Robert spoke with the innkeeper and was annoyed they did not have two rooms. Storm ridden travelers had acquired every available bed. Unfortunately, they would have to share a room and he wondered how Fiona would take the news.
He made his way through the crowd and found her sitting the same as he left her; stiff, upright, scared out of her wits.
“Our room is ready,” he said. “Would you care to dine upstairs or should you like to adjourn to the private dining room?”
She looked up at him, green eyes pale and searching. “The dining room if you please.”
Robert held his hand out to her. She clasped his fingers like cold talons on prey. Good God, she wasn’t even wearing gloves. What kind of woman had he married? He placed her hand on his arm and could feel her trembling as the thunder roared outside. They walked to a small parlour, where only two other couples sat. The innkeeper’s wife showed them to a table in the corner. Robert was grateful for the privacy.
While they waited for their meal, Fiona fiddled with the utensils. He noticed her hands were rough and careworn. What kind of life had she lived in Peebles? Surely, being the only child of the Laird Stewart she had grown up with some ease even though she acted, and was treated, more like a serving girl.
“Tell me about yourself,” Robert said. “Now we are married, I think I should know something about you.”
His new wife gave him a look he could not fathom. “What would you like to know, my lord?”
“How old are you?” Robert looked at her face, and again at her hands. Something did not sit well.
“I was six-and-twenty on my last birthday.”
“Upon my word, that is a long time to be on the shelf,” Robert said. Too late to take his words back, she flinched as if struck. “Forgive me, Fiona. I’m afraid I am not myself today. Six-and-twenty is a fine age. However, I cannot believe a woman of your station should not be married by now.”
Fiona gazed down into her lap, her cheeks ablaze. “After my mother’s sudden demise fifteen years ago, my father sent me to a girl’s finishing school outside Edinburgh. Upon culmination, he has needed me through these many years and I never gave a thought to leaving him. I am still not sure why he insisted I marry you. This is so decidedly unlike his character.” She brought her eyes to Robert.
Robert knew exactly why Stewart insisted on the marriage. “I daresay a father put in his position would have no other choice. Tell me, what exactly did happen last night. I’m afraid I have no recollection at all.” Robert rubbed his temples and toyed with the idea she would tell him the truth. A nagging suspicion led him to the disgusting conclusion last night had been a set-up. The Laird Stewart wanted this match and had gone about getting it any way he could. The possibility Fiona decided she no longer wanted to belong to the Laird’s household had snuck in as well. Either way, marriage to an English duke would certainly be an advantageous match.
She repeated the story he’d heard earlier. “I never imagined my father would be waiting for my return.” She stopped and looked at him. “I am sorry we have ended up thus. It was never my intention to force your hand into marriage. Especially one neither of us wanted.”
“I believe you,” Robert said. “Undoubtedly, your father chose to believe otherwise. However, I have come up with a solution to our problem.”
Their meals were brought and Robert ate heartily. Fiona picked at her food.
“Fiona,” Robert said. “I would like to reassure you, I have no intention of…how shall I say this, of having you as my bride this evening. The thought is the furthest thing from my mind. However, you must eat to keep up your strength for the journey.”
Fiona’s eyes blazed for an instant. Had he unintentionally insulted her again?
“Thank you, my lord. That is very kind. I’m afraid the idea of our marriage bed was not something I looked forward to.”
Robert wasn’t sure if he wasn’t the one being insulted this time.
Fiona took a bite of the simple meat pie, swallowed, and looked at him. “You mentioned you had a solution to our problem. Would you care to inform me of that?”
Robert smiled. “I believe it is a simple one. Upon our immediate return to London, I shall step into my solicitors’ offices and have the paperwork drawn up for an annulment. Once it has been presented, and granted, I shall give you a generous sum in which to start a new life. Your father could hardly be expected to believe we would remain married.”
“You seem to have thought this through very carefully, my lord.” Fiona’s eyes flashed again.
“Well, I have been told I have a deeply analytical mind.”
“Pray then this is nothing more to you than a business transaction.”
“Fiona, what else could it be? You and I were forced by your father into a marriage neither of us wanted. I propose to make the best of a bad situation. Very soon, you will be free of me and with my generous recompense, allowed to pursue any other avenue you desire. I think, my dear, you are getting the better end of the deal.”
Fiona gave him a small smile. “Yes, it does seem that way does it not?”
*****
After dinner, Robert allowed Fiona to retire to the room first. He had said he did not intend to have her in their marriage bed and Fiona believed him. However, a small part of her wondered what it would be like to lay with a man. She was six-and-twenty, far too old to be an unmarried woman, far too old to have never even kissed a man. Robert was indeed handsome and she would not be averse to his advances. She had examined his body last night after he had collapsed, and he was certainly a fine specimen of a man. The thought he was her husband now and would not share their bed somewhat hurt what little pride she had left.
She had watched Robert over the last weeks with her father, and found him extraordinarily learned, capitalistic leanings aside. Her father fought to keep up as the duke’s ideas jumped quickly from one thought to the next. Sometimes she wished she could have expressed her own opinions, but that was not to be. Her father would have dismissed her ramblings without a second thought.
