The Wedding Challenge (26 page)

“We have talked of this before. Of course you believe him. He is your brother.”

“Have you ever heard anything else ill of him?” Callie asked. “Ask anyone, and they will tell you that the Duke of Rochford is a gentleman. He would not seduce a lady and then abandon her, least of all if she was carrying his child. Your sister did not have that child, did she?”

“No. She lost it not long after she married Lord Swithington. But that proves nothing,” he flared. “Women often miscarry.”

“Were you there when it happened?”

“No, of course not. I was back at Oxford.” He looked stony. “That does not mean it did not happen.”

Callie said nothing, merely looked at him, and after a moment his eyes dropped. But she had seen the doubt that flickered there. She knew that he must be struggling with the dawning realization that what he had believed for the last fifteen years had been a lie, that the sister he loved and trusted had deceived him.

“That does not matter now, anyway,” he said gruffly. “We cannot resolve the matter. It is not ours to worry about.”

“It certainly affects us,” Callie retorted sharply, nettled.

“I know.” He met her gaze squarely this time. “Do not think that I am dismissing the situation in which Daphne has placed you. Whatever her reasons, I know how much she has wronged you, and I refuse to allow you to suffer. That is what we need to be concerned with. We must make sure that your reputation is not damaged.”

“There must be a village nearby—this Lower Upton. They have an inn, surely. I will go there and take a room.”

“Your carriage is gone,” he pointed. “I have a horse in the stable, but he is the only one. You cannot go riding off through strange countryside alone in the middle of the night. He would carry us both, or I could walk alongside you as you rode. But in any case, that would scarcely solve the problem. Whether you arrive after—” he paused and glanced at the clock sitting above the fireplace “—midnight, riding a horse, alone or with a man, and take a room by yourself, it will look exceedingly odd. We are trying to avoid rumors, not engender them.”

“But who is to know?” she argued. “The people of the village do not know me. I will use a false name.”

“It is better that no one even sees you,” he responded flatly. “Does anyone know that you are here?”

“I cannot imagine who would. The messenger brought me this note, and I left straight away in a post chaise he hired. There was no one with me when he arrived, only the servants, and they are very loyal to Francesca. Even Francesca was not there. She had gone on a visit with Aunt Odelia.” She stopped, an odd look crossing her face.

“What?” Bromwell asked. “What is wrong?”

“Nothing, really. I just wonder if that, too, was by design. If Francesca had been there when I received the news about Sinclair, she would no doubt have accompanied me, which would have spoiled the plan.”

Bromwell sighed and said, “Lady Odelia is fond of my sister and me. She says we make her laugh. I am sure that your great-aunt would have done nothing to harm you, but if Daphne had artlessly suggested that she go visit someone, and added that Francesca would doubtless love to go with her, she would probably have agreed. She might have guessed that Daphne had something up her sleeve, but I doubt she would have thought that it was anything so ruinous.”

Callie nodded. Furious as she was at what Daphne had tried to do to her, she was almost as resentful about the careless hurt the woman had brought to Bromwell.

“In any case,” she went on briskly, hoping to distract him from the pain of discovering the full unpleasantness of his sister’s character, “Francesca does know where I am and what I was told, for I left a note for her so that she would not worry. But she is the only one, and I am positive that Francesca would never whisper a word that would harm me. I would trust her always.”

“Then if no one sees you in the village, there is no reason why anyone should ever find out you were here,” Bromwell said. “I think there is but one thing to be done. You must spend the night here.”

“H
ERE
!” C
ALLIE EXCLAIMED
. “But that would
surely
ruin my reputation.”

“Who is to know that you were here unless you or I tell them? I assure you, Mrs. Farmington will not say a word for fear of losing her position here. Tomorrow I will ride into town and hire a chaise for you. You can return to London, and no one will be the wiser. Unless—” he looked worried “—Francesca has spread the word about that the duke is injured and here.”

“I do not think she would,” Callie said. “Francesca is no gossip. And I doubt she would have received visitors or gone out tonight. She would have been exhausted from having spent the day with Aunt Odelia. Besides, she will be awaiting word from me about Sinclair’s condition.”

“Good. Then no one will know,” he said.

Callie nodded slowly, thinking about the fact that they would still be alone in this house together. She remembered how the firelight had rippled across his bare chest, turning his skin golden and highlighting the smooth curve of his muscles beneath his skin.

“I promise you, I will do nothing to you,” he told her quietly. “But if it will make you feel easier, I will sleep in the stables, so that you are truly alone in the house. Mrs. Farmington has clearly already returned to her cottage in the village. And you can lock the doors and windows.”

“No, you need not do that.” Callie was not about to tell him that she had been worrying more about the pull of attraction she felt toward him than his trying to have his way with her. “I believe you.”

“Thank you,” he said simply.

Their eyes held for a moment; then they both looked away, feeling suddenly awkward. Bromwell cleared his throat and glanced about the room, as though he would find some sort of answer there.

