How to Wed a Warrior

by Christy English

  His eyes were heavy on her face as he led her through the open French doors, into the shadows of the terrace. “On the contrary,” he said. “I quite like it.”

  Twenty-eight

  Pru let John Vaughton lead her off the terrace, where there was a decent amount of light, down onto a garden path where only a few torches burned, making more shadows. She opened her mouth to protest and almost stopped in her tracks when John laid his hand over hers. “I’m sorry to bring you away from the crowd on the night of your return to society, but I don’t want to be overheard. I have had a letter from your brother.”

  Pru did stop then, but they were already away from the house, standing in a rose arbor next to a bubbling fountain. “John, thank you for your pains, but any letter you have must be a forgery. My brother is dead.”

  She was about to turn and go back to the house when he drew a letter from his coat pocket and handed it to her. “This came three days ago. I had not accepted the invitation to the duchess’s ball because I did not want to cast my sister’s name into the competition for the recluse duke. But once I received this, I knew I had to bring it to you at once.”

  The paper was waxy, as if it had been sealed against the elements of the sea, water and salt. It even smelled of brine. Pru raised it to the feeble light of the torch closest to them. Her name was scrawled across the front of the folded paper in her brother’s careless hand. When she turned the letter over, the seal of the Earls of Lynwood was unmistakable.

  Pru’s hands shook so much that she almost dropped the pages. She broke the seal and tried to read the contents, but the pages, while waxed, had gotten water on them at some point. The dried dampness and the lack of light made it impossible to read her brother’s words, if they even were his. But she knew that scrawl, that careless loop of his own name at the bottom of the page, Bertie, set next to their father’s seal.

  “Albert sent a note to me as well, asking me to bring this to you. He is in hiding at the East India docks, as Lord Billings said. He’s taken refuge with the Dutch there.”

  “It sounds like a novel,” Pru said, her voice faint in her own ears, as if she were hearing herself from a long way off. “Like some Gothic fantasy of Mrs. Radcliffe’s.”

  “Would that it were, Pru.”

  She did not mention that she had been to those docks and had found no evidence of her brother. She did not say that Robbie and his family had been looking, and they had not found him, either. The pain of her brother’s death was as real in that moment as it had ever been, made more real by the fact that Albert’s best friend was looking at her with such hope. As she looked to John then, hope began to bloom in her breast, a tiny green seed that sprouted as she stood there.

  John Vaughton was not a fanciful man. When he spoke, he spoke the truth. The man she had seen at the docks must truly have been Albert. He was alone and friendless, but he was alive. Beneath her fear for her brother, and her anger at his abandonment, she also felt the first stirring of joy. Of the three, the fear was greatest.

  “I sent him money to cover his debts with the Dutch,” John said, “but he sent it back.”

  Pru knew her brother and his pride. She also knew the guilt he must feel for the loss of the cargo of his ship. There was no way Albert could take yet more money from Grathton, boyhood friends or no.

  She remembered what it was like to have pride in her family name, to own it and not be ashamed of it. She squared her shoulders and faced John head-on. “Thank you, my lord. But we cannot accept. I will see to my brother. If he can be saved, I will bring him to you. But whatever happens, you have already done enough. I can only give you my heartfelt thanks, and his, whatever the outcome may be.”

  “Don’t be stubborn, Pru. You need help, and I can give it.”

  She did not flinch or smile, and he kept talking.

  “Lady Cecelia has asked to be released from our engagement. I think she realized that my heart has been given elsewhere.”

  Pru felt the ground move under her feet like the deck of a ship, and felt her stomach roil with it.

  “John,” she began, but he cut her off.

  “I have tried to forget you, Pru. I have tried to respect your wishes. But it seems to me that you appearing in the park, at the very moment I had need of you, has a touch of fate about it. You agreed to marry me once. Marry me now.”

