The Infamous Bride (21 page)

And then he watched as her dance card filled up with the names of other men. Not Freddie's, he noted with satisfaction. She at least had the sense not to dance with Freddie.

At the duke's insistence, R.J. danced with the duchess. He expected that she meant to offer him advice in the guise of a dance.

She did not waste time with complimenting his dancing, but got right to the heart of the matter. "It will not do for you to send jealous looks to any who are charmed by Juliet. No doubt she will have your friends and business acquaintances under her spell once you are home in Boston."

"If only she did not enjoy charming men quite so much." If she did not mince words, neither would he.

"Juliet has the unfortunate need to be admired, I'm afraid. It has bedeviled my brother and I at times. The duke…." She laughed, as if there were no need to finish her sentence. "You will come to see, in time, that she is no fool. She knows the difference between shallow admiration and a deeper connection."

"You will forgive me if I am slightly dubious, given the reason for our hasty marriage," he said coolly, unwilling to be persuaded. What were the moonlight, the brandy and the rich stillness of the night if not the shallowest of connections?

The duchess stumbled, whether accidentally, or in a fit if pique, he could not tell. When she resumed her step, it was with a certain vigor that suggested she was not happy with him. Though she smiled, her words were more suited for an errant child than her sister's new husband. "You are no better than Juliet at recognizing what has happened to the pair of you. Do you truly believe you two were merely moon-besotted? After the dance you have led each other these many weeks?"

"All I have done was in the pursuit of protecting my friend and my sister from harm," he protested.

"All?" Her hand clutched tight upon his arm for a moment as they turned. "You seduced my sister to protect Lord Pendrake and your own sister?" She laughed, as if he had told her an amusing anecdote. "And that is why you were ready to call Freddie out for his enthusiasm at your bride's invitation to visit?"

To his relief, the music ended, and the duke swept the much too perceptive duchess off for the closing dance.

Juliet returned to his side, holding up her card, where he could see his name claimed the last dance. "What did Miranda want with you?" A worried frown wrinkled her brow.

"To reassure me that you would be a biddable wife," he lied.

She laughed, matching her steps to his with ease. "Even my sister would not believe a fairytale that featured me as a biddable wife."

The words should have stirred dread in him. He was a business man. He needed a biddable wife. Instead, he gave himself to the dance, desire stirring from the knowledge that they would be doing a very different dance together tonight. One where neither one of them would be happy if she were merely biddable.

The duchess had arranged for only an hour of dancing, which was called to a close when servants circulated the room to ensure each guest had a glass of sparkling French champagne with which to toast the newlyweds.

As the last of the champagne was distributed, the wedding guests grew expectantly quiet. All eyes focused on the new couple.

The duke stood upon the hearth, drawing the unwelcome attention of the guests to himself and said quietly, "It is traditional for us to celebrate a toast to the happy couple before they leave us." R.J. cringed at the knowing smiles from the gentlemen and titters from the ladies. Normally, he had been informed by several frosty matrons, the wedding occurred in the morning and the couple had the good sense to depart on a wedding trip by afternoon. He and Juliet had obviously upset not only the expectations of courtship, but of the wedding tradition itself. They would be retiring only as far as a bed chamber upstairs.

The duke's rich voice rolled over the gathering, his gaze focused on the newly wedded pair. "As my wife would be the first to note, your meeting and your wedding have followed the fairytale tradition that seems to bedevil our family."

Juliet stiffened beside him as her brother and sister both chuckled softly at the duke's unfortunate remark. "But now you two must please my duchess and her penchant for fairytales with a fitting epilogue. Romeo and Juliet must, this time, have a happy ending."

Simon gave his wife a warmly wry smile and then met R.J.'s gaze squarely. "I cannot say my determination to give my fairytale bride a happy ending has always been easy. But I would not change a day of my life since I met her." He raised his glass. "And I sincerely hope you will say the same when the duchess and I visit America in the spring."

