A Belated Bride

by Karen Hawkins

  Aunt Emma rustled through the doorway, a vague look of worry on her plump face. “Arabella! Thank goodness I’ve found you!” She pressed a hand to her round cheek and announced in accents of doom, “I’ve lost my embroidery pattern.”

  Aunt Jane fixed an unforgiving eye on her sister. “You just had it in your hands a moment ago.”

  “I know. But then I couldn’t find my blue half boots and I set the pattern down to look for them, and then I heard the carriage come around and I knew I should hurry, and now I can’t remember where I left the silly thing.”

  Arabella looked down at Aunt Emma’s tiny feet. “But you are wearing your red boots, not the blue.”

  “Oh, yes! The blue ones pinch my feet so I decided to wear the red, after all.”

  Jane snorted. “Shatterbrained old woman. Did you look in the sitting room?”

  “I’ve looked everywhere. I even checked the attic.”

  Arabella refrained from asking why Emma thought her pattern would be in the attic. “Where is the last place you remember seeing it?”

  “In the morning room. But I already looked there and it is nowhere to be found. I am beginning to think…” She sent a meaningful glance at the portrait of the Captain.

  Jane gave a brisk nod. “Yes, he does seem to be quite active lately.” She leaned toward Arabella and said, “I lost two pair of stockings just last week.”

  Emma blinked. “What would the Captain want with your stockings?”

  “He is a pirate ghost, you ninny. Pirate ghosts can’t help but be attracted to naughty items like stockings. It is in their blood.”

  Emma appeared much struck by her sister’s undeniable logic.

  Arabella took Emma’s arm and led her to the hallway. “You had better leave before the weather turns.” Promising to find the missing pattern, Arabella walked her aunts to the door and handed them over to Ned, who helped the elderly ladies into the carriage.

  With a sense of relief, Arabella watched the coach clatter down the drive, a forlorn Mr. Francot riding behind. Finally she would have some peace and quiet to finish the accounts.

  She started to walk past the morning room, but stopped. Most likely Aunt Emma’s lost pattern was right where she’d left it, on the table by her favorite chair. Arabella entered and walked briskly to Aunt Emma’s chair, placed by the window to catch the morning light.

  “There you are,” said a voice from behind her.

  Arabella slowly turned around.

  Lucien sat in a wing-backed chair by the fireplace. His black hair still damp from a bath, his jaw scraped clean of whiskers, and his shirt hanging disgracefully open at his neck, he looked dark, handsome, and arrogant.

  Arabella forced herself to remember what a treacherous dog he was. She was helped by the sight of Aunt Emma’s favorite shawl laying across his lap, clashing horribly with Aunt Jane’s best scarf of India silk that was tied about his arm like a sling. Even confined to the sickroom, he had managed to work his magic over her aunts.

  He gestured to the chair opposite him, separated only by a low table bearing a silver tea tray. “We have a conversation to finish, madam.” His mouth curved in a lazy smile, his green eyes glinting with humor. “So…will you run? Or will you stay?”

  Chapter 7

  “What do you want, Lucien?”

  “Conversation. Pray have a seat.” Lucien regarded Arabella, from her worn boots to her mussed hair. Her drab gown served as a foil for the riot of color that brushed her cheeks and lips. Arabella made Sabrina’s cold, perfect beauty fade into nothingness.

  Her gaze flickered over him, lingering for an instant on his chest before she looked away, adorably embarrassed. “Did my aunt have anything to say to your traipsing about the house half dressed?”

  She may have been embarrassed, but he was assailed with the desire to bare even more just to watch her delicious reactions. Heated by his own wayward thoughts, he cleared his throat. “Your aunt had plenty to say about my attire. The Hadley women are not known for their meek ways.” Her eyes flashed and he chuckled.

  His Bella had developed into a woman of extremes, with a temper as rich as her passion. He had an instant vision of Arabella, flushed from passion, her hair streaming across her white shoulders and—

  Lucien stirred, his manhood taut and ready. He tugged Aunt Emma’s shawl farther across his lap and silently cursed his too-vivid memory.

