The Beaumont Betrothal: Northbridge Bride Series Book 2

by D'Ansey, Leigh

  Freddy downed the contents of his glass in one noisy gulp. He wiped his mouth with the back of his hand. Even in the dim light of the room Bruno saw the color rising in his face, his scalp pinkening beneath his thin fair hair.

  “Tried once or twice,” he said. “Went to a bawdy house with some chaps from the club. Couldn’t get it up. The bawds tried all sorts, even—”

  Bruno waved a hand urgently for Freddy to stop. He did not want to hear the tricks plied upon Freddy’s member in an effort to bring it to standing point.

  He looked down, rocking the glass in his hands but the undulating liquid made him feel faintly sick and he set it aside.

  He looked across at Freddy, whose face had resumed its normal color, as if their conversation had never taken place. “Did it bother you?” he asked carefully.

  Freddy’s pale brows drew together but his eyes were guileless and his response surprised Bruno. “It bothered me that I was compelled to try. It had not particularly vexed me beforehand, although of course I’d heard all the exploits of the other fellows.” He shrugged, a helpless kind of gesture that elicited Bruno’s compassion. “It is how I am,” he said simply.

  Bruno clasped his hands together and contemplated his brother. “Have you thought about life as a married man, Freddy? About what ‘sleeping’ with your wife entails?”

  Freddy reached for the brandy bottle and poured himself another glass. “It did worry me that m’father would be expecting an heir.”

  As he brought the glass to his lips a few drops spilled over the side, joining the other spots that several generous helpings of dinner had left on his shirtfront. “But then you turned up, so I don’t have to feel queasy about it any more.” His face brightened. “Sophe and I can just muddle our way along with the horses and dogs for company. She likes animals,” he said, turning again to caress the ears of his spaniel.

  Bruno gazed down on the forlorn construction that was Foxwood Manor. Dejection was an emotion almost foreign to him. Grief, guilt, rage—those were emotions he’d experienced in full measure, but this feeling of being hollowed out and greyed inside, mingled with sheer bafflement, was not something he recognized—nor wanted to.

  It had all seemed so clear cut. Freddy would marry Sophia Cranston; he, Bruno, would be the supportive elder brother to them both, and indulgent uncle who’d ruin a multitude of nieces and nephews with expensive gifts and ridiculous treats. His mission in life would be to guide them all into a long, fruitful future, and in the process, he could make amends for past mistakes that continued to haunt him.

  But Sophia Cranston had proved herself to be a woman of independent spirit with talents and opinions very much her own, and Freddy was a likeable man-child with little conception of what Sophia, or any woman, might expect from marriage, and no desire anyway to consummate the union.

  He thought about the night he’d ridden the gelding to Foxwood and spied on Sophia at her casement window. His blood pulsed at the memory. Although the thought of her in another man’s arms was abhorrent to him, the notion of consigning her to a soulless marriage was devastating.

  “Queasy!” he snorted, before urging the gelding down the slope with a quiet command. He allowed the horse to pick its own way across the woodland floor until they reached the edge of the copse where the perfume of wild roses scented the air. Although his jacket was made of light wool, it felt hot over his shoulders and he stopped for a moment to remove it and drape it across the saddle.

  He made his way without haste across the fields, deliberately restraining himself for he was unsure of his motives but when he neared the manor he was struck by how deserted the whole place looked. The French doors leading into Sophia’s atelier from the terrace were closed. No smoke filtered from any of the crooked chimneys.

  He drew rein and from the grey’s saddle, made a careful examination, sweeping his gaze across the walls and terraces, scanning the upper floors for any sign of movement, ears straining for sound. Perhaps the whole household was away. After all, he hadn’t made any arrangement to visit and the housekeeping staff could be on their half-day off.

  Gathering the reins to turn away he was washed with something akin to relief. Satisfying his need to see Sophia had been undermined before he’d chosen a course of action he might later regret, but he was halted when a glimpse of movement—perhaps just the reflection of movement—glued his attention to the space behind the closed French doors.

