A Match Made in Bed

by Cathy Maxwell

  She and Soren would have beautiful, golden-haired children. Cassandra could picture them. They would have lovely manners, and she would see the girls were educated as well as the boys. Most important of all, her son would someday be the Earl of Dewsberry.

  Yes, she was well aware that had been her father’s dream. Noble descendants. She understood now. There was an honor in setting up future generations. She also believed with all her heart that her father would reconcile with her. It would be a good moment. He would see what a good countess she was and be contrite for the rift between them. In turn, she would be gracious and understanding.

  That was how a countess behaved.

  Many of the country party’s houseguests would be leaving later that day, but first they planned to celebrate the wedding. Cassandra was thankful Willa was still here. She burst into Cassandra’s room ready to make the day special.

  “You will be the most beautiful bride anywhere,” Willa declared. “What are you wearing?”

  Cassandra showed her the white gauze dress with gold and green ribbon rosettes that she’d originally intended for one of the dowager’s more formal dinners.

  “It is perfect. However, it does need a pressing. Betty,” she said to her maid, who had carried a vase of freshly cut roses into the room, “please take care of the dress.”

  “Yes, Miss Willa.” The maid placed the roses on the bedside table and left the room to do her mistress’s bidding.

  “I ordered a bath sent up,” Willa informed Cassandra. “Your stepmother isn’t here and I believe I should fill her role.”

  “What are the roses for?” Cassandra asked.

  “Every bride needs flowers in her hair. The dowager’s garden is glorious with them. We will hold them in place with your mother’s diamond pins. I assume you will wear the pearls?”

  Tears welled in Cassandra’s eyes. She nodded.

  Willa was immediately concerned. “Are you all right?”

  “Yes, I’m wonderful. Why do you ask?”

  “I’ve never seen you cry before.”

  Cassandra dabbed the heel of her hand against another tear. “I’m not crying because I’m sad but because of what you are doing. You are making me feel very special.”

  “It is nothing but friendship,” Willa assured her. She gave Cassandra a quick hug. “So, the pearls?”

  “Yes, of course. They were my mother’s favorites. I have nothing to represent my father.”

  “I pray the man stews in his own bile. I can’t believe he behaved the way he did. There is nothing wrong with Dewsberry. I watched you last night over dinner, and I think the two of you make a handsome couple. I also believe he rather likes you.”

  “He likes my money.” Cassandra moved to the washstand to collect a bar of fine milled soap. It was scented with lavender.

  “Possibly,” Willa agreed. “Still, I thought him very attentive.”

  He’s like his father, secretive and conniving—

  Cassandra shut her father’s cruel words from her mind. That didn’t mean she was all trusting. “It is merely a marriage of convenience,” Cassandra said offhandedly, but in truth, it meant the beginning of a new life for her.

  A knock sounded on the door. Her bath had arrived. Stalwart servants filled a hip tub. While Cassandra bathed behind a screen, Willa created a nosegay for her to carry to the church.

  Betty returned with the dress pressed and helped Cassandra dress and style her hair. The maid loosely curled it, catching each curl in place with a rose and diamond-tipped pin.

  By the time the hour came to go to the chapel, Cassandra felt a true bride. As she went out of her bedroom, she touched her mother’s pearls and believed she felt her presence.

  Outside, the May sky was a clear blue with only a fluffy lamb of a cloud or two. The Camberly family chapel was a short walk from the house. The stone building was nestled under aging firs. Headstones were in the yard around it. Some were quite ancient. The newest was the dowager’s husband, Camberly’s grandfather.

  Inside, the chapel felt very close with its low ceiling. It could seat maybe eight people. Soren was already there, along with a local rector. The duke and his grandmother were also present. He smiled in greeting at Cassandra but then his gaze wandered to Willa. Cassandra silently vowed she would do what she must to keep the amoral Camberly from her dear friend.

