The Wedding Bed (The Sun Never Sets, Book One) (2 page)

Chapter Two

Had the world been arranged to his liking, Derek would have found his coach waiting for him the moment he exited the reception hall. But events had lately seemed determined to conspire against him, so it came as no surprise to discover his coach was nowhere to be found. As the evening was young, his driver had apparently assumed he wouldn’t be immediately needed and had taken himself off. Once a runner found the blasted man, he would have to queue up behind the long line of fashionably late arrivals.

In other words,
Derek would have to wait.

He swore under his breath and
contemplated leaving, walking a few blocks and hailing a passing hansom, but the unseasonably cold night air diminished the appeal of that prospect. It was possible that his mood could have been blacker, but he doubted it. Issuing a curt instruction to a passing footman to bring him a drink, he ducked into a salon just off the entry hall. He found himself in a small reception room meant for intimate gatherings, rather than the grand gala occurring just steps away. At the moment the fire was dead and the lamps had been turned down low, rendering the space cold and inhospitable.

Perfect.
Exactly what he wanted.

He settled into a wingback chair arranged before the hearth. A
few minutes later the doorknob clicked and the door swept open. “Here,” he called over his shoulder, assuming it was the footman with his drink.

The soft r
ustle of skirts against the marble flooring told him he was mistaken.

Long ingrained courtesy brought him to his feet. Turning, he found not one, but two women silhouetted in the doorway. They made
a comical, perhaps even caricaturish pair. A short, squat Hindu woman dressed in native garb, accompanied by a tall, thin English woman dressed in a plain cotton traveling costume that was primly buttoned up to her chin.

For a moment, an awkward silence filled the room. Then the
Hindu woman, who Derek guessed to be somewhere in her late forties, brought her palms together and gave a low bow. “
Shubh Sundhya
.”
Good evening.

He
gave a perfunctory bow in return, but when he spoke his tone was cool and dismissive, letting them know their invasion of his solitude was not welcome. “Good evening.”

The women exchanged pointed glances, as though each
silently urging the other to speak. Neither one did. Guessing the nature of their difficulty and impatient to be rid of them, Derek took the situation in hand.

“The ladies’ retiring room is down the hall.”

The Hindu woman shook her head. “It is you we seek.”

A
note of unpleasant alarm rang in his mind. “I beg your pardon?”

“We have been waiting for a
private moment to speak to you,” the woman continued, a touch of censure in her voice, “regarding the situation in Calcutta. Obviously, the matter is of grave personal importance.”

So that was it. Missionaries, he surmised
distastefully. That explained both their austere manner of dress and their purposeful intrusion upon his evening. If they’d hoped to impress him with their pleas to bring light to the ignorant masses, they’d grossly miscalculated. “This is neither the time nor the place to discuss charitable donations,” he informed her. “If you wish to pursue the matter, petitions for alms may be left with my secretary—”

“Alms?” The woman drew herself up, bristling with indignation. “We have not come for charity. We regret intruding upon your evening, but what choice did we have? Surely we should have expected you would make
some
arrangement for our arrival.”

“Your arrival?”

“In
England
.” The woman sent him a reproachful stare, and Derek had the sinking sense of being unwillingly pulled into some god-awful farce. Incredible. Just when he’d thought his evening couldn’t get any worse. Before he could extricate himself, she doggedly continued, “You remember Miss Staunton?”

He gave the English woman
standing beside her a cursory glance. “No.”

“
Miss
Calla Lily
Staunton, daughter of Mr. and Mrs. Charles Staunton,” the Hindu woman said, stressing the name as though it should have particular meaning to him. It didn’t.

And then, suddenly, it did.

Growing up, his mother’s best friend and closest companion had been Mrs. Charles Staunton, an English woman married to high-ranking Company official. Unlike Derek, who had been an only child, Mr. and Mrs. Staunton had produced six offspring, all of them female, and all of them named after flowers. Rose and Daisy, Violet and Petunia, Daffodil and Lily…or some such nonsense. The sickly-sweet floral names, like the girls themselves, blurred together indistinguishably in his memory.

