Secrets of a Scandalous Bride (23 page)

“Yes, well, I think we have enough dukes as it is, madam. I do believe your grandson would agree.” A smile overspread the prince’s flushed face. “But I have an excellent notion now that you mention it. There’s a long-standing vacancy at St. James Palace. It is yours, Manning, if you should fancy it.”

“Majesty?” he whispered with as much deference as he could muster, despite the rasp in his voice.

“Master of the Horse.”

Something welled up inside of Rowland’s throat. For the first time since he could remember, he couldn’t speak.

“Well, say something, man. What? Is the Balreal viscountcy that comes part and parcel not sufficient? Or is it the income you find lacking?”

“Income?” his voice was nearly gone.

“Well, it might not be seventy thousand a year, but it is somewhat in the vicinity if I remember correctly. Of course, you would be required to oversee all of the royal household needs pertaining to carriages, horses, including the royal horse guards, and the like. Will it not suit?” The prince said it all with as much dry wit as the conferral of a windfall demanded.

Ata meekly began, “Is there not a residence that conveys with…Er, what of Pymm’s property? Shall it—”

“Madam,” the prince interrupted dryly, “there is no freestanding residence for the Master of the Horse. Royal apartments shall have to do. And, after all, the man does have a stable to run, apart from the aforementioned royal duties. The land I reserved for Pymm shall revert to the crown.”

The prince offered the back of his hand to Rowland, who was too stunned to speak. A small, knowing smile appeared at the corners of the royal mouth.

Helston moved to within a few feet of him and whispered, “Kiss His Majesty’s hand, you idiot.”

Rowland managed a stiff approximation of the formality.

“Very good, Manning. I trust you shall do the vis
countcy proud. Helston shall undertake to refine your manners, I daresay.”

The duke’s eyebrows nearly rose to his hairline, and Rowland could have sworn he heard Helston say something very like, “Not
another
bloody friend,” under his breath before he bowed. “Of
course
, Your Majesty.”

“Well then, I find I’m at the limits of my patience and munificence. I shall leave you all to make as merry as you choose, while I retire to pray for a return to some semblance of normalcy in the natural order of things—where generals behave with dignity and horse traders are the panderers we know and love.”

The Prince Regent swept from the room in all his splendor, leaving the beau monde in attendance with enough scandalous gossip to entertain themselves for the next decade or three.

“And just where do you think you’re going?” Ata’s tone and the words were all too familiar to Elizabeth.

She had attempted to slip away from Carlton House a mere quarter of an hour after the Prince Regent’s departure. Overwhelmed by the magnitude of events, Elizabeth could not keep the frozen smile on her face before the masses. Rowland had sensed her careening emotions, and without a word he had whisked her beyond the gilded screens in the Throne Room to the hidden exit and the fresh air she craved. They should have known better.

“Oh no, you don’t.” Ata blocked their entrance into Rowland’s closed, dark blue Berline coach. “The
guests are but a few moments behind you, and they would seize any new bit of tittle-tattle if you dared to leave together unescorted.”

Elizabeth hazarded a glance at the face of the man who had saved her. She felt as if she was in a dream still, for he had not directed more than a few syllables toward her.

“Well, I’m leaving,” Rowland said darkly. “Can’t stomach another moment of that god-awful fawning.”

“Yes,” Ata said, “well, you should have thought about that before you put yourself up as London’s newest hero.”

“I shall go with him,” Elizabeth murmured softly.

“Absolutely not,” Ata insisted. “If you think your every step was commented on before, Eliza, you have no notion what it will be like after today.”

Elizabeth could barely speak. “But, I don’t care what they—”

“No.” Ata was deep into diatribe. “He must court you properly. He may call upon you in a few days, or in a week, when the madness of this day wanes a bit, and then—”

Rowland leaned down and grasped Ata by her petite waist and hauled her into his carriage. The dowager was so shocked that aside from one very unladylike oath, she took a seat inside and fumed silently.

