“I can hear you thinking,” he said grimly. “It’s bound to lead to trouble.”
“Varian—”
“Try thinking about this. “ He tilted her face back and brought his mouth to within an inch of hers.
Automatically, her head snaked round his neck to bring him to her.
“No,” he said. “If you won’t marry me, I shall never kiss you again.”
His breath was warm on her face, his body strong and sheltering. His hands were so gentle, tenderly stroking her jaw. Her pulse was racing.
“This is not fair, Varian,” she said shakily.
“I don’t play fair. Yes or no?”
And so he won.
She was doomed, Varian told himself an hour later, as he pressed a kiss to her neck. She’d been doomed from the moment she met him. Not content with killing her father, Fate had sent Varian St. George along to kill her future.
All the same, he’d found it difficult to feel guilty while this beautiful, wayward creature lay in his arms, begging to be loved. Heaven knew she needn’t beg. He’d wanted to make love to her from the instant he’d awakened. He’d just done so, and wanted to again.
But he couldn’t spend the entire day in bed with her.
Percival and Qeriba were downstairs, waiting to be assured Esme would not create difficulties about getting married. More disturbing was the thought of Ismal, who could be waiting as well…anywhere.
This latter anxiety drove Varian from the bed to gather up his clothes.
“I’ll send your grandmother up with some garments for you,” he said as he thrust himself into his trousers. “She’s already seen to the packing.”
Esme burrowed under the bedclothes. “Aye, she’s eager for me to be wed. This is all her doing, isn’t it?”
“It’s all my doing.” Varian pulled on his shirt. “Qeriba simply cooperated. Whether I’d found her and Percival downstairs this morning or not, the result would have been the same. Do not begin imagining anyone has forced me to marry you, or that I’m acting out of some absurd notion of nobility.”
He moved back to the bed and gazed sternly down at her. “I am not noble. I have wanted to make you mine practically from the start. Since you neglected to forestall me, you shall be. It’s quite simple, Esme. Don’t make it complicated.”
Reproachful green eyes peered up at him. “I see how it is. You make me drunk with lovemaking, so I cannot think, and so I will say, ‘Yes, Varian. No, Varian. As you wish, oh great light of the heavens.’”
He smiled in spite of himself. “Just so.”
“Just wait,” she warned, “until I become more accustomed to your tricks.”
“Then it will be too late, because we’ll be wed.” Varian shrugged into his coat, avoiding her gaze as he continued, “There’ll be no more tumbling about together until then. We leave for Corfu in a few hours. Once there, you’ll be chaperoned.”
That shot her up from the blankets. “Chaperoned? You cannot be serious!”
“You ought to know that Percival had prepared himself for a duel this morning, to avenge your honor. You cannot wish to shock his youthful sensibilities further by living in sin with your betrothed.”
Varian headed for the door, then paused. “You won’t be entirely among strangers. Qeriba has agreed to come as chaperon, and I am given to understand Donika’s family will provide a suitable Albanian celebration before we’re properly wed in a proper Anglican ceremony by a proper Anglican minister.” He threw her a guilty glance. “You needn’t fear you’ll be without friends on your wedding day.”
He didn’t wait for an answer and was already through the door when Esme called him back. He stood just at the threshold, bracing himself for the outburst.
“Thank you, Varian,” she said softly.
He relaxed and smiled. “S’ka gje.”
Chapter Twenty-One
Sir Gerald glared at the letter he’d only just received, though Lord Edenmont had written it more than a fortnight ago. The delay was Percival’s doing, no doubt, as was everything else. The wedding was only two days away. With cooperative winds, one might reach Corfu in a day—but to do what?
Sir Gerald raised his scowl from the letter and directed it across the Bay of Otranto. What in blazes was going on over there?
Jason had gone and got himself killed, heaven be praised, but heaven granted precious small favors. The curst fool had left a byblow behind, and Edenmont claimed he meant to wed her.