  Pru blinked at him, gripping her brother’s letter as if it were a lifeline. She had cared for this man so much when she was a girl. It all seemed like a dream now, some childish fantasy that never could have stood in the light of day. She had not realized how much she loved Robert Waters until now, when she knew she could never consider marrying another.

  The night wind carried a hint of cedar on it, and there was a soft rustling on the path behind her. Before she could speak, Robbie appeared at her side, rising like a specter out of the shadows. She clutched her letter close, her heart sinking even further. She wondered if he would cast her off, if he would withdraw the strange almost-proposal he had offered earlier in the evening. But Robbie was not one to surrender the field of battle, even if that battle were only for her hand and heart.

  “That’s a kind offer, your lairdship, but Lady Prudence is promised to another,” Robbie said.

  His voice, thick with his Scottish burr, was deceptively calm, but she saw the muscle leaping in his cheek as he bit down on what was sure to be a vile temper. She tried to sidle between the two men, to keep Robbie from John, but Robbie took her by the arm and placed her firmly behind him, so that John had to face him alone.

  “Prudence is to marry you?” John could not have sounded more shocked if Robbie had announced she was taking the veil. She tried to get around Robbie again, but he moved to block her with the strength of his body. He did not speak, but he leveled a stare at her that made her decide to stay still and let John Vaughton take his chances.

  “We’ve not posted the banns, but we’ve a special license and will be seeing to it on the morrow. So, though I thank you for your pains, I must ask you to withdraw so that I might speak to my wife.”

  Pru loved this man, but she could not marry him. She knew better than to tell him so at that moment, and shame him in front of Grathton, however. “Robbie—”

  He held up one hand to silence her, all the while keeping his focus on John.

  The Earl of Grathton bowed to them both, falling back on manners, as he always did in a crisis. “I will go. But as your engagement is in no way official, my offer stands, Pru. You know where to find me.”

  Robbie might have hit him then, but Pru held on to his arm. John pretended not to notice, turning and simply walking away.

  She knew she was being irrational. She knew that she loved this man. But he could make her angry faster than any other soul alive on earth. “Don’t treat my friends like scum, Robert Waters. I have been friends with the Grathton family since I was a child. You cannot turn your high-handed ways on me and mine.”

  “Yours, is he? I’ll be damned if he is! I’m yours, and you’re mine, and the sooner his lairdship gets that through his thick skull, the longer he’ll live.”

  Prudence tucked her brother’s letter into her gown, hoping that Robbie might not see it.

  “Is he handing you love letters now?”

  “None of your business,” she said, feeling contrary.

  Robbie stared her down.

  “No. The letter is not from him.” She had not even read it yet. She wanted to look at it alone before she showed it to Robbie. If she told him of it, he would have it out of her hand and Alex in for a family meeting before she could take her next breath. She racked her brain for the first lie that came to hand. “It’s a letter from his sister, asking me to consider his suit.”

  “Well,” Robbie groused, “that’s wasted paper and ink. Our suit is all but signed and sealed. Of course, your friend is always welcome in our home, so long
as she doesn’t bring her brother.”

  “Robbie, I will not have you dictating to me when we are not even engaged.”

  “The hell we aren’t. What else do you call our lovemaking on the ducal table last night?”

  “Keep your voice down, for the love of heaven!”

  “I will shout it from the rooftop if it will make you agree to marry me.”

  “I can’t marry you, Robbie. Not tonight, not tomorrow, not ever. I am a woman with only a ruined family name to offer, a woman without a farthing. If it were not for the duchess, I would not be received even here. My brother destroyed our family, and I will not destroy yours.”

  “You could not destroy us, Pru, whatever fool thing you mean. If the ’Forty-Five couldn’t ruin us, one slip of a woman won’t.”

  “I promise you, among the ton, any connection to me will bring your family down, and I will not allow it.”

  “You’re my family,” Robbie said. “And I will prove it to you.” He began to sink down onto one knee.

  “Dear God, Robbie. Not here. Not now!”