  Soren approached. He was attired in his formal clothes. Someone had seen to trimming his hair and yet it still looked a bit wild. She found she didn’t mind. Indeed, she rather liked him the way he was.

  “You are beautiful.” He spoke without preamble as if he could not contain the words and didn’t care who heard them.

  Heat rushed to her cheeks. In that moment, she felt appreciated and treasured. He acted as if he wanted to marry not the heiress or the woman he was saving from disgrace, but her. As if he valued her.

  The rector broke the spell. “Are we all gathered, my lord?” he asked Soren. Someone had said he was a cousin of the duke’s who had the living here.

  “Are you ready, Miss Holwell?” Soren said, as aware as she that soon she would no longer have that name.

  “I am, my lord.”

  Soren nodded to the rector. “Then let us begin.”

  He sounded confident, and yet did she detect a hint of nervousness? That must mean this marriage was important to him.

  Cassandra realized she wanted that to be true.

  The ceremony began. The rector’s voice reminded her of her father’s sonorous tones. Unbidden, her sire’s warning once again tried to echo in her brain. He is like his father, secretive—She shut it out.

  Instead, she focused on her future. Her gaze met his gray eyes that now appeared open and honest. He was her childhood friend.

  He was also the man who self-assuredly pledged his troth to her, and then he placed a plain gold band on her finger that was solid and real.

  The ceremony was over. The rector introduced them as man and wife. As Lord and Lady Dewsberry.

  Soren gave her hand a squeeze. She had been so caught in a swirl of emotions, she hadn’t realized he was holding it.

  The dowager was the first to wish them happy. Willa gave her a hug and then turned and made a pretty speech to Soren about how fortunate he was to marry one of her dearest friends.

  Cassandra noted that Camberly watched Willa, a bit of interest in his eye, and yet he made no untoward move.

  Soren tucked her hand in his arm as they led the procession up to the house where the other guests waited for the wedding breakfast. “Let me tell you again that you look lovely,” he said.

  Cassandra smiled. She was too tall for lovely. Everyone told her that, and yet his words sounded honest. They touched something deep inside where she hid everything she hoped was true and knew wasn’t.

  A great cheer went up when they walked into the dining room. The dowager insisted she and Soren sit in the center of the table side by side, and they were toasted repeatedly. The food was plentiful, the punch, wine, and ale more so.

  Cassandra drank. One must have a sip when one is being feted. However, she wanted her wits about her when Soren took her upstairs. She was more than a touch anxious.

  She did have a notion of what to expect in the bedroom.

  However, seeing Camberly with Letty Bainhurst had been shocking. It hadn’t been poetic at all. In fact, it had been far too intimate. It had also been completely counter to what she’d thought would happen.

  The toasts grew rowdier and more suggestive. The niceties grew thinner and Cassandra became uncomfortable. When she’d attended weddings, they had been for family or very close friends. They were discreet, enjoyable affairs.

  Here she was with the crème of London Society and she found them crude when they overimbibed. And unhappy.

  No wonder they hopped into different beds. The drinking, the laughter, all of it masked what people truly felt. Lord Bainhurst was flirting with the lady to his right. His wife was once again exchanging glances with Cambe
rly. If there was a happy marriage in the room, Cassandra was hard pressed to find it.

  Lord Drucker, one of Lord Bainhurst’s friends, stood and lifted his glass. “Here’s to having enough money to buy a husband.”

  The comment was met with mocking laughter and “Hear, hears” mingled with cruel twitters.

  Cassandra was shocked. A knot of unease formed in her belly. She looked to Willa, who appeared equally stunned and offended. She shook her head as if saying to Cassandra she didn’t know how to gracefully accept such boorish behavior, either.

  The person who didn’t seem upset was Soren. Not an ounce of tension. He drank to the toast.

  And then he stood to make his own.

  Everyone quieted down expectantly. The man who had made his jibe wore a sheep’s grin across a face flush with drink.