The Duke of Cantin did not seem like an unscrupulous man, nor was he without certain charm. However, Fiona could not disregard his aloofness, or the banality that sometimes overtook his conversation when he knew he addressed someone of lower station. And everything always came down to money. Who was owed, what was spent, how much did it cost. But underneath all the talk, she could sense a passion simmering just under the surface. When he spoke on certain subjects, his voice rose, his eyes became animated, and his hands flew through the air as he tried to make his point. He was like a boiling pot with a too-tight lid. The steam would erupt every so often, but the cover still held unyielding to the pressure. She wondered what would ever make it blow.
Fiona undressed by the light of a single candle. The storm had abated during dinner and she felt a chill coming from the window casing. Dressed in her nightrail, she placed another log on the fire and stood with her hands to it. A moment later, she heard footfalls in the hall and dashed to the bed. She climbed under the covers and held the blankets to her chest as she answered to the knock.
Robert entered the room. His cravat was loosened and the button of his shirt collar opened. She could see the top of his chest. She shivered remembering his nakedness that morning. Could it have only been twelve hours since this humiliating debacle began?
“How many covers are there?” Robert asked.
“Covers, my lord?”
“Yes, how many covers are there on the bed?”
Fiona counted. “Three, my lord. Why?”
“I shall sleep under two of them. I have no intention of sleeping in a chair. We have an intolerable journey ahead of us and I wish to get a good night’s sleep.” He spoke in a terse tone, as if scolding a child.
“As you wish, my lord.” Fiona wondered if either of them would get any sleep.
She turned her head as he began to undress, and felt the bed dip as he climbed into it. The blankets allowed her to feel his wa
rmth, but not his form. For that, she was grateful.
“Good night, Fiona,” Robert said.
“Good night, my lord.”
Fiona lay in the dark, listening to her new husband’s breathing become even and heavy. Soon he was snoring. She would never sleep.
Chapter Three
Images came unbidden. A sudden storm, lightning flash. The spooked horse, rearing, pawing at the stinging rain. The woman unseated, falling, falling, hitting the ground, the sound drowned out by the thunder. Another blaze across the sky. The woman lay lifeless, her neck at an odd angle. The horse, pawing at the woman on the ground. Blood, bones breaking. A sound echoed in her mind. Screaming. Someone was screaming.
“Fiona, wake up. Fiona, what is it?”
Someone grabber her arms. She fought to reach her mother.
“Fiona, wake up.”
She opened her eyes. The Duke of Cantin sat on the bed holding her arms.
“Fiona, are you all right? Is it a nightmare? Fiona, are you awake? Look at me.”
She looked into his eyes. The concern on his face was palpable. Fiona looked around the room, still bathed in darkness save for the dying embers of the fire.
“My lord, yes. I am awake now.” She shook her head to clear the remnants of the dream. “Forgive me. ‘Twas an old and powerful nightmare brought on by the storm.”
Robert released her, leaning back on his side of the bed. “May I get you something? Water, brandy perhaps?”
“No, thank you. I will be well. I’m sorry for disturbing your sleep.”
He touched her shoulder. “Would you like to tell me about it?”
Fiona wrestled with the idea. She had never talked about that day. Not even to her father.
“I do not know if I can.”
“It might help to calm you.”
She took a deep shaky breath and began. “My mother and I were riding and a sudden storm blew up. Lightning spooked her horse and when he reared, she fell off and broke her neck. I did not realize she was dead. I was only ten. I tried to help her, but I could do nothing to save her. I lay down with her until the storm passed, until my father found us. He was heartbroken, of course. He cursed me, and my mother, and the blasted horse. I realize now, he was grief stricken, as he loved my mother severely. I caught a fever after the storm and lay in bed for weeks. I overheard my father say to the doctor that he wished I had been the one who died. Our relationship has never been the same. I blame myself for my mother’s death, as does he. If it had not been for me wanting to ride that day, she would still be alive.” Fiona could not help the tears as they coursed down her cheeks. The nightmare was bad enough, but now, to be set upon with all the emotion it always wrought, was unbearable.
Robert gathered her into his arms and leaned back against the headboard. No one had ever held her while she cried, except for her mother, and she had been gone fifteen years. The incongruity of the situation struck her. For the first time since her mother’s death, someone finally gave consolation after her nightmare. And it just so happened to be her husband.
Robert said nothing while he stroked her hair. Fiona’s assessment of him at Stewart had been a pompous, arrogant, money-grubbing Englishman and his dealings with her father left no room for seeing him in any other light. The notion of their subsequent annulment left her cold. But here, now, in his arms, she couldn’t help think he was not so unfeeling as she once thought.
She could not be sure if it was the stroking of her hair, or his warmth as it permeated her skin, but she felt comforted and safe, and soon she fell back into a dreamless sleep.
Something tickled her nose. She opened her eyes to find herself lying on the chest of a man. She dared not move until her brain registered where she was and with whom – married to the Duke of Cantin, in an inn, on their way back to London. She had had a nightmare about her mother and he had comforted her, and allowed her to fall asleep in his arms.
