by Mira Stables
She remembered very well—and how he had teased her about Bluebeard’s castle and told her that she might find his father’s house old fashioned. But she had thought the warnings stemmed from lack of fortune—as he had meant her to think, she decided, her indignation flaring anew.
“Your mother’s opposition gave me just the opportunity that I needed,” he continued coolly, “since it persuaded you to consent to an immediate marriage. These past weeks I had lived in daily dread of recognition, scarcely daring to show my face in public, skulking in solitary misery at the Hall while you were being assiduously courted by most of the eligible gentlemen in Bath. When your aunt discovered the truth—she recognized my mother’s emeralds—I knew I must move fast. I am sure she would not knowingly have betrayed me, but she might let slip some word that would have led you to the truth. And I was afraid that if you discovered that I was, in fact, that pompous stuffy old despot whom you once described with such aversion, that you might well change your mind about marrying me. I was not prepared to risk it. Will you forgive me?”
She would always forgive him, and well she knew it. One glance—one touch—and the very bones within her seemed to melt, let alone any sense of resentment. But that was no reason why he should escape quite scot free.
“You claim that you told me no lies,” she said, striving to keep her voice coolly impersonal and failing lamentably, “yet it was you who told me that your name was Mr. Jocelyn.”
“I told you that my name was Jocelyn,” he corrected. “And so it is. The name that my mother preferred out of my exotic collection, the one my friends use. Incidentally your intelligent aunt took the trouble of verifying those names in the Peerage. When she found that the list tallied exactly, all her suspicions were confirmed. I don’t pretend that I didn’t mean to deceive you when I told you my name. But it was you who assumed that it was my surname and presented me to your aunt as Mr. Jocelyn.”
His air of smug rectitude was too much for her. “You know perfectly well that you meant me to assume just that. Or are you in the habit of inviting every strange female that you meet to address you by your given name?” she scolded. “No. You are not forgiven, My Lord Marquess. You neither deserve nor desire forgiveness, for you are wholly unrepentant. I would rather say that you are well served, for you will have a shrew of a wife who will never again believe a word that you say.”
He had come close to her now and took her hand. It would be useless and undignified to resist, so she allowed it to lie passive in his clasp. “Not even when I say that I love her with all my heart? And that I would rather endure her anger than live without her?” he said softly.
It was manifestly unfair. How could one resist that deep caressing voice? Or the invitation to share the jest of his masquerade that lit the blue eyes with tender amusement?
“I shall make a shockingly bad Marchioness,” she warned, in a final attempt at resistance.
“You can be the very worst Marchioness in the whole history of the Peerage, for all I care,” said Jocelyn, pulling her into his arms and tilting her face to his. “I am only concerned that you shall be the best wife. And that you cannot fail to be.”
The compliment pleased her and she softened a little, a smile beginning to dawn.
“Because I, personally, shall attend to your education,” he finished, with a calm arrogance belied by the adoration in his eyes. “You are not unintelligent, and if I devote all my energies to your education in wifehood, I do not at all despair of the outcome,” he assured her kindly.
Since he was holding her close prisoner the Marchioness had but one means of registering her opinion of this outrageous insolence. She put her tongue out at him.
“You did that once before,” he reminded her. “In the gallery at Beaufort Square. I wanted to kiss you then, but Aunt Thomasine was watching, and,” he added wickedly, “at that stage I had by no means made up my mind that you would do, so I dared not compromise myself too far. Now there is no one watching—and no escape for either of us.”
And Jocelyn, Marquess of Melborne, kissed his very willing wife.
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