The guests cheered and drank to the duke's words, as if no one realized the implicit threat were he and his duchess to find Juliet unhappy in the spring.

R.J. glanced at Juliet. Her smile was all that he could wish to see, but he was caught by the look in her eye, one that echoed the mingled desire and dread settling in the pit of his stomach. He would bury himself in her sweetness tonight and make her forget any regret about the hasty marriage. But tomorrow he would take her from her family, her home, her country. He shook away an image of Annabel's caged songbirds and replaced it with one of Juliet breathless with desire.

The duchess led the ladies away, and took Juliet's hand. "Come, we need to make you beautiful for your wedding night."

Juliet's eyes met his uncertainly. His voice was slightly husky as he tried to reassure her. "Parting is indeed sweet sorrow."

"Until we meet again." He was rewarded with a smile before she was gone.

Feeling strangely bereft, R.J. sat restlessly amid the jovial conversation of the gentlemen for a time, until the duchess returned and gave him a tentative smile. Permission to join his bride.

He made his way up to their room in a fog, with well wishes following him. Fighting an overwhelming sense of unreality, he opened the bedroom door, not certain what to expect.

The bed was empty.

For a moment he thought that she had refused him. Had decided not to share his room tonight. He could not blame her. They were strangers, after all. He had even meant to suggest that they take more time to get to know one another before — But he had not. He had not wanted to wait.

"Does this feel as strange to you as it does to me?" He saw her then. She stood at the window in the shadow of the drapery, staring at him. She wore nothing but a simple nightdress and wrapper, and he could not help but remember his first sight of her dressed so, on the balcony.

"R.J.?" She crossed to face him, and he caught the faint scent of roses.

He did not want to talk. Did not want to think. But he must. With heroic effort, he forced himself to say casually, "Yes. I do feel as if I am still playacting." He commanded himself to move calmly about the room. To undress with his usual evening routine despite the fact that she was here with him.

She said nothing, but he felt her gaze follow him as he undressed and carefully folded his clothing into his trunk, ready to be loaded for their trip tomorrow. How would she want him to treat her? As if he had never touched her before? As if he knew the pleasure he could give her? She was his wife now. He must treat her as he had meant to treat Lucy Matthews. With gentle kindness.

As he closed the trunk, she sighed softly. He stood still, listening to the bedclothes rustle and the feather mattress echo her sigh as she climbed into bed. The light went out.

He cautiously eased himself into the bed in the dark, the blood rushing in his ears as he anticipated taking her in his arms. To his surprise, when he brushed against her, he could feel her trembling. He pulled back. "Are you afraid?"

"No." There was no confidence in her answer.

"We can wait if you like." It seemed the gentlemanly thing to say, though his entire being protested the idea.

"No." It was the answer he had wanted to hear, but her tone strongly suggested that she wished to hurry through an unpleasant chore. Had he misunderstood her earlier expression? Was she dreading this confirmation of their marriage?

He paused, listening to her even breathing in the darkness of the room. Absurdly, he found himself unsure what to do with the woman in bed beside him, despite the fact she was his wife.

* * * * *

Juliet wondered why he asked if she wished to wait. Why did he not take her in his arms and show her that the passionate man of the other evening had not completely disappeared? Did he no longer want her?

How could she tell? The sound of his breathing filled her ears. Even. Not the ragged breath of passion she remembered from before. Could he have transformed back to the taciturn dry bones she had first met? Was the passionate man who had swept her off her feet a mere figment of her imagination? Conjured up one night and never to be seen again. If so, she had only herself to blame.

Why had she not governed her emotions that night for once? If only she had told him to go when he asked. Told him she did not want his kisses, his lovemaking. Did not want his arms wrapped around her.

Did not want to feel him — She would make herself mad if she continued like this.

He seemed to know how she felt, for he touched her gently beneath the covers and pulled her to him for a warm embrace. An embrace not of passion but of consolation. Pressed against his chest, she could almost imagine that life might one day come back to normal. And then he kissed her and it became clear that it never would again.

