Forced Offer (7 page)

"When there's such a lot of hair like you have, mum, you have to put twice the number of rag curls. That's probably why it wouldn't curl. But I'm sure I can do something with it," said Bessie with conviction.

And once she had put Belinda's clothes away and brought the covers up over Belinda in the bed, she puttered around still, as if reluctant to leave her mistress and go up to the little garret where she was to sleep, sharing another lady's maid's room.

"Bessie…"

"Yes, mum?" asked Bessie, eager to extend the conversation a bit more. She was a buxom young lass with mounds of energy. More than one ostler had cast a glance at her small, curvy figure on their arrival.

"Does your cousin Alice…I mean…has she…does she speak to you about…about…" Belinda wondered how she could broach the subject of first wedding nights. Perhaps Bessie knew a little more about it. The suspense of not knowing what was to happen to her was making her shake all over.

"Yes, mum?" asked Bessie when Belinda hesitated.

"What I wondered is—I mean, first wedding nights—" Belinda closed her eyes and said boldly,

"Do you know anything about them?"

"Oh, yes, my lady!"

"I have been told that it's so terribly painful that I should imagine myself somewhere else so that I will not feel the pain."

"Who gave you that silly advice, mum?"

"My moth—" Belinda stopped herself, wondering if it was wise to discuss such a delicate subject with her maid, whom she hardly knew, at that. But the panic that was overcoming her was stronger than the dictates of convention.

"Mum," said Bessie excitedly, "I promise you you'll not be thinking of any place other than where you are. Lord Berrington, now," added the lusty Bessie with a naughty grin, "he'll fill up the picture right to left and there won't be room for nothing else, mark my words on it!"

There was a knock at the door. It was the abigail Bessie was to share a room with who had come to show her where the room was.

"Go on, Bessie," said Belinda, relieved in part that the conversation had been interrupted, and in part sorry that her chance at finding out what was in store for her was now lost.

The hours crawled and the candle on the bedside table sputtered in a pool of wax. At every little noise Belinda started, expecting Lord Berrington to open the door wide and burst into the room. Her body was tense with anticipation and fear, and she wished she had died like her sister, rather than live a life that promised to be nothing more than a basket of thorns.

* * * * *

"Milor'—ahem—sir. Beg pardon, your lordship," said the innkeeper of the Blue Teal,

"Will you be wanting anything else?"

It was past midnight, Lord Berrington realized as he looked at the clock in the corner of the private dining room where he sat alone at a table, an empty glass and wine bottle before him.

"Oh—yes," answered Berrington. "Uncork a bottle for me, will you? And bring me another wine glass."

"Yes, milord, right away."

The man left and came back shortly where Berrington was getting ready to leave.

"Here it is, your lordship. Would you like a lad to take it up for you?" he asked.

"No," said Lord Berrington, "I'll take it up myself, thank you." He took the wineglasses by their stems and the wine bottle with one hand and with the other grabbed his coat, which he flipped over his shoulder. He then left the dining room and went up the stairs to his bedroom.

Belinda, who had been unable to close her eyes, had during the last few minutes, started to doze off. She now froze as the door opened and Lord Berrington walked into the bedroom.

The room shrank in size with his presence, a presence that overwhelmed Belinda with its maleness and authority.

In the dim candlelight she followed his progress as he tossed his coat over a chair and placing a bottle of wine and two wineglasses he had brought with him on a table proceeded to fill both glasses with wine. Then without a word he came over to where Belinda lay, her body as straight and tense as a board, sat on a chair by the bed and handed her one of the wineglasses. She was unable to stop herself from trembling from head to toe.

"Drink this," Berrington ordered. "It will ease the tension in you. I don’t know what you’ve been told about this night, but it’s obvious you were terrorized by their words. Forget what you’ve been told. This business is very much like learning to swim. The best thing to do is to plunge right into it. It won’t be as bad as you imagine, I assure you. Drink all your wine, now."

Belinda straightened up in the bed to a sitting position and with a shaking hand took the large heavy goblet. Then with trembling lips sipped it once and stopped, but without looking up at him.

