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The ride back to Brook House was only a few short miles, but the time stretched unbearably for Deirdre, locked in uncomfortable silence beside her husband.

Husband.

Yet, he’d not made a move to be so. Oh, why did he not touch her? They were almost back to the house. This would likely be their last private moment for several hours! Not that she wished to be rogered in the carriage like some ladybird, of course.

Oh, heavens, what a thought! What a wonderful
,
delicious, wicked, scandalous
, divine
thought!

Perhaps he waited for some signal from her, some subtle permission? She shifted slightly closer on the seat and then turned to him with a soft smile, ready to—

Beside her, Brookhaven cleared his throat. “Miss—er, my dear—”

The smile became a slight frown. Was he uncomfortable? Unusual. He might be a bit stiff and even dour, but he usually moved through the world as if he owned it twice over. That confidence was quite attractive.

He shifted again beside her, his brows drawn into a definite scowl. He was truly distressed about something, wasn’t he?

Deirdre had no trouble seeing it, although most people would merely think the marquis vaguely irritated. One had to understand how vastly detached his lordship was in order to see that any expression at all was next to screaming aloud, for him.

Since she had years of experience with detaching herself, seeing the difference was quite simple for Deirdre. It had taken all her wit and self-control to live with her vicious stepmother these past thirteen years and not end up the victim of her own loss and uncertainty.

Others might think her steely and unfeeling—though Deirdre cared not a whit for their opinions—or even selfish, but Deirdre had decided long ago that the best revenge on Lady Tessa would be to win a place in Society so high above her stepmother that she could spend the rest of her days making sure that Tessa would be shunned by the lowest squire’s wife.

Of course, it was not her primary goal in life, but the fantasy had sustained her through some awful years. Now, enacting Tessa’s social demise had attained the level of … oh, say, a hobby. A light diversion.

No, what Deirdre cared most about at this moment was discovering everything she could about the man behind his walls—and making sure that that man realized that he could never live without her.

The best part, the part that Deirdre hadn’t actually informed Brookhaven of yet, was that once Brookhaven became the Duke of Brookmoor, Deirdre would win a stunning inheritance of nearly thirty thousand pounds from her great-grandfather’s trust. With outrageous wealth of her own, no one could control her, not in the slightest way, not by strength or affection or even blackmail, for she’d led a pristine existence.

She was in every way the girl Brookhaven thought her, except that she would soon be as wealthy as a princess. She had been raised from the age of twelve to be a duchess and, although Tessa’s methods had been cruel and unusual, Deirdre knew everything necessary to run a great estate and the complicated social lives of such a resplendent couple as she and her husband. She certainly wouldn’t want any feelings of “didn’t get the right girl” to linger in Brookhaven’s mind. The news of the inheritance should erase any such thing right out of his mind.

He cleared his throat again. “My dear, I confess that I have a bit of a surprise for you.”

She smiled calmly at him. “I have something surprising for you as well, my lord.”

He frowned and opened his mouth again, hopefully to elaborate—but the carriage jostled to a stop before Brook House itself.

Then the carriage door was opened and a liveried footman was there to take her hand and help her down the dainty iron step. “Welcome home, my lady,” he said gravely.

The staff stood there waiting in a line from Fortescue on down to the lowest scullery. Fortescue bowed deeply. “My lady.” Then he straightened, all proud and distinguished, silver-templed, six foot plus of him. He gazed at her with cool assessment.

Deirdre knew that her first moments as Lady Brookhaven would set the tone for the rest of her life. She drew in a breath to form just the right gracious-but-don’t-forget-who’s-in-charge greeting.

“Papa!”

Since she was gazing at Brookhaven at that very
moment, she didn’t so much as register the cry as she did the brief spasm of unholy terror that flickered in his lordship’s austere expression. He turned from her to face the creature pattering down the stairs toward him.

Deirdre turned as well, and saw a horrible sight. It was a person—a very little, very dirty, very unkempt sort of person. It hit Brookhaven in a flurry of torn stockings and pointy elbows and tangled hair. Surprisingly, Brookhaven did not pull away, but merely stood stiffly to receive the minor monster’s fervent embrace.

“That will do, Lady Margaret,” he said finally. “Fortescue, perhaps you might have informed me that her ladyship had arrived a day earlier than expected?”

It turned to look at Deirdre next. Large black-brown eyes glared at her through tangled strands of dark hair. “You!” It approached her. Deirdre stood her ground, staring back. “You’re too well-dressed to be a governess,” it said. “You look like you think you’re getting married.” The tone dripped scorn for anyone so stupid.

Brookhaven had a daughter. A
child.

A child who knew no more about her than she knew about it.

Time bent. Old pain flared anew.

No, Papa! Take her back! I don’t want a new mother. I don’t want her here.

