“We may dispense with the worships between us, Mary. You will be my social equal as soon as the priest says his words over you.”
Father Murphy, the man himself, had arrived early and was seated alone at the end of the great table, eating kippers and scones with one hand while reading his Bible with the other. After nodding to the women, he pretended that they were not there.
“If I might make one other suggestion before the rest of your family comes down?”
“Yes, Your Worship? I mean, Duchess?”
The old lady gleamed with mirth and more than a little joy as she drew one of Mary’s curls down and patted it over her neck, where her throat met her ear. “It might do to invest in a decent looking glass while you are at Glenderrin. We have plenty of them at Claremont, as you know, so you need not fear anything there.”
“I don’t fear anything here,” Mary Elizabeth said, eating another slice of bacon.
“You might,” the duchess mused, “if your eldest brother saw that love bite.”
Mary Elizabeth touched her skin beneath the concealing curl, and found the bite she spoke of, and almost choked on a bit of bannock.
“We’ll cover it with lace for the wedding,” the duchess said, blithely sipping her tea. “After that, no one will give a fig.”
“For we’ll be married, right and proper,” Mary said.
“No. Because everyone will be too busy dancing and drinking and eating to care.”
Mary Elizabeth smiled. Clearly, the duchess had met her share of Highlanders before.
* * *
The wedding was as early as Harry could make it, for the kitchen was filled with food and baked goods for the Gathering the next week, and Cook McCrery simply kept on cooking. Mary Elizabeth thanked her, and gave her a bit of extra gold for helping her and taking on so much extra work.
Mary was content to marry at home, where no fancy licenses and no Church of England vicar were required. She would be able to stand with her man before witnesses and God, and be married in the eyes of the law. More than one thing was simple in the Highlands.
They married in the castle chapel at high noon, with the sun blazing down overhead, coming in the chapel’s high windows. Mary Elizabeth wore the gown that her mother chose with Lady Prudence’s and Catherine’s help, as she did not care what she wore, and Harry loved her in anything.
Her gown was blue, then, to match Harry’s eyes and to set off the bouquet of heather and irises her mother had bound with a ribbon. All of her brothers stood up with Harry, as did his friend Clive who had managed to make his way there from Claremont on his own, chasing Harry off into the wilds of Scotland. Clive brought his bride, Clarice, with him, who was also Harry’s cousin, in order to get Harry’s blessing on their hasty marriage after the fact. Mary Elizabeth thought perhaps they should have asked the duchess for hers, but as she was not Harry’s wife yet, she said nothing, but welcomed them.
For her own ceremony, Ian and Davy watched her come down the church aisle with Da in tow, and Alex and Robbie watched their wives, who had stood up as witnesses for her. It amused Mary Elizabeth for the briefest moment that, among the three of them, she was the only one of her friends to have a decent wedding.
She loved having Catherine and Lady Prudence stand with her, though both women were fairly useless with emotion. Catherine wept quietly and prettily into her embroidered handkerchief, while Lady Pru tried to hold her tears back with a smile.
As they were not among the English here, Mary Elizabeth could stand up with whom she pleased and not worry about having children underfoot on the occasion. Only Connie stood with her as well, to cast fertility in the form of heather and thyme on the stone steps of the church and up the aisle. Mary Elizabeth was eager for children, though perhaps not for a year or two. Of course, such things, as all things, were in the hands of God.
Her mother watched her as well and waved to her a little from her place at the front. Mary stopped her da before they reached Harry, and gave her mother a kiss.
“God bless you, Ma, for helping me find him.”
Her mother did not speak, but cried. Mary pressed her hand and walked on to meet her future.
Harry was resplendent in blue superfine and dark breeches. His riding boots gleamed, newly polished, in the light of the high windows, and his red-gold hair, no longer looking like a hedgehog, was combed neatly, waiting for her fingers to muss it.
“I love you, Harry,” she said before the priest could speak, before there was time for anything else.
“And I love you,” Harry answered.
All that followed, as solemn and holy as it was, seemed small compared to the look of love in Harry’s eyes. They spoke their vows, and accepted the blessing of the priest and the joyful wishes of the people they loved. But from the moment she walked into the church and met his eyes, she knew that they were married already.
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One
Montague Estates, Yorkshire
September 1816
Everything depended on this one shot.
Caroline Montague pulled back on her bow, the bite of the string sharp against her fingers. She closed one eye, sighted down the slender shaft of myrtle, and let her arrow fly.
There was a moment of stunned silence, followed by polite applause led by the man beside her. She had scored a perfect hit in the center of the target, besting every man present. Her parents would be furious.
“A lucky shot, though impressive, Miss Montague,” remarked Victor Winthrop, Viscount Carlyle. Since she was not an official competitor, he had still won the day, but Caroline was pleased to wipe the smug look off his face.
“Luck had nothing to do with it, my lord.” She curtsied to the company gathered on her father’s lawn and tried to smile demurely—a feat more challenging than any archery contest.
