The Stanhope Challenge - Regency Quartet - Four Regency Romances (2 page)

Wes gave him the quelling glance his men termed
The Demand
. “You are married.”

“I know I thought it a good idea. Despite the horror of my marriage to Sarah.” The mere mention of his first wife sent a wave of revulsion through him. “Everyone thought it a good idea. My colleagues. The Prime Minister. But you both, most of all, know this won’t work.”

Wes pursed his lips. “I’ve seen your new lady wife, and I say give it a go. If you admit defeat before you start, you’re doomed.”

“This is not a cavalry charge,” Adam murmured.

Wes shrugged. “Perhaps it should be.”

“Wes, have a little pity,” Adam pleaded, his head splitting from too much whiskey and too little sleep.

“No pity for you,” Wes shot back. “Felice lives up to her name in temperament as far as I can tell. And her figure, Adam, has certainly become more alluring than when I last saw her in Great Aunt Amaryllis’ garden.”

“She was ten!”

“Was she, now? Hmm. No wonder she was flat-chested.”

“Now see here,” Adam admonished his older brother. “Her figure is—”

“Superb and yours to explore.” Wes wiggled his brows suggestively, then looked at Jack. “We met her when we first summered at Aunt’s house. What year was it Father foisted us off on the poor old gel?”

Adam groaned. “It doesn’t matter!”
I liked her then. Enjoyed her wit and intelligence every time we met. Now I’ve gone and hurt her irrevocably.

Jack shook his head. “Don’t argue with him, Wes. He’s got a snoot full from an all-night gambling rout at White’s. It only encourages him to debate you. And neither of us can ever outtalk him.” He gave his brother, the Colonel and Man of Action, a wide-eyed look of despair. “The curse is upon him.”

“Oh, hell,” Wes mourned. “Not that again.”

Adam frowned at both of his brothers. “
That
again? I don’t seem to recall that either of you is yet married. Why not?”

“Not our time,” Jack told him.

“No woman I like enough,” Wes added. “You, Jack?”

“None I cannot live without,” Jack said with pointed disdain for the subject. “Come on, Adam, let’s do our drinking out there with all the others.”

“They all wonder, you know,” Adam offered, his gaze on the door.

“What?” Reggie asked when the two Stanhope brothers didn’t respond to him.

All three Stanhopes considered Reggie Mortenson with bleak expressions.

Adam answered for them all. “They wonder when Felice will leave me. As we speak, they are out there taking wagers on the number of months she remains.”

“The Stanhope women don’t all leave,” Jack reminded Adam.

The three brothers winced and looked at anything but each other. Adam knew each man thought of his own mother and how each had died in succession. And even though Jack’s mother passed away after a riding accident, Wes’s died of consumption and Adam’s of childbed fever, the ton declared each woman had suffered first and foremost from a broken heart.

“He says he loved each one,” Jack reminded them of the phrase their father repeated to them often.

Adam shut his eyes. “He declares he loved Clarice’s mother, too!” Their charming half-sister Clarice had been Stanhope’s by-blow, conveniently born between Jack and Wes.

“Aye,” Wes acknowledged with a smirk. “In his prime, the man was a walking satyr.”

Jack inclined his head toward Wes. “Astonishing, isn’t it, that he managed his estates as well as he did, hopping from bed to bed like a right royal degenerate.” He flourished a hand. “Yet, he cared for each woman he bedded.”

Adam growled. “How can you believe him?” He had never known their father to be honest with anyone, least of all his three legitimate sons. “You were four years old,” Adam reminded Jack, then faced Wes. “And you were two when I was born and my mother took a childbed fever. How can you know that he tells the truth?”

Jack rolled a shoulder. “Perhaps on this one issue…”

Adam shook his head, hands fisted on his hips. “I long to see the day each of you faces a woman whom you do not wish to kill with the family curse.” He straightened his cravat and ran two hands through his hair. “For god’s sake. Open the damn door, Wesley, I’m ready to claim my bride and ruin both our lives.”

Felice had tried conversation with him.

Adam had sat silent in the coach to Dover, gazing out at the greying landscape and brooding. She’d tried to lure him out of his morose contemplation to no avail.

