Barely a Bride

by Rebecca Hagan Lee

He awoke her well before dawn on Monday morning.

  Intent on making love to her one last time before he left, Griff kissed her awake. He fought the battle with his conscience and lost. For he knew she was mentally, physically, and emotionally exhausted. He recognized the purple bruising beneath her eyes and knew Alyssa needed uninterrupted sleep, but Griff was selfish.

  He needed her.

  Holding her in his arms, cradling her against his heart throughout the night wasn’t enough. He needed to be with her. Inside her. He needed to surround himself with the taste and touch and scent of her. Once more before he left.

  Alyssa smothered a yawn and opened her eyes.

  A fire flickered in the fireplace. Griffin lay propped on his pillow, leaning on one elbow, staring down at her as if he was trying to memorize her face. She could see him clearly, could read his expression. “Is it time?”

  Griff shook his head. “We’ve a couple of hours yet.”

  “Oh.” Alyssa burrowed closer to his warmth. She’d slept alone all of her life, and yet she was amazed to discover that in the span of three nights, she had learned to crave his hard-muscled warmth and the steady beat of his heart beneath her ear. Sleeping with him seemed the most natural thing in the world, and she was loath to return to sleeping in a solitary bed.

  “You’ll write me as soon as you know if you’re increasing?” he asked.

  Alyssa nodded. “Of course.” She added, “I’m going to write you regardless.”

  “Send your letters by messenger to my father at the War Office,” Griff instructed. “He promised to include them in the military dispatches. And don’t hesitate to send word to him if you need anything. And he and Mother wanted me to tell you that if you tire of being alone here at the manor, you are more than welcome to stay with them in London. Promise me, you’ll take them up on the offer or that you’ll invite your mother or your sisters or a friend—like Lady Miranda—to keep you company. Invite someone. Anyone. Just don’t keep too much to yourself. Or work too hard.” He smiled at her. “And, remember, the Marquess of Shepherdston’s county seat is only three and a half hours by coach, faster by horseback if you need to get word or have problems…” He was speaking quickly as if he were in a terrible rush to get everything out and to make certain she understood all of his instructions. “And Shepherdston and Grantham promised to drop by whenever they’re in the vicinity…” Griffin had actually made them swear that one of them would drop by at least every month, but Alyssa didn’t need to know that. “I’ve arranged for a monthly sum to be placed in an account from which you can draw funds. And I always keep a ready reserve in the safe.” Somehow he didn’t worry about Alyssa overspending the monthly allotment. He had known from the moment she confessed her reasons for not wanting to marry the Duke of Sussex that she would be the perfect steward for Abernathy Manor. “Should you need anything and not be able to reach my father. Shepherdston and Grantham will take care of it. You can reach them through the War Office or through Shepherdston’s majordomo at Shepherdston Hall. Pomfrey always knows how to reach Lord Shepherdston. Don’t hesitate to let them know. They’re my oldest and dearest friends. The three of us are like brothers. You can count on them to do whatever you need…” He paused for a moment. “About the manor…”

  “Shhh, Griffin, I know.” She moved closer and kissed him.

  But he couldn’t be distracted until he was certain all the details had been settled. “About the manor… There’s a copy of my will in the safe behind the Vermeer in the sitting room.” Griffin gestured toward the door that connected the bedchamber to the sitting room. “I wrote the combination down for you. It’s behind the miniature in your diamond locket.”

  “I don’t have a diamond locket,” she said.

  Griffin pulled a heart-shaped diamond locket from beneath his pillow, handed it to her, and grinned. “You do now.”

  “Oh, Griffin…” she breathed. It looked just like the gifts he had given her attendants, only larger.

  “I had it made when I ordered the bridesmaids’ pendants. But yours is a locket.” He shrugged his shoulders in the boyish gesture that had become so familiar and beloved. “I intended to present it to you before now, but we’ve been rather busy…”

  She opened the locket to find a miniature of him. A perfect, true-to-life image of Griffin dressed in the uniform of His Majesty’s Eleventh Blues. Alyssa touched the portrait with her finger, then carefully closed the locket and fastened it around her neck. “Thank you, Griffin. I love it. It’s—”

  “So you won’t forget what I look like,” he said. “In the event that—”

  “Shhh.” Alyssa stopped his words and the thought with a brush of her lips on his. “As if I could…” She whispered when she could speak once again. “I know every inch of you, Griffin Abernathy. Every freckle. Every scar. Every strand of hair. You are emblazoned in my memory.”

