Bride By Mistake (23 page)

“I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to impugn your honor. Of course I’m pleased to find you untouched. It’s the same in England as here, and I am very grateful, and proud that—”

She made a frustrated sound. “Oh, don’t lie to me! You’re not proud in the slightest. You’re still cross and you think you’ve been tricked. Well, Lord Ripton, I didn’t lie, and you got yourself a bride with no stain on her honor
and
a fortune into the bargain, so you can take your stiff-necked, halfhearted apology and… and… choke on it!”

She lay back down, the line of her spine rigid and unforgiving.

M
orning finally came, and if he had not slept well, the same could not be said for his bride, Luke thought. Somewhere in the wee small hours her breathing had evened out and he knew she finally slept. Only then could he relax.

Not that he was relaxed at the moment; he’d awoken fully
aroused. Under normal circumstances he’d wake her slowly and erotically and they’d make love again.

Now… He shook his head and willed his erection away. His marriage… Only a couple of days and yet anything that could go wrong, had. Lord knew what she’d spring on him next.

He slipped out of bed and pulled on his breeches, shirt, and boots. With any luck he’d be out of the room when she woke.

“Where are you going?”

He turned. She was sitting up, looking sleepy and far too enticing, with her hair tumbled around her shoulders and her nightgown half undone. Under his gaze—or maybe it was just the morning chill—her nipples peaked, and he felt his cock stir in response.

She saw where he was looking and pulled the bedclothes up to her chin. “Are you leaving me?”

“No, just going to send for hot water and order breakfast. I want a proper cooked breakfast, not a bit of bread or pastry.”

“And us?”

“I now accept it was an honest mistake born of ignorance,” he told her.

She regarded him steadily for a moment, then gave a brisk little nod. “Very well then, I forgive you.” She climbed out of bed and marched toward the washstand, the hard little points of nipples swaying beneath the cotton.

“You forgive
me
?” Her imperious attitude amused him. Surely he should be the one forgiving her. He watched her nipples bobbing their way across the room and realized he already had.

“Yes. Now go and order your big greasy English breakfast. I will have churros and hot chocolate.”

A
short time later Isabella came downstairs with the long skirt of her riding habit looped neatly over her arm. She looked fresh and neat, and there was a lithe spring in her step that belied the long days of travel behind her. And the long night.

The landlady came hurrying out to inquire after her, and Luke heard Isabella reassuring the woman that her bites no longer itched and that the ointment was most effective, and yes, of course all was forgiven.

The question was, did she mean
all
? Time would tell.

She joined him at table with a tentative smile. “Did you order my churros?”

“I did indeed, and chocolate, as you desired.” He decided to test the waters. “Our landlady is so mortified by the mishap last night she would give you whatever you asked for, including the head of her husband on a platter.”

Isabella laughed, a delicious gurgle of mirth. “I would say,
especially
the head of her husband on a platter. Poor Carlos. But she’ll forgive him.” She arranged her napkin and added, “He adores her, of course.”

“He does?”

She nodded. “Oh yes, it’s obvious.”

The landlord—head intact—arrived with Luke’s breakfast of ham, eggs, sausages, and coffee. His wife followed with a napkin-lined basket of churros, piping hot and golden, and hot chocolate, thick and dark and very sweet.

The landlord hovered, seemingly inclined to linger and talk, but his wife steered him away, saying gently, “They want their breakfast, Carlos, not a conversation.”

Isabella only had eyes for her breakfast. She regarded the churros with such greedy pleasure, Luke couldn’t repress a smile.

She noticed. “What?”

“Years of gruel in the convent?”

She laughed. “Just bread, usually stale. And never with hot chocolate.” She dipped the end of the churro in and sucked the chocolate from it with such a look of bliss on her face, he almost groaned aloud.

Tonight he would show her all the pleasures of the marriage bed. And this time it would end very differently.

Luke addressed himself to his breakfast. Isabella didn’t hold a grudge; he had to give her that. She was a fighter—he
liked that about her, too. He liked that she’d ripped into him when she thought he hadn’t given her her due. She was angry and she’d told him why. No having to guess. No petulant miffs and silent, female sulks. She’d given him an earful and a couple of angry thumps. Open and straightforward.

And now it was over. Thank God.

He watched Isabella licking sugar from her fingers. She wasn’t at all the quiet, conformable bride he’d expected. He was very glad she wasn’t. One thing was certain: he wasn’t going to be bored. She would lead him a merry dance—a huff of laughter escaped him—she already had.

She tilted her head with a quizzical look. “Something funny?”

“Just wondering if you knew how to dance.”

She shook her head. “Only country dances from when I was a child. Dancing wasn’t taught in the convent. Is it important?”

“No, I’ll teach you.”

“I look forward to it,” she said softly, and the look in her eyes told Luke she really had forgiven him for accusing her of entrapment. Something loosened in his chest.

He put his napkin down and pushed back his chair. “If you’ve finished, we’d better get moving.”

H
is bride was good company on the road, too, Luke discovered. She made observations here and there, but they were interesting ones. She wasn’t like some women he knew, thinking it their role to fill a silence—any silence—with aimless chatter. Nor was she the sort who expected a fellow to entertain her.

With Isabella, sometimes they rode in silence, other times they’d talk. It was easy, effortless. A bit like traveling with his friends, only more interesting, because he never knew what she’d say.

She asked him about his family, and he told her about Mother and Molly and Molly’s come-out, which had been
delayed so many times. “You’ll like Molly,” he finished. “She’s fun and very sweet-natured. Everyone likes her, and she’ll like you, I know.”

Isabella pulled a wry face. “Maybe.”

“You doubt it?”