But now, here at the inn, she was determined to brave his mood and make the consummation of this marriage a joyous night. A good beginning to a stunning match and domestic bliss.
A counterpoint to the scandalous series in the
TellTale
by Miss Proper.

She quickly pushed that errant thought aside, skimmed her hands down her negligee and ran the brush through her long dark waves once more. Beneath the flowing Italian chiffon, she felt her nipples bead. Her heart raced and her body warmed and seemed to swell.

This night will be better than those with Wallace.

Her first husband had known nothing of subtleties. Not in art or music, books or cards. And certainly not in the finer points of making love.

But Adam Stanhope does
.

She glanced at him, pacing before the window, in his black velvet dressing gown. He waited politely for her to finish her toilette. His slashing brows were knit, his black eyes dark with preoccupation. Her body tingled with excitement of the evening to come. Her husband looked to be a veritable satyr.

Rumor said he was. Living in the Orient, he was reputed to have learned the exotic sexual practices of the Chinese. His past mistresses put it about that he was agile and demanding. Her friends in the Risqué Society applauded her daring marital catch and told her Adam’s exotic physical practices could make a woman howl in fulfillment. Certainly, too, he must have benefited from his two brothers’ tales of their legendary prowess with women. Jack’s preference was for titled ladies whose husbands did not serve them well. Wesley’s reputed taste was for a certain bawdy tea merchant’s daughter. Felice thirsted to taste such delights herself. She’d been too cosseted, too sheltered. Fun had never been a main ingredient in her childhood nor her youth. Her first husband had been dour. Boring. She yearned for more. Much more.

And to her delight, here she had the promise of it embodied in this man.

She turned. The sight of him made her mouth water.

For a man who spent most of his days indoors, Adam retained the muscular physique of a man who indulged in horses and fencing. His midnight hair was thick and curly, perhaps more so than her own. His thick eyelashes fringed lightning-bright blue eyes that sparked and sent shocks of delight down to her core. She smiled, suppressing a grin that their children, if they were fortunate enough to have any at her late age, would definitely be black-haired devils. His sultry gaze fell down her body and gave her pause.

“You look lovely.”

She smiled more broadly. This kind of attention from a man was what she had always craved.

“The ivory and lace do you justice,” he told her, securing the sash of his dressing gown more tightly around his waist and turning again toward the window. Hands behind his back, he looked out over the Channel waters and flexed his shoulders.

She went to stand behind him. His cologne wafted over her senses. The sage and anise aroused her need to have him take her in his arms. But not wishing to frighten him, she stood still.

“Thank you for the lovely nosegay. And my wedding ring is stunning,” she said and paused to feel the circle of tiny diamonds around her finger. She was tempted to say,
I don’t need diamonds
, but stopped herself. His Great Aunt Amaryllis had cautioned her not to be self-deprecating to him. “Adam hates that in anyone, especially a woman,” the lady had warned.

“Adam, I know we have not had much time to become reacquainted, what with Parliament in session, but I am eager to begin. Our friendship was a solid one when we were young and—”

“Listen to me, Felice.” He whirled on her, his large, crystal blue eyes caressing her lips, her throat and falling to her cleavage and her pointed nipples. He inhaled, darting his gaze to her mouth. “I want you to know how grateful I am that you agreed to marry me.”

“Gratitude is wonderful, but there must be more.”
More that you feel for me or you would not have asked for my hand.
She reached out to touch him.

“How true.” He rubbed her fingertips for a moment then jerked away. “But with us, this arrangement we have is different.”

A note of dismay rang in her ears. But she dismissed it. “Yes, we were friends long before this. Trusted each other with our secrets. Read our little stories. Knew what the other wanted from life.”

He stared at her. “We were children, Fee. We acted like ragamuffins and tore up the countryside with our antics.”

She chuckled to ward off the growing premonition that he was about to tell her something awful. “Some marriages are based on less. Ours will be founded in more.” She cupped his cheek.

He removed her hand, his face frozen, his blue eyes flat. “Don’t, Fee. Please. This is hard enough.”