That wasn’t the child’s voice but her own, echoing from years gone by. The shock and dismay within her spiked sharply into fury.

“You said nothing,” she bit out without looking at her husband. “How could you do this?”

“I did not expect her to arrive until tomorrow.” Brookhaven sounded stuffed with forced nonchalance. “I didn’t suppose it would be a problem for you.”

“Not a problem?” Deirdre backed away from the rumpled little beast and all-too-familiar betrayal in the child’s eyes. How could he have done this? He had turned
her
into
Tessa!
She turned on him. “
No.
This—this was not part of our agreement.”

Brookhaven gazed at her with nearly the same expression as his daughter. “My dear, this is not an agreement. This is a marriage. You are my wife. You’ll do as you’re told.”

Deirdre stared at him. Who did the big lummox think he’d married? She folded her arms. “I never do as I’m told.”

The brat turned to look at her with some surprise. “Neither do I.” Then it matched her stance, glaring at Brookhaven. “Fire it straightaway, Papa. I refuse to have anything to do with it.” Then the skinny little arms slipped to her sides. “Wife? Papa, did you
marry
the governess?”

Calder took a deep breath, then another, while he fought the impulse to flee screaming into his study and nail the door shut. “Lady Margaret, may I present the new Marchioness of Brookhaven—and your new mother.”

He hadn’t told either Phoebe or Deirdre about his daughter. The child wasn’t precisely a secret. She simply didn’t visit very often. The public had seen fit to ignore her existence in the long ago scandal, and Calder supposed he’d simply become used to being closemouthed about Meggie.

Nor had he wanted to be refused because of her. Meggie had not managed to keep any nurse or governess longer than a few days. Deep down Calder was beginning to fear that his daughter was everything that
Melinda had revealed herself to be in the end—willful, high-tempered and prone to disturbing rages.

Not at all like he himself.

One could not ask a demure and even-tempered young lady like Miss Deirdre Cantor to take on mothering such a hellion. One could, however, trick her into it. As the silence stretched on, he realized that one could also come to regret such a decision.

Meggie stared at him, her eyes wide with betrayal and fury. Miss—er, Deirdre—stood glaring at him with none of the poised charm and agreeableness of before. Calder reminded himself that this was a female raised and nurtured by one of the most poisonous harridans he’d ever had the displeasure to encounter. It would not do to let her detect a moment of weakness.

In fact, a show of strength was definitely in order—which would also have the advantage of putting an end to this excruciating scene. Yes, he ought to have prepared Deirdre. And he ought to have at least hinted at something near the truth to Meggie.

But damn it, something had had to be done and he’d done it! The matter was now put right. The motherless girl had a mother. Brookhaven had a new lady. And he had …

He had better act quickly, or the two steaming females before him were going to hit a boiling point. He cleared his throat with authority. “My lady, you will take Lady Margaret in hand and turn her into a proper young lady—” Even as he continued, he had the faintest feeling that he was making a mistake. “You will do as I command, or there will be no parties, no balls, no outings and not a single new gown until you do so!”

The air was being sucked from Deirdre’s lungs. He
would speak to her so—in front of the entire staff? Every Brookhaven servant from dignified Fortescue down to the lowest scullery stood behind her, watching each moment of the unfolding drama.

Who, precisely, did he think she was? What picture did he have of her in his mind, that he thought she would swallow such humiliation and bow to his will?

She might have been persuaded to take some responsibility for the child, hiring the proper handlers for her and such, finding the right school, but after this she would no more button that little beast’s shoe than she would jump into the filthy Thames!

No. She had not escaped Tessa’s tyranny only to find herself in just another cage. She felt her spine turn to steel, bone by bone, hammered to sword edge by the gazes of the very likely scornful Brookhaven staff on her back.

She tugged her gloves off with precise little snaps and gazed at her husband with her chin high. “My lord, if that is how you wish to do battle, you may take your parties and your balls and your outings and your new gowns and you may stuff them in your …” She bared her teeth. “Your arsenal.”

She turned with great dignity to Fortescue. “I will retire to my chamber at once.”

Fortescue’s gaze flicked back and forth from her to the Beast of Brookhaven for a moment, then he nodded crisply. “Of course, my lady. This way.”

Deirdre knew the way perfectly well, for she’d lived in the house for weeks, but she grasped at any opportunity to begin again with the staff. Dear God, she’d be lucky to get last week’s cold bathwater from them now!

Chapter Five

Calder stood in the hall and gazed after his butler and his bride for a long moment. That hadn’t gone quite as well as he’d planned.

“You’ve buggered it now, Papa. She’s staying.”

Calder closed his eyes, not needing to look down at the tangled head by his side. “There’s no need to be crude, Lady Margaret. That is not the sort of language proper young ladies use.”

