Unbefitting a Lady (22 page)

‘Phaedra,’ he began, slowly, feeling his way towards the
conversation he wanted to have. He should have rehearsed this, practised this.
He was feeling decidedly unprepared now. ‘I’ve been thinking about what you said
earlier.’ She nodded, encouraging him but perplexed. She’d probably said a
million things ‘earlier’ and was wondering which one he was referring to.

Enough with the small talk and careful preludes. Bram reached
inside his inner coat pocket and pulled out the small box. He flipped it open
with a thankfully steady thumb. He let the diamond band catch the moonlight for
a poignant moment. ‘I want a lifetime of Epsoms with you, Phaedra. I want you to
marry me, not for Giles, or to squelch rumours or for any other reason than that
I love you and probably have for some weeks now, although I was too obtuse to
realise it.’

His hand holding the box trembled a little when she said
nothing. She just stared. Bram rushed onwards. ‘I know I’m not a great
catch.’

‘Shh.’ Phaedra put a gloved finger to his lips. ‘You’re not a
great catch, you’re
my
catch.’ She pulled the glove
off with maddening slowness and took the ring from the box, sliding it onto her
finger. She held it up to the moonlight. ‘Yes. I say yes.’

‘Are you sure? I have a ridiculous father who’s all but
disowned me and that’s a mere technicality.’

‘I’m sure, Bram,’ Phaedra said quietly, pulling her glove on
over the ring. It would be their private secret tonight. ‘Everyone’s family is a
little nuts. My father lives in the past.’ She gave him an ornery grin that
warmed him to his toes. ‘And I’m thinking your parents will get along famously
with Aunt Wilhelmina.’

They laughed together in the warm darkness. ‘I’m not good odds,
Phaedra. I don’t know what kind of husband I’ll make.’

‘Most people don’t know. Having not been married before, I’m
not sure what kind of wife
I’ll
make. We’ll figure
it out, Bram. Besides, long shots are our specialty.’

He kissed her then, long and lingering, drinking in all her
confidence, all her spirit. She thought she needed him, but in truth, he knew
the reality: he needed her. She filled the empty places in him.

Chapter Twenty-Five

‘H
e was magnificent! The little chapel at
Castonbury was filled with wedding guests but Phaedra had eyes only for Bram
waiting for her at the end of the flower-bedecked aisle. He was dressed in a
dove-grey morning coat and trousers, his dark hair brushed to a raven-hued
sheen, but it hardly mattered what he wore. She would think he was magnificent
anyway.

‘Are you ready, Phae?’ Giles squeezed her arm, his eyes
mysteriously misty. ‘I had no idea I’d be giving away both my sisters within a
year.’ He kissed her cheek. ‘Father’s down front. I’m sorry, he’s too frail to
make the journey down the aisle.’

‘I’d rather have you, Giles,’ Phaedra said softly. ‘It will be
your turn next. It hardly seems fair you were the first engaged but the last to
marry.’

Giles chuckled. ‘Don’t worry about me. I’ll have my moment soon
enough. Today is for you. You look lovely. Mother would have been so proud.’

Phaedra nodded, too moved to speak. Despite Aunt Wilhelmina’s
cool greeting when they had returned, Aunt Willy, as Bram liked to call her in
private, had managed to unearth her mother’s wedding dress, a pale cream
confection of chiffon over satin. ‘It had never really fit Kate right’ was all
she’d said, and she’d been correct. The gown had fit Phaedra much better and
Phaedra was proud to wear it.

Reverend Seagrove gave Giles a little nod of his head and they
began the walk. The four weeks since Epsom had been heady. They’d journeyed home
to Castonbury, Warbourne in tow. Phaedra had written ahead to Giles with their
news so banns could be posted. Instead of detouring through London for a special
licence, Bram had insisted they marry after the traditional calling of the
banns. Phaedra had been touched by the gesture. Such tradition would go a long
way to remove any speculation of scandal.

Phaedra had been unsure of their reception but Giles had
welcomed her with open arms and he’d shaken Bram’s hand with sincere
congratulations. Aunt Wilhelmina had met them with a noncommittal ‘humph’ and
the begrudging concession that at least he was an earl’s son. But she’d seen to
the decorating of the chapel with spring flowers and to the arranging of the
wedding breakfast that would follow.

They arrived at the front without mishap. Giles relinquished
her to Bram and, at Reverend Seagrove’s instruction, Bram pushed back the thin
veil. The ceremony was a blur of words and responses. It was neither long nor
short. She lost all track of time. She would have stood there all day just to
look into Bram’s eyes.

