The Bridegroom (13 page)

Becky gripped Mick’s arm. “Why would the earl so patiently woo Reggie, if he hates Papa and tried to kill Kitt?”

“I cannot believe he means to marry her,” Mick said. “Perhaps he hopes she will allow herself to be seduced. It is possible he may even force himself on her.”

“But if his intention is merely to ruin her reputation, why offer marriage? Reggie believed Lord Carlisle meant to offer for her this afternoon.”

Mick shook his head, acknowledging that he was stymied. “Perhaps Reggie can tell us more about the earl’s intentions at supper tonight.”

“She will be heartbroken if he abandons her,” Becky murmured.

“He is a scoundrel, a liar, and a cheat. And if rumor can be believed, a murdering pirate,” Mick retorted.

“Even if everything you’ve said is true, none of it will matter to Reggie.”

“Why not?” Mick asked.

“She loves him.”

Reggie could see a menacing male figure outlined in the doorway but could not move to cover her nakedness. Nor could she manage the effort it would have taken to scream or scratch or kick. It was as though her body was an otherworldly thing over which she had no control. She knew what must be the result of this encounter. She would be brutally raped. Her innocence would be despoiled. She would lose whatever chance she might have had for a happy life with Carlisle.

“Reggie?”

How strange. The man who had come to ravish her spoke with Carlisle’s voice. She searched in the shadows for the awful face that went with the looming figure and saw that it, too, had taken on Carlisle’s familiar features.

“Clay,” she whispered. “Oh, Clay.”

She closed her eyes to shut out the truth of what was about to happen to her. It was not Carlisle. It could not be him. She flinched as callused fingertips traced her
collarbone. The touch was surprisingly gentle, almost reverent. She felt a curious languor, a desire to know what those warm, gentle fingertips might feel like on her breasts and belly. There were more delicious sensations, the gentlest brush of flesh against her ribcage before the caress moved downward, but she could not seem to stay awake to enjoy them.

Her last memory was the feel of cotton sheets being folded over her, of strong arms wrapping themselves around her body, and weightlessness as she was lifted into the air and floated away on soft, whispery wings that carried her into the darkness.

C
lay had left Reggie in his cabin on the
Sea Witch
to sleep off the effects of the laudanum and then come here to the church graveyard where his wife and son were buried. He carried a lantern to light his way as he moved carefully through the tombstones, looking for the stone angels that marked the two graves he sought. When he found them, he set the lantern down so it illuminated the script on the two headstones. He dropped to one knee, but his head rose to the dark night, rather than bending in supplication. And it was no prayer to God that he spoke.

“I have your daughter now, you blackguard,” he said. “I intend to make her pay for every humiliation of mind and body and spirit I suffered, every godforsaken moment of hunger and thirst, every strike of the lash that peeled the flesh from my back.

“Most of all, she will pay for the deaths of those I
loved, my wife and my son. I will get a child on her to replace the one you stole from me, and then rid myself of her, as I would discard a filthy rag. So much will I do to avenge my wife and my son and myself.

“May your soul rot in hell, Blackthorne, for all the harm you have done.”

Clay felt an icy wind cross the back of his neck like a ghostly spirit. His heart was hammering, and a knot squeezed his throat. He glanced around, but the graveyard was empty save for him. He reached out and traced his wife’s name on her tombstone, then did the same for his son.

“You will both be avenged,” he whispered. “I promise it.”

R
eggie’s mouth felt stuffed with cotton, and her tongue was dry and swollen. Her body ached, though she was aware of lying on a bed of utter softness. It felt as though she were being rocked in a cradle. She could see a faint light beyond her eyelids, but she had no desire to leave the dark warm cocoon in which she lay.

“Here. Sit up and drink this. It will help rinse away the last effects of the laudanum.”

Reggie recognized the voice at the same time she felt a muscular arm reach beneath her bare shoulder—oh, God, she was naked!—and lift her into an upright position. She experienced a moment of sheer panic, though it did not translate itself into action. Her limbs felt as though they were made of pudding.

It could not be Carlisle, not if she was in bed! She
must still be under the influence of whatever drug the villains had forced down her throat. Her eyelids were simply too heavy to lift. She felt the edge of a china cup against her lips and inhaled the strong smell of coffee.

Her captor must have sensed that she was afraid to drink for fear of being drugged again, because he said, “You’re safe, Reggie. Drink now, like a good girl.”

It sounded like Carlisle. It must be Carlisle. But what was he doing in her bedroom? Where was Becky? Shouldn’t her twin be here with her? Things were too muddled in her mind to make sense.

Reggie swallowed a gulp of coffee that burned going down but took with it the ball of cotton that had made her mouth feel so dry. She drank again, lifting her hands—she could lift her hands!—to hold the china cup as she imbibed its contents.

She made a sound of satisfaction in her throat as the coffee warmed the cold places inside of her. She wanted to look into Carlisle’s eyes and thank him for saving her. If only she could get her eyelids to cooperate.

“That’s enough for now,” he said as he eased the cup out of her hands and laid her back down. “Lie back now and rest. The Reverend Mr. Thompson won’t be here to marry us for another hour.”

Reggie’s eyes flew open, and she sat bolt upright as though she were a toy springing out of a box. It took her a moment to realize the sheet had slid to her waist. She grabbed at it and dragged it up to cover her nakedness.

“Marry us?”

“After what happened tonight, we have little choice in the matter,” Carlisle said.

Tonight? What had happened tonight?
She remembered being accosted and carried away and then being forced to drink a cup of something awful-tasting. And then …

Reggie realized she had no idea what had happened afterward. Her glance darted from the man who sat on the narrow bed beside her toward the door—and spied the portholes in the walls through which she saw the blackness of night. Her stomach did a somersault and landed awry. “What time is it? Where am I? What is this place?”