He walked away then, from his bride and his daughter and his staff—and from yet another mangled wedding day.

This was getting to be a habit.

Once in his study, he closed the door with the feeling of shutting out a howling, hair-raising storm. In the blessed silence he paced the length of the room. Details of the new paper factory he was building lay unrolled upon his desk, but he found himself unable to concentrate upon them. Back and forth, from fireplace to window, his gaze unseeing on the fine blue-and-gold carpet.

At last Fortescue rapped twice on the door and entered. Only Fortescue was allowed in the study when Calder was working, and only because the severely
poised butler had a certain manner about him that allowed Calder’s concentration to remain focused.

Without a word, Fortescue pulled a cloth from his pocket and began polishing the frame of the bucolic country landscape painting above the fireplace. It was a valuable work of art, but that wasn’t why Calder had it in his study. Like Fortescue, it did nothing to interfere with his concentration.

Calder ran one hand over his face. “Women.”

Fortescue made no comment. He merely continued to polish the frame with tiny precise circular motions.

Calder frowned. “You think I handled that badly, do you?”

Fortescue ignored him. The frame began to shine.

Calder let out a breath. “Well, what was I to do when she defied me so openly? I fear she may be as shallow and unruly as her stepmother. Perhaps the experience of motherhood might do her good.”

Polish, polish, polish.

Calder let his hands fall to his sides. “I ought to have spoken to her about it first, I suppose.”

Silence but for the friction of cloth on wood.

“And I should have warned Meggie as well. I simply didn’t want to …” He shrugged. “It just seemed more efficient to tell them both at the same time!”

Fortescue snapped his cloth and then began on the carved scrollwork of the mantel. He said nothing. He didn’t have to.

Calder sighed. “But you’re right, of course. It was unfair to spring it on them like that, just to save myself the inconvenience of two explanations.”

Fortescue tucked the cloth away into a pocket. “If you think so, my lord.” He straightened with his hands
clasped behind his back. “Will there be anything else, my lord?”

“No, thank you, Fortescue.”

The butler left smoothly, his shoes silent on the carpet, the door closing without the tiniest thud.

Calder felt somewhat better. The problem was that the problem wasn’t going to go away. He’d married a defiant, willful woman when what he wanted was a compliant, obedient one.

She had looked very fine though, standing there with high color in her cheeks and fury snapping in her sapphire eyes … .

The thing of it was, he’d noticed her immediately that long ago night at Rochester’s ball—even though he’d subsequently proposed to her cousin the next morning. Miss Deirdre Cantor had outshone every other lady present. It had seemed that everywhere he’d turned, he’d caught glimpses of her shimmering golden hair and her shining blue eyes … and her delicious, elegant-but-by-no-means-sparse figure.

When she’d moved into Brook House with her cousins and her thrice-damned stepmother, she’d seemed gracious and demure, but not especially bold. He’d become used to her presence, and after a while he’d found himself less bemused by her perfect features and more interested in the subtle play of emotions behind her poised facade.

Although of course, he’d never thought of her as anything but a future relative.

The plans on Calder’s desk refused to make sense to his eyes. He closed them and leaned his head back against his chair. He ought to have considered when he’d married a true beauty—again!—that truly beautiful
women had a way of interfering with one’s precious concentration.

LADY BROOKHAVEN’S CHAMBER was a spacious, feminine indulgence of lush gold velvet and luxurious cream silk. A bedchamber with the enormous four-poster hung in more gold velvet, a matched sitting room with a grand fireplace, and a dressing room where, apparently, there would be no new gowns to hang.

Deirdre pressed her palms to her cheeks to suppress the furious heat still lingering there.
Stupid, stupid girl!
She’d brought it on herself, of course. How could she have lost her temper at such a crucial moment? She’d put up with Tessa for all those years, she ought to have been able to control herself for a quarter of an hour as the new lady of Brookhaven!

I thought those days were done. At least, I’d hoped … .

The familiar oppression of the last ten years pressed down upon Deirdre as if she’d never escaped Tessa. She’d dreamed of having this view, but now she squeezed her eyes closed against it. How could she have been so idiotic? She could have wed one of the many young men, some nearly rich enough, who would have let her run her own life and his as well! She could have married someone like Baskin, whose puppyish devotion would have been irritating but useful, or even some priggish solicitor like Mr. Stickley, who could have kept her quite happily spending his money for the rest of her life.

No new gowns. He thought her so shallow-minded that she’d quail before such a threat? What no one
realized was that stylish Miss Deirdre Cantor had never bought costly fashions and worn them just once.

She had been making the same half-dozen gowns do for the entire season with clever trims and distracting accessories and the only reason she had that many was that even Tessa was forced to see the logic behind dangling well-dressed bait.

