The Wedding Chase: In His Lordship's BedPrisoner of the TowerWord of a Gentleman

by Kasey Michaels

“So, it is off to say our vows in secret or I shall have to remove the obstacles to them so we can do this publicly. I leave that to your discretion, of course. This was your idea.”

  Again she sighed. “I suppose we should get on with it since we’ve come this far.”

  “How you bolster my hopes for a happy union, my dear girl. I can hardly wait to become one with you.”

  “Droll, aren’t you? Do try to restrain your eagerness,” she replied in a wry voice.

  The irony was, he wished he could look forward to it with his whole heart. But he had no heart.

  Clarissa was quite beautiful, highly spirited and, discounting this undertaking, very practical in some ways, all things a man might seek in a wife. If only he were the man he once had been. If only he thought he could really make her happy.

  The best he could offer her now was a caricature. He had no inner self left, no depth of feeling whatsoever. Battle and the ensuing horror had burned away the core of him and left nothing but a husk that was proving rather indestructible no matter what he subjected it to.

  However, if Clarissa could use the empty shell for her protection and surface pleasures, he might as well provide both. Why not? Besides, he did think—for old times’ sake if nothing else—he was obliged to save the poor dear from herself. It was the least he could do.

  The only thing he really dreaded about this was how cheated Clarissa might feel when she discovered he had no soul. Perhaps she would not look so deep or even care, in which case he still could do a bit of good with what remained of himself.

  It was not much, but it was more than he’d had to look forward to yesterday.

  CLARISSA WOKE with a start. The coach had stopped. A faint streak of light peeked around the sturdy velvet curtain. She brushed the fabric aside, squinting. “Where are we?”

  “A post stop,” he replied. “Here we’ll change teams and take a short respite. Best take full advantage. The next leg of our journey will be somewhat longer.”

  Hugh exited the chaise, looked around for a moment, then turned and assisted her out. After he spoke with the coachman, he guided her into a small two-story structure where a cheerful barrel-chested innkeeper greeted them with a smile and a word of welcome.

  Good as his word, they were back on the road within the quarter hour. The hurriedly consumed scone and cup of dark chocolate sat heavily on Clarissa’s stomach.

  This was proving a strange journey, riding in a hired chaise, alone with a gentleman. Whenever she had traveled from the school, she had always been accompanied by Phyllis and one of the Dicksons or a maid. Their private coach had been considerably larger and much more well appointed than this one. And there had never been this uncomfortable silence that simply screamed to be filled.

  Hugh seemed perfectly content to let it go on as he sat across from her and studied her with those tawny tiger’s eyes. His features looked pensive.

  She had to say something to relieve the tension. “I hope you were able to sleep before we stopped, and that supporting me earlier while I did so was not too tiring.”

  Hugh inclined his head, still pinning her with that gauging look that confounded her so. “Not to worry. I require little sleep.”

  “Oh. Wakeful habits acquired in the army, I expect. I guess it would be difficult to rest well if you were anticipating the call to serve at any moment.” She shook her head. “That cannot be conducive to good health.”

  He stared out the window that he’d left uncovered after their last stop. “Nothing about the army was conducive to good health.”

  “Will you tell me about it?”

  “No,” he said simply.

  Clarissa threw up her hands and rolled her eyes heavenward. “Well, I suppose we could rattle along for the duration this way. Or we could make some attempt to get to know one another as adults. What do you think?”

  He smiled and turned his gaze back to her. “I believe I suggested something of the sort a while ago. Tell me about yourself.”

  She smiled back, pleased that he was at least trying to be agreeable. Bracing her half-boots on his satchel and sitting up a bit straighter as if for a recitation, she clasped her hands in her lap and asked, “What would you care to know?”

  He folded his arms over his chest and stretched his long legs out to one side, crossing his ankles. His chin resting on his foulard, he peered at her from beneath his lashes. “I’ve already observed that you are impulsive, painfully direct and determined to govern with an iron fist. You seem to have changed quite radically from when you were younger. Why is that?”

