The Bride Says No (17 page)

It was a devil of a fix . . . especially since the woman he realized he wanted was not Tara at all but her sister.

T
he earl of Tay had gone a-courting. On a Sunday evening, no less.

Aileen could barely contain her exasperation. The earl had left Annefield to call on the widow Bossley, and she doubted if any of them would hear from him until the morning or perhaps even the next few days. With this type of behavior, he’d become the talk of the valley, while she would be reproached for wearing her hem too short or some such nonsense.

Of course, he would be forgiven because men were always allowed freedoms with a knowing wink. A blind eye would also be given to Mrs. Bossley because she was widowed . . . and, well, no one cared about her.

But if Aileen stepped out of line, if she made a face at the butcher or indulged in even the mildest flirtations, she would find herself pilloried!

Worse, the earl had charged off without saying anything to anyone. She had discovered he’d left when she’d gone to knock on his door to let him know that a light supper would be served in the family dining room. His valet had informed her that he wasn’t home. The earl hadn’t even thought to pen a note to her.

It was already late in the evening. Supper should have been thought of earlier. Since Mrs. Watson always had Sundays off and Cook had left to visit her family after dinner, Aileen should have been the one doing the thinking, but she had been incapacitated. Yes,
incapacitated
. It was the only word she could think of that adequately described how she’d felt after her encounter with Mr. Stephens.

The man unnerved her. All he had to do was look at her a certain way or put his arm around her and ideas, yearnings and desires that she’d thought she’d grown too wise to entertain filled her head.

And it was not wise to have these thoughts. He was to be her
brother-in-marriage
—yet the attraction she felt for him was real. It had been from the time she’d first laid eyes on him.

She was not some green girl. She’d danced with fire before, and she knew the danger. With Geoff and, later, with Peter, she’d betrayed herself over and over.

Only at Annefield had she finally achieved some measure of peace.

And then what did a benevolent God do? He sent a man with the power to stir up discontent and longings inside Aileen that were better left for dead.

But this afternoon, Mr. Stephens had made her realize she wasn’t very alive.

Mr. Stephens also wasn’t free.

He belonged to her sister, and Aileen had just spent a good two hours pacing the floor of her room and reminding herself of that fact.

Was it any wonder, then, that she embraced the annoyance of her father’s slipping off for a lover’s tryst with all the passion of an overtaxed martyr? Especially since he was leaving
her
to deal with Tara and Mr. Stephens alone?

Aileen crossed the hall to her sister’s door and knocked.

“Who is it?” Tara’s muffled voice replied.

“Your sister,” Aileen replied with some impatience. “I had the kitchen girl set out a cold spread for supper. I always eat light on Sunday evenings.” She paused and said, “Father is not here. Apparently he is off to call on his newest paramour, at
this
hour of the night. I wonder when he’ll return home?” Without waiting for an answer, she said, “I believe I will stay in my room this evening. I’m not feeling quite the thing. You need to see to Mr. Stephens.”

There. She was done with the matter and would have run right back to her room save for Tara’s answer.

“I’m not hungry. I’m not going downstairs.”

Aileen turned back to the door. “Tara? Are you feeling well? Are you ill?”

“I’m fine,” came the exhausted, disillusioned voice.

Aileen reached for the door handle. “Dearest, let me see you—”

The door was blocked from opening by Tara’s hand. “I’m
fine,
” came a more forceful response.

“Then why don’t you want your supper?” Aileen said. “You need to entertain Mr. Stephens. He is your guest.”

“I need time, Aileen.” There was a hitch in Tara’s breath as she spoke.

The door was still cracked between them, and Tara stood away from Aileen’s line of sight. “Have you been crying?” Aileen demanded.

“Oh, please.
Enough
. I’m no longer a child. If I don’t want to eat supper for
any
reason, then I don’t have to.”

That was true. But there was another hard truth at work: Aileen needed Tara to help her keep her distance from Mr. Stephens. “Mr. Stephens is
your
guest,” she repeated.

