The Wicked Wedding of Miss Ellie Vyne (8 page)

He took a step after her. “You’re not wriggling out of
this
engagement, Vyne. Not like you did all the others.”

“For pity’s sake, I lied about marrying you only for Winthorne’s benefit, and you must know that. Or has brandy deadened your brain to the point of utter insensibility?”

“If you go back on your word, I’ll sue for breach of promise.”

“I don’t know what you can sue me for—sixpence, three sulky hens, and a confused goat is about all my portion can provide.”

Before she could back away any farther, he grabbed her bare arm.

“Are you mad, Hartley? Unhand me at once!”

He cupped both her elbows in his hands and drew her against his chest. She stepped on his foot again, but he didn’t seem to notice. He did have very large feet and was probably accustomed to having them stepped upon. Ellie was still pondering the outrageous assumptions of James Hartley when his hard lips closed upon hers, and all protests fell away like icicles melting from a roof on a sunny day.

He moved his hands from her arms to her waist and settled her against his body. The heat and strength of his powerful frame was completely overwhelming. His mouth devoured her leisurely. His tongue slipped over hers, winding around it, caressing it. A shudder of excitement vibrated all the way to her toes.

They were alone in the semidark. What did it matter if she let him kiss her? No one was there to see. Tonight he gave her his full attention, and she didn’t even have to draw on his face to get it.

Her hands rested on his shoulders and traced the muscles moving under his fine evening clothes. It was brute strength contained by the façade of civilization. At once she withdrew her hands as if they were burned. But then realized there was nowhere else to put them. Nowhere that wouldn’t get her into worse trouble. So she returned them to his wide shoulders and tried not to notice the strength flexing under her palms. He moved her closer, her hip pressed against his groin. A pang of reckless desire blossomed within her, opening like a rose, spreading its dewy petals. Her breasts began to ache and swell under her corset. His hands were tight around her waist, his fingers spread, gripping her again as if he feared she might pull away. Instead, she stroked his leg with her own. Between her thighs, in a very warm, vulnerable place, she felt the enormity of this danger with which she flirted, but she couldn’t prevent herself. It was the perfect moment. One could get away with all sorts of things in the dark. Just as she could while wearing a mask or a disguise.

Her bare fingertips strayed upward, along his shoulder to his collar, his cravat, and then tentatively touched his jaw. It was smooth-shaven tonight, not like the last time they kissed.

Had she drunk too much wine tonight? No. She’d spilled her only glass when James knocked into her. In Brighton she’d blamed her naughtiness on moonlight and punch. Tonight she could not do the same.

Slowly he relinquished her lips, leaving them warm but suddenly frail, uncertain.

“Well, I must say, that was quite horrid,” she snapped. “Don’t do it again.”

***

Somewhere inside his skull a herald fanfare rang out. He’d found her! That kiss confirmed it. All these months he’d spent searching for his mystery woman—future wife and mother of his children. And here she was, right under his nose.

Damn her! How could she do that to him and keep running away?

Oh, she was walking this time, but it was very nearly a run, her slippers tripping along in haste to stay ahead of him down the passage. Before they fully emerged into the bright light thrown by Lady Clegg-Foster’s crystal chandelier, he reached out, capturing her arm again. She turned to rebuke him. A faint flush colored her cheeks now, and her bosom too. Her lips looked swollen, darker than before, and her lashes drooped as if her eyelids were heavy. There was a definite strain to her breathing, her breasts pushing frantically at the white rosebuds trimming her bodice.

Even if that was a smile forming on her lips, there was no assurance that he caused it. Most likely it was the result of someone across the room slipping on a dropped piece of fruit from the punch bowl.

James didn’t need to look down at himself to know that a return to the party just then was out of the question. He felt the urge to ride at once to the boxing club and work out some of his frustrations with anyone willing to spar. Because if he didn’t, the brute inside him might take over completely. This was not good. Not good at all.

