The Reluctant Bride (3 page)

Emily regarded him with wry amusement. ‘You have no sisters, do you, Major?'

‘No, ma'am,' he confirmed.

‘But you ask me what I will do?' She sipped her tea and said with the faintest shrug, ‘I am ruined, of course.'

‘You were to be married the week after I visited you, I recall.' Quickly, the young major added, ‘I'm not judging you, Miss Micklen. It was ill'—he reddened further—‘luck.'

Angus's embarrassment abated with the realisation Miss Micklen was using proud defiance to mask her fear. Jessamine had done the same.

‘Miss Micklen, whatever happens, let me assure you of my discretion.' He wanted to believe she had hope, but his brief interview with her father was not reassuring. Angus knew it was easier for a parent to cast off an erring daughter than a husband a wayward wife. His own parents' troubled union had made that clear enough.

‘Thank you, Major. You are, of course, a gentleman and'—her voice trembled—‘have shown uncommon kindness in visiting me so as to reassure yourself as to my welfare …' The bravado slipped. She looked close to tears as she whispered, ‘I am sorry if I have embarrassed you.'

Suddenly she was no longer the proud, unobtainable beauty whose confident gaze about the ballroom did not even register his presence.

Ruined
. Her grim assessment was true enough. She would be forever barred from respectable society for a transgression no unmarried woman was ever forgiven. Without a timely marriage to legitimise Jack Noble's child she would lose everything that constituted a life even bearable.

Miss Micklen regarded him silently. Proudly. Despite her swollen belly she held herself like a queen. Her porcelain skin glowed and her inky black hair shone.

It was her regal hauteur which decided him.

A graceless soldier such as himself could never hope to win a wife of Miss Micklen's calibre.

Unless she were desperate.

Reason banished the uncharacteristic and impulsive madness.

Become father to another man's child? What's more, a man he despised? No, Angus did not act rashly.

He returned his gaze to her lovely face. It glowed with energy and serenity, tinged with defiance. Yet he sensed she wished for his approbation.

She had it, and surprisingly, without disgust. Miss Micklen could only be considered a blameless victim of her betrothed's selfish coercion. Jack Noble would be better remembered for his shameless want of conduct with regard to the fairer sex than his heroism.

He opened his mouth to speak. Like the uncharacteristic impetuosity that had driven him to ride two days to get here, he was again driven by impulses beyond his control, to speak words he had never imagined he was capable. Words that would, he now hoped, change his life forever.

He turned as the door opened.

‘My apologies, Major McCartney. Emily, a quick word if I may.'

With the ghost of a smile upon her thin lips, Miss Micklen's aunt beckoned from the doorway. ‘Cook is in a pet over some disturbance in the kitchen. You are so much better at restoring domestic calm. I'd appreciate it if you went to her.'

As the door closed behind her niece, the venerable Miss Gemma Micklen waved Angus back into his seat while she folded her lanky frame into the chair opposite.

‘So Major McCartney … You see how it is with Emily,' she said bluntly. ‘Captain Noble is dead, but she might just as well be, too. Her father has cast her off without a penny. He will not forgive her. Emily came here in a dog cart with one trunk, and no more. The workhouse was her only alternative, and that's the truth.'

Angus's thought that perhaps France might offer a safe haven was nipped in the bud by her next words.

‘Madame Guillotine disposed of the French side of the family twenty years ago – except for an aunt rumoured to have bestowed her favours upon Napoleon, or some enemy of that nature.'

Miss Micklen fixed him with a steely look. ‘Now, Major McCartney, what I have to say might sound somewhat peremptory. You have met Emily but twice. No doubt she expects that after today's morning call she will never see you again. I, however, have other hopes.'

Angus had never lost his nerve in battle, but facing the lovely Miss Emily Micklen in the same grim parlour the next day tested his mettle like nothing ever had.

It was not that he had expected to be thanked. He had not, however, expected to be scorched by such a fulminating look, and subjected to what amounted to a violent diatribe.

Immediately after his interview with her aunt the previous day he had coldly taken his leave, sickened by the woman's cold-blooded determination and handsome inducements. She had implied that the honour of her family was beyond price and that he, an impecunious soldier, who clearly had a personal interest in her niece, would be well rewarded for salvaging it.

