The Wedding Challenge (25 page)

“You tricked me!” she gasped, feeling the blood drain from her face, leaving her light-headed and queasy.

Bromwell continued to stare at her blankly. “What? What the devil are you talking about?”

But Callie was no longer listening. She was realizing that she was miles from anywhere, alone, late at night, in the company of a man and without any chaperone except Mrs. Farmington—if that was even her name—who was doubtless in Lord Bromwell’s employ. Her reputation would be ruined. Then, on the heels of that thought came one even more horrifying—all this would not have been arranged only to ruin her reputation. He must mean to take her virtue, as well.

She thought she had reached the depths of emotion the other night when she realized that there was no hope for a future with Brom, but she found out now that she could feel far worse. Bromwell not only would not marry her, did not love her and would never come to love her, but he thought so little of her that he would callously ruin her. He had lied to her. He intended to use her to achieve some sort of twisted vengeance against her brother, without any regard to her pain and humiliation.

“Oh, God!” she choked out, tears welling in her eyes, and she raised her hand to her mouth, feeling sick. “What a fool I’ve been! I have been missing you, mourning you, when all the while you have been sitting here,
plotting—
”

She broke off and ran from the room. She heard him call her name behind her, but she did not stop or even glance back. Her only thought was to reach the post chaise before it left. She would tell them what had happened. Surely they would not callously leave her with him.

There was no sign of the woman who had opened the door, but Callie shrieked for help anyway. She could hear Bromwell running down the hall after her, heard him curse and call her name. She flung open the door and raced outside, then came to a dead halt.

The carriage was gone.

Panicked, she looked to the right and the left, but there was no sign of it anywhere. Clearly it had left as soon as she went inside. No doubt the driver had had instructions to do so. Probably Mrs. Farmington had gone with them—and even if she had not, Callie had no hope that she would help her. Sobs rose up in her chest, threatening to burst out, but Callie shoved them down.

She started to run.

“Callie!” Bromwell, who had come to a halt in the doorway behind her as she stared around the yard, started after her again. “Come back here!”

It was raining harder now, pelting onto her head, stingingly cold, but she did not bother to pull up her hood. She simply lifted her skirts up to her knees and ran as fast as she could. He had been drinking, she thought; perhaps he would not be able to catch her. He might stumble and fall. If she could reach the trees, perhaps she could elude him.

She quickly realized the futility of her hopes. Within a few yards, he had caught up with her, and he grabbed her arm, pulling her to a stop. Callie twisted and pulled, trying vainly to tear herself from his grasp.

“Let go of me!” she cried, blinking back her tears, as much from anger and frustration now as from sorrow. “Rochford will kill you! Nay, I will kill you myself!” She reached over with her other hand and scratched at his arm, digging in her nails.

“Bloody hell!” he exclaimed, grabbing her other wrist and pulling it away from his arm. “What the devil is wrong with you? Have you gone mad?”

“I never would have believed this of you!” she spat. “I never would have thought that you would stoop this low!” She struggled against him wildly, shrieking wordlessly as she twisted and pulled, lashing out at him with her feet. She managed to jerk one of her arms free, not even noticing the pain, and swung at him, hitting his cheek.

“Blast it! Callie, stop this!” He whirled her around and wrapped his arms around her from behind, pinning her arms to her sides, and lifted her from her feet.

She struggled for a moment longer, but the sobs she had fought against could no longer be held back, and she began to cry in great, gulping breaths and finally went limp in his arms. The chilling rain poured down over them, soaking them.

Bromwell set her down and swept her up in his arms like a child. He bent his head to hers, murmuring, “Callie…sweetheart…”

His lips brushed her hair for an instant. Then he turned and carried her back into the house. She lay against him, weak and unresisting, chilled to the bone and numbed from the onslaught of emotions.

Inside the house, he set her on her feet, calling, “Mrs. Farmington!”

He unfastened Callie’s sodden cloak and let it fall to the flagstone floor. Her hair was wet and had fallen from its pins during their struggle, and now it fell over her shoulders, water dripping from it. Beneath the cloak, her dress had gotten wet, as well, and her boots were covered in mud.

“Mrs. Farmington!” he shouted again. “Blast it, where is the woman?”

He was even wetter than Callie, for he had worn no outer garment. His white shirt clung to him, soaked through, and his hair was plastered to his head. He shivered, his fingers trembling as he reached out to unfasten the buttons of her dress.

“Here, you must get out of this dress,” he told her.

“No!” She jerked away from him, though she was too weary to run or fight any longer.

He sighed. “Then sit down on this bench.”

He took her arms and hauled her over to the wooden bench that sat to one side of the entry. He pushed her down onto the seat, none too gently.

“Stay here,” he ordered.

Callie would have liked to disobey him, just for principle’s sake, but she found it too hard to move. She leaned her head back against the wall. She was terribly cold, she knew, but she felt too numb and disconnected to do anything about it. She shuddered, her teeth beginning to chatter.

Bromwell reappeared, holding a knitted throw, which he wrapped around her tightly. “There. That should warm you up a bit.”

He stripped off his wet shirt and waistcoat, and tossed them onto the floor. Callie’s eyes widened warily. But he made no move toward her, only wrapped another afghan around himself like a shawl. It made such a comical picture that in any other circumstances she would have been tempted to laugh.

He slicked his hair back, squeezing the water from it, then reached down to do the same to Callie’s hair. She raised her hands to push his hands away, but there was little strength in her, and he ignored her feeble attempts. Then he knelt in front of her and began to unlace her boots.

“Stop,” she said.

“Hush. You are freezing and wet, and I refuse to let you catch your death of cold simply because you have run mad.”

“I have not run mad,” she protested weakly.