  Cassandra could not look at him. She felt shame. She was glad now her father was not here. The glow went off the day.

  Soren raised his glass. “I first set eyes on my lady over a decade ago—Aye,” he said, noting the piqued interest of the women in the room, “this is a romantic tale.”

  Romantic? Cassandra frowned at her lap.

  “She and I met at the harvest day festival. It was held at the church. At one time, all would have come to Pentreath Castle, my family home. However, the bad blood between her family and mine had destroyed that celebration two generations earlier. We were warned as children to avoid each other.”

  That was true. Cassandra raised her eyes to him. He was stood tall and proud. He could hold his own with any gentleman in this esteemed company.

  “A York would walk on the other side of the road if he saw a Holwell coming. A Holwell would spit in a York’s direction.” He had the interest now of everyone in the room.

  “So I was raised to look down upon the Holwells . . . and then at this festival—one my family was attending reluctantly because, after all, it should have been ours—” He paused and looked directly at Lord Drucker. “We may not have money but we have more than our share of pride.” Heads nodded. And why not? For many noble houses, their vices made money a priority.

  “Well, we prideful Yorks were at the festival along with every man, woman, and child for twenty miles around. There was a band of fiddles and drums, two great steers turning on a spit, and more gossip and conversation than anyone could hope for in a year. I was happy to see my friends. I was home on holiday and would soon be sent back to school. And we had a high time of it. You know, the sort only boys can have when the grown-ups are not watching them closely. A group of us stole some meat pies off a table before it was time to eat. We went running off, and it was then that a girl arrived whom I’d never met before. Oh, please, let me assure you, as a lad of thirteen, I noticed but rarely paid attention to the fairer sex—”

  “Something you changed years later,” Camberly shouted out with good humor, and the audience laughed.

  “I have been a bit of a hound,” Soren agreed easily. “But this day, the lass who caught my eye was not just anyone. She was my family’s enemy. For the rest of that day, I circled and circled her, working up the courage to talk to her. In the end, she spoke first.”

  He looked at Cassandra; his gaze could be construed as a look of love. And everyone was listening now. Even she almost believed what he was saying. Almost. She knew different. After all, she’d been there.

  Soren continued his “tale.” “She told me she didn’t know why her father warned her against me. She said I didn’t look like such a bad sort.”

  “I wonder what she’ll say after tonight?” Lord Drucker quipped. He was rewarded with a few chuckles, but the women in the room shushed him. They were caught up in the story.

  “I told her I didn’t want to be her enemy, and I didn’t. She had curls like spun gold that fell all the way to her waist. Her eyes were bluer than any I’d ever seen before. My nan had told me stories of piskies, which are mischievous Cornish fairies who roam the hills, and she looked like one of them come to life. She also held a book in her hand. She was reading while the rest of us were looking for trouble.”

  The book part was true.

  His talk of piskies was pure nonsense. Piskies were actually tiny, naughty old men. But no one in this room knew that. Instead, they were picturing her as a glowing little thing with wings.

  “I spent the afternoon at her feet,” Soren declared. “By the end of the day, we vowed to each other that we would not be enemies. That the feud our parents enjoyed was not ours.”

  Another piece of truth.

  “Nor, in all the ensuing years, has there ever been a woman who has captured my imagination so completely.”

  His words formed themselves in the air over everyone’s heads. In that moment, he had elevated her from a bride of convenience to a lover of significance.

  She could feel opinions changing all around her. Lady Bainhurst had raised a hand to her heart as if deeply touched. Willa appeared positively smitten. Even the men had been tamed.

  The only one not pleased was Cassandra—because it wasn’t true, save a smidgeon. He’d made it all up. Easily.

  “To my bride,” Soren declared, raising his glass. The company rose to their feet, albeit some unsteadily. They raised their glasses. “May we have a long and happy life together,” Soren said to her. He drained the glass.

  She did not touch hers.