Miss Gemma, as frightening in her own way as the brother she obviously despised, had said farewell with flint in her hardened eyes. The satisfaction that flickered in their cold grey depths when he had been announced just now was equally sickening. But Miss Gemma could not be helped. It was Miss Micklen he had come to see, Miss Micklen for whom he had a proposition. One that came from his curiously affected heart.

Now that it had been delivered in the most artful terms of which a man of his self-acknowledged romantic clumsiness was capable, he was receiving a dressing down of almost hysteric proportions.

‘She can only have lined your pockets with gold to induce you to saddle yourself with … well, with soiled goods!' Flinging herself round from the window embrasure to which she had marched, chest heaving, her beautiful eyes luminous, Miss Micklen presented a terrifying manifestation of feminine outrage.

Before he had a chance to call on his experience with his quick-to-take-offence mama, she'd turned on her heel once more, grating out, ‘Let's not tiptoe around the truth. I am what I am! Yet, sir, let me tell you I'd rather be on the streets than suffer the humiliation of—' Interrupting Angus's stammered protests, Miss Micklen was checked by a rasping sob. ‘Oh, the indignity! How could Aunt Gemma?'

‘Miss Micklen, your aunt had nothing to do with this—'

‘I didn't cut my wisdoms yesterday, Major. Only bribery could have induced you to make an offer for me.'

Her vulnerability, which she dressed up as anger, was so stark he had to stop himself from bridging the space between them to comfort her. His nerve endings tingled with a sensation he could not identify and again he found himself stepping forward to take her hands in his and declare he was motivated by feelings of love and admiration, but he stopped himself in time.

Shaken by his momentary lack of control, Angus drew in his breath and fixed his gaze upon Miss Micklen's fierce loveliness. With businesslike calm, so at odds with what he felt, he said, ‘Since yesterday's interview I've been unable to rid my mind of the conviction that making you an offer of marriage would not only solve your immediate problems, it would salve my conscience.'

The words sounded wooden but the conviction that welled up in his breast was almost overwhelming. He had the power to save Miss Micklen from ruin. From an inauspicious start he could foster love. He didn't want gratitude. Jessamine's gratitude had been a poisoned chalice. He wanted salvation through atonement and Miss Micklen offered him a chance to be better than he was.

The force of his longing powered through him though he stripped the emotion from his voice. ‘Quite frankly, I am in need of a wife.' It was easier to stare through the window than at her.

The myriad of extraordinary sensations Miss Micklen unleashed in him when he'd first met her at the Regimental Ball two years ago had him once more in thrall. If anyone had told him then she might one day become his wife he'd have scoffed at a notion that surpassed his wildest dreams. Quietly, he added, ‘I am not a glittering match, but I have prospects.'

The fact she did not interrupt gave him courage. ‘My lodgings in Maidstone are small, but I plan to sell my commission. We might then find a bigger house.' He paused, meaningfully. ‘A home for both you and your child.'

Her eyes resembled her aunt's with their flinty coldness. ‘My child and I can do very well without you
or
my aunt's interference.'

He had not reckoned on her intransigence. It only served to heighten his desire.
Desire
. His upbringing had taught him desire wrought disappointment and destruction. He had thought himself well trained in not desiring what he could not have, did not deserve. He swallowed, the need for her acceptance like fire in his veins. He would be raising a cuckoo in his nest, a bastard, but what of it? Hadn't he, too, been a cuckoo? His mother's revenge on a husband who nevertheless treated Angus no differently from his blood-born sons? Though Emily Micklen's child was Jack's and would have inherited Jack's faults had Jack lived to rear it, it was Angus who would rear and mould it. Give it love and a promising future.

He longed to give the proud, hurt, beautiful woman before him love and a promising future.

As a soldier, Angus had enough experience of intransigent prisoners to know when to press the advantage. Gaining confidence from her silence he said, smoothly, ‘You realise, Miss Micklen, that unmarried you will be in no position to keep your child?'

Of course she'd know it.

She took a shuddering breath. ‘Aunt Gemma—' she began. Then obviously perceiving that if she threw away the only opportunity she was likely to receive to legitimise her child Aunt Gemma may prove less dependable than hitherto, she covered her face with her hands and slumped against the window.

‘I know nothing about you, Major McCartney.'