  “Then when, your high and mighty ladyship? Now that you have ducal butlers announcing you, and fancy English earls courting you in the dark of the night, when might you have time in your busy schedule to consider my suit?”

  “I can’t marry you,” Prudence repeated, her brother’s letter burning over her breast like a brand. “Let’s go inside. I need to look after Mary Elizabeth.”

  “She’s a convenient excuse, and no mistake. We’re not done here, Pru. Not by a long shot.” He kissed her then, fiercely, as if to make his point. Pru found herself falling under the spell of his lips and hands, but he drew back and glared at her.

  “And by God, you’d better not have any more Englishmen crawling out of the bushes to throw themselves at you. I’m a reasonable man, but there are limits even to my calm.”

  Pru snorted, trying to regain her equilibrium and failing. Her brother’s letter was heavy against her heart. She had to find a way inside and hide herself away long enough to read it.

  She decided that directness was the quickest road to what she wanted. She had never known Robert Waters to turn down a request from a lady, no matter how much he groused, or for how long. And she was tired of hearing about John Vaughton.

  “Robbie, please take me inside. I need a cool glass of lemonade.”

  He raised one brow. “Lemonade, is it? You’re not chasing after your swain, are you?”

  She smiled at him then, and leaned up on her toes to kiss his cheek. Her lips on his skin seemed to silence him, and he reached for her. “Robbie,” she said, speaking low. “Take me inside. I have a powerful thirst.”

  He swore under his breath, and for once, she did not reprimand him for it. “As you will, Lady Prudence. But this talk is not over yet.”

  “As you say, Robbie. As you say.”

  He shot her a skeptical look at her sudden acquiescence, but when she did not speak again, he did not either. She took his arm and let him lead her up that path, which seemed much darker now than when she had first walked down it.

  Twenty-nine

  Robbie took Prudence back inside as he had promised. He no more believed that her would-be lover had handed her a letter from his sister than he believed that the moon was made of cheese. But he knew his own strengths. If Pru did not love him already, and yield to his suit, she soon would. It was only a matter of time.

  The thought of her yielding all night long on his borrowed bed made him wish that he might carry her up the ducal staircase now, in front of everyone, and be done with it. Instead, he forced himself to lead her by the arm, as gentle as a lamb, as they stepped into the ballroom.

  For once, the English were not doing one of their slow, stately walking dances or one of their twirling, hopping dances, but had escaped to the edges of the ballroom floor, watching the center of it as warily as if they had just fled a man-eating tiger from darkest India. What had frightened them? Alone, in the center of the usually crowded floor, stood Mary Elizabeth and the groom from the stables.

  “Who the hell let the stable boy in the house?” Robbie asked no one in particular. He felt the hot glare of his Prudence on him, and knew he had better straighten up. Before he could apologize, she had already chastised him.

  “Language, Mr. Waters. If you please. There are ladies present.” Pru lowered her voice a notch. “I’ve discovered that is the famous recluse duke.”

  “The gent whose house we borrowed in London?”

  “The very same.”

  “Mary Elizabeth had better get away from him then. Nothing good comes to Highlanders by way of English dukes.”

  “You leave Mary Elizabeth alone. And don’t tell her who that man is, or I will have your hide.”

  “Why not?”

  “If she knew, she’d never speak to him again.”

  “So?”

  “So she likes him. Leave her be, Robbie.”

  Before he could try to reason her out of her latest bit of madness, Robbie saw Alex leading his lady onto the floor just as the orchestra struck up a lively tune. He grinned, and his foot started tapping of its own accord.

  “By God, that band knows some real music,” he said.

  Prudence looked perplexed and frowned like thunder as she watched her charge and the duke begin a lively, jigging reel.

  “What on earth?” she asked no one in particular.

  “’Tis a reel, a decent Highland dance, praise God. Come along then, Pru. You’re for the floor.”