He’d found his future wife, and she was the rotten enemy. This was the worse trick she’d ever played on him. Worse even than the ink moustache. And she’d pay for it.

“What’s the matter?” she exclaimed when he moved her back against the paneled wall, tucking her away behind one of Lady Clegg-Foster’s ugly statues.

“A moment,” he muttered. “I need a moment.”

She batted her long lashes over those sinister violet eyes. “Have you hurt yourself? Anything I can do?”

James stared at her lips, and the memory of Brighton tore through his mind like spring shoots through newly warmed and softened earth. He fought the urge to kiss her again. “Were you in Brighton this summer, Vyne?”

“No.” The answer was out before he’d barely finished the question, as if it was anticipated. “Never been there in my life.”

Not that she’d ever tell him a fib.

He knew it was her. He knew the taste of that kiss. It was branded on his memory that moonlit night six months ago. No other kiss had ever affected him so deeply. Why hadn’t he recognized her voice? Why hadn’t she known his?

Perhaps because they didn’t want to know the truth. It was much easier to talk to her when they were both pretending to be someone else. To talk without the usual shields and the banter.

“Are you still staying with your sister in Willard Street?” he demanded, breathless from that kiss and chasing her down the passage.

“Yes. Why?”

“I will call on you tomorrow. At noon.”

“What for?”

“We’re getting married, woman. Obviously.”

She flapped her fan so rapidly he felt the breeze beneath his own chin. “Over my cold, dead bones. You know I find you quite despicable—an utter wastrel.”

“Yes, I think there’s a club somewhere for people who hate me. Aren’t you a founding member?” He was feeling several ounces lighter, his pulse too fast. “Don’t think this pleases me any more than it does you. But there it is.”

Her stunning violet eyes were inquisitive, merciless as they scoured his face. “You’ve really knotted your noodle this time, Hartley.” She shook her head and disturbed those dark curls until a few dripped lazily to her shoulders.

“Knotted my
what
?”

She reached up and tapped his forehead with her knuckles.

“I thought you were referring to something lower down, Vyne.”

“Don’t be crude.”

“Listen, Vyne, I need a wife. If I don’t find my own very soon, my grandmother will continue to present me with well-bred, timid young ladies who haven’t an ounce of steel in their backbone, until I grow so tired of it that I rebel and marry a large-footed, loud-voiced, matronly woman who will make me drink sweet sherry and hunt foxes remorselessly with her overbearing father.” He placed a finger under her chin and lifted it. “And you’re a woman of twenty-seven, with a reputation for being difficult, too many engagements already broken, who knows how many scandalous affairs…and custard on her behind.”

She knocked his hand away with her closed fan. “Thank you for reminding me.” Any moment now she’d run off again as if she was a dainty, ladylike maiden. Which he knew to be untrue. She turned her face away. “What do you think you’re doing, Hartley?”

“Making you an offer. Can’t have you picking a husband just because he is the first man to walk through the arch in a hedge.”

Her restive gaze darted about the room. “That kiss was a mistake.”

“Which one? Two minutes ago or six months ago?”

“The one in the library just now,” she replied, terse. “There was no other. I can’t imagine what you think—I told you I wasn’t in Brighton. That kiss in the library was a mistake.”

“You make a lot of mistakes.”

“Yes.”

So
have I
,
he thought. “Too late for regret now. All we can do is make up for lost time.” She tried to get by him again, but he held her arms firmly. “I’m making you a very good offer, Vyne. It may well be your last.” He studied her eyelashes and the skilled downward sway as carefully evasive as the wielding of a lady’s fan to hide her expression. “Think of the money and gifts I could give you if you marry me. How is Lark Hollow, by the way? I hear it’s falling down around the admiral’s ears.”

“You’re suggesting I marry you for your money?”

“Why not? Any woman who marries me will do so for that reason. I’m not foolish enough to expect anything more, Vyne. You’re perfect, of course, because we have no illusions about each other. We neither of us expect anything but the worst. We can’t possibly be disappointed.”

