“My lords!” her voice rang through the cool night air, echoing against ancient stone walls.
Engrossed in their deadly task, the antagonists failed to hear the cry, but several onlookers glanced about, searching for the source of this ghostly emanation.
“I have a clear aim, but I would suggest you gentlemen below remove yourselves to a distance to prevent any mishaps,” the voice rang mockingly.
This warning brought Austin’s head up. The circle shifted uneasily away from the wall, closer to the shrubbery beyond. Austin located the glimmer of the shotgun barrel and its shadowy wielder, and he cursed. He turned back to his challenger. “We had best do this quickly, or she’ll blow us both to hell.”
The blond giant glanced nervously upward, then nodded, signaling his readiness to the judge. The pace count began.
“I’m an excellent shot, gentlemen, but I cannot guarantee the shot will only shatter your guns. If you value your fingers, you will drop the pistols now.” Cool and authoritative, Aubree’s voice sang clearly over the now-silent night.
The judge stopped counting and glanced nervously from Austin to the rooftop. “It ain’t proper. She can only shoot one at a time, which gives Lord Heathmont an edge.”
Austin gave the military gentleman a dark look. “You don’t know my wife very well, General.” Resigning himself to this farce, he faced the slight figure on the battlements. Golden hair gleamed in the moonlight, and he wondered what in hell she wore that she could have climbed out there with such ease, but he preferred to remain ignorant.
“Aubree, put that gun down or I’m coming up there after you.”
“Do that, milord, and I will shatter that fool’s hand as you try. Send someone else up after me, and it is your hand you endanger. Go elsewhere, and you’ll not find me waiting for your return. If you gentlemen are so determined to destroy my wedding night, perhaps you might consider the consequences when my father finds me gone, and he has only the lot of you to blame.” A triumphant note rang in her voice as the crowd stirred uneasily.
“By George, if she don’t blow us to pieces, the duke certainly will,” one young lord whispered to another. “It’s a wonder he ain’t already out here taking names to turn in.”
Livid at her interference, Austin ignored the idiots. “Aubree, go back to your room or you will regret this night for as long as you live, I swear it!”
“I already regret it, milord,” she taunted, “but you are welcome to come up here and try.”
“I’d be willing to take up that challenge,” one wit declared, observing Aubree’s slender figure with admiration.
“She’s eager for your bed, it seems,” the blond giant sneered. “Shall we not keep the lady waiting?”
Austin returned his black glare to his opponent. “If you do not value your life, it is your choice. Let us continue.”
Aubree nearly cried as they called her bluff and began pacing again. She had tried, but she did not dare carry out her threats. She had practiced target-shooting with stationary objects, but she could never aim at a living one, even if she could see them with any clear precision, which she couldn’t. It had all been for naught. In moments, one man would be dead and the other would be running for his life. Such senselessness!
Both men had doffed their coats, and their white shirts gleamed against the dark shadows of the high hedges as they paced the remaining steps. Austin’s chestnut curls and distinct limp stood in sharp contrast to the young giant’s golden looks and graceful stride. In frustration, Aubree lifted the shotgun to her shoulder and took careful aim.
“Aubree! Put that gun back in my study and go back to your room. Sheriff, escort these gentlemen off the grounds. All except that one.” Appearing at the corner of the castle, followed by a string of grooms and village constables, the duke gestured to single out Austin from among the others.
Under the duke’s hostile gaze and enforced by the local constabulary, the crowd hastily dispersed. With a look of disgust, Heath handed his pistol to the military gentleman and, turning sharply on his heel, approached his father-in-law.
The duke observed Austin’s scowl implacably. “Heath, I apologize for intruding, but I’ll not have my daughter locked in the Tower for murder. Her aim is not so good as she claims.”
Austin sent a quick glance toward the battlements, but the slim shadow had already disappeared into the darkness above. She had won this battle, but he had not yet begun to fight. He returned his attention to the duke. “Sir, with your permission. . .”
His grace took one look at Austin’s murderous gaze and shook his head. “Not like that. Lay one hand on her and I’ll have you hung.”
Austin’s thin lips turned upward. “A cane is what she needs, but a thrashing is not what I had in mind. You did mention a desire for grandchildren?”
The duke nodded, and Heath strode toward the castle.
Chapter 10
Aubree crawled through the window of her room, coming up on the other side to meet Aunt Clara’s terrified gaze.
“Aubree! My word, child, what are you doing?” she cried, staring at the apparition in boy’s breeches that not an hour before had worn angelic white.
“My father has run the cloth-heads off. I never thought I’d see the day. . .” Aubree shook her hair to retrieve the loosened pins barely holding it in place.
“Just look at you,” Clara declared with shock, then turning to an equally terrified maid, she ordered, “Have them send up a bath, at once.”
Matilda departed, leaving Aubree to struggle alone with her recalcitrant curls and her frightened aunt.
“Aubree, what on earth have you been doing? You look like a chimney sweep! Where’s Lord Heathmont? This is supposed to be a wedding party, and the bride and groom are out playing hide-and-seek. I’ve never seen the like in my life. Wherever did you find those clothes?”