‘I am a soldier and a gentleman. I need a wife. You need a husband. I am offering you my name and a home, Miss Micklen. It's intolerable you might be stripped of your child,' Angus called on reserves of creative logic he'd not thought existed to further his cause, ‘when I am the indirect cause of your hopeless situation.'

She raised her strained, weary face to his. ‘Your actions defy logic unless you are to be handsomely recompensed.'

‘Your acceptance is recompense enough.'

Sighing, she looked at him steadily. ‘I am not a fool, Major McCartney, and I would be one were I to reject your offer out of hand.' Her eyes were glazed with misery as she turned to stare through the window.

In a dull, flat voice she added, ‘Allow me a day in which to consider it. I will see you tomorrow – providing you, yourself, are not struck by just how outrageous your proposal is.'

Exultant, he took a step forward. He wanted to take her hands, press them to his lips and reassure her he would be a kind and loving husband.

He could not. Her despair was too overwhelming. His smile died before she turned. ‘Then I shall call again tomorrow, Miss Micklen,' he said stiffly.

Bowing, he took his leave.

When Emily was a child it seemed she could do no wrong. Her father had bounced her on his knee and called her his little beauty. She'd believed she was loved.

Lucy Gilroy, her nursemaid, had painted a glowing picture of Bartholomew Micklen as a man of courage and integrity who'd created a family dynasty of which Emily must be proud.

Each night, as Lucy brushed out Emily's long, dark hair prior to being presented to her parents before bedtime, she'd weave magical stories about her heroic father.

Young Bartholomew Micklen had been an Englishman with revolution in his veins, the familiar tale went. After he'd risked his life to whisk Emily's mother and aunt from the chaos of the French Revolution which had claimed the heads of the aunt and cousins with whom the Laurent sisters had lived, Bartholomew had married the crippled younger Marguerite. Emily's mother.

Marguerite's elder sister, the exquisitely beautiful Fanchette, had elected to remain in France and her likeness hung above her mother's writing desk, a tantalising link to an exotic past.

When Emily was twelve and no longer a child, her father's attitude towards her changed dramatically. The indulgent papa who'd praised her childish exuberance became the stern disciplinarian. Lucy was put to work as a general maid in Micklen Hall and a series of governesses became Emily's only link with the world outside. At night Emily would hug her rag doll, Fanchette, to her chest and dream about the exciting life her mysterious aunt might be living. Her own existence seemed stifled and dull.

One night her father had burst into her room, shouting that Emily was too old for such childish props as he'd torn faithful Fanchette from her tight embrace before tossing it onto the fire.

Her parents had been arguing over her Aunt Fanchette. She'd heard whispers that her mother's sister had been found guilty of a sin too wicked to repeat.

Her father's seditious activities, which had required him to leave England hurriedly, to travel to France when he was a young man, were, she thought sourly, nothing compared to Tante Fanchette's immoral liaison with one of Napoleon's trusted generals.

Emily and Fanchette's greatest sins were not the transgressions themselves, but the fact that
they had been caught.

Now Emily gazed from her bedroom window in her Aunt Gemma's house and despite the lies and secrets that whispered through the corridors of Micklen Hall she still longed to return to her old home with its surrounding green fields edged by the familiar high, rocky cliffs that fringed the sea in the distance.

But Emily no longer had a home. Even if her father did renege and open his doors to her, she knew that unless she married Major McCartney, life under her father's roof as a sinner would be as intolerable as her only other option: the workhouse.

Having had all night to ponder the inescapable truth, following a fraught interview with her aunt, Emily awoke with a pounding megrim and a heavy heart, shot through with the inescapable knowledge that she had no choice in her future.

Jack had given her a glimpse into a world of unexpected pleasures and mutual love but those doors were now shut.

Two minutes after the stiff, unsmiling and clearly nervous Major McCartney had been ushered into the drawing room, Emily accepted his suit.

Emily listened to the vicar intone the wedding service as if she were trapped on the outside of a large bubble, watching herself within. Her fate was beyond her control, but then it always had been. Aunt Gemma and Major McCartney deemed it in everyone's interests that a hasty marriage be contracted between the introverted soldier and herself. In order to proceed with all due haste, a Common Licence had been obtained and now, resting her hands on her swollen belly – because there was nowhere else to rest them, these days – Emily stood beside the man who was in the process of becoming her husband.

Staring fixedly at the rector, she tried not to cry.