What he did remember—in vivid detail—were their visits.
Like a swarm of biblical locusts, the Sisters Staunton had descended upon his peaceful Bengali home and thrown it into utter chaos, filling it with high-pitched squeals and giggles, petticoats and kittens, china dolls whose nappies needed endless changing. Against his will they had dragged him into their alien feminine world, subjecting him to games he had no interest in playing: rescue the princess, tea with the Queen, dances and dress up.

And w
hile God in his mercy had unleashed the locusts only once, he had been set upon on an annual basis. He’d come to dread their visits, regarding the Sisters Staunton as the single most offensive blight on his boyhood. They stayed for weeks, as suffocating and oppressive as the heat that built and built, until the monsoon season finally arrived to drive them away.

To this day
he still enjoyed a good, heavy rain.

“Miss Staunton is recently
arrived in London from Calcutta,” the woman continued.

“Is that so?
” He gathered himself enough to murmur a polite, if indifferent, “Welcome.”

An uncomfortable silence once again filled the room. The
Hindu woman watched him with an air of weighty expectation, her brows knit in a worried frown. Derek swallowed his impatience, wondering what on God’s earth this had to do with him. The last time he’d been subjected to the Sisters Staunton he’d been thirteen, at which point he’d left India to attend school abroad. That had been fifteen odd years ago.

Apparently his mother’s letter explai
ned everything, the Hindu woman informed him, growing increasingly agitated upon learning it hadn’t been received. Like a spigot that once turned on, couldn’t easily be turned off, her words poured forth, her hands fluttering nervously as she swung between rapid-fire Hindi and heavily accented English. She had assumed they would be expected. Arrangements should have been made. Where could the letter have gone? It was all most upsetting.

Derek
shrugged the matter off. Correspondence between continents was notoriously unreliable. Either his mother’s missive hadn’t arrived, or his secretary, a man new to the job, had seen the Sanskrit on the envelope and cast it aside, tossing it into the ever-expanding pile of mundane business affairs, warehouses records, fluctuating price reports, crew manifestos, and the like.

The woman reached into a fold in he
r sari and withdrew an envelope. “In the unhappy event her letter did not reach you.”

He
took the slim vellum note, but did not open it. He vaguely recalled hearing that Charles Staunton had passed away a few years ago. Given the death of Miss Staunton’s father, it was relatively simple to deduce the note’s contents. Evidently his mother had decided to foist upon him the unwelcome—and given everything else that was occurring in his life, supremely untimely—duty of chaperoning the Staunton girl’s introduction to society.

He b
it back a surge of irritation at the inconvenience and mentally assigned the task to his secretary. It was a chore the man would undoubtedly hate, and therefore appropriate penance for not taking better care with his correspondence. It was becoming painfully apparent the man claimed a greater understanding of Sanskrit than he actually possessed.

His thoughts thus occupied,
he was somewhat taken aback to glance up from the unopened note and find Miss Staunton’s attention wholly fixed on him. As her gaze moved slowly over his form, her expression changed, becoming unguardedly curious and candid. It wasn't a look he was accustomed to receiving from women—or men, for that matter. It was a look of open assessment, as though she were taking his measure and defining him against some nameless inner standard.

"
Derek Arindam Jeffords," she said at last. "Or do you prefer Lord Keating?"

It occurred to him that
she hadn’t yet spoken. He would have noticed it if she had.
Never had he heard a voice so full of seductive promise. Low, smooth, and feminine, yet entirely confident and assured.

A
look of knowing amusement showed on her features. "You don't remember me at all," she said. There was no reproach in her voice. It was a simple statement of fact.

“
Not personally, no,” he admitted with a shrug. “Though of course I remember all of you collectively.”

“Of course.” She gave a sage, somber nod. “The way one might remember a marauding army years after the invasion.”

He froze, uncertain how to reply. Damned if she wasn’t deliberately baiting him.

He inclined his head
, awarding her the point. “I would say that sums it up rather nicely.”

“Indeed.”
Approval lit her eyes, as though the mundane banalities and false compliments demanded by society were beneath them both. Clearly she neither wanted nor expected such coquettish tripe.

Derek
found himself studying her intently, absurdly curious as to the color of those eyes. But as she stood silhouetted in a doorway in a room whose lamps were poorly lit, it was impossible to tell. Brown, he guessed, to match her hair, but he wasn’t certain.

