The Rake of Hollowhurst Castle (14 page)

Charles's family was not, perhaps, his closest blood kin but rather the family he loved and who loved him—Robert Besford and his unconventional wife; the absent and yet often-spoken-of Will, Lord Wrovillton, and his apparently even less conventional lady; then, closer to home, were Lady Samphire, Stella, and Tom Varleigh and, of course, her own sister Joanna. The people he'd just spent a weary week with should be his family, of course, but Roxanne didn't have to be told that Charles Afforde probably felt closer to his dogs or his horses.

‘It's all your fault,' she felt compelled to tell Stella all the same.

‘What is?'

‘That I nearly tripped up Lady Trickley and caused even more widespread social catastrophe just now, as well as serious injury.'

‘Oh, why?'

‘You know perfectly well why.'

‘I do, indeed—so, are you going to marry him?'

‘Probably, but you, Stella Lavender, are even more of a devious schemer than your Aunt Samphire.'

‘How appalling,' Stella said happily enough and she sat back to enjoy the spectacle as Charles re-entered the room with Mereson and an attendant footman bearing
the tea-things on a series of silver salvers, as if presenting treasure to royalty.

‘And shall you be joining us for tea, Charles?' Stella asked innocently.

‘I've drunk more of the stuff in the last couple of months than I ever did in the whole of the rest of my life as it is.'

‘Confess, it's not as bad a beverage as you thought, now is it?'

‘Cat lap,' he condemned as Mereson presented him with another of the glasses of fine burgundy he seemed to think Charles needed supplying with whenever tea was mentioned. ‘So,' he murmured in Roxanne's ear as Stella tactfully allowed herself to be distracted by a neighbour, ‘has this last week dragged on as tediously for you as it has done for me?'

‘On the contrary, I was tolerably well amused,' she claimed.

‘Maybe you had more conducive company then, for I certainly was not.'

‘Stella and your grandmama would be furious if I said they were other than very good company, Sir Charles, and quite right, too.'

‘I suppose so, but I badly missed yours,' he informed her, as if she owed him something for even so much as admitting he could do so.

‘Very flattering,' she informed him with a satisfied nod she'd copied from Lady Samphire. If she was to accept him without a declaration of love, she'd no intention of letting him be the only one with secrets.

‘Flattering enough for you to accept me?' he asked lightly, but with a brooding intensity in his gaze that warned her not to take it at face value.

‘That depends,' she prevaricated, feeling as if her younger self was standing behind her, jumping up and down with furious impatience as older and wiser Roxanne hovered between acceptance and refusal of the man of her dreams.

‘On what?' he asked, as if he would dearly love to shake her, but was far too sophisticated a man of the world to be so reckless and unmannerly under the interested gazes of their friends and neighbours.

‘On what sort of a husband you intend to make me, of course. If you're offering marriage
à la mode,
then I must refuse, for I couldn't live so, Charles.'

‘Of course not. I'll never look at another woman if you marry me,' he declared as sternly as if he were about to go into battle.

She sipped her tea and leaned back in her seat, watching him with what she hoped was impenetrable composure.

‘Well,' he conceded at last, ‘I might look, but that would be as far as I ever went, and when I did it would only be to confirm I'd be taking the most desirable female of my acquaintance home to warm my bed.'

‘And would you expect me to occupy a separate sphere to yours? I don't know that I could endure being immured in the drawing room, embroidering every night, while you con your accounts and discuss racing form with your cronies over the best cognac in our cellars.'

‘Then I willingly undertake to include you in any and every dissipation I indulge in from now on, and you're quite welcome to the accounts—anything else?' he enquired rather wearily and Roxanne let the words she really wanted to ask hover on the tip of her tongue,
then swallowed them down with another sip of finest China tea.

‘Then, if you promise to allow any children we might have to be part of our lives, as well,' she went on gallantly, despite the fiery blush she was sure could be seen across the ballroom, ‘I think we could come to terms,' she managed without even mentioning the possibility of a love match.

‘They will be at the very centre of it,' he promised her huskily, and trust him to turn her practical attempts at laying down a contract between them into part of her seduction. ‘Their begetting will be my finest endeavour yet,' he went on, his gaze ablaze with blue heat as he subjected her to a ruthlessly sensual scrutiny that left her in no doubt as to how much he intended to enjoy it.

‘Let's put the cart before the horses, shall we, Sir Charles?' she asked in a voice she had trouble recognising as her own.

‘Three weeks,' he told her implacably.

‘Three weeks? That's hardly long enough to have a bridal gown made, let alone invite everyone who thinks they have a right to be at our wedding.'

