The Duke's Shotgun Wedding (Entangled Scandalous)

by Reid, Stacy

  I am looking forward to our wedding night.

  Since she hoped that meant he was prepared to enjoy it, she decided on curiosity.

  She would not believe a gentleman would lead her straight to the event after travelling for hours in the chaise. Not without time to ready herself.

  But then, he was not a gentleman, as proclaimed by his own words.

  She was nervous, even though she had nearly convinced herself there was nothing to be afraid about.

  Nearly.

  She gulped as heat rushed through her at the memory of her father’s talk. He had tried to tell her what to expect. She had been amazed, then stupefied as he had taken a seat before her, his complexion florid, and wheezing like a bellows. She had thought he was on the verge of a heart attack. Unfortunately, the only words he managed to utter did not reveal much about the act itself.

  “Be brave,” he’d said. “Be brave.”

  Then Mrs. Winthrop had not helped at all by telling her that she must not gainsay her husband, even if he wanted to do wicked and immoral things to her. Jocelyn could not imagine what could go on in a bed chamber that was wicked and immoral. She had rolled her eyes and said as much.

  Mrs. Winthrop had then warned her in the most ominous voice, “Beware the devil’s trap, girl.”

  She hadn’t known that Mrs. Winthrop had it in her to be so dark and gloomy.

  She and Sebastian reached the landing without him speaking. He seemed lost in thought…possibly plotting the wicked and immoral things he would do to her. The idea sent an unbidden curl of excitement through her body.

  He stopped at a massive oak door carved with an intricate design of a dragon. “Your lady’s maid will be here shortly to assist you.”

  Without another word he spun around to leave.

  “Wait!”

  “Yes, Jocelyn?”

  “Will you…um— Will we…?”

  The sensual smile that creased his handsome face was her answer.

  She inhaled shakily, wrenched open the door, and stumbled hastily into the room.

  Immediately, her gaze zeroed in on the bed. Good lord. She had never seen a bed so massive. Fashioned of the finest exotic woods, it was raised on a dais, and surrounded by dark blue and silver drapes hung from a high wooden frame and gathered at the corners with silver cords.

  She blinked as she studied the room. The sheer size of it was boggling, but the design exquisite. Persian carpets covered the floor and all the furniture was oak with the strange dragon motif emblazoned on them. The colors of the decor, from the carpet, the billowing drapes, and sofas, were shades of deep blue with silver. The elegance of the room awed her.

  But— Surely this was not her chamber. She walked over to the bed and flushed at the garment splayed in its center. She lifted the pale blue chiffon peignoir and swallowed at its sheerness. She dropped it and stepped away from the bed.

  She spun as the door opened and a maid swept in with a curtsy. “Yer Grace, I am Rose, your lady’s maid.”

  “Hello Rose.” She smiled warmly, and started to unpin her hair as Rose hurried over to start unpacking her valise, which had somehow appeared.

  “Would ye like a bath, Yer Grace?”

  She gave her a tired nod, and sank into one of the sofas in the room. A moan slipped from her lips at the wonderful feel of the deep, soft cushions. Rose bustled with a jaunty kind of efficiency, disappearing several times into the adjoining room to prepare her bath.

  “Are all the rooms this large, Rose?” Jocelyn called.

  “No, Yer Grace, Mrs. Dudley says His Grace had this room specially designed.”

  “Oh? Is the duke’s room just as large?”

  She paused in rubbing the tightness from her neck at the bird-like look of inquiry that Rose threw her way.

  “This is His Grace’s room, Yer Grace.”

  Jocelyn surged to her feet, nervously searching the walls around her. “I do not see a connecting door to my own chamber.”

  “There is no duchess’s chamber, Yer Grace.”

  “I beg your pardon?” The look on Jocelyn’s face must have betrayed her shock.

  Rose rushed to explain. “Mrs. Dudley says on account o’ His Grace’s parents’ cold marriage with lots o’ closed doors, he tore down the wall separatin’ the duchess chambers from this one, so they made one big room. Mrs. Dudley says it must be on account o’ the duke not wantin’ such a cold marriage.”