“She probably had one of her friends lined up to marry you. She won’t be at all pleased with you bringing home a foreign wife who isn’t even pretty.”

He shook his head. “Molly isn’t like that. As long as I’m happy with you, she’ll be happy, too.”

“Then that’s the question, isn’t it?”

Before he could respond, she broke into a canter and forged ahead of him. He raced after her, caught up, and cantered alongside her until their horses began to tire. When they slowed to a walk, he leaned over and caught hold of her bridle, bringing them both to a halt.

“Molly will like you.”

She gave him a wry look. “Even though I’m difficult and disobedient and quarrelsome?” She wasn’t talking about his sister’s opinion.

He smiled. “I’m not exactly a bundle of laughs, myself.”

“You were quite lighthearted when I first met you” she said softly. “Not during the fight, of course, but afterward, when we were traveling.”

He shrugged and looked away. “People change.” He signaled his horse to walk on.

They walked in silence for a few minutes, then she said, “So you don’t think Molly will mind me being difficult at times?”

He didn’t respond. Did she think he was foolish enough to give her carte blanche?

“Reverend Mother used to say I gave her more trouble than all the other girls in the convent.”

“She told me you were a treasure to be cherished.”

Isabella turned an astonished face to him. “Truly? Reverend Mother said that?” She considered it. “Aunt Serafina Reverend Mother? About me? A treasure? Are you sure?”

He found himself smiling again. “She did. She told me to take good care of you.”

“Well!” She was clearly astounded. A little smile played on her face. Then she shook her head. “Why is it that people only tell you the bad things to your face, never the good things? She never once called me a treasure. A plague, yes, a pest, an imp of Satan—” She broke off, clearly feeling she’d said too much.

He laughed. “Perhaps she thought praise would ruin your character.”

She shook her head. “No, I’ve received very little praise in my life. I still get into trouble all the time.”

He laughed again. “Why am I not surprised?”

She gave him a quick smile. “In my own defense, and looking back in time, there was no pleasing Papa.” A wistful expression passed briefly across her face. “No matter what I did, I was never good enough.”

“Why not?”

She grimaced. “I should have been born a boy.”

He thought of the way she’d looked in those breeches, the beauty of her naked on the bed, the eagerness with which she’d made love to him, and said firmly, “Now there I have to disagree.”

She gave him a half smile. “Very gallant, sir. But Papa preferred Perlita. She is very pretty, very feminine.” She spoke lightly, but there was real pain underneath.

Luke frowned. Again, that comment that she wasn’t pretty. It was partly true—she wasn’t what the world called pretty—but that was far from the whole story. Her features were too bold, too unconventional for mere prettiness, but she had the kind of looks that compelled a man to stare. Luke could hardly drag his eyes away from her.

“As for prettiness,” he began.

She cut him off. “Please don’t offer me empty compliments,” she said briskly. “I know what I look like, and I cannot change it.”

“But—”

“No.” She gave him a fierce look.

A defensive look, he saw. It was a touchy subject. Why, he didn’t understand, but he could appreciate touchy subjects.
He had a few himself. But there was more than one way to storm a battlement. Though now was not the moment.

“So as a child you were very naughty?”

She gave a gurgle of laughter. “Oh, I like the ‘as a child.’ For that I thank you, even if you have probably perjured your soul. But the truth is, as a child I was painfully good. I was so hungry for Papa’s approval. But it never did me any good. He could not see me, I think. Only the Mama in me, and he did not love Mama.” Again that wistful expression, then she shook her head, as if to clear it of unhappy memories, and went on, “And in the convent, everyone there was trying to please God in every way, and He never showed any approval, either. So in the end I decided not to try to please anyone, but to do what I thought was right, myself.” She added with a mischievous look, “That’s what you get for leaving me there for eight years.”

Luke laughed. “Minx. So if you run me ragged, it’s my own fault?”

“Exactly.” She smiled. “It’s lovely to hear you laugh, Luke. For a while there I thought you’d forgotten how.”

Eleven

T
hey rode in silence for some miles, then stopped beside a stream for lunch. The landlady had loaded them up with food for their journey: wine, bread, ham, thick wedges of pepper and potato omelette, half a chicken, and some oranges. They attacked the feast with zeal and, afterward, lay in the sun, soaking it up.

Luke had decreed they’d move on in half an hour. Now he regretted saying so.

Isabella lay on her back in the grass, one knee bent, the other leg resting across it in a boyish pose. Her breeches and boots were clearly visible, but since there was nobody else to see, Luke didn’t mind.

In fact, he wouldn’t mind baring a little more of her. He got up, stretched, and sat down beside her.

“If you were any kind of civilized man, we could have a proper siesta,” Isabella murmured sleepily.

“No rest for the wicked,” he murmured, watching her leg rock slowly back and forth. He remembered the way she’d trembled at his touch.

He rolled over onto his front, ending up lying thigh to thigh with her. “I know something better than a siesta,” he murmured and stretched a lazy hand toward the buttons of her jerkin.

She pushed his hand off and moved a little farther away.

Shy, Luke thought. Perhaps it was too soon in the marriage to think about making love in the open air. “Tell me about the breeches.”

“What about them?”

“You said Reverend Mother let you outside the convent dressed as a boy. Why?”

She let out a huff of amusement. “She didn’t precisely let me, not at first.” She wriggled around so they were facing each other and regarded him with a look of rueful mischief he was beginning to recognize. “I used to sneak out.”

His lips twitched. “Why do I find myself strangely unsurprised?”

She wrinkled her nose. “Well, I hate the feeling of being shut in. And the convent was built to keep people out, not keep them in—the nuns
want
to be there. And some of the girls who are educated there would make valuable hostages. So it’s not a prison. But it was for me.”