It was her turn to slip the ring on Bram’s finger. ‘I think
you’re very brave to marry into the Montagues,’ she whispered, acutely aware
that Bram stood before her today alone. His family had not come. But in a few
minutes he’d have a new family.

Bram smiled. ‘No braver than you are to marry me.’

It was time to kiss the bride. Bram swept her into his arms and
kissed her hard on the mouth, hard enough to make Aunt Wilhelmina gasp
disapprovingly in the front row and her father to be heard to remark, ‘By Jove,
that’s the way to kiss a woman.’ Phaedra blushed. What possessed him to say such
a thing? Had he lost his mind? Oh, right, he had.

* * *

‘We’re married. For the rest of our lives.’ Bram
chuckled as they lay in the dark of their marriage suite.

‘For better or for worse,’ Phaedra teased, shifting in the
crook of his arm. The ‘breakfast’ had finally broken up by late afternoon and
the family had politely left them to themselves in the newly prepared wing she
and Bram would call home.

‘I have a gift for you, Phaedra.’ Bram stretched for something
on the side table. ‘I wanted to give it to you this morning but Aunt
Willy...’

‘Say no more.’ Phaedra sat up, shaking her hair over her
shoulders. Aunt Willy had been a termagant about the groom not seeing the bride
before the wedding.

‘Actually, I have two things. Open this first. It’s a letter
from my father. He sends his regrets.’

Phaedra opened the letter, written on heavy white paper. ‘I
thought you were supposed to send felicitations.’

‘No, regrets about not being able to attend, not the marriage,’
Bram corrected. ‘Apparently marriage has made me respectable.’

A bank draft fluttered out between the folds. Phaedra read the
amount with wide eyes. ‘Apparently so.’ She passed the bank draft to Bram but he
turned it away. ‘It’s yours. For the stud.’

Phaedra smiled. ‘Then it’s ours. The stud is
ours
. We’re married now, there is no more yours and
mine. You didn’t listen to Reverend Seagrove very well.’

‘I was a little distracted.’ He handed her a long slim box.
‘This is what I really wanted to give you.’

Phaedra protested. She didn’t need anything more than him. She
had all she needed to make her happy, but when she opened the box, her eyes
misted. Inside the box lay her mother’s pearls, the ones she’d sold for
Warbourne.

‘How?’ was the only word she could articulate.

Bram leaned over and kissed her tears. ‘Love always finds a
way, my dear.’ He kissed the column of her throat as he fastened the strand
around her neck. ‘You were wearing them the first day I saw you. I thought you
were magnificent, and I was right.’

* * * * *

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Read on to find out more about Bronwyn Scott and the
series…

Bronwyn Scott
is a communications instructor at Pierce College in the
United States, and is the proud mother of three wonderful children (one boy and
two girls). When she’s not teaching or writing she enjoys playing the piano,
travelling—especially to Florence, Italy—and studying history and foreign
languages.

Readers can stay in touch on Bronwyn’s website,
www.bronwynnscott.com
, or at her blog,
www.bronwynswriting.blogspot.com
—she loves to hear from
readers.

Previous novels from Bronwyn Scott:

PICKPOCKET COUNTESS
NOTORIOUS RAKE,
INNOCENT LADY
THE VISCOUNT CLAIMS HIS BRIDE
THE EARL’S FORBIDDEN
WARD
UNTAMED ROGUE, SCANDALOUS MISTRESS
A THOROUGHLY COMPROMISED
LADY
SECRET LIFE OF A SCANDALOUS DEBUTANTE
UNBEFITTING A
LADY†
HOW TO DISGRACE A LADY*

*
Rakes Beyond
Redemption
trilogy
†
Castonbury Park
Regency mini-series

And in Harlequin® Historical
Undone!
eBooks:

LIBERTINE LORD, PICKPOCKET MISS
ICKED EARL,
WANTON WIDOW
ARABIAN NIGHTS WITH A RAKE
AN ILLICIT INDISCRETION

And in Harlequin® Historical eBooks:

PRINCE CHARMING IN DISGUISE (part of
Royal Weddings Through the Ages
)

Author Q&A

Apart from your own, which other heroine
did you empathise with the most? And which hero did you find the most
intriguing?

I really liked Claire in Ann Lethbridge’s story, because it’s
so hard for her to ‘go home again’ and she knows she made a terrible mistake.
Now all she can do is try to pick up the pieces and put her life back together.