“Marriage to you sounds so appetizing, Hartley. I wonder how I can resist.”

“You’ll be a rich woman married to me. What else matters?”

Her eyes were puzzled, the light dimmed. “Do you think me that mercenary?”

“You’re a woman, aren’t you? And a Vyne. This will purely be a marriage of convenience. For us both.”

“If you can be content with a marriage of convenience, any of these other women will do.”

‘“No. They’ll have expectations, romantic ideals. You, at least, haven’t any of those.” He kept his face solemn. “They don’t know me as you do. I don’t want to be blamed for breaking anyone’s delicate heart, but I know there’s no danger of that with you. I can’t possibly sink any lower in your estimation. Who knows—I might even rise up.” She said nothing to that, but fidgeted with her glove. “And I know you’re desperate, don’t I?” he added dryly.

Her eyes narrowed, and she drew a quick breath.

Was she considering? Hard to tell when her expression was that calm. The woman was probably a damn good card player.

Finally she spoke again. “And what requirements can
you
possibly expect to find fulfilled by me as a wife, Hartley? Escape from your most avid pursuers? Vengeance on your grandmother?”

“Exactly. What else would I want you for?”

She slipped away around the statue. “Good-bye, Hartley. Good luck in your search for a
convenient
bride. I pity the girl in advance, but I am not yet that destitute.”

Before she disappeared completely, he recaptured her still-bare hand and lifted it to his mouth. “Think about my proposition, Vyne. I know your stepfather is in danger of losing his house to debt. I also know that your family is hounding you to marry. You told me that in Brighton.”

“For pity’s sake! That wasn’t me! I wasn’t in—”

He grazed his teeth over the tips of her fingers, reacquainting his taste buds with her sweet skin. The heaviness of desire pooled in the most sensitive parts of his body and then overflowed, raw masculinity released as if it was something she knocked over and spilled inside him.

“Stop that!” She belatedly retrieved her fingers from his lips and pulled on her wine-stained glove. “To marry a man I can’t abide just because my family needs money? It would be wicked to marry purely for those reasons.”

He was amused. “Beggars can’t be choosers. And since when have you balked at wicked, Vyne?”

“James Hartley, I would rather live happily and free with meager resources than unhappily and fettered with unlimited riches.”

“Oh, spare me, woman! You’d sooner be reduced to rags and never buy another mauve silk ribbon, just because you might have to marry to afford it?” He knew about her fondness for purple in all its shades.

“I’d better go,” she muttered. “Mustn’t be observed lurking in a dark corner with you. I think we’ve caused enough scandal for one night already.”

“Will the count come out of hiding and challenge me to a duel when he hears of our engagement?”

She shot him a sultry-eyed glance. Light from a nearby wall sconce caught playfully under her lashes. “Hartley, you can stop this tomfoolery. There is no engagement. You know that.”

He blinked slowly. “Know what?” Suddenly enthralled by the wall paneling, he studied it closely as he listened to her impatient sighs.

“There. Is. No. Engagement.”

He tapped the wall with his knuckles. “I wonder if Lady Clegg-Foster has a problem with woodworm. I understand it’s quite prevalent in these older houses.”

Ellie folded her arms—a typically unladylike, stubborn gesture. “I expect to see the count tomorrow, and then I will ask him to return your diamonds. I believe you’ve learned your lesson and will guard your valuables with greater care in the future.”

“Oh? The two of you were teaching me a lesson? There I was thinking him just a common thief, seducer of women who should know better, and you simply a rotten little troublemaker.”

With one final exasperated gasp, she scurried off, tripping over her hem again as if she hadn’t learned how to use those long legs properly yet. Like a young doe stumbling about.

James carefully felt his bruised eye with the fingers of one hand. What did one do about a woman like Ellie Vyne? Marry her, of course, and save the rest of the male species from her unique brand of trouble. All part of his reform effort. He was becoming quite the philanthropist.

