Not Quite Married (38 page)

She sat up quickly and a coverlet slid from her shoulders. She was relieved to find her clothing still intact and reddened at the thoughts that prompted the inspection.

“Where are we?” she asked, thinking it might help to begin with the basics.

“My father’s house. Coleraine. I doubt that anyone will look for us here. We’re more than halfway to Bristol.”

“How long did I sleep?” she said, feeling as if her eyes were full of sand and her mouth were lined with cotton.

“The better part of a day.”

“I feel as if I could sleep another whole day and barely be even.”

She slid to the edge of the bed, wincing at the stretch and groan of her muscles. Her bottom felt as if it had been pounded for tenderness. As she reached the side of the bed, she thought suddenly of the child she carried and her hands went instantly to her abdomen. No cramps, no pain. After a moment’s assessment, she concluded that the grueling ride hadn’t done any damage.

Sagging with relief, she looked up to find him watching her intently and realized her motions and expression were probably much too revealing. She jerked her hands away from her middle.

“I’m starved,” she said abruptly and then reached up to inspect her hair. “And I need a brush. Badly.”

“I think I can do something about both.” He boosted himself out of the chair and headed for the door. Stepping just outside in the hall, he called to Peters that they were ready for food and plenty of it. Then he strode back inside and to a small vanity table in the adjoining dressing room, to retrieve a brush and a hand mirror.

She melted at the sight of them and sat down in the sunlight streaming onto a window seat to take down what was left of her coiffure.

“How long do you think we have?” She dragged her fingers through her tangles.

“As long as we like,” he said with a relaxed sigh.

She paused, thinking of what he’d said about his relations with his father. He was being optimistic. “I need to send a message to my father and explain—” She looked up in surprise. “How far did you say Bristol is from here?”

“Not far. If it helps . . . Dyso left before I awoke this morning. I think he may have gone to Bristol to look for your father.”

“I’m not looking forward to facing him, but the sooner we have this muddle cleared up the better. He has undoubtedly gotten the marquis’s letter about my engagement to Louis and is confused and outraged. Oh, and I have to send a retraction to the
Times
as quickly as possible. . . .” She halted and rubbed her face briskly, trying to wake up her lumbering wits. It all seemed so overwhelming.

His chuckle caught her by surprise. He was seated by the table with his feet on the seat of another chair, wearing that reckless smile she found so irritating and endearing.

“This isn’t funny, Aaron. Do you know what will happen if we are found together like this?”

“Your father will welcome me into the family?”

“Don’t try to pretend that you’ve gone mad—no one would notice the difference,” she said, brushing her hair with furious strokes.

“It’s madness that a husband and wife share bed and board? I always thought it was the custom.” He folded his muscular arms across his broad chest and watched as his words found their mark.

“‘Husband and wife’?” Images that had been clamoring for attention in the back of her mind began to push their way forward. At the church, he’d declared to the marquis and vicar that they were married. Quite convincingly.

“Don’t think I don’t appreciate what you did in rescuing me. But this is not the time or the place to air your convictions about—”

“But it may be just the time and the place to give you the good news,” he interrupted. “Or the bad news . . . depending on how you see it.

“
We are indeed married, you and I.
Duly and legally so.” He went to the chair beside the bed where he had tossed his coat the night before, and pulled a rolled document from his pocket. For some reason her attention fixed on the scarlet ribbon around it as he placed it in her hands. “It appears we have been married all along.”

“Wh-what?” She tore off the ribbon and unrolled the parchment to find a smaller, more rumpled document inside. The color drained from her face as she recognized it. Her own signature.

And his. And the mythical Reverend Stephenson’s. She turned quickly to the larger document to which the certificate was attached. It was a “By-this-all-men-should-know” declaration that attested to and verified the registration of a marriage . . .

their marriage. And it was signed and sealed by the Bishop of London.

“We’re
married,
” she said as though the idea had only now occurred to her.

“Most definitely. By the authority of the Church of England and dotty old George himself.” He bowed grandly. “Your husband, madame.”

