by Sophia James
‘I knew your uncle, Duke.’ This was said tentatively. ‘The Earl of Sutton.’
‘Unfortunate for you.’ Her groom’s tone was plain ice and Lord Fergusson left as quickly as he had come, a frown on his face as he scrambled away.
‘He is an old man who would do you no harm, your Grace, and he has only just lost his wife. Besides, this is a wedding and people expect—’
He broke in before she had finished. ‘What do they expect, Lucinda? All that is between us here is dishonesty and farce. The charade of a marriage and the farce of a happy ever after. And now you want me to lie about an uncle who was not fit to be around children, let alone one who—’ He stopped suddenly, his green eyes as dark as she had ever seen them, fathomless pools of torture. The real Taylen Ellesmere who lived beneath all he showed to the world was evident, the pain within him harrowing.
‘You speak about yourself as a child? This uncle, the Earl of Sutton, he was your guardian?’
Only horror showed now, though the shutters reflecting emotion closed even as she watched and the implacable ruthless Duke was back.
‘Enjoy your day, my dearest wife, because there are not many left to us.’
With that he stood and walked out of the room.
Chapter Five
God, she knew. Lucinda Alice Ellesmere was guessing his secrets as easily as if he had written them down for her, one after the other of sordid truth.
He should have remained silent, but the old man and his useless dreams had rattled him, made him remember his own hopes as his mother and father had spat and hissed each and every word to the other, unmindful of a small child who heard the endless malice and rancour. He had promised himself he would never marry and yet here he was, chained to a family who would like nothing better than to see him dead and buried.
‘If you slope off now you won’t get a penny, Alderworth.’ Cristo Wellingham came to his side, the room they were in empty. Unexpectedly Lucinda’s youngest brother produced a cheroot. ‘You have the look of a man who might need one,’ he said, offering a light and waiting as Tay took the first few puffs. Smoke curled towards the ceiling, a screen of white and then gone. Tay wished he could have disappeared as easily as it did and, closing his eyes for a second, he leaned back against the wall, enjoying the first rush of its effects.
‘I look forward to the day when the guilt of your sister’s lies finally brings her to her senses.’ The exhaustion in his voice was disconcerting, but the day had taken its toll and he was tired of the pretence.
‘When you will likely be squandering what is left of your blood money in some poverty-stricken dive, remembering the ill that you did to a blameless innocent and wondering how you came to such a pass.’
He laughed at that. ‘You did not enjoy a few of your wife’s charms before marrying her?’ A shadow rewarded the query and so he continued. ‘I kissed your sister and brought her home. That was all. If she insists otherwise, then I say she lies.’
‘With a reputation as disreputable as your own, a lack of belief in anything you say cannot be surprising.’
‘Then allow me one boon, Lord Cristo. Allow me the small privilege of some knowledge of how your sister fares once I have gone.’
‘Why would you want that? You have made it plain enough that a substantial payment constitutes the sum total of your care.’ He stepped back. ‘There won’t be more from where that came from, no matter what you might say.’
‘You will always hold her safe, then?’ Tay had not meant to ask the question, but it slipped from him like a living thing, important and urgent, the last promise he might extract before he was gone.
‘Safer than you damn well did,’ came the reply, but in Cristo Wellingham’s dark eyes puzzlement flickered. Using it to his advantage, Taylen pressed on.
‘If I wrote, would you give her my letters?’
‘Yes.’ Ground out, but honest. When Lucinda’s brother turned and left he was glad he had been given even that slight hope of contact.
Lucinda felt exhausted by all the smiles and good wishes given with such genuine congeniality that the scandal disappeared into a God-ordained union that restored the balance of chaos in a highly regulated world. A violation covered up. A wrong righted. A happy ending to a less-than-salubrious beginning.
She had been surprised at the way the Duke of Alderworth had stood next to her for the past twenty minutes, his manner with the guests at odds with his self-proclaimed lack of interest in polite society. Perhaps he, too, had finally seen that in a good show of pretence there lay freedom. When his arm touched hers the full length of warmth seared in, the shock of contact electric, her breath held still by an awareness that she had felt with no other before him.
If only she might remember what a night in his bed felt like. The very idea made her frown, because in it she sensed she was missing something important.
‘You look concerned.’ Alderworth used a gap in the line of well-wishers to address her directly.
‘It seems for all your reputation, people here are inclined to give you a second chance. I was wondering why.’
‘Perhaps it’s because you stand up as my bride, a Wellingham daughter who might deign to lend her name to my sullied one.’
‘No. It is more than that. They accord you a certain begrudging respect, which is interesting.’
‘Vigilance might be a more apt word!’ Unexpectedly he smiled at her, the green in his eyes relaxing into gold, and with the colour of his skin burnished into bronze by the outdoors and his dark hair so shortened, he looked … unmatched. Her brothers were handsome, but the Duke had some spark of incomparable beauty that set him apart from everyone else Lucinda had ever seen.
The vapidity of her thoughts held her mute.
‘Frowning does not suit you as much as laughter does,’ he remarked.
‘Of late there has not been too much to be delighted by.’