  Clarissa gaped, rendered speechless. She trembled with indignation.

  However, once the first shock had passed, she granted he might have come to his conclusions with some reason. She swallowed hard and formed her reply carefully. “I fear you mistake me dreadfully, sir. I assure you I am not—”

  “Not impulsive?” he interrupted, and gestured with one hand. “Look where we are, my dear, and where we are bound. Not direct?” he continued without pausing. “You proposed marriage and never quibbled about stating why. And even you must admit you’ve made very clear at every opportunity that I am to provide little, if any, contribution to this marriage of ours. Or do you deny you mean to command?”

  Now it was her turn to escape the gaze that pinned her. Fair was fair. He had her on every count. “It is self-preservation that has moved me to act so out of character, I assure you,” she confessed. “Usually I am quite retiring.”

  He laughed aloud, his entire body shaking with mirth. “Ah, Clarissa!”

  She couldn’t help but grin. “Well, I am. You have a nice laugh, Richfield. I have always admired it.”

  He sobered a bit, but a small smile remained. “Always? Confess it, you never even noticed me before last night except in passing.”

  “But you are wrong there. Though I will not admit to any silly infatuation with you in particular, I did notice you from the start of our acquaintance. You, Harry and Cole were forever laughing when we were all together at the Dicksons. Phyllis, too. I promise you, such capacity for merriment is definite cause for envy in a plain stick such as myself.”

  “Now who told you that you were a plain stick? How can you not know how lovely you are? Impossible.” He shook his head and laughed again. This time it was more scoffing than not, but she didn’t mind.

  “That’s kind of you to say, but you needn’t lie.” She brushed her face with her gloved fingers, wishing to hide her blush. Then she promptly changed the course of the conversation. “I am so glad you are merry still, even after the dreadful time spent fighting Napoleon. It must have been quite horrible for you, and yet you—”

  “Back to that again? I wish you would give it up, Clarissa.” He sounded angry now, as he had before when she had brought up the war.

  Well, damned if she planned to spend the entire trip with him pouting across the way. But if he wanted a different topic, she could oblige. “The school where I was teaching is closed now for lack of funding.” She sounded bitter and she wished she did not. “My commanding nature seeking an outlet through instructing others, I suppose. Be that as it may, my plans had to change.”

  “Unfortunate for your students.”

  “More so for me. Uncle is ill—not long for this world, says his physician—so I returned to London with the intention of tending him. Unfortunately, Cousin Trenton was already in residence, and of course I could not stay there.”

  “So Phyllis invited you to Dickson House?” he guessed.

  “Yes, thank heavens she was with me when I went to Uncle’s. She suggested immediately that I remain with her. Else I would have had no place to turn.”

  “Your cousin did not object when you accepted her offer?” Hugh asked, seeming very interested in her reply.

  Clarissa shrugged. “Of course he did, but he thought it was temporary. He assured me he would speak with Uncle and settle the matter of our marriage within the week.”

  “Had he insulted you with his un
wanted attentions at that point?”

  “Phyllis excused herself for a few moments shortly before we were to leave. He approached me and I fear I all but ran from him. In fact, I collided with Phyllis in the hallway and we departed immediately.”

  “Good thing she was there. But what prompted you to reject your cousin’s idea at first, before he showed his true colors?”

  She thought that should be rather obvious. “I refused because I do not like Trenton, much less love him.”

  “I thought you said you hardly knew him.”

  “We were not so well acquainted, but I knew him well enough not to want him for a husband! He was vile as a boy and worse as a man!” Clarissa replied with vigor. “It took no genius on my part to realize what he really wanted was not me, but my inheritance. Uncle’s not poor, but neither is he that well off, despite his title.”

  “And you are well off, as you say?”

  “I shall be once I marry. Until then, Uncle controls what my mother’s family left to me. It is in government funds, so I was told.”