Ellie had no intention of waiting until the next day for a visit from James Hartley. A woman simply couldn’t take that rake seriously. Therefore, her first order of business the following morning was to return the diamond necklace with a messenger and a hasty note. That should absolve the man of any further need to flirt with her in public. Let him play those games with other women. There were surely plenty standing in readiness to oblige.

She paused with her pen in the inkwell, remembering his teasing.

You’re a woman of twenty-seven, with a reputation for being difficult, too many engagements already broken, and who knows how many scandalous affairs.

Of course, his own affairs were not mentioned. The man needed a severe set down. Everything in life came too easily for him. Except love, because he chose entirely the wrong women. Now he thought he could bypass love completely and find a wife desperate enough to put up with his sins, just because he rescued her from spinsterhood.

She stopped again, tapping her quill in the inkwell.

It would serve the fool right if she did accept his proposal and held him to it. Then what would he do? He’d done it to tease her, of course. He must have known her answer in advance. Had it been anything other than what it was, it would have wiped the charming smile from his ridiculously handsome face.

With one glance over her shoulder to be sure she was alone, she slid open the top drawer of the bureau. There, nestled in a silk scarf, sat the five plump, gleaming diamonds that were causing James Hartley—and her—so much trouble. If only she’d never accepted them from Lady Southwold’s hands. But how could she know the trouble they’d lead her into?

He’d very probably forgotten all about the woman he encountered in Brighton until last night, when she made the dreadful error of letting him kiss her. Truth be told, she had been curious to know if it would feel as wonderful as it did the first time.

Now she knew.

Ellie caught her reflection in the small mirror.

Women
have
a
limited
number
of
years
before
they
lose
their
bloom. Not saying you ever had any. On a bad day, when in one of your abysmal sulks, you look like the very devil.

Perhaps she ought to wear a little of Pear’s Bloom of Roses to color her cheeks, or use lampblack and burnt cork to darken her brows. Her sisters had recommended it, but she’d only laughed at the idea of painting her face. It seemed foolish, for the false color had to come off sometime. Then it must be a dreadful shock for the poor fellow drawn in by the deception. Well, she supposed some men deserved to be shocked.

Abruptly she stuck out her tongue at the mirror and returned to her letter. Only to be distracted again, almost immediately, by the naughty wink of light bouncing off the cut facets of those diamonds in the open drawer. She simply could not concentrate today.

Last night he’d danced with her for the very first time. It had rather turned things upside down for Ellie, got her in a muddle, made her forget all the things she’d promised herself never to do—never to let herself feel. Last night she’d acted like the very sort of woman she’d always observed with scorn.

She set down her quill and examined the diamond necklace. Each diamond was attached by little clips, allowing any number to be removed as the wearer desired. Trust the gaudy Ophelia Southwold to wear all five at once, when one made far greater impact. One diamond alone was eloquence itself and often the only jewel a woman required to make her point. She could, of course, take the necklace to a pawnbroker as originally planned. Then her stepfather’s leaking roof could be fixed. But it didn’t seem right now she knew the necklace belonged to James, and he’d offered her another way to help the admiral out of debt.

Ellie had always assumed she would grow old and poor with as little elegance as she’d been young and poor. She pictured herself wearing the cap of a spinster and lurking in dimly lit corners at parties—to which she was invited by her sisters only out of a sense of duty. There she’d sip too much wine, tell ribald tales of scant truth, and eye up the footmen. She planned on being a very difficult old lady who need not hold her tongue or her true thoughts, because everyone assumed she was losing her faculties and nobody dare tell her.

Should she now throw aside her plans and resort to practical, mercenary measures?

The last time Ellie conferred with her father’s solicitor, he’d suggested she try persuading the admiral to sell his house and move to smaller, cheaper accommodations. All Ellie could do was laugh at the idea. Her stepfather firmly refused to be “exiled” from Lark Hollow, the crumbling country manor house he’d purchased at the height of his once-lucrative Naval career. He’d fallen in love with its picturesque beauty at first viewing, and the seller’s agent had managed, with very little cunning, to hide all its faults. Admiral Vyne made his offer at once, consulting with no one else—not even his young wife—convinced another buyer might come along and steal the house away from him. It was the first of many impulsive financial choices.

