The Bridegroom

by Joan Johnston

  Night had fallen, and besides a single candle lit beside the bed, the only light came from the flickering fire. She could not help admiring the breadth of Clay’s shoulders and the muscles in his arms. She could make out each of his ribs and found her gaze moving to his flat stomach and to the dark line of hair that led downward from there.

  She forced her gaze back to his face and blurted, “Pegg will be waiting supper for us.” Then she escaped behind the Chinese dressing screen, where she had left one of the several dresses Pegg had hung in the wardrobe while she had been working in the rose garden. The garments were of the sort a woman of her station might wear, but smelled slightly of camphor and were years out of style. She had chosen a long-sleeved copper silk dress.

  “Where did these clothes come from?” she asked.

  “I asked Pegg to bring down a trunk from the attic,” he said. “They belonged to my wife.”

  Reggie froze, staring down at the dress which, aside from being a trifle too long, fit her perfectly. How could Carlisle bear to see her in his wife’s clothes? Then she realized it was the surest way of reminding him of who she was, and why he had married her.

  Reggie felt sick. Their courtship, during which she had believed she was so cleverly testing Carlisle for flaws, had merely been a game to him, with the winner long since decided. She had just collected another bit of proof that Carlisle had married her for only one reason. And it was the wrong one.

  When Reggie came out from behind the screen, Carlisle was already dressed in trousers and boots and was pulling on a shirt. She crossed to the wing chair near the fire and sat down, ignoring him. She stared into the fire, wondering how she could ever hope to unscramble the mess she had made of her life.

  Carlisle startled her by speaking directly over her shoulder. “You were telling me what you did to get those stripes.”

  She continued staring into the fire. “Miss Tolemeister objected to a prank I had played and wanted me to admit I was a bad child. I refused. She applied the rod to convince me of the error of my ways. It infuriated her that she could not make me cry.”

  His hands caressed her shoulders. “And yet I managed to provoke a tear the first time I met you.”

  “I … you …”

  “Go on, my dear,” he said.

  “There is not much more to tell. At long last, the most wonderful and kind lady, Miss Eliza Sheringham, became our governess and then my aunt, when she married my uncle Marcus. That was the end of any beatings by stern governesses for misbehavior. While my father was in Scotland, he met his future wife, Lady Katherine MacKinnon.”

  “And me,” Carlisle interjected.

  Reggie rose and turned to face him. “I know you have suffered greatly as a result of being transported,” she said. “But can you not leave the past where it belongs? Can we not go on from here?”

  She was close enough to feel the tension in his body, to see the way the muscles in his jaw jerked as he ground his teeth. For a moment she thought he would refuse to speak. At last he said, “Your father humiliated me. He had me treated like a common felon!”

  Reggie was horrified by the venom in Carlisle’s voice and took a step back. “He must have had some evidence—”

  “None besides his word! And that of Cedric Ambleside.”

  She reached out a careful hand, as she would to appease a snarling dog. “I think it is time you found this villain, Mr. Ambleside,” Reggie said, crossing to Clay. “It seems he is more responsible for what happened to you than my father. I’ll help you. We’ll make him tell the truth, and—”

  “That is not enough. Ambleside must die.”

  “You cannot kill the man,” Reggie said. “That would make you a murderer!”

  “That is justice, not murder.”

  “What kind of monster have I married?”

  “The Sea Dragon, my dear,” Carlisle said, bowing to her. “Terror of the Seven Seas, savage plunderer, vicious pirate, convicted criminal … courtesy of your very own papa.”

  Reggie flushed. “Anyone can make a mistake.”

  “Not all of them have such deadly consequences.”

  Reggie lifted her eyes to meet Carlisle’s fierce, unrelenting gaze. “Can you not find it in your heart to forgive him? For my sake?”

  “No.”

  She swallowed over the sudden knot in her throat. “Very well. If you will not relent, I must resort to drastic measures.”

  “Meaning?” Carlisle asked.

