A Convenient Bride (16 page)

“Beautiful,” Lucy breathed, agog at the splendor of the entryway. The ceiling was three stories high in the five-story house and was painted with a mural of angels at play. There were tapestries on the walls and tall windows to let in the sunlight.

Brenna nodded. “It is lovely.” During her brief stop in her search for Richard, she’d not gotten past the stoop. Now she’d be living here, and she wanted to see it all.

She and Lucy stepped aside as a pair of footmen entered with one of Brenna’s trunks, another pair on their heels. The foursome easily carried the two trunks up the curved staircase as if they were not packed to bursting with her possessions.

“I do not know where to start.” Brenna held tight to Lucy’s hand. She glanced about for a maid, but she and Lucy appeared forgotten in the chaos of their arrival. “My husband needs to be taught manners.”

“Richard can be a bore.” The pair turned to find the blonde, recovered from her shock, standing in an open doorway. Her loveliness was even more apparent in the lamplight. Though her eyes were sharp, she smiled. “I shall show you to your rooms. Tomorrow, I’ll give you a tour of the hall.”

Fatigued and overwhelmed, Brenna did not argue. The trip had taken a toll, and her body craved sleep. “Thank you—?”

“Bethany.” She took Brenna by the elbow, pointedly ignoring Lucy. “I shall explain all about our little group once you have rested. You look positively peaked.”

Lucy made a disgusted sound behind them, and Brenna’s hand went to her face. How bad did she look?

“This way,” Bethany said, and led her down a shadowed
hallway. They passed several rooms and stopped at the second to the last at the end. Bethany pushed the door open. “Here we are.”

The bedroom was large and decorated in yellow and white. A door off to one side led to a small sitting room and past that to what she assumed was the master’s chamber. Brenna had not considered that she and her reluctant husband would be quartered so closely together. She’d have thought Richard would want her in another wing.

“A maid will be assigned to you. If you need anything, she will fetch it for you,” Bethany said. “Your companion will be one floor up. I will show her to her room.”

“Thank you,” Brenna replied.

Lucy sent her one last glance for courage and followed Bethany out.

Brenna removed her hat and sat it on a narrow settee. The sitting room shared the same yellow as the bedroom. In a moment of pique, she walked into the sitting room, pulled over a chair, and shoved it up under the door handle to the master’s chamber. If Richard intended to sneak in during the night and have his way with her, he had better reconsider. While she ached to share a bed again, she’d not do so until his attitude about her, and their baby, changed.

“I will show him I am not some delicate daisy,” she grumbled, and glared at the door. “And I will make this marriage work…or expire trying.”

She heard the maid arrive and sighed. “Stubborn man,” she whispered, and left the sitting room.

I
t was nearly ten when Richard heard the maid leave his wife. Brenna moved around for a few minutes more before blowing out the lamp, extinguishing the thin patch of light under the door.

He leaned against the headboard and listened intently for sounds, any sounds, coming from her room. Aside from the rustle of bedding as she moved on the bed, there was nothing.

His cock twitched. The image of her, clad in only her bedclothes with her hair tumbling about her shoulders in coal-dark disarray, left him feverish. She was no longer hours away in
London. Only footsteps separated them now. If he wanted to, he could take her as was his right. Damn his vow to keep her out of his bed.

Dressed only in his boots, trousers, and shirt, his hands behind his head, he jerked his mind from thoughts of her naked and writhing beneath him and contemplated her news—news that in an instant had changed his life forever.

Brenna. He should have known the minx couldn’t keep her part of the bargain. Only she would agree to end the marriage, then show up pregnant.

A baby. They were having a baby. His heart clenched. Born too early for survival, his son had lived for only a few minutes while Millicent, who had lost so much blood, followed their son shortly thereafter. The midwife had done all she could to save them both, but the effort proved futile. Over the course of an afternoon, he’d lost them both.

Now Brenna was carrying his child.

How had he allowed that to happen? He’d been so careful with previous lovers. There were ways to prevent conception. The first virgin who finds her way into his bed gets with child on their first and only night together. And what a night it was. She’d upended his world and changed everything. Not a day had passed over the last month when he’d not thought of her in his arms. Now she was under his roof to torment him in person.

He closed his eyes. Fate had dealt him a cruel hand.

With effort, he pushed aside thoughts of what he’d lost and focused instead on what to do about Brenna. Knowing the stubborn chit as he did, she had a reason for coming, and it was not just about the babe. She had another agenda—he was certain of it.

He stared at her closed door. He’d heard her drag the chair over and push it under the handle. The lady may have shown up unannounced with some unspoken plan for him, but she wasn’t ready to forgive him for his perceived misbehavior. He suspected over the next months he’d see more of her fiery temper.

Unbidden images returned. Brenna naked in bed, her eyes smoky from lovemaking, her kisses on his chest, and a sultry smile etched on her mouth.

He’d never seen anything so beautiful—and so dangerous. If he did not protect himself, in a short time she’d have him chasing after her like a besotted fool.

Love had no place in marriage; he’d learned a harsh lesson there. Once a heart was engaged, pain followed.

M
orning came with sunshine on her face and the distant bleating of sheep. Brenna grumbled when the bleating came again. She rolled over and stretched, the scent of tea filling her senses.

One lid lifted to find the curtains open and a tea tray sitting on a table by the bed. Though she couldn’t immediately find a clock, by the lack of full daylight, she assumed it was still early—far too early to get up. With a groan, she pulled the coverlet over her head. The sound of male voices drifted from the bedroom next door. Obviously, Richard awoke with the roosters—or the sheep—and expected the same from her. Otherwise, the curtains would be closed and the tea still downstairs in the pot.

