Celeste Bradley - [Heiress Brides 03]

by Duke Most Wanted

  When he arrived, out of breath and eager, he found Sophie was standing in the study, her arms crossed over her wrinkled bodice, her head tilted to one side as she studied the bear in the corner of the room.

  She smiled at him over her shoulder, but then turned back to the bear. “It’s missing a little something.”

  Graham smiled and leaned one shoulder on the door frame. “I couldn’t agree more.”

  Sophie reached behind her neck to untie the strip of silk that had been pressed into service as a hair restraint.

  She fussed with the bear for a moment, then stood back.

  The fierce and brutal reminder of the old duke’s lust for death now grinned clownishly over the giant pink bow now flopping about its neck.

  Graham came forward and clasped his hands about Sophie’s waist from behind, pulling her close to his chest. “Perfect.”

  Sophie leaned back against him and heaved a great sigh of happiness.

  “ ‘Now the prince approached Cinderella, took her by the hand, and danced with her. Indeed, he would not dance with anyone else and would not let go of her hand. Whenever someone came and asked her to dance, he said, “She’s my partner.” ’ ”

  “She’s my partner,” Graham whispered into her ear. “Always.”

  She turned her face into his cheek. “I’m so happy that it simply doesn’t seem real. It’s a magic moment, a spell, a dream come true . . . ”

  Graham held her close. “It’s real. I have the special license to prove it.”

  And he had Sophie, the truest thing he’d ever known. He had believed in nothing and no one—but he now believed in her. With her at his side, even with no money, he felt able to restore Edencourt with his bare hands, brick by brick if necessary.

  Loving someone as good and true as Sophie might just possibly mean he’d been redeemed.

  “I sent word to Tessa this morning,” Sophie admitted. “She might even appear at the ceremony this afternoon.”

  Graham nodded. “She is the only family I have.” Even resignation seemed too meager an emotion to cloak his glowing happiness. “Just picture it. You and I in front of the cleric, making our vows in an empty church—but for Tessa.”

  Sophie sighed. “She’ll overdress and make rude comments and probably fling rotten tomatoes.”

  Graham laughed. “Why on earth would she object so strongly to our wedding? She stands to lose nothing by it.”

  But Sophie only moved away a step, out of the circle of his arms. “Your butler is a horrible man,” she said. “Do you know he tried to make me go around to the servants’ entrance?”

  Graham laughed. “The next time you walk through that door, you’ll be lady of this house. I can’t think of a better revenge than that.”

  She smiled at that. He rejoiced to see it. Someday he was going to get to the bottom of the complex creature that was Sophie Blake.

  He looked forward to every moment of exploration on the way.

  “My love,” he called softly. “Are you ready to get married?”

  She swung around and blessed him with that blinding brilliant smile. “You bet your arse I am!”

  THEY WERE TO be married in St. Mary of the Abbots Church. It was a quiet but gracious structure tucked deep into Kensington, on the far side of Hyde Park from Mayfair. A tall tower in the medieval style presided over the spacious gothic hall.

  It was the traditional place of worship for the Cavendish family, though Graham hadn’t set foot in it for decades. Still, his parents had wed there. As far as Graham knew, it was the only time his father had ever entered the place. His mother, however, was rumored to have been a frequent visitor. Perhaps, if such a thing existed, the spirit of his mother might linger to witness this day.

  Would she have liked Sophie? For that matter, would she have liked him?

  Surprisingly, the church was full. At the door Sophie hesitated, stunned by the shifting, fan-waving masses of apparently bored people she barely knew.

  “Tessa told everyone.”

  Graham shrugged. “I am not displeased to have the entire ton as my witness. Besides, it might save hours of explanations later. We’ll just let the gossips tell the world for us.”

  Sophie didn’t look terribly reassured. “I don’t like this.”

  Graham tightened his hand on hers. He simply couldn’t seem to let go of her! “What harm is there in it? We haven’t any secrets, after all.”

  Sophie lifted her chin and took a deep breath. “You’re absolutely right. We have no secrets.”

