Marriage By Arrangement (6 page)

Avondale tiptoed into the room, moved silently across the rug into the dressing room, and closed the door behind him. His clothes rustled as he undressed.

She sprang up and her fingers trembled as she lit a candle. She opened the door.

He spun to her, eyes wide, mouth open, his face a mask of startled guilt. “Blow out that candle.” His voice sounded rough.

“But the dark—”

“Snuff out the candle. I like the dark. Blackness is a friend.”

She did as he bade her. “Where—?”

“I thought you’d be sleeping, dear Cailin.”

“I waited for you.”

“You shouldn’t.” He stepped close and pulled her into his arms. With his lips on her hair, he whispered, “I fell in love with you on our wedding night. So, despite what others may tell you, know that I love you, my beautiful, sweet wife. No matter what happens, always remember I love you.”

Anger slipped away as if it had never been.

He wrapped her in his arms and carried her to their bed.

She nestled against him, her ear just above his racing heart.

He loved her. Tonight, that was enough.

She wanted more of that incredible love. Yet, she would question him. When the time was right. She was his wife and had every right to know about his disappearances.

6

But the following night Avondale did not come to bed at all.

Cailin spent the next day busying herself with tasks around the castle, counting every moment until nightfall.

As the sun was setting, the door to the bedchamber creaked open. She turned from her dressing table, yelped, jumped up, ran across the room, and plunged into Avondale’s strong, open arms. He’d come early.

“Ah. I see you’ve changed for dinner, sweet. You look smashing.” He nuzzled her bare neck with warm lips, and deposited a kiss just where it sent a tingle straight to her heart. “You are truly a jewel. That deep blue silk matches your incredible eyes.”

Leaning back in his embrace, she smiled into his warm brown gaze. Why did she doubt Avondale? Could not a man live his life as he liked? Did a wife need to know every move a man made? A chill shivered the hairs on the nape of her neck. But a wife should know something of the man she married. Still, she refused to nag. “Did you bag a fox today?”

“Alas, no.”

Avondale’s clothes felt damp against her silk dinner dress, and his lean cheek cool as he pressed it against hers. He smelled of fresh outdoors and warm horseflesh as he cuddled her. Then he kissed her forehead, the tip of her nose, and lingered on her mouth.

The warm pressure of his full lips sent shivers along her spine, but he raised his mouth long before she had enough.

She wrapped her arms around his neck and kissed him until some of the loneliness in her heart drained away.

His eyes looked so kind. His arms were so tender. He seemed every inch the devoted husband.

Contentment filled all the places inside her that had lain empty. After being so rigidly tense all day, her muscles relaxed as if submerged in a warm, swirling pool.

“Cailin, you are a precious gift.” He tilted her chin up and brushed his knuckles over her cheek. His eyes looked moist and his breath came in puffs. “God has been most gracious granting me such a lovely wife.”

Her own breath came in small pants as if she had run up a hill on the moor. “As a staunch member of the Church of England, you must believe marriages are made in heaven. Do you not?”

“This one is.”

Though his clothes felt damp and smelled slightly woolish, he looked impeccable. And his face had a ruddy outdoor appearance that she loved. The sparkle in his eyes set her heart aglow.

She kneaded her fingers through his thick brown hair and lifted her smiling face to his. Though he’d been away, she felt certain she pleased her new husband. Perhaps tonight they would talk. She would not press him, though. She could not risk his fleeing her arms.

He buried his straight nose in her hair and held her in the circle of his arms. “The storm soon halted our hunt. It’s good to see you, sweet wife.” Coming from his strong lips, the words promised he cherished her.

She leaned back in his embrace and gazed into his patrician face. “I love your square chin.” She wouldn’t ask why he hadn’t stayed home. Though every inch of her being cried out to know, she wouldn’t. With the tips of her fingers she traced the outline of his chin, cleft in the center and slightly bristly to her touch. “It keeps your face from looking too perfect.” She would not become a nagging wife only days after the wedding.