  “When was that?”

  “Years ago,” she admitted, “but I’ve been informed of no change.”

  “I see.” He sounded concerned.

  “You fear I’ll not have enough to pay you what we agreed?” she asked.

  “Have I said that?” he asked, his expression closed.

  “Well, you needn’t worry,” Clarissa said. “You will have your ten thousand and I shall have quite enough left to form and draw upon an annuity and live quite comfortably for life. I have done the figures myself, applying the amounts that were quoted to me when I received news of my parents’ accident.”

  “But you were hardly more than a child,” he said.

  She nodded. “A child indeed, but one with an eye to the future. There was no one else to mind except my uncle and he seems oblivious to my very existence.”

  With a tight smile she added, “And I shan’t expect you to trouble yourself with finances, either, except for managing what will be yours alone. The ten thousand.”

  His eyes narrowed and his gaze grew keen. “How generous you are. I could have been had for much less, you know.”

  Was that true? Had she made a poor bargain? What did she know of such things? Well, it was done now and she had promised the amount. “Then consider yourself fortunate I am so naive and enjoy your bounty.”

  “I plan to do just that,” he retorted.

  “Fine.”

  Strange how the very mention of the money upset him so, Clarissa thought. One would imagine a man with no prospects at all would delight in acquiring the ample income she was to provide him.

  His brother had run through his own family’s wealth, so it was said. The reclusive Nigel, Lord Hartcastle, lived in a crumbling heap of a manor house far to the north in the wilds of Cumberland. As second son, Hugh had been obliged to go out and seek his own way in life.

  On that thought she commented, “I have always wondered why you did not go into law, or the church.”

  “Did you?” He raised one eyebrow, obviously startled from his own thoughts, which appeared to be particularly dark at the moment. “I might have. My education was such that law was a possibility, even a probability,” he admitted. “I read law for two years. When I left school, my brother suggested a commission in the horse guards.”

  She smiled. “You always were horse mad, as I recall.”

  He frowned and continued as if she had not commented, almost as if he were talking to himself. “But the cost was too dear for the Guards, so I bought into the regular cavalry.”

  “And Harry and Cole followed where you led, as usual.”

  His nod was slow and introspective. “Yes. For a while. As did John. And Terrance. And Elton Younger.” His voice was a near whisper, almost lost in the clatter of the coach noise. She knew he had not meant her to hear. It was doubtful he even realized he had spoken aloud.

  Clarissa frowned, observing him closely now, noting the pallor that had risen beneath his sun-kissed skin, the lines that formed at the corners of his eyes and in between.

  She did not know the other men he had mentioned by name—perhaps John, if he was the same boy she had met once at the Dicksons—but it was obvious that the fellows he spoke about other than Harry and Cole must not have survived the war. He was reflecting on it now, she thought. And she knew she was entirely forgotten for the moment. Grief and self-blame were his current companions.

  Clarissa bit her lips together to keep from intruding. He would neither thank her for suggesting he absolve himself, nor would he forgive her again for initiating any more talk of the war.

  She rested her head against the wall behind it and closed her eyes, pretending she had heard nothing and feigning sleep. Her heart went out to poor Hugh. His friends had died and he felt responsible somehow. Or perhaps just terribly sad at remembering them.

  How she wished she felt free to move and sit beside him again, that she could hold him close as she used to do the students in her care who were distraught, and give him comfort. But it was not her place to console him. He was merely a partner in an enterprise to protect her and enrich himself.

  Except for responding to her kiss as any man might have done, Hugh had not indicated in any way that he wished more from her than she had offered: ten thousand pounds, perhaps a child or two in the years to come and free rein to do exactly as he pleased. That was all he required of her and all she was prepared to give him. In return, she would be securing her future against the laws that prevented women from taking full responsibility for themselves and their own assets.