  Griffin swallowed hard, then cleared his throat. “At any rate, you’ll have a more recent portrait to show our child than the one hanging in the petite salon.”

  “I’ve yet to see the petite salon,” Alyssa reminded him. “Or your portrait.”

  “I was eight. I sat for it shortly before I went off to school at Knightsguild.” He snapped his fingers. “That reminds me; if I should happen not—”

  “Griffin, please…” Her voice quavered. She wanted to beg him not to leave her. But Alyssa stopped herself. She loved him enough not to add to his mental burden.

  He took a deep breath. “If you’ve conceived our son, you need to know that I don’t want him sent to Knightsguild so long as Norworthy is headmaster there. Send him to Eton or anywhere else you choose, but not Knightsguild. If it hadn’t been for Jarrod and Colin, I’d have been miserable there.”

  “All right.”

  “Promise me,” he insisted.

  “I promise,” she said. “I don’t believe little boys should be sent away at all. I believe they should stay home until they’re old enough for university.”

  “Fair enough,” he said. “Now, remember, the combination is written on a slip of paper behind my miniature. My father knows the combination as well, but you’ll need it should you require a large amount of ready cash or access to the Abernathy jewels. Or the wedding set I gave you. Eastman left everything in my bedchamber the night we arrived, and I put it all in the safe.”

  “I didn’t realize…” Alyssa remembered now that she had taken her pearl necklace and bracelet off when she changed into her traveling dress after the wedding. She had given the box containing the jewelry to Griffin, who had turned it over to his valet for safekeeping.

  Griff kissed her on the nose. “There’s no reason you should. You were sound asleep.”

  “Nevertheless,” Alyssa teased. “My mother taught me better than to be careless about the whereabouts of my jewelry.”

  Griffin frowned. “I expect she did. By the way, the bird’s egg is in the safe, should you need to show it off to your mother.”

  “And have her hound me about wearing it everywhere I go for the rest of my life so she can boast about it to the ton? Not bloody likely!”

  He laughed. “I’m going to miss you, Alyssa.”

  “I’m going to miss you, too.”

  Griffin blinked. “I never thought I would say that,” he admitted. “I never believed it possible.”

  “Me, either.”

  “Aren’t we a fine pair?” He smiled crookedly.

  “Yes,” she answered softly, rolling over to push him to his back so that she could straddle him. “I believe we are.”

  Griffin buried his fingers in her hair and pulled her face down to his. “And to think your father gave you to me for the loan of a horse…”

  Alyssa wiggled her bottom against his erection. “Not just any horse,” she reminded him, “but a prized breeding stallion.”

  “Your father did seem to be quite happy with the arrangement.” He looked up at her. “Seemed pretty happy to be rid of his youngest gel.” Griffin man
aged a perfect imitation of Lord Tressingham’s voice.

  “No more happy than I,” she said. “Of course, I’m a bit surprised he knew who I was. As my sisters and I are neither horses nor hounds, he tends to get us confused.”

  “Not at all,” Griff corrected, “Your father knew exactly who you were.” He waggled his eyebrows at her and imitated her father once again. “Alyssa, don’t you know? Filly. Light brown mane, streaked with blond. Nice big eyes. Blue, if I’m not mistaken. Good ground manners. Hasn’t been broken to ride. But that’s only natural as she lacks an adequate handler.”

  “Imagine that,” she pretended to marvel, taking him in hand to guide him where they both wanted him to be. “Papa found an adequate handler who could break me to ride in only three nights.”

  Griffin groaned. “And he still imagines he got the best part of the deal.”

  “Well,” Alyssa drawled as she moved up and down on him. “You did throw in a breeding for Carrollton’s Fancy Mistress to your father’s famous King George’s Prince of a Fellow. For Papa, that is a better deal. All you got was a breeding to me.”