“Don’t do that!” Lucy jerked away as if he’d slipped a live ember into the bodice of her gown. She was stunned by how much the mockery in his caress had hurt her.
“You needn’t fear, madam. I have heard that all brides are nervous on their wedding night. Or… should I say, prior to the ceremony. Now, there is a lovely church three miles down the road. You will marry me there at once. Or there will be no bargain to save Aubrey from being disinherited. What is it to be, Lucinda?” Lucy trembled with helpless fury.
“I’ll make you regret this.”
“I am quaking with trepidation. Answer me, girl. Now. I have an aversion to Cheltenham tragedies, and if Aubrey awakes, he’ll rival any performance that ever graced Drury Lane. I’d not mind thrashing the boy again except that my knuckles are still tender from the last time I hit him.”
Lucy swallowed hard, imagining Aubrey’s pain when the sensitive boy discovered the disaster that had befallen her. No, better to have it over with before he came rushing to her rescue, risking even more on her behalf. God only knew what the reckless boy might do.
She lifted her chin with regal hauteur in spite of the twine that bound back her hair. “I’d prefer the blow of a headsman’s axe to exchanging wedding vows with you,” she said fiercely. “But since you have brought the bishop instead, let’s get my infernal execution over with at once.”
Valcour sketched her an arrogant bow, shadows dancing in the planes and hollows of his austere face.
He had won this battle, Lucy thought, seething with hatred. But she would make certain it was the bitterest victory the earl of Valcour had ever known.
*
There had never been a more defiant bride.
Valcour stared down at Lucinda Blackheath with a surprising twist of tenderness in his heart. She stood with her chin thrust belligerently at the bishop, her hair straggling about her face like a milkmaid just returned from a tumble in the meadow. Her gown was wilted about her slender body as if she had worn the infernal thing since Christmastime.
And yet even with twine straggling down that graceful neck, even with a smudge of dirt on that aristocratic nose, she looked like a hostage queen being forced to wed a villainous churl.
And as Valcour stared down into those rebellious aquamarine eyes, he felt every inch the heartless bastard she had named him.
Even the bishop was intimidated by the sizzling waves of tension consuming the bride and groom before him. The old man squirmed as if Satan’s fires were heating the altar stones beneath his very feet. He spoke the wedding ceremony with the awkwardness of a boy reciting ill-learned lessons, stumbling over phrases he must have read three hundred times and wincing at his mistakes as if he expected to feel the cut of the willow switch. Valcour’s mouth hardened with satisfaction at the knowledge that, in spite of the bishop’s discomfiture, the holy man would never dare defy the mighty earl. Much as the bishop might like to intervene, he was decidedly lacking in courage.
Lothshire’s sausage-like hands fidgeted with the exquisite prayer book, the ring on his finger, as if hoping for some heavenly intercession that would give Lucy time to reconsider her rash marriage, or the earl of Valcour time to redeem his sin-scarred soul.
But it was far too late for that.
Dominic St. Cyr had looked straight into the pit of hell, and the images he had seen there would be reflected forever in his eyes. The scars left in his soul would always form a barrier as impenetrable as the legendary Queen Morgause’s invisible wall, Valcour’s solitary existence serving as both a prison and a haven that no one would ever breach.
“Do you, Lucinda Blackheath,” the bishop stuttered, “take this man to be your husband?”
He dropped his prayer book in alarm as Lucy bellowed, “I wouldn’t be standing here like an idiot if I didn’t!”
The bishop, unused to such assaults on his priestly dignity, turned scarlet and scrambled to retrieve his book. “Do you promise to—to love him, honor him, comfort, and—and obey him as long as you both shall live?”
Valcour felt a grim smile tug at the corner of his mouth. The old curmudgeon looked as if he were poised to dive beneath the altar cloth at a moment’s notice. Truth to tell, the bishop would be far safer hiding himself there.
“Do you promise to love my lord Valcour, honor him, comfort—” the bishop began again, but Lucy cut him off with a wave of her hand.
“I predict that my lord will need a great deal of comforting in the future,” she said, her eyes slits seething with malice.
“I—I take it that means yes?” the bishop queried unsteadily.
“Yes, you infernal fool!” Lucy blazed.
The bishop’s jowls wobbled as he swallowed hard. “And you, my lord Valcour, do you take this woman to be your wife? To have and to hold from this day forward? In sickness and in health until death do you part?”
“I do.”
“The—the ring. Have you got a…” The bishop glanced from one to the other as if he expected a box on the ears. “I mean, often in these hasty affairs, one forgets such—such trivialities.”
