Unsuitable Bride For A Viscount (The Yelverton Marriages Book 2)

by Elizabeth Beacon

  ‘And I am going to marry you,’ he insisted as if primed for an argument and getting his best one in first.

  ‘No, you are not,’ she told him emphatically and backed away as if he had insulted her. ‘No, no, no, you are most definitely not going to do anything of the sort, Viscount Stratford,’ she added just in case he had not understood her the first time.

  ‘No wedding, no bedding,’ he drawled with knowledge of the fiery heat that was coursing through her like wildfire in his smile and probably in his eyes as well if only she could see them clearly enough in the rapidly falling dusk that made her worries about them being seen out here less relevant.

  Drat the man, but he knew perfectly well what he had done to her and he probably only kissed her in the first place to remind her how he could set her senses alight with one intent look and as for an actual kiss... Well, his kisses ought to be classified as dangerous weapons. ‘I am never going to marry you, my lord,’ she told him with an emphatic shake of the head that would probably do terrible damage to the topknot of honey curls softened by a few cunningly escaped ringlets Bet had wound it into to go with the finery of Marianne’s best velvet gown. ‘You are who you are and I am who I am and I did not become pregnant during five years of marriage, so of course it would be too much of a risk to take with your vast possessions and title if you were to marry me.’

  ‘You are a gentleman’s daughter and the widow of a hero who died to preserve the liberty of his country, but I am only a man who had a title, riches and possessions landed on him at seventeen. I did nothing to deserve or win it all, it merely dropped into my lap. Juno running away made me look hard at what matters in life and she is one who does, but I soon realised you do even more, Marianne. Once I crashed at your feet like a fool and learned to see people as they really are I woke up to all the possibilities of a love match with you and felt like a complete idiot for ever thinking a marriage of convenience with the new Mrs Yelverton would be enough for either her or me. You have taught me how to love and I am daring to hope I can teach you to love me back if I keep on telling you how dearly you matter to me and how mistaken you would be to turn your back on us simply for the sake of a boy we might or might not give birth to between us and a title I do not care about.’

  ‘I doubt you were the shallow fool you painted yourself even before Juno ran away,’ she protested with the glow of all that love in his words and the light in his dear eyes she could still see in the twilight and never mind colours or daylight. She wanted to stare back and give in and accept everything they could be to one another, if only she dared believe she could be this lucky twice in one lifetime and he really would not long for a son. ‘And I do wish you would stop chastising yourself for past sins only you seem to worry about now,’ she added, simply to stop herself eagerly saying yes to him and all that lovely promise for the future.

  ‘Finished?’ he asked and even in the gloom she could see he had raised his eyebrows at her, as if he had worked that out for himself.

  ‘No, it is a ridiculous idea and we should both forget you ever mentioned it.’

  ‘I certainly will not.’

  ‘Then you should. I can forget you said it so we can be easy again together over tonight and you will thank me for it when you come to your senses.’

  ‘I am not a boy, Marianne,’ he told her with a fearsome frown and he clasped his hands together as if he was afraid he might have to shake her for pretending he was anything less than a set and determined adult if he did not. He certainly looked set and determined on getting his own way.

  ‘I can tell,’ she admitted with a half-smile for his gruffness and the strength of the warmth and affection that bound them together as well as this constant sizzle of attraction she had cursed from the very beginning of their acquaintance. Even as she longed to be in his arms again and agreeing to anything he wanted them to be if only he would make love to her, she made herself curse it some more and told herself she could walk away from him even now.

  ‘Stop treating me as if I am an immature fool who does not know his own mind. I love you and I intend to marry you and nobody else.’

  ‘You love me?’ she asked and gaped up at him like a fool. Even as she gasped out that almost unthinkable question warmth ran through her like quicksilver and all the cold and lonely places Daniel left her when he died suddenly felt full of light and air again. He had said he cared about her and there was that stumble over the like word, but she had not dared to hope he actually loved her. She let the wonder of it lift her up and make her feel new again and met his gaze with all she felt for him in her own dazed eyes and never mind if they could see each other clearly or not in the ever-increasing darkness. She even stepped forward, ready to walk into his arms before she remembered why she could not and would not marry him. ‘But I am barren,’ she reminded them both bleakly as if he might not have taken all the implications of that sad fact in even now.

  The empty feel of that stark word reminded her how it felt not to be with child month after month, year after year. She had longed for Daniel’s child because she loved him so much it would have been wonderful to make a baby between them. He would have been a fine father as well, patient and full of fun, but stern when he had to be.

  And his children would be growing up without him even now, Marianne, her sensible inner self reminded her.

  They would have to live their whole lives with only vague memories of his strength and feeling secure and loved by their father and that would have been so very sad for them and for her as well. She still regretted the lack of a single one of them to say she and their father loved one another through thick and thin and that love would always live on in his children. With Alaric that lack would become monstrous because of all he had to pass on to a son and she could not endure even the thought of him coming to hate his childless marriage.

  ‘I really and truly do not care, Marianne,’ said Alaric Defford, Lord Stratford, with one of those mighty shrugs of his to say why on earth would he?