These men were here with one purpose: to win her hand in marriage. She was on sale to the highest bidder to cover her father’s mounting debts. But damn them all if they thought she would be an easy prize.
Caroline handed her bow to a nearby footman and took up the trophy Carlyle had won, a golden bowl inscribed with the image of Venus rising from the waves, an object of art her father had liberated during the Italian campaign against Napoleon.
“Forgive my impudence, gentlemen. I can never resist a target when it presents itself.” The men around her chuckled.
“To the man of the hour, Lord Carlyle. May his arrow always fly swift and far, and may his aim improve,” Caroline said.
She grinned, meeting the earl’s blue eyes as she handed him the golden bowl. His gaze shifted from the curve of her breasts to her face, and he gave her a rueful smile. All the men had spent that morning eyeing her curves. Carlyle was the first man to stare so openly, and to laugh at himself afterward. She laughed with him, not knowing that the eyes of her husband-to-be lingered on her even then, and on the man who stood beside her.
* * *
Anthony Carrington, the Earl of Ravensbrook, his face as forbidding as stone, stared at the man who would become his father-in-law. Only his great respect for Baron Montague on the field of battle kept him in the room at all. “I have never seen such blatant disregard for a woman’s place in the world. To take up arms among men, to best a suitor with a bow, even a man like Carlyle, is unseemly.”
Even his own mistress, Angelique, an experienced woman of the world, would never be so brazen.
“Ravensbrook, consider,” Lord Montague said. “My daughter is very young.”
“All the more reason she should smile and obey, not humiliate the men around her.”
Lord Montague sighed. “I am the first to admit she is spoiled. And headstrong. After my last son died, she has been the light of my life.”
Anthony heard the sorrow in his old friend�
��s voice and left the rest of his protest unspoken. He fingered the marriage contract that lay on the mahogany table in front of him. He had ridden for four days straight with a special license from London, so the banns would not have to be read. He could marry Caroline within the week and return to Shropshire to beget an heir, and his old friend’s debts would be paid with honor. Every detail of his marriage to Montague’s daughter was in order. Everything but the girl.
“Her mother warned me of this, time and time again, but I did not listen,” Montague said. “I have been so long on the Continent that Caroline has grown up beyond my reach, without a father’s hand to guide her. You must teach her, my lord. I have seen you take a battlefield in less than an hour. Surely you can tame one woman in less than a fortnight.”
Anthony did not soften. His sister had paid the price of a family’s indulgence and would continue to pay it for the rest of her life.
“She must be pure,” Anthony said. “I cannot present a woman to society as my wife without a guarantee of virtue, both in the past and in the future.”
Frederick Montague rose slowly to his feet. “I have been your friend as well as your commander. I love you, Anthony, as if you were my own son. But if such words pass your lips again, I will not be able to answer for myself.”
Anthony swallowed his ire and tried not to dwell on the mistakes his sister, Anne, had made. Frederick’s daughter had to be more sensible than his sister had been. He was allowing his fears and his pain from the past to color his view of the present. And now, in his fear, he had begun to insult his host and his friend. Frederick needed a way out of the mire of his finances. He needed to see his daughter married and settled before the year was out. Anthony would do a great deal more than marry a beautiful, penniless girl to help the man who had twice saved his life.
“Forgive me, Frederick, if I spoke harshly. But she has too much freedom, and you have been away for so many years. How can you be sure?”
“She would never betray me by tossing aside her virtue under a country haystack. Caroline has known her duty all of her life. She has always known that her marriage would be arranged as soon as I came home from the war. The war is over, and I am here. It is time.”
Anthony bowed once. His friend was an honorable man, but like all honorable men, he could not conceive of dishonor in those he loved. If Anne could fall victim to a seducer’s lures, then any woman could.
“Of course, any daughter of yours would be virtuous, Frederick. I never should have said otherwise. But I would speak with her alone.”
Montague met Anthony’s eyes, and for a moment, it was as if the baron could read his thoughts. Anthony wondered if even the protection of the Prince Regent had not been enough to squelch all rumors. Perhaps his sister’s seduction was common knowledge, in spite of all that had been sacrificed to conceal it. Anthony stared into the face of his friend but could see no evidence of pity or contempt. Frederick knew nothing of Anne, then. Anthony wished he could be certain of it.
“You may speak with Caroline,” Frederick said. “If you find that she is not virtuous, you may cast the marriage contract into the fire.”
* * *
Caroline strode into her sitting room, slamming the door behind her. The sound gave her a small measure of satisfaction. The long evening, with its endless dinner and its games of charades felt interminable. Her suitors had not come alone but had brought their sisters and mothers with them. All London women wanted to talk about was fashion and one another. She hoped her father chose a match for her soon so she could get a moment’s peace.
After years of living in a society of fewer than twenty families, the influx of London nobility into her world was more exhausting than she would have believed possible. Southerners, with their superior ways and nasal accents, grated on her nerves. How could they talk so much without really saying anything? And yet she was honor bound to marry one of them. Why her father could not find her a decent man from Yorkshire, she could not imagine.