  Arabella’s eyes darkened with suspicion. “I hope you didn’t upset Aunt Jane.”

  “Don’t be absurd.” In Lucien’s opinion, Aunt Jane was a woman-shaped piece of cold, hard steel covered with a very thin veneer of lace and muslin. Before Arabella could harangue him further, he added, “I don’t wish to discuss your aunt.”

  He half expected her to refuse to speak to him. But, pluck to the backbone, she showed her teeth in a chilly smile. “What would you like to discuss, Your Grace?”

  He gestured to the chair. She eyed it warily as if she suspected he had placed a spider on it. He grinned. “What’s wrong, Bella? Afraid?”

  That lit the fires. “Of you? Ha!” She marched to the chair, but perched on the very edge it, ready to fly at a moment’s notice. “What do you want?”

  Lucien hooked her chair with one foot and pulled it closer, ignoring how the delicate wood scraped past the small table and jostled the creamer.

  Arabella gasped, her hands clutching the thin armrests. As soon as he pulled her within touching distance, she favored him with a cold, flat stare. “You have two minutes, and then I’m leaving.”

  She could not have appeared more disinterested if she’d fallen asleep in the midst of the sentence.

  His eyes narrowed. In his drug-induced dreams, she had not been disinterested. No, she had reacted much the same way she had in the carriage, with a throaty moan and a wild sensuality that had flamed his passion even higher.

  He leaned forward and pushed one of the waiting cups toward her.

  “I don’t have time for tea.”

  “Why not?”

  “It is Thursday. I always work on the accounts on Thursday.”

  Though he wasn’t vain, it irked Lucien that an attractive woman would think a dry list of numbers of more interest than sitting with him. In London, he was considered quite a catch. The only way he’d found respite from the hordes of matchmaking mamas was to wear unrelenting black to every social function, obliquely announcing his widower standing to one and all.

  A flicker of something unusual flared in his chest. Arabella was a challenge: a woman who knew her worth and questioned his. And the fact that it was she who challenged him made it all the sweeter.

  He shamelessly used the one topic he knew would melt her icy facade. “Your brother visited me earlier.”

  “Did he?” She hesitated, then added, “He can be discourteous at times. He so hates it when people pity him.”

  “I’m hardly in a position to pity anyone other than myself, especially after being in the care of your aunts for two entire days.”

  A smile hovered on her mouth before she regained control, her lashes dropping to conceal her expression. “Robert chafes under such constant attention. I’m sure he is glad to have some male company. He is quite outnumbered in this household.”

  It was fascinating the way her face softened when she spoke of her brother. “I found him to be remarkably intelligent.”

  Her gaze darkened. “Yes, but much too quiet.”

  “Not when he wins at chess. I’m sure you heard him crowing throughout the entire house last night.”

  She chuckled, the sound rising from her throat and spilling over her lips until he wished he could capture it with a kiss. He focused on her plump lower lip and the shorter one above it. Together, they formed the perfect mouth, one that would part sweetly beneath his.

  Lucien bent his leg slightly and rested his knee against the edge of the table to hide his too-obvious reaction to her presence. Bloody hell, all this from just looking at her. Heaven help him if she accidentally to
uched him.

  Damn Aunt Jane’s potions. How long did it take to recover from that vile mixture? He took his emotions firmly under control. “So many things have changed since I was here. How did Robert come to be confined to his chair? And your aunts, when did they arrive?”

  A speculative gleam lit her gaze, then she settled her shawl about her shoulders and reached for the teapot. “I shall tell you all about my family,” she replied coolly, “after you tell me what brings you to Yorkshire.”

  So that was the way of it? She still couldn’t resist a direct challenge. Lucien hid a grin. “I was on my way north to meet someone regarding a purchase.” Not for land, of course, but there was nothing wrong in letting her think otherwise.

  “It was very improvident that your horse bolted across the road just as our carriage rounded the bend. You could have been killed.”

  “But I wasn’t.” He watched her elegant, capable hands as she poured the tea and wondered what it would take to get her past her anger and back to the passion she’d once felt. The idea tantalized him.

