Married in Haste (18 page)

“I don’t admire swearing.” She turned a page of the book.

A flash of temper shot through him. He reined it under control. Temper was not the way to woo a woman. “You’re right.” Those words were hard to say! “I admit I can on occasion be a bit, um, salty. I will watch my language.”

She continued reading her book.

He was apologizing and she had nothing to say? What did she think he was? Some schoolboy she had put in his place? “Tess, don’t ignore me.”

She ignored him. Her finger ran down the printed page. When she came to the bottom, she flipped the page over and started again.

Her actions, even the prim tilt of her nose, infuriated him—until he thought of last night. He’d been ham-handed. A sheepherder would have shown more finesse. And now, he was removing her from the only home she’d known.

But he couldn’t undo the damage unless she paid attention to him. Nor did he think her fit of airs had to do with last night.

As the wheels of the coach turned, he brooded. The brooding turned to plotting. The plotting to action.

Brenn stretched out his bad leg, resting his calf on top of the silver chest. His booted foot hung in front of her book. She couldn’t ignore him now.

She shot an annoyed glance over her shoulder. He pretended not to notice. After all, he could be as good an actor as she was an actress.

“Do you mind?” she demanded.

Brenn feigned surprise. “Oh, so you are going to admit I exist?”

She frowned at his jibe. “Your foot is on my book.”

“No, it isn’t. It isn’t even touching your book.”

“I can’t read around it.”

“Do you wish me to read to you?” He snatched the book out of her hand before she could keep it from him.

“Belinda,” he read from the title page of the book. “Ah, one of Miss Edgeworth’s romances.”

“What do you know of Maria Edgeworth?” Tess said waspishly.

Brenn thumbed the pages of the book. “I know she is very popular with the ladies. Perhaps I should read this. Mayhap I will learn something about the female mind. Mayhap I will understand my wife.”

If a look could boil a man in oil, the one Tess was sending him would have served him for dinner in less than two snaps of her fingers. He braced himself, ready for her to wish him to the devil and beyond.

Instead, she said succinctly, “I wish to be left alone.”

He closed the book with a resounding clap. “That’s the rub of it, Tess. You are no longer alone. We are man and wife. We must deal with each other.”

His words caught her off guard. She stared at him, her brows coming together not in anger but in bewilderment. He could actually see her pulse beat with distress against the white skin of her throat above her collar.

Stop fighting it, Tess.

In answer to his silent plea, her chin lifted. “I’m going to sleep,” she announced tightly. To his consternation, she gave him her back and did exactly that.

Brenn was left with Maria Edgeworth. He turned the book over and over in his hands. Perhaps he really should read it! He sat back in his corner of the coach, swearing silently that he’d never met such a stubborn woman as his wife.

But if Tess thought she could rule the game, she was wrong.

When he’d embarked on his wife-hunting venture, he’d been convinced that he didn’t need anything from his wife but her money. He was discovering he’d been wrong. He wanted Tess to desire him…and he wanted to sleep with her without a fight.

Of course, now that he’d decided he wanted their marriage to be something more than in name only, how was he going to persuade his wife?

Brenn smiled. He had his ways—and he wasn’t ashamed to use them.

Full of confidence, he opened Maria Edgeworth’s book and passed the time until they arrived at their inn for the night thoroughly entertained by her story of matchmaking and love.

And he did gain an idea or two.

Chapter Ten

Tess slept for several hours and when she woke she had one thought. Keep up the silent treatment. She didn’t know what else to do. His presence was far too disturbing in the close confines of the coach…especially as the hour when he would expect her to share his bed again drew ever-closer.

Her sense of what was right and honest battled with her fear of discovery. She wanted to confess; she feared confessing.

Over the years, she’d flirted and teased with a number of men without any pangs of conscience. But Brenn was different. The circumstances were different. They’d exchanged vows before God…and she’d already broken hers by withholding the truth.

In her confused, guilty frame of mind, she felt her only recourse was to protect herself as much as possible by keeping a distance from him. Of course, it was hard to ignore his presence, when his broad shoulders and long legs took up almost three quarters of the coach. And when he showed nothing but concern for her well-being.

