His Spanish Bride
Page 7
“I thought you might.” He turned on the piano bench to smile at her, one of those smiles that seemed to slip from behind his guard. “I’m more of a Mozartian myself. A bit safer perhaps.”
“Or the emotion’s simply more under the surface. ‘Dove Sono’ always makes me cry.” She swallowed, wondering how the aria would sound now that she was married herself.
“Marriage is perhaps more safely begun without illusions.”
“Then we’re off to an excellent start.” No romantic illusions between them. Merely lies.
“Honesty is worth a great deal.” He leaned his arms on the piano. His hair fell over his forehead. For a moment the hardened man she’d met was replaced by the schoolboy he must have been not so very many years ago. Idealistic and full of hope.
She set down her cup, harder than she intended, jostling coffee into the saucer. “Blanca should have my things unpacked by now. It’s been a long day. I think I’ll retire.”
“Of course.” He got to his feet. His voice was even, but he looked rather paler than he had a few moments before. A wedding night was awkward in any event, and in their case awkwardness was layered upon awkwardness.
What was a gently bred bride supposed to say to her husband before she retired? I’ll see you shortly? I’ll call when I’m ready? “Thank you.” She meant to put a faint tremor in her voice, but it trembled more than she intended. “For the music. For everything.”
He only had one bedchamber in his lodgings. Somehow he hadn’t properly considered the implications until now, home—odd word, “home”—from the embassy, Suzanne’s bandboxes carried into his cramped lodgings. Suzanne behind the bedchamber door. By the time he could remember, his parents had slept at opposite ends of whichever of their houses they were occupying. Assuming they were even in the same house. Much of the time they contrived not to be. Couples on more intimate terms still had their own bedchambers and dressing rooms. Even if they ultimately spent the night together, they had somewhere separate to retire to to prepare for bed.
Which presumably was what happened on most wedding nights among his circle. The bride retired to her bedchamber to disrobe while the groom went to his bedchamber to do the same before discreetly tapping at her door. Instead, Suzanne was in the one bedchamber with Blanca, preparing for bed, while he cooled his heels in the sitting room. And no matter what happened between him and Suzanne tonight, they only had one bed.
He shouldn’t have played the piano. Music created a false sense of intimacy. And at the same time it could reveal far too much. He never felt so stripped of his defenses as when he sat at the keyboard.
His cravat bit into his neck. The whisky decanter on the table by the windows called to him, but he subdued the impulse. He needed all his wits about him. This was no time to let himself be ruled by impulse. Or desire. What mattered was Suzanne—his wife, good God—and what was best for her.
Which was probably to be left alone.
Suzanne stared into the dressing table looking glass. “Odd that bride is one role I’ve never played.”
Blanca ran a brush through Suzanne’s hair. “There’s a nice bedchamber down the passage for me. Mr. Addison saw to that. He’s thoughtful, that one.”
“Yes, he’s very kind. And more than a bit fond of you, I think.”
“But he’s the sort who thinks it would be dishonorable to do anything about it. I’ll have to see if I can change his mind. I’m not used to having so much time to get to know someone.” Blanca pulled loose hairs from the brush.
Suzanne leaned closer to the looking glass to rub at the blacking below her eyes. “There. I should do.”
“He’ll expect you to take your time. He’ll expect you to be nervous.”
“Not entirely an act.” Suzanne tugged at the muslin frill at the neck of her nightdress.
Blanca set down the brush. “I heard him play the piano.”
“He’s very talented, isn’t he?”
“You can’t tell me he isn’t in love with you.”
Suzanne’s fingers closed on the muslin. “He’s a skilled pianist. Putting emotion into music is like acting. It doesn’t mean one really loves the other person onstage.”
Blanca shook her head. “I’m not a musician, but I have ears. That piece was as directed straight at you as a love sonnet.”
“Malcolm isn’t the sort for sonnets.”
“Which is why he played the piano.”
Suzanne turned round on the dressing table bench to look up at Blanca. “I know you disapprove of this.”
“It’s not a question of disapproving. I think you need to know what you’re risking, for yourself as well as him.”
“When have I ever been blind to risks?”
“These risks are different. You know you aren’t invulnerable to a bullet. You think you’re invulnerable to this.”
“This?”
Blanca set the brush down. “Feelings.”
“His feelings?”
“And your own.”
Suzanne got to her feet and put a hand on Blanca’s arm. “Blanca—I already knows this is more complicated than I thought. But I have to go forward. I’ll protect him as much as I can.”
“And yourself ?”
“I wouldn’t have survived this long if I wasn’t good at taking care of myself.”
Blanca snorted. “You’ve never lived with anyone like this. You’re not used to it.”
“I’m good at adapting.” Suzanne glanced at the door to the sitting room where her husband waited. “It’s barbaric if you think about it, a couple gathering together with their friends and family and more or less announcing that they’re going to spend the night together for the first time. But then a lot of things about marriage are barbaric.”
“He won’t push you to do anything you don’t want to do.”