He was accustomed to his bachelorhood with no need to be accountable.

“That’s too bad, sweetling. Nothing keeps your face from being perfect.” He cupped her chin in his hand and smiled into her eyes.

She twined her hands around his neck. “I was concerned. Where have you been? The others returned hours ago.” Her body went rigid. Blast, she’d done it. Started nagging. If she had no better control of her emotions, he’d think her a shrew.

He dropped his hand from her cheek, jutted his jaw, and stepped in the direction of the door. “You’ll think me tiresome, but I fell asleep in the gatekeeper’s little house at the far end of the estate.”

“You went so far? Alone?”

“Blighter that I am, I got lost. Had a most difficult time finding my direction back to the castle. I followed your lights when I drew near enough to see them. You had candles in the window for me, as it were.”

His contrite smile took her breath away. She had no heart to questions him further. They had so little time together, she feared to spoil it. “I’m so sorry, Avondale. You’re chilled and wet. You must get out of those riding breeches. “I laid out your evening clothes on the bed. Mums will ring the dinner bell any moment now.”

He glanced down at the formal clothes, then pulled her into his arms and pressed his lips against hers in another blissful kiss that seemed both hungry and contrite.

Dinner became a distant thought. She wanted only to stay with him in the sanctity of their room where she would have him to herself.

He pulled away.

“Unless you’re not hungry.” She helped him out of his damp jacket, and her fingers began unbuttoning his shirt. She puckered her lips to tempt him as she was tempted.

“Starving. There you have it. Now, run downstairs and placate your mums before she gives us both a wigging. Meanwhile, I will change.”

“We could stay here.”

“Best if we go down. We have guests.”

She sighed and kissed his warm, strong lips again. “I could watch you change.”

“Not this time, sweet.”

Why ever not? Yet he looked so stern, she nodded and did as he bid. At the doorway, she sent him a flirtatious smile over her nearly bare shoulder and blew him another kiss. “You have all my love.”

Once outside the closed door, she pressed her ear to hear his movements. But he must have returned to the dressing room because she heard nothing. The man possessed an uncanny ability to move with stealth.

Downstairs, she fluttered among the guests still lingering from the wedding, hummed a happy tune, and turned often to watch the stairs, scarcely able to wait until he showed his handsome face.

She glimpsed him at the top of the stairs and lost her breath. Dressed in black velvet with a stark white cravat and black waistcoat, his tall, distinguished figure could not be more regal…or handsome. And he was her very own husband.

Thank You, Lord.

When he descended, his courtly friends immediately clustered around him. Although he offered her his arm and escorted her into the dining room, his change of clothes seemed to have transformed him into a different man. A cool aristocrat who showed neither tenderness, nor love in his attitude towards her.

Was he ashamed of her in front of his peers?

Though she smiled her sweetest, knowing her dimples showed, and patted his waiting chair after he seated her, he remained distant.

He turned his complete attention to his fellow English nobles. Snobbish as only an English lord could be, a thin line denting the usually smooth place between his brows, he barely acknowledged her presence.

The turtle soup became paste in her mouth.

It was as if Avondale were two different men. She loved the private one. The one only she saw in their bedchamber. She covered her mouth with her napkin, dropped her head so no one would see, blinked back tears, and dabbed at a rivulet that escaped.

She didn’t even like the public man.

And it appeared that the public Lord Geoffrey Mountebank, Fifth Duke of Avondale, didn’t fancy her any more than she cared for him.

Despite her best resolve, was she doomed to have a marriage that mirrored her parents’?

****

Megan stood at the dining room door.

Had there not been so many guests at the table, Cailin would have jumped up and hugged her. “Megan. Welcome.”

When Brody strode in behind her, Cailin breathed a deep sigh. She beamed at them both. How gloriously good to see them.

And what a surprise! She’d never have believed Brody could transform from a Highland warrior into looking so dashing and distinguished. Where had the poor Scot gotten those clothes?

An image of the Earl of Mabry’s cruel expression flashed into her mind. Truly Megan made an excellent choice to flee. Now she was married, and Papa could do nothing.