‘I am sorry for that.’
‘Are you?’ Even amidst a crowd of family friends she could not leave the question unvoiced.
She saw him glance around to check the nearness of those in his vicinity before he gave a reply.
‘I lived with lies all of my childhood, Duchess, and do not wish to encourage them. If you insist on such deception then that is your prerogative, but I will never understand it.’
Both her new title and his unwarranted anger made Lucinda step back, the same scene she had remembered at the breakfast table a week ago replaying over and over in her head.
His nakedness, the red wine, the feel of his warm skin against her own. The door locked and the key hidden. No opportunity to simply leave.
‘London is a haven for gossip, Duke, and because of your actions my name has been slandered from one edge of it to the other.’
‘A reputation lost for nothing, then.’
Lucinda paled. Did he speak of her virginity in such scathing terms? She was glad her brothers were nowhere nearby to hear such an accusation.
‘For nothing?’ She could barely voice the question. ‘You are a reprobate, your Grace, of the highest order and the fate that flung us together at Alderworth will be regretted by me for the rest of my life. Bitterly.’ There was no longer any conciliation in her tone.
He had the temerity to smile. ‘Then it is a shame you did not make full use of our evening together and understand the true benefits that uninhibited sensuality can bring. Better to have enjoyed a night in my bed learning all you needed to know about the art of love and regretted it, than repenting the “nothing” you have been crucified for.’
Shocked, she turned on her heels and left him, not caring who saw her flee. He would castigate her for her poor performance in bed when she could recall none of it. Her blood rose to boiling and she hated her pronounced limp.
‘Are you feeling well, Lucinda?’ Emerald waylaid her before she had reached the door.
‘Very.’ Even to a beloved sister-in-law she couldn’t betray him entirely, a trait she did not understand at all.
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‘Alderworth will be gone before the end of this week and you will never need to see him again.’
The absurdity of such a statement suddenly hit her, the first glimpse of her life after today. Was she destined then to always be alone, marriage-less and childless? Would she now linger in the corner of society with those hapless spinsters who spoke of unrequited love or of no love at all? Not ruined, but blighted by her lack of adherence to the normal conventions and suffering because of it.
The headache she had been cursed with all day bloomed with a fierce pain, blurring her vision. A migraine. She had had them badly ever since the accident.
Understanding her malady, Emerald took her hand and led her from the room, the familiar flight of stairs to her childhood bedroom welcomed. A refuge. A place to hide.
With care Emerald helped her undress and pulled down her hair till it fell about her waist, the heaviness of it causing her temples to throb harder.
‘Marriage has made everything worse, Emmie.’ The ring Alderworth had brought with him glinted on her finger and she looked down at it. A single ruby in white gold. Surprisingly tasteful. ‘Before it was only my reputation immured in the sludge, now it is my whole life as well.’
‘When your head does not ache as much and you realise you can once again participate in all the things you love doing, the world will look rosier.’
‘As a widow? As a wife? As a spinster for ever doomed to sit in the corner, waiting for a husband who is gone?’
‘You are saying that you wish he would not disappear?’ Her sister-in-law’s voice was sharp.
‘No.’ Shaking her head violently, she remembered Taylen Ellesmere’s caustic disparagement of that which had been between them. She also remembered the way it had felt when their arms had touched and he had not pulled away.
She shook away the thought with a hard anger. Her husband saw her as a woman to be pitied, a poor excuse of a girl with her puritanical take on life and her inability to embrace his darkness.
They would ruin each other. It was as simple as that. All she wanted was to be between cool and crisp linen sheets, the world dissolved into dreams and ease and far from the reality of being bride to a groom who had not said even one kind word to her across the whole awful charade of their wedding day.
The Bride of Ruin. Indeed, she was exactly that.
‘Lucinda is in bed with a headache and won’t be joining the family again this evening. To say that she is disappointed in you would be putting it mildly.’
Asher Wellingham stood before Tay, a glass of brandy in a sizeable goblet in his hand. He did not offer the chance of the same to him. Taris Wellingham leant against a window in the far end of the library. As reinforcement, Taylen supposed, the quiet stillness of the middle brother as alarming as it always was.
‘You will be allotted a chamber here, Alderworth, to allay any rumour or gossip. Then you will accompany Lucinda to the Parkinsons’ ball tomorrow evening. The Duchess and I will attend as well, to make certain that you play the part of a doting and besmitten groom.’
‘Another staged affair, then, though I cannot quite understand what you plan to do about the legal fact of our union in the future. Marriage is usually for ever.’
‘Death negates a marriage.’ The words were said without any emotion whatsoever as amber eyes met his own.
‘You are threatening me?’
‘I am the head of a family who is trying to make sense of a senseless act of treachery.’
‘Treachery? I kissed your sister once and then bundled her into the carriage to bring her home. An accident prevented us from reaching this town house. Where is the treachery in that?’
‘I am more inclined to believe my sister’s version of the story above your own.’
‘The ravished, ruined version?’ Tay could not help his sarcasm and the Duke of Carisbrook’s brow furrowed.