Lark Hollow was a beautiful wreck of a house. A flourishing tangle of ivy and wisteria clawed up the walls, and when the sun dropped behind the crooked chimneys, the house was gilded as if by angel’s paintbrushes. Anyone approaching along the gravel drive sighed in awe. That was enough for her stepfather. What did he care for practical matters such as how much it cost to maintain that splendid prospect?

Since retiring from the Navy, and after a string of unwise investments, Admiral Vyne continued his discovery of expensive tastes on an insufficient budget. Whenever Ellie tried to sit him down and discuss the state of the family finances, he feigned one of his sudden and dramatic illnesses, all the result, so he claimed, of a hard life at sea and never quite getting his “land legs” back. He assured Ellie that women knew nothing about money or decision making. She was supposed to look pretty, shut her mouth, and marry well. That was all he asked of her.

“And even at that,” he’d reminded her once, “you failed, Mariella.”

She could stop funding his excesses, but with her mother gone and her half sisters too preoccupied with themselves, someone had to look after the admiral. She’d promised her mother to always take care of the man who had saved both their lives—hers before she was even born. He was very old now, almost eighty. It was far too late to expect him to change.

Now, thanks to Hartley’s proposition, she had the opportunity to fulfill that promise to her mother without having to disguise herself as the count any longer.

James Hartley needed a wife to save himself from the pushiness of Society matrons with marriageable daughters. Ellie Vyne needed freedom from her family’s expectations and the financial burdens she’d taken upon herself. As he’d said, beggars couldn’t be choosers.

Better
the
devil
we
know.

There was one thing James could give her. One thing she’d already acknowledged to be impossible without a husband. Thus, in an impulsive moment of madness, she put her pen to paper and wrote a very different note to the one she’d intended when she first sat down.

***

James critically perused his reflection in the long mirror. “That damned tailor will have to go. Look at this!” He raised his arms straight out in front, showing how the shirt pulled, stretching the stitches at his shoulders.

“I am sorry, sir.” The valet cast a timid eye over his master’s breeches, which were also snug.

Seeing his expression, James exclaimed, “Quite, Grieves. I should like to be left with a little dignity at the end of the day.” He took the new coat from the valet’s arms and tried to shrug his way into it, pausing as he felt the warning tightness and heard stitches break. He turned, still hunched, arms curved. Grieves hastened to his aid.

“Let me help you out, sir.”

“Bring me my gun, Grieves, and I’ll shoot the fellow.”

“It just requires a few adjustments, to be sure.”

“My gun, Grieves!”

With an almighty heave, James extracted his wide shoulders from the coat, and Grieves reached up to smooth down his shirtsleeves. “I shall speak to the tailor, sir.”

“Quicker to shoot him.”

“Yet not quite so practical. He is, after all, the very best tailor in London, so they say.”

“Humph.” Turning this way and that, James examined his reflection. “I’ve never seen such shoddy workmanship. The fellow’s eyesight must be fading if he cannot get a simple measurement correct.”

Grieves politely suggested his master might have gained an inch or two about the waist and chest since his measurements were last taken.

James pulled the new shirt off and flung a scowl over his shoulder. “It is evident, Grieves, that you are in league with this new tailor. I daresay he slipped you a few coins to recommend his services to me. You always were a conniving fellow.”

“Indeed not, sir!”

“In any case, it’s all muscle,” James added, one hand laid to his stomach, fingers splayed to feel the ridges and reassure himself. “Thanks to the boxing club. Solid as a rock.”

“A mountain of manliness, if I might be so bold, sir.”

“If bold also means facetious, no you may not.” He knew Grieves thought the boxing club was another example of James desperately clinging onto his youth, but it was, in fact, all part of his efforts for self-improvement. It gave him an outlet for his anger and frustrations, kept him physically fit and his mind focused.

