The Bridegroom

by Joan Johnston

  She tore open the letter and quickly scanned it. Her legs threatened to buckle, and she sank onto the sofa to keep from falling. “Oh, dear God. The situation is every bit as bad as you feared! Here. Read it.”

  Mick took the note and read aloud.

  “My dear sister-in-law,

  By the time this reaches you, your sister—whom I married by special license last night—and I will be on our way to my estate in Scotland. We are sailing with the morning tide on the Sea Witch. She is a fast ship. Do not waste your time trying to catch us. You are already too late.

  You may inform your father that I have now replaced the wife who died while I lay in chains, falsely accused by him of crimes I did not commit. I will shortly make certain he knows the agony of losing a child, since henceforth he will be allowed no discourse with my wife.

  What harm I may cause to him and his, I will cause. We are enemies, his family and mine.

  Yours, etc.

  Carlisle”

  Becky stared at Mick in shock. “I cannot believe Reggie married him knowing what he intended.” She rose, knowing she must act, but uncertain what to do next. “I must go … I shall contact my father, and he will …” It was too late to save Reggie. Her twin had already fallen into the maw of the Sea Dragon.

  When Mick opened his arms, Becky walked straight into them and clung to him as her ululating wail of despair echoed through the drawing room.

  “Don’t cry, Becky. Please, I cannot bear it,” Mick said. “We will find a way to rescue her.”

  “I should have seen what he was and warned her away,” she said. “She will surely bind herself to him before she learns the truth.”

  Once the marriage was consummated, it would be impossible to free her sister without an act of Parliament.

  The door burst open, and Becky snapped her head around to confront whoever had dared to enter. “I said I should not be disturbed!”

  “Excuse me, my dear, but this is my house. I will enter any room I please.”

  Becky jerked herself from Mick’s embrace and turned to make what obeisance she could to her husband. She lowered her eyes and let her chin sink to her chest. “I am sorry, William. I did not realize you were home.”

  “Obviously,” the viscount said, eyeing Mick suspiciously.

  Becky felt a surge of indignation at even the suggestion that she would indulge in anything improper with Michael O’Malley. Until she remembered that they had, in fact, kissed in the park the previous afternoon. Nevertheless, she lifted her chin and raised her eyes to meet Penrith’s accusing stare.

  This incident, at least, had been innocent. He was the one in the wrong. Because he had not come home the previous evening, she had been forced to deal with the entire catastrophe of Reggie’s disappearance without his assistance.

  “If you had come home last night,” she said in a voice she kept even only with the greatest difficulty, “you would know that Reggie went missing. Mr. O’Malley and I have discovered this morning that she married the Earl of Carlisle by special license, and that they have sailed on the morning tide to Scotland.

  “Now, if you are through slandering my good name and that of a good man, I will excuse myself. I am feeling ill.”

  Becky marched from the room with her head high, but the moment she was out of sight of the two men, she picked up her skirts and ran. She had been robbed of her sister’s comfort, which had helped to make her own unhappy marriage bearable, and she did not even have the comfort of knowing Reggie would be happy with Carlisle. Far from it. It was obvious the earl intended no good.

  Becky had not yet reached her bedroom door when another thought struck her. Carlisle might have the worst of intentions, but he was sadly mistaken if he thought Reggie would give in to his strictures without a fight. A smile tugged at the corners of her mouth as she closed her bedroom door behind her.

  Beware, my lord of vengeance. You may finally have met your match!

  “What has her up in the boughs?” Penrith demanded, staring after his wife. “Carlisle would seem to be an excellent match for her sister.”

  “The earl has declared himself Blackthorne’s enemy,” Mick said, handing Carlisle’s missive to Becky’s husband. “See for yourself.”

  “Dear lord,” Penrith said, sinking into the wing chair nearest the fire as he perused the note. “This explains a great deal.” He leaned his elbow on the arm of the chair and dropped his head into his hand. “I wish I had come home sooner. Though I doubt I could have made much difference to the outcome. It appears Carlisle had his plans well in hand.”

