Untamed (18 page)

Teeth gritted, she leaned in and whispered, “I hate you.”

Taking hard hold of her elbow, he steered them both toward the altar rail. “Dearest Kate, I wouldna have it any other way.”

o you, Katherine Elizabeth Lindsey, take this man, Patrick Donald O’Rourke, to be your lawfully wedded husband, to love, honor, and obey him …”

Standing at the altar in the nondescript little church, Kate was hard-pressed to believe this was her wedding day. It seemed more a nightmare than a celebration, or, barring a nightmare, certainly a farce. Standing beside her, Rourke shifted feet, setting bells tinkling. Kate suspected he did so on purpose to distract her. She repeated her vows through gritted back teeth, her jaw screwed so tight it stood in peril of popping. Casting him a sideways look, she didn’t miss the wicked glint in his eye when she stumbled over the dreaded
O
word.

“I now pronounce you man and wife.” Looking relieved, the rector closed his Bible with a thump. His pale gaze lifted to Rourke. “You may kiss the bride.”

Aware of eyes watching them from the pews, Kate tensed when Rourke turned to her to claim his kiss. She meant to give him only a quick buss and step back, but he captured her face between his callused palms and kissed her hard. The bruising assault was as unlike the previous kiss in Hyde Park as an embrace could be, and yet Kate felt herself swept away by it, her body melting against him and her mouth opening to receive his thrusting tongue. He dragged the tip along the roof of her mouth, and liquid heat splashed her inner thighs, her nipples swelling inside her gown’s tight-fitting bodice.

Clapping broke the spell. He released her, and Kate took a shaky step back. She opened her eyes to his grinning face. “There’s nay need to be bashful, sweeting. We’re wed now in the eyes of God and man.”

Her palms itched to slap away that smug smile and replace it with her handprint, but they were in a church, after all. Mindful of her surroundings, she let him lead her down the few steps to where their small party spilled out into the aisle. A makeshift receiving line formed, and subdued congratulations made the rounds.

Shaking Hadrian’s hand, Rourke announced, “We must have a photograph to remember this happy day.”

More than content to forget, Kate shook her head. “I won’t stand for a photograph with you wearing that ridiculous costume.”

He backed up to the front pew. “Is that your final answer?”

Spoiling for a fight after that morning’s ill treatment, she tossed back her head. “Yes, it is.”

“Will you sit for one instead?”

Kate opened her mouth to answer in the negative, but before she could get out so much as a syllable, her husband’s arm wrapped about her waist like a whipcord, pulling her down. They fell back against the bench, Rourke buffering the impact and Kate landing hard atop him. Slung across his hard-muscled thighs, the edge of his forearm circling her waist, Kate had never before felt so humiliated, so powerless to direct her fate. Skirts bunched, feet dangling, and hat sliding forward over one eye, she could only imagine how ridiculous, how comical, she must appear.

“Let me up, you great ox. I won’t be … photographed in … disarray.” She tried pulling herself upright, but his arm bracing her waist held her fast.

He pulled her closer, stealing her breath. “You canna deny me this memento of our nuptials, my sweet.”

“I can and I will.”

“Nay, I’ll be wanting this image of my angel on our special day. I insist.”

“And I insist you shall not.”

“Mind, mere minutes ago you swore to obey me in all things.” His voice was a warm hiss in her ear.

Kate hissed back, “Like rules, there are some vows made to be broken.”

“Not that one.” His head swiveled to the photographer. “Take the bloody photograph, Harry. We’ll want a memento of this sacred moment to see us through the fifty-odd years of bliss ahead.”

Fifty-odd years; it might as well be a prison sentence. Feeling frantic, Kate shouted out, “Mr. St. Claire, don’t you dare so much as lay a finger on that striking cord!”

Clearly torn, Hadrian hesitated. He looked from the groom to the bride and then over to his wife. “Callie?”

She lifted her shoulders and shrugged. “I’d say you’re damned either way, darling.”

“That was my assessment, as well.”

Hadrian ducked behind the camera. His silver blond head disappeared beneath the black cloth. A moment later, the flash flared. Black spots skittered before Kate’s eyes.

Lifting the cloth, the photographer looked out, “That one might come out a bit blurred because of all the, uh … kicking. Shall I take another?”

“Aye!”

“No!” Kate managed to work one arm free. Using her elbow, she dealt her new husband a sharp backward jab.

Behind her, he stifled a groan. “My blushing bride is only shy of having her picture taken.”

“Don’t be absurd. I have sat for Mr. St. Claire any number of times.” She stopped herself, but not soon enough.

Her husband’s chuckle tickling her ear confirmed she’d made his point for him. “And so you shall again, my sweet.”

Kate stilled. Submitting to having a second picture taken in that ridiculous pose was a serious blow to her badly wounded pride. She hoped that jab had hurt him, a little at least. Better yet, she hoped it left a large and painful bruise. She expected she’d find out later that night unless he slept in a nightshirt, which she doubted. In a matter of hours, she would see his naked chest along with all the naked rest of him. The prospect raised a powerful, primal ache.

Dear God, I’m no better than a harlot.

It had taken this moment, this definitive epiphany, for Kate to learn something new about herself, something dark and shameful, and until now, quite secret, even to her. Where her new husband was concerned, she was a wanton. What other explanation was there for wanting to lie with a man who treated her so ill?

