Shameless (36 page)

But first they had to get through this night.

This is my wedding night.

Her stomach dropped clear to her toes at the thought. If she had been prone to fits of the vapors, she would have had one right then. But she was not so prone, she was distressingly unhysteric by nature, and so she just kept walking, feeling all the while as if she were trapped in the unreal landscape of a bad dream.

I’m married.

Her heart knocked in her chest.

“I bespoke dinner, upon our return,” Neil said as they passed through the inn’s arched doorway into the warmth and light inside. He bestowed a curt nod on the innkeeper, who had come out to greet them and showed them into a private parlor. The innkeeper was a round little man, with a florid face, white hair, and a look in his eyes as they slid over Beth that was far from what she was accustomed to. Drawing herself up in response to it, Beth returned his gaze with some surprise, then realized that of course that less-than-respectful look was because she had just contracted a clandestine marriage at Gretna Green, putting her quite beyond the pale, and she felt even more wretched.

The private parlor was small, made dark by wood-paneled walls and tight shuttered windows despite the fire in the fireplace and the bunches of candles guttering in their sconces, and smelled of smoke. Noise from the taproom next door made conversation all but impossible, which Beth didn’t mind because, thanks in some part to the listening ears of the innkeeper’s stout wife, who waited upon them and cast numerous surreptitious but avid looks over the newlyweds whenever she thought herself unobserved, she seemed to have lost her tongue. Uttering the few commonplaces that occurred to her, jumpy as a cat on hot bricks, she responded to Neil’s unexceptional conversational gambits almost at random while picking at her capon and broccoli without ever tasting the few morsels she put in her mouth. In the end, she sat sipping tea while he made a hearty meal.

It was all she could do to keep her hand from shaking. Despite her efforts, though, the china cup rattled more than once in its saucer as she set it down.

“I—believe I will go upstairs now,” she said when the port was brought in and the dishes cleared. At the thought of what going upstairs implied, her heart fluttered and her stomach knotted so tightly that even the little she had eaten was in danger of resurfacing. She badly needed a few moments alone, a few moments to settle her racing mind and calm her shredded nerves, a few moments in which to come to terms with this drastic change in her estate.

A few moments to come to terms with the notion of being married.

“I’ll join you in, say, half an hour,” was his reply. It was rendered no less dismaying because it was spoken in a perfectly calm voice. He sat there in front of the smoking fire, looking quite at his ease, pouring himself out a glass of port, his long legs disposed carelessly beneath the table, his broad shoulders blocking most of the fireplace from her view. There was nothing of the lover about him. Indeed, there had not been since, after a great deal of spirited argument, he had been brought to see that—because Beth knew with certainty that Richmond would do all in his power to protect one who had become, irrevocably, a member of his own family no matter how much he might dislike the necessity—wedding her was the only rational answer to their dilemma. But still her knees were practically knocking together as with a murmur of assent she escaped his presence and all but fled up the stairs toward their—
their!
—chamber.

A maid emerged just as she reached it.

“I’ve made all ready, mum, just as the gentleman ordered,” she said, bobbing her head.

“Th-thank you,” Beth stuttered, unable to contemplate with anything approaching equanimity the idea that this sturdy Scotswoman knew that she would be sharing a bed with her new, most scandalously married husband. Managing to preserve her countenance for long enough to pass into the room, Beth closed the door behind her. Then, leaning back against it, she surveyed the scene before her with nausea-inducing anxiety.

Lit solely by a fire burning low in the grate, the room itself was well enough, with a carpet in muted colors covering the floor, a single shuttered window that looked out, she thought, on the stable yard, a washstand, a dressing table, a wardrobe, a pair of mismatched chairs, and a large bed practically smothered in quilts and hung with heavy, tawny gold velvet curtains. Beth could barely look at the bed, and the other comforts awaiting her, though welcome, were no more calming.

