Dark Angel / Lord Carew's Bride (23 page)

She had been alone with him before. There was nothing so very strange about it. She must accustom herself to being alone with him. She was his possession.

At first he drew her arm through his and covered her hand with his own. They sat in silence until the horses had been set in motion. His arm and his hand were warm, but her own hand, sandwiched between the two, could draw no warmth or comfort to herself.

And then he released her arm in order to set his about her shoulders and draw her close to him. “You are like a block of ice,” he said. “The church was cold and your gown is thin. Though I do not suppose either of those two facts is the real cause.” He lifted her chin with his free hand, his palm warm beneath it, his fingers cupping her jaw. He set his mouth to hers again. “It is not going to be the nightmare you expect. I promise you it will not.”

The side of her head was brushing his shoulder. She let it rest fully against the warm satin there and closed her eyes. She must not try to fight her way free. She was his wife. Besides, she was so very weary. She had slept last night in mere fits and starts. She would be inclined to believe that she had not slept at all, except that she could remember bizarre dreams.

“Jennifer.” His voice was low against her ear. It was always so hard when she listened to his voice or when she was within the aura of his physical presence to believe that in reality he was the very devil. “We are man and
wife, my dear. We must make the best of it. If either of us is to find any happiness in what remains of our lives, we must find it in each other. If we try very hard, perhaps we will not find the task altogether impossible.”

Almost, she thought, as if he had been forced into this marriage as much as she had. She felt a flash of anger, but she quelled it. Any strong emotion might precipitate her out of the welcome lethargy that had taken her through the morning. She did not want to wake to full reality yet.

“You look very beautiful today,” he said. “I am more proud than I can say that you are my wife.”

And then his mouth was on hers again, warm, not at all demanding. His lips were parted. She wondered idly if all men kissed like this—if it was the way to kiss. But she would never know. She felt warmth seep into her flesh and into her bones. She pushed her lips back against his, reaching for greater comfort.

She was half asleep by the time the carriage drew to a halt outside her father’s house. Half asleep and half dreaming. But when she opened her eyes and he drew back his head, it was Gabriel, Earl of Thornhill, at whom she gazed, not Lionel, Viscount Kersey.

With a sharp jabbing of pain, which seemed almost physical, she understood that she was married to this man. That there would never again be Lionel. Never again the dream, except perhaps during the kindest—or cruelest—sleep.

T
HE WEDDING BREAKFAST PROCEEDED
with surprising ease. Perhaps it was because everyone—except Jennifer—tried very hard. Almost too hard, the Earl of Thornhill thought. The topics of conversation were too trivial and were clung to for too long. There was too much animation over trivialities and far too much laughter, especially from Frank and Bertie, and from Miss Newman. But he was grateful even so. Awkward silences and inappropriate solemnity would have been unbearable.

He was married. Without any chance to make his own choice, without any time to consider and digest what it was he had been forced into, he was married—to a woman who hated him with very good reason. She believed his perfidies far worse than they really were, and perhaps in time he could clear himself of some charges to her satisfaction. But he could not clear himself of everything.

He was horribly guilty. And if she knew the full truth, it would be worse for her than what she now believed. At least now she believed that he had wanted her and had deliberately set about getting her. How would she feel if she ever learned that he had not wanted her at all?

No, that was not strictly true. He had been moved by her beauty and by her innocent charm from the first. And powerfully attracted sexually. Perhaps if he had met her under different circumstances, he would indeed have set about wooing her. But he had not.

Bertie had been coldly satisfied at his news and had held out a hand as a signal that their quarrel was at an
end. He had even agreed to attend the wedding. Frank had been incredulous and then inclined to find the whole matter a great lark. He too had agreed to come.

It felt somehow reassuring to have his closest friends at his wedding. He had relatives scattered about the north of England—and of course there were Catherine and the child who was officially his half-sister in Switzerland. But there had been no time to summon any of them, even if it had seemed appropriate to do so.

He took his bride home in the middle of the afternoon. It was perhaps only then that reality began to hit him. He was taking her to his home, now hers too. Her belongings had been delivered there in the morning. Maids had been bustling in the dressing room adjoining his own before he had left for church, unpacking her clothes. His servants, well aware that this was his wedding day and that his bride was coming home with him, were dressed in their best uniforms and had been lined up for inspection in the hall. There was a general buzz of excitement, hastily quelled by one frown from his housekeeper, as he stepped over the doorstep with his countess on his arm.

His servants applauded with an enthusiasm that went a little beyond politeness.

He smiled down at Jennifer and was relieved to see that she too was smiling. Whatever her personal feelings for him—he had not had one smile from her all day—she was prepared to play her part for his servants and hers, it seemed. He walked with her along the row of
servants while his housekeeper introduced each to his wife. She smiled at all of them and stopped to talk to a few.

And then his housekeeper was preceding them up the stairs at his direction.

“You will show her ladyship to her rooms, if you please, Mrs. Harris,” he said, when they reached the first landing.

She nodded politely and went on ahead to stand a few stairs up the next flight of stairs, out of earshot.

He kissed his wife’s hand. “You are exhausted,” he said. “You will rest for a few hours, my dear. Alone. I will not disturb you.”

She flushed, her eyes on their hands.

“We will leave that for tonight,” he said, “after the theater.”

It had been arranged during the breakfast that her aunt and her cousin and Frank would share his box at the theater with them this evening.

