The Bartered Bridegroom

by Teresa DesJardien

  And there was the way she kissed . . . she’d been too naive or too bold or too Katherine to pretend she had not enjoyed sharing his kiss. He wished, even now. that he might have another from her. More than one. Truth was, he wanted more than kisses. She would give herself over to lovemaking as wholeheartedly as she did everything else.

  The thought of Katherine in love—or at least deciding in her usual straightforward manner that it was time to wed and go to the marriage bed—with all her typical conviction and dedication in place, made Benjamin glad he was sitting on the floor. He doubted his knees, gone watery at the thought, would support him.

  He could picture her creamy skin becoming exposed, inch by inch as the tapes of her gown were untied and the garments lowered: could picture her body pressing against his own with that glovelike molding she instinctually offered: could imagine a shared kiss starting out lightly exploring, only to deepen and build a heat of its own....

  But it would not be Benjamin's kiss, never with Katherine. She was not destined to end in his arms. Katherine half believed she was to wed Cullman, not having been allowed to know how flawed he was. Cullman was too clever, too good at maintaining the facade in front of her.

  Truth was, the month that Benjamin had spent protecting Katherine from seduction was almost up. It ought no longer be his concern ... only, Benjamin did not want to see her ruined, and ruination was Cullman’s sole interest in her.

  He would have to tell her what Cullman was like. She would probably hate him for it, would reject his conclusions. As far as Katherine knew, this whole false betrothal had begun through Benjamin’s devices, not Cullman’s. Why would she trust the one she thought had lied and manipulated and stolen her—however temporarily—from Cullman’s arms?

  But he had to try. Perhaps he could at least plant a doubt in her mind, one that could grow into suspicion and eventually save her from marrying the man? He had to try.

  Benjamin thought of how her father had asked him not to woo Katherine with words he did not mean—it seemed a laughable precaution now. It was from Cullman that Sir Albert should have secured a promise. Not that Cullman’s word could be trusted.

  Just as laughable, but sadder—infinitely sadder—was the conviction that grew in Benjamin’s chest as he sat and watched Katherine’s tongue worry the corner of her mouth: that he ought to have tried to woo her.

  He ought to have worked to win her heart. Not to keep her from Cullman. Not to satisfy her papa—but because he loved her.

  He knew it now. Ridiculously lolling on her floor, doing nothing more romantic than reading race results aloud to one another, and yet he knew in every hollow of his being that he had fallen in love with her. Katherine Oakes, the hoyden, the outspoken one, the last woman in the world he ever would have thought could invade his heart.

  If he could marry her, she’d bring no prestige to his family’s name, no great wealth, no rank or privilege beyond what he already was born to—but he would love her, and cherish her, and knew she would fit into his odd family in a way Miss Mansell could never hope to do.

  Miss Mansell would have never understood why Gideon filled his home with castoffs and those in need of a second chance. She would have never helped a mere soldier don his costume out of the simple goal of wishing to help, especially if

  it meant she must stand among those women Society found to be “second best.” No matter how favored a pet it had been, Miss Mansell would never flaunt Society’s rules in order to spend a few more minutes with a horse.

  Was he being unfair? He had never kissed Miss Mansell. Perhaps if he did, she would show a less formal side of her personality. ...

  But, no, Benjamin had seen Gideon’s love for Elizabeth. He had been in the room with it, knew what love felt like, knew its joy when shared.

  He also knew Miss Mansell meant nothing to him. Nothing about her stirred his heart, or made him long to kiss her by a public racing course, or here in a sunny front parlor filled with journals and news sheets. Miss Mansell would be perfect for him, or at least for expectations he had once had—but his expectations had been exploded by a woman who would slick back her red curls and don lad’s clothing, all in order to whisper a private final farewell to a four-legged friend.

  He loved Katherine.

  He finally saw the difference, the heart-and-soul difference between the two women—the one was all that was proper, and the other anything but.. . and everything he needed.

  But now dismay squeezed in, trying to displace the joy that had been slowly filling his heart all day. No sooner had he realized his love, than he had lost it.