‘Three weeks,' he insisted. ‘I'm not made of stone and much longer than that and I'll have to insist we make a start on those brats of ours without benefit of clergy.'

‘I might have something to say about that,' she protested in a voice that didn't even convince her.

‘I shall make quite certain you do,' he informed her arrogantly. ‘You'll say “yes” over and over again,' he said, his voice a murmured promise as his eyes locked on hers with such complete certainty that she should be insulted.

‘I haven't even said one very important “yes” yet,' she argued gamely.

‘Then stop playing with me, Roxanne, and make me the answer we both need to hear.'

‘What if one of us falls in love?' she finally offered, revealing the most important caveat of all.

‘There's no such thing, and would you risk the rare accord we have with each other for such a fleeting mirage, Roxanne? I never could and promise I honour you above any other woman on this earth and always will do. I also want you unmercifully, so if you'd just stop thinking up obstacles and agree that we're perfect for each other, I'd be obliged to you.'

‘You'd be obliged to me?' she echoed, torn between the terrible temptation of his offer and those seemingly careless words.

‘Stupid of me,' he snapped, impatient with himself instead of her this time. ‘I'll be honoured, triumphant and the happiest man in England, let alone Kent, if you'll just say that you'll marry me, Roxanne. I've never lacked the right words with any other woman but you, which is
not
be the best way to persuade you, now I think about it. But with you I can't find the easy phrase or casual kiss that might bend your will to mine—you're too important for that.'

It was as close as she'd probably ever get to a declaration of love from him, and Roxanne let herself consider whether she
could
live the rest of her life without hearing anything more. Considering the alternative, which was to refuse him and either live her life alone or marry another man solely for the pleasure of bearing children, she finally made up her mind that she could.

‘Very well, Sir Charles,' she said rather stiffly, ‘I will marry you.'

‘Thank Heaven for that, then,' he said on a heartfelt sigh and immediately called for champagne and silence. ‘It is my undeserved good fortune in introducing Miss Courland as my newly affianced bride,' he announced to all and sundry, before she could change her mind.

O
nce upon a time there was a foolish, romantic girl who dreamt her days away, longing for her fairy-tale lover who sailed the seven seas in search of adventure and booty, and she
knew
her wild sea-rover would come home and lay his hand and his heart at her feet one day. Which was why, Roxanne reflected, as she struggled against an odd sense of unreality that fitted fairy tales better than it did a sunny winter day, she was about to become Roxanne, Lady Afforde, and one out of the two would just have to do.

When she stepped over the threshold of Hollowhurst Church today, she would commit herself to being Sir Charles Afforde's lawfully wedded wife until death did them part. The very idea of death spun her back over those anxious years when she'd scanned the newspapers for reports of his dashing exploits and studied the lists of the fallen after battles at sea with heavy dread in her heart, then exultation when she didn't find his name.
Someone else's loved one, some other girl's hope of happiness, died that day and not Charles Afforde, so Mrs Roxanne Afforde lived on in her imagination. After she'd grown up and realised it was all a fairy tale, she'd still performed that ritual every time an engagement was reported, but never again had she dreamt her dream, and now it was coming true, after all.

‘Have you still got my handkerchief for your something borrowed?' Stella asked anxiously as she scrambled down from the carriage to fuss over the precise arrangement of Roxanne's ivory-velvet skirts.

‘Yes, Mama,' Roxanne replied with a grin at her nervous matron of honour as she managed not to fall over her fussing senior bridesmaid, ‘
and
the fetching blue garter your Great-Aunt Augusta presented me with last night.'

‘Trust her,' Stella breathed with a sidelong look at the church as if she thought her formidable great-aunt might be able to hear her through stone walls several feet thick. ‘But what about something old?'

‘I wondered about wearing those comfortable old riding boots you're always nagging me about,' Roxanne teased, laughing as Stella was unable to resist peering down at her fine kid slippers, ‘but I decided they didn't match and contented myself with Charles's locket instead.'

‘A good choice, for I never knew him to so much as move without his mama's favourite trinket in his pocket until he gave it to you,' Stella said sagely, then scurried ahead to shoo the gaggle of little bridesmaids into the church porch ahead of them and out of a chilly December breeze.

Pulling her fur-lined cloak closer against it herself,
Roxanne followed her more sedately. She'd been surprised and touched by Charles's gift, astonished that he'd part with something so personal, so obviously precious to him, when he'd said not one word of love to her all the time they'd been engaged—not that three weeks was so very long in all conscience.

‘I'm expecting too much,' she murmured and recalled Lady Samphire's advice to give Charles time to come to terms with his feelings for her.