"All of it," he ordered. "To the last drop."

She did as she was told and immediately felt the wine stealing warmly through her. She had never in her life drunk more than light negus or punch.

Lord Berrington took the wineglass from her and refilled it again.

"Drink this one now, but slower," he now said as he too began to sip his wine. And as he spoke Belinda's head had become so light that a feeling of well being invaded her body and her head so that she felt lightly floating.

Lord Berrington's face was right before her but his features in the dim light and the effect of the wine on her brain made them seem softly blurred. He wasn't looking at her, though. He was staring fixedly at his wineglass.

Belinda took more sips of her wine as they drank the wine in silence and the grip on her goblet lessened so that it tilted. Lord Berrington grabbed it and straightened it up for her. She took another sip and another, and then finished the rest of it.

"May I have some more?" she asked, faintly conscious that she was not in complete command of the words she was uttering.

"Not for a while," said Lord Berrington standing up, and added, "Lie back now."

He then went to the other side of the room and removed his clothes. Belinda, however, did not see this, for he was out of her range of vision as she looked fixedly before her, feeling better than she had ever felt in her life and wondering if that was the reason people drank, for it eased despair in a most instantaneous way. But then she would have to be in this state all the time.

Then she suddenly realized that Lord Berrington had climbed on the bed with her and that he wasn't wearing a nightshirt. She looked at his lean, muscled torso and was vaguely aware of a clean soapy scent coming from him as he leaned toward her and with a quick movement undid the ribbon of her nightshift.

He sat up and pulled the shift over her head, tossed it on the chair over his clothes, and then turning to the candle, blew it off with one puff.

Unable to half-focus her eyes as she had been doing before, Belinda's sense of place vanished. She felt engulfed in a deep velvet black that was most pleasant as the feeling of floating continued. Then suddenly she felt him on top of her, heavily, and felt his skin against her own bare breasts so that she gasped. Incredibly she felt his lips brush her breasts until they rested on her nipples and he began kissing them, hard and hungrily, startling Belinda so that she was completely still. She had never given a thought to her small, high breasts and she was now very conscious of them as his lips seared them, invading them with shooting sparks of pleasure that made her almost cry out in delight.

Through her mind a series of memories, of the countless times which she had loved Richard Berrington in silence, within the closed cruelty of her hopeless love for him, flashed through her mind, a mind that was fogged by the effects of liquor. The distant god she had worshipped from afar was now as close as 
this
 
to her and in 
this
 
way. It was sudden and overwhelming. It was a bliss she could not grasp entirely, so that she didn't notice when he tossed the sheets and coverlet away from her impatiently and pulling her legs apart, sent a current of strange sensations throughout her body at the hard warm touch of his hands. But not until he thrust himself against her and she felt a sharp stab of pain as he penetrated her did she realize what had happened, and cried out in pain and alarm. With each succeeding thrust, and there were countless, she felt only pain, and forced herself not to cry out again, biting her lower lip so that it bled.

Then the pain eased and began to melt away gradually, in its place an intensely pleasurable sensation, which she had never before felt. She had no guide but her own mind. Her mind, now stunted by the unfamiliar effects of liquor, responded to his body without the chains of convention, which in any case she was unaware of, for she was being led through this wondrous landscape without a map, and slowly began to join in with each hard thrust of her husband's body into hers—arching her body and responding in unison.

Soon they both were one in their pleasure-seeking and currents of bliss shot throughout her body. She felt herself climbing with him—melting into his being as they climbed toward this pinnacle. They were spinning together in the velvet blackness where she floated and as she reached that pinnacle in the same moment that he did, for the first time he let out a muffled cry even as she did too, so that the cry sounded as one.

Then he fell heavily over her and she felt the perspiration on his chest, as breathless he buried his head in the hollow between her neck and her shoulder. For a few moments he was still and Belinda wished this moment to stretch forever and that she would not have to return to the reality of her life. Nothing could have made her more starkly closer to him than this, this strange way in which they had come together.

