Bride By Mistake (3 page)

“I’ve seen your friends recover, and settle down, one by one, but not you… Whatever it was, it still haunts you.”

He forced a careless tone. “Well, whatever you imagine haunts me, it isn’t this marriage. To be honest, I barely gave it a thought. She was just a young girl, Molly’s age, who was in trouble, and by marrying her I was able to save her from a nasty fate. I thought we could get an annulment, but…” He spread his hands in a fatalistic gesture.

Before his mother could persist, he rose to his feet. “I’ve been in correspondence with Isabella’s aunt—the nun, you will recall—and advised her I would collect Isabella at my earliest convenience. I leave tomorrow for Spain.”

“Tomorrow?” She sat up, distracted as he knew she’d be. “But Molly’s ball is in three weeks!”

“I’ll be back in time for that,” he assured her. “I promised Molly when I first went to war, and then again when I went to Waterloo, that I’d return to dance at her come-out. There’s no danger I’ll break my promise now. There’s enough time to get to the Convent of the Angels and return. I’ll inform Rafe and Harry of my plans, and they’ll be on hand should you require any masculine advice or assistance.”

His mother dismissed that with an impatient gesture. “And what if you’re delayed?”

He placed a light kiss on her cheek. “I’ve survived everything that Boney could throw at me, Mama. What could possibly delay me now?”

L
uke went directly from his mother’s house to the Apocalypse Club in St. James. Established shortly after Waterloo, the club catered largely to young officers who’d served
in the war. It was a small, discreet establishment, and Luke and his friends found it a convivial place. Contrary to the assumptions made by nonmembers, the one subject members almost never discussed was the war.

Tonight would be an exception.

Luke found Rafe and Harry in a private salon, lounging in overstuffed leather armchairs, sipping wine, boots stretched out toward the fire, the picture of masculine contentment.

How did they do it? Restlessness still gnawed at Luke’s vitals, and it was years since the war had finished. Four long years.

Rafe rose to his feet. “About time you got here.”

Harry drained his wineglass, gave Luke a friendly punch on the shoulder, and jerked his head toward the dining room. “Come on. The scent of steak and kidney pie has been calling to me for the last twenty minutes.”

“No time for that,” Luke said. “I’m off to Spain in the morning.”

“
Spain?
” Both his friends looked at him in stupefaction.

“You swore you’d never set foot in Spain again,” Rafe said.

Luke shrugged. “Needs must. Sit down and I’ll fill you in,” he said.

He told them the story, just the bare bones—the circumstances of the marriage was his business and Isabella’s, and not even these, his closest friends, needed to know the sordid details.

“Married all this time?” Rafe was incredulous. “And never a word to any of us? I don’t believe it.” He sat back, his bright blue eyes boring into Luke.

“It’s true,” Luke told him. “I had a mission into the mountains and came across her on the way back to headquarters. It was”—he swallowed—“I married her for her own protection. It was—you know what can happen.”

“You mean you were trapped into it? We were green boys back then.”

Luke shook his head. “Not trapped at all. The marriage was my idea.”

After a moment, Rafe asked, “So this Isabella, where is she now?”

“Where I left her. In the convent. In Spain.”

“A
convent
?”

“Good God, she’s not a nun, is she?” Harry said.

“No, she’s damned well not a nun,” Luke said irritably, fed up with questions, even though he knew they were perfectly natural. He’d had enough from his mother.

“Does your mother know?” Rafe began. “No, of course she doesn’t, otherwise she wouldn’t have spent the past couple of years flinging debutantes at your head.” He shook his head. “Explains why, when you had your pick of the prettiest girls in the
ton
, you never gave any one of them a second look.”

Luke grimaced. “I couldn’t have married any of those girls. They were babies.”

Rafe snorted. “As opposed to your mature thirteen-year-old bride.”

“She was the same age as Molly, Rafe,” Luke snapped. “Would
you
have left her unprotected in the mountains?”

Rafe had known Molly since Luke had brought him home as a lonely schoolboy. Chubby-cheeked toddler Molly had adored him on sight. Rafe shut his mouth.

“So why did you leave her in Spain?” Harry asked. “Why didn’t you send her home to your mother?”

“Because it wasn’t supposed to be a permanent marriage,” Luke said, exasperated. “It was just a temporary measure. I—we thought the marriage could be annulled later. And besides—” He broke off.

Harry twirled his brandy slowly in his glass. “Besides, you thought you’d be killed before that happened.” He glanced at Rafe. “We remember what you were like after Michael was killed.”

The fire hissed and crackled in the grate.

“This was before Michael died,” Luke said.

In the distance they could hear the clinking and clattering of crockery and silverware. Michael was the sunniest one of them all; bright, uncomplicated, the golden boy.

Luke forced his mind back to the present. “I told my mother about Isabella this evening. She’s not very happy about me leaving the country so soon before Molly’s come-out—”

“I’m not surprised—” Rafe began.

“—so I told her she could call on you for any advice or assistance she and Molly might need. Escorting them to balls and routs, shopping, that sort of thing.”

Rafe struggled to hide an appalled look. “Er, delighted to assist Lady Ripton, of course.”

Harry let out a crack of laughter. “Haven’t you heard how delightful Rafe’s found the preparations for Ayisha’s first London season? Endless discussion of silks and laces and bonnets and the intricacies of female what-have-yous.” He waved his hand to indicate reams of never-ending discussion. “Rafe, my lad, you’ll be in your element.”

Rafe sent Harry a black scowl. “You and Nell should never have introduced Ayisha to Lady Gosforth. The woman lives to shop! She has even infected my sensible Ayisha.”

Harry chuckled. “Force of nature, Aunt Gosforth.”

“Naturally I included you in the offer, Harry,” Luke said smoothly. “You know how fond my mother is of you.”