“I know.” There was a long, tension-filled pause, then Tara said, “My heart is breaking. I know you don’t approve of Mr. Jamerson, but there it is.”

“I’m not without feelings,” Aileen answered, stung by Tara’s verdict.

“But you
can’t
understand. You have never been in love.”

“I’ve—” Aileen wanted to protest but then stopped. What could she say? Had she loved Geoff at one time? Or even Peter?

Would she have done for either of them what Tara had been willing to do for Mr. Jamerson?

“Life goes on, Tara,” she said, leaning closer to the crack in the door to whisper to her sister so that she could not be overheard. “It must.”

“Blake knows about Ruary and me.” Tara’s words were edged in tears.

So here was the problem. “Did you tell him?” Aileen asked.

A portion of her sister’s face appeared in the door. “He found us together. Blake threatened he would destroy Ruary if I didn’t go through with the wedding.”

For a second, jealousy the likes of which Aileen had never known speared through her.

And anger.

She had not mistaken the emotions she’d felt in the field today, but she was convinced that Mr. Stephens had experienced them as well. How humbling it was to realize that only moments later he’d delivered such an ultimatum to her sister.

“Aileen? Are you still there?”

Crossing her arms against her chest, Aileen gave herself a mental shake. Geoff had never been faithful. Perhaps Peter hadn’t either. And now Mr. Stephens was proving himself to be like all the rest. This was what God had wanted her to see, and she thanked her Almighty for this cold dose of reality.

“I’m here,” she said. She shot a bitter glance in the direction of Mr. Stephens’s door, then leaned closer to where Tara stood to say, “Men are territorial.”

“I understand they are. I don’t believe Blake wants me. He doesn’t have any feelings for me. But if I can’t have Ruary, I don’t know how I shall go on,” Tara confessed tearily.

“But you will,” Aileen soothed. In truth, she didn’t understand Tara’s desire for Mr. Jamerson. Had she not left him once, years ago? “Darling, have you ever considered that what you feel for the horse master might merely be an infatuation? Or a way to accept the changes that marriage will bring?”

The answer was the door being slammed in Aileen’s face so hard she could have lost her nose if she hadn’t pulled back in time.

Pressing a hand to her almost injured nose, Aileen said to the door, “Tara, you would be wise to take this evening and work out what is in your heart and mind. The pain of regret is the worst you will ever suffer. If you do not wish to marry Mr. Stephens, don’t. We’ll see our way through this.”

Silence was the only answer.

Aileen hated silence.

She was also disgusted that the earl and Tara both lived their lives according to their whims without a thought to anyone else.

But Aileen was not like them. She understood responsibility. They had a
guest,
and while Tara and the earl seemed determined to ignore him, Aileen knew someone must see to his expectations. It was the right thing to do.

She turned to his door. For a second, it seemed to glow and pulse with all sorts of imagined possibilities. Taking one step toward it was a risk.

She also knew nothing could stop her.

Straightening her shoulder, her heart pounding against the wall of her chest, her every nerve poised over the anticipation of seeing him again, Aileen crossed to the door and knocked.

Immediately, the door opened.

But instead of Mr. Stephens, Aileen found herself face-to-face with his valet. She could barely hide her disappointment.

“I wish to inform Mr. Stephens that supper will be light tonight, as it usually is on a Sunday eve. It has been laid out in the dining room. Of course, I would be happy to send up a tray,” she added, wanting to come across as a hostess.

“Mr. Stephens is not here, my lady.”

That was not the reply she’d expected.

“Not here?” Had he taken off as well without a word? Were all males without manners?

She knew the answer to that question.

“Where is he?” Her words sounded sharper than she intended, and the valet’s brows rose accordingly.

“I do not know, my lady.” In his tone was the reprimand that he didn’t believe it was his position, or hers, to question his master’s whereabouts.

“Very well,” Aileen said, adopting her own hauteur. She walked away and went downstairs for a cold dinner
alone
. Just like every Sunday evening over the past three years.

Of course, eating alone had never bothered her until this night—and not because of the absence of her sister and father.

