She had the audacity to look affronted. “I thought to have an ice.” Aurora tried to snatch the reins back from his grasp, but he would be damned if he let them go. She huffed and swatted his hands in response. “What the devil do you think you’re doing, my lord?”
Not here. He had hashed out enough of what should have been their private matters in public, with the gossips of the ton hanging on their every word or touch. Quin would rather rot in Newgate than give them anything else to print in their bloody society papers.
He turned his mare and made for Curzon Street, pulling Aurora’s horse along behind him. She lost her balance at the sudden change in direction, particularly since she already had her body in a convoluted mess. She let out a squeal of panic.
Quin turned to see what the problem was this time. She’d fallen forward over the saddle horn and was holding onto it for dear life, with her sweet little derrière hanging precariously off the side.
Blast. They wouldn’t make it to the end of the street, let alone to Jonas’s bachelor lodgings, with her dangling about like that. Drawing the horses to a stop, he plucked her from her horse and settled her sidelong across his lap.
“Oh!” Aurora said. “How rude.” She wiggled her bottom and squirmed about.
“Be still,” Quin ordered. She’d wriggle herself off his lap and land face first on the ground, if she didn’t quit. “And we’ll discuss rudeness in private.”
“Why, I never” The blasted minx continued to struggle until she would have pitched forward and fallen, if not for his arm about her waist keeping her still.
Patience. He needed to be patient. Quin took a deep breath, then pulled her tighter against his chest. “Be still,” he growled.
Thankfully, they didn’t have far to travel. Within minutes, they arrived at Number Five. Quin dismounted, pulling his bride along with him. She fidgeted for freedom, but the silly chit would likely run off again, or try to climb onto a damned horse, or perhaps just plop down on the steps of the flat and scream for help. None of those scenarios suited his mood.
Instead, he flipped Aurora over his shoulder—the opposite shoulder from the previous ramming, since that one felt like a horse had kicked it repeatedly—and held her legs about the knees.
“Really, this is the most absurd”
“We will discuss absurdity in private as well, Miss Hyatt. Hold your tongue.”
Quin let himself into Jonas’s lodgings, tossing Aurora on a divan before turning to close the door behind him—only to be confronted by Jonas’s manservant.
“Lord Quinton,” the manservant said, attempting to push his way into the small sitting room, “I cannot allow this. It is highly irregular. You cannot bring a young lady in here”
Fiend seize it, enough with the damned disruptions. “Leave us,” he said. His voice held enough menace to scare most men.
This man proved predictable. “Yes, my lord.” He seemed to shrink before Quin’s eyes, then backed away.
Quin closed the door and tried to calm his racing pulse before initiating discussion with his bride. When he finally felt capable of controlling himself and turned to face her, his heart felt like it had lurched off a cliff without checking for water first.
Her clear eyes were so wide, he thought they’d burst free from her face. One hand rested over her bosom, trembling visibly.
Good God. She was terrified.
Quin itched to strike something. What had he done to cause such fear in her? He could never be confused as a saint, but neither was he a monster.
Move. He needed to move or he would throw something, or punch a hole in the wall, or rip his arm from the shoulder that was so bloody sore. Instead, he paced.
His bride’s huge eyes never left him.
The act of pacing only made her appear more nervous. If he ever intended to calm her, he had to sit—even if it meant he’d never find a way to slow the frenetic pulse pounding through his veins. He took a step toward the empty seat beside Aurora.
And nearly lost his thin grasp on sanity when she flinched and shielded her face with her delicate hands. “No!” she cried out, eyes closed, falling back against the divan.
Devil take it, she thought he would hit her.
Quin couldn’t remember the last time he was so angry. Perhaps when his father was still alive—still delivering beatings to both Quin and his mother, still drinking himself into a muddle-headed stupor.
With every fiber of patience he could manage, he forced his arms to hang at his sides. It took every ounce of self-control he could muster to refrain from grabbing hold of the minx and shaking some sense into her.
Finally, she opened her eyes to peek through the dark fringe of her lashes, then slowly, painstakingly, lowered her arms to her lap.
Quin counted to ten. Better make it twenty. “I do not strike women, Aurora. It would behoove you to remember that in future.”
“But you were so angry, I thought”
“Do not make me repeat myself.” His voice was sharper, held more bite, than he intended, though he managed to keep it at just slightly above a whisper. He crossed his arms over his chest and stared her down. “Now I’d like you to tell me why you were so indiscreet as to run away from our wedding, when remaining unmarried will leave you ruined in the eyes of society? Why you chose to leave me standing at the altar, waiting for you, while you rode through all of Mayfair to stop for an ice at Gunter’s, with your legs showing all the way up to your knees, of all things. Why you felt it prudent to toss aside the one opportunity you had at salvaging your reputation.”