Cailin grasped her stemmed glass with both hands. She wanted so to clap her hands in glee. Then she began to shake. She blinked rapidly. She who had tried so to honor Mums and Papa…felt so terribly confused. She let her hands flutter to her lap.

Why was her marriage so different from what she’d expected while Megan looked so happy?

Megan led Brody to the head of the table. “Papa, this is Brody Alexander MacCauley-MacMurry, my husband.”

Silence descended over the room.

Face scarlet, veins popping in his forehead, Papa jerked from his chair and ordered Megan and Brody to the library.

As soon as the three hurried from the room, conversation rose to a roar.

All the while Papa kept Megan and Brody in the library, she barely tasted her food, fiddling instead with her silverware.

Questions and conversation continued around her, but she barely joined in.

Of course, Papa was livid with Megan. That was to be expected, after she ran off to escape marrying the nasty Earl Mabry and wed Brody instead.

But Cailin couldn’t concentrate on what might be occurring in Papa’s library with Megan and Brody. One thought spiraled around and around in her mind.

Her duke publicly snubbed her.

Avondale seemed in high spirits, cordial and jovial with everyone. He even greeted Brody, after he and Megan returned to the table. Even Mums received one of Avondale’s you-are-the-most-important-person-in-my-life smiles. Every guest at the entire table garnered his personal attention.

Except her.

When her leg accidentally brushed Avondale’s under cover of the tablecloth, he moved his muscular thigh away. She leaned next to him and laid her hand on the soft velvet of his right sleeve.

But he turned his face to the Earl of Argyle and began a lengthy discussion concerning some silly intrigue at court.

Why had he changed so completely? She dropped her napkin over her uneaten food. Inside their chamber he’d been so loving. He’d been a different man, attentive and charming. He’d made her feel like a queen. He’d seemed genuinely happy to see her and had again expressed his joy in her. And their few nights together had been unbelievable.

Why had he changed? She traced the gold rim of her goblet with her finger and glanced across the table.

Brody’s encouraging smile went straight to her torn heart. Such a gallant gentleman. Mayhap she could ask his opinion of the bizarre quandary in which she’d found herself.

No. Brody knew less of the ways of courtly men than she. She’d have to risk Avondale’s displeasure and question him herself. She would not be hesitant. She would pour all her love into her marriage and overcome Avondale’s absences and his snobbishness. She lifted her chin and smiled at her husband.

He didn’t notice.

She pulled in a deep, calming breath. Nothing would stand in the way of her creating a marriage filled with love. Surely, since she’d been obedient God would bless her marriage. Bad things didn’t happen to His obedient children.

She was strong and filled with love. Regardless of her hostile feelings against the public duke, she would smooth away this bump in the carriage path.

7

Avondale sauntered from the smoking room after deliberately losing a game of whist to his father-in-law, and, as was now his habit, headed for Loch Drummond.

His nightly trek to the loch gave him time to reflect. Two weeks had passed since he made his vows, and surely God had abandoned him.

He opened the back castle door. A burst of cool night air washed over him. He lifted his chin and pulled in a deep breath filled with the taste of bracing, country air. How could he face his beautiful bride? Each night brought more torture.

But tonight he
would
return to Cailin, otherwise the woman wouldn’t sleep. And he
would
again permit the sweet innocent to read the Bible to him, but he would sit across the room in the shadows.

At first he’d been angry when he discovered the strength of Cailin’s faith, and then he’d felt indulgent. Why not allow her this pleasure when he must deny her so many others? He lengthened his stride until his boots thundered over the marshy moor.

Her faith had yet to be tried, so, of course, she held to her naive belief.

He fisted his hands. But reading the Bible couldn’t help him. Nothing and no one could. His frown softened.

Yet her turquoise eyes sparkled and her creamy complexion glowed when she defended the faith he questioned. And he’d grown to appreciate the intelligence behind the beauty of her angelic face. He beat one fist against the other. Why could he not be like other men?