Was she taking the news well or not? He couldn’t say. He hadn’t expected her to fall into his arms straightaway, but he hadn’t expected her to be quite so shocked either.

Brien’s mind began to function. “Where did you get this?”

“That’s an interesting story, actually. I had to know, one way or the other, so when we reached London a few days ago, I went to the church where we were married and tracked down the truth about our reportedly fraudulent vows.”

“And you went to the bishop?” She stared in horror between his smug expression and the documents in her hands.

“I did. And learned that a fully ordained man of the cloth named Stephenson was indeed assigned to the parish at the time we were there. He was carted off to a hospital shortly after we left and it seems he never returned. The church was closed and padlocked against vandals and sat empty for some time. That must have been when your father searched for the records. The bishop looked over the papers we found in the vicarage and checked the register, then agreed to furnish this certification of our vows.”

“And you had him declare our marriage binding by decree.”

“The bishop was quite clear on that point. He couldn’t declare us anything we weren’t already. But we
were
already. And so he did.”

“So, I’ve been rescued from the marquis’s marriage trap, only to be snared in yours,” she said, looking a little dazed. “Lucky me—I’ve traded bondage for bondage, without even knowing it!”

“I don’t believe the term ‘bondage’ applies here,” he said testily,

“since
you’re
the one who asked
me
to marry you, and you signed the documents of your own free will.”

“Two bloody long years ago! Where was all this when I
needed
a husband?”

“Right under your nose, and your father’s. And . . . if there was ever a time you
needed
a husband, sweetness, it was standing in front of the vicar of St. Anne’s the other night. Think of it this way: Our marriage wasn’t able to save you from the first Trechaud, but it did yeoman’s duty in preventing you from having to marry a second one.”

She opened her mouth to protest, but closed it again when she realized that she had nothing to say in rebuttal that made the least bit of sense. He was right. She had needed the protection and help of a husband
again,
and he had fulfilled those tasks admirably. More than admirably. He’d ridden all night through rain and mud, and braved guns and swords to see her free of the marquis’s plot. He’d gone beyond the call of duty and decency and even friendship. She couldn’t have asked for a more conscientious or devoted or unselfish—

Then, just as he was winning the battle with silence, he had to open his mouth. “Someone had to make an honest woman of you”—he produced a knowing smile that galvanized every defense she possessed—“and own up to the child you carry.”

He knew.

“Ch-child? Don’t be ridiculous.” She tossed her head.

“The vicar was quite clear as to why he intended to knit you and lily-livered Louis together over your objections. He said you were with child. Are you?”

That point-blank question set off a brushfire of a reaction in her.

She flushed crimson hot from her toes to the roots of her hair.

She was having enough difficulty dealing with the fact of being truly and irrevocably married. She sure as the devil wasn’t going to throw in the complications of having a baby as well!

“Did it not occur to you that the marquis might have
lied
in order to get the vicar to marry us?” she demanded, summoning all of the righteous indignation she could muster.

Aaron didn’t answer, but noted that she hadn’t actually denied the accusation. Was that a slip on her part, or had she just felt it beneath her to deny it?

“I won’t discuss this with you when you’re not rational,” she declared, tossing the brush aside and standing up. “I’m starving and I don’t intend to say another word until I’ve had some food,”

she said curtly. “Hunger makes me irritable.”

With a chuckle, Aaron shot to his feet and threw open the door.

“Dammit, Peters!” he shouted. “Where is that food?”

Sweet, smoky ham. Potato savory made with onions and peppers.

Boiled eggs sliced and peppered and layered with pungent cheese from Cheddar. Heaps of golden butter melting into every nook and cranny of featherlight scones. Strawberry jam dripping through her fingers . . . fresh, sweet milk . . . it was heavenly.

She sat in the sumptuous dining room of Coleraine with Aaron, eating as if she hadn’t seen food in weeks. For the moment she didn’t even care that Aaron’s eyes widened a bit more each time she refilled her plate or groaned with pure animal satisfaction . . .

behaviors that would have horrified her only weeks ago. It was wonderful, all of it, and nothing was going to interfere with her gustatory pleasure. Nothing. Not even Aaron’s incredulous, you-certainly-seem-to-be-
eating
-for-two expression.