“No.” Suzanne pulled the seafoam silk of her dressing gown about her. “But given that I’ve lied to him, made false promises, and fully intend to go on deceiving him for as long as I can, I think a real wedding night is the least I owe him, don’t you?”
Addison paused in the passage outside the small room that, Blanca knew, had been allotted to her. “I trust you’ll be comfortable.”
“Thank you.” He had a nice face. She had thought that from the first when they met in the Cantabrian Mountains. Well, truth to tell, she’d thought he was handsome. And, as she had said to Suzanne, regrettably the honorable sort, who wouldn’t dream of acting on the spark she had caught once or twice in his eyes.
Addison inclined his head, started down the passage, then stopped and turned back to her. His pale hair caught the candlelight. His gaze met hers directly. “It’s no sense pretending this isn’t an adjustment. For all of us. We’ve been alone for close on ten years now, Mr. Rannoch and I. He’s not used to having anyone else to consider in his life, and I’m not used to having anyone else to consider in the arrangements of the household. I should greatly appreciate it if you would tell me at once if you believe that Mrs. Rannoch is uncomfortable in any way. Or if you feel I’m neglecting to include you in any of the household decisions or if I can in any way make things easier for you.”
Blanca swallowed. She wasn’t used to such deference. It made him, perversely, more attractive. “You’re very kind, Mr. Addison.”
“Not at all, Miss Mendoza.” He hesitated a moment. The flame of the candle he carried danced in his steady blue gaze. “Mr. Rannoch is the best of men. But he’s used to being on his own. It will be an adjustment, as I said, for him to have someone else to consider in his plans and in his life. He wishes to do everything he can do to make her comfortable, but it won’t be easy for him to share—”
“Himself ?”
“Precisely.”
“You’re worried about him,” Blanca said.
Addison hesitated, and for a moment Blanca feared she had gone too far. Like Mr. Rannoch, Addison did not easily talk about his feelings. “I’ve been with Mr. Rannoch for a number of years.”
A genuine smile broke through Addison’s reserve. Then he inclined his head. “Good night, Miss Mendoza.”
“Good night, Mr. Addison.”
Blanca watched him retreat down the passage, then went into her own room and closed the door with a sigh. A wedding night, and she feared they were all too trapped in their roles for any of them to enjoy it.
Malcolm drew a breath and rapped at the bedchamber door.
“Yes.” His wife’s—his wife’s—voice came from behind the polished panels. “That is, come in.”
He turned the handle. Never had he felt such trepidation at stepping into his own bedchamber.
Suzanne sat on the dressing table bench, wrapped in a dressing gown of seafoam silk. Her dark hair spilled loose over her shoulders, the cropped bits still curled round her face. Her bare feet peeped out from beneath the silk and muslin of her dressing gown and nightdress. He had seen her in dresses that exposed more skin, but something about the déshabille was at once more seductive and more vulnerable than any glimpse he’d had of her before. His throat closed. His mind clamped down on every impulse of his body.
“Do you have everything you need?” His voice sounded thin to his own ears.
“Yes.” Her own voice was like frayed silk. “Addison arranged things perfectly. Though I’m afraid I’ve quite taken over your dressing table.”
Enamel boxes and glass jars clustered on the dressing table top. He wasn’t sure what had become of his shaving kit until he saw it on the chest of drawers. He saw something else beside the chest of drawers. A silver cooler with a bottle of champagne.
“Addison left that for us,” Suzanne said. “A touch of romance I wouldn’t have expected.” She bit her lip as though she wasn’t sure about the word “romance.”
Two crystal glasses stood on the escritoire, sparkling in the light from the brace of candles. Malcolm wasn’t sure whether to thank his valet or groan. He picked up the champagne bottle and opened it, which at least gave him something to do with his hands. He splashed champagne on the dressing table but managed to hand Suzanne a glass without breaking it or spattering champagne on her. He picked up his own glass and touched it to hers. To say “to us” seemed presumptuous when there scarcely was an “us.” Instead he said, “To the future.”
She smiled and took a sip of champagne. He did as well, a rather deeper sip than he intended. “Suzanne—” He retreated to lean against the chest of drawers. “We needn’t—There needn’t be anything between us until after the baby’s born. Or even after that. Not until—not unless you’re ready.”
He more than half-expected her to look away. Instead she met his gaze. Her eyes looked very open. He realized it was because she’d removed the blacking she used to line them and darken her lashes. “You already made that very obliging offer. But we’re married, and I think we should begin as we mean to go on, as it were.”
He took another sip of champagne. His mouth was dry. “What I’m trying to say is you can define how we mean to go on.”
“And what I’m trying to say is that I’d welcome new memories to make the old go away.”
Dear God in heaven. Be careful what you wish for. “Suzanne—”
She stood up in a swirl of seafoam silk, then gave a rough laugh that echoed his own uncertainty. “Oh dear, talking about it is dreadfully awkward, isn’t it?” She took another sip. “Perhaps we should drink some more champagne.”