As for heroes—all the Rothermere boys are pretty hot guys.
It’s hard to decide, but I’d have to go with Giles simply because we get to
spend the whole series with him, and as writers we got to know him very well. I
think readers will get to know him too, and look forward to his appearances in
the books. We all kept sending Carole e-mails asking if Giles could come out to
play—I am sure the weirdest e-mail she got was mine. Since we were all writing
our stories at the same time, I wasn’t sure how intimate Giles was going to be
with Lily, since his wedding was going to have a long traditional engagement
before it and was to be put off until the following year, so I wrote:
Dear Carole, Is Giles having sex with Lily? How much sex? Is
he going to be celibate the whole year or what?
But I made it up to
Giles by getting him a horse the next day. That e-mail went something like:
Dear Carole, I got Giles a big black horse today. What
does Giles want to name it?
To which Carole replied:
Name it Genghis and say he rescued it in the war.

What is your heroine’s favourite childhood
memory of Castonbury Park?

She has two. The first is riding ponies and horses across the
Castonbury lands with her brother Edward, the one who was killed at Waterloo.
They were the two youngest by several years, so they hung out together. Edward
was slightly older than Phaedra, and he encouraged her to do all sorts of wild
things. The wildness stuck. Even after Edward is killed, Phaedra continues to
pursue their mutual dream of raising race horses and winning the Derby—something
they fantasised about in their childhood. Her second favourite memory is from
the summers when all the Montague kids would swim or row out to the little
island on the lake—this little island is also the scene of her first big
intimate encounter with sexy Bram Basingstoke.

Which Montague do you think Mrs Stratton
the housekeeper let get away with the most?

Edward. He was the youngest male and he and Phaedra looked
more like their mother than the other Montague children. Edward is described at
a couple of different points as having ‘an angel’s good looks but the wild
waywardness of a devil’. He’d have charmed his way out of everything.

Which stately home inspired Castonbury
Park and why?

Kedleston. It’s been featured in films like
The Duchess.
The house is located up in Derbyshire, as
well, which helped us get a feel for what kind of natural features would be on
the land—rivers, lakes, that sort of thing—and what kind of flora and fauna and
weather conditions too. I was thrilled to find really good descriptions of the
Kedleston stables for Phaedra’s book, which helped immensely. We had fun posting
photos of the interior and exterior on our website to help each other with set
pieces for the stories.

Where did you get the inspiration for
Phaedra and Bram?

I wanted to do a horse story, but I didn’t want to do a
steeplechase for several reasons. 1) I’d done a steeplechase story in UNTAMED
ROGUE, SCANDALOUS MISTRESS, and steeplechasing wasn’t officially all that
popular in 1817. It didn’t gain momentum as an officially recognised format
until the 1830s, so it was also too early. 2) My husband had just got back from
touring the big Kentucky breeding farms and was going on about the huge stables.
3)My daughter Catie rides English hunt seat, and we’d just bought her first
jumper. 4) Flat-racing was/is such a big part of English tradition.

As for Phaedra, my Catie is a lot like her. She can talk to
horses, and we haven’t met a horse yet Catie can’t ride. As for Bram, it was
easy to decide on creating a groom for the continuity. We wanted to have some
upstairs downstairs style storylines between the family and the servants, and I
thought a groom was the perfect choice—lots of good reasons to be taking his
shirt off and for being outdoors. As for how Bram looks—can I just say I find
the Ralph Lauren Polo model highly inspirational?

What are you researching for your
forthcoming novel?

I am just finishing the final handful of chapters for the
last book in my autumn 2012 series
Rakes Beyond
Redemption,
and then I will kick off a duet about ladies behaving
badly—only they’re not ladies in the
ton
nish sense.
Readers will get to meet Mercedes, daughter of a billiards champion, who is also
an incredible billiards player in her own right, and the dashing half pay
officer Grier Barrington in a
Color of Money-
style
story. I’ve been spending time researching the state of billiards in 1835.
Readers will also get to meet Eloise, daughter of a yacht designer, and the sexy
rogue Dorian in a story based around the annual regatta—I’d like to call the
story SEX WITH PIRATES, but we’ll see (smiles). Then, after that, I have a big
surprise planned for MY next series. I can hardly wait. It’s already researched
and sitting on my shelf, waiting to go.

What would you most like to have been
doing in Regency times?

Dancing with handsome men! Shopping, buying horses and more
dancing with handsome men!