She tried to push him away, her hands against his bare chest, the little hairs brushing against her fingertips. "What are you doing."

His puzzled laughter tickled her cheek. "Making love to my wife."

All of a sudden she changed her mind. Perhaps they should wait. "I don't know." She pushed harder at his chest until he released her. "We hardly know each other."

He laughed, pulling her back into his embrace, moving his hand lazily up to cup her breast.

"This is why we are married. Should we deny ourselves?" He showered a gentle rain of kisses upon her neck and shoulders. "Did you not enjoy — " He stopped the delicious little kisses. There was a dawning apprehension in his tone. "I thought you — "

"Of course I did." As soon as she made the admission, she wished it back.

"Yes. I remember.
Wonderful
."

She flushed to her toes. How had she ever said such a thing to Miranda — in front of both the duke and R.J.? Would he think her wanton? She stammered nervously. "I just thought we should become better acquainted with each other first."

"Become — ?" There was a hint of outrage underlying his question. His fingers slid across her collar bone as he unfastened the ties of her nightdress. "And how would you suggest we become
better acquainted
?"

She wanted to distract him, to slow him down. "What is your favorite color?"

He sighed in her ear, his breath warm and his voice low. "Blue, the very blue you favor in your dresses, as it happens." And then his kisses began again, and he murmured, "We have a lifetime to learn to know each other. Don't tell me you want courting now?"

Courting. Was that what she wanted? She had been courted by dozens of men since she was seventeen years old. But never by R.J. Hopkins. He had merely climbed her balcony and changed her life without the usual string of compliments and dance of temperaments that marked a courtship.

Perhaps she did want courting, then. "Is that too much to ask?"

His answer was much too practical for her liking, especially as his fingers were coaxing little jabs of lightning to course through her. "What will it matter? We've married, and we must make the best of it."

The best of it. She tried to push away from him again. Did he not want her as he had wanted her that night? "So I am never to have a sign from my husband that he cherishes me now that the marriage papers are signed?"

He made a sound of impatience and tightened his arms around her. "Juliet, you must understand. I cannot promise you poetry and chocolates. I cannot promise you the romance of your fairytale princes."

She protested, "I am not asking — "

His kisses grew less gentle and more insistent. "All I can promise you is that I will do my best to be a good husband." His mouth took hers, demanding a response. She pushed him away.

She sighed, missing his touch instantly. His was not the most romantic declaration. But if he tried, she must as well. "And I will promise to do what I can to please you." She touched him, tentatively at first. Despite his words, his body told her what she needed to know. His desire for her was not to be doubted. Not now. Not here in the darkness.

He groaned as she stroked him with surer purpose.

"This pleases me more than you can know." His hands were warm on her breasts. She shivered as he pressed his lips to her neck and nibbled at her earlobe. His restless hands spread a heat through her that she did not want to deny. "Is this not a preferable way to get better acquainted than idle courtship?"

He was pressed so close she could feel the rumble of his laughter as if it were her own. She shifted to lean over him so that she could taste his earlobe as he had tasted hers. "I suppose it is a start." She gave herself up to the exploration of her new husband until they were both breathless and weak from pleasure.

After he slept, she found she could not. What did it mean that she could feel such things with him so easily? Again, in his arms, she had felt the magic of the moonlight. The same magic they had shared that night he climbed the balcony.

But there was no moonlight here. Only darkness. Simon's toast echoed in her memory. Had they somehow, unwittingly, found each other because they were fated to be together? When he touched her, when he responded to her touch, she could not help but think him her fairytale husband.

But in the cold light of day could she hold on to that belief?

* * * * *

The briny scent of the docks and the noise of the men loading trunks into the ship's hold shredded the last of Juliet's fog of disbelief. She was leaving England, leaving her family. Miranda and Simon stood together, representing what she was leaving behind. Miranda watched her with an odd expression that seemed equal parts proud and sorrowful.