  Trepidation surged through Jocelyn at this bit of information. “I see.” She remained quiet as Rose undressed her and led her to the bath chamber. “Oh, my!”

  “It’s a beauty ain’t it? His Grace had it fixed up with the latest modern plumbin’ a few years ago.”

  Jocelyn hastily stripped off her dressing gown, stepped into the marble Grecian bathtub, and sank into the welcome heat of the water. She rubbed the scented jasmine soap over her arms, neck, and chest, her mind swirling with the idea that Sebastian did not want a cold marriage with separate chambers from his wife. Still, it was never prudent to listen to servants’ gossip. For all she knew, he’d removed the walls and connecting door for some completely unrelated reason.

  She sank deep into the tub, all but purring in enjoyment as the heat of the water soothed the tenseness from her body, and she savored the luxurious bath to its fullest.

  She refused to dwell with fear on the coming night, when her new husband would return to the chamber…to do wicked and immoral things to her.

  …

  He’d acquired a duchess.

  Standing at the open library window, Sebastian dipped his hand in his trouser pocket, touching the locket that Anthony had given her. A wry smile twisted his lips and he raised his glass in a mock toast to his mother and drank.

  His mother had given Sebastian the locket several years ago, telling him to bequeath it to his duchess for a future daughter, as it had belonged to the first born females in her family for several generations. As turned off by the notion of marriage as he was, he had gifted it to a reluctant Anthony for his first born daughter, instead.

  When the locket had clattered across his desk to him, Sebastian had been stunned to realize the feeling that powered through him at the sight of it was relief. The necklace was back in his possession. It had never occurred that the heirloom meant so much to him.

  He had sworn never to marry, comfortable to pass his several entailments to Anthony, even though Sebastian knew that wasn’t a burden his brother wanted. Anthony wanted to live free, sail the oceans, and visit the Americas and the Caribbean with his Miss Peppiwell. He continually expounded to Sebastian that he wanted to be unencumbered, to live his life as he wished, not be shackled to a handful of family piles containing only bad memories.

  Unfortunately, Sebastian shared the sentiment.

  The clock in the library chimed, signaling the midnight hour. He wondered if Jocelyn had fallen into slumber. He had secluded himself in the room where he felt most comfortable, to give her time to prepare, and had become lost in his thoughts for at least an hour. Was she waiting on him with virginal anxiety clothed in the provocative peignoir he’d had his lawyer acquire for him in London? Or had she fallen asleep, too exhausted from the day’s events to care about her wedding night?

  His mouth curled in disdain.

  A virgin.

  He took a healthy swallow of the whisky that burned all the way down, filling him with the warmth that was desperately needed in the library. He stood with the tall windows open, the chilly air whistling in, deep and biting. He could never understand why he liked the cold so much. The fireplace that roared behind him did little to dull the ache that filled his bones, its only purpose to shed light into the room. The wind howled, and flecks of snow blew in, stinging his face and neck.

  Jocelyn had lied about Anthony seducing her. Sebastian detested liars. He took some comfort from the fact that she was completely transparent with her emotions. Indeed, he did not doubt that Anthony had teased and flirted with her, and even made promises o
f marriage. The necklace being in her possession showed that his brother had, at least momentarily, questioned the depth of his affections for Miss Peppiwell. But he had not bedded Jocelyn.

  He might well have gone far enough for her to be deemed wholly compromised by society. But clearly, he had not even kissed her properly.

  Sebastian muttered a curse as his cock came to life, and his grip on the whiskey glass tightened at the memory of the taste of her lips and her passionate response.

  He understood Anthony’s slight defection from Miss Peppiwell. Jocelyn’s dark beauty was astonishing. Her skin was smooth and flawless, though her cheeks had been kissed by the sun, showing him she spent a lot of time outdoors. Her luxurious mane of raven hair with her storm-cloud eyes had a stunning effect on his senses. Yet, it was not her beauty that intrigued him. There were too many beauties in London, eager to been seen with him at balls and operas and desperate to be in his bed, for him to be enchanted by appearance. Beauty alone had never piqued his interest.