  Mick bit his tongue on a sharp retort. It was galling to think Penrith had the right to lie next to the woman Mick loved but had chosen to spend the night with a mistress instead. “Your wife needed you,” he said, which was as close to an accusation of infidelity as he dared to come.

  “I am afraid in future she will be seeing even less of me,” Penrith muttered.

  “My lord, you cannot—”

  Penrith waved a hand to cut him off. “Sit down, Mr. O’Malley. You need not rush to my wife’s defense. I would not willingly leave her unprotected. But I am likely to find myself mewed up in prison before the year is out.”

  “Prison, my lord?” Mick asked as he sank into the other chair that faced the fire. “Why?”

  “I am pockets-to-let. Under the hatches. At point non plus. Haven’t a feather to fly with. In short,” he said after the lengthy recital, “I am completely rolled up.”

  “That hardly seems possible, my lord. You could lose a fortune at the tables every night and not make a dent in your fortune,” Mick said.

  “True, true,” Penrith agreed. “Nevertheless, everything that is not entailed, including my wife’s dowry and every farthing of her trust fund, is gone.”

  “How is that possible?”

  Penrith slumped back into the wing chair. “I lost it in the ’Change. On ‘solid’ investments recommended to me by … You will never guess who has advised me these past months,” Penrith said with a bitter smile.

  “It cannot be—”

  “Carlisle,” Penrith confirmed.

  “But why would you have listened to him?”

  “Why not?” Penrith asked. “The man obviously knows how to make money. He has enough of it himself. Why should I have expected him to bear me any enmity? I am no more responsible for his fate than any other member of the House of Lords. And you do not see him ruining any of them.”

  Penrith shoved a hand through his hair, leaving it askew. “I would sooner blow a hole in my head than be known to the ton as a dupe and a fool. It is a better choice than debtor’s prison, I make no doubt.”

  “Perhaps all is not lost,” Mick said.

  Penrith lifted his head. “Do you think Carlisle—”

  “Forget Carlisle.”

  “I cannot ask Blackthorne to redeem my I.O.U.s,” Penrith said. “I have no way to repay him, and I will not be in his debt.”

  “Forget Blackthorne, too. This concerns you and me,” Mick said. “And your wife.”

  “What has my wife to do with anything?”

  “What if I could offer you a fortune in exchange for the annulment of your marriage and the release of your daughter to your wife’s care?”

  Penrith stared at Mick assessingly. “My marriage annulled and my daughter forfeited in exchange for the return of my fortune,” he mused. “Are you in league with Carlisle by any chance, Mr. O’Malley?”

  “I despise the man.”

  “Then you must want my wife,” Penrith said.

  Mick could not stop the revealing flush.

  “Ah. So that embrace I witnessed was not entirely innocent.”

  “I merely offered your wife comfort,” Mick said.

  “I will not argue the matter,” Penrith said with a wave of his hand. “To be frank, Mr. O’Malley, your offer is intriguing. It is certainly a preferable alternative to sticking my spoon in the wall.”

  Mick let out a breath he had not known he w
as holding.

  “Now that we have that settled,” Penrith continued, “let us move on to a more pertinent matter. I see before me a duke’s steward, a man who earns his living with his hands. What do you earn in a year? A hundred pounds? Where would you come by a fortune, Mr. O’Malley?”

  “That is my concern, not yours,” Mick said. “Assuming I could make you a rich man again, would you be interested?”

  Penrith snorted. “Of course.” He rose slowly and crossed to warm himself at the fire. He looked back over his shoulder at Mick. “I cannot imagine where you have found such a fortune, but I must suppose you are making this sacrifice out of love for my wife.”

  Mick said nothing.

  “Do you really believe Rebecca will marry you, if she is free of me? She will never have you without the fortune, sir. You cannot win, Mr. O’Malley. Why play the game?”

  Mick rose to confront the other man. “If I am willing to take the gamble, what does it matter to you?”