  “Robbie, for heaven’s sake—”

  But her protests were in vain and soon fell to silence. She followed his lead right away, just as he had known she would. She picked up her skirts, and danced with his sister and Catherine as they twirled away from their partners.

  “Robbie, the band is from Aberdeen!” Mary Elizabeth called to him from across the floor. She let out a whoop as her stable-hand-turned-duke lifted her into the air, as the dance required, and Robbie turned to his own lady and lifted her in turn.

  Prudence laughed out loud, the sound filling that cold, English hall like the sweetest of music. Her fancy earl joined them on the floor, bringing his sister with him. Grathton had no clear idea of what he was about, but Robbie admired him for taking the bull by the horns and giving the reel a whirl.

  Soon Mary Elizabeth and her duke had parted company to instruct new arrivals to the floor, as Catherine did. Alex bowed over the hand of an old dowager who let him lead her through the steps of the dance as if it were a promenade at court. The old woman must have been the fancy earl’s relation, for she also nodded to Pru and smiled at her, and winked at her son as she passed. She was elderly, but not dead, for she turned an appreciative eye on Alex’s backside.

  Pru had taken to the dance like a fish to water, and she showed a few of the new steps to Grathton and his sister. Before Robbie could feel a stir of jealousy, however, she was dancing with another man, leading him through the simple reel. When the gentleman in question lifted her high, as he had no doubt seen the duke lift Mary Elizabeth, Robbie stepped forward and intervened.

  “I thank you, sir, very kindly, but she’s with me.”

  “I beg your pardon?” the Englishman asked.

  “Find your own girl,” Robbie said to be clear, for some English were dense as marble. “This one is mine.”

  “Robbie!” His Pru shot him another look like the Wrath of God, but he ignored her, drawing her back among the whirling couples. While a few of the ladies stared at the dancers as if they had all sprung second heads, their men did not agree. It seemed that even the most reluctant Englishmen had joined the fray, some dragging their women with them. Many were having a good time in spite of themselves.

  The reel went on for a good twenty minutes, the fine band from Aberdeen spinning it out, improvising as the best musicians did. When they fi
nished with a flourish, every man cast his woman into the air one last time and caught her again, bringing her safe down. Robbie drew Prudence close as he brought her back to earth.

  “Mr. Waters, please. Try not to cause a scandal.”

  He laughed. “Too late for that, leannan. Mary Elizabeth has done that already. And if you’ll try to remember, you might try calling me husband.”

  She shot him a look, and he thought about kissing her there in front of all the world. He would never hear the end of it if he did—not from her, and not from Alex. So instead he winked, and was well rewarded for his restraint, for she smiled at him.

  Alex was across the room with the band, handing out some of his precious Islay whisky. Robbie figured it was family whisky lost in a good cause. Music making was thirsty work, and those Aberdeen men had earned it.

  Mary Elizabeth was talking to one of the drummers while the duke looked on, clearly besotted. Robbie would have pitied the man, had he a moment to spare him a thought. For the duchess was on Robbie then, and he had no time to blink or shore up his defenses. Like his mother, the woman was a whirlwind.

  “There you are, Mr. Waters. A fine specimen of a man you are.”

  Clearly, Her Grace had been at the whisky herself. Robbie felt his skin heat under her eagle gaze, but told himself not to be a fool. A Waters man never blushed—save for Alex, he supposed, when an old lady was on him.

  Robbie cleared his throat and faced his hostess. “I thank you, ma’am. A fine party. All seem quite happy with your band.”

  “Yes, our usual musicians went south for the summer, so I had to call in this traveling orchestra from Aberdeen. Not bad music, if a bit barbaric.”

  Robbie smiled then, and felt his teeth gleam as if he were baring them. “A Highlander is nothing if not civilized when in the company of ladies.”

  “To be sure, to be sure. Don’t get your battle blood in an uproar, lad. I came over to see if you are going to make an honest woman out of Lady Prudence here. She’s in need of a strong man, and I think you’ll do.”