tell me I will regret this later. The only thing I will regret is leaving here as untouched as I was when I came through your kitchen door.”

  “Becky …” His eyes looked tortured. His shoulder had turned to iron beneath her hand.

  “Love me, Mick,” she pleaded. “Show me how it feels to be loved.”

  As he rose, her hand fell away, but her gaze remained locked with his. A second later he had lifted her into his arms. She linked her arms around his neck and laid her head on his shoulder as he carried her out of his study and down the hall to his bedroom.

  It was cold, because there was no fire, but he pulled down the covers on the bed and set her on the edge of it.

  “Let’s get you out of this dress and under the covers where you can get warm,” he said quietly.

  She turned her back so he could unbutton her dress, and lifted her bottom so he could peel it off of her without her setting her bare feet on the rough stone floor. She scooted under the covers before he could remove her chemise and pantalets, as modesty finally reared its head, and pulled the sheet and quilt up to her neck.

  She stared at him with wide, frightened eyes, wondering what would happen next. Afraid, because she had no experience pleasing a man—she had never pleased Penrith—and she wanted very much to please Mick.

  “Let me light a fire in here,” he said.

  She wanted to shout, “Can’t that wait?” But she realized he was right. They would both be warm so long as they were making love, but afterward, when he was damp with sweat, as Penrith had often been, Mick was likely to get chilled.

  She sat forward and watched what he did, thinking that she would need to pay attention to everything from now on, just to see if she could learn. In the end, it did not take very long to lay a fire. Just long enough for her nerves to begin to jump.

  Mick must have seen the fear that had risen like an ensnaring snake to choke her, because he came to her without removing any of his clothes and sat down beside her and slowly began taking the pins from her hair.

  “What has you grinning like the cat that got the cream?” he asked.

  “When I tried to think of ways I might seduce you, I imagined you taking the pins from my hair.”

  “What happened next?” he said, removing the last pin.

  “I have no idea,” she answered with a nervous laugh.

  “How about a kiss?”

  Fortunately, he did not require a response, because her heart leaped into her throat, preventing speech entirely. His hands caught in her hair and angled her face up to his. The kiss was tender—for about two seconds—and then it was hungry, ravenous, voracious.

  Becky had always believed there must be something wrong with her, because she had never felt any great desire to be kissed by her husband. Had never very much liked the way he touched her. Never wanted to have him inside her, because it was at best uncomfortable and at worst hurtful.

  Everything was so different with Mick. She could not touch him enough, could not get close enough to him, could not get enough of his kisses. She could hardly bear to let him go long enough to strip off his clothes or the rest of her own. For the first time, she asked for what she wanted.

  “I want you inside me. Now.”

  Becky gave a sob of joy when Mick thrust deep inside her.

  He paused, his weight braced on his straining arms, his features taut, his eyes burning with need. “Have I hurt you?” he asked. “Shall I stop?”

  “Penrith said a man cannot stop.”

  He brushed a curl away from her forehead. “I can always stop, though sometimes it may be difficult. Shall I stop?” he asked again.

  Mick started to withdraw, but Becky wrapped her arms around him and held him where he was. “No,” she said. “It feels good, Mick. It never did before. Never!”

  She heard his agonized moan and reached up to stop it with her mouth. She had never kissed a man; she had always been the one who was kissed. She let her tongue slip into Mick’s mouth, enraptured by the taste of him, mimicking the movement of their bodies below.

  When at last they lay sated together, both their bodies slicked with sweat, Mick’s arms wrapped tightly around her, and their bodies spooned together as though they were one, Becky said the only words she knew to thank him for what he had done.

  “I love you, Mick.”

  She heard him catch his breath, felt the muscles tense in his arms and thighs, before he replied, “I love you, too, Becky. Will you marry me?”

  Chapter 18

  Reggie had never realized how many customs must be observed from springtime until harvest when one wanted to begin farming. She had come home from the picnic ready to put a plough to the land the very next day, but George had told her, “It canna be done, milady.”

  “Why not?” she asked.

  “Ye canna begin ploughing until the moon be on the wane. Then there is the blessing by his lordship, and—”

  “What blessing?”