  Jocelyn fascinated him. It was her fiery temperament that drew him most. He already knew she wasn’t a simpering fool. He had no time for the vain and frivolous women of society. He viewed the sweet-tempered, pliable young misses straight from the schoolroom with disdain. None would dare storm his estate and point a derringer at him, a duke, demanding the stain on her honor be satisfied.

  The ton would be titillated to know that was how the arrogant Duke of Calydon had wed. The scandal would roar like an unquenchable fire.

  Distaste curled his stomach at the fickleness of society. The scandal would die under the onslaught of his undeniable power. For he controlled the purse strings of many families through his investments. Days later, they would all simper to be seen with her, and be invited to the balls she would come to host. She would probably be declared “an original” for how she had snared him, where a less fortunate woman would be an outcast for life.

  He pulled the locket from his pocket and held it up in the glow of the fire and moonlight, despising the relief he felt to have back what she’d gifted to him.

  His father had died in a carriage accident several years past, and his mother, Margaret Abigail Jackson, the dowager Duchess of Calydon, had not even honored the appropriate mourning period before wedding her lifelong lover. She had not suffered the condemnation of society overly much, either.

  Her eldest son, on the other hand, had long harbored a fathomless disdain for her because of her illicit affair and complete disregard for his father. A contempt so deep Sebastian had hardly deigned to speak with her. After he came into the title, he had wasted no time in banishing her to the dowager house and cutting off her allowance, ignoring her pleas, cold and indifferent to the perfidious female’s tears and machinations.

  A few months back the family solicitor had hand-delivered her secret cache of diaries, written over the years of his childhood. His father had held them in his possession and left instruction for them to be handed to Sebastian at a certain time. He glanced at the packet of bound journals on his desk still awaiting him to read them fully. His parents had endured a cold marriage, never kissing or touching. He barely remembered any words or gestures of affection at all, only the perfunctory kiss his father normally placed on her forehead, unable to do more in the face of her revulsion for him. Sebastian had hated her after discovering her in the garden with her lover at the tender age of six, furious at realizing the cause of the constant arguments which had resulted in the nearly total absence of his father from his life.

  All because she had a lover whom she could not relinquish.

  Two things he learned from the couple of diaries he’d read thus far: his unfaithful bitch of a mother loved her paramour unashamedly and unreservedly, and she’d abhorred the touch of his father, who worshipped the ground she walked on. Sebastian had suspected what he would find, but had still found it difficult to read the words of a woman he had once loved. She had hardly found it fit to love him in return, too busy with her lover. The pain he felt reading her words had been too real, so he had yet to read the remainder.

  Her journals also brought home another inescapable fact. That he needed an heir. His father had not been lying in the letters he left for him. When he wrote about Anthony not being his son, Sebastian had thought it bitter ranting. However, her diaries revealed Anthony and Constance to be the children of her lover. His father had proof of this as he had not been in her bed for years, and he also had one of her journal as irrevocable evidence. His father hated his wife’s perfidy so much that he had promised to use the journal to renounce Anthony and Constance, if Sebastian did not marry and obtain an heir for himself.

  Sebastian had told Anthony, and let him read the damning letter his father left him. The pain that had flared in his brother’s eyes had punched Sebastian deep. He had seen right through the laughter and quip that Anthony now understood why their father had always been so cold with him.

  Sebastian had promised to fight the provisions their father had implemented with the lawyer. But Anthony had refused, fearing how scandal would devastate their sister and mother. And it was possible that even now Anthony’s nemesis was hinting of his illegitimacy, and the rumors were being whispered, already tainting Constance, diminishing her chances of marrying well. Sebastian had seen the profound relief in his brother at being freed of the unwanted responsibility of their father’s titles. So he knew he had no choice in the matter.