His gaze
swept over the rest of her. She was slightly taller than most women, with a slim, feminine build. Whatever curves she might boast were well hidden behind her stiff cotton traveling costume. Yet she was still attractive, in a way that was decidedly English: creamy complexion, sleek cheekbones, thick chestnut hair twisted into an elaborate chignon. But her most arresting feature was her mouth. To put it more succinctly, her lips. They curved upward in a slightly lopsided smile that somehow managed to convey both keen observation and an endless appreciation for life’s absurdities.

She t
urned slightly, listening to something the Hindu woman was saying. As she did, Derek noted a scar that ran along the right side of her jaw line. The sight of it jolted a series of long-buried memories, enabling him to separate her from the pack of her sisters. Her given name had meant nothing to him, but he remembered
her
.

The wild one.

The troublemaker.

The one who’d attacked
a cobra with a stick, smoked a hornet’s nest, and challenged him to a horse race across along the muddy banks of the Hooghly River. The one who’d attempted to adopt a tiger cub after local hunters had shot and killed its mother. The scar along her jaw was a reminder of the folly of that act—a lifelong reminder, evidently—proof that the cub, though young, was not nearly as docile as she’d assumed.

The
Hindu woman kept speaking, and the word
nayan
caught his ear.
Matchmaker.
He forced his attention back to her agitated monologue in time to hear, “…has come to England to marry.”

His gaze returned to Miss Staunton.
“My congratulations. And who is the lucky groom?”

The lamp
beside her sputtered and flared, enabling him a better view of her face. Her eyes, he noted, were not brown at all, but blue. Deep blue. Eyes that suddenly twinkled with devilish glee. Her remarkable lips quirked upward as she replied with a single word that made his blood run cold.

“You.”

Chapter Three

“Good God.”

If the look of horror on his face had not been so profound, Calla might have found some humor in her predicament. Instead, she stood with her feet firmly rooted to the floor, frozen in embarrassment. She searched for something clever to say, but her mind abandoned her. Finally she collected her wits enough to speak.

“Apparently you do remember me, after all.”

Their eyes met. She sent him a small smile, hoping to bridge the awkwardness of the situation. He returned it with a look of glacial aloofness.

Calla had
spent weeks during her long passage from India preparing for this moment. But in that instant all her carefully rehearsed speeches abruptly evaporated, leaving her nothing but a collection of jumbled thoughts and worn-out phrases.

A footman brushed past her.
He carried a sterling tray upon which rested a single glass of amber liquid. He presented it to Derek, who downed the contents in one deep gulp, then bit out, “Lamps.”

The footman nodded and went around the room turning up the lamps until the space
fairly blazed with light, a condition which only served to heighten her discomfort. For while Mrs. Singh nervously prattled on—first about the rare luck of finding a woman whose horoscope so perfectly aligned with his, moving next to how the stars had surely blessed their union, and finishing with the sacred responsibility of the marital state—Derek’s gaze moved with deliberate insolence over her form, as though she were a prize mare he was contemplating purchasing. His eyes flicked back to hers.

There was no welcome in his gaze, no warmth at all. He was not so rude as to interrupt Mrs. Singh’s brittle discourse, but his expression made his feelings on the matter perfectly clear. His initial shock had hardened to something far more cynical and contemptuous.

Anger washed over
her, replacing the humiliation she’d felt moments earlier. She welcomed it, for it returned her sense of purpose. She stiffened her spine and met his insolent stare with a look she hoped conveyed an equal measure of haughty disdain.

Turning to Mrs. Singh, she said,
“Obviously the joyous news of our impending nuptials has come as a surprise to Lord Keating. Would you allow us a moment? Perhaps it would be best if he and I renew our acquaintance in private.”

Mrs. Singh cast
Derek a look that expressed her deep displeasure with their reception. Muttering in Hindi about the disrespect he was showing his mother, who had gone to considerable lengths to find him a suitable bride and arrange for her passage to England, she followed the footman out of the room, letting Calla know she would be just outside the door should she be needed. 

Calla’s r
elief that the woman was no longer a witness to her frigid reception was short-lived. Being alone with the man was somehow worse. Mrs. Singh had served as a buffer of sorts, in the same way a metal rod took the brunt of lightening during a storm. In Mrs. Singh’s absence the tension was directed solely at her.