The offending shirt back in its box, Grieves looked over at the silver tray loaded with the morning’s post. “I see there are several invitations today, sir. Would you like me to…?”

Naked but for the tight breeches, James stormed over to the tray, and within a few seconds, his firm, quick fingers sorted through the pile of cards, consigning each one to his fire after a very brief glance.

With every passing day as the Season approached, the horrors of London Society mounted. Members of the
ton
returned to Town in drips and dregs, opening up their houses, preparing to see and be seen. In the New Year, a parade of wide-eyed debutantes—mamas in tow—would descend on London like locusts to devour a crop of wheat. Before he knew it, he could be accused of ruining someone’s reputation again.

One invitation, amid the drift of gilt-edged cards, caught his eye, and he paused to scratch his disheveled hair. “Archie Playter getting married
again
? Good Lord, I thought he was dead. The last time I saw him at the club, he certainly appeared to be stuffed and mounted.”

The valet shook his head somberly. “It is indeed a curious match, sir. His valet informs me that the woman is a trifle shrill and has a curious taste in gowns. She is from Essex.”

“That explains it then.”

“Lord Playter has been unlucky with ladies,” Grieves observed somberly. “One cannot help feeling a trifle sorry for him, sir.”

“Sorry? For that arrogant, pompous fool? Archibald Playter thinks he’s always in the right.” He pretended not to notice the ironic smile briefly passing over Grieves’s lips. “The man is riffraff, Grieves, without a doubt. He deserves what he gets.” Even as he spoke, he knew this was something his grandmother would say. Some habits were harder to break, and she’d been a stern influence over much of his life, rubbing off on him in more ways than he cared to count.

“But he could be in love this time, sir. They do say that love changes everything.”

James was still sorting through the post and managed only a very distant grunt.

“I am sorry, sir. Forgive me.”

“What for, Grieves?”

“I mentioned
that
word again, sir. The one you did not want to hear ever again.” The valet paused. “
Love
, sir.”

James tossed the empty silver tray onto a nearby chair. Today that word barely bothered him at all. Strange. He strode to his window and looked out at the walled garden and its solitary pear tree, the branches bare now, waiting for an ermine cloak of snow.

Love. He’d let that word make a fool of him in the past. He’d believed in it because of Sophia Valentine. And look where that got him. It made him a laughingstock for months.

He finally became aware of Grieves holding out an older shirt, like a peace offering. As James tugged it over his head and shoulders, he sought some conversation to keep his mind on practical matters, to stop it spinning about and bumping into things. It wasn’t good for his Hartley pride to be so excitable. His grandmother would advise an ice bath and a poultice, but he had no time for either this morning. He hadn’t even taken a moment to shave, too anxious to get to Willard Street and collect his bride before she had a chance to run off again.

Glancing down at his tight breeches again, he exclaimed, “What happened to the previous tailor? He managed to make my clothes fit for the last twenty years at least.”

“Mr. Chadworth has left us, sir,” Grieves declared sorrowfully. “I did apprise you of it when it happened.”

“Left us? How can this be permitted?”

“I doubt it was intentional, sir. The gentleman is dead.”

“Dead? How damned thoughtless of the fellow.”

“An attack of the heart, I believe. He was very elderly.”

James stormed about the room, shaking his head at the sheer inconvenience. “Now that I think of it, he was a dreadful fellow, with breath that could strip fur from a badger. I daresay we’re better off without him. But this new tailor? Are you certain he can fill Chadworth’s shoes?”

“I am assured he is the very best. He is newly arrived from France, and he—” Grieves clammed up, grabbed a waistcoat from the edge of the bed, and slid it over his master’s arms.

The slip, however, had not gone unnoticed. James exploded, “A
Frenchman
, of all things!”

“I am sorry, sir, but he—”

“Grieves, have you forgotten that scoundrel Napoleon?”