  He could not bear the idea of his titles and lands passing to strangers, or worse, reverting to the crown. The estates, the tenants, the responsibilities of nobility that he had learned at his father’s knee, the things that had bound them together in respect and a common purpose from the day he was born, were his to shoulder, and his alone.

  Except—

  Marriage had always left a sour taste in his mouth, and until the fateful day he had learned otherwise, he had always believed women served but one purpose.

  But then, at thirty, he found himself suddenly resolved to the idea of a wife. He had duly composed a list of eligible females. The chore had left the most God-awful taste in his mouth. And just as he’d been about to resign himself to the worst fate imaginable, something miraculous had happened.

  Jocelyn had crashed into his life pointing a gun right at his jaded heart.

  Disbelief and fascination had held him immobile in his chair as she had pointed the laughable weapon at him. He could have easily relieved her of it anytime he wished, but he had been too riveted by the drama unfolding before his eyes.

  He’d known in an instant he had to possess her.

  And so, in the space of one brief meeting, he found himself a married man, with his tempting duchess awaiting him in their chambers. A wife who would brighten his life, and share his burdens. He knew it was all right there for him to reach out and take.

  But he also knew he could never relent and trust his wife completely.

  Chapter Five

  Jocelyn’s slender, graceful back was turned to Sebastian, and he could see the fine tremors that sifted along her frame at his entrance.

  He closed the door with a soft snick, but she did not turn to face him from where she stood in front of the windows gazing into the bright starlit night.

  He had thought she might be hiding under the covers, or at least pretending to be asleep. A pleased smile curved his lips as he observed her. He should have known she would confront things head on, despite her fears. Hadn’t she done that very thing this morning?

  He did not have to wait long for the familiar rush of desire that hardened his cock. He paused in removing his dinner jacket, startled by how visceral the need to hold her was. She still did not stir. She had no clue that he was removing every stitch of his clothes. Or perhaps she did. With every rustle and noise he made undressing, her frame tensed and shook with even more tremors. Her hands, held at her sides, clasped and unclasped, moved to form a tight ball at her front.

  Suddenly she spun around to face him, her glorious mane of hair that
had been loosely pinned tumbling to her back and shoulders. He met her eyes and a shock of surprise pulsed through him.

  His intrepid duchess was not trembling from nervousness or anxiety, after all. The storm clouds that had gathered in her eyes, threatening to break any second, were tempestuous ones. He expected to see a flash of lightening and hear the crash of thunder any moment now.

  His beautiful duchess was enraged.

  He smiled with satisfaction, and his cock swelled in anticipation.

  This…should prove interesting.

  …

  Jocelyn’s rage was so intense she felt like a bowstring drawn to the verge of snapping.

  “Do you realize you’ve had me waiting for almost two hours? With no consideration for the uncertainty I may be feeling?”

  His head tilted insolently. “Have I?”

  Her rage burned brighter at the complete lack of remorse reflected in his wintry blues.

  She had been pampered and scented, her hair brushed for what felt like a thousand strokes, and then dressed in the peignoir he had gifted her. It was so sheer her heart still palpitated at the thought. All for his bloody pleasure. And the conceited cad had kept her waiting. Two miserable hours.

  “Why, you conceited bas—”

  The rest of the words strangled in her throat as he dropped the garment he had been holding loosely in front of him.

  In a shocked daze, her eyes tracked its fall to the carpet and scanned the pieces of clothing strewn about haphazardly—his jacket, waistcoat, his pants, boots, and assorted unmentionables.

  She gasped and snapped her head up, and her eyes popped as she beheld her husband standing there.

  Gloriously naked.

  My God. He was splendid.

  She drank in the sight of him, from his slashing brows to his chiseled jaw and sensual lips, down his powerful body. He was tall and sleek with a broad chest, wide, athletic shoulders, and thighs and calves that were hard with muscle. Everything about him was hard, strong, and proud. She had never imagined the male body could be so…beautiful.