  It was a fair trade all around, she thought. But she could not help wishing for something more. How sweet it would be to have someone who truly cared whether she were happy or not, someone to kiss away sadness when it occurred and to celebrate the joys. Someone to hold.

  She peered again at Hugh Richfield through the veil of her lashes as she pretended to sleep.

  Was it possible he might wish for the same thing at times? It was simply too soon to know, but a faint little hope began to take root inside her heart. A hope she had never dared put voice to even in the privacy of her thoughts.

  CHAPTER FOUR

  HUGH RUTHLESSLY SHOVED aside his dark thoughts. This would not do. He must not inflict his darkness on Clarissa, for she had done nothing to deserve it.

  The more he thought about her proposal, the more flattering he found it to be. He wasn’t happy about her offering money, of course. What man would like to consider himself bought and paid for? Well, some wouldn’t mind, he supposed.

  He grew more and more fascinated by her as the day wore on. True, it remained but a surface fascination. Sadly, nothing moved him very deeply anymore, but if anything could have, it would have been her. Even so, she was a wonderful distraction, every whit as effective as the curricle races, boxing matches and games of hazard he frequently engaged in to fill his empty nights and days. And his pockets.

  She changed like the weather. First quiet and a bit moody, her every thought readable as a newspaper. Then all of a sudden, she would pretend a vivacity he saw right through. He could see that she wanted him to like her. Little did she know how hard he’d been pressed to fight his attraction to her when she was but a girl and out of reach. The sort of attention he could offer would probably only offend her. Despite that kiss in the library—more to the point, because of it—he knew Clarissa was still an innocent. Perhaps too innocent for her own good.

  He admired her courage. He thought she was beautiful. She aroused him without even trying. But Hugh wanted more. He longed to burn hot for her in his heart as well as his loins. He wanted to suffer in the throes of desperation, feel the angst a man endured when uncertain whether a woman would ever return his love. He wished to reach the ultimate heights a man experienced when discovering the woman he loved shared his feelings. But alas, he had precious few of those for her to return, now did he? God, she deserved more.

  She never complained wh
en only allowed a quarter hour to refresh herself while the teams were changed every dozen miles or so. Instead, now past her first misgivings, she seemed to embrace the entire trip as a grand adventure. He supposed it was, for her. His ennui disgusted him. He despaired of it.

  Whether her jaunty attitude consisted of pretense or not, he appreciated the fact that she did not bedevil him or whine about the inconvenience of it all as some people would. The constant bouncing of the chaise, the squeak of the springs, the endless dust were tiring nonetheless, even for him.

  He hated travel, always had. But one could not shy from it if there was no alternative. Secretly, he wished for a home where he might put down roots and grow old, perhaps breed horses and hounds, forget the past. But it was not to be. His brother had inherited that life.

  “Have you given any thought to where we shall live?” he asked her when there came a lapse in conversation.

  She turned from the window, eyes wide with surprise and lips pursed in an enticing moue. “You…you mean you plan to live with me?” she asked, her gloved hand fiddling with the cameo at the neck of her pelisse.

  Hugh shrugged. “I assumed you would live with me, since you haven’t a place of your own. What, precisely, did you have in mind?”

  Distress marred her lovely features. “I had not thought that far ahead, to be perfectly truthful.”

  “Well, you must think,” he advised. “You certainly cannot expect the Dicksons to entertain you as their guest for life, now can you? And I seriously doubt you would wish us to live under your uncle’s roof, given the circumstances.”

  “Good heavens, no! On both counts,” she assured him. Her nose wrinkled prettily as she winced. “Where do you live?”

  Hugh smiled just thinking about Clarissa sharing his rooms in Gilmorton Street. The entire section was packed with unemployed former officers and bachelor sons of the nobility, none with any other than the most modest of means. His lodgings were hardly better than his old rooms at school. But what was he to do with her?

  “Could we impose upon your brother until we decide what to do?” she asked tentatively. “I daresay I should meet him, don’t you think?”