Aubree listened with only half her mind. She had infuriated Heath beyond all measure. She had no idea of what action he could take. If he tried to beat her, she would scream the house down. There were enough guests left to come to her rescue. And he had given his word as a gentleman that he would not take her as a wife, so she need not fear reprisal in that way. Perhaps he would call the whole thing off, go to her father and demand an annulment, and she would never see him again. That seemed the most logical conclusion.
After Aunt Clara’s panic had worn itself down and the bath arrived, Aubree found herself blessedly alone. Matilda deserved a chance to gossip with the maids of their guests. Aubree sent her away and breathed a sigh of relief as she sank into the warm water, fragrant with the bath oil Henry had sent to her from abroad long ago.
She let the heat soak the strain of this day. With luck, Heath would go away and leave her alone, and in time this day would only be one more infamous incident in her history. She must remember to thank her father for arriving in time. She did not like to think what might have happened had any of those triggers been pulled. Her eyes drifted closed.
The slam of her bedroom door shot Aubree upright, spraying water across the Turkish carpet. She grabbed for a towel, but a bronzed hand snatched it away. She rubbed at her eyes to remove the splashed soap to see this brash intruder, though in her heart she had little doubt of his identity.
“Did you require this, madam?” Heath’s voice grated icily as he dangled the towel before her.
She snatched at the corner he allowed her, rubbing her eyes with the cloth while attempting to sink lower beneath the bubbles. She had the miserable feeling she failed to disguise herself, and crimson tinged her skin.
“Go away,” she muttered, hiding her embarrassment in the towel.
“I asked you to do that on several occasions this evening, milady, and you chose to ignore me.” Once satisfied she had dried her eyes, Heath jerked the towel away.
Aubree crossed her arms over her breasts and cowered beneath the thinning layer of bubbles. “I was trying to save your fool life,” she retorted. “I see nothing honorable in dyi
ng. But since we are so obviously unsuited, why are you not downstairs appealing to my father for an annulment? Go talk to him instead of invading my privacy. Give me the towel and go away.”
“Is that what you thought you were doing? How generous.” Austin dropped the towel on the floor where she would have to reach for it, then sat down on the bed and began tugging at his shoe. “However, I have no intention of asking for an annulment until your father has carried out his end of the bargain. And in the meantime, I will look after myself, thank you.”
“What are you doing?” Aubree whispered, watching as one shoe fell to the floor, revealing a well-muscled leg beneath a silk stocking. She did not dare grab for the towel while he faced in her direction.
“If you will get out of the bath before it grows cold, I will spare the maids a second trip.” Heath threw down the next shoe beside the other.
“You can’t come in here like this. . .” Aubree panicked as she realized no one below would agree with her. She had just vowed before all those people to surrender all her rights to this man.
Heath raised a sardonic eyebrow. “Would you care to place a little wager on that?” Standing, he crossed to the mirror to unfasten his stickpin and cravat.
Aubree took this chance and dived for the towel, but Austin turned before she dived beneath the water again.
At her irate glare, Austin shrugged. “If you care to look, your father has footmen posted at either end of the hall. If I had not come in here, it would have been reported, and would not augur well for our agreement. However, if I should thrash you as you so roundly deserve, they would be in here within an instant to flail my hide. So if you truly value my life as you proclaim, you will keep your voice down and attempt to obey my orders, for a change.”
“I cannot step out of this bath until you leave the room,” she insisted, gritting her teeth at even this much capitulation.
Austin ripped off his cravat. “Madam, you have made enough of a fool of me this evening. I do not intend to stand meekly outside the door of my marriage chamber until my bride decides to let me in. You should have thought of that before you rewarded yourself with that bath.”
Aubree conceded the point and waved in the direction of a dressing screen in the corner. “At least have the decency to place the screen around me so I might dry myself. I cannot believe my father meant for us to share this chamber so soon.”
Austin met her glare with incredulity. “What did you envision us doing on our wedding night?” he asked as he lifted the screen and carried it back to her.
Aubree shrugged in embarrassment. If it were not for the protection of the water, she would sink right through the floor and die. “I don’t know. I thought we could have separate chambers, at least. Surely, in a mariage de convenance, the husband is not expected to attend to his wife every night?”
Austin arranged the screen around her. “If that is what you think we have, my lady, let me disillusion you.”
Now that she had a modicum of privacy, Aubree wrapped a towel around her rather than be disillusioned while naked.
He did not seem to need her encouragement. “I have had one wife who felt called upon to make a cuckold of me; I will not have another. So long as we are considered man and wife, I shall take care not to insult you by consorting with other women. I will expect the same respect in return. Do you understand me?”
Aubree nodded thoughtfully, forgetting he could not see her. She considered his words as she dried herself and nearly screamed when Austin jolted her back to reality by rattling her protective barrier.
He sent her gown flying over the top of the screen. “Put this on and come out here and answer me, Aubree Elizabeth.”
