Bride By Mistake (7 page)

So at first, Isabella never told a soul she was married, and when the elderly Mother Superior died and Isabella’s aunt took her place, Isabella’s security was assured—as much as anyone’s security could be in wartime.

But a few years later the fighting was over in Spain. Napoleon’s puppet was ejected, and King Ferdinand was crowned king of Spain, and relatives turned up to collect this girl or that. The convent was full of talk of dowries and settlements, of betrothals arranged and marriages planned. The girls were abuzz with excitement and nerves and romantic speculation.

At almost sixteen, Isabella was still plagued by pimples and a flat chest, and when even the younger girls started to patronize and pity her, she could not bear it. In secret whispers in the dark one night, she’d confided in her friend, Mariana, about Lieutenant Ripton, her tall, dark Englishman, as beautiful as an angel, who’d killed a man to protect Isabella, and then married her to save her from her evil cousin Ramón.
Now the war was over, he would surely come for her and take her away to England.

But Mariana had whispered Isabella’s secrets to another girl, and soon it was all through the convent, and of course, nobody had believed her. Skinny, plain Isabella Ripton, secretly married to a handsome Englishman? As if anyone would believe that.

Her name? Pshaw! So she had an English surname—many Spaniards had English surnames. It proved nothing.

“Has he seen a picture of you—a truthful one?”

“Why would he want to marry a girl who looks like a boy?”

“He knows what I look like. He
chose
me,” Bella used to tell them proudly, hoping her pimples would be gone and her breasts would grow by the time he came for her. “Nobody had to arrange it.”

“So you know nothing about him. For all you know of his family, he could be some peasant!”

“He was an officer, so of course he’s not a peasant. And he’s tall, strong, and fearless; the most beautiful man I ever saw in my life!”

“
Beautiful?
” The other girls laughed.

“Beautiful like an archangel,” Bella insisted. “Beautiful and terrible. A warrior angel! Just wait till he comes. You will see.”

And some girls would continue to scoff, and some would sigh and secretly envy her.

At night, in her small stone room on her hard, narrow bed, Bella would spin dreams of Lieutenant Ripton…

Lieutenant Ripton lay mortally wounded, and Isabella would find him and care for him, and he would be miraculously cured by her tender solicitude, and fall madly in love with her.

Lieutenant Ripton would be attacked by the enemy, and Bella would stand by him, and together they would fight them off, and as the enemy fled, he would turn to her and say, “Isabella, without you my life would be over. I love you.”

Many and varied were the deeds of bravery and daring she
performed in her dreams, and at the end of each one, Lieutenant Ripton would say, “Isabella, I love you.”

Lieutenant Ripton would know Isabella as nobody in the world would know her. And he would love her. Truly love her. And she would love him back with all her heart. And they would be happy forever and ever after.

Day after day, week after week, Bella had prayed for Lieutenant Ripton to come—even to write, but there was no word, no sign.

Still, she would rage and defend herself, defend him—he
was
as beautiful as an angel, he was busy fighting, he was a hero, he was too important to be able to come just now, but he would come for her, he
would
!

Gradually her skin cleared up. Her breasts remained disappointingly small, and she learned from a smuggled-in looking glass that she would never be a beauty, not even pretty. “Interesting” was the most charitable assessment of her features.

Still, Lieutenant Ripton did not come, and as the years passed, the dream of the handsome husband who would love her—
must
love her—slowly began to wither on the vine.

The truth was there, staring her in the face. Like the fathers and brothers of the other girls who remained in the convent, Lieutenant Ripton had taken her money and abandoned her. He was not much better than Ramón. He’d done it more kindly than Ramón, perhaps, but in the long run, the result was the same.

Some nights, lying in her hard, narrow bed, Bella secretly wept for her broken dreams. But tears did nothing, so she scrubbed them away. She would look up through her high, barred window and gaze at the stars outside.

There was a world out there, and she wanted to be part of it.

The other girls continued to taunt her, teasing her about her imaginary husband. And Bella still defended him, still stubbornly claimed there was an important reason why he couldn’t come—one had one’s pride, after all—but nobody believed her; not even Bella herself. It was a routine like everything that happened in the convent.

She said to Alejandra, “You could come with me, if you wanted.”