He sat back on his heels and quirked an eyebrow at her. “No. Of course not. You show up here—though I cannot fathom why or how you knew where I was. You begin raving about your brother, and then you start shrieking and run straight out into the rain, pelting off God-knows-where. And when I try to stop you, to find out what is the matter, you attack me. What in all that is anything
but
mad?”

When she made no answer, only looked at him mutinously, he said, “Very well. We will leave your shoes on.” He pulled her to her feet again. “Come here.”

“Where?” She set her jaw, looking mulish.

“Oh, blast!” He swooped her up in his arms again and strode off down the hall to the study, ignoring her wriggling protests.

He set her down on her feet in front of the fire and picked up the poker to stir the flames higher. The heat felt wonderful against her skin, and Callie could not refrain from letting out a sigh of pleasure. She sat down on a stool in front of the fire screen, automatically turning her head so that her hair fell loose down the side closest to the heat.

Bromwell strode over to the decanter and glass that still sat on the tray, and filled up the glass again. He returned to Callie and thrust the glass into her hand. “Drink this. It will warm you faster than the fire.”

She looked at him suspiciously, and his mouth tightened. “Drink,” he ordered, “or I shall pour it down your throat.”

With a grimace, Callie took a gulp of the liquor. It burned all the way down her throat, and she gasped, but it warmed her from the inside, and she felt immediately better. He took the glass from her and drank, then handed it back to her and squatted down in front of the fire beside her.

Callie took another, smaller, sip of the drink and stole a sideways look at Bromwell. He had shrugged off the cumbersome throw he had wrapped around his shoulders, and the firelight played across his bare shoulders and chest. There was something primitive about him as he squatted there, his arms resting on his knees, warming himself in front of the fire, his hair tousled and wet, drying in the heat.

Her throat was suddenly dry, and Callie was humiliatingly aware of the warmth that was stealing through her loins, a warmth that had nothing to do with the fire and everything to do with the man in front of her.

He turned his head and caught her looking at him. She glanced quickly away, blushing, but he reached out and took her chin in his fingers, tilting her face back to look at him. He did not speak, only let his eyes roam over her, taking in her wet disheveled curls and the damp dress that clung to her breasts, revealing the thrust of her tightening nipples against the cloth. His mouth softened a little, and his eyes sparked with heat. His thumb caressed her chin, moving up to skim across her bottom lip.

The touch of his skin on the sensitive flesh of her mouth sent sparks skittering through her, and she realized, aghast, that she was tempted to take his hand and press her lips against it. Despite everything, some primitive urge deep inside her had responded to the desire in his eyes and wanted to see it flame even higher.

She shot to her feet. “No! Do not think that you can seduce me. I will not succumb to you. I will not be a willing part of your scheme to stain my name!”

He rose, too, facing her, and the heat in his eyes now was more anger than desire. “I would never do that. You know I would not.”

“Really?” Her voice dripped sarcasm. “Do you expect me to believe that you lured me here to talk?”

He opened his arms in a gesture of bewilderment. “I did not lure you here at all! I have no idea what you are talking about, nor have I since the moment you walked through that door, babbling about Rochford.”

“How can you say that?” Callie cried. Somehow it hurt all the worse because she wanted so much to believe his words. “I am not a fool. I received a letter telling me to rush here because my brother had suffered a carriage accident, and when I arrived, there was no one here but you.”

“What?” He continued to stare at her. “Callie…I sent you no letter. I have no idea what you are talking about. I would never—I swear on everything that is dear to me, I would never try to lure you here and take advantage of you. How can you even think that?”

Callie looked into his eyes, the silver-gray warmed with the gold of the fire, and in that moment she was suddenly sure that he was telling the truth. And she was equally sure who must have arranged the trick that had been played on her.

Silently, she reached into her pocket and pulled out the folded note she had received. With fingers that trembled a little, she held it out to him.

Frowning, Bromwell took the letter and opened it. Hidden inside her pocket, beneath her cloak, it had not been soaked. It was only slightly damp, and the words were still legible. Looking at Bromwell’s face, Callie knew that he recognized the handwriting. He read it through twice and handed it back to her.

Avoiding her eyes, he said, “That was not written by Mrs. Farmington. She is the housekeeper here, and I am not sure that she is even literate. Your brother has never been here. I came to this house when I left London after…after we talked at Lady Whittington’s musicale.”

“What is this place?”

“It is indeed named Blackfriars Cope,” he told her, and finally he looked her in the eye. “It was Lord Swithington’s hunting lodge.”

He looked in that moment sad and tired and older than he was. With a sigh, he turned away, adding, “And the hand looks very much like Daphne’s.” He picked up the glass from the hearth and drained it. “I am sorry, Callie. I cannot tell you how sorry I am.”

He moved away, going to the desk and setting down the glass. He turned back to her, saying, “Perhaps she thought that she was helping me somehow. She knew that I—felt more for you than I should. Perhaps she believed that I would welcome the chance to be placed in such a situation with you.” He shook his head. “I do not know what is wrong with Daphne. She has acted…in ways that I have never seen her act. She has said and done things that are not like her at all. She—all I can think is that she has become so obsessed with what she suffered that she has lost all sense of reason. She is driven by the need to avenge the wrong that was done to her.”

“Brom…” Callie went to him and laid her hand upon his arm, looking up earnestly into his face. “Sinclair swore to me that he did not get your sister with child. He told me that he did not even have an affair with Lady Daphne.”

His eyes sparked with anger, and his arm stiffened beneath her hand. He shrugged it off, moving across the room. “Of course he would deny it.”

“My brother is an honorable man. He feels badly about the way he treated you. He knows that he mishandled the situation. He was not, you know, all that many years older than you were. But he swore to me that what you accused him of was untrue. I believe him. I do not believe that he would lie to me.”