She finally sat back with a sigh and dabbed the corners of her mouth a good bit more daintily than she’d dirtied them. “That was wonderful.” She looked around the dining room, taking note of the coffered ceiling, the silk wall hangings, the substantial but graceful furnishings. “This is such a beautiful house. Did you live here as a child or were you sent away to school?”

“A bit of both. Want to see my schoolroom?”

On the third floor they came to a nursery suite in the middle of the house, overlooking the gardens and reflecting pool. The heavy curtains in the main schoolroom were faded, but as she pushed them back to admit light, they discovered that the rest of the walls and furnishings were still as bright and inviting as when Aaron was a child.

“It’s beautiful,” she said, making a circuit of the room, touching books and slates and the huge wooden globe. She paused at a rocking horse carved and painted to look like a dragoon’s valiant steed. She drew her hand along it and looked at her fingertips.

“You know, there isn’t a speck of dust in this entire room. Yet it’s been how long since you or anyone else used it?”

“At least twenty years,” Aaron said, looking around the room, growing steadily more somber. “My father has always insisted on a spotless house . . . keeps twice the usual number of maids and keeps them all busy.”

“He’s kept it in perfect order,” she mused, picking up a toy drum and running her fingers over the painted tin rim, “as if just waiting for the next generation of young lords and ladies to appear.”

Looking up, she caught the unguarded emotion in his face and her heart melted. “Why did you bring me here, Aaron? To your home.”

“It’s not my home anymore,” he said quietly.

“But you were proud enough of it to show me your schoolroom and the place where you grew and learned. There must be some part of you that is still proud of your heritage, of your birth and upbringing.”

He scowled, but to his credit, didn’t deny it. “I brought you here because I figured no one would expect me to do so.” When she continued to look at him with expectation, he added: “And . . . I needed to get the one thing I intended to have, come hell or high water, from my hostage inheritance.”

“What is that?” she asked, wanting to put her arms around him.

“This.” He fished inside his belt for a moment. Then he came to her, took her left hand in his, and slipped a gold ring set with a facet-cut diamond onto her third finger. “It was my mother’s.

And it was always intended for my bride.” He smiled broadly.

“Now my bride has it.”

She stared at the sparkling gem through a prism of moisture.

“We’re married.” She said it with a reverence that made it sound as if she were embracing the possibility of it for the first time.

“So we are.” The tenderness in his face made her heart skip a beat.

“I’m not sure what that means,” she said quietly.

He cleared something from his throat. “For most people it means living under the same roof . . . sharing bed and table . . . sitting by the fire and at social gatherings and on a church pew together . . .

having and raising children.”

“I don’t think we’re ‘most people,’?” she said quietly.

“True.” He sat down on the edge of the heavy schoolroom table and studied her. “For us, it’s been never knowing if or when the other would show up . . . sharing a few stolen moments of paradise . . . sitting on opposite sides of the table, the city, and the damned Atlantic, pretending not to know each other . . . while suffering near-continuous bouts of frustrated desire.”

“A pretty dismal picture,” she said, picking up a string of painted wooden ducks.

“Thus far.” He thought for a moment. “But it doesn’t have to be.”

“No, it doesn’t.”

There it was. The first visible sign of a thaw in her opposition to their marriage. To his credit, he didn’t pounce on it. Or even acknowledge it. Showing the wisdom he had failed to demonstrate so many times before, he clamped his mouth shut.

As the seconds ticked by, he learned the truth of a very important male dictum.

Women despise silence . . . give them enough of it and they begin
to fill it.

“But even if we wanted to be more like ‘most people’ . . . and I’m not suggesting that we do, necessarily . . . but if we did, we would have quite a few problems to overcome.” She paused, but when the conversational void grew too large, she sallied forth again. “I mean, there is the problem of how we met and why we married. We could hardly go around telling people I paid you to wed and bed me.”