Rowland then looked at Elizabeth, that dearly familiar sultry half smile etched on his face. “Your turn.” He swung her up into the darkened interior, his large hands gripping her waist. A moment later, he was beside her and closing the door smartly.

As the carriage jerked forward along the crowded roadway, Elizabeth checked the small window and saw a flood of guests leaking from Carlton House’s magnificent entrance.

Ata was now muttering. “And by the by, young man, you are not to think about climbing the trellis again.”

“Never fear, madam. I don’t fancy more of those bloody thorns in my
arse
and—”

“Your elocution lessons”—Ata interrupted—“shall begin tomorrow. Luc’s patience will be sorely tested, but—”

“Madam,” Rowland growled, “I am not in the habit of enduring lectures. You shall remain silent now for I must speak to Elizabeth. I have something of great importance to—”

“Oh
…” Ata interrupted and perked up with a knowing smile. “
I see
. Well, then, go ahead. You have my permission. I shall just help you over the rough spots—guide you in case—”

Rowland effectively cut off Ata by rapping on the ceiling of the carriage with his knuckles. The Berline swayed and drew to a stop. He sighed heavily and stared at the dowager, whose look bordered on petulant.

Elizabeth’s heart raced, her voice stuck in her throat. Ata’s dark, beady eyes glanced first at her and then at Rowland.

With greater kindness than Elizabeth thought him capable, he spoke to Ata. “I understand you have a fondness for driving, madam?”

Ata immediately brightened. “Why, indeed I do. But what has that to do with—”

“You shall join Lefroy on the bench outside. And he shall teach you everything you need to know about—”

“Impertinent pup. I don’t need any driving lessons. I’ll have you know that—”

“Do you want to drive the team or not?” he interrupted impatiently.

Elizabeth watched Ata stutter for the first time ever.

“Oh, very well. But don’t think I don’t know what this is all about. And if you muddle the proposal, it shall be your own fault, Mr. Manning. I could have helped you. None of the other roosters knew the smallest thing about how to go on. I’d hoped to save you the trouble.”

He looked at her wolfishly. “Perhaps I’m not a rooster.”

“Really?” Ata said with doubt.

“Perhaps I’m the fox.”

Ata barked with laughter.

His hungry gaze swept over her, and Elizabeth suddenly felt very shy in the enclosed space.

“Perhaps, I don’t stop until I get what I want,” he continued. “Snatching things, whether I have a right to them or not, is my speciality, or haven’t you heard?”

Ata’s eyes widened. “Well, we shall just have to see how effective your unconventional methods are, Mr. Manning. Eliza, I shall come to your aid at the first squawk.”

Elizabeth watched Rowland assist Ata to the outside driving bench with a surprising amount of gentleness. She heard his strict instructions to Lefroy.
And then he was alone with her. Across from her.

They gazed into each other’s eyes for so long, her vision blurred.

“You’ve said naught but three words,” he said in his gravelly low voice. “Are you all right?”

“Thank you,” she whispered, afraid to let the torrent of gratitude and even stronger emotions past her defenses. Yet, she could not stop her eyes from welling.

“Tears?” He sighed. “Hell.”

She blinked rapidly and turned partially away from him to swipe at her face with the back of her gloved hand.

“You’d better stop for I haven’t a handkerchief,” he murmured.

She laughed raggedly. “Neither do I.”

There was such mystery in the shadows of his angular face. Yet, his hands gripped the seat as if he was hanging on for dear life.

“Is it to be kidnapping beneath the cover of darkness, then, Elizabeth?” he murmured.

“No, of course not.” She felt unbearably reticent with him for some ridiculous reason—uncertain how to convey the tumult of her relief and bone-deep happiness.

He leaned toward her with all the slow certainty of a man who knows what he wants and isn’t afraid to come after it. He gently gathered her in his arms and transferred her onto his lap.