  ‘I do, though,’ she told him flatly and knew she was being unreasonable, but the memory of those miserable days when her courses returned relentlessly month after month was not easy to blot out of her mind and make her listen to reason.

  ‘Why?’

  ‘Because you have a title and great wealth and probably more than one fine estate to hand on to your eldest son,’ she fudged because she did not want him to see the pain her childlessness had caused her during her marriage to Daniel, just as she used to guard Daniel from it at the time.

  ‘Not good enough for me, Marianne. You must come up with a better reason to avoid me as a husband than that one. If I could be rid of my title, I would do it tomorrow. It bent me out of shape and made me look at life from the wrong side of the mirror and now it is standing between you and me. How could I even want a son of mine to be landed with something that could twist him into a man he should not be, Marianne? If there is no obscure Defford branch that fell away from the family tree many years ago to inherit my title and entailed land, then Juno’s children can petition for it if they choose to. Best to let the whole vainglory die with me, but if they want it they are welcome.’

  ‘You ought to be a father just for the joy of being one.’

  ‘There are plenty of children out there in need of one. I thought on my way here that first time, before I had even met you, there are so many runaways without a frantic uncle on their tails desperate to see them safe and happy. We can adopt a few of them in time and offer sanctuary to more, but for now I would be content for it to be you and me and Juno until we can relax into love and be ready for our children to find us.’

  ‘No. We are not going to be together, so how can they, my lord?’ she said, almost more cross with herself for persisting in her doubts than she was with him for being high-handed.

  ‘Now that is just plain selfish of you, Mrs Turner. Think of all the urchins who will never have yo
u for a mother and don’t you pity them for having just me instead? I will make a poor fist of things without you to put me right—just look at the mistakes I made with Juno.’

  ‘You really mean to do this, then? Are you sure it is not a scheme you thought up to make me feel better about marrying you since I probably cannot have children?’

  ‘Of course I do—did you ever know me to sit on my hands and only think about doing something that was crying out to be done?’

  ‘Well, no, but I have only known you for a while.’

  ‘It only took me a day and a half to wake up and see you were the only woman I have ever met I truly want to spend the rest of my life with.’

  ‘So you thought up your idea for adopting orphans on the way here and made up your mind you were going to marry me when you were lying in bed battered and bruised and out of your senses? It sounds like a fairy story to me.’

  ‘Yes. I wanted you from the moment I first set eyes on you, Marianne Turner, and at least landing on my head that day must have knocked some sense in because I know this is real and unique and true, even if you are being your usual stubborn and impatient self and are refusing to believe me.’

  ‘And given how impatient you are...’ She let her voice trail off suggestively, hoping it would suggest he got on with seducing her so she could find a way to persuade him being his mistress would be enough for her. Then maybe she could convince herself because hope was tugging away at her stubborn certainty she would not be enough for him as soon as the glow of loving passionately and even wildly wore off.

  ‘I have been learning patience from the first moment I set eyes on you, so that fish won’t bite,’ he warned her with too much knowledge of what she had been planning in his mocking smile. ‘I am a fully mature male, Mrs Turner, not a rampant boy to be led around by his cock.’

  ‘As if I would and I hope you will never say such things in front of Juno.’

  ‘Of course not and, before you ask, I will not be so forthright in front of the children either. I shall save that for you, my stubborn and unruly lady.’

  ‘I have not said I will marry you.’

  ‘Not yet.’

  ‘Not at all.’

  ‘Not yet,’ he insisted with such intent in his eyes she did not need to see the colour of them, just the glint of stubborn determination and rampant need in them even in the dark. The ‘yes’ he seemed to want so badly trembled on her lips.

  ‘Can you actually see any flowers in all this gloom, Mrs Turner?’ Miss Donne’s voice called out to remind her the rest of the world was still turning.

  ‘You can carry one of the vases as a punishment for distracting me when I ought to have been helping,’ Marianne murmured with a secret sigh of relief.

  ‘For you, my love, anything and please do not think you have put me off with your brusque orders and severe looks because I rather like them now I know how much spice and sensuality is hidden underneath them. This is only the beginning and I will convince you I will only ever marry you. Even if I have to camp out on Miss Donne’s doorstep and make you a scandal and a hissing in the town until you agree to marry me just to make me go away, I will do it.’

  He would as well, she decided with a smile for the picture he had painted her and the heady hope love might truly be enough for a viscount and a widow if they believed in it enough. ‘We shall see’ was all she said to let him know how tempted she was to simply give in and enjoy them for the rest of her life.

  * * *

  For the rest of the evening they both tried to behave like polite acquaintances and eat their dinner because Miss Donne and Bet had gone to so much trouble to welcome them home. She could not have said what they ate if the fate of nations depended on it, though.

  ‘Goodnight, sweet princess,’ Alaric whispered in her ear as Miss Donne ordered Marianne to show him out while she resolved some mythical crisis in the kitchen so they could whisper at her front door once again and what a matchmaker outwardly prim and proper Miss Donne really was.