  There it was again! Something white arcing at the very corner of his vision. The closed doors… what if Sophia had forgotten again to open the windows and had succumbed to the fumes of spirits and paint?

  His urgency communicated itself to the gelding and the creature leapt forward, covering the short distance within seconds. Bruno sprang out of the saddle before his horse had stopped, took the steps two at a time and banged loudly on the glass with the flat of his hand. “Miss Cranston! Sophia!”

  When he tried the handle, it did not budge and a flurry of movement to the side, a faint cry, was all he needed to step back, raise one booted leg and smash the door in.

  Sophia screamed. She’d no sooner flung her robe over the screen that divided this private corner of her studio than she heard violent banging on the door, windows smashing and suddenly the room was full of splintered glass and Bruno Cavanaugh.

  As she spun around, one bare foot caught the timber frame of the tapestried screen and knocked it over, taking the robe completely beyond her reach and leaving her standing there stark naked. She could not move or speak or make any sound at all beyond a faint, almost inaudible noise that was more breath than word.

  Mr. Cavanaugh’s face was suffused with color; his eyes were wild, and his hair stood up like a brush. Two spots of blood oozed from a cut high up on one cheekbone. He had simply exploded into the room but now he stood with legs planted on the floor, his hands fisted at his sides, chest heaving.

  She became aware of his smell. Earthy. Musk. Male. His rasping breath filled the room and made her conscious that her own breathing had become quick and shallow. His eyes had lost their wild ferocity and were fastened on her, sweeping down her body to her feet then back up again, cementing her gaze with his as if an invisible cord fixed them together.

  He held her thus for a moment or two then dropped his eyes to her throat and further down to the loose curls she had unclipped, allowing her hair to tumble over her shoulders and brush her nipples.

  “Christ,” she heard him whisper. His muscles tightened, his jaw, his neck, shoulders and abdomen, his thighs… her cheeks grew warm, her lips dry, but she allowed her gaze to rest there, to linger on the fork at his thighs where she detected a taut male urgency beneath the stretched fall of his buckskins.

  Dampness pooled between her own thighs and heat radiated from there to her limbs and womb and breasts. Her nipples tightened—pain and pleasure both at once and she experienced a shocking desire to touch herself there, to take each hardening point between finger and thumb and squeeze… and to touch him…

  This longing came from some unexplored wellspring deep inside her, generating fear and excitement in equal measure. Her knees began to tremble. When her legs buckled, and a soft cry issued from her lips, he was there, sweeping her up in his arms, taking the short step to the sofa.

  He dropped down onto the cushions so that she lay in the saddle of his lap, her arm looped around his shoulders, one of his arms across her back, his hand cupped against the swell of her breast.

  He bent his forehead to hers. “I thought you’d been overcome by fumes.” His breath skimmed her face.

  Sophia swallowed and indicated the standing mirror across the floor. “I was only sketching. I have no other model but myself and when I come here I always lock the French windows, although I keep the casements open.” She wafted her hand and indicated the quartet of casement windows on the west wall. “Mama is away visiting, Mallard has gone into the village, and I gave Mrs. Brixton and the maids the rest of the day off. I did not want to be disturbe
d.”

  “I frightened you.” He brushed loose tendrils of hair away from her face with his free hand, his mouth so close to hers she could almost taste the salt on his lips.

  Female instinct melded with hunger for the sensations fate had delivered to her fingertips. She felt almost liquid as if a hard core at her center was melting. Her whole being coalesced into a visceral need to cleave herself to him. She placed her palm against the side of his face. “I am not frightened. I know you would not hurt me.”

  He turned his face into her hand. His lips were hot against her skin. A spot of blood from the shallow cut high on his cheek transferred itself to her fingertip.

  “Sophia.” Her name was no more than a rough breath against her palm.

  She turned his face and kissed him, falteringly at first, but then the rough brush of his tongue brought her lips apart. He tasted clean and salty, his breath laced with whisky and mint.