She tucked her head into the hollow of his neck. “I love you,” she whispered.

“I know,” he replied gently. She felt the warmth of his hand stroking her head.

Her breathing was hitched. “I suppose you figured it out a long time ago.”

“Actually, it was only when I read that ridiculous letter you wrote. The one suggesting you had changed your mind and were marrying Pymm. I didn’t take it seriously, of course. Not for a moment. I was certain Pymm had made you write it. Just as I was certain you might not follow my instructions.” He ran his hand through his dark hair. “But God, Elizabeth, I didn’t think you’d go so far as to…Well, I lost ten years of my life—that I can ill afford—when Helston and Michael dragged all that blunt to Prinny’s Music Room. Bloody hell…Elizabeth.” His voice cracked.

“The Music Room? Is that where you were? Well then, you do not follow directions, either,” she whispered. “I thought you were going to wait for me in my room at Helston House. And I lost
fifteen
years of my life when you appeared before His Majesty. Not that I’m complaining, you understand.” She pulled away from him and stared at his shadowed expression. And then she began to laugh. And cry again. She laughed through her tears as only a woman inexplicably saved and in the arms of the man she had never thought to be with ever again. And yet, he had not said the words she most wanted to hear.

Perhaps he could not say them—would not ever say them. She had not a doubt he cared for her. He would not have given up seventy thousand pounds unless he did. The thought made her silently weep all the harder as he unwound his neck cloth and dried her tears with the end of it.

“So,” he whispered into her hair in between kisses on the top of her head, “shall we risk a show again
at St. George’s? Or would you prefer something simpler?”

“Are you certain?” she whispered.

“Of what?”

“That we should marry? Is that what you really want, or are you doing this because you’ve been trapped into offering for me?”

“Elizabeth,” he said, shaking his head. “Don’t force me to play the rooster, cackling romantic nonsense. I want to marry you. Now, if you don’t want to marry me, I understand. Actually, I’ll only partially understand, since I do come with a title now. But in the end, I will bind and gag you, put you over my shoulder, and even suffer the indignity of thorns in my arse again, if necessary, and find some deaf-and-blind blacksmith in Gretna Green to do my bidding.” He waited patiently for her answer.

“Yes, then. Something simple,” she whispered, her mind still whirling by her outrageous good fortune. “But…”

“Anything,” he whispered as he stroked the skin between the puffed edge of her short sleeve and the top of her glove.

“I should like it to be soon.” She closed her eyes and drank in the masculine scent that was uniquely his. “As soon as humanly possible.”

It was as if he could read her mind. “What are you thinking—worrying—about?”

She could not stop the words from spilling out. “That I will wake up and this will all be an impossible dream.”

He tilted up her chin. “Elizabeth…I will not have you worrying.
Ever again
.” He paused, his eyes
searching her expression. When he appeared satisfied, he continued. “Then it shall be by Special License, if at all possible. I wager the archbishop will be delighted to help.” He grinned and then dipped lower to brush an endless series of kisses on her forehead, her cheeks, her nose, and finally on her mouth.

Before she gave herself up to the cocoon of their happiness, an image formed in her mind at the same time that a smile formed on her lips.

There was one thing she would do—something
absolutely daring
—before she became the wife and very private chef of the man who had saved her—the man with whom she would spend the rest of her life.

And she knew just whom to ask for help in her quest. It certainly was
not
the archbishop.

I
f someone had told him three months ago that he would face down a revered military hero and the Prince Regent, and do it all to protect and marry a woman this fateful summer, he would have laughed and then horsewhipped the man who had the temerity to suggest something so outrageous.

And yet, here he stood, impatiently waiting before the yawn of an intricately sculpted marble fireplace in the drawing room of one of Mayfair’s grandest townhouses, flanked by his half brother and the Duke of Helston—two men who had taken it upon themselves this week to accomplish the impossible.