“It is nearly midnight. You’re in my cabin, on my ship, the
Sea Witch
,” he said. “There is no reason to be frightened.”

“I’m not frightened,” Reggie said, curling her legs tight against her body and gathering as much of the bed coverings—and her composure—around her as she could. “I am a bit … befuddled, if you please, as to how I got here. The last thing I remember was …”

What she remembered was the exquisite pleasure of a man’s hand caressing her rib cage. And her belly? Or had she imagined that? At the time Reggie had been certain it could not have been Carlisle. But here she was. And here he was.

“It was you. The man in the room with me. It was you.”

He nodded.

She was assailed by several feelings at once. Gratefulness that it had been Carlisle, and not some stranger, was paramount. And then embarrassment that he had seen her as bare as a newborn babe. She was both curious—
and suspicious—about how he had happened, so conveniently, to be there. And worried about what he had done to her afterward.

“How did you know I had been kidnapped? How did you find me?” she asked.

“By chance, really. I witnessed your abduction.” He lightly traced the faint purple bruise on her chin, removing his hand when she winced. “I’m sorry I was not able to catch up to you sooner. By the time I arrived at the brothel where you had been taken, you had already been drugged,” he said. “I am afraid there was no way I could take you out of there without stepping into that room and seeing you.”

Reggie felt a flush on her throat that quickly crept up onto her cheeks.

“And seeing you,” he continued inexorably, “how could I not touch you? And having touched you …”

Reggie looked into Carlisle’s face, trying to determine whether he had actually done to her what he seemed to be implying that he had done. His dark eyes were inscrutable, revealing nothing.

It was impossible to believe she could have lost her virtue. She did not feel any different. Could Carlisle possibly have ravished her without her having any memory of the encounter? “Did you …? Did we …?”

“No,” he said.

She heaved a sigh of relief. “Oh, then I can go home—”

He shook his head. “We will be married tonight.”

“What if I don’t want to marry you!” Reggie retorted.

“Neither of us has much choice in the matter,” he snapped back. “Not after what happened tonight.”

Reggie felt a sudden painful knot in her throat. “Surely there is another way out of this coil.”

“Your absence has already been noticed. Your father’s steward, Mr. O’Malley, has been to my town house demanding information concerning your whereabouts. We have no choice, Reggie.”

It was, of course, possible to refuse the earl, but the consequences of such a refusal were daunting. In the world in which Reggie lived, a fallen woman was doomed to spend her life as a spinster. She would be ogled and ostracized. She would become a useless appendage in a social body that would rather cut her off than find a use for her.

But what about Mick’s accusations against Carlisle earlier that evening? She still did not know the truth about the man who sat beside her.

But you do know the truth
, another voice argued.
Would a villain have rescued you? Would a villain be offering marriage?

Reggie had to admit that gambling on marriage with Carlisle was a better alternative than losing all hope of ever having a family of her own. But she rebelled at the thought of being forced into wedlock. “Perhaps we can keep what happened this evening a secret. No one else need ever know—”

“I will know. And you will know.” Carlisle hesitated and added the words that sealed her fate. “And after Mr. O’Malley’s inquiry regarding your whereabouts, my servants know.”

Of course he could order them not to speak of Mick’s visit. But all it would take was one slip. Even if he sacked the miscreant whose tongue got away from him, it would be too late. Once servants knew a thing, all of London soon knew it.

Reggie sighed. “I believe my father will still provide a dowry, even if I marry in such a havey-cavey fashion.”

“I don’t want your father’s money,” Carlisle said flatly.

Reggie frowned. “But—”

“Is it yes or no?”

“Did you do what Mr. O’Malley accused you of doing?” she asked quietly.

He did not pretend to misunderstand. “I am guilty of many things,” he said. “Murder, even attempted murder, is not one of them.”

Reggie knew that if she chose not to marry Carlisle she could survive. She would have the funds to support herself as an unmarried woman. She could live with her sister until she was five-and-twenty, at which time she would begin receiving an allowance from a trust fund her father had set up for her. She could bear to be a social pariah.

But she would never have the children she so desperately wanted.

“Even if I said yes, how is it possible for us to marry at night and without the banns—”

“I have a special license,” he said, his gaze intent on hers. “I obtained it a short while past, when I began to have a hope you might accept my offer.”

She stared at him in wonder. “Then you do love me.”

Reggie could tell nothing from Carlisle’s dark eyes, which remained unfathomable. But he lowered his head and his lips touched hers with a tenderness that made her chest ache.

“Will you marry me, Reggie? Will you be my wife and bear my children?”

“Yes, Clay,” she whispered against his lips.

He deepened the kiss, his mouth capturing hers, until she felt breathless, her heart pounding, her head dizzy. She clutched his shoulders as he released her, and stared into his heavy-lidded eyes. “I love you, Clay. I love you.”

He rose abruptly, grasping her wrists to free himself, and took a step back. “I have had a wedding gown made for you. I had intended it as a wedding present. It’s hanging in the wardrobe. Everything else you need is in the trunk at the foot of the bed. When you’re dressed, come up on deck. I’ll be waiting for you there.”

He lifted her hand, turned it over, and pressed a chaste kiss on her palm. When he looked up, she saw his eyes were filled with desire, and his lips had a certain rigidity she was learning to recognize. “I will leave you to dress,” he said. “Otherwise, we are likely to anticipate the honeymoon.”

A moment later he was gone.

Reggie felt frightened. Everything was happening too fast. It was only after Carlisle had gone that she realized she had not asked about having Becky and Mick present at the ceremony. On second thought, she realized it would be easier to marry now and explain everything to them later. Once they heard the story of her kidnapping—and
knew how much in love she was with Carlisle—they would understand why she had agreed to marry him in such haste.