  Penrith tilted his head in contemplation, then turned and extended his hand. “Very well. My hand on it. When the papers reach me confirming I am once again a wealthy man, I will arrange for the annulment.”

  Mick could not believe it had been so easy. He could not believe that all it had taken was money to free Becky from Penrith’s clutches.

  “One thing more,” Mick said. “You will send Lady Penrith to stay with her parents in Scotland—along with Lily—until the annulment is final.”

  Penrith turned back to the fire. “She is like a fish in bed. And the child is of no use to me. Take them and be welcome.”

  Mick grabbed Penrith by his neck cloth and planted him a facer. “The woman is your wife!” he snarled as Penrith reeled. “She deserves your respect!”

  Penrith gingerly touched his nose and stared at the blood that came away on his fingers. “A body would think she was your wife, you defend her so ferociously.”

  “She will be!”

  Penrith sneered. “You fool! She will never agree to marry so far beneath her. She is too much of a mouse to face the tabbies.”

  Mick put up his fives, and Penrith placed his palms face out in surrender.

  “I will trade her to you for this mythical fortune you claim to have, much good it will do you,” he taunted. “If she has her freedom, she will only find another like me to take my place. Now, if you will excuse me, I must see if my valet can stop this infernal nosebleed. It is ruining my favorite waistcoat.”

  Mick was left standing alone in Penrith’s drawing room.

  He felt devastated by Penrith’s declaration. What if Becky would not have him without his fortune? If he gave away his inheritance, he would need to continue working as the duke’s steward. Would he be able to convince Becky to take him as she found him?

  Mick felt as though he had drunk too much. He could not find his center of gravity, and the room seemed to be tilting around him. His head was pounding, and his stomach felt queasy, as though at any moment he might cast up his accounts.

  The only woman he had ever loved was suddenly within his grasp, but he was terrified to reach for her as plain Mick O’Malley. Because when he did, he would learn once and for all whether a duke’s daughter could love a common man like him enough to forfeit all for love.

  Chapter 10

  Reggie awoke abruptly and sat bolt upright in bed. She was alone, her body sweat-soaked and trembling with agitation. She had been having a nightmare. In the dream, she had married Clay on board his ship, and on their wedding night, he had confessed that his entire courtship had been a sham. Reggie rubbed her eyes and shuddered. Unfortunately, the nightmare was real. For the past four days, she had been married to a man who had said he could never love her.

  The morning after her wedding, Reggie had gone up on deck and seen the two men who had abducted her—working as sailors! She had run to Clay for help, crying, “They’re here! On board ship! The men who kidnapped me!”

  She had stopped short when he turned to face her. His hands were fisted on narrow hips, and his legs, clad in skin-tight black trousers that ended in knee-high black boots, were spread wide to counter the rolling of the ship at sea. He wore a blousy white cotton shirt, open halfway down his chest, revealing an embarrassing amount of dark curly hair—embarrassing because she found it arousing.

  Her eyes had desperately sought his, only to discover those deep black wells as unfathomable as ever. His cheeks and chin were covered with a night’s growth of rough whiskers, and if he had ever combed his hair, the wind had whipped it into a frenzy again. He looked altogether like … a dangerous pirate.

  “Pike and Jarvey were acting on my orders,” he said.

  “You had me kidnapped and taken to that awful place?” she had asked incredulously. “You had me drugged and … and touched me!”

  He nodded sharply. Forbiddingly. Reggie had felt a chill to her marrow and realized she was standing in the brisk wind with her bosom exposed—in one of the few dresses he had provided for her. She watched as his eyes lowered to stare at her nipples, which had peaked beneath the blue merino gown.

  And it dawned on her that he must have known all along how low the bodices of all those dresses were cut, that he must have ordered that indignity as he had ordered the scandalous kidnapping. Her first instinct was to attack him, to strike back for the hurt he had done her.

  But he had stood like a wall of stone, tall and impregnable, and she had known she would be the one battered in any physical confrontation. She had turned on her heel, head held high, and marched back down to the cabin, fighting her skirt as the wind whipped it up to expose her ankles, aware of the dozens of lecherous eyes that followed her, watching her ignominious retreat.