  They walked up the aisle together, hand in hand. When the first head turned, a double wave of faces swung their way. So many faces—Sophie felt a little dizzied by it. She was glad she’d left her spectacles at Brook House.

  “Everything will be perfectly fine,” Graham whispered to her.

  She laughed then, to hear her words turned back at her. He was right. She’d done it! She was here, in London, marrying an astonishing, handsome man she loved more than her own life and was about to become a wealthy duchess to boot!

  Fairy stories did sometimes come true, it seemed.

  Chapter Twenty-eight

  There was something in the air between the couple at the altar, something perfect and pure and magical. Even the cleric, who had begun his task this afternoon with irritation and disapproval—the bishop handed out far too many of those special licenses!—began to feel the depth of the rote ceremony he’d repeated so many times. His reedy voice slowed and deepened and the vows grew in solemnity.

  The crowd, composed as it was by the easily bored and the terminally distracted, became oddly still. Rapt, even. Hardened dowagers brought lace handkerchiefs to their eyes. Insouciant dandies dabbed at their cheeks with lace cuffs. The most jaded of women and the most dissipated of men all sat in spellbound silence, witness to something they had despaired of ever finding themselves.

  True love.

  In the far back of the church, Mr. Stickley wiped at his eyes without shame. Miss Blake had stepped out of the shadow of her shyness and had changed her life. Stickley wasn’t worried in the slightest that Lord Edencourt would use her shamelessly and waste her money. Any idiot could see that the man was entirely and deeply smitten. And she—why she glowed like ivory and fire, alive with love!

  Her shimmering happiness filled Stickley with inspiration. Enough with his closed, dreary life of adding columns and collecting bits and baubles! In a few hours he would be handing over the Pickering fortune and then he would be free!

  What he meant to do with that freedom was to find meaningful work and possibly, someday, even someone of his own to love!

  The first thing, however, would be to rid himself of Wolfe forever.

  “God, this is sickening.”

  At that gravelly and derisive voice, Stickley froze, then slowly turned to his left. As if conjured by the merest thought, Wolfe was even now making his way rudely down the row, ruthlessly stepping on toes. Of course, he was heading straight to Stickley.

  Stickley shook his head in disapproval. “For pity’s sake,” he hissed. “Don’t you know anyone but me?”

  “Sod off, Stick,” Wolfe growled. “I need to bloody sit down.”

  He forced himself into the sliver of space next to Stickley. Several neighbors gave whispered protest. “Sod off to you lot, too,” Wolfe said with a sneer. “I’m an injured man.”

  Stickley slid as far from him as he could get, for Wolfe smelled none too lovely, even for him. “Where have you been sleeping, in a cowshed?”

  “Stick, I hate you. I’ve always hated you. Shut up and watch the sickening duke take his horse-faced bride already. Rotting blue-blood bastard!”

  Wolfe was never precisely cheerful, but this was foul-tempered even for him. Stickley determined that he could bear the rotter for one more hour. Then he would refuse to acknowledge his existence for as long as he lived.

  Unfortunately, Wolfe continued to mumble obscenities. Finally, Stickley turned to him. “Wolfe, shut your ridiculous fa
ce!”

  Wolfe, who had run rough-shod over Stickley for more than forty years, dropped his jaw and frankly stared at his partner.

  Then acrid clouds of fury began to gather in his eyes. “Why you—”

  A sudden murmur in the crowd caught Wolfe’s attention. He rudely stood to get a better view of what caused such distraction in a crowd so recently sitting in enraptured silence.

  Stickley watched his face change from sneering fury to amused anticipation.

  “This,” Wolfe stated with certainty, “is going to be good.”

  SOPHIE FELT LIKE her heart was flying right out of her chest. “I, Sophie Blake, do take this man . . .” Oh, yes, please. Let me take him. Let me keep him forever. If only I can have him as my own, I shall never lie again for the rest of my life.

  A wave of whispers passed through the crowd. Sophie ignored it as she gazed into Graham’s shining green eyes. If there was a heaven, then she was fairly sure she already knew what it looked like.