With the greatest care, she moved until she could see his face. Handsome in sleep, more so in waking hours, she wondered if she would ever know him or if that was folly on her part. The fact that they were married now meant nothing. According to him, they would only be polite strangers at best.
Gently she slipped from the bed and found her dressing robe. She padded to the window and squinted against the bright new dawn, not a cloud in the clear blue sky.
“Are you feeling better, Fiona?”
She turned to face Robert. “Yes, my lord, thank you.”
Robert moved to get out of bed. Fiona turned back to the window. She heard rustling and grunting behind her, but dared not look.
“I know this is an impossible situation at present,” he said. “I shall make sure the next lodging we find will accommodate us both in separate rooms. I will leave you to your toilette and then we shall have breakfast before we depart.”
Fiona turned and found him almost dressed. “Yes, my lord.”
He shrugged into his coat. “If you wish, you may call me Robert. Or if that does not suit, perhaps, Cantin. I should not like you to address me as ‘my lord’ all the time. For the nonce you are my wife, not my servant.”
Fiona nodded.
“There.” He adjusted his neck cloth in front of the small mirror on the dresser. “I shall await your arrival downstairs in the parlour where we dined last night. I am glad you are an early riser. I should like to get back to London as soon as possible.” He walked to the door and reached for the latch.
“Robert,” she said softly. “Thank you for your kind understanding last night.”
He smiled. “’Twas the least I could do.” And he left her alone to dress.
*****
Robert made his way downstairs, and after securing a private table for breakfast, informed the innkeeper they would be leaving and to prepare the bill. He left instructions if his wife arrived before he returned to proceed with breakfast he would be along shortly.
Robert went out to the stable yard, found his coachman and grooms, and told them to be ready within the hour. He then left the inn yard and made his way down the short street to the shops lining the thoroughfare. He didn’t have much time, and most were still closed, but as he made his way around the corner, he saw a shopkeeper opening up for the day. He hurried over. As luck would have it, it was just the place he needed. He made his purchase, pleased with the price, and strode down the street to the inn.
Fiona was waiting for him at table, pouring herself a cup of tea. She appeared surprised to see him.
“I hope I have not kept you waiting long,” he said as he slipped into his chair.
“No, my lord. I have only just arrived. Shall I pour?”
“Please.” Robert waited until she finished before removing the small black velvet box from his pocket. He cleared his throat.
Fiona looked at him.
“I decided not to wait until we arrived in London to give you this, for many reasons, but also, well, you are my wife now.” He placed the box on the table in front of her.
Fiona looked at the box and then at him. “What is this?”
“Open it and see.”
She took the jewelry box and flipped the lid open. Inside on white velvet lay a square cut diamond ring surrounded by smaller green stones, emeralds perhaps, interlaid with gold filigree. A plain gold band lay underneath.
“I hope you like them,” Robert said.
“What is it?” she asked, her eyes wide.
“It is a wedding set.”
“For me?”
“Of course for you. I do not have another wife.” Robert wondered at her incredulous expression. Did she not think he would buy her a wedding ring?
“It looks so expensive,” she said. “Surely, you do not wish to spend so much on a wedding set for a marriage that will not last.”
Robert tried to keep his voice calm. “Fiona, ‘tis just a small token. Without a ring on your finger too many questions would be asked at the next inns, and I have no wish to have eyebrows raised in my direction.
”
She looked at him again. Her face was a mask, but the shimmer in her eyes told him another story. She did seem pleased. She slipped the gold band, and then the diamond onto the ring finger of her left hand.
“They fit perfectly,” she whispered. She held her hand away from the table and admired the rings. A tear slipped down her cheek. “Thank you, my lord. They are beautiful. I shall treasure them always.”
Just then, the innkeeper’s wife brought their breakfast. Fiona ate heartily and Robert couldn’t help smile as he watched, as time and again, Fiona’s gaze went to her new rings.
*****
Fiona could not keep from staring at her hand. The rings were exquisite. Jostling in the carriage, every so often the light from the open window would catch the diamond and send sparkling rainbows swirling throughout the equipage. Robert had bought them for her. For her. Every time she thought of it, another tide of tears would start. She had not received a present since before her mother had died. That had been her pony, which her father sold, along with her mother’s horse after her mother was killed. She had never received another gift until this morning.
“I assure you, they will not fly away,” Robert said.
Fiona startled at the sound of his voice. She thought he was asleep. “Of course, my lord. I just cannot believe how beautiful they are and that they are mine.”
“Trust me, Fiona, they are yours.” Robert sat up and looked out the window. “We are almost to Hawick. We have made very good time these last few days together. I’m glad the weather was for us. If it holds, I think we may arrive in London a day ahead of schedule.”
Fiona’s stomach did a flop. London. She had no idea what she would find there. She had been at school in Edinburgh, but that was nothing to compare to London she was sure.
The Duke's Divorce (The Reluctant Grooms Series Volume IV) Page 2