First, they had helped him secure the Special License. Second, they had
barred
him from seeing Elizabeth—this last at the insistence of that interfering dowager duchess, whom Rowland would have been tempted to strangle if she had not been so helpful the evening of the Carlton House debacle. All of them had tried to put a pretty face on their sodding reasons for keeping Elizabeth from him, but Rowland knew why they did it.

They’d been terrified he would muck it up—change his mind or say something to Elizabeth to make her
reverse her promise. He smiled and cleared his throat. They knew nothing of it, the idiots.

Those long-standing members of the peerage might have respectable instincts toward their wives—all that self-sacrificing nonsense espoused by blue-blooded coves. But, Rowland was a mudlark and ever would be. When he found something precious, he didn’t give it away or return it to its rightful owner. He guarded it like a wild dog with a bone. In this case, he was the starving mutt, and Elizabeth was—

“Well?” Helston was yammering again about some sort of trivial detail. It had gone thusly all week.

“Well, what?” Rowland muttered.

“Do you have it?”

“What?”

The duke sighed heavily. “The ring?”

He knew the duke had been marking off the days until this wedding. Helston could taste freedom—freedom from the responsibility of watching over his eccentric grandmother’s flock of crows.

The Prince Regent had not withdrawn his generous gift to Sarah Winters despite the change in bridegrooms. With Elizabeth’s marriage, the duke would be left with only one widow to coddle—although she was the most trying of them all. Ata.

“Well? Do you have a damned ring, or am I forced to retrieve one of my wife’s baubles?” Helston asked impatiently.

Rowland just could not stop himself. “A ring? Hmmm…that might be a problem,” he replied casually.

The duke turned to Michael. “One would think you would have at least accompanied your own
brother to a jeweler. Helped him find a bloody—”

Michael sighed. “He has one, Helston. You haven’t the smallest notion, do you?”

“Of what?” the duke asked darkly.

“That my brother has an odd fashion for showing gratitude.”

“And what way is that?”

“By making you sweat before he does.”

Rowland clapped his younger brother on the back and chuckled. “You have the right of it, Michael. But only partially.”

“Which part?” Michael asked, his smile fading.

“The part about him sweating,” Rowland replied. “But
I
have not a single reason to be anxious. Quite the opposite actually.”

That set Helston to guffawing. Finally drawing a breath, he said, “We shall see, my dear fellow. We shall see. In fact, I predict we shall witness a shift in your cool attitude in nine months’ time—if you use your time
wisely
. Ellesmere has been a prime example this summer.”

“And of course, you were as cool as you please, Helston, when your wife—” Michael murmured.

“Do not say another word, Wallace.” The duke glared at the both of them.

They were interrupted by the appearance of Ata, who darted a quick glance around the edge of the door and nodded to the archbishop and Lefroy, who stood at the opposite end of the chamber. It saved Rowland from trying to hide the sudden rush of fear in the vicinity of his heart. God, if she became with child. Birthing…The thought was enough to blur his vision. He just could not lose her. He swallowed back bile.

The ancient archbishop, dressed in far simpler vestments than those he’d worn in St. George’s, strode toward them. “Shall we take our places, then, gentlemen?”

Rowland’s loyal stable master hung back, lurking at the far window, uncertain.

“Lefroy?” With a small gesture, Rowland beckoned the man he had known longer than anyone else—a man who had started with him years ago and had been the only man who possessed the nerve to stand up to him.

“Master?” he took a step closer.

“Come over here,” he murmured.

The older man made his way closer until he stood next to Michael.

“No,” Rowland said. “Beside me.”

Lefroy joined him and cracked a grin wide enough to make his ears dip.

“Hold this.” He handed the stable master a slender, delicately braided gold ring that glittered with many tiny, exquisite diamonds.

The duke’s eyes bugged out. “Where did you…”

He raised a brow. “I have sources.”

“By everything holy,” Helston muttered, “you’ve gone and bought
fenced
goods.”