“Bloody blackguard,” Sir Gerald muttered. “Probably thinks I’ll buy him off. Hah! Let him have Jason’s bastard—and the plaguey one my false bitch of a wife saddled me with as well. Ten years to conceive a child,” he grumbled as he began to pace the terrace. “‘A miracle,’ Diana called it. As if I couldn’t count.”
He’d counted. Nine months before Percival’s birth, Sir Gerald had been abroad. Not for a moment had he believed that Percival had arrived prematurely.
The old outrage hadn’t cooled with time. The mere sight of the boy was enough to set it ablaze. Now there was another of Jason’s bastards to deal with.
The baronet stormed back into the house and on to his study, composing along the way a scathing reply to his lordship. As Sir Gerald took up his pen, however, his eye fell upon the chess set, minus a queen. He ground his teeth.
The Queen of Midnight, he’d learned, had been seized by British authorities days before it reached Prevesa. Shortly thereafter, two more ships had been intercepted, and word had spread quickly. Several customers had shied off, and it was very likely the rest would soon do the same. He’d put a great deal of money out; at present, he’d no hope of any coming in.
He might very well have to apply to his mother for funds, a ghastly prospect. The old witch was sure to cross-examine him. Though his records were creative enough to protect his secret, the process would be humiliating all the same. The dowager would find fault with him, because she always did. It was Jason, the prodigal son, she’d always doted on, though she feigned otherwise. Even now, were Jason alive, the senile old harridan would give him…whatever he wanted. As she’d always done, except that last time. Now there was this girl Edenmont claimed was Jason’s.
Putting his pen aside, Sir Gerald took up the letter once more. The girl had written a note, but there was nothing in that. The baronet flung down the sheet covered with her illegible scrawl and re-examined Edenmont’s.
“Hopes for my blessing...no, here. Aye, plain enough now. Take her to England, will you, and Percival too, if I like?”
That was what it was all about. Edenmont meant to take the girl to her witless old grandmama and use Percival, too, if he could, to soften the old hag’s heart and brain.
“Oh, no, you don’t,” Sir Gerald growled. “Not my inheritance. Not one groat, Edenmont. The crone may be in her dotage, but I’m not.”
***
The weeks before the wedding passed like a long, bewildering dream, filled with strange faces and strange voices with their clipped English accents. Though in the center of it, Esme felt she was looking in from another world, watching herself do as the dream required of her.
Varian had lodged her and Qeriba with the clergyman, Mr. Enquith, and his wife. They were both kindly people, but strangers. Varian and Percival’s visits were so rare that they seemed strangers as well. While they bustled about Corfu, arranging the proper English wedding Varian was so determined to have, Esme undertook the more daunting task of making herself into a proper English bride.
Her regrets and anxieties she banished to the depths of her heart. Her father’s murder remained unavenged, her homeland on the brink of disaster, but it was too late for her to act heroically. Her betrothed was a foreigner, a lord, a penniless debaucher, but it was too late for her to act wisely. Esme had given her heart as well as her virtue and could call neither back.
She would be his baroness, which meant she must at least appear a lady. Upon this, consequently, she fixed her mind. She made herself take interest in the fashion bo
oks Mrs. Enquith displayed and dutifully helped the two older women translate patterns into frocks. Esme took her lessons in English manners with the same singleminded concentration. It had to be done, she told herself. There was no choice.
A few days before the wedding, Donika—along with most of her relations—arrived, and Esme entered the prenuptial celebrations with the same resolve to do what must be done. She feared for the future, but it was merely heartbreak she feared, she told herself. That was just unhappiness, and life was unhappy for most human beings. What she felt inside, therefore, she kept locked within, showing others nothing but confidence and smiles.
In this way the strange dreamtime came to her wedding day, which dawned warm and bright.
Standing in the morning sunlight, Esme patiently endured her friend’s fussing with her hair and frock. At last Donika stepped away. As she scrutinized the sea green gown, her anxious frown smoothed into a smile.