  “Tell me something,” she said abruptly. “Why were you out riding the moors at that time of the night? Surely you were not meeting someone so late?”

  He met her gaze with a direct one of his own. “What were you doing out on the moors at that time of night?”

  “Visiting one of the tenants,” she said, her answer clearly practiced. “Mrs. March was ill and I took her some soup.” She lifted the cup and held it out to him. “You may ask Aunt Jane if you do not believe me.”

  He had little doubt that Aunt Jane would confirm every blasted word. Lucien took the cup, barely keeping himself from making a face. He hated tea. “Speaking of your lovely aunts, do they often conspire to keep wounded guests confined to their sitting room by dosing them with sheep tonic?”

  “Oh, no. You are the first.” She dropped not one, but three lumps of sugar into her cup. “You should be flattered that they believed you to be of such value. It isn’t often that they leap to such heights of impropriety.”

  He watched, fascinated, as four dollops of fresh cream followed the sugar. “How did they come to stay with you?”

  “They were widowed within a few months of each other. When Father got sick, I asked them to stay.”

  “And your brother?”

  She took a sip of her tea, grimaced, and then added another lump of sugar. “My brother has seen more sadness than any person should. He was in the light cavalry at Waterloo. His unit was decimated.”

  Lucien whistled silently. The fate of the cavalry at Waterloo was almost legend. They had led the charge with a rousing roar, fighting with a frightening fierceness and skill that had allowed them to bring down ten times their number of the enemy. But they had paid dearly for their bravery and only a handful had survived the final battle.

  Arabella set down her cup and placed a crème cake on a plate. “Two of his childhood friends were there, fighting alongside him. Neither survived.” Her eyes darkened and she placed the plate on his side of the table. “Robert will not speak of it, but I know it grieves him greatly.”

  Apparently Arabella wasn’t the only member of the Hadley household whose every action could be traced to stubbornness and pride. Lucien thought of the thin, quiet boy who had so single-mindedly played chess with him the night before. “Perhaps he just needs time.”

  She nodded absently and sipped her tea. He watched her over the rim of his cup. She was fuller than he remembered, lush-bodied like a Boucher painting. Her hair curled in thick, luxurious waves over her brow, across her ears, and clung to the white column of her neck. The ribbon she wore to confine her hair had failed miserably and now hung in dejected splendor over one of her shoulders, threaded through the abundant curls.

  Yet, for all her loveliness, there were faint purple shadows under her eyes and an aura of bone-deep weariness. It was as if she carried the burdens of the earth on her rounded shoulders.

  Impulsively, he picked up the plate of cakes. “Here, take one.”

  Color touched her cheeks. “No, thank you.”

  “Nonsense. They are exceptionally good.” He lifted one from the plate and held it out.

  Her gaze seemed drawn to his hand, but she shook her head. “No.”

  “You must. Aunt Emma threatened to have my head if I didn’t eat them all.”

  A reluctant smile curved her lips. “Oh, very well, though I shouldn’t.” She looked down at herself and sighed. “I fear I like them far too much as it is.”

  He scowled and placed not two, but three cakes on her plate. “What a lot of nonsense. You look perfectly fine the way you are.” Better than fine, in fact. Arabella was every bit as succulent as the rich cakes.

  She was not the usual thin, wasted beauty that abounded in London society. Womanly and soft, she was breathtakingly beautiful. If circumstances were different—hell, if he were different—he’d have had no compunction in luring her to his bed and keeping her there for days as he discovered every inch of her sumptuous body.

  He shifted in his chair. “You never married.” Bloody hell, what made me ask that?

  Her earlier humor evaporated. “No. Unlike you.”

  And he’d lived to regret it with every breath in his body. But he’d had no choice. Meanwhile, Arabella…He flicked a glance over her face, noting the thick curl of lashes and the lush line of her cheek. The men in Yorkshire were either scarce or blind. Perhaps there was someone who was waiting to sweep her away. Someone with whom she’d shared her incredible passion.

  Someone other than him. He scowled.

  There was the pig who had stopped their carriage with the constable. What was his name? Hartlebrook? Hart-boot? Whoever he was, it was obvious that Arabella had not favored his suit. Lucien wondered if there were any other suitors about.