  His realization had come too late.

  Tonight Katherine would stage a scene that would end their sham betrothal, and she would turn her brown eyes toward the man she’d been secretly betrothed to before. She would look to Cullman for love—never to Benjamin, who had shown her only disdain and censure until it was too late.

  No! His mind was made up: Tonight Benjamin must tell her what Cullman wanted from her. She would lose two fiancйs in one night, and she would hate him for it, Benjamin supposed, but he had to give her a future, a chance to find a fellow worthy of her.

  “Katherine,” he said, his voice rough with emotion.

  She looked up, her auburn eyebrows lifted in inquiry.

  “Although we are going to separate tonight,” he said, choosing his words with care, “will you promise me that I may come to call tomorrow? I know it is a few days early, but I would like to give you your birthday gift already.”

  “Of course,” she said, looking surprised. “But you do not need to give me a birthday gift!” she assured him. “Goodness, I do not even know when your birthday is!”

  “March fourteenth,” he said, wanting her to know, wanting her to think of him, perhaps, once a year. “I have already acquired your gift, so you must accept it. Say you will. Say you will receive me tomorrow, even if you feel... annoyed with me.”

  “Annoyed? Why would I be annoyed?”

  He shrugged, not meeting her gaze. “Perhaps I will offend you during our crying-off performance tonight.”

  She waved the thought away. “Nonsense, I will know you are pretending. I only pray I will not say anything to offend you.”

  “You could not,” he said, and swallowed, to be able to get out the words. “All the same, you have yet to promise that you will see me tomorrow, and will accept my gift.”

  She shook her head, still smiling even though her brows drew together in something of a puzzled frown. “Very well,” she said, belying the gesture. “I promise. Tomorrow evening? Shall we say seven?”

  He nodded, and started to rise, to make his exit, but then he thought how it was hours yet until he needed to go home to change into evening wear. He could stay awhile yet, be near her for a bit longer, enjoy her company while she was not pretending to fight with him, was not in reality angry with him, not yet. He could love her for a few hours more ... although he knew he would love her for a lot longer than a few hours. He knew he would miss her and curse his own stupid pride for not realizing her worth a lot sooner, when he might have had a chance to win her heart in return.

  Katherine was supposed to be looking displeased with Benjamin this night, at the musical evening at the home of Mr. and Mrs. MacFarlane, but who could completely smother a grin? Benjamin played the pianoforte for the oldest MacFarlane daughter, poor creature, and struggled mightily to match a tempo to Miss MacFarlane’s singing.

  Still, Katherine had to wonder if she would have grinned at all if Benjamin had looked adoringly upon Miss MacFarlane’s Fine face and even finer dowry. Katherine doubted humor would have been uppermost in her mind.

  What would have been uppermost then? Concern, that her friend would make a misalliance? Annoyance, that Benjamin could settle for a milk-and-water miss who could not keep the meter he tried so diligently to provide for her? Miss MacFarlane, unkind as it was to say, did not possess near enough of the attributes that would make a proper wife for Lord B
enjamin Whitbury.

  At least Miss Mansell had disappeared from sight. Miss Mansell, according to Cyril, had decided Lord Benjamin was “the worst sort of jackanapes,” and would henceforth avoid anywhere Lord Benjamin was likely to be found.

  “Oh dear, that is too bad,” Katherine had said, and knew that Cyril had wondered why she had smiled.

  Miss MacFarlane’s performance began to pall, and Katherine began to wonder how she was supposed to go about crying off—the details had never been discussed. She’d tried once, on the drive here tonight, but Benjamin had kept turning the conversation to other things.

  She supposed she was to choose a moment, make a bit of a scene with him, and then abandon him and “storm off’ home. Whose carriage was she to use? Benjamin’s phaeton? She was certainly capable of driving it herself—but then how would Benjamin arrive home?