  She took a step back. “I will not willingly lie with you again, my lord. Not until you have forgiven my father.”

  Carlisle’s eyes narrowed. “Don’t threaten me, my dear.”

  “ ’Tis no threat.” Reggie balled her hands into fists to keep Carlisle from seeing that they were shaking. “You can, of course, take me by force. You may even manage to seduce me.” He had already proved he could. “But I will hate you for it.”

  “You are my wife. You must obey me.”

  “I am yours to command, my lord. Except in bed.”

  “Bloody hell, woman. You’re my wife!”

  “When you’re ready to treat me as a beloved helpmate, when you’re willing to make my family—all of my family—your own, then we may address the subject. Until then, I will not couple with you again.”

  Clay stared at his wife, knowing that if a string of severe London governesses had failed to break her spirit, he was unlikely to succeed. “Are you coming down to supper,” he asked.

  “I’m not hungry.”

  He looked at Reggie’s wan features and realized she was exhausted. The stubborn chit was probably starving as well, but he was in no mood to cajole her. A night without supper would do her no lasting harm. And having her at the supper table was sure to interfere with his own digestion. He might have found the chit’s defiance exhilarating, if it were not equally exasperating.

  “Good night, wife,” he said, as he left the bedroom. “I trust you will sleep well. Alone.”

  “I will!” she retorted.

  He opened his mouth to reply, but decided it was entirely acceptable to give her the final word, so long as the final action was his. He grabbed the candle from the bedside table to light his way downstairs and yanked the door closed behind him.

  Which was when he realized he had just denied himself a place in the only bed in the house.

  Clay searched the rest of the upstairs bedrooms to see whether there might be some other place to lay his head. But the wooden bedframes possessed no mattresses, nor were there chairs in any of the rooms that he might draw together for a makeshift bed.

  He stomped down the stairs, furious with Reggie for denying him. Even more furious with himself for not taking what was his due.

  “Threw ye out, did she, lad?”

  Pegg stood at the bottom of the stairs, a lantern in one hand, a covered tray in the other, and a disgustingly smug grin on his face.

  “Stubble it, Pegg. I am in no mood for your wit.”

  Pegg headed up the stairs.

  “Where are you going?” Clay demanded.

  “I have a wee bit of a supper here for yer wife. There’s a plate for ye in the library, if the rats havna gotten to it. Maybe ye can make up a bed in there.”

  Clay didn’t question how Pegg knew his wife wasn’t coming down to supper, or that he wasn’t sleeping upstairs. He simply turned and stalked down the hall toward the one room he knew had a chair and a fire and food.

  The library smelled even mustier than Clay remembered. Many of the leather bookbindings were moldy. His father’s elegant mahogany secretaire had survived by virtue of being in a corner away from the windows that framed the French doors leading out into the rose garden. An armed wing chair appeared to be in good enough condition to provide comfort. Clay picked it up and moved it in front of the fire, then found a wooden stool that had been used to reach books on the upper shelves, and hauled it over to provide a footrest.

  He found the plate of food on the secretaire and discovered a meat pasty
and some cheese beneath the cloth cover. He looked for something to drink and saw that Pegg had provided a bottle of port and a chipped crystal goblet. He carried everything over to the chair in front of the fire, where it was warmer, and sat down to eat with his food in his lap, the goblet and bottle of port on the floor beside him.

  He practically swallowed the meat pasty whole and had devoured the cheese as well before Pegg returned. He was still hungry, but loath to ask Pegg to wait on him—since the older man looked as tired as Reggie—and reluctant to leave the warmth of the fire to wait on himself.

  “Have you eaten?” he asked Pegg.

  “I have.”

  “Would you like some port?” he asked, offering the bottle.

  Pegg shook his head.

  “Then pull up a bed,” Clay said.

  Pegg shoved a small sofa over next to Clay’s wing chair, then took several books from one of the shelves and put them under the corner of the sofa where a leg was missing, until he had it leveled out. He stretched out with his head cushioned at one end of the sofa and his leg and peg hanging off the other end.