  Reggie had listened for another half hour to everything George had to say before she sought out Carlisle in his library.

  “Caught you!” she said, when she saw what he was reading.

  His ears pinkened. It was the pamphlet on improving yield. “It was sitting here on my desk when I came in.”

  “I am glad you are studying, because it seems there is a great deal we both need to learn about farming,” she said. “In fact, I came here to see if you are aware of all the folk customs that must be observed if we are to have a good crop.”

  He raised an arrogant brow. “If I farm at all, I intend to use modern methods.”

  “That makes a great deal of sense,” she agreed. “But what would be the harm in following the old customs? As George described them to me, they seem relatively simple and absolutely harmless.”

  His brows arrowed down. “Give me an example of these simple, harmless customs.”

  “Well, you will have to bless the plough.”

  Carlisle snickered. “You’re joking.”

  “I am entirely serious. You must drink a glass of whiskey, then fill the glass again and pour it over the bridle of the plough, and say, ‘God speed this plough.’ Of course, there can be no further work the day of the blessing, and usually there is a dance to celebrate.”

  “Celebrate what?” he asked.

  “Why, the blessing, of course.”

  “It is a moot point, because I have not made up my mind to farm.”

  “Oh, you will not have to do anything,” Reggie said. “I will manage it all. Except the blessing. You will have to be there for that.”

  “Reggie, I—”

  “Please, my lord,” she said, crossing to where he sat at his desk. “Think of all the hungry mouths this work will feed. And consider how much richer you will be when the crops are harvested.”

  “I am rich enough,” he said.

  “The land is yours,” she said, refusing to take no for an answer. “You might as well use it.”

  “Giving me back the land does not make up for everything else he did,” Carlisle said, leaning forward across his desk.

  “No one said it did,” Reggie replied. “But I believe my father must have felt very bad about what he did to return so much valuable land without asking for anything in return.”

  “He got his pound of flesh from my back,” Carlisle snarled.

  “For Christ’s sake, lad. No one says ye have to give up yer blasted revenge. Just farm the damned land!”

  Reggie started and whirled to find Pegg sitting in the wing chair before the fire. “I didn’t see you there,” she said, laying a hand against her pounding heart.

  He rose from the chair and stumped across the room to join them. “In all the years we spent at sea, ye never opened yer mouth but out came dreams of com
in’ home and farmin’ the land. Why pretend now ye dinna care?”

  “Blackthorne killed those dreams!” Carlisle shot back as he rose from his chair to confront Pegg.

  “Aye, some dreams are dead,” Pegg agreed. He glanced at Reggie, then met and held Carlisle’s brooding gaze. “But others may still come true. Grab what ye can, lad, and forget what’s lost.”

  Pegg stumped out of the library, leaving Reggie alone with her husband. It always came back to the same sad refrain, she thought. Carlisle could not live in the present, and could not see any future, because he was still mired in the misery of the past.

  “Will you farm, my lord?” she asked.

  “Bloody hell,” he said.

  “Will you bless the plough?” she demanded.

  “Yes, damn it, I will bless the bloody plough! Are you happy now?”

  Reggie smiled. Brilliantly. “Oh, yes, my lord. Quite happy.”

  Simms entered the library and announced, “I have escorted someone claiming to be a sinner to the drawing room. If I may be allowed to say so, the iniquitous female bears a startling resemblance to your ladyship.”

  “It must be my sister,” Reggie said to Carlisle. “Something must have happened to bring her back here so soon.”

  “Do you want me to come with you?” he asked.

  Reggie was both surprised and grateful for Carlisle’s offer of support. “If I need you, I will send one of the underfootmen to find you.” She was at the door when she turned back and said, “Thank you, Clay.”

  Reggie would have run all the way to the drawing room if she had not been so aware of all the eyes focused on her. Apparently the word had spread that she was a twin. The same superstitious Scots who demanded the observance of certain rituals to guarantee a good crop were ogling her as though she were a freak of nature. She felt like yelling “Boo!” and watching them scatter but managed to control the impulse.

  She arrived in the drawing room to find Becky wrapped in a shawl and standing close to the fireplace.

  “Has something happened to Father or Kitt? Are Gareth and Meg and Lily all right?” Reggie asked.