She heard the major solemnly repeat his vows. She dared not look at him in case she saw … what? Satisfaction? Aunt Gemma was a wealthy woman who set a great deal of store by appearances. She'd have paid Major McCartney a large sum to maintain family honour.

Though glad, Emily was perversely piqued he did not try to touch her. No comforting caress, or even the slightest attempt at showing her that he was aware of what she must be feeling. She choked on a sob which she managed to turn into a cough. How large had Aunt Gemma's inducement been to see her niece respectably married?

The major carried himself ramrod straight, his eyes the only hint that he felt any emotion at all. When Emily ventured a glance beneath lowered lashes she saw they burned with some indefinable fervour she was too afraid to wonder at. His tall, well-built frame and broad shoulders made him a commanding presence. It was not a complimentary thought. Not when Emily had envisaged a domestic future with loving, easy-natured Jack by her side and a brood of lively children.

In a toneless voice she repeated the vows that stripped her of any rights as an individual and made her the property of her husband. That she would be a conscientious wife was not in dispute. Only a fool with no mind for her future comfort and safety would offer intransigence as her part of the bargain. If her husband beat her or otherwise abused her she would have no recourse. He would be legally entitled to the fruits of their marriage – including the child she was to bear.

Major McCartney had said he was ready to take a wife. It would seem a well-connected, financially endowed wife was, under normal circumstances, beyond his means. No wonder he considered her a bargain.

The intoning stopped and Emily realised with mild shock she was married. She raised her face to look at him and saw his diffidence as their eyes met. Of course he should kiss her, and she would expect no less, although it would mean nothing. But the poor man looked both reluctant and quite unsure of himself. She caught a glimpse of Aunt Gemma; she who was always one for observing the niceties. And so, with a small, resigned smile, Emily raised herself on tiptoe, stiffening at the fleeting brush of the major's lips.

Fear of what the next few hours would bring made the hairs prickle on the surface of her skin. Here, Major McCartney was on public view. But what of the privacy of the bedroom?

The bedroom of the Four Leaved Clover where he'd bespoken a room for the night.

They barely talked during the slow, uncomfortable journey to the inn. Angus suspected Emily used the pretence of sleep to avoid any exchange.

Miserably, he reflected on his failure to offer his wife the comfort she needed, even if she would let him. The carriage was a hired post-chaise with poor springs and the inn was recommended by little other than its position as a halfway point to his lodgings in Maidstone which, God forbid, were as unsuited to housing a woman like Emily as he could imagine.

During their one brief meeting before the wedding Angus had tentatively sought his future wife's thoughts on what she required in a dwelling. It was perhaps just as well her reaction had been lukewarm. Until he sold his commission he hadn't the funds to lease something more commodious, and even then he'd still be pinched in the pocket.

The carriage jolted over ruts and bumps while concerns as to what would be required in the privacy of the bedroom nagged at him. He was still discomposed by the unfamiliar stirrings of his body in response to the touch of her lips.

The uncertainty and resignation in Emily's wide-eyed look at the altar had affected him curiously. He'd needed every bit of willpower not to cup her cheek or reassuringly stroke the inside hollow of her bare arm. It was the fear she would misinterpret his actions that stopped him. Indeed, perhaps she had good reason to misinterpret them, he amended, feeling again the unfamiliar heat in his loins as he drank in her pure, unspoiled beauty.

Only briefly, and then it was accidental, did his eyes drop to her swollen belly. She had been ill-used by Captain Noble.

Well, Miss Micklen need not fear
his
brutishness. Or his feelings towards the child she had misbegotten. He was glad for it. Likely as not he would never have married had it been left to him to follow through with the niceties: a proper courtship, then a proposal. What did a scarred, taciturn soldier with no ready funds have to offer anyone, much less a beautiful, virtuous female like Emily?

He assumed – hoped – they would have children of their own, but he would not be guilty of the arrogant selfishness which had led to Emily's downfall.

‘You must be tired,' he said above the shouts of the coachman demanding the attention of an ostler as the carriage came to a halt in the stable yard of the Four Leaved Clover. He saw wariness replace weariness, noted the determined lifting of her drooping shoulders. ‘It's been a long day,' he added.