“Don’t be ridiculous,” he replied. “It’s not filched. It’s from
his
wife.” He glanced at his brother. “On loan.”

“On loan? As in you will return it?” Michael choked out.

“No. On loan as in you
might
get it back—if and when Elizabeth sees something she fancies more. But
I wouldn’t hold your—” And then he heard a sound and all of them turned.

His eyes came to rest on a luminescent figure at the door. The backs of his eyes burned from the sight, and his throat closed. He would not for the life of him have been able to describe the white confection of lace and silk she wore. All he knew was that she looked like an angel flown down from heaven’s perch to lead him to paradise.

As she floated toward him, he saw white flowers threading her magnificent locks amassed at the crown of her head. A few wisps curled on one shoulder to tempt him beyond endurance. But it was her eyes that arrested him, beckoned him. They were so true, and beguiling in their sweetness—so
green
against all that white finery.

She looked like a bride.

His
bride.

He reached out his hand as she drew beside him. Without thinking, he brought her fingers to his lips and kissed the back of her gloved hand, lingering there. Her eyes told him she had missed him as he had missed her.

The archbishop cleared his throat, forcing him back to the moment. “Mr. Manning, if you please,” the man said sternly. “May we go about this then in the correct order—
for once
? The vows first, and then…well, we shall see.”

Rowland’s eyes did not drift from hers. What had the man said?

A dazzling smile appeared on her face to enchant him further. He nearly reeled. And then she was
turning to hand her small posy to Ata. Sarah Winters made a show of arranging the train of Elizabeth’s gown.

He had never paid any attention to the words uttered during the scant number of weddings he’d been forced to endure. In the hushed atmosphere of the chamber, he absorbed every nuance of every phrase.

As he pled his troth to the woman who had saved him from himself, he let the vows wash over him, through him, until he felt an otherworldly sense of joy consume him. Never in his lifetime would he forget her heartrending promises in return.

“…for better and for worse, for richer and for poorer, in sickness and in health, to love and to cherish, and to
obey
”—she lifted one winged eyebrow in amusement—“till death us do part, according to God’s holy ordinance; and hereto I give thee my troth.”

Rowland grasped the ring Lefroy held and then paused, uncertain, as he examined her long white gloved hand and arm. “Hmmmm…” He stuck the ring between his teeth and began to disengage her hand from her glove.

Helston cleared his throat. “Put it on over the glove.”

“No. Once it’s on she’s never going to take it off,” he said, softly staring into her laughing eyes and withdrawing the glove.

The archbishop shook his head but smiled. Surely this was the most unorthodox wedding he had witnessed.

“With this ring,” Rowland began quietly, as he kissed it once and slid it onto her delicate finger, “I
thee wed, with my body I thee worship, and with all my worldly goods I thee endow…”

They were pronounced man and wife, and Rowland released the longest-held breath of his life.

She was now safe. No one could take her from him.

Even if Pymm’s future was still uncertain, the former favorite son of England had not a chance of touching her now. He was far too busy trying to hold on to some semblance of his battlefield laurels by building a sizable bulwark against incrimination using impressive, long-standing military connections.

Every last man in the room pounded him on his back—Helston the longest of all. “God bless you, Manning, for…well, you know very well what for.” The duke laughed long and loud—the first time Rowland had heard him do so—and the rest of the members of the party chorused good wishes for their happiness.

A clattering from the hall interrupted the celebration, and Rowland’s gut clenched. He’d known this was all too easily done.

The flushed face of his brother’s countess, Grace, appeared. “Oh…I
am
interrupting.”

“What is it?” Elizabeth said, her fingers still entwined with his own.

“I am so sorry. But, I thought all of you would want to know soonest. Georgiana is safely delivered. Of a son. Oh, this is awful of me. I didn’t mean to interrupt.” Michael went immediately to her side and cradled her in his arms.