“I imagine you would like to get some sleep,” he began finally. “Shall I show you to your room?”

“Yes, please.”

“I, uh, perhaps I can find you something to, um, sleep in,” he went on as they left the room, color tinting the high ridges of his cheekbones. “One of my shirts or…” His voice trailed off.

Callie thought of sleeping in one of Brom’s shirts, and her loins prickled with desire. It seemed far too intimate, almost as if he would be there with her. She wondered if any scent of him would still linger on the material.

They started along the hall to the staircase, which lay near the front door. Callie saw the small cloth bag that she had brought with her lying beside the door. She supposed it must have been there earlier, though she had not noticed it in her panic as she ran out the front door.

“Look. It is my bag.” She went forward to pick it up, but Brom took it from her hand. “That man must have brought it in. I did not notice.”

“Good. Then you will have your clothes.” He looked away as he said it.

Everything seemed awkward now, Callie thought. She wondered if he, like she, could not stop thinking about the fact that they were alone together. There were no chaperones and no one to tell tales. No one would know what transpired tonight except them.

He led her up the stairs and along the hallway, stopping at the last door. “Here is your room. I fear it is rather cold. Let me light you a fire. Excuse me a moment.”

It was indeed chilly in the room, which had clearly been unused for a while. Bromwell set down her bag and lit the lamp on the table beside the bed, then left the room. He returned a few moments later, carrying some firewood and kindling in his arms. Callie noted that he had also taken the time to put on a shirt, though he had not bothered to tuck it in, so that it hung loosely outside his trousers.

He knelt in front of the fireplace and began to build a fire. He coaxed the flames into life, and before long the fireplace was giving forth warmth. Callie, who had stood watching him, huddled in the light blanket he had given her, went over to the hearth.

He smiled at her. “I hope you have not caught a chill.” He reached out and smoothed back a stray curl of her hair, which had caught upon her cheek.

Callie found herself wanting to lean into his hand like a cat, to close her eyes and give herself up to the wonderful feeling of being with him, of feeling his skin touch hers.

His hand fell away, and he moved across the room to the window. He parted the curtains with his hand and stood there looking out into the dark night.

After a moment, he said, “I believe I told you that my mother died when I was young. My nurse used to call Daphne my ‘little mother.’ She looked after me, played with me. We were all we had growing up. My father was…” His lip curled in distaste. “I have always sworn that I would never be such a one as my father. He had no understanding of or love for children. He expected us to behave as adults, and there was no quarter given for youth or a lack of strength or skill.”

“I am sorry,” Callie said, her heart melting in sympathy.

He looked over at her and smiled. “I did not mean to ask for your pity. I wanted to explain about Daphne. She protected me from him. His punishments were stern, even cruel, and she tried to shelter me from them. She would hide me, make excuses for me, even take the blame for something I had done because she could not bear to see me hurt. I have much to be grateful to her for.”

“I know.” Callie’s smile was sad. She understood his love for his sister. Daphne had been the only one who loved him. She knew that he could never give up his sister, no matter how wrong she was in her actions.

“She had to bear a great deal. I was too young to shelter her in any way. My father insisted that she marry advantageously. She was beautiful, and there were many men who wanted her. She married a man years older than she, a man she did not love, and she did it for us, to keep our estate from being swallowed up in my father’s debt. I remember hearing her weep in her room the night before her wedding day. And then, when she was finally free of him and could have a new life, a good life, she fell in love with Rochford. I hated him for her unhappiness. For her having to marry another old man and wither away for the last fifteen years, so far from everything she loved.”

He turned to Callie, frowning. “And now…now I feel as if I do not know her. The things she has done to try to harm you. This ruse. That night at Vauxhall Gardens. I can scarcely believe that this is my sister, that she would stoop to such tricks. Her heart seems filled with bitterness and hatred. And now I…now I cannot help but wonder if I ever really understood her at all. Were all those things she told me lies? Was she the same then, and I just did not see it? Was I simply too young and foolish to recognize the truth?”

The look on Bromwell’s face was so wretched that Callie went to him and put her hand on his arm. “I am sorry,” she told him softly again, gazing up into his face.

Her dark eyes glowed with compassion, large and warm in her delicate heart-shaped face, and he was struck all over again by how beautiful she was. Her face, he thought, was perfect in every way, framed in a riot of black curls. Her lips were full and red, and he could not help but remember how her mouth had felt against his. And though he was across the room from the fire, his skin was suddenly searing.

The wrap had fallen from her shoulders when she reached up to touch him, and his eyes dropped down to her shoulders and chest. The scoop neckline of her plain dimity gown revealed only a slice of skin along the rounded tops of her breasts, but the material, still slightly damp, clung to her form. His heart was hammering, his breath suddenly faster in his throat. As he gazed at her, her nipples tightened, thrusting against the cloth in a blatant show of desire.