  Then Graham broke their locked gaze, glancing toward the door in irritation. She saw him frown. “Tessa?”

  Sophie blinked, emerging from her trance of happiness. She turned her head to look as well. In the brilliant daylight now pouring in through the open doors, she squinted to see that one of the entering figures was indeed Tessa. The other—

  Oh, no. Oh, dear God, no.

  Clumping through the church door on her cane, out of her bed for the first time in Sophie’s memory, her heavy body madly swathed in woolens over outdated silk and lace, came none other than Mrs. Blake, helped solicitously along by Tessa.

  The cleric became aware that neither man nor almost-wife was paying any attention to his holy words of marital warning.

  He shut his Bible with a sharp snap and glared at the door. “What is the meaning of this interruption?” His crisp voice carried across the rising whispers.

  Mrs. Blake stopped in the middle of the long aisle. Sophie’s gut had gone to ice and her mind had frozen. All she could do was to grab for Graham’s hand. “My love, I’m so sorry,” she whispered.

  Graham took her hand calmly. “I think I’d like to know what is going on as well. Who is this woman, Tessa?”

  Sophie dizzily contemplated a strategic faint. It would hardly require any deception at all for she felt as though her body had ceased to exist but for the pounding of her heart. It was all very clear now. The crowd of spectators, the impeccable timing—all orchestrated by Tessa to achieve the moment of maximum impact.

  Then it was too late.

  “I am Mrs. Blake, the last surviving granddaughter of Sir Hamish Pickering.” Mrs. Blake leaned all her weight on Tessa and raised her cane to point at Sophie. “This woman is not my daughter!”

  MOMENTS AGO GRAHAM had been completely happy. He’d never been prouder of anything than of this day. For a man like him to earn a woman like this? It was nothing short of magic.

  Now, the rising babble swirled about them. The cleric, who had no idea what the woman’s claim signified, was still objecting to her rude interruption of His Grace’s wedding. The crowd was chattering madly to each other, wildly curious, already gossiping as if this was the biggest scandal of the year.

  “My Sophie is dead!” the strange woman was saying stridently, intent on making her point above the chaos. “This girl—” Frustrated by the lack of concentration of the masses, the woman brought her cane down onto the back of the nearest pew with a mighty crack. The report silenced all but the most determined tattlers. Shrugging back her shoulders, the woman looked about her disdainfully. “As I was saying—”

  She raised her cane to point at Sophie again. “This girl is nothing but a servant in my house! A thief who stole my daughter’s name and my money to bring herself to London!” She sneered. “She’s nothing but a penniless orphan who turned on me viciously in return for my kindness!”

  Graham turned to look at Sophie, his lips prepared to quirk in laughter at the absurdity of such claims. She didn’t answer, but only stared back at him, growing paler by the second. The storm of guilt in her eyes should have told him, but he still couldn’t bring himself to believe.

  “It isn’t true,” he said slowly. “You would never—not you!”

  He felt a tremor move through her and it shook him as well, the truth moving into him by way of her hand in his.

  Graham’s hands were icy and unfeeling. Did he still hold Sophie’s hand in his?

  Moments returned to play again in his memory. Tessa deriding Sophie’s arrival in London, alone, shabby and oddly without possessions for a lady gently born. Sophie’s surprising ability to take care of herself, even against the roughest customers.

  Sophie coming to his room in the night, forcing a terrible, wonderful choice upon him.

  “Sophie—” But of course, her name wasn’t Sophie, was it? Graham blinked and shook his head, desperately trying to turn the world back to its rightful position.

  She lifted her chin then and the answer was there, in her fathomless gray eyes, swimming in guilt and regret and hope—really, that was ridiculous! Hope?

  He dropped her hand and stepped back from her. “You lied?”

  She moved toward him. “Graham, I can explain!”

  He held up his hand sharply. “Don’t speak to me.” He couldn’t bear it. The vast and billowing happiness of a few moments ago was revealed to be precisely what he’d always suspected until he met Sophie: complete and utter shit.