“What will your bridegroom think when he sees you now?” she asked. “His little bird he called you—but today you are a princess.”
Esme resisted the urge to smooth the folds of her skirt. They were smooth enough, and her palms were damp. “L-little b-bird?”
Donika laughed. “Y-yes. How you stammer. He called you his little bird that day in Saranda and said you’d flown away with his heart. I wept to look at his sad eyes and hear the grief in his voice. All the women wept then—and later, when they heard how he’d leapt into the water after you. So beautiful a man, so strong and tall, and filled with so much love. How could we deny him?”
“No woman can deny him.” Esme’s voice sounded high, thready. “I could not even try, and now...”
“Now you shall make each other happy.”
“Happy. God have mercy on me.” Esme pressed her fist to her breast, as though this would stifle the violent thrashing of her heart. “Oh, Donika, I cannot—”
Donika grabbed her hand and yanked her to the door. “Yes, drag your feet and I shall push you on, and you shall appear a properly modest bride. But you shall be wed, my friend.”
Though Donika led her, it was the dream that carried Esme along. Uncomprehending, she was swept through a blur of faces and buzz of voices until she stood before the clergyman. Then the fog lifted. Esme looked up to find her beautiful god smiling tenderly down upon her. All about him seemed to shimmer. Glistening jet framed the smooth marble of his face, and his eyes gleamed silver. Even his voice seemed to glow, within her, as he said the words, and the warmth drew a tremulous smile from her in answer.
Then there was movement, and the blur and buzz closed in once more. “My lady,” the strange English voices called her. It made no sense, yet she answered unhesitatingly, by rote, with the polite phrases she’d been taught.
Hours later, the dream carried her to the harbor. She was aware of Petro, sobbing as he embraced Percival, then cheering considerably when Varian pressed a bag of coins into his hands. Then there were Donika, Qeriba, friends...the sounds of farewell in her own language.
Esme felt Varian’s arm about her, steadying her as she watched the boat sail away, yet it all remained unreal, incomprehensible.
The haze did not lift fully until she stood at the bedroom window of the house Varian had rented. The house was his surprise for her: a large whitewashed structure on the Bay of Kouloura, on Corfu’s northeast coast. The window looked toward her homeland. The vanishing sun burnt faint copper sparks upon the deep blue-green of the Ionian.
She’d already lit the candles. She’d changed into the lacy night rail Mrs. Enquith had so lovingly sewn, and taken the pins from her hair. She’d brushed it until it shone, using the silver-handled brush from the set Percival had given her. The room boasted a large looking glass, in which Esme had studied herself.
She’d seen reflected one small, scrawny girl, utterly alone.
Now, painfully awake, she stared out the window.
That was not her homeland across the narrow stretch of water. She was not Albanian any more. She was a girl without a country, without family.
Her uncle had not come to the wedding, doubtless because he couldn’t bear acknowledging her, not even to get his own son back. But Percival must return to him somehow, sometime, and Esme would be shut out, as her father had been.
She had nobody, was nobody, only Lord Edenmont’s wife. Not even a proper lady. She’d mastered the rudiments and performed and recited as any schoolboy might recite Latin. She, too, could recite Cicero and Catullus and the rest. That didn’t make her a Roman.
She started at the light knock on the door, and her heart hammered painfully. She could barely choke out the words to bid her husband enter.
The door was flung open, revealing the tall, splendidly formed lord who’d made her his—and nothing but his…and Esme burst into tears.
In an instant, Varian was across the room. Without a word, he scooped her up and carried her to the bed. He didn’t put her down but kept her cradled in his lap, while Esme clung to him, sobbing helplessly.
He held her, lightly resting his chin on her head while he stroked her back. Gradually, his quiet transmitted itself to her, and she began to quiet as well. When at last the horrible sobbing eased, he found his handkerchief, which he wordlessly gave her.
She’d always hated crying. Until she’d met him, tears had been alien to her, a contemptible weakness. Appalled with herself, she rubbed her wet face vengefully, as though to punish it.