Her expression melted from fearful to haughty over the course of his demands. Aurora’s jaw fell slack, only to be snapped closed a moment later.
“I’m waiting,” Quin bit off, and took another menacing step toward her.
Aurora scowled up at him. “Lud! Perhaps you would care to inform me why you felt the need to stop kissing me so suddenly yesterday.”
“That,” he said, “is hardly relevant to the discussion at hand.”
“On the contrary, my lord,” she said with no small amount of heat, her light, clear eyes flashing at him, “it is entirely relevant, since the answer to that question plays into my answers to your questions.”
“Can you not answer a simple question?” Quin barked at her.
“I’ll answer a simple question when you ask a simple question.”
He tossed his hands in the air. “What is so bloody difficult about telling me why you don’t want to marry me all of a sudden?”
“What is so bloody wrong with me that you don’t enjoy kissing me?” she shot back.
Don’t enjoy kissing her? If he hadn’t had to spend nearly every blasted waking minute since he met her making arrangements to marry her on a moment’s notice, he likely would have spent them all in just that pursuit—if not finding a way to bed her before the wedding. The minx consumed him.
Good God, she was enticing when she was mad. Quin might have to anger her more often, because she looked like a Siren rising up out of the sea. He’d show her just how much he wanted to kiss her.
Quin closed the meager gap between them in a flash, gripping her upper arms and pulling her up before him. His mouth came down upon hers, hard and hot and hungry.
He kissed her so thoroughly it was as though he was branding her, marking her as his own. Any thought of gentleness or tenderness for her fled like the tide rushing back out to sea.
A low half-sigh, half-moan came from deep in her throat.
He plundered her mouth, stroking and plunging and searing with his tongue, until she trembled beneath him and her hands reached out to his middle for support. Quin didn’t stop until he was drunk and lightheaded on her sweetness.
When he finally came up, her eyes were lidded and her lips were swollen and pink. His already hard erection throbbed at the sight. Slipping his arms around Aurora’s back, he pulled her close—close enough she could feel how very badly he needed her.
She jumped at the contact.
Her eyes widened and she pressed her body more fully into him. “What is that? I want you to teach”
Quin put a hand over her mouth to stop her. Damnation, she was so innocent. He’d always avoided innocents. How the devil was he supposed to accomplish anything, with her curiosity threatening to rob him of reason? He wanted desperately to toss her over his shoulder again, carry her above stairs, and teach her everything she wanted to know (and much, much more) right then and there.
With the need filling her eyes at the moment, he doubted she’d have any objections to just such an arrangement.
But they had to get back to the damned church and get married first. So instead, he settled her back on the divan and placed some distance between them—as protection against following through with just such a plan.
“There will be plenty of time for instruction later,” he said. “After we marry.” If he could survive that long.
A wounded expression flooded her eyes. Could she not understand that he was trying to protect her? To do things the right way? Her innocence would be the death of him.
“That will not happen,” she said. “I will not marry you. Which should have been plenty clear enough when I did not meet you before the altar. You bloody, insufferable brute. What makes you think you can drag me off my horse and order me about?”
“Your horse? The one you stole from the mews? Is that the horse you mean? Aurora, you’ll marry me and be happy about it, by God, if I have to toss you over my shoulder and carry you the whole way there.”
“Why should I marry you?” she demanded. “Why should I feel badly about changing my mind and jilting you, when you did the very same thing to Lady Phoebe?”
What bastard had told her about Phoebe? If it was Griffin, Quin would be more than happy to settle matters once and for all. But that would have to wait. It all had to wait.
“Matters between Lady Phoebe and I are hardly pertinent to this discussion,” he said.
Aurora’s eyes burned dark and stormy. “Hardly? Indeed, they are the root cause of our discussion, as you so politely termed it. Why have you not informed me of your previous engagement?” she asked haughtily.
“When in God’s name was I supposed to have done that? Since the moment I met you, I’ve been running around Town like a madman. Obtaining a special license. Settling affairs with your father. Arranging for a townhome for our use until we return to Quinton Abbey. Chasing after you, when you behave like a hoyden that’s broken free of her leading strings.”
“Perhaps,” she said, rising to stand toe-to-toe with him, “you realized I would never accept you if I knew the truth—if I knew how entirely dishonorable a scoundrel you are. So you hid it from me. Or tried to hide it from me. But you, sir, are no gentleman, and I’ll die a happy old maid before I’ll marry the despicable likes of you.”
She shoved him, but Quin refused to budge. He planted his feet wide apart, crossing his arms before his chest. Aurora scowled up at him. Then she stepped over and around his leg, fleeing for the door.
Fiend seize it. He didn’t want to resort to this. But what option did the minx leave him with? Quin grabbed her arm and pulled her back into the room.