Her eyes widened at this use of her given name, but she hastened to slip the gown over her head. She gasped as she realized the indecent amount of flesh left uncovered by this gown she’d never seen before. The pale-green silk formed a scallop over each breast and came up at an angle to cover only a portion of her shoulders. Full sleeves fell back at every movement, offering glimpses of her bare arms. The bodice clung to her waist and hips like a second skin, and only the full train of the skirt offered any protection at all. She wondered whose idea it was to buy this gown and prepared to chastise them firmly when she found out.
Biting her lip in vexation, she asked nervously, “Austin, would you please fetch my shawl?”
“Madam, I am waiting for your answer. I am in no mood to scour your drawers for fripperies.”
With her hair still partially pinned but tumbling down over one shoulder, Aubree lifted her skirt, held her chin defiantly high, and stepped from the privacy of the screen. “I understand you, milord.”
Austin swung around and the blue of his eyes brightened as he regarded her near-nakedness. Then, with a curse of frustration, he moved toward the dressing screen, pulling his shirt from his breeches.
“The gown looks better than I expected,” he muttered, disappearing behind the screen.
Aubree’s cheeks flushed scarlet. “From you, milord?”
“My name is Austin, if you will recall,” he answered. His shirt fell upon the screen, followed by his breeches.
As she heard him step into the water, Aubree’s cheeks grew brighter, and she dashed behind the curtains of the bed, hurriedly lowering them. That a man had purchased this shockingly intimate apparel was bad enough, but that he now bathed completely naked just behind that screen was more than her senses could bear. The darkness provided by the velvet bed hangings helped close him out, but the softness of the mattress beneath her recalled another point.
“Mi—Austin,” she called.
A splash was her only answer.
“D-does this mean we must share this bed tonight?” she asked.
“Yes, madam, it does, and every night until we escape your father’s attention. So you had best begin practicing obedience as soon as possible.”
Aubree popped her head from between the curtains at this pronouncement. “Obedience?”
“You have read Shakespeare?”
“Of course. I am not completely ignorant.” Indignantly, she perched on the bed’s edge and began to remove the remainder of the pins from her hair.
“You remember the Taming of the Shrew?”
Aubree flung a hand full of pins at the screen. “I am not a shrew!”
“Not enough experience.”
She could hear Austin standing in the bath and imagined water running in rivulets down his lean body. She froze.
“But take a lesson from Katharina,” he continued, unaware of her posture. “When I say the moon is blue, comment on the lovely shade of indigo.”
“What flummery! The moon is blue, indeed. What will such foolishness gain us?” Aubree shook off her daze and grabbed her brush from the vanity, then perched cross-legged upon the bed again.
“Atwood Abbey, with any luck.” Austin threw the soaked towel over the screen, then cursed. “I don’t suppose you had the same consideration in my nightwear as I did yours, my love?”
She detected the sarcasm, but his meaning threw her into panic. “No, I’m sorry. I did not know. . . I mean, can we not send for some?”
She heard him sigh and mutter something that suspiciously sounded like, “There are pluses and minuses to this business of wedding virgins.” But when he spoke aloud, he reworded his thoughts more politely. “I have none to send for, my dear. I am as unaccustomed as you to this business of sharing a bed.” Her husband reappeared from behind the screen in only a tight pair of breeches.
“Austin, you cannot!” Aubree dropped her brush and dived between the curtains again, but she couldn’t resist peering between them. Her husband possessed a startling divine resemblance to works of art in her father’s library.
With water still running down the dark line of hair over his breastbone, Austin used his shirt to finish drying. Half naked, he went about the room, snuffing out the candles. The scent of hot wax blended with the faint aroma of lilac blossoms, and he threw open the
latticed windows.
Aubree slid as far away from the side that he approached as she could. Cool air blew over her bared skin. The silk brushing against her breasts created strange longings. Remembering Austin’s kisses of not so many nights ago, her heart pounded unevenly. Surely, he wouldn’t?
Austin’s heavy frame weighed down upon the bed. Aubree avoided the tempting tilt of the mattress as he situated himself comfortably, keeping a distance between them.
She could only see the vague outline of broad—bare—shoulders against the pillow, but she would have sensed his presence without the use of sight. He exuded a virile warmth and energy that could not easily be contained by her feminine surroundings, and the masculine scent of him permeated the closed air of the draped bed. Beside him, she knew her own smallness, and she cowered against the edge of the bed.
“You are still angry with me?” she asked as his silence continued.
Crossing his hands beneath his head and staring at the canopy, Austin considered this. “I am angry that you felt it necessary to interfere with my affairs. I am not angry that you prevented me from shooting the vulgar fellow. I am a better shot than you, I wager, and I did not intend to kill him. So you have simply made a spectacle of yourself for naught. In the future, I would thank you to remember that I know a little more about what I am doing than you do.”
Aubree curled the pillow up under her as she studied his silhouette. “I cannot abide bloodshed, milord. If you are prone to involving yourself in these unnecessary duels, I cannot promise to act the part of bystander.”
He lay without moving, keeping his hands beneath his head. “Then I shall make certain to keep my activities hidden from you in the future, my lady,” he answered stonily. “Now let us get what sleep we might.”
Indigo Moon Page 10