  Reggie clutched the tangled sheets surrounding her and followed the stream of sunlight on the worn deck back to the portholes in the wall. After that first, ominous encounter with her husband on deck, she had reached a momentous decision. She was determined to fight for her marriage, fight for Clay’s love, with all the feminine ammunition at her disposal. And somehow, some way, she would make peace between her husband and her father.

  Reggie shoved the covers off and padded barefoot on the cold deck to the wardrobe where she had left her clothes the previous evening, the same borrowed men’s attire she had been wearing the past three days. She had refused to wear another of those wretched dresses Clay had provided, clothes more fit for a mistress than a wife.

  She pulled on a pair of tight-fitting trousers Pegg had acquired for her from a young man named Daniel and buttoned them in front, then slipped a blousy white shirt that belonged to Clay over her head, tucking it in and cinching it at the waist with a rope belt that Pegg had made for her. Finally, she pulled on stockings and a pair of half boots—which fit perfectly—that she had also found in the trunk.

  She grabbed a bite of the toast that had been left for her on the captain’s desk, swiped Clay’s silver-handled brush through her tangled curls, then tied her long black hair at the nape with a ribbon she had pulled from one of the dresses, letting it fall free down her back. Then she hurried topside to begin her day of tempting Clay.

  The first person she saw when she arrived on deck was Pegg. The giant had turned out to be a gentle man and had become her only friend on board besides Freddy, who was kept busy with shipboard chores. She searched out Clay and found him standing at the wheel, his face turned to the wind, looking as devilishly handsome as ever—and just as dangerous.

  She crossed to the rail near where Pegg was sitting on a keg, braiding rope. She leaned across the smoothly varnished English oak, staring out at the horizon, making certain her buttocks in the skin-tight trousers were aimed in Clay’s direction.

  It was a blatant invitation to be mounted.

  Clay had warned her, the first time he caught her bent over the ship’s rail with her bottom in the air, that it was unseemly. She had laughed at him and replied, “Would you rather I wore a dress and allowed your sailors to ogle my bosom?”

 
A muscle had jerked in his cheek, but he had conceded the battle and stalked away.

  Reggie leaned recklessly far over the rail to watch an albatross skip across the waves.

  “Ye’re a born sailor, lass,” Pegg remarked. “But better ye should stay on board. The sea is cold and deep.”

  Reggie flashed the older man a grin, then turned her nose into the wind. She loved the salty smell of the sea, the rhythmic splash of the waves against the hull, the flap of the sails in the sea breeze, even the sea chanteys the deckhands sang as they went about their work.

  “My father’s first ship, the Twin Ladies, sank in a storm off the coast of Scotland years ago,” she said. “But he had another built, the Scottish Lady. He often took my sister and me sailing with him. Becky never found her sea legs, but I learned to love it.”

  “Best not let his lordship see ye again in them breeches,” Pegg warned. “He’ll have yer tail and mine, too. He near stripped my hide for askin’ Danny for the loan of them.”

  Reggie flashed a glance in Clay’s direction, but he was pointedly ignoring her. “My husband knows better than to complain, since he is the reason I have naught else to wear.”

  Reggie gripped the ship’s rail tightly. Since that first night, Clay had not come near her. She knew he must sleep beside her, because the pillow bore an indentation. But he came to bed after she was asleep and left before she awoke. She also knew he must desire her; she felt the sparks whenever their eyes met. But she did not understand why he was not taking what he wanted.

  She was clever enough to have figured out that the physical closeness between a man and a woman was a powerful means of binding them together. She needed Clay to give in to temptation. She needed him to want her.

  Reggie turned to look at Pegg. The Scotsman knew Clay better than any other man. She felt awkward approaching him, but there was no one else to ask. She let go of the rail and crossed to where Pegg sat, his peg leg braced on the deck, his deft hands still braiding twine into rope. “May I ask you a question about the earl, Pegg?”