How had she not foreseen that such a man could be demanding and harsh? His first wife had run away from him—and now Deirdre was beginning to get an inkling of why! Why had she tied herself to another tyrant?

The inheritance, of course—only she didn’t really care about that. She never had. It had been Tessa’s obsession, once she’d learned of it from Papa. Tessa had imagined that she’d be the natural recipient of Deirdre’s eternal gratitude, not to mention the value of such a high connection.

Now, however, that inheritance might mean the difference between continued oppression and real freedom. A man couldn’t take what he didn’t know about—and Deirdre was strongly considering keeping her future personal wealth a secret forever! She needn’t worry ever again that her controlling beast of a husband could affect her freedom in any way.

“It’s not right to wish anyone dead,” she grumbled to herself, “but if the old Duke of Brookmoor feels the need to breathe his last sometime this week, it would be vastly appreciated.”

Several crystal bottles stood lined up neatly on the gold-leafed vanity. Deirdre gently pushed them aside in order to contemplate her own image in the gilt-framed mirror there. How could he have done it? In what mad
world was it all right for men to arrange the lives of the women around them without any thought to consent or even a decent, bloody
warning?

She closed her eyes.

I hate her, Papa! She’s cruel and wicked and I hate her!

Her father’s weary, vaguely shamed face wavered in her memory.
She’s not cruel. She simply wants you to learn to be a real lady, like her. You can do it, Dee. Simply … try not to make her angry.

Had he known by then? Had he finally realized what he’d brought into their peaceful loving home?

What did that matter now? There was no point in carrying on about the past. Her father was long gone, leaving her with Tessa, which she was not sure she could ever quite forgive him for.

She sighed. He’d thought he was doing her good. He’d wanted her to fulfill her destiny to win the Pickering Trust, so he’d done his best to choose a new mother who would be able to teach her what she needed to know. He had been dazzled by Tessa’s youth and beauty and somehow hadn’t heard a word about her viperish personality—although that was surely why such a well-connected young lady had gone thus far unwed.

Tessa had killed Papa. That fact was carved in cold stone in Deirdre’s heart. Her stepmother hadn’t taken a knife to Papa or hidden poison in his port, but she might as well have. It was Tessa and her luxurious needs and wants that had drained Papa’s wealth like a lovely, black-haired, green-eyed parasite.

Papa had been bemused by Tessa’s décolletage or some such thing, for by the time he’d realized the direction
his finances had taken, it was far too late. He’d aged overnight, a shrunken old man sucked dry by the evil worm of Lady Tessa’s greed.

Then he was gone, his broken heart stopped in midquarrel with his unrepentant bride, his strength too sapped by ruin and despair to survive it.

Without the presence of her kindhearted husband to restrain her, Tessa was then able to unleash her full viciousness on young Deirdre and the staff of Woolton.

Good-bye, Tessa.

Hello, Brookhaven.

Deirdre opened her eyes to slide her gaze across the room to where another doorway was discreetly set into the painted paneling. Her ladyship’s room came with his lordship’s room right next door.

She stood and swiftly crossed the room, turning the key in the lock with quick decision. No freedom? Then no wedding night either. As she stood there, a tap came on her door. She pulled the large key from the lock and dropped it into her bodice. “Yes?”

Patricia entered. Deirdre had envied her cousin Phoebe the pretty maidservant, for Patricia had a talent for hair and an absolute genius for trimming bonnets.

It turned out she had a kind nature, too, for she only put the tray down with a quiet smile. “Will you be needing anything else, my lady?”

Oh yes, she’d forgotten. She was the Marchioness of Brookhaven—rich in all things except command over her own being.

“No tea just now, Patricia.” The smell of food or drink would only make her stomach roil while she was this upset. “Perhaps … perhaps a hot bath later?” She
ached to wash this day from her … and to take off this damned beautiful wedding gown, but right now she had to think.

Patricia merely curtsyed, picked up the tray and left the room, leaving Deirdre with several seconds to spare before the twitching fury began again.

If the worst happened—if Brookhaven continued his tyrannical behavior—if it turned out that she had made the mistake of her life—

She could simply leave.

No
.

Actually, yes.

You don’t want to leave him. You’re angry.

Oh, “angry” didn’t even come close.

If you leave him, then how will he ever come to love you back?

Her spine stiffened. She would not stay if she was not loved and she would not beg for that love, not from anyone.

If you stay, you can make him love you.

Better yet, if she stayed, she could make him pay. He had taken it upon himself to declare battle. It was only polite that she return the first volley.

She folded her arms and inhaled deeply. She would stay.

Either way, she won.

BOOK: Celeste Bradley - [Heiress Brides 02]

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