She’d have to convince him that the morning was for sleeping. She was on a London schedule; if he wanted to roam the dales with his sheep at sunrise, that was his concern. She’d sleep in until eleven.

Pushing from the bed, she shivered when her feet hit the cold floor, and she grumbled, realizing that her slippers were not yet unpacked.

Fall was arriving. Soon winter would be upon them. She wondered what it would be like confined here in the country
all winter with her unhappy husband. The idea was dismal, indeed.

Hurrying into the sitting room lest he leave without speaking to her, she removed the chair and pulled the door open, startling the valet. The man stood stock-still, a pair of uplifted shirts clutched in his hands.

Richard was bare chested, his perfect chest golden in the sunlight. Unable to find her voice, she stared a bit too long. Her cheeks warmed.

“Excuse us, Miles,” Richard said. The valet left, carrying the shirts.

Crossing his arms, Richard leaned back on his heels. “Is there a reason you have invaded my room?”

“I…I wanted to talk to you about an urgent matter.” He was too distracting as he was, half dressed. She swallowed deeply as her gaze dropped to his hands, his very skilled hands.

“It could not wait until breakfast?”

She tore her attention away from his hands and back to his face. She blinked. “It could not. I wish to be allowed to sleep in late. I am used to a certain schedule and find early rising unsatisfactory to my good health.”

His mouth curled downward. “Is that true? Or could it be that living a pampered existence has made you lazy?”

Her chin lifted. “I am not lazy!” She stepped into the room. “I have a full schedule: visits, charities, I even volunteer at a school.” He did not need to know she helped at a courtesan school. “Because I like to sleep to a reasonable hour does not make me lazy.”

Richard grunted, and Brenna seethed. “Would you rather see me up to my knees in cow waste, milking from dawn to dusk until my hands are gnarled and my back stooped? Or plowing fields behind an ox until I drop dead from exhaustion? Would that prove I’m worth my keep?”

His gaze drifted slowly down her and back up again. Was there a touch of humor in his eyes?

“Were you not carrying my child, I’m certain we could find a cow or two needing milking.” He walked to her, his face blank. He ran a fingertip across the cream lace at the neckline
of her nightdress. “If I see you so much as lift anything heavier than a teapot, I’ll paddle your perfect little rump.”

Brenna’s breath caught. She watched his face as he looked down at her thinly covered breasts. There was heat in his eyes.

Knowing he still wanted her brought some comfort. Passion was a powerful thing. He was unhappy with the pregnancy, and with her, but she had months to convince him this was not the disaster he anticipated. Passion might be the key to building closeness between them.

First she desired to change the tone of this conversation. Arguing would get them nowhere and lead to more discord. She’d be pleasant even if it killed her.

She squelched the image of her lying dead on the polished floor, having succumbed to death by good humor, and forced a smile.

“Yes, My Lord.” She pushed onto her toes and pressed a kiss on his cheek. Spice tickled her senses as she spoke softly in his ear, “I promise to remain hale and hearty.”

For a heartbeat, his hands came to rest on her hips. Brenna stepped out of reach. He needed to get used to her, and she’d not rush him. By the time the babe came, she vowed he’d be hers in both mind and heart.

“I shall leave you to dress.” With that, she walked from the room and closed the door behind her.

She pressed her back to the panel and listened for a moment as he called for his valet. Her heart fluttered as his rich voice drifted through the door. She placed her hand over her flat abdomen and wondered if the babe would share her dark hair and green eyes or Richard’s fairer features and blue eyes.

Either way, she already loved the little mite. “He will love you, too,” she whispered. “I promise.”

R
ichard felt Brenna’s presence in his bedroom long after she returned through the sitting room. The softness of her mouth on his face and the feel of her hips beneath his hands left his emotions muddled.

Why did Brenna, and Brenna alone, possess the ability to encompass his mind and give him no peace? He’d once lived
a rogue’s life and bedded many women, moving on after the passion waned, without a single qualm.

Even now, if pressed, he couldn’t think of one woman, outside of Millicent, who’d shared his bed who stood out as particularly memorable. And he’d been with some celebrated beauties. Why, then, did it have to be Walter’s virgin daughter who knocked him free of his determination to live the life of a quiet country bachelor?

Oh, right. He’d seduced her and got her with child. If anything was made to ruin carefully laid plans, it was that.

“Now that I have you, what am I to do with you?” he grumbled, under his breath.

“My Lord?” Miles paused from brushing off his coat.

“It’s nothing, Miles.” He sighed and glanced at the closed sitting-room door. “I was talking to myself.”

The valet followed his gaze. “You do seem distracted this morning. Her ladyship’s unexpected arrival has the household in a dither. The fact that there is a Lady Ashwood at all has come as quite a shock to everyone.”

Richard turned back to Miles. “It was unexpected to me, too.” What to tell the man? If the staff knew the truth about the marriage, it might undermine Brenna’s position here. He could not have that. It was better to let them believe the marriage a love match. “I fear I was taken with the lady at first sight. What could I do but marry her?”

Miles nodded slowly, clearly not convinced. Richard had long vowed to never wed again. His valet knew his feelings more than anyone else who lived under this roof.

“I do find it odd that we are just now learning of her, when by my calculations, the wedding had to have happened sometime during your search for the still missing Lady Anne,” Miles remarked. “One would think the joyous news would be brought to us, before her ladyship showed up at our door last evening with her luggage, and companion, in tow. It’s almost as if the marriage were meant to be kept secret.”

Richard frowned. Miles was teetering on the edge of crossing some servant-employer barrier. Still, he could not fault the man for his observation. It was correct.

“My wife needed time to explain this unexpected marriage to her family and to come to terms with it herself. The
whirlwind nature of the matter left her a bit off-kilter. And as her devoted husband, I was willing to wait.”