“It is nothing,” she told him, glaring at his lapel. “It was stupid. I have only made myself look hideous.” She pulled away, but he wouldn’t release her.
“No, Esme, that will not do, and I will not be driven mad, wondering what the trouble is.”
His gray eyes searched her face far too intently. It made her want to squirm, which vexed her as much as crying had.
“I told you it was nothing,” she said. “I am tired, that is all. I am weary with pretending to be a lady.”
“You don’t have to pretend anything—not on my account.”
“Indeed. I might have done as I pleased, and looked a fool and a barbarian to your countrymen, and made them pity you while they laughed at me. You know as well as I how they were all waiting for me to err—to shame you and my cousin. That is why you kept away until this day,” she accused. “For one day, at least you hoped I might contrive not to disgrace you.”
Varian looked down at her clenched fists. “I see,” he said. “What a silly creature you are, to be sure.”
“Silly?” She dug her nails into his hands and pulled at his fingers, but she might as well have clawed at iron manacles for all the good it did.
“You know I’m stronger than you,” he said. “Even if I weren’t, you wouldn’t get far if I did release you. It would be a deal more productive to scratch my eyes out, don’t you think?”
Esme knew—or the reasoning part of her did, at least—that he was goading her. It didn’t matter. Pure, mindless fury coursed through her.
“I hate you!” she cried. “I would scratch out your eyes—but then you would be blind as well as stupid and crazy—and I have no one but you!” She slammed her fist against his chest, making him gasp. “I wish I were dead!”
“No, you don’t.” Before she could strike again, Varian caught her hand and kissed it. “You wish I were dead. Or had never been born.”
Releasing her hand, he lifted her from his lap and stood her before him. “Why don’t you look about you? Perhaps you’ll find something larger and harder to hit me with.” He looked toward the washstand. “The stone pitcher, for instance. I daresay a sharp rap with that would put me out for several hours.”
Taken entirely aback, Esme followed his gaze. “The pitcher?” When she turned back to him, his eyes were glittering strangely. “It would break your skull.”
“Oh, I much doubt that. You’d want an axe, I expect, to do the job properly. English lords, you know. Skulls of oak.”
She let out a heavy sigh. Her rage had dissipated as swiftly a
s it had arisen, and she could not call it back, badly as she needed it. Anger was so easy, so familiar. It made her feel strong. Despair made her weak. “Oh, Varian. I cannot do that. You know I cannot.”
“I suppose not. I’m a pitiable enough specimen as it is, and all you’ve got, unfortunately. Nowhere to go, no one to turn to. Only stupid, crazy Varian—who abandoned you for near three weeks to strangers. All for propriety, which makes no sense to you, because you are not a hypocrite, as I am. And you’re angry as well, because you’ve had no say, no choice, all these weeks.”
Esme stiffened.
His glittering silver gaze traveled slowly from the top of her head to the toes of her silk slippers. “Now I am to be punished,” he added softly. “On my wedding night. Tears first, to frighten me half to death—”
“You were not frightened,” she said. “Do not make a game of me. And do not accuse me of weak, womanish tricks. As though such things could ever move you. How many women have wept on your account? And how many more will weep, I wonder.”
“Was it on my account, love?”
“No!” She turned away, toward the window, dark now. “Oh, what is the use? Yes. Yes! Because of you.”
His hand closed round her wrist, and he drew her round again to face him. “That’s what I suspected. That’s what frightened me. That’s my punishment, too. Lord, I hate it when you cry. Even when you look as though you might.” He caught her other hand and gently pulled her nearer. “But you don’t hate me, do you, sweet?”
“Yes. No.”
He studied her left hand for a long moment, while he lightly traced the gold band circling her finger. Then, bringing the unresisting hand to his lips, he kissed the soft flesh of her palm. Esme trembled, with longing, with fear. To give her body was easy. She’d done so gladly and would again, if it were only that. But to give all her will, all she was…
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