Steaming gently in the firelight, a bath stood before the hearth. Beside it, a night rail had been laid out across one of the chairs. There
was also a portmanteau and what looked like a dress and the appropriate undergarments, along with a brush and other necessities. Those would be for the morrow, of course, and had doubtless been scrounged up by the landlady at Neil’s request, in return for some small sum.

The bath and night rail were for tonight.

The hollow feeling taking up residence in the pit of her stomach was, she decided, at least preferable to the sickening churning that had previously occupied it.

This was your idea,
she reminded herself.
You talked him into wedding you, and must now stick to the bargain.

But marrying had seemed so much easier in the abstract.

For a moment, no longer, Beth remained where she was, back pressed against the door, wishing with all her heart she was safe back in her own spacious chamber in Claire’s house in Cavendish Square. Then she realized that a goodly number of the minutes that Neil had promised to allot her had already ticked past, and this galvanized her into moving.

The first thing she did was turn the key in the lock so that she could be certain he would not take her unaware.

The second was to scramble out of her clothes, which presented her with some difficulty as the hooks in the middle of her back proved difficult to reach, and the strings to her stays had knotted.

The third was to climb into the bath.

The hot water felt heavenly. Closing her eyes, she sank down into it, letting it soothe muscles that ached from the hours she’d spent riding pillion, enjoying its silken comfort against her skin for a long, luxurious moment before the specter of Neil’s imminent arrival once again reared its demoralizing head. Sitting up, making liberal use of the soap, she scrubbed herself until her skin glowed, rinsed, and climbed out again, all much faster than she would have done if she had not feared hearing his knock on the door at any second. Shivering a little, she dried herself and pulled the night rail over her head. Long-sleeved and high-necked, it was of white cambric, a deal too large for her, and, except for a few rows of pin-tucking around the neckline, completely plain, but it was
clean and fresh-smelling and covered her, and that was what mattered most. Ears straining now as she listened with growing trepidation for Neil’s footsteps approaching the door, for surely he would arrive at any second, she unpinned her hair and brushed it out. Although she usually slept with it in a long braid, that didn’t seem appropriate. Perhaps he would prefer it loose?

I’ve given him the right to have a voice in how I wear my hair.

The thought so appalled her that she twisted it up with more haste than care, scraping the hair back from her face anyhow, thrusting pins into the unwieldy bun at her nape with such speed that more than one stabbed into her scalp. Having finally tamed every last wayward tendril, she then discovered as she finished that after all she would have been better served by leaving it loose: with the firelight shining through it, the night rail was all but indecent, and, loosed, her hair would have at least covered the most private parts of her anatomy. Horrified by the discovery, she was still staring at herself in the mirror over the dressing table in some shock when the knock she had been dreading came.

It was a soft, most discreet rapping, which for the effect it had on her could have been a furious pounding of fists.

She jumped, stared at the portal, took a step toward it, paused as the impossibility of opening the door clad as she was impressed itself upon her, then quickly snatched the topmost quilt from the bed. Wrapping it around herself, setting her teeth, she went to open the door.

Neil stood on the other side of it. Their eyes met as she pulled the panel wide, and at the same time as she was once again registering just how very tall and broad-shouldered he was, his gaze slid down her quilt-wrapped body. When their eyes met again, she could read nothing at all in his. Clutching the quilt tighter, feeling hideously self-conscious and so nervous she could scarcely breathe, she stood back to let him enter.

He did so, then took the door from her cold fingers, closed it, and turned the key in the lock. The click would have made her jump had she not managed to control the impulse just in time.

Then, finally, they were utterly alone. He was her husband. She was his wife.

Icy curls of panic chased each other through her system as he turned to look at her.

Barefoot as she was, her head just topped his shoulders. With the best will in the world, she found she couldn’t quite meet his gaze, and instead ended up looking steadfastly at his chin.

“You shaved.” The surprise of it saved her, unglued her tongue from the roof of her mouth, where she had feared it was permanently stuck, gave her something to focus on besides the fact that they were
married
. It was, she realized, the first time she had seen him completely clean-shaven. Without the scruff that had darkened his jaw for most of their acquaintance, he was even more wickedly handsome than she had known.