  The dowager leaned toward her, her eyes misty. “I did not realize this was a love match. That he has pined for you all these years. I’ve not heard anything so romantic.” Lady Melrose nodded her agreement.

  Cassandra had never heard anything so manipulative. Her temper began to build.

  Yes, she understood Soren might think he was doing it for her because Lord Drucker was a bore and a fool.

  But her father had warned her—and she was wary of conniving men.

  She came to her feet, reacting to the sudden churning of emotions she could not explain. Why, she almost preferred everyone snicker at her than fixate on her with melting eyes because they wanted to believe Soren’s fibs.

  Her intent was to leave the room with her dignity intact. Cassandra never lied, and she was stunned at how easily he did.

  His arm came around her waist and held her in place as if he had anticipated her actions.

  “Kiss her,” someone, possibly Camberly since he was well within his cups, called. The words were picked up by others.

  “Keep smiling,” Soren warned under his breath.

  She turned to him. “I don’t—” she started, ready to tell him that she didn’t smile on command—but he kissed her before she could finish. Her lips had pursed on the word “don’t” and he’d pounced on them.

  By the roar of approval, the kiss must have looked loverly but it wasn’t.

  She was spitting furious with him. He’d just made up nonsense about them in front of everyone with complete disregard of the truth. Her father had always chided her to be honest. It was a virtue he favored.

  Cassandra tried to pull away. Soren’s arm around her wouldn’t let her escape without a scene. She tried to protest; he took full advantage with his mouth.

  Really, the man was insufferable. It was just as it had been on the dueling field. He kissed; she found herself kissed.

  And then, they were kissing.

  It became hard to reason, let alone to hold an angry thought. He had a hand on her back now, right between her shoulder blades. He bent over her, his lips following hers, and she found herself pressing up, not wishing to break contact.

  Did they have an audience? She could no longer tell because all the awareness of her being was centered on this kiss—and then his arm around her waist moved down the backs of her thighs and she felt herself being lifted into the air with an ease she would not have thought possible.

  The kiss broke with her surprise. She was in Soren’s arms. He was holding her. Men didn’t hold her. She was too tall, and yet here she was.

  “That is enough,” he announced to the gathered c
ompany. “My bride and I wish to be alone.” With those words, he swept her out of the room ignoring the randy shouts calling them back or giving advice.

  He carried her. He did so easily, as if her weight was of no consequence to him.

  But this was unsettling to her. She wanted to be on her own feet. “You can put me down now.”

  “Not yet. They are watching.”

  And they were. Heads popped out from the dining room doorway. Camberly even came out into the hall as Soren brought her to the front stairs.

  “I am too heavy,” Cassandra whispered, embarrassed.

  “Are you afraid I’ll drop you?” he said.

  “Of course I am. This is silly,” she said.

  “Really?” He started up the stairs but pretended to move his arms as if he would let her go. Instinctively, Cassandra threw her arms around his neck. Now, he had a better hold.

  “That’s better,” he cooed.

  The general company was now at the foot of the stairs. Soren turned on the landing with her. “Wave.”

  “No.”

  “Spitfire,” he chided before kissing the angry pout on her lips, and continued his climb. At the top of the stairs, she thought he would put her down. When he didn’t, she glared at him, ready to tell him let go of her, but he spoke first.

  “Don’t say it. Not one word.” He looked pointedly at a few maids and valets who were waiting for their masters and had come out of the rooms to see what was going on.

  She kept quiet. Servants were the worst tattlers, and though she had some very direct words for Soren, she did not want them repeated.

  Soren walked to a room at the end of the hall. A valet, noting that his arms were full, said with a knowing grin, “Allow me, my lord.”

  “Thank you,” Soren said, while Cassandra wished she had a scarf to put over her head and hide her embarrassment. The crude comments from downstairs reminded her that everyone anticipated what they would be doing in this room, including the valet who had just opened the door.