“Did you sleep well?” he asked in that deep rumbly voice.

She shrugged, staring out into the gloom of the fading day.

“We’ll be stopping soon,” he said.

Silence.

“We’ll spend the night at the King’s Crown. Your brother recommended it.”

Night. An hour looming too close for comfort. Her heart started racing with an unsteady beat.

She could feel him watching. Why was she so aware of him? She’d known many men but none had had this effect on her.

Suddenly, a book dropped into her lap. She looked down. Belinda.

“I enjoyed the book,” he said.

Tess unbent enough to hum a response. She loved talking about books. They were her passion. But she had vowed herself to silence.

“I didn’t always agree with the authoress. I found her point of view on matters concerning men and women decidedly different from my own.”

What a provocative statement. Tess wanted to ask him what he meant. Belinda was the first book of Maria Edgeworth’s that she’d read and since the first reading, she’d reread it several times. It never failed to capture her imagination.

“You could have written that book,” he said. “And probably done a better job.”

Tess whipped her head around to face him, startled by such a conclusion.

He accepted her action as a response. “You could have,” he assured her.

“But you’ve never seen anything I’ve written!” The words burst out of her, breaking her vow of silence.

“Tess, you are a woman of intelligence,” he replied smoothly. “Why would you not be able to write a book?”

She sat back in her corner of the coach, totally astonished by his statement. And yet, it was not so farfetched.

Running her thumb along the spine of Belinda, she admitted, “I have thought of a story or two from time to time. But,” she added with a shake of her head, “I couldn’t write a book.”

“Of course you could. Maria Edgeworth did it. Poets do it all the time and make a great deal less sense than this lady did.”

“But how?” Tess said, speaking her thoughts aloud.

“How what?”

“How does one write a book?”

“I imagine one sits in a chair and starts writing.” He lifted his bad leg up and rested it again on the silver chest, his lips curving into an apologetic grin.

This time, she did not mind his leg in front of her. Her concern was on other matters. “That’s absurd—!”

she started and then stopped. It really wasn’t such an absurd statement. For a crystal moment, she considered it, but the idea was too revolutionary. She rejected it. “No. An author is someone with a gift for writing. Ordinary people are not writers, especially women.”

Brenn leaned over to massage the muscles of his leg along the outside thigh. “I suppose you are right.”

He pondered it a moment longer and then added, “However, it is a very good thing no one said as much to Maria Edgeworth.”

“Said what?” Tess asked suspiciously.

“That women were not writers. She might not have written her book if they had.”

Their gazes met and held. She wondered if he was teasing her, but he seemed completely serious. “It’s an outlandish idea,” she murmured.

With a lift of his shoulders, he let her know that it made no matter to him either way. Still, the idea, the thought that she could write a book, lingered at the edge of her mind.

Minnie had often told Tess she was a good writer. But to write a whole book! And what would she write about? Why, at this moment, she couldn’t think of one coherent idea.

The coach pulled into the yard of the King’s Crown, an inn that catered to the trade and whims of the gentry. Tess had stayed there years ago when she had traveled with her father. Neil and Stella used it whenever they ventured in this direction.

Stable lads charged out to greet their coach. The innkeeper personally welcomed them.

After helping Tess down from the coach, Brenn saw to their horses and their luggage. The innkeeper escorted Tess to her room.

Tess’s mind still buzzed with the possibility of writing a book. The second the door closed behind the innkeeper, she pulled Minnie’s copybook from her satchel. Thoughtfully, she turned the pages. This is a book, she realized in wonder. All Minnie had done was diary her thoughts and experiences and yet, taken as a whole, it was very readable.

The door opened. Tess closed the copybook and hid it behind her skirts as Brenn walked into the room, his limp more pronounced than usual.

He pulled off his riding gloves. “The innkeeper says that our supper is waiting for us in the downstairs private room—” He paused, one eyebrow rising. “What are you hiding, Tess?”