  What of the staid-looking gentleman he’d seen ride out with Aunt Jane? Surely there was no romantic interest there—the man had to be forty years old, if a day. Lucien glanced at Arabella. Sitting in the chair opposite his, eating a cake, a dab of crème on her chin, she looked barely nineteen.

  “I saw your aunts leaving for town. Who was the man who escorted them?”

  Arabella frowned, a half-eaten cake held in midair. “Ned? He’s the stable hand.”

  “No,” he said, his tone perilously tense. “The older one—the dandy.”

  She put the cake back on the plate with obvious regret. “Oh, that was Mr. Francot, our solicitor.”

  It seemed to Lucien that her voice lowered intimately as she said the name. “Does he visit often?”

  Eyes as rich as the peat floor of the forest on an autumn day challenged his. “I don’t think that is any concern of yours.”

  “I just wondered,” he answered, suddenly irritated that he was making such a fool of himself. But the man couldn’t be totally unaware of Arabella’s charms, regardless of the legitimacy of his claims on her time. “He looked familiar.”

  Her brow creased and she absently licked crème from one of her fingers. “Perhaps you met him in London. He was located there for some years prior to his arrival in Yorkshire.”

  Lucien forced himself to sip his tea, wishing it was brandy, something to banish the lingering cobwebs left by Aunt Jane’s infamous tonic; cobwebs that were trapping him into such unfamiliar feelings and frustrations. He glanced around the room, looking for some of Aunt Emma’s cognac.

  The thought gave him pause. It had been exceptionally fine…a very rare quality indeed. He looked more closely at the room, noting the darned curtains and the worn appearance of the furniture. Where had Aunt Emma gotten such prime cognac in the wilds of Yorkshire?

  He frowned. Free traders were a close-knit group, and it would be an easy thing to use already established smugglers to move in something new—especially something as small as a pouch of jewels.

  But Lucien had to tread carefully. To many, smuggling was a way of life, seen as an honest occupation that had been unfairly singled out for prosecution by the crow
n. The attitudes of the nobility assisted the business, for they welcomed the better-quality goods, especially when they didn’t have to pay the high duties placed on all imports due to the war.

  Truthfully, he could care less about a little judicious free trading. His own father had supported the habit of several free traders, gaining quality port for half the usual price. But supporting Napoleon’s armies was another matter. Lucien had seen the men who returned from the war, and he knew of the devastation, the pain many had paid. Just like Robert.

  Arabella set her cup down. “It is my turn to ask a question. Tell me about your wife.”

  The abrupt question should have removed his attention from Arabella’s mouth, where some of the crème clung to her lower lip, but it didn’t. He couldn’t stop staring, his whole body focused on the dab of sweetness. His gaze must have alerted her, for she touched her napkin to her mouth and then ran the tip of her tongue over the spot.

  His throat contracted painfully.

  “Lucien,” she said, frowning. “I asked you about Sabrina.”

  He cleared his throat. Sabrina was the last thing he wanted to talk about. But he would much rather Arabella hear the story from him. Struggling to clear his mind, he took a sip of tea. “It was a needless death. She foolishly rode a horse that had never been ridden.”

  “Did she know the horse was dangerous?”

  “Yes.” He couldn’t tell Arabella the whole truth: that to Sabrina, riding a dangerous horse had been far preferable to staying in the same house with him. She had blamed him for every unfortunate event in her life and, by the time they had been wed a year, he’d begun to believe her.

  Even though he knew her anger stemmed from her madness, some small part of him had wondered if she’d been right—if perhaps he was partially responsible for her illness. He, who lived with her and should have recognized her wild antics and frantic moods were the result of something more than an indulgent lifestyle, had merely avoided her cloying company. The wilder she became, the more he stayed away, until eventually they were more strangers than man and wife.

  By the time Lucien realized that there was far more wrong with Sabrina than a mere excess of nerves, it was too late—she was too far gone in her madness to be saved. Had he been a steadfast husband, there was a chance that Sabrina might be alive today.