Helston’s wife, Rosamunde, entered behind Grace and hurried to her husband.

“What is it?” Helston asked.

Rowland’s ears picked up the raven-haired lady’s words. “Nothing, my love. It’s just that Georgiana was so very weak. We didn’t know…but the doctor assured us she will be perfectly fine. She needs simply to rest.”

Helston smiled broadly as he clasped his wife closer—in a rare public display. “If I were to hazard a guess, it is Ellesmere who will require the most bolstering.”

The dowager duchess clucked about new fathers and infants, and all manner of folderol. But it was Rowland who was perhaps the most delighted of all by the excellent news.

It provided the perfect rationale for an early escape from the elegant townhouse in Mayfair.

There was a reason Elizabeth had asked Rowland if they could marry at Helston House. If the fashionable columns had been rife with gossip about her whereabouts before, when she had been supposed to marry Leland Pymm, it was nothing compared to now, after the events at Carlton House. It would have been mad to marry at St. George’s.

As she and Rowland stood just outside of Helston House’s doors, she was overwhelmed by the sight of the masses crowding Portman Square. Her heart warmed at the outpouring of well wishes from the people, prosperous and poor alike, who had come to witness the commoner turned noble well and truly married to his scandalous bride.

A rich stew of cockney-laced words of congratula
tions hailed from the crowd while a few white handkerchiefs fluttered in the distance.

“Gives her a little kiss, then, Manning,” a man shouted in the distance. A chorus seconded him.

He looked down at her, his eyes glittering with amusement. “Shall we?”

“I thought you disliked such public displays,” she murmured.

“Really? Since when have I ever refused the chance?” His lips touched the end of her nose before he swept her into an outrageous kiss designed to impress.

The crowd cheered, and whooped and hollered their delight. And for once, she didn’t care that the newspapers would be full of the vulgar antics. In truth, this might just be the last time she would be seen in public for a very long time. If she had her way, they would not visit a ballroom for the next decade or longer. She had only one desire, and that was to live a very private, productive life with the man she loved.

Precisely one half hour later, Elizabeth found herself drifting in the world she had not dared to believe would be her own.

The last week had dragged forever. Myriad doubts and fears had crept in. Perhaps he did not, and would never come to, care for her the way she cared for him. His past had been so wretched that it was doubtful he could trust anyone—even Elizabeth—enough to open his heart and offer love unreservedly.

And so she had fretted—as only a young bride-to-be can do.

After extracting themselves from the exuberant
well-wishers in Mayfair, they had, through the expert hand of Mr. Lefroy, inched toward Manning’s stables, where his stable hands waited for them. Intent on celebrating the nuptials of their heretofore taciturn master and his new bride, they had arranged a simple but very heartfelt breakfast in the shade of the old oak tree.

Elizabeth became more and more anxious as the hour grew later and the revelry and toasts more scant. Twice, Rowland had come near and bent down to whisper the suggestion that they excuse themselves. And twice she had smiled, but allowed one of his men to distract her with yet another outrageous story of one of the auctions, or one of the horses, or of Rowland himself. It did not help that Rowland’s face grew darker with each passing minute she dragged her feet.

And then without a word of warning, she was lifted in the air from behind. It did not take much effort to deduce it was her husband. She refused to struggle. It would be even more mortifying than it already was. A babble of men’s laughter drifted all around them as Rowland turned her to face him and cradled her to his wide chest. “Come along, Mrs. Manning,” he whispered in her ear. “Or have you already forgotten the promises you made?”

She could not meet his eyes. “Promises?”

“The ones about having, and holding. And the one about obeying. Although, I admit, I was fairly certain there might be some trouble with that last one.” He kissed the top of her head and chuckled. “I just hadn’t thought it would be so soon.”

She still could not meet his eyes. He carried her
over the threshold to the main building and up the staircase. His long strides ate up the distance to his private chamber. It was the one room she had never dared to enter.