Belinda sensed that as he made this strange love to her he was blocking the world of everything except 
her
. The thought of it—the enormity of what had happened—was but part of the blissful heaven in which she now floated. She now loved Berrington more than she loved life itself.

But after a while he turned over and lay by her side in silence, his breathing easier. Then he said, "Do you want the other glass of wine now?"

"Yes," she managed to say, and when he handed her the glass in the darkness of the room, groping for her hand to guide it to the glass, she took it and drank it as if it were water. Then she lay back, certain now that she was drunk and thus would fall asleep soon, and would not have to think that Berrington had not once kissed her lips.

As sleep began to overtake her she heard him pouring a glass of wine for himself and heard him as he gulped it down quickly. He then put the wineglass on the bedside table.

Soon they were both asleep, and the night closed in around them as they lay side by side—but apart—in the large feather bed.

Chapter 7

"Mum, wake up. Wake up, my lady. His lordship wants you ready in an hour, he said, and sent me up with your breakfast."

Belinda opened her eyes and slowly focused them on the face of Bessie.

"Is it late?"

"No, my lady, not late at all, but his lordship wants to take off as soon as possible so we can reach the next stop before nightfall."

"Has he had his breakfast?"

"Oh, yes. He's now out in the stables, talking with some friend he run into."

Belinda sipped her chocolate and ate hungrily of the food on the tray, while Bessie helped by buttering up a scone and pouring more chocolate for her, for Belinda was very thirsty.

Soon Bessie had Belinda washed and dressed, her hair re-braided with a fresh ribbon and her traveling bonnet adjusted on her head, as she handed her reticule and took the portmanteau herself. They would send a boy up for the rest of the luggage.

Belinda saw Lord Berrington speaking with a man as tall as he as Bessie handed the portmanteau to the driver and asked Belinda if she wanted to be helped into the carriage.

"No, Bessie. I'll wait for his lordship," she said as he gazed at him in the distance, deep in conversation with his friend.

"I'm not likely to recover from the shock anytime soon, old chum," Lord Wilbur was saying, his eyes still wide with amazement.

"I was in the stable checking a cut in Midnight's foreleg when Penny came running over with a copy of the Times. I tell you, I almost passed out from the shock.

"It was incredible to me, seeing as little more than a week before I had been trying to point Miss Presleigh to you and you had a hard time remembering who she was—you ignored my references to her, do you not recall?”

"I'm going to ignore you again if you keep this up," interrupted Berrington impatiently.

"I don't want to discuss it, as a matter of fact, so if you're waiting to hear a stage version of it you came to the wrong place."

"Oh, stage versions is what I've had by the dozen," said Lord Wilbur laughing.

"Amazing luck to run into you like this. I had heard you were on your way to your honeymoon, so I was resigned to not hearing from you for several months."

"Come, let me introduce you to her so that she can board the carriage. I think she's waiting for me,” said Berrington.

Belinda's heart hammered in her breast as she saw Lord Berrington, accompanied by the other man, walk toward her.

"I want to introduce you to a friend of mine." he said as they reached Belinda, without looking directly at her.

Lord Wilbur came up to Belinda and looking curiously into her eyes, said with a smile that centered mostly in his eyes,

"Delighted to meet you, Countess. You have no idea how happy I was to hear that this marriage took place. I had been hoping my friend Berrington would settle down. You can never imagine how pleasantly surprised I was. I have been introduced to you before when you were still Miss Presleigh, but perhaps you don't remember me."

"Yes, I do," said Belinda shyly. How could she not know Lord Wilbur, who was Lord Berrington's best friend? He was among those who always looked through her. Yet now he was looking directly into her eyes and was so sincerely happy at the marriage that Belinda smiled, for he was most probably the only person who was happy about it other than her mother.

She had been introduced to countless persons and though they forced smiles to their lips and wished her happiness, Belinda could often see clearly the spite behind their eyes. Many, like Lord Berrington's sister-in-law, Flora, who was Lord Berrington's half-brother's widow, didn't even bother to mask their dislike.