But she raised her eyes to his. “You cannot really be serious,” she said. “I cannot be seen at the theater. Not after what happened just the evening before last. It would be far better if we left for the country.”

“No,” he said, “it would not, Jennifer. Frank and Bertie will be putting it about this afternoon that we have been wed this morning. By this evening it will be general knowledge. News of you and me will travel faster even than usual under present circumstances. Tonight we must appear in public. And we must smile and look happy, my dear. We will dare anyone to cut our acquaintance. If
we creep away now, we may find it impossible ever to come back.”

“I do not want ever to come back,” she said.

“You will.” He released her hand. “If only to bring out our own daughters when the time comes.”

She bit her lip.

“Go now,” he said, “and rest. We will face the
ton
together this evening, and you will find that it is not impossible after all. Very few things are.”

She turned without a word and left him. He watched her climb the stairs behind Mrs. Harris, tall and elegant and shapely, her dark red hair arranged in intricate curls at the back of her head and down over her neck.

Perhaps he would not have chosen a bride quite so precipitately if he had been given the choice, he thought, and perhaps he would not have chosen her. But one thing was sure. His loins ached for her. It was no easy thing to watch her go to her bed in the apartments adjoining his own and to know her his wife, their marriage as yet unconsummated, and yet not go to join her there.

He wished at least as strongly as she did that there was not this infernal compulsion to appear before the
ton
tonight as man and wife. He would give a chunk of his fortune to be able to go to bed with her instead and seek out an evening’s entertainment of a different nature.

S
HE WAS POWERFULLY REMINDED
during dinner of the one vow she had made to him just that morning. She had promised to obey him for the rest of her life.

Somehow, seated adjacent to him at the long table in the dining room, she responded to his efforts to keep a conversation going. A little social training was a marvelous thing, she thought. One was able to talk politely on a variety of topics even when there was nothing to say and even when talking was the last thing in the world one felt like doing.

But one topic was difficult to introduce. She left it until she could not delay any longer without leaving it altogether.

“My lord,” she said, looking up into his face for one of the few times since the meal had begun, “will you please excuse me from attending the theater this evening? It has been such a busy day. And I did not sleep very well either last night or this afternoon. I have a h-headache. I do not feel very well.” Her voice trailed off. She sounded feebly abject even to her own ears.

“Gabriel,” he said, reaching across the table to touch his fingers lightly to the back of her hand. “I will not be ‘my lorded’ all through life by my own wife. Say it.”

“Gabriel,” she said obediently. The most unsuitable name there ever was.

“I do not believe you, my dear,” he said. “And if I did I would require you to attend the theater anyway. And I will ask you to smile and hold your head high. You have done nothing to be ashamed of. Nothing whatsoever.”

“Except,” she said softly, “being naive enough to fall into your trap.”

He removed his hand from hers. “Tomorrow evening,” he said, “we will be attending Lady Truscott’s ball. You
will find it a great deal easier to do if you keep your courage this evening.”

“If?” she said. “I do not believe I have a choice, do I?”

“No,” he said, “you have no choice, Jennifer.”

She could scarcely move her mind beyond the terrifying ordeal of appearing before the
ton
less than forty-eight hours after being stranded in the Earl of Rushford’s ballroom while he read that letter aloud. But if she did try to edge her mind forward to assure herself, as she would normally do, that it would eventually be over and she could creep home to the comfort and privacy of her bed, she realized that there was no comfort to be had there.

Today was her wedding day. Tonight was her wedding night. Before she could expect any privacy or comfort tonight, there was that to be lived through. She looked involuntarily at her husband and shivered. What would it feel like? she wondered. Would the pain be more powerful than the humiliation? She knew what was to happen. She had known for some time, but if she had been in any doubt, Aunt Agatha had put it to rest early this morning by describing the process with brisk and surprisingly graphic frankness.

She owed him obedience. She must let it happen. And she must hope that she could keep her mind as mercifully blank as she had kept it this morning.

“It is time to leave,” he said, setting down his napkin on the table, getting to his feet, and reaching out a hand to assist her. “The carriage will be here soon. You certainly
do not want the added embarrassment of making a late entrance, I am sure.”

Jennifer scrambled to her feet with almost ungainly haste.

I
T SEEMED THAT THE
very doormen at the theater stared at them askance. It seemed that everyone else who was within the doors or on the stairs or otherwise not yet within the theater moved aside to give them room and fell into an incredulous silence. It seemed that all eyes in the theater, many of them assisted by quizzing glasses or lorgnettes, turned their way as they stepped into the earl’s box, and as if all conversations were instantly terminated and others begun after but a moment’s pause. Excited, buzzing, shocked conversations.

It seemed—no, it
was
, Jennifer thought. She clung to her husband’s arm and looked frequently up into his smiling face, her own mirroring his expression. She responded to what he said to her with words of her own. She had no idea what he said or what she said in reply. She kept her chin high.

Lord Francis Kneller was there already with Aunt Agatha and Samantha. He got to his feet, took Jennifer’s hand and kissed it, smiling at her and leading her to the chair which her husband held for her. She seated herself.

“Bravo, ma’am,” Lord Francis said and winked at her before resuming his seat beside Samantha.

Her husband sat down beside her and lifted her arm
to rest along his. He bent his head close to her as she directed her eyes on the empty stage.

“You look lovely and wonderful and regal,” he said. “Look about you and smile even more if you meet the eye of someone you know.”