Harry’s grin slipped. “Blast. You know I’m no good at all that society stuff.”

“But you’ll do it.” It wasn’t a question. He knew they would.

His friends sighed and nodded. Rafe refilled their glasses. “There’ll be a deal of talk about this marriage, you know,” he said. “Could get ugly. You know they’re betting on who’ll be married first, you or Marcus.”

Luke grimaced. “I know. I want you to put it about that I’ve been called away to Spain on an urgent estate matter—my uncle owned vineyards in the south of Spain, if you recall. No mention of any bride; just estate business.”

“Excellent notion,” Rafe declared. “Then, when you return from Spain with a blushing bride on your arm, everyone thinks you two met, fell in love, and married in the space of a week or two.”

“Let the
ton
gossip about the whirlwind romance.” Harry nodded. “I’ll drink to that.”

They drank.

After a moment Rafe said, “You do know, I suppose, that if you bring a Spanish bride home, every eligible female in the
ton
will want to claw her eyes out. I hope she’s ravishingly pretty.”

Luke sipped his brandy. “She’s not. But she’s a brave little soul. She’ll manage.”

L
uke’s mother tossed and turned late into the night. Her son had always brought home strays and wounded creatures, from the first bird he found with a broken wing, to boys from school, like Harry and Gabe who had no family to go to, or Rafe whose father had no use for him and showed it.

It was one thing to love your son for his kindness to wounded creatures; it was quite another to see him bound to one in the shackles of marriage.

For the last four years she’d watched the young ladies of the
ton
simper and flirt and do all but throw themselves at Luke, seeing only his handsome face and, since his uncle died, his title. It hadn’t worried her that Luke showed little interest. They were shallow creatures for the most part, not worthy of her beloved only son.

This year she was confident she’d found several very pretty girls with character, the type of girls who would love Luke for himself. She’d been looking forward to introducing them.

Now there was no point.

She reached for the hot milk she’d ordered, but it was cold now with a nasty skin. She pushed it away. Her bed felt colder and emptier than ever.

She’d never stopped missing Luke’s father; never stopped reaching for him in the night and waking to find herself alone. The love of her life; she shouldn’t complain. They’d had twenty of the happiest years together.

It was what she wanted for Luke, for all her children. A love to last a lifetime.

She pulled the covers around her and tried to sleep.

Luke and his friends had returned from the war heartsick and weary, yet imbued with a restlessness that caused them to perform feats of wild recklessness that were enough to make a mother’s hair turn gray. Grayer.

Oh, Luke tried to hide them from her. He took care never to do anything in front of her that she might worry about, but still, she’d heard.

Luke’s father had been just as wild as a young man, so she tried to be patient with her son and his friends. And when Luke and Rafe had those shocking curricle races, driving at those frightful speeds, she reminded herself to give thanks that at least they’d returned safely from the war. Even if they seemed bent on breaking their necks at home.

But one by one Luke’s friends had married and, oh, it had done her heart good to see the lonely, unloved boys she’d once known grow to manhood and each fall in love with a woman who adored him in return. She’d watched as a deep inner certainty, a profound happiness, replaced their former restlessness.

She’d wanted desperately for her son to find the same.

But eight years ago one good deed had shackled him forever to a strange foreign girl; a girl who wanted to be married to Luke no more than he wanted her.

For her sake, and perhaps for the sake of this unknown girl, Luke had put the best possible face on it, but it was just like his racing. She knew he hadn’t told her the whole story.

She had the deepest misgivings about this marriage.

Something dreadful had happened to Luke in Spain when he was a young lieutenant. His denial hadn’t convinced her that it wasn’t connected with this girl.

Her son was very good at hiding his feelings. Luke would make sure that no one—not his mother, nor his sisters, nor even his friends—would suspect a thing.

Gallant to the bone, he was, and proud, just like his father. He would rather die than let anyone know this foreign girl had—wittingly or unwittingly—trapped him in a loveless marriage. And that he was desperately unhappy.

Lady Ripton grieved.

Two

Spain 1811

T
he trouble, when it came, was not what Luke had expected. He’d been on the lookout for the enemy—the French—and also for Spanish
guerrilleros
and motley bandits, for the mountains harbored many, and sometimes he couldn’t tell the difference. They were allies, the English and the
guerrilleros
, but a lone man on horseback was easy pickings for desperate men, and the mountains were full of desperate men.

This trouble was a scream quivering faintly on the wind. High and light. A woman, or a child.

Luke Ripton, newly commissioned lieutenant in His Majesty’s Territorial Army, hesitated. It would not be the first time a woman had been used to bait a trap, but he’d fulfilled his mission. He carried no secret messages or gold on him now.

The scream came again, shrill and filled with real terror. Luke plunged his horse down the steep slope toward the sound, weaving through the pine and beech forest.

Through a gap in the trees he saw a stocky, thickset man hunched over a small, slender female. She was tied at hands and feet, but she writhed and bucked, struggling like a fish caught on a hook.

Luke drew his pistol, but he couldn’t get a clear shot through the trees. Besides, he didn’t want to hit the girl. He urged his horse toward them.

The man opened his breeches and threw himself roughly on her. The girl twisted and smashed her bound fists hard into the man’s face. He yelled and fell back, cupping his face. His hands came away red. He grabbed her wrists and forced them back. She bit his hand, and he cursed and gave her a backhander across the face.

Blood blossomed on her face, and she fell back, stunned, and the man threw himself again on her supine body.

Shouting, Luke leapt from his horse and raced toward them. It took an agonizingly long time. Intent on his prey, the attacker seemed not to hear.

With a roar of rage, Luke lunged across the last few yards, grabbed the man by the scruff of the neck, and hauled him bodily off the girl.