And Flora was in charge of the house at Winterhill.

In any case, Belinda was glad that Lord Wilbur was keeping up a stream of conversation. She dared not look at Lord Berrington as Lord Wilbur spoke and felt herself blush just at the thought of meeting his eyes again after last night.

Lord Berrington stole a glance at Belinda as Lord Wilbur chatted away, and saw how unlikely a countess she looked, with her thin face almost lost inside the bonnet and her thin figure swimming in her travelling gown of deep rose.

He knew that all of London was laughing at him. Then suddenly he remembered her breasts, dew soft under his lips and a perfect fit in his hands, and though her figure was too thin, without her nightshift on it the skin was smooth and soft and the thinness had felt slight and vulnerable, almost breakable under his roving hands.

A sudden flash of how they had both reached a climax at the same time made him glance away. Not even the light skirt he kept in London had ever reached a climax with him, for Berrington was certain that ten times out of ten she was pretending.

But wasn't that her business, to please, however falsely, in exchange for luxury? Yet his bride, who was as pure as the driven snow, had followed his lead in a most amazing way. It was now he who felt the color rise at his thoughts as Lord Wilbur turned to him curiously.

"I was asking Lady Berrington if she would mind your riding with me in my curricle part of the way, old pal. Only a couple of hours, for I'm going to take the turn at the junction."

"I don't mind at all," said Belinda hurriedly, awkwardly. She wondered if she would ever be able to talk normally in her husband's presence. She felt more at ease with Lord Wilbur and for all practical purposes she had just met him.

"How are Cathy and the baby?" asked Lord Berrington.

"They’re both fine. Cathy came through like a trooper. A fine strapping boy," Lord Wilbur said beaming. I wrote to Steven and sent the letter by messenger. Both Cathy and the baby are in excellent health.

"You will meet Cathy soon, Lady Berrington," he added, "for we are neighbors. That's how this rogue and I got to be best friends."

"I am glad," Belinda said with a smile.

* * * * *

"Alright, out with it," said Lord Wilbur when they were settled in his curricle, the carriage with Belinda and Bessie following behind them.

"I want to hear the right version of the story for a change."

"The right version of the story is not a pretty one", muttered Lord Berrington, an exasperated look in his face. "So the different versions you heard of it cannot be far off."

"You'd be amazed how the 
on-dit 
of the Season can be shaped and reshaped like putty by our ton, so that even you wouldn't recognize it," Lord Wilbur said with a laugh.

"I'll talk about it this once, and only because it's you," said Lord Berrington grimly, "but I shall never speak of it again. So you better get all your questions in this time for you're not getting another chance."

"Fair enough," said Lord Wilbur with a wide smile.

"Well?" asked Lord Berrington, "Fire away, and the devil take you for being such a nuisance. I hadn't planned to discuss it with anyone."

"Tell me about the letter," said Lord Wilbur. "Is it true that there was a letter involved?"

"There was. I wrote a letter to—well, it doesn't matter to whom. I'll just say it wasn't addressed to—damn, I really don't want to get into all this again—"

"You promised," Lord Wilbur reminded him. "Who did you write the letter to—let me guess. Lady Celeste?"

"It was a letter for an assignation. This letter, with a falsified envelope was given to—Miss Presleigh—to my wife," Lord Berrington said, feeling the word 'wife' still strange to his lips.

"Then 
she 
wasn't involved in the—well—the plot, as everyone is calling it."

"I don't know how much she was involved."

"I know the mother," Lord Wilbur said with conviction. "If it was a plot, Lady Berrington had nothing to do with it. She must have been duped into it."

"It couldn't have been done without her cooperation," said Lord Berrington, his resentment boiling up like gall all over again.

"Did you see the letter—with the envelope—again?"

"Yes, old Viscount Clariston had it in his hand—how that old coot got involved in the whole mess so early in the morning was amazing. But there he was, right in the thick of it."

"And you feel the mother locked you in?"

"She denied it of course, but I'm quite certain of it. She had arranged to stay in the shadows, apparently, and when Miss Presleigh realized we were locked in she then called out to her. That's how I found out."