  For his part, she pictured Benjamin moping about, declaring by evening’s end that perhaps it was all for the best—and after that they would go their own ways. Katherine would reappear in Society in a day or two, would dance and flirt and deny her heart was broken, and the betrothal would be forgotten soon enough, as all nine-day wonders were forgotten.

  So Katherine sat alone, not at Benjamin’s side. As he finished playing for Miss MacFarlane, it was hardly difficult to look unhappy. She was unhappy, unable to think how she and Benjamin might retain a friendship at the end of all this. For that matter, she was not sure he would even wish to have a friendship with her at day’s end.

  Someone sat down next to her, drawing Katherine’s attention. “Oh, Mr. Cullman,” she said, using his surname since they were in public. She silently chided herself at her relief that it was not Benjamin, that it was not quite yet time for their public quarrel.

  “I fear I will perish of ennui if we have to suffer through too many more performances,” he said, his mouth turned down at the comers. “Do you know, MacFarlane has not even supplied a room for gaming. Tedious!”

  Far from tedious for me, thought Katherine. I wish tonight were tedious, ordinary. I wish it was not the end of a friendship. ... Although “friendship” was not the whole truth—the whole truth was something she could not look at, not now, not with the crying off looming before her yet this night. Aloud she said, “Stroll with me then.”

  There were a handful of couples standing in an area provided for those who grew restless with sitting. Too late, Katherine realized Benjamin was among them, with Miss MacFarlane on his arm. “Cyril, let us return to—”

  “Lord Benjamin, well met!”

  “Cullman,” Lord Benjamin acknowledged, his voice and his gaze cool. To everyone’s surprise, Benjamin reached out and took up Katherine’s wrist. He pulled her from Cullman’s side, drawing her to his own, and escorted her without a backward glance into an alcove ill-lit by the room’s chandeliers.

  Katherine glanced back, seeing Cyril staring after them, for once nonplused.

  “Sorry. Did I hurt you?” Benjamin asked at once upon turning to face her.

  “No. You did startle me, however.”

  “I... just wanted you away from him, from Cullman—”

  “It does provide for quite the scene, does it not?” Katherine said, feeling as nonplused as Cyril had looked. “Benjamin, is this our quarrel? Have we started it?”

  He gave a peculiar shrug, partly with his shoulders, partly by ducking his head, as if he were only half sure himself. “I suppose it is. Are you prepared?”

  “No . .. well.” She took a deep breath and let it out quickly, “I suppose so. What should we do?” She looked up at him, wishing she could pretend the opposite, wishing she could hope he’d kiss her, here in this darkened alcove. One last kiss before she only shared kisses with Cyril. . . . But this was a fool’s wish, to hope for kisses when the purpose at hand was to look as though they hated one another, or at least as if they could not agree to marry. She must not think of “if only ...”

  She would think of Cyril, who had always liked her, always been one of the few who took Katherine as she was. She would think of the words he’d been whispering in her ears recently, words of admiration and . . . and something more amorous. She supposed that was the word for the whispered promises of kisses he’d like to take from her, and the allusions to intimacies he said he longed to share with no one other than her. He’d been so audacious as to say he longed to take her to bed . . . but he had yet to ask her, again, for her hand in marriage.

  No doubt he waited for when Katherine was free to accept an offer. Best that she get to her act of crying off then, she thought on a sigh.

  “What should we do? How are we to begin?” She said it again, toward his cravat, not wanting to meet his gaze.

  “We show our dislike of one another.”

  She gave a strained laugh. “It sounds simple enough. I can even think how I might do that. . . but it feels loathsome.”

  “Ignoble,” he agreed, and perhaps there was a shadow of humor in his tone, but she did not think she was wrong that his voice also showed strain. “To quarrel, so publicly, with a woman! It does not reflect well on me, you realize. Perhaps we should put it off?”

  “Poor puppy!” she teased, but then she sobered. She glanced up at him, then quickly back down at his cravat. “Before all else goes ahead, I really must thank you for getting my cottage and land ready for me.”