“Come where?”

“I’m leaving the convent.” Her announcement was followed by a stunned silence.

“Is he comi—” Paloma began.

“No. Nobody is coming for me, Paloma.” Isabella glanced at Sister Beatriz, who was still asleep, and said in a lowered voice, “I’m leaving anyway.”

“Reverend Mother won’t allow it,” Alejandra said.

Bella shrugged. “She can’t stop me. I’m a married woman, and in two weeks I will be one-and-twenty.” And if Reverend Mother tried to stop her, she’d go over the wall. It wasn’t as if she hadn’t done it before, and Reverend Mother knew it.

Alejandra sniffed. “I don’t believe you. What will you do? How will you support yourself? Who will protect you? It’s dangerous—”

“I will support myself,” Bella said. “And I will protect myself. I won’t stay here, waiting forever for someone to rescue me. Life isn’t a fairy tale.”

“Isabella Ripton,” said a voice from the doorway.

All the girls jumped guiltily.

“Isabella,” Sister Josefina repeated as she entered the door. She was the youngest and prettiest of the nuns, closest in age to the girls, merry and lively, but dedicated to her vocation. “Tidy yourself up. Your hair is a mess. Reverend Mother wants you to come to her office at once. You have a visitor!”

“A visitor? Who?” In eight years, Bella had never had a visitor. Not since Ramón had come looking for her, and failed to find her. And why would Ramón come back after all this time?

Sister Josefina smiled. “Can’t you guess?”

Mystified, Bella shook her head.

“An Englishman.”

Bella froze.

Sister Josefina nodded. “Tall, dark, and as beautiful as an archangel.”

Bella couldn’t move a muscle. She couldn’t utter a word or even marshal a coherent thought.

“A very stern, very masculine archangel.” Sister Josefina sighed. And a blush rose on her cheeks.

Lieutenant Ripton was
here
?

“Isabella?” Sister Josefina said.

Bella started. Everyone was staring at her. She pulled herself together. “I told you he’d come,” she managed and moved toward the door.

“Tidy your hair,” Sister Josefina reminded her, and Isabella started tucking in the errant strands that had come loose from her braid.

“Her hair?” Alejandra exclaimed. “You can’t let her go dressed like that!”

“Like what?” Isabella glanced down at herself, puzzled. She looked the same as always; neater than usual, in fact. She smoothed her hair back.

“In those…”—Alejandra gestured—“those
convent
clothes! She hasn’t seen her husband for eight years. She can’t go to him in those!”

“Yes, she needs something pretty,” Dolores agreed.

Bella looked down at her plain dark blue and gray dress. “I don’t have anything pretty.” She’d arrived at the convent with nothing, and the convent had dressed her ever since. The lack had never bothered her. Until now.

“No, but I do,” said Alejandra. She turned to Sister Josefina. “Sister, let us dress Isabella nicely to meet her husband. Please, Sister, we won’t take long.”

“Yes, pleeeeease, Sister,” the other girls joined in.

The young nun glanced from the girls’ eager faces to Isabella standing there in her drab clothes. “Be quick then,” she said. “Reverend Mother is waiting.”

L
uke sat across the desk from Isabella’s aunt and willed himself not to fidget. She was now the Mother Superior and seemed in no hurry to move things along. He’d left his horses outside the convent in the care of a grubby urchin.
Times were still bad in Spain, and the mountains were no doubt still full of brigands. And most thieves started young.

“She won’t be long, Lieutenant Ripton.” Isabella’s aunt had aged a good deal in the last years, Luke thought. Her face, under the severe nun’s garb, was thinner, her pale ivory complexion drawn tight over high cheekbones and blurred with a web of fine lines. The war had not been easy on her.

“Lord Ripton,” he corrected her. Her brows arched, and Luke explained. “I inherited the title from my uncle who was drowned in an unfortunate boating accident.”

“I had not realized you were the heir to a… ?”

“Barony. I had no expectations of it, but my uncle’s two sons drowned with him, and so the title and estates came to me.”

“Estates?” she inquired delicately, a reminder that however the marriage had been made, any alliance was still about blood and wealth. She was still Isabella’s aunt, after all.