Heat stole up to her cheeks. She didn’t know why she had kept the copybook from him. She felt silly now. “It’s nothing.” She pulled the book out. “Just a copybook my governess used for recording her thoughts and snippets of things.” She changed the subject. “You move as if your leg is giving you pain.”

He tossed his leather gloves on the bed with his hat and shook his head. “It’s stiff. It doesn’t like resting in one place too long. If I move it, the muscle will loosen. Come, I’m hungry.” He held the door open for her.

“Sir Charles said you injured you leg rescuing him and the others. How did it happen?” she asked.

They walked down the hall to the stairs, his hand on the small of her back. The inn was quite busy although Tess didn’t recognize anyone of her acquaintance. They started down the stairs.

“A French sniper shot hit the bone,” he said. “It never quite healed.”

“But certainly a physician could have set it right?”

He laughed, the sound without mirth. “There was none on the battlefield that I would have asked for doctoring. They would have taken my leg.” He prodded her into the room he’d reserved for them.

Dinner waited, the serving girl having just removed the last cover. She curtseyed and left them in privacy.

“And there was nothing that could be done?” Tess persisted.

Brenn held a chair out for her and then, with easy negligence, dropped into the one across the small round table from her. “Look, rack of lamb, my favorite. Do you care for some?”

Tess stared at him. “You don’t want to talk about this, do you? You didn’t even like it when Sir Charles bragged about your heroism.”

“There are no heroes in war.” He placed a slice of lamb on Tess’s plate before helping himself to a generous serving. He was about to take the first bite when he noticed she hadn’t moved. “What?”

“You’re not bitter either. I’ve never heard you complain.”

“Why should I? I’m alive and I have my health. I also have plans. I’m going to build the sort of life I’d only dreamed of. As you know, the only thing my leg stops me from doing is dancing,” he said pointedly.

“I don’t—dance—much either.” Flustered, she picked up her fork and knife.

He smiled at her, filling her glass with red wine. “Laughing lasses should always dance.”

“I don’t have the rhythm for it. I trip over my own two feet.”

He laughed with genuine amusement. “At last, a chink in the perfection of Tess Owen.”

The sound of her married name made her hesitate. Tess Owen. It reminded her of their sharing a bed, something that she’d tried not to think about.

Her appetite left her.

“What is the matter? What did I say?” he asked.

She looked up at him, surprised that he had noticed her change of mood. “Nothing, nothing,” she averred quickly. She forced herself to take a bite of meat. It was tasteless. She swallowed it down and took a sip of wine before saying, “Neil said that you haven’t had the title long.”

Brenn nodded, tearing off a piece of bread. “I didn’t even know I had an uncle who was an earl.”

“How is that?” Tess asked, genuinely curious.

“No one told me,” he answered simply. “My father was estranged from his family. He’d sinned in the eyes of his family by falling in love with an English girl.”

“Why was that a sin?” She took another bite of lamb.

Finished with his meal, Brenn set his napkin aside. “The Welsh are proud people and probably the most independent in all the world. My father’s family had sent him to Chester to sell horses. Instead, he met my mother. She was the local horse dealer’s daughter and it was love at first sight. She said he proposed on the spot. Worse, Father was so distracted, he practically gave the horses away to her father. His family was not amused to receive such a poor price and an English daughter-in-law.”

Tess laughed, completely charmed by the story. “Do you believe in such a thing? Love at first sight, I mean? It has always sounded so fantastical.” She speared several peas in her mouth.

He played with the stem of his wineglass, a small smile hovering around his lips, before shrugging. “I don’

t know. But I have learned over the years to never disregard anything. The most incredible bit of nonsense can turn out to be true. And it is true that my father renounced everything for his English bride.”

“The family didn’t like her just because she was English?” She lathered a healthy bit of butter on her bread and took a bite.

“Worse than not like. They informed him he could have had his choice of half a dozen Welsh beauties and a Saxon wench was not what they had in mind.”

“A Saxon wench?”

“The Welsh still call the English Saxons. Old habits die hard there.”