‘He ain't one to let on he even has a heart, m'dear, let alone wear it on his sleeve. Not that he ain't a sentimental idiot beneath all that devil-may-care insolence, you only have to look at the way he fusses over me to see that,' she'd concluded gruffly as she'd clung to Roxanne's hand with surprising warmth and strength. ‘He won't admit he's capable of what I'll call romantic love for want of a better description, though. Deep down I think he knows he'll give his heart for all time when he finally does so and probably hand over his soul and his honour along with it, and he's far too guarded to give any of them up lightly. Are you careful enough to hold them safe for him when he does, Roxanne?'

‘I'm a Courland, and we hold fast to what we love, my lady,' she'd asserted confidently, exhilarated by the thought that one day she might have the chance to guard Charles's love and treasure his honour after all.

Now she wasn't quite so sure, despite her ladyship's assurances and his promise of fidelity. What if he turned his eyes elsewhere, despite his vow not to? Nobody could regulate love and passion as he seemed to think he could, and she closed her eyes against the very idea of such a shattering betrayal, then blinked determinedly
and told herself not to be a pessimist. He was marrying
her,
wasn't he? He'd had most of the eligible young ladies of the
ton
and a good many of their less respectable sisters among the
demi-monde
scrambling to snare his hand or heart, and preferably both, over the years, and he hadn't wed any of them. So, she only had to walk up the ancient path ahead of her, past the leaning gravestones and the hoary old yew tree she'd known ever since she could first remember, and he would be joined to her in an unbreakable bond.

‘Am I expecting too much, Tom?' she asked her brother-in-law as he waited patiently at her side, arm crooked to encourage her to launch herself into the true purpose of her wedding day so he could give her to her groom and get out of this biting cold wind.

‘You must expect it, dear Rosie. It's your right.'

‘I don't see why.'

‘Because you love him, and I believe he loves you. Every bride in love with her groom must expect too much of him on their wedding day. It's obligatory and turns him from a boy into a man, irrespective of his age.'

‘Lord, when did you become so wise?' she asked with such awe it reminded them both of a much younger Roxanne and a time when he was her big sister's devoted admirer and they both laughed.

‘Your sister would tell you it happened the day she wed me, but I argue it was the moment I married her and finally realised what I was taking on,' he said ruefully.

‘Very well then, lead on, Oh Knowledgeable One, and when I rue the day I let you guide me up this path to meet my fate, I'll descend on you all at Varleigh
and declare it to be entirely your fault I ever found the courage.'

‘No, you won't, for by that time you'll be wed, and every married woman on earth knows that when something goes wrong in her life, it's sure to be the fault of her husband.'

‘So be it, then,' she said lightly and met his rather anxious look with a confident smile.

‘You couldn't wed a finer man,' he assured her seriously.

‘I know, so shall we get on with my wedding? Before he decides we're bored with the idea and have gone to Tunbridge Wells for a little shopping and the waters, rather than meet me in front of the altar and all his friends?'

‘Aye, it's devilish cold standing here and I want to be back in that barrack you call a home with a hot toddy and my wife and family for comfort as soon as may be.'

‘Come along, then, do,' she encouraged him in her best imitation of her sister Maria, and so they entered the church on a triumphant crescendo played by the village band.

With the braziers having burned all night and so many people crowded into such a small church, it was warm enough inside for most to enjoy the spectacle of Sir Charles Afforde embracing his fate at long last. The sight of him waiting impatiently for her at the altar, the winter sun gilding his dark gold hair to fairness and outlining his broad-shouldered figure in close-fitting dark blue broadcloth that nearly matched his eyes, reminded
Roxanne of her first glimpse of him across the snow and the shadows that fateful Christmas night.

Warmth caught at her heart, melted some chilly corner of it that was still sore with the thought that he hadn't known from that Christmas day on, probably by instinct alone, that they were fated to love and wed one day. Her breath stuttered, and she let some of her real feelings show in her eyes as she walked confidently towards him down the aisle. She'd waited so long for this day, and now it was come, it was just as wonderful as she'd always dreamt, even if he might never say he loved her. He felt something deep and powerful for her, it was unmistakable in the welcome and triumph and heat in his compelling eyes as he watched the heavy folds of silk velvet outline her supple figure as she walked, her cloak belling slightly out from her sides with the speed of her arrival, until she finally arrived, glowing and a little breathless, at his side with a radiant smile that, if she did but know it, took his breath away.