“Excellent suggestion.” He picked up the bottle and refilled her glass. The champagne fizzed. She took a quick sip, but it spilled over her fingers. She looked up at him, laughter trembling on her lips. Their gazes caught and held. He felt her quickened breathing against his skin. He lifted one hand and ran it over her hair. She drew an involuntary breath. As he pulled his hand back, she lifted her own and pressed it against his, palm to palm.
“ ‘Palmers’ kiss,’ ” she murmured.
Shakespeare was usually safe. Now his favorite writer’s words seemed beset with traps. And wonders. “ ‘O trespass sweetly urged.’ ” The words came unbidden. Without conscious thought he laced his fingers through her own.
She tilted her head back. The candlelight sparkled in her eyes. Talk about teaching torches to burn bright. “ ‘Let lips do what hands do,’ ” she whispered. The next thing he knew his arms were round her and her mouth was pressed to his own.
It was less awkward than their first kiss. Less awkward and more intense. Champagne spattered over both of them and the coverlet. He set the bottle down with shaking fingers and cradled her face between his hands. He brushed his lips over her temple, the hollow of her jaw, the corner of her mouth. Gentle, featherlight kisses that teased but left it up to her how far it would go. Because for all her strength he knew what she’d been through. What she was trusting him with.
She curled her fingers behind his neck and pulled him closer. He groaned and sank his fingers into her hair.
“I’m sorry.” He lifted his head, his voice ragged. “I didn’t—”
“No, I—” She pulled him closer. “Don’t stop.”
One wrong breath and his control would snap. He scooped her into his arms, cradling her against him. She looped an arm round his neck and pressed a kiss against his throat. He drew a breath and carried his wife to their bed.
The sheets rustled. They smelled of starch and English lavender. The linen was cool, his hands were warm. He was patient and tender, testing, exploring, waiting for her response before he went further. “If you wish to stop you need only ask,” he murmured against her hair, his fingers finding the ties at the neck of her nightdress.
“Stopping’s the last thing on my mind,” she said, her lips against his throat.
And it was true. She’d never craved gentleness. Quite the opposite in fact. But there was a compelling honesty in the touch of his lips, the brush of his hands. To respond required no artifice. The challenge was to hold her own response in check. Not to give way to passion more quickly than a woman who had known only violence, slowly learning another sort of communication. To slip into the skin of the character she was playing was part of the challenge of lovemaking. Normally that had its own sort of spice. This should be no different. Yet tonight the meeting of lips, the twining of hands, the press of flesh against flesh, touched something real inside her. As though that elusive core beneath the layers of pretense, a core she sometimes thought no longer existed, had come back to life. Never had she thought to find such honesty in the midst of such artifice.
And then she forgot. Forgot to pretend, forgot her mission, forgot the line between her persona and what might laughably be called herself. Touch spoke directly to touch, sensation echoed sensation, response kindled response. When she murmured his name, she scarcely recognized the sound of her own voice.
Dear God. It was her first coherent thought afterward, as she lay with her head pillowed on his chest. Had she betrayed herself? She felt naked in a way that had nothing to do with bare flesh.
The brush of his fingers over her hair and his lips against her brow told her that he still believed she was the woman he had taken to bed. Which should have been reassuring. Save that she had never felt so unsure of who she was herself.
“Thank you.” It seemed the right thing for her character to say. It also mirrored what she was feeling.
His fingers stilled in her hair. “You should never have to offer thanks for something so mutual.”
“I’m glad we didn’t wait.” Though a part of her now t
hought it would have been much safer to do so.
“I can’t tell you how much I agree with you, mo chridh.”
She lifted her head to look at him. “What did you call me?”
“Mo chridh. It means—it’s Gaelic. I grew up in Scotland and Ireland as much as England.”
She swallowed. The words held a shock of reality, where a more conventional endearment would have felt like a courtesy. She let her head fall back against his chest and focused on the sound of his heartbeat while she tried to order her tumultuous thoughts. Eventually his fingers stilled in her hair and his even breathing told her he slept. But she had never been further from sleep.
The canopy frame made dark bars against the pale silk. She could smell the spilled champagne and the guttering candles. Malcolm was holding her as he had made love to her. As though she was something precious. Something rare and fragile that he feared to hurt. Her left hand was pillowed on his chest. She could feel the hard, unfamiliar gold of her wedding band round her finger. She was married. There was no endgame, no point in sight that would end this masquerade. She would live day in, day out as Mrs. Malcolm Rannoch. She had known that going in. Known it, but woefully failed to understand it.
Sacrebleu, how had she been fool enough to think she could control this situation, control him, control her own responses. And she suspected her inability to dissemble in the bedchamber was going to be the least of it.
Marriage has a way of taking one by surprise. Charlotte Haddon’s words came back to her. She wondered how Charlotte had felt on her own wedding night, how quickly she had seen through William Haddon. What escape she’d found in her interlude with Edward Linford. If—
Oh, good God.
“Suzette?” Malcolm turned his head, as though the sudden jerk in her thoughts had awakened him. “Are you all right?”