Reminding herself that Stephens was not hers to fuss and worry over did not take away the sting of his leaving without a word. He hadn’t even left a message for her through his valet.

In the dining room, she picked up a plate from the stack of four left there. She used a fork to take a piece of cold sliced beef but found she didn’t have the appetite for more. Simon the footman hovered like he usually did.

Aileen made a pretense of eating, but the food had no taste to her, and the meal was over all too quickly. Without conversation, eating alone was a practical ordeal, a matter dispatched with speedy resolve.

However, once she’d finished, she did not move. Instead, she sat in the dining room, the table lit by a single candle, and found herself wondering at the emptiness of her life.

She’d believed all was well. Now she realized she’d been pretending. She was lonely, and her encounter with Mr. Stephens had forcibly made her aware that, all evidence to the contrary, she still believed in love.

The thought unsettled her. She was not as young as Tara, and life had taught her that Love—with a capital
L
—could not vanquish loneliness, fear and doubts. Love did not brighten her days or comfort her nights. Love would be steadfast, never wavering, and always accepting—but she’d never experienced it.

Life and marriage had taught her differently. She might as well believe in fairies and ghosties as to believe in Love. They seemed more sensible and real.

Meanwhile, Tara was upstairs crying over it and the earl was riding the streets of Aberfeldy wooing it.

And Mr. Stephens? Who knew where he was? Or if he even considered love a worthy emotion. A man like him probably believed only in himself, in what he could touch, see and smell. A rationalist. A modern man without the need of tender emotions—although she knew he felt lust. She had seen it in his eye this afternoon. She’d
felt
it as well. He could be very obvious in his desires—

“Are you finished, my lady?” Simon asked respectfully.

Aileen looked up, suddenly brought back to the present. She’d been so lost in the direction of her thoughts that his question had startled her. She stared at him a moment before fully comprehending what he meant.

“Yes, I’m done. Thank you.” Dear Lord, she was almost ready for Bedlam. She must put all thoughts of Mr. Stephens from her mind.

Or at least always picture him standing dotingly by Tara, and not in the ways her overactive imagination was able to conjure him.

She rose from the table and lit a taper from the sideboard, placing the candle in a holder. “Thank you, Simon. That will be all for this evening.”

“Yes, my lady.”

Aileen walked out of the room, feeling herself at loose ends and not knowing why. This was her routine on Sundays. Her usual habit would be to return to her room and read a book until she fell asleep.

Except tonight the sameness of her days threatened to overwhelm her.

Chiding herself for low spirits, she decided to choose a new book from the library on a topic that would busy her thoughts. Of course, she’d already read all of them . . . but the time had come to reread them, an endeavor that failed to excite her—until she noticed the glow of light across the hall floor coming from the library.

It was unlikely Simon would keep a light burning. He usually longed to be done with his day and would have seen to all the nightly chores before supper.

Curious, she walked down the hall and stepped into the patch of candlelight. She was not surprised to discover Mr. Stephens sitting at the earl’s desk. He was tilted back in the chair, his booted heels on the desk’s polished surface. His hair appeared slightly mussed, and already the shadow of his beard was forming.

He held a glass of whisky in one hand. She glanced at the decanter on the liquor cabinet. It was almost empty.

Seeing the direction of her gaze, he said, “I assume there is more whisky to refill it?” He sounded sober, but there was a sharpness to his gaze, an anger that both warned her to be careful and beckoned her closer.

“There is always more whisky, sir.”

“Another assumption I made,” he murmured. He studied her a moment through lazy, half-veiled eyes. His gaze fell from her face to her breasts.

She should leave.

But she couldn’t, even as she felt her response to him. She had wanted his presence, and now she had him.

For the briefest moment she thought of Tara, but then he brought his feet to the ground, reclaiming her attention.

He stood, his movements slow, deliberate as he rose to his full height. His presence filled the room, reminding her once again of that impatient tiger.

“There is food in the dining room,” Aileen said, falling back into the safety of her duties as hostess. “Or I can have a tray brought in here—”