Her spine stiffened. He didn’t want her? She was comely. She knew it. Squire Forester had asked for her hand last year. Months before, Sir Harold Spencer had offered. She might be thirty and a widow, but she was not ugly. Definitely not plain. Her body was svelte, her breasts perhaps too large. And aye, her hair was black as hell and not the pale froth so popular. Her skin was flawless. Most of all, she had a mind and she used to write epic poems, though indeed she earned a pittance for her labors. Her invention of Miss Proper was a new ploy and her forthcoming series loosely alluding to him, a ruse—a terrible necessity to satisfy her debts. Still, she had married him, welcomed this offer because she wanted him. Not his money. Not his name. Not his position. No, she had always adored
him
. And never had thought to have the chance to live with him. So when the offer came, she’d grabbed it. “Whatever are you talking about, Adam?”

“You know I respect you, Fee.”

That sounded cold. Indifferent. Not what passion is made of. She shivered and wrapped her arms around her middle, her hopes for his affection withering. “Do I?”

“Of course you do. I like your spirit, your conversation. I even like your poetry.”

I doubt you’ll like my prose.
She arched a brow. “Romantic nonsense, you called it when I first began.”

“You are much better at it now than at twelve, and it has made you a penny or two.”

“Writing is a poorly paid profession. My father paid his published authors the same as I earn today for each copy of my works.” She tried for levity, but the fact that she had made more in an advance on a political scandal sheet series about him turned her cold with worry. She shivered, so far from the fire and, too, far from the warmth she had expected from him on their wedding trip. She backed toward the flames of the fireplace.

“Christ! Felice, don’t stand there.” His gaze flowed down her form and stuck on the juncture of her thighs.

She glanced down. Silhouetted by the dancing red conflagration behind her, her body glowed in the fire light, almost bare of the transparent silk. She did not move. Could not. “Out with this, Adam. What are you telling me?”

He inhaled, his mouth thinned as if he were in pain. “I married you for convenience.”

She swallowed back wild disappointment. She could have sworn that a part of him had wanted her in his bed. She’d glimpsed desire in his eyes when she accepted his proposal. He’d been happy to see her yesterday, too, his warm hands on her shoulders caressing her. Very well, if he now had cold feet, he could play at the shy one for the evening. As for her, she would not stand demurely by as he pushed her aside with cruel logic. She was his wife, deserving of his attentions.

She stepped toward him. “I knew some of your motivation was your drive for political advancement.”

There.
She’d been bold to say it and let him know she had heard the rumors.

He set his jaw. His eyes dimmed. “But I regret it.”

“Don’t.” She tried for magnanimity. “I am pleased to help you.”

“
Pleased? No.”
He flinched. “Hear me out. I am proud you are my wife, but I doubt you’ll ever be pleased you belong to me.”

“Why ever not?”

“Because, we Stanhopes have miserable marriages.”

“Ah, the curse,” she said matter-of-factly. “A fable of immense proportions.”

“No fable, madam!”

“It is. Used by men and women to justify their own failures to make a marriage a congenial union.”

“Come now, Fee. You and I are not one of your romantic heroines and heroes in your epic poems.”

“Thank god. I intend we mortals do as we must to make a good marriage of what once was a solid friendship.”

He raked one hand through his hair. “No, Fee. That cannot be.”

“Why not?”

“This marriage will make us miserable.”

“Ridiculous.”

“It’s not, my girl. For over a century, no Stanhope has had a happy marriage. The Stanhope wives have died of broken hearts. The men have turned bitter, some dying in their cups, others going mad. I do not wish that for you or me.”

“Yet you took me anyway.”
Why?

“I did. I thought when I saw you at the Brimwells’ country house last month that we might escape the curse. I saw a lovely woman of wit and wisdom. I saw someone who could be my companion and my hostess, my partner. I also saw someone who would make a compassionate mother for my boy. Georgie is two and needs petting and coddling by a woman who can discipline him and love him.”

Thrilled at his logic, she stepped against Adam’s warm hard body and sank her fingertips into the nap of his rough velvet dressing robe. “I want to be all those things for you.”

He gave a pained laugh but jerked her closer. “Don’t make this harder for me.”

He arched his brows as she pressed her hips to his and undulated shamelessly. His cock was high and hard. Impressively so. “Darling Adam, I doubt it can get any harder.”