  “Bruno.” She tried his name on her lips and it felt true as if his was the name she should speak when she opened her eyes in the morning and closed them in the dark of night.

  Driven by the need to be one with him, she turned her body against his and wrapped her arms around him. The heat of his torso seeped through his shirt and the weave of linen scraped her bare skin. All of her senses responded to the tempo of his heartbeat, the rise and fall of his breath, the heat of his mouth, the tense thrust of his loins.

  He shifted his weight, moving his arm so her head lay back against his shoulder. He looked down at her, his hand splayed across her collarbone, rough yet warm against her skin. The pulse in her neck throbbed against his fingertips.

  His eyes glowed. “You are the loveliest creature I have ever seen.”

  Out of the corner of her eye she caught their mirrored image in the glass opposite. Transfixed, she twisted her head to examine her naked figure sprawled across his lap on the low couch.

  The detachment she employed when observing her body as a figure study deserted her. Her eyes looked bruised and unfocused, her mouth swollen, her hair tumbling across his crooked arm. She half-sat, half-lay in his arms, breasts heavy, nipples dark and taut, her bottom cradled between his spread-eagled thighs. She met his gaze in the mirror and heat bloomed in her cheeks, yet she did not feel shamed. Instead arousal, deep, warm and primitive, flowed through her.

  In the mirror, his darkened eyes reflected her hunger. His hand moved from the flare of her collarbone to shape her breasts. His palm grazed her nipples, bringing them to hard, aching points.

  Moisture slicked the hidden place between her thighs and she lifted herself as he brought his hand over her belly, and then lower. His fingers delved into the hot wet folds and she gave a little cry and dropped one bare foot to the floor. Nothing existed beyond his probing touch.

  She was aware of her quick breaths, of whimpers that began in her throat and ended in puffs of sound against her lips. The sensitive nub she had barely known existed captured her entire being. Her hips rotated and bucked beneath his hand as he explored her with gentle but forceful pressure.

  An intensity of feeling swirled through her. When he lowered his mouth to her nipples, his tongue stiff and circling, his fingers pressing rhythmically, she could not bear it any longer and release came in an exquisite explosion, a starburst of sensation.

  Wave after wave peeled away from that wet, throbbing part of her, leaving her entire body vibrating. With a little cry she threw her arms around him and pressed her face into the crook of his neck.

  “Shhhh,” he gentled her, holding the back of her head with one hand and smoothing her hair. After a little while, when her quivering had subsided, he held her face away, touched his forehead to hers and thumbed away the tears that were already drying on her cheeks.

  “I didn’t mean this to happen,” he said, his breath filtering across her face.

  She inhaled deeply. Their scents had melded; she smelled her own jasmine and almond and paint, and his musk and linen, and a smell that was all their own, an earthy, new smell that seeped from their physical intimacy. “I am not sorry it did,” she returned, hearing the edge of wonder on her voice.

  Still holding her face, his thumbs lightly pressing the corners of her mouth, he put her away from him and searched her eyes gravely. “I can’t be sorry either, but it shouldn’t happen again—at least not between us.”

  Sophia jerked back. She could not imagine this bombardment of sensation with anyone except Bruno Cavanaugh. She could not see herself naked with any other man. Had it meant so little to him? Fearful shadows crept through the miraculous glow that had filled her.

  He shuttered his eyes, took a grating breath and moved his hands to cup her shoulders. Then he shifted his body so that she was suddenly on the sofa alone. She felt cold and exposed in her nudity while he stood looking down upon her.

  The swift plunge from intimacy to abandonment was shocking. She felt stripped and unclean. Pressing the back of her hand to her mouth, she choked back a sob and was horrified to see his figure grow hazy as tears swam in her eyes. She sank back against the brocaded upholstery and longed to simply disappear.

  With a muffled curse, he swung away, gathered her robe from the floor, drew her to him and covered her, sliding her arms into the sleeves, tucking the collar close around her throat and shoulders, even tying the cord about her waist with his long capable fingers.