  No. Not Sophie. Not Sofia either, obviously. Graham gazed into her damp, shattered eyes. “Who the bloody hell are you?” he bellowed over the din.

  The room quieted instantly. Everyone who was everyone held their breath, waiting for more delicious scandal. Graham saw the liar before him swallow hard.

  “She is Sadie Westmoreland,” Mrs. Blake announced. “An orphan, taken in to be paid companion when my dear Sophie died from influenza.”

  “That’s not all,” Tessa said quickly. She prodded the woman’s story with a whisper in her ear.

  Mrs. Blake reddened righteously. “Yes, that’s right! She robbed me! Call the watch! I demand justice! She stole two hundred pounds from me!”

  Tessa’s voice rang out again, her tone one of razor-sharp scorn. “So that she could come to London and pretend to be a lady!”

  Sophie lifted her chin, but the curse of the red-haired smote her down. Her fair skin burned like a scarlet beacon, betraying her humiliation and shame.

  The titters began from the area of the church where Lilah was, but she could hardly be blamed for the fact that the laughter spread like a contagion, until the entire room rocked with laughter, either openly or guiltily, but laughing just the same.

  Except for Graham.

  Graham had gone as white as paper, with only his green eyes shining fury and humiliation at her.

  Sadie—for she could own her name now, even in her own mind—watched the love she’d found writhe and die on the floor between them. She’d killed it herself, by filling it with lies.

  She was Cinderella with a vengeance—Cinderella who lied, cheated and stole to get to the ball—only to have her own misdeeds shatter her dreams at the stroke of midnight.

  She turned from her prince then, for she couldn’t bear to see what she’d lost—or rather, destroyed. Instead, she lifted her chin and gazed down the aisle at the woman she’d learned to despise.

  “Mrs. Blake has mistaken one little detail,” she said clearly. “I was never paid.”

  Chapter Twenty-nine

  Behind Graham, the cleric cleared his throat. “Your Grace . . . the ceremony is unfinished. What do you wish me to do?”

  At first thought, all Graham felt was blinding relief. He wasn’t married to this creature at all! It wasn’t too late to find a rich wife and save Edencourt and put this whole horrendous day down to muddled thinking, poor decisions made in the devastating grief of losing his entire family. No one would blame him for a thing.

  Except that he’d spent last night with Sophie in his be
d. He’d lain with her and taken her virginity—she hadn’t lied about that, he knew!—and that left her ruined.

  He could almost hear his father’s voice in his mind. “To hell with her then! It’s not as though she’s a lady! She’s just a friendless, nameless girl who tricked you into it. Toss her into the street and think no more of it!”

  True enough, as it stood.

  Being broke and wed to a thief would destroy him. And Edencourt. He could beggar his house and sell off all his buttons, but that would only feed his folk for one winter. He needed to restore the estate entirely or it would always be a money drain!

  Yet, being ruined and unwed would destroy her. Sadie.

  When he’d taken her into his arms, he’d been making a vow of sorts, hadn’t he? In his own mind, he’d committed to wed her in that moment.

  In sickness and in health. For richer or for poorer.

  Lifting his gaze, he stared at the stranger before him who wore Sophie’s beautiful face. She gazed back at him, her finely carved features pale as death.

  She must have seen his decision in his expression, for she held up a hand to stop him.

  Of course, that was only because she didn’t know what the decision was.

  “Continue,” he barked at the cleric.

  Astonishingly, instead of subsiding now that her cause was won, Sadie Westmoreland only protested further.

  “Graham, no! You mustn’t! I can’t help you anymore!”

  He ignored her. She tugged her hand, prying at his grip with her free one, trying to liberate herself. “Graham, do not do this! I haven’t a farthing to my name! You need to find someone else, someone rich who can help you save Edencourt!”

  Her words meant nothing to him. It was as if she spoke another language altogether. The language of lies, perhaps. It didn’t matter. It was all lies, every word ever spoken on this earth. Nothing was true.

  He took her by the arm and turned them both to fully face the priest. “Continue!”

  When she protested further, he silenced her swiftly. “Everything is going to be perfectly fine.”