‘If I hear even the slightest hint of rumours that you say differently, I will make it known you demanded money from us for the sole purpose of your own benefit. Blackmail, if you will, with no thought for your innocent bride.’
‘A fabrication that will have me drummed out of London whilst you condemn Lucinda to the life of a nun?’
‘Better a nun than the harlot you have already made her.’
‘Better than a misguided girl who invents tales to trap me?’ Tay had had enough of carefully tip-toeing around the issue and the gloves were off.
Intent darkened his adversary’s eyes. ‘You came into our lives by an accident, Alderworth, and you can depart on one just as easily.’
‘More threats?’
Turning away from Asher Wellingham, Taylen took in a breath. Let him strike like a coward and see what happened next. He had had it with headaches and warnings just as he had had it with utter lies. This was his wedding night and the only one he might damn well ever get, given these ridiculous edicts, yet here he was trading insults with his … new brother-in-law. Such a thought made him maudlin.
He could not win any concessions here tonight when tension, mistrust and fury coated every word between them. Better to wait until the morrow and have a conversation with his new bride that was long overdue.
‘I am returning to my own town house and, short of rendering me unconscious and tying me up to a bed here, you can do nothing to stop me going. I will be back tomorrow after midday in the hope that your sister will be well enough to sit down and talk sense. Make sure that she is here, Carisbrook.’
As the door closed and Alderworth’s footsteps receded into the distance, Taris rose. ‘There is a note in his voice that concerns me, Ashe.’
‘How so?’
‘He seems to genuinely believe he is the innocent party.’
‘The guilt of the damned is never simple. His is just more complicated than most.’
Taris drained his glass. ‘Emerald said that Lucy never wants to see him again.’
‘A difficult emotion, given that a marriage ceremony has just been performed and he was promised a week.’
‘We might be rid of him if we were to leave London at first light and make for somewhere he could not find us. I think both parties need some time to take stock of what has happened and see a way through this. I doubt he would make a fuss with the threat of the removal of the promised remuneration hanging over his head.’
Possibilities roared between them as the fire carved shadows across the ceiling. A clean break would make certain that Lucinda was safe and it would also calm the troubled waters until they might make something else of the conundrum. The fine strong brandy in each of their glasses after such a harrowing day made their best intentions seem more … persuasive, less highhanded.
Always they had cared for their little sister, rescuing her from this scrape and then that one, smoothing down conjecture and controlling any whispered gossip. Always, until now.
‘Have we made a mistake, do you think, insisting on this damn marriage?’ Asher’s voice was grave, copious liquor and contrasting emotions clouding certainty.
‘Too late for second thoughts.’ Taris swore even as he said it, a ripe curse that reverberated around the library. ‘We did what we could. It is far past time for Lucy to understand the repercussions of her mistakes.’
‘Loneliness might be one of them.’
‘Aye, it might. But better than being tied to a man she loathes, I’d be thinking, and if we play it right he will be gone and she can get on with a new sort of life. These awkward alliances happen all the time, but with good management they can be manipulated to appear to be nothing like they actually are.’
‘Successful?’ Sarcasm dripped from the word.
‘I was thinking more along the lines of moderately satisfactory to both parties concerned. Lucinda gets her freedom and Alderworth his money. At least it is a way past ruin.’
Chapter Six
Hands kept shaking her awake, insistent and unrelenting.
‘Come, Lucy, we need to be up and about, for Asher wants us out of Lo
ndon by daybreak.’
‘Why?’
Taking a quick look at the clock on her bedside table, Lucinda determined it to be very early in the morning. The birds had not even called yet and Emerald looked in a hurry.
‘Alderworth is rescinding his promise to leave. He seems to think you will be accompanying him north to his estate.’
Sitting up, Lucinda pushed the covers back, the bruises on her legs dark against the whiteness of the sheets.
‘He wants that of me?’
Her sister-in-law shrugged her shoulders. ‘Given his character he probably wishes to haul you off to Alderworth and keep you there.’
‘Like a prisoner?’ Tremors of fear made her feel ill.
‘Of course not. But it might behove us to make certain that he understands exactly what you do want.’
‘Nothing. I wish for nothing between us.’
The wedding dress stared at her from its hanger across the wardrobe door, the white, pristine silk more than she could bear. Getting up, she threw the thing into the cupboard, the veil of gauzy lace joining it.
One day when she was ninety and her brother’s children’s children asked her about her life, she might tell them that the worst moment of all was the one where she had caught sight of herself in the mirror in her bedroom the morning after her nuptials. And when they asked her why, she would say because that was the moment she realised there would never be another chance of happiness for her.
‘I will have the housekeeper dispose of the gown, Lucinda, so that you do not need to see the garment again.’ Emerald’s eyes were a stormy turquoise, but tenderness lay in the hand that came to fall over hers. ‘We shall get through this together as a family, for your brothers have ways to right all the wrongs.’
‘Divorce is not an easy passage …’
‘Annulment, then? That could be an option.’
‘I rather think that might have come too late, considering my returning memories and society’s talk. I should never have married him at all.’