  He sighed, a curiously sad sound—or did she just hear what she wished to hear in his voice? “You are welcome. It was our bargain. But I did want to assure you that your solicitor says the dissolution of our betrothal will not undo the work already done.”

  “Excellent.” She glanced out of the alcove, seeing Cyril glancing at them, poised to cross to her side. She had only to meet his eyes, or softly call his name.... “We are not fighting,” she pointed out in a low murmur.

  Benjamin thought a moment. “Stomp on my foot.”

  “I will not!”

  “Well, I certainly will not stomp on yours.”

  “Do not make me laugh!” she scolded, almost doing as she threatened, feeling a bit giddy with nerves. “That is entirely the wrong impression to give.” Now she really dared not look up at him, for she knew she would start to giggle, or worse, burst into tears. Instead she reached out and smoothed one side of his cravat.

  He put his hand over hers, hesitated a long moment, then reached to wrap his fingers around her upper arms. He pulled her close, and she leaned into him, gasping.

  “This first,” he said, his expression as sober as any she had ever seen on him before, the dancing devil missing from his gaze. “Only then can we part.”

  He lowered his head and pressed his mouth to hers, kissing her so deeply that he had to move his hands behind her back to support her against his length.

  She did not fight him, did not want to, did not care that murmured exclamations rose around them. She only cared that he kissed her, and that he held her close. She kissed him in return, and it was like that first kiss, shared in a horse stall, the one that had vibrated down into her very marrow.

  He drew his mouth away, slowly, his lips yet so close she had but to lift her head and she could kiss him again.

  “Slap me,” he said.

  It was not necessary to fake tears—they sprang at once to her eyes. His kiss, that devastating kiss, had only been part of a performance. A portion of her mind screamed that no, no matter what else happened the kiss had been real, had been a parting gift between friends, but another part of her was awash in sudden misery.

  It was not difficult to raise her hand and strike his face, she did it almost with pleasure, as if to punish him for making her care for him ... for making her wonder if she had chosen wrongly in other matters as well. Should she leave the safety and warmth of Papa’s home? Was she as mad as everyone would think her to pursue training horses? Should she marry Cyril? Should she marry at all, when she obviously understood men so little?

  She put her hands against Benjamin’s chest, pushing, struggling to be free of
his embrace, unable to bear it a moment longer, unable to tolerate the carefully blank face that stared down at her, nor the accusing mark in the shape of a hand on his

  face.

  “Let me go!” she cried. The words did what her actions had not, for he released her so quickly that he had to grab her arm again to keep her from falling backward.

  “Good-bye, Katherine,” he said very softly, only then again surrendering his hold on her.

  “Benjamin!” The word was wrenched from deep within her, an oath or a prayer or a curse. She did not know what she meant by saying his name. Perhaps it was a farewell.

  An arm slipped around her shoulders, and she gave an audible gasp before realizing it was Cyril.

  He glared at Benjamin. “What were you about, you fiend? Anyone can see you have distressed Miss Oakes.” He turned his stare down to Katherine. “Come, I will take you home, my dear, away from this brute.”

  “He is not a brute,” she protested, which must have seemed an odd thing to say since tears still ran down her cheeks. A crowd had gathered around, all staring or hiding shocked expressions behind their fans.

  “Must you brutalize a woman’s person as well as her feelings?” Cyril went on to Benjamin.

  “Oh, stop, please stop! I just wish to go home,” Katherine said, the words nearly a moan.

  “Take her home, Cullman,” Benjamin growled. “And be at home yourself, tomorrow, for I will call upon you. We have something to discuss.”

  “Of what do you accuse me?” Cyril demanded, puffing up in indignation.

  Benjamin, on the other hand, seemed to deflate. He lifted a hand, then let it drop. “Nothing. I accuse you of nothing, not here, not now.”

  Cyril parted his lips to demand more, but Katherine stepped in front of him, capturing his attention, tears still marking her face. “Take me home. Now, please.”

  His other arm came up protectively, to cradle her against his side. “As you wish, my dearest. Time enough later to settle matters with this cretin.” He threw Benjamin a scathing look, but