Suddenly he found it very difficult to think. He knew he should tear his gaze away from her, but somehow he could not. His body was pulsatingly aware of her hand upon his arm, now burning where it touched.

“I, um…should go,” he said vaguely.

“No. Do not,” Callie replied. She was aware that everyone would tell her that what she was doing was wrong, but it felt absolutely right to her. The pain of the past few weeks seemed to have melted away all fear, all doubt. The heat in his eyes as he had looked at her had opened up some deep, primitive longing in her. She wanted to feel again what she had felt with him before. She wanted to experience everything that had lain beyond that, unexplored.

She slid her hand up his arm and onto his chest, aware of the smooth curve of his muscles beneath the fabric of his shirt. The quick, harsh intake of his breath, the sudden sharpening of his face, stirred her. He wanted her, and that knowledge made her hungry.

“Stay here with me,” she murmured.

“Callie…” He released a shaky breath. “You are playing with fire.”

She smiled slowly, sensuously, her eyes heavy with meaning. “Ah, but I like the heat.”

Looking at him, seeing the desire that washed over his features, she felt heady with power, filled with the triumphant knowledge that she could move him, and she ached to test the limits of that power. She loved the sensations sizzling inside her, and she wanted more, wanted it all. She wanted him.

“I have thought about kissing you these past days,” she told him, emboldened by the energy pulsing through her. “Have you not thought about it?” She stretched up on tiptoe to place a featherlight kiss upon the line of his jaw.

She felt the shudder that ran through him. “Good God, Callie, I have thought of little else.” She turned her head, brushing a kiss along the other side of his jaw. “You are mad to do this.”

“Perhaps I am, a little,” she agreed. “Do you mind?”

“I fear that
you
shall mind—tomorrow.”

“I will not,” Callie promised, pressing her lips to his chin.

She stretched upward, her soft lips beckoning his mouth, sweet and promising. He knew that he should pull away. A gentleman would never take advantage of a woman this way. But he could not seem to make his legs move, and he certainly did not feel like a gentleman at the moment.

Callie pressed her lips against Brom’s, gently, like the merest breath, then came back to taste again, lingering this time before she pulled away. She looked up into his eyes, dark now with desire, and waited. She could feel the heat emanating from his body, the tension that ran up and down the length of him. His hands were clenched into fists, as if to hold on tightly to the shreds of his control.

Her eyes steadily on his, she went up on tiptoe again, her mouth turning up to his. He let out a groan deep in his throat, and his arms clamped around her as his mouth came down to meet hers. Passion, long held back by both of them, came flooding out, swift and unstoppable.

Their arms strained to pull them closer as their mouths clung desperately. They pulled away only to tear at their clothing, coming back together an instant later, unable to bear another moment apart, moving in a constant turning dance of desire that brought them closer and closer to the bed.

His boots were soon gone, and his shirt unbuttoned and tossed blindly onto the floor. The myriad buttons down her back proved more difficult, but they, too, were conquered, though several of the small buttons were popped from their moorings in the process. In one smooth motion he stripped her dress down her body, revealing her lithe form, clad only in her thin undergarments.

Callie’s breasts pushed up against the cotton chemise, swelling over its ribboned neckline, the nubs of her hardened nipples visible through the thin fabric. He stopped, his eyes dropping to the sight of the full white orbs, the edge of the chemise skimming just above her nipples, keeping them tantalizingly out of view. Slowly, almost reverently, he traced his forefinger along the neckline, his skin grazing her soft white flesh. Callie quivered beneath his touch, a soft moan escaping her lips.

With the same deliberation, his fingers hooked into the top of the chemise, edging the material downward. The cloth rubbed over her sensitive nipples, tightening them further, as he slowly tugged it down until at last her nipples popped free, hard and pointing, dark rose in their arousal.

He pulled the chemise down sharply then, little noticing and caring less for the faint ripping sound of the fabric. Her breasts fell free of the garment, firm and deliciously rounded, full white globes that seemed made for his hands. He could not keep from reaching out and cupping them, taking the weight of them in his hands, savoring the silken smooth feel of her skin. His thumbs moved over her nipples, circling and teasing the hard buds.

With each movement Callie felt desire curl and knot within her, her loins melting, turning her hot and liquid. She could not keep still. Her flesh jerked and quivered beneath his touch; her legs moved restlessly, pressing together as though to still the relentless yearning that was growing there.

She wanted each moment to last forever, yet at the same time she was filled with an urgent need, an eagerness that wanted to find and grasp and have everything at once.

Callie reached out, finding the waistband of his breeches, and began to unbutton them. She could feel the insistent movement beneath the cloth, the physical proof of his need, and she could not resist sliding her hand downward over the material, caressing the throbbing ridge beneath it.

Brom let out a low moan, which emboldened her to explore further, gliding lower to edge between his legs, then back up to slip between his trousers and his skin, down past the top unfastened button. It was completely unknown to her, the feel of satin-smooth skin and rough hair, the eager, leaping surge of flesh, and it was strangely exciting.