“I have no ring.” Then Valcour paused, the glint of the bishop’s ruby stirring a vague memory. “Wait just a moment.”
Dominic dragged his watch from his waistcoat pocket. He felt Lucinda’s anger-hot eyes on his fingers as he fumbled with something attached to the fob. A gold disk fell into his cupped palm. Candlelight danced in the petals of what looked to be a wreath of roses, the hearts of the tiny blossoms each glowing red with a perfect ruby.
Of their own volition, Dominic’s fingers curled over the ring, as if it were something to be ashamed of, some sign of weakness he had to hide. In that frozen moment, his mind filled with the remembrance of his mother on his twentieth birthday. For years he had not considered the day of his birth an occasion to be celebrated. That day he’d forgotten it entirely and had been laboring over some shipping interests that had reached a crucial point.
Lady Catherine had come to him with that hopeful, hurting softness in her eyes. She had curled up on a stool near his feet, looking as fragile as a lily battered by a storm. The ring had been gripped in her hand.
“Dominic, life is so uncertain, we cannot know when the angels will claim us. And I wanted to make certain that you have this someday when you are ready to take a wife.”
“I have told you, I’ve no intention of saddling myself with a marriage.”
She had winced and looked away. “You cannot blame a mother for hoping that you will change your mind in time. This ring is a love gift that has been passed on for generations. A chevalier from Anjou first fashioned it for his lady, Angelique, before he went to fight in the Crusades. Angelique’s father would not allow her to marry her love until he proved himself in battle. It was a bitterly painful parting, but the knight rode off, determined to win his ladylove. Nine months later, Angelique received word that he had been lost in a crushing defeat that no Englishman survived. She was at the altar, being forced by her father to wed a man of his choosing, when her knight strode through the church door. He said that in the heat of combat he saw the ring shimmering all around him, shielding him from the scimitars of the infidels. And when he had awakened after the battle, he was safe, drifted down on English shores. Since that day, the ring has been said to fit only the finger of the giver’s true love. And once it is in place, that bond can never be severed.”
Her cheeks had flushed at the hard cast to Dominic’s face, and the quiet pain had returned to her eyes. “I know that you think such talk of magic ridiculous, Dominic. But the ring is lovely, don’t you think? It would be beautiful on your own lady’s hand one day.”
Dominic had been damned uncomfortable. But the ring had seemed to mean so much to his mother that he had fastened it to his watch fob. He’d thanked her, fighting to keep the impatience out of his voice. But she had known what he was feeling. It had been one of the great tragedies of Lady Catherine’s life that she had always known….
He wondered what his
gentle mother would think of him if she could see him now. Forcing his troth upon an unwilling girl, innocent of any crime save dishonoring the St. Cyr name. This was no tender love match, no desperate passion the like of Angelique and her knight. And Dominic could only thank God for that.
“My lord?” the bishop’s voice shook Dominic back to the present, and he was aware of the holy man’s questioning look, and Lucinda’s rebellious one.
“Having second thoughts, my lord?” the girl asked with an acid bite.
“Not at all,” Dominic said, the ring seeming to almost pulse in his hand. “I am only preserving this tender moment in my memory.”
It was ridiculous. But he felt a sudden stark reluctance to slip the ring on Lucinda Blackheath’s hand. His jaw clenched as he took the gold circlet, sliding it to the first joint of her finger, holding it there, the gold smooth and cool, her fingers overly warm, trembling just a little.
“With this ring I thee wed,” he repeated after the bishop.
“With my body I thee worship.” They were words, only words. They meant nothing. Then why did awareness sizzle to life beneath the tips of Dominic’s fingers, fingers that brushed the facets of the small rubies and the ivory satin of Lucinda Blackheath’s skin?
His voice was damnably unsteady as Dominic finished the vow: “With all my worldly goods I thee endow.”
Almost by instinct, Lucinda curled her fingers as if to keep the circlet of gold from being slid into place. A ring that was not a love token, but the final blow of the axe blade she had feared. For a moment, Valcour felt regret. His shoulders tensed as he forced the ring into place. A momentary stab of astonishment pierced him as the ring fit her slender finger to perfection.
“You are now man and wife, my children,” the bishop said, mopping his brow with obvious relief. “Go in peace.”
“Not bloody likely,” Valcour muttered, grateful to retreat behind his shield of acid wit.
“Pardon me, my lord?”
“I said, I am vastly in your debt. You have shown yourself a friend to the St. Cyrs yet again. I will not forget.”
The bishop looked into Dominic’s eyes, and for a moment the blithering fool of minutes before took on an expression that was disturbingly wise. “I can only pray that this child will help you to do so, my