“Totally in your honor.” He gave her the faintest of smiles. “Having purchased a razor and other essentials from the landlord”—he held up a small traveling case that she had not previously seen, and which she assumed contained the newly acquired items—“I thought I might as well make use of them. I called for a can of hot water and some soap, and the deed was done. Although the water I was provided with was cold. I trust your bath was not?”

“Yes. No. I mean, it was wonderfully warm. Th-thank you for thinking of it.”

“Considering your comfort must always be an object with me, of course.”

He crossed to the fire, set the traveling case down beside the portmanteau, then glanced around the room. She, meanwhile, stayed where she was, watching him. Rather like, she realized to her own annoyance, a frozen-in-place rabbit might watch a dog it feared had found its scent.

You are not such a coward as this.

She put up her chin.

“The situation is a trifle awkward,” she said. “But we need not let it be. We are married, and must just make the best of it.”

“The ceremony isn’t binding until it’s been consummated,” he reminded her, coming back toward where she still stood by the door. It took a great deal of determination, but Beth neither moved nor flinched as he stopped in front of her to regard her with a gathering frown. “You realize that, don’t you? There’s still time to change your mind. You have only to say the word, and I’ll take myself off.”

“I don’t wish to change my mind.” She wanted to wet her lips because her mouth was excruciatingly dry, but refrained because she felt the gesture would reveal too much about the state of her nerves. “Do you?”

“No.”

“Well, then.” Swallowing, she met his gaze head-on. Despite her brave words, she was conscious of teetering on the brink of developing the coldest of cold feet. “Oh, the devil! Could we please just get on with this? Bed me and have done.”

His eyes widened fractionally, and then he laughed. “Such a romantic as you are!”

“Don’t laugh. I’m not funning. I need this to be over with. Quickly, if you please.”

Girding herself as if for battle, she let go of the quilt. It slithered to the floor. Stepping out of the puddled folds, she took the few steps needed to put her right up against him and determinedly put her arms around his neck.

“Hold a minute.” His hands spanned her waist, holding her back when, with great resolution, she would have risen on her toes to kiss him. His eyes glinted in the uncertain firelight as he looked down at her. “You’re white as paper, and as cold to the touch as a corpse. It’s not me you’re afraid of, I’ll swear, and if my memory serves, you recently assured me you did not fear having sex with me. So what’s all this dread in aid of?”

Beth made a face as the truth burst upon her. “Marriage, I suppose. The idea of willingly making myself some man’s chattel, subject to his orders, my happiness dependent on his benevolence, or lack of it. . .” It was all she could do to repress a shudder. “I confess I find the prospect daunting.”

Though she had told him only the broadest outline of her childhood, comprehension dawned in his eyes.

“I doubt the man exists who could rule you against your will, Madame Roux. You may believe me when I tell you that I would never make the attempt.”

Despite the anxiety that now had her insides tied up in knots, that made her smile. “What a bouncer! When you have done nothing but try to impose your will on me for days!”

He smiled, too. “With, I must point out, a notable lack of success. I’ve since learned my lesson, I promise.”

She took a deep breath and realized she was starting to feel a little less unnerved. His hands were still on her waist, but they were no longer keeping her at bay; instead, his grip had eased enough to allow her to rest comfortably against him. The length of their acquaintance was brief, and the facts she knew about him were so terrible as to appall anyone. This was certainly nothing like any marriage she had ever envisioned for herself. But the situation was desperate. Marriage was the only way out she could see. And she had, just as she had told him, developed a decided fondness for him. A kind of camaraderie had sprung up between them from the first that made her, in the usual way of things, amazingly comfortable in his company. However improbable their relationship, she considered him, in a word, as a friend. A dizzyingly handsome friend whose lovemaking she found exciting rather than repugnant. Certainly—and this was the clincher—she could not bear to think of him being killed.