  Shortly, both men were settled down before the fire. But even that did not provide enough warmth to counter the cold sea wind that whistled noisily through the broken windowpanes.

  “It’s damned cold in here,” Clay grumbled.

  “We’ve endured worse,” Pegg said.

  “Not when there’s a blanket to be had.” Clay jumped up and crossed to the windows, where he tore down a pair of moth-eaten drapes. He gave half to Pegg and snuggled down under the rest of the heavy velvet himself.

  Clay stared into the fire for a long time without speaking. At last he said, “I hadn’t counted on liking her.”

  “Mmm,” Pegg said.

  “She’s refusing me, you know. Threatened to fight me if I tried to have her. Expects me to make peace with Blackthorne. To forgive him. Little chance of that!”

  “Mmm,” Pegg said.

  “I have no doubt she will try to see her father, even though I have forbidden it.”

  “Mmm,” Pegg said.

  “If she does, I will be forced to punish her.”

  Pegg said nothing.

  “She’s been beaten before. Did you know that?”

  Pegg said nothing.

  “I don’t think she will break, Pegg. I am not even sure she will bend. What am I going to do with her?”

  Clay glanced at Pegg and saw that his eyes were closed. A soft, ragged snore confirmed that he was asleep. Clay reached out to adjust the moth-eaten velvet over Pegg’s remaining foot.

  He had not really expected Pegg to provide him with a solution to his dilemma. He was almost glad his friend was not awake to witness his confusion. In all these years Clay had never wavered in his determination to ruin Blackthorne’s life. And yet now, when his goal was in sight, a rebellious young woman was threatening to turn his carefully laid plans upside down.

  “I cannot forgive him,” Clay murmured. “I will have my vengeance.”

  And if she is lost to you because of it?

  Then she is lost.

  You will be alone again. Forever. Is that what you want?

  Clay knew what it felt like to be hollow inside, to be completely disconnected from everyone and everything one had ever held dear. He had come back to Scotland, to this house where it had all begun, in order to keep the memories of everything that had happened fresh in his mind. While he had been suffering, the duke had continued with his life, raising his children, loving his wife.

  He was entitled to retribution.

  Clay put a hand to his chest, feeling the ache there. The pain of all he had lost was a shadow that haunted him always, though he had buried it deep in order to survive. He thought of the woman he had loved. The child who had been lost to him. He remembered the plans he had made after his brother’s death to restore Castle Carlisle. Anything had seemed possible.

  Reggie had made him want it all again. Made him begin to dream again.

  But twelve years later, the innocent fool who had believed in the goodness of his fellow man was gone. What remained was a ruthless devil who demanded his due. And no angel, however tempting, was going to sway him from his course.

  Chapter 14

  After a night spent in a wing chair with a moth-eaten drape for warmth, his legs stretched out on a footstool that barely served to keep him safe from marauding rats, Clay had woken the next morning in a foul mood.

  Sometime during the night he had decided it would be better to have Reggie’s family come to visit her, rather than going to Blackthorne Hall. That was the only way to be sure she did not see her father. He was certain she would object, but in his present temper, he would have welcomed a fight with his wife.

  In the end, the weather proved a friend to both of them. It had begun to rain during the night, a gentle Highland mist. By morning the mist had become a torrent of wetness that left the sky blackened and turned the roads into mudholes that made any sojourn, either on horseback on in a carriage, impossible. For three days the rain poured as an icy north wind lashed at the castle.

  It should have been simple for Clay to avoid his wife. Any sane woman would have remained tucked up warm and cozy in her bed. Reggie was a whirlwind of energy. She insisted on clearing everything from the upstairs rooms and scrubbing down the floors. She asked him which pieces of furniture he wanted to save and which should be relegated to the attic or given away. She tore down every drapery in the house, making it obvious that the windows must be next in line for repair.