  ‘Go away, you annoying viscount, you,’ she told him as the feel of his mouth so close to her ear sent shivers of sensuous anticipation through her and made her ravenous for more. He was going to kiss it, on Miss Donne’s doorstep with glimmers of light all around the square to make them visible to her neighbours. Ah, no, he was not going to kiss her. Disappointment ran a race with that fire inside her and won. ‘You ought to know better,’ she told them both. His low rumble of laughter sent even more shivers of frustration and need through her and she glared at him this time.

  ‘Ah, but I know best,’ he murmured and kissed her hand instead of her cheek as she had been thinking he might. Apparently hands were every bit as sensitive as the soft skin near her ear could be, if only he would linger there instead.

  ‘Someone will see us,’ she hissed and might have snatched her hand away if it was not so comfortable in his large one that her fingers seemed to have entwined with his without the rest of her giving permission.

  ‘They will have to find out I am in love with you sooner or later, so why not now?’ he said as if it was as simple as that and if only it was.

  ‘Because nothing can come of it.’

  ‘Do you call this nothing, Marianne?’ he asked, suddenly very serious indeed as their eyes met in all that faint borrowed light from other people’s lamps and lanterns. He held up their interlocked hands, brushed the index finger of his other hand over her overheated cheek that was still waiting for his kiss. His eyes held a challenge now as well as so much warmth that she could not even summon up a shiver for the whisper of winter to come behind the gentler autumn night.

  ‘No, I call it impossible,’ she said just as seriously and felt that chill after all.

  ‘Where there is enough love there is no such thing as impossible. You should know that better than anyone, Mrs Turner,’ he said with a hint of bitterness in his deep voice because she was giving him less than she had Daniel.

  ‘And my late husband would tell you I am the most stubborn female he ever came across if he was able to. If you think my Daniel had an easy time of it with me either before or after I was his wife, you had best think again, Lord Stratford.’

  ‘I envy him never knowing which way you might jump, not being able to expect anything but the unexpected from you, but most of all I envy him the faith and love you had in him when you set out to marry him and never mind any obstacles between you.’

  ‘And it took me six months to admit I could not live without him and not miss what we might have been every day for the rest of our lives. I did not know then what I know now or it might have been a lot longer.’

  ‘I will never expect you to forget him, Marianne,’ he said gently, as if the news of that six months had soothed something raw inside him and made him feel better about the effort it was costing him to persuade her in his turn. ‘I am jealous of him, I admit that, but I do not want to jostle him aside and demand all the love you have solely for me. You loved one another for five years, my darling. I honour him for the good life you two made together in circumstances that would have made most ladies run screaming for their mothers.’

  ‘At least I can safely promise I will not do that,’ she said and saw triumph glint back at her as she realised it had sounded like a promise for their future. ‘No, that was only a perhaps. Stop trying to rush me.’

  ‘As if I could when you must be the most stubborn and overprotective woman on earth,’ he said rather sulkily. That glimpse of the boy he once was being just plain difficult because he could not get his way made her love him more instead of less.

  She was in even more trouble now. So much of her longed to launch herself at him and revel in his lovemaking that a world of warmth and love and sensuality in his powerful arms felt tantalisingly close. Love meant putting your beloved’s happiness first and however much he wanted her now, would he still do so as the years went past and all h
is roles demanded children to carry them on? And he should have a wife the world respected as his equal, not a vicar’s daughter who had managed to marry beneath her before she netted herself a viscount.

  ‘You must know I have feelings for you. I do not see how you could escape knowing it when I virtually threw myself at you earlier this evening, but I am about as unsuitable a viscountess as you could find.’

  ‘You have obviously not looked hard enough, then. You are a respectable widow, love, not a housemaid or a courtesan. We lords and even the odd duke here and there have always married women the world thought we should not and yet the world keeps turning and the aristocracy is still in its accustomed place and love is all that matters in the end.’

  ‘Maybe, but we can stand here arguing black is white all night long and you still will not convince me I am viscountess material, my lord. Now kindly go away and let me go to bed. You have obviously been here for days winning over my friends and laying all sorts of devious plans for my undoing, but I have had a long journey and I am weary from it and about to lose my temper.’

  ‘Heaven forbid,’ he said with such a rueful smile inviting her to laugh that she felt her heart melting another degree.

  ‘Go away,’ she demanded and turned her head away to hide the answering smile that might give her away as a lot less certain she wanted him to than she had managed to sound.

  ‘For now,’ he answered and used their entwined hands to pull her much closer and snatch an unguarded kiss from her lips almost out here in the street.

  It was so brief and hot and unsatisfying that she pouted and shot him a look of reproach, but he just grinned a wildcat grin, raised his hat in a mocking salute and walked away from her with that confounded cane of his swinging triumphantly at his side to say he was rather proud of his evening’s work, never mind her ‘no’ and ‘maybes’. And he had every right to be, she conceded with the heat and sting of not enough kisses still on her sulky lips. Oh, drat the man, how the devil did he expect her to sleep a wink tonight with all this hot wanting and doubt and fascination for him and his magnificent body and uniquely handsome face and all the things about him that made her love him churning about in her head?