Matters worsened as the morning wore on. They’d scarcely crossed the threshold of the town house where the wedding breakfast was to be served when Rourke announced they must leave after the first toast was drunk. “Most patient, virtuous, and sweet wife, it is time for us to away.”

“Don’t be absurd,” Kate snapped. “It’s not as though Scotland is going anywhere, though one can always hope. For the present, I mean to enjoy this lovely breakfast along with our guests, if for no other reason than it cost a fair piece.”

She could calculate the cost of her bridal breakfast down to a single toast point topped with crab if only because, like everything else, she’d directed the menu. She congratulated herself she’d struck a near-perfect balance between keeping up appearances and not sending them all to the poorhouse. Bankrupting them was her father’s bailiwick, not hers.

Strolling into the dining room where the food was laid out, Kate scarcely spared him a backward glance. The array of lobster patties, pastries, and strawberries with clotted cream made her mouth water and her stomach rumble. For the past week, she’d subsisted mainly on worry, weak tea, and wafers. Now that the deed was done and her doom sealed, she discovered she was famished.

Every dish looked and smelled enormously appealing—all save for the bridal cake. Set on a cloth-covered table to the side, its trio of tiers frosted with almond cream and festooned with candied fruit in the shape of orange blossoms, it had been delivered the night before. The topmost tier served as the stage for two figurines, a miniature bride and groom. The bride’s painted porcelain face looked smiling and content, the groom’s equally blissful.

“There is a dining car on the train.” Rourke’s voice sounded beside her.

Picking up a plate from the stack, she waved him away. “Go if you must. I will take a later train and meet you.”

To drive home her point, she used a pair of silver serving tongs to lift a lemon-curd tart from the pastry platter onto her plate.

“You would have us spend our wedding night apart?” She fancied he sounded a trifle hurt.

Kate was careful not to let her indecision show. As much as she dreaded being alone with her new husband “in that way,” the prospect of going to her bridal bed alone brought a sharp stab of disappointment.

She cloaked the latter in a devil-may-care shrug. “If we must, then so be it. As you said, we likely have fifty-odd years ahead.”

“Bonny Kate, it is I who say whether or not we must spend this night apart, and I say we must not. Faith, I’d no sleep a wink without my turtledove tucked ’neath my wing.” He swooped in, his arms going about her back and waist.

“Leave off.” The plate slid from her fingers and bounced onto the carpeted floor. She tried shoving him away, but to no avail. He remained as immovable as a boulder. “We have spent every night of our lives apart ere now. Surely one more will do us no harm. And I am most certainly not your turtledove. Why on earth are you speaking in this strange, stilted fashion?”

He hauled her over his shoulder. “Come, my love, we must away. Our love nest awaits us, and I mean to sleep beneath my own roof this night.”

Kate’s head hung like an upside-down anchor, her bum pointed due north, and her legs dangled weightless, one satin slipper falling off and striking the floor. She kicked out at his legs and pounded her fists upon his back, all to no avail.

He bore them steadily toward the door, family and guests clearing an aisle to the exit. On the way there, he paused to shake hands or receive a wink or a pat on the shoulder from one of the males in attendance.

“Mr. St. Claire, make him set me down.” Mouth twitching, Hadrian looked away.

Her gaze alighted on his suffragette wife. At last an ally, perhaps even a champion. “Callie, help me. Surely you of all people cannot countenance what amounts to an abduction.”

“You might be surprised,” Rourke murmured. Apart from being slung over his shoulder like a sack of meal, she was doing her best to ignore him.

Callie shook her dark head. “Nor can I halt it. You are married now, and the current laws give Rourke dominion over you. We are petitioning Parliament to have the unjust laws governing marriage altered for that very reason.”

“But I haven’t time for petitioning Parliament. I need help—
now!”

Callie shifted her shoulders to indicate her helplessness. “For the present, there is not much that may be done.”

Hanging upside down as she was, Kate couldn’t be sure but she thought she glimpsed a small
Mona Lisa-
like smile touching the brunette’s mouth. “And you call yourself a feminist.”

In her present predicament, maintaining one’s dignity was a losing battle. She twisted her head to look back at Rourke. “Set me down, you bloody ox. Have you taken leave of your senses?”

He gave her buttocks a less than gentle squeeze. “Mayhap I have, milady, but as I said before, we are all fools in love.”

They boarded a northbound train to Scotland from the station at King’s Cross. On the way to the station, Rourke stopped off at his Hanover Square house and changed out of his wedding attire and into normal clothes. He hadn’t minded the bells overmuch, but those pointed slippers had begun to pinch.

Kate had waited in the carriage. She hadn’t spoken a word to him since he’d carried her out of her father’s house and deposited her on the red leather carriage seat. Fortunately her little maid had raced after them with her carpetbag of immediate essentials, and Ralph, with Harry’s help, had loaded her trunk into the carriage boot.

Standing on the platform, he’d found himself wishing they were lovers headed for a honeymoon in truth. By way of breaking the ice, he’d offered up some of the history of the station.

“Legend has it King’s Cross is built on the site of Boudica’s final battle, or else her body is buried beneath the platforms. There are passages under the station her ghost is said to haunt.”

“Fascinating.” She turned her back on him.

And so began their first day as husband and wife.