‘Yes,' she agreed in a lustreless voice, allowing him to help her out. Closing her eyes briefly, she stretched, her hands tracing the outline of her belly. As if realising what she was doing, she straightened, her whole body seeming to snap to attention. Then with a regal tilt to her head she put her hand on Angus's arm and swept up the stairs to the inn without another glance at him.

As the publican led them to their room a shout of recognition arrested them upon the first stair.

‘Major McCartney! Thought it was you!' A tall, blond young man in regimentals appeared on the threshold to the tap room, grinning, his expression turning to one of surprise when he took in Emily.

Or rather, her condition.

Angus acknowledged the intruder with a stiff nod. Smiling at Emily, he managed the introductions with, he thought, commendable smoothness under the circumstances. ‘My dear, may I present Captain Nigel Hartley. Hartley, my wife, Emily.'

‘Good Lord, I'd no idea you were married. I admit it's been some months since I last … When was the happy day?'

‘Five months ago.' Angus patted Emily's hand before turning to his comrade. ‘If you'll excuse us, it's been a long journey. My wife is very tired.'

‘Aye, you look like you need an early night, Mrs McCartney. In which case, perhaps you'll not object if your husband joins us for a game or two of Faro.'

Angus was not sure who was more relieved at the reprieve. ‘Yes, why don't you go and lie down, Emily? I'll organise the luggage and … I'll be up later.' At her obvious gratitude he added, ‘I promise not to disturb you.'

He could declare this with conviction for he had no intention of laying a finger on her in anything but tentative affection while she was breeding. What civilised husband would?

It was well after midnight when Angus made his way to their chamber. He'd drunk to keep up with the rest of them, but he had an iron constitution and his head was clear.

Now, as he stood quietly upon the threshold and gazed at his brand new, beautiful wife, he felt himself sway. He was overcome; had to hold onto the bed end to keep himself steady, in fact.

The candle on the washstand guttered, sending long shadows dancing upon the walls. Emily lay on her side in the gloom with the covers pulled up beneath her chin.

Angus moved closer, fascinated by the lush curve of lashes brushing her cheek. She was breathing softly but evenly, in a deep sleep from which he knew she would not wake easily.

Quietly he reached into the trunk at the foot of the bed and withdrew the tools he required so urgently: charcoal and parchment.

Then he stood above her and drank in every detail.

One long-fingered hand cupped her cheek. Her plait of glossy dark hair was spread upon the pillow beneath her lace-edged nightcap. The strain of her wedding day had been erased from her expression. She looked as if she were enjoying a pleasant dream, for a small smile played upon her lips.

Angus heaved a sigh of relief. He'd been afraid he would find her cowering like a frightened animal, jerked awake from a fitful sleep by his arrival.

He bent down to study the arch of her eyebrow. No artist could have rendered it better. They were fine, expressive brows. She'd used them to good effect when giving him her dressing-down for presuming to make her an offer.

Now she looked as peaceful and innocent as a child.

He could not believe she was his.

However, better to dwell on her regal carriage and fine eyebrows than the fullness of her lips. He longed to press his own against hers again and feel them yield in chaste acceptance of her new husband.

He would not think of anything beyond that, right now. Nothing except committing this precious image to paper. Settling himself in a chair beside her he got to work. It was surprising how easily the image transposed itself. Battle scenes were his forte though he'd once done a poor rendering of his mother at her insistence. Now he was enraptured by the idea of doing justice to this exquisite woman. His wife.

A faint murmur made him freeze. No, she'd not woken. She was still smiling in her sleep. Smiling as she had when she'd first greeted him, when she'd misinterpreted his visit for a social call.

She had not smiled since and his heart contracted at her distress, her vulnerability, her unhappiness.

And once again, for the fact she was his.

How tranquil she looked with her pale skin and glossy, dark plaited hair. He felt safe in this clandestine perusal of her, shielded by the fact her lids were closed; her expressive eyes, which flashed like sunlight glancing off his Flintlock pistol when she was proud and angry, had been lustreless today.

She did not want him or this marriage, but by God he wanted
her
and one day he would make her proud of the husband another man's sin and selfishness had forced her to marry.

The candle guttered once more and the sketch was done. Stretching, rubbing weary, strained eyes, Angus concealed the drawing in his trunk before rising, his gaze shifting to the empty space in the bed beside her.

He groaned softly, feeling more a prisoner than he had when he'd been incarcerated for all those months within the damp stone walls of his Spanish fortress.