"Well, that proves Lady Berrington had no inkling of what was going to happen—"

"Why then did she believe I had made an assignation with her when I couldn't even recall who she was?

"And afterwards, why did she accept a marriage that she knew I had been forced to offer her? Couldn't she have just said no since nothing had happened, and allow the gossip to die out? That’s what I expected her to do. I couldn’t believe that she actually…"

"Actually what?" asked Wilbur, but when Berrington did not answer him he went on, "Her mother is a very overbearing woman. I imagine she can convince a shy young girl of anything if she sets her mind to it. "I could go as far as saying she browbeat her into it."

"Why are you so set in convincing me Miss Presleigh had nothing to do with the plot? I am resigned to it and will not punish her for it, but nothing will ever convince me she was innocent in this. The alternative is that I think she's stupid, for allowing herself to be led by the nose into it. And if it should narrow down to only two choices, I much prefer my wife be crafty than stupid."

"Did you try the door throughout the night?"

"Yes, of course I did. I was instantly aware that the mother had trapped us there. But the door was bolted from the outside. She must have removed the bolt right before she took a throng of witnesses there in the early morning."

"You fell asleep then?"

"Yes. I fell asleep at the table after drinking almost two bottles of wine—after all I had drank with you! It was quite obvious to me that any choice in the matter of my wife had been neatly removed from me. There didn't seem to be anything in the blasted place but wine, with hundreds of bottles around."

"Where was Miss Presleigh—I mean, Lady Berrington while you slept?"

"She was on another table against a cupboard. I'm afraid I browbeat her away from me. She looked as scared as a rabbit."

"Toward morning we both fell asleep. She heard a noise and ran to wake me.

"We were standing side by side when the door opened and a sea of faces looked down on us…"

"And you looked drunk and disheveled."

"Exactly. It was enough to convince Lord and Lady Lennington—and of course that meddler, Lord Clariston, that I had compromised Miss Presleigh. The fact that we had done nothing but glare at each other—that is, I glared—was immaterial. I was guilty as charged.

"So you see, Willie, it was a master trap, and I fell into it like a clumsy bear."

"It's not a good beginning for a marriage to go into it with bad feelings…"

"How else can I go into it when I was trapped into it?" asked Lord Berrington. "I am likely to feel resentment for the rest of my life, so stop trying to soften up something that cannot be softened.

"Besides," he added with a bitter smile, "you don't have to look at it in such a tragic way. A great many marriages are arranged marriages. This one is just another version of them, albeit a strange one. But you cannot expect me to act as though this marriage was the dearest wish of my life.

"I am going to escort her as far as Winterhill and then I shall return to London—to resume my life there. My Parliamentary duties await me."

"Ah—yes," said Willie shaking his head, "and that cannot wait, not even for a honeymoon."

"Stop acting judgmental, old chum," said Berrington, trying to hold his temper. "How would you like it if all of London was laughing at you, saying you had been trapped into marriage with an antidote? Did you expect me to stay with her in London so that everyone could have his fill of the farce?"

Lord Wilbur winced at these words.

"Would it help if I said I am not one of them? I certainly don't consider Lady Berrington an antidote, never have, in fact."

"A pity you were distracted from asking her for a dance," said Berrington coldly, when Lord Wilbur only shook his head. "Perhaps now we might have been speaking of 
your 
marriage to her instead of mine."

"You are not usually so cynical," said Lord Wilbur, turning away from him.

"No. I apologize. I will not be cruel to her, nor will I permit anyone to speak ill of her. As for the rest…" Berrington suddenly remembered part of "the rest" and how startled he had been at her response to his passion. His intention had been only to consummate the marriage, and for that, one time was enough.

He remembered how on glancing down at his sleeping bride when he awoke the next morning, he had noticed the cut in her lip. She must have bit her lip in order not to yell out, he had thought then, and smiled down at her kindly.

And now he caught himself thinking that once was not exactly enough, and looked forward to the evening with a quick intake of his breath.