Luke, however, had no intention of discussing it. “Suffice it to say I still have no need of Isabella’s fortune. How is she?”

“Isabella is well. Grown up. In two weeks’ time she will be twenty-one. She will, I am sure, be surprised to see you after all this time.” Said with an edge of acid.

Her tone annoyed Luke. He pulled out the letter he had received and broached the matter bluntly. “This letter denies my application for annulment. It says, ‘On information received by the Mother Superior of the Convent of the Angels.’  ” He slapped the letter on her desk. “Eight years ago you told me an annulment would be a straightforward arrangement.”

She fixed him with a steady gaze. “I did not know then that Isabella was no longer a virgin.”

Not a virgin?
Damn. The bastard must have got to her after all. Luke had been sure he’d saved her in time. Apparently not. His brows snapped together as another thought occurred to him. “Don’t tell me she—”

“No, there were no unfortunate consequences,” Mother Superior said in an austere tone. “Isabella herself told me of the attack—she had nightmares afterward, you see. But what’s done is done, and so…” She spread her thin-veined hands in a fatalistic gesture.

Luke nodded. “How did Isabella take the news?”

“Isabella is a lady by birth and training.”

In other words, Isabella was resigned to her fate, as he was. So be it.

The Mother Superior steepled her hands and rested her chin on the points of her fingers, peering down her long nose at him. “What are your plans, Lord Ripton?”

“We leave immediately for England.”

The elegant arched brows almost disappeared under the wimple. “Immediately?”

“Tomorrow morning,” he amended. She would need to pack, he supposed. But the sooner he was gone from this accursed country, the happier he’d be.

The nun inclined her head graciously. “Then this will be Isabella’s last night in the convent. We will hold a small farewell at dinner for her. You are, of course, invited.”

Silence lapsed. Luke drummed his fingers lightly on the desk.

Mother Superior eyed his fingers contemplatively. Luke stopped drumming.

Where the devil was Isabella? She was taking her time.

Mother Superior began to tell him about the history of the convent and the story behind the broken angel. She eyed him thoughtfully when he shifted restlessly for the third time.

Sitting still was not Luke’s forte. Nor were tales from a convent. At least not this kind.

The Mother Superior moved on to the subject of his bride. His
bride
.

“Isabella is a good girl, really. A little hotheaded and impulsive—her father was like that, too, as a boy. She will steady once she’s given adult responsibilities. That’s the trouble—she’s not suited to convent life. She’s not the contemplative sort.”

Nor was Luke. His gaze wandered the room. Lord, but he would have gone mad cooped up in this place for eight years.

He recalled Isabella’s sudden dread when he’d brought her here all those years ago. She’d panicked suddenly and
begged him again not to leave her there, to take her with him. Of course, it was impossible.

He remembered her as a battered little scrap, all big eyes and questions, his little baby bird. Had she grown into a swan in the last eight years? A man could only hope.

Eight years… Where had they flown? He still couldn’t believe she was now in truth going to be his wife. For the rest of their lives.

“And then there’s her sewing.” Reverend Mother paused, and Luke realized she was testing his concentration.

“Her sewing?” he prompted, trying to look interested. Where the devil had the girl got to? He wanted to get this over with, meet her, make the arrangements, and then leave this blasted country as quickly as possible. He found himself rubbing the spot just below his left shoulder and stopped.

“I do hope you are not expecting exquisite embroidery from your wife.”

“Exquisite embroidery?” Luke repeated blankly.

“The convent is famous for its embroidery,” she said with gentle reproof. “World famous.” As if he should know who was whom in the world of embroidery.

“Congratulations,” he said politely. Where was the chit? Dragging her heels?

Had she other plans? A marriage to some Spanish fellow, for instance.

No, she couldn’t have met anyone stuck here in the mountain fastness with a bunch of nuns.

Although the Spanish did tend to arrange such things…

“Isabella, alas, was never able to acquire the skill of fine sewing.”

“It’s of no interest to me whether she can sew or not,” he said bluntly. Right now he was wondering if she could walk. Where was she?

If he didn’t know better, he might think he was nervous. But that was, of course, ridiculous. There was nothing to be nervous about. It was a done deal. They were married. No way out of it. Firmly leg-shackled.