The chill in her eyes froze him to his spot on the floor. “Unhand me.”
“You will marry me, Aurora. Because if you do not, you’ll find your journal published in its entirety in tomorrow morning’s society papers.”
~ * ~
Aurora felt all of the blood drain from her face, trickling its way down to pool in her toes. “My journal? How do you know about my journal?”
Lord Quinton dragged a hand over his face and through his hair, sighing loudly as he did. “I found it in Hyde Park. And based on what I found inside, I knew you were a scandal waiting to happen. If I didn’t marry you—give you the protection of my name—I knew your ruin was waiting for you. So I sought you out.”
Oh, good God. He’d read it. He knew all the things she’d written of him—of them. “So you took care of ruining me, just in case my journal didn’t manage it on its own? Terribly heroic of you, my lord.”
“Sarcasm does you no favors, Aurora.”
“Illusions of grandeur do you none, either.”
“Agreed,” he said. “But the fact remains, I intend to ensure your reputation will fall into tatters if you do not return to the church today and marry me.”
What could he possibly gain from this situation? There had to be a reason—something more plausible than him hoping to rescue a lady he’d never met from ruin—for him to go to such lengths.
It just didn’t make sense.
Regardless of his reasons for wanting the match, Aurora really didn’t have any other option left open. Father could never learn what was in her journal.
She couldn’t believe she was doing this. After all these years, convincing herself she would never accept a marriage with a man she didn’t love, who didn’t love her…
~ * ~
Quin was a cur. A bloody despot. A lecher and a thoroughly unredeemable scoundrel.
None of this was new.
So why did he feel so damnably low?
Standing before the vicar with Aurora by his side, he couldn’t concentrate on the blasted ceremony. Within minutes, he’d be a married man, just as Rotheby had insisted upon—just as he’d hoped for years to be able to avoid.
At thirty-two years of age, Quin was becoming a man.
He ought to feel good about that—about becoming responsible for more than just himself. Instead, he felt more despicable than he’d ever felt in his life. Lord knew that was saying something.
For every step forward, he took two steps back. Yes, he was marrying Aurora Hyatt. But he’d forced her hand once by kissing her in a blasted ballroom, and if that hadn’t been enough, he’d forced it again by resorting to blackmail.
It felt cheap.
When the vicar called upon him, he said, “I do,” but took no pleasure in the act.
The process of arriving at that moment made him realize that every day, he became more like the bastard his father had always been.
~ * ~
The sparsely furnished townhome Lord Quinton had arranged for sat at Number Fourteen, Oxford Street. The lack of furnishings didn’t bother Aurora. Frankly, she didn’t care about anything save ending the blasted day. A blinding headache had assaulted her the moment her then-fiancée-now-husband mentioned her journal, and had only intensified in the hours since.
She returned with him to the church. She repeated her vows. She sat through the celebratory breakfast and accepted the toasts and felicitations as graciously as she could manage. She’d done everything that could be expected of her.
Now, she wanted a bed. And since she would no longer have her bed in her father’s home, any bed at all would do.
Aurora said a silent prayer of thanks when they arrived at their new London home, to be greeted by only a tiny delegation of staff, waiting to be introduced to their new mistress. Her lady’s maid, Rose, stood alongside a butler, a housekeeper, two footmen, a cook, and a scullery maid.
“I’ll endeavor to hire more servants in the coming week,” Lord Quinton said as Mrs. Gaffee, the housekeeper, led them on a brief tour. “We should have a full staff before a fortnight is past.”
“Very well,” was all Aurora could manage.
They stopped to examine a room on the lowest floor that might be either a gallery or a music room. He placed his hand against her lower back, and it was all Aurora could do not to flinch at the brief contact. “You may decorate the drawing rooms and whatnot as you like.”
She nodded and immediately regretted it. The pounding in her head magnified to epic proportions from the slight movement. The hardwood floor beneath her feet seemed to sway. Aurora reached an arm out to the side to steady herself, but only managed to knock it against Lord Quinton’s expansive chest.
&
nbsp; He moved the hand at her back to encircle her waist, pulling her up against his side. “You are unwell.” His other hand felt her forehead and cheeks. “No fever. Aurora, you must lie down. Mrs. Gaffee, the remainder of the tour will wait. Please show us to Lady Quinton’s chamber.”
Aurora took a step to follow behind the cheerful but squat woman, only to be lifted off her feet.
Which was probably for the best. Her head felt like it would splinter into a thousand pieces at any moment. She wasn’t entirely certain she was capable of traversing a flight of stairs right at that moment.
Just before reaching the stairs, Lord Quinton carried her past a massive picture window. The draperies were pulled back, allowing sunlight to pour in unhindered. The pain in her head became blinding, all-consuming.
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