She stopped fuming then, for in the shadows of her bedroom, she found a man sitting in her favorite armchair.
“Good evening, Caroline.”
She opened her mouth to scream, but reminded herself she was not a fool, nor was she a swooning female like those in the novels she read. She closed her mouth again, the voice of her mother rising from her memory, telling her that open mouths catch only flies.
“Who are you?” she asked, working to keep her voice even and calm.
“A friend of your father’s.”
“I’ve never met you before. If you were Papa’s friend, he would have presented you along with the rest of my suitors.”
The man laughed, his chestnut eyes running over her body. His black hair brushed his collar and was tossed back from his face to reveal a strong jaw. Dressed in a linen shirt and dark trousers, he had cast off his coat, and it lay beside him on the arm of the chair. His green-and-gold waistcoat gleamed in the candlelight, his cravat loosely tied.
His large body was too big for her delicate Louis XVI furniture, but he sat with one ankle casually crossed over the other knee, as comfortable as he might have been in his own drawing room.
“I am your friend, too, Caroline.”
“You are no friend of mine.”
He was the most beautiful man she had ever seen. She thought it foolish to call a man beautiful, but she could not deny it. And clearly, he agreed with her.
In spite of his arrogance, this man was worth ten of every fool she had spoken to that day. There was no doubt in her mind that if he had entered the archery contest that morning, she would not have beaten him.
There was a latent power in his gaze, in the stillness of his posture that made her think of a lion set to devour her. Instead of frightening her, the thought gave her a moment’s pleasure. She had never before met a man who seemed to be as strong-willed as she was. She wondered for the first time in her life if this dark-eyed man might be her equal.
She dismissed that thought as folly. No matter how beautiful, whether he was her equal or not, a man alone in her room could be there for no good reason. The heat in his eyes warmed her skin, but she forced herself to ignore that, too. She would be ruined if anyone even suspected she had spoken with a man alone in her room. He might be there to kidnap her for the ransom her father would pay…or worse.
As if to echo her thoughts, the stranger spoke. His words were like cold water on her skin, waking her from the madness of her attraction for him.
“I’ve come to claim you, Caroline.”
She did not look at him again but reached into her reticule. No man would claim her. She would be damned if her father’s work, and her own, would come to nothing. Not this man, or any other, would touch her that night.
She took a deep, calming breath. Her father’s men had trained her for just such a moment, when she would be alone and threatened. Now that the moment had come, she was ready.
“You’ll ‘claim’ me only when you pull the last weapon from my cold, dead hand.”
She drew her knife from her reticule and threw it at him.
Her aim was ill-timed, for the man moved with sudden grace and speed, slipping like an eel out of the way of her missile. Her dagger was sharp, and its tip embedded deep in the cushion of her favorite chair. Caroline swore and turned to flee.
She did not get far, for he caught her arm before she reached the door. She moved to strike him, but he dodged her blow with ease. He caught her wrist in one hand, wrapping his other arm around her waist. “Settle, Caroline, settle. I mean you no harm.”
“Then let me go.”
“I will release you if you promise to stay and speak with me.”
His scent surrounded her, spicy and sweet together. She took in the smell of leather, the scent that made her think of freedom, and of her stallion, Hercules. The stranger held her but not too close, his hands gentle now that
she had stopped trying to kill him.
“I have nothing to say to you,” she said.
“I have something to say to you. Give me just five minutes, and then I will go.”
She nodded once. He released her, stepping away carefully as if she were a wild mare he hoped to tame. She stood suspended in the center of his gaze, his unswerving regard surrounding her like a soft trap. There was something in the way he moved, in the heat of his hand on her arm that was distracting.
She forced herself to forget his touch and the sweet scent of him. She kept a careful distance between them, moving with unstudied grace to light the lamp on the table by the door. As her match caught, the lamp cast a buttery light, bringing the room out of shadow. She infused her voice with a confidence she did not feel.
“Speak your piece, then go.”
“You are used to giving orders, it seems, Miss Montague. You will find I am not accustomed to taking them.”
She drew her breath up from the depths of her stomach and used all the power her father had taught her, giving added strength to her voice. This man claimed he wanted to talk, though he did nothing but plague her. Caroline stared him down, as she had been taught to stare down unruly servants until they bent to her will.
“Give me your name or get out.”
The man laughed. He stepped back toward her favorite chair, drawing her blade from the cushion, leaving a few downy feathers to trail the air in its wake. Those bits of down settled on the carpet, and Caroline cursed again. Her mother was always telling her not to throw daggers in the house, that they ruined the furniture.
“My name is for my friends,” he said.
His fingers caressed the edge of the blade as he contemplated her, a half smile on his face. Her eyes narrowed. She could not begin to guess why he was so familiar with her. She had met many men that day, but he was not one of them. She would have remembered him.
She kept her voice even, in spite of her rising temper, in spite of her nerves. She did not move to the bellpull to ring for assistance. She could not allow word of his presence in her room to get out to the guests at large. Her reputation would be lost, along with her father’s plans to pay his debts from the profit of her marriage.
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