Pausing to remind herself there were others present to see them wed, Roxanne looked away from her groom to regard the posy of humble holly, ivy and hot-house camellias in her hand as if she'd never seen it before. Luckily Stella had her cohorts firmly in hand by now, so Joanna and Tom Varleigh's eldest daughter Julia seized Roxanne's bouquet, while Stella carefully turned back the bride's veil and little Roxanne Varleigh, her namesake and goddaughter as well as her niece, tottered only momentarily as she enthusiastically strewed the dried rose-petals from her basket now instead of when the married couple walked down the aisle together later because it seemed a good idea to her, which indeed it was. Consequently, Roxanne and Charles made their
vows with the lingering scent of summer all about them and the sun casting golden light over them like a blessing.

 

‘What an auspicious start to our married life,' he whispered, before he took full advantage of the vicar's permission to kiss the bride.

‘Mmm,' she responded with her usual lack of words when at the mercy of even his lightest kisses. She really would have to develop some way of coping better with the world with her much-dreamed-of lover in it, when he might come upon her at any time and kiss her now they were married.

‘Lady Afforde,' he said with a tender, rueful smile at his new wife, ‘we really must put some work in on expanding your vocabulary.'

‘Oh, but later, surely, Charles?' she gasped in shock at the very idea of what he might do to achieve that, and her husband gave an involuntary laugh that made her sister Maria's countessy nose twitch with disapproval and everyone else smile indulgently.

‘Not too much later if I have anything to do with it,' he murmured in her ear before turning about to face the congregation with an openly satisfied smile on his handsome face.

‘And how you expect me to make any sense of today with a threat like that hanging over me, I'll never know,' she chided as they climbed into the fine new coach he'd brought as one of his marriage gifts to her for the short drive back to the Castle.

‘Tom warned me everything would be my fault from this moment on,' he said ruefully as he settled her skirts every bit as attentively as Stella had, but with a wicked
smile that told her he was enjoying the chance to linger over the way the soft silky fineness of the best velvet available outlined her figure. With his bride now thoroughly discomposed, he sprang into the coach and sat next to her with a merry wave at the assembled villagers who hadn't managed either to squeeze into the church or be invited to their reception.

‘He told me that as well, and he was quite right, too,' Roxanne informed him as she, too, smiled and waved at the many villagers and estate workers who'd turned out in the cold to line their route out of the village.

‘In ten years' time, do you think we'll be as happily grumpy with each other as they are?' he asked as he took her hand in his, distracting her from being tearfully touched at the enthusiastic cheers as their coach went past by removing her glove so he could admire the broad gold band now joining the graceful diamond ring on her left hand. Perhaps reassuring himself he'd finally caught her? she wondered wistfully.

‘I truly hope so, I'd hate to think we might become like Maria and poor Balsover,' she replied, distracted by his touch again. Now the carriage had picked up speed and the short drive to the castle left them a brief illusion of privacy, he held her hand up to catch the watery sunlight and it shot prisms of rainbow light from the stones in the ring she still couldn't believe was hers, made as it was to look like a trail of flowers that formed the most beautiful eternity ring she could have imagined.

When he was tired of admiring that fine piece of the goldsmith's art and the broad gold band wrought delicately with what she suspected were forget-me-nots, he silenced her altogether by lifting her hand to his lips and kissing her fingers one by one, until he finally went
back to her ring finger and took it into his mouth, his blazing blue gaze explicit as he ran his tongue along its fine-boned length until her eyelids went heavy and her lips opened with an invitation that he took with ravenous alacrity.

No matter how many times he kissed her, Roxanne thought with dazed wonder, every time was a delicious novelty. Then his mouth opened on hers and demanded all she had to give in return, so she gave it enthusiastically. She was breathless and hot and shaking with suppressed passion and sweet, heavy-limbed anticipation of their marriage bed when she finally realised the horses had slowed and they were almost at the great doorway of the oldest part of the castle, usually kept firmly shut at this time of year to keep the draughts at bay.

‘Why didn't I just abduct you and carry you off across the Border so we wouldn't have to wait for half the county to eat us out of house and home and toast us until they're hoarse with my best champagne before we enjoy our marriage bed, my lovely wife?' he asked her rather unsteadily, and she was exultant that his hand shook nigh as badly as her own when he leapt down from the coach and held it out to receive hers, as if every move they made today was significant in some way the rest of the world couldn't dream of.

‘I don't know, why didn't you?' she asked, clinging to the support of his strong arm as they mounted the steps like a king and queen taking possession of their palace, made even more of a royal progress by the fact that the castle staff were lined up there to bid them a ceremonial welcome.

‘Because they would never have forgiven me,' he whispered in her ear when they finally reached the
doorway and she looked back at her old friends and a few new ones Charles had brought to Hollowhurst with him and smiled at them in rather a misty attempt at thanking them for helping to make her wedding day so special.