  Apparently, word had passed through the neighborhood that the Earl of Carlisle had returned, and those seeking to become footmen and underfootmen and maids-of-all-work arrived on foot despite the deluge. Carlisle relegated the hiring to his wife, until he realized that she had employed four footmen when two could have done the job, three maids-of-all-work when one would have sufficed, and even a tweeny, when they needed none at all.

  When he asked for an explanation, she replied, “It is only a temporary measure, my lord, while we repair the house. The more helping hands, the more quickly the labor proceeds.”

  It had sounded perfectly logical, though he suspected it might be difficult for her to decide which servants to let go when the time came. And then she gave herself away.

  “Betty’s mother is sick with consumption, and I have promised her enough work to pay the doctor. George’s wife is expecting their tenth child, but I have told him not to worry about being able to feed them all. Mercy is in the family way—oh, that is a secret—and until she can persuade her John to make an honest woman of her she must have a place, don’t you agree? Simms is a little hard of hearing, but he looks the part of a butler, and I am sure he will manage. Terrence’s face and hands were badly scarred by a fire, but he feels sure he can deal with—”

  “Did you turn anyone away?” he interrupted.

  She fiddled with her apron string—when was the last time anyone had seen a Countess of Carlisle in an apron, he wondered?—before she lifted her chin and said, “ ’Tis common knowledge you possess a fortune. If the little we pay our servants is too great a burden, I will gladly make up the difference from my own funds—as soon as your friend Mr. Kenworthy works out the amount of my quarterly allowance.”

  Clay was torn between laughing out loud and shaking her silly. “Just make sure you leave room enough in the house for us to walk the halls,” he said.

  She smiled at him and said, “Thank you, Clay.”

  He had stood there long after she was gone, wondering how she had managed to talk him into anything so foolish as an excess of servants—and make him feel good about it in the bargain.

  Worn Turkish rugs showed up on the wooden floors upstairs. A pianoforte appeared in the corner of the drawing room, though a single keystroke revealed it was in sad want of tuning. An ormolu clock suddenly graced the mantel in the library, attractive but useless, since it did not keep the correct time. And a beautiful but chipped Sèvres vase now sat on a n
ew-found half-table across from the door as one entered the castle.

  Even though he spent most of his time in the library, working on the estate books at his father’s secretaire, Clay could not help but note the improvement. “You have found a few things to brighten up the drabness,” he said at the supper table that evening.

  “I have,” she said.

  She did not offer him any explanation of where she had found her prizes, and he would not give her the satisfaction of admitting his curiosity by asking.

  On the second day of rain, a sleigh bed appeared in the bedroom that connected to the one in which Reggie slept. Clay wondered if the appearance of the bed was some sort of signal that Reggie had rescinded her pledge to keep him at arm’s length. But when he checked that evening, the door between the two rooms was locked.

  Clay arrived at breakfast on the third day of rain to discover an enormous epergne in the center of the dining room table filled with spiky purple blooms from the only flower growing near the castle—the thorny Scottish thistle. He stopped and stared. Cherubs holding trumpets were etched into the polished silver. It was the same epergne his mother had always filled with roses. He had believed it had been sold to pay his debts before he was transported, along with everything else of significant value.

  “Where did you find that?” he asked, his voice husky with emotion.

  “Wrapped in rags and hidden in a corner of the attic,” Reggie replied. “Is it the one you remember?”

  Unable to speak, Carlisle nodded.

  “I am glad you have at least one valued memory restored,” Reggie said.

  “This makes me wonder what else might be up there,” Carlisle murmured.

  “It is a veritable treasure trove, my lord.”

  Carlisle lifted a disbelieving brow.

  “I don’t mean there is anything of true value. At least, none that I have found so far except the epergne. But there are a great many furnishings and trunks and portraits. Since the attic is entirely enclosed, with only a tiny opening at either end for ventilation, everything has been marvelously preserved. There is one particular trunk I think you might want to explore.”