  He slipped his palm around the back of her neck, lifted her hair away and settled it over the collar. “Sit down, Sophia,” he said gently, pressing her back onto the couch.

  Simultaneously, with that ease of movement she had grown used to, he scraped a ladder-back chair forward, planted it in front of her and took both of her hands in his, his thumbs absently smoothing the tender skin on her wrists.

  He raised his head and looked at her for a few moments, reaching across to brush her hair away from her face before he began speaking. His eyes had darkened; his voice was raw. “I have to explain something to you,” he said. “Last evening when we met on the bridge I told you about Garrett.”

  Sophia nodded, fighting her way back from numb bewilderment. Her body still rippled, while her mind fought to make sense of the devastation of his withdrawal.

  Forewarned by some sense, she asked, “Is he… is he dead?” The merciless word sounded loud in the quiet room, although her voice was subdued.

  Crevasses formed around Bruno’s eyes and mouth. He dipped his head, a ghost of a movement that wrenched Sophia’s heart.

  “Yes.” Releasing her wrists, he dropped his head into his hands, his fingers thrusting through his hair so that it stood on end every which way.

  Her own despair forgotten, Sophia caught his hands and gripped them hard, bringing them down between them.

  “What happened, Bruno?” She was fearful of what he might reveal, but knew whatever had transpired between he and Garrett was her only route to bridge the chasm he’d excavated between them.

  He lifted his head as if raising a weight from his shoulders. “We had a bitter argument. In the end he threw my parentage—or lack of it—at me. You know I’d had differences with my parents, especially my… father, but nevertheless I believed them to be my own flesh and blood. I was stunned. At first, I couldn’t believe him.

  He made a helpless gesture with his shoulders. “I had returned to Philadelphia after some years away and I sincerely regretted the loss of contact. But I was young and headstrong and no different to any other young men I met along the way. A thirst for adventure drove us towards a less predictable, maybe more dangerous life, but one that offered immeasurable rewards.

  “When I returned I wanted to share all I had with the people I thought were my family. I guess I wanted them to be proud of me and to make up for the time I’d been away.” He gave a puzzled frown. “I was surprised at how threadbare their existence was, and how much they’d aged during my absence. I bought them a new home in the best part of town, replenished their funds. Taking Garrett to see the rest of the world was a way o
f atonement for the years I missed when he was growing up.”

  “I’m sure they were proud of you,” Sophia whispered.

  His mouth twisted. “Oh, they were very pleased to see me. William had gone through what little savings they had, and—although I didn’t learn this until later—the payments they had been receiving for my keep and education had ceased long before. I was the goose that laid the golden egg,” he said grimly.

  “But why, Bruno? Why did Garrett want to hurt you so badly?”

  A nerve jerked along his jaw. “Because of Marie.”

  “Your sister-in-law?” Sophia mouthed the word on an indrawn breath.

  “Garrett’s wife.” He threw his head back, expelling a long breath.

  Sophia tugged her hands away and pressed them together in her lap. A mental abacus she didn’t even know she possessed, began calculating the facts as he presented them. Had Bruno been betraying the man he thought to be his own brother? Ice trickled through her veins.

  “Is that how…” She glanced towards the silvering blemish on his face.

  Bruno raised his hand to his cheek and rubbed the long welt until it looked raised and reddened. “Garrett slashed me across the face with a dagger I’d given him for his birthday just a few days before.”

  “Why did you quarrel?” Sophia heard the tense vibration in her voice. What fury caused a man to strike another in the face with such a weapon? Almost afraid to hear Bruno’s answer, she gathered the soft collar closely about her throat.

  He shifted, aligning his spine with the back of his chair, rolling his shoulders until they were squared. He stared out through the shattered doors to the countryside beyond, flickering under the hot sun.

  A few moments passed before he spoke. “I met Marie in Paris after a performance at the Théâtre-Française in the Palais-Royal.”

  Sophia pleated the edges of her robe across her knees. “Mama says she is very beautiful.”

  Bruno shot her a grim look. “Only on the outside—but it took me a little while to learn that.”