Derek
Arindam Jeffords
, she thought.
Lord Keating.

S
he swallowed hard, unable to reconcile the young, limber boy she remembered with the man of towering height and formidable muscle he’d become. Had a footman not pointed him out, she would never have recognized him. He was dressed in the English style, wearing a black serge suit that had been immaculately cut to emphasize the breadth of his shoulders and the length of his legs, complemented by a crisp white shirt and highly polished black leather boots. Simple, understated, elegant.

Ye
t the way he moved was distinctly at odds with his aristocratic facade. His presence was completely unnerving. There was something vaguely predatory about his bearing, a lethal grace that suggested a complete mastery of his surroundings. That same quality was reflected in the structure of his square-jawed face, with its high cheek bones and broad brow, his imperious nose and firm male mouth.

Their gazes locked. Calla realized in that instant she had mis
judged his eyes. She remembered them dark, level, rational. Not stormy gray, eyes that looked quick to passion and quick to temper.

Though
The Times
arrived on India’s shores months after the gossip had been devoured in London, it remained required reading among Calcutta’s social elite. Lord Keating’s name appeared more often than most. The Dark Lord, the newssheets called him. Black Baron. Tiger of the Thames. Ruthless in business, savage in negotiations, cruel and calculating in his personal affairs. He was deemed too large, too powerful, too
untamed
to be comfortably assimilated into their society—particularly given the exotic blood that flowed through his veins.

Calla had known all th
at before she left India. She’d foolishly assumed the newssheets had exaggerated. If anything, she realized, suppressing a shiver, the papers had been too kind. Dear God, the sheer
size
of the man was intimidating. Well over six feet tall, every inch of his body composed of thick, solid muscle—the sort of man who presumably would have no trouble wrestling a bull to the ground, if he were so inclined.

Had she seen
Derek Jeffords before she boarded ship for England, she would have chosen another course of action, a solution to her family’s difficulties that had nothing to do with him. She brushed the thought away in irritation. She’d been over the matter a thousand times. There was simply nothing else to be done.
Get on with it
, she scolded herself.

Tilting her chin to meet his stare, she said, “
You received no word that Mrs. Singh and I were en route?”

“None.”

“I’m sorry to hear that.” While their engagement might have come as a shock to him, that did not mean he could treat her like common baggage. “Nevertheless,” she said, sending him an arch look, “arrangements have been made, and I have traveled a considerable distance on your behalf. Perhaps it wouldn’t be too much to expect you to offer me some refreshment?”

He loo
ked at her blankly for a moment, then seemed to recall himself. Turning, he shot a look at the footman who’d brought his drink. “Tea.”

“Yes, sahib.”
The man bowed and left the room.

She gave a regal nod of approval.
“Thank you.”

Icy silence settled over the room.
Too nervous to sit—and fully conscious of the fact that he had not invited her to do so—she remained standing. Desperate for somewhere to focus her attention, Calla turned away from him and examined the salon’s opulent furnishings. She ran her hand along a panel of exquisite saffron-colored silk drapery, admired the intricately carved marble mantelpiece, then swept an appraising gaze over the lofty ceilings, crystal chandeliers, inlaid mahogany flooring, and hand-knotted Persian rugs.

“So this is where it all goes…” she heard herself utter.

“It?”

“The riches of
India.”

His gaze narrowed
. When he spoke, his voice was silky soft, carrying just the barest hint of menace. “Are you playing a game with me, Miss Staunton?”

“A game? Certainly not. I
can assure you I have better things to do with my time.”

“Then there is an actual betrothal?”

“Of course there is. Mrs. Singh and I would not have traveled from India had there not been,” she replied, relieved she didn’t sound as breathless as she felt. “Our mothers believed we would suit. They said our stars are perfectly aligned for marriage.”

He released a
derisive breath. “And you agreed with that nonsense?”

“I…Yes. Yes, I did.”

Lord Keating studied her in silence. After what seemed an interminable pause, he leaned one slim hip against a mahogany table and crossed his arms over his chest. “In that case,” he drawled, “shouldn’t you begin?”

“
Begin?”

“Aren’t you going
to regale me with tales of what a superlative bride you’d make? Tempt me with promises of the wedded bliss that awaits me?”

She
released a brittle laugh. “I can assure you I have no intention of doing so.”

“Ah. So I am simply expected to
be swept away by your womanly charms?”

Calla
stiffened, well aware of her deficiencies in appearance. Or rather, her lack of copious, bountiful beauty that had been given to her sisters. Violet’s lush figure, Daisy’s grace and charm, Hyacinth’s thick blond hair, Rose’s remarkable green eyes, Jasmine’s sultry smile. If judged on her own, Calla was certainly attractive enough. But when compared to her sisters, it was inevitable that she be overshadowed. Her own gifts—intellect, courage, wit, and determination—were simply not valued by the male suitors who flocked to their home. And because she couldn’t compete, she simply had never bothered to try. That didn’t mean, however, she liked having it thrown in her face.

“You needn’t be rude.”

He eyed her with speculative disdain. “What is it you’re after, Miss Staunton? My fortune? My title? The dubious thrill of seeing your name connected to mine in the scandal sheets?”

“My
name in the scandal sheets? No, thank you.” Calla repressed a shudder. Her family’s name had already been plastered in the papers in India—she had no desire to drudge it through the muck in England, as well. As to the other two, “Nor I am so short-sighted that I would forfeit my independence for a title. That would be a very poor trade, indeed.”

His gaze sharpened. Softly he said, “So it’s my money you’re after.”

“Not
your
money,” she hastened to reassure him, then in the spirit of full disclosure, reconsidered her response and said, “Well, perhaps indirectly. But that needn’t concern you. It’s all been properly handled.”

“Explain.”

She looked up at him, annoyed at his sharp tone. “I am not yours to command.”

“Not yet,” was his silky rebuttal.
“That right would follow our wedding. That right, and several others,” he paused, his gaze trailing boldly over the soft swell of her hips, then traveling upward to rest on her breasts, “of a far more intimate nature.”

Heat flamed her cheeks.
She studied him for a long moment in silence, refusing to be intimidated. Drawing herself up to her full height, she announced, “I see no benefit in making this situation more uncomfortable than it already is. If you would be so kind as to grant me a few minutes of civility, I believe we could properly sort this out.”  

A
knock sounded at the door. The footman returned carrying a sterling tray on which rested a porcelain tea service. He deposited the tray on a low table near the grouping of wingback chairs where Derek had been seated earlier, and giving a low bow, departed.

Calla immediately
seated herself before the service, grateful for the distraction. To her immense relief, her hands were steady as she poured, betraying no sign of her inner turmoil.

She waited until
Derek sat opposite her, then she passed him a teacup. "I understand you're interested in the facts surrounding our engagement only as they pertain to you, but there are extenuating circumstances that should first be related. If you'll indulge me for just a moment?"

"By all means, Miss Staunton, do continue."

Choosing to ignore his mocking tone,
Calla took a deep breath, gathered her nerve, and plunged headlong into her discourse. "Two years ago, my father made a series of risky investments. Investments in illegal contraband, to be precise. He saw several of his peers gaining enormous wealth in short amounts of time and thought he would profit as well. It was, from the very start, an ill-conceived venture.”

“Opium,”
Derek concluded flatly.

She
gave a curt nod. Anyone with a modicum of knowledge of the Indo-China trade would have ascertained her meaning just as quickly.

“
I won't defend his actions here, except to say that he was drinking excessively at the time. I believe that clouded his judgment." She began to expand on that sentiment, but thought better of it and continued briskly, "The ship was commandeered by the authorities and the cargo confiscated. A scandal ensued and my father lost everything. We were reduced to selling our home in Madras and moving to Calcutta. Shortly thereafter my father died."

"My sympathies."

His words held a clipped, perfunctory edge that was impossible to miss. Calla brought up her chin and coolly met his eyes. "I relate these events not to engage your sympathies but to adequately disclose my predicament. I believe it only fair that you know exactly with whom you are dealing."

"In that case, may I say that I appreciate your excruciating honesty."

This was not going well. Not well at all. Nonetheless, as there was no direction for her to go but forward, she doggedly continued, “Which brings us directly to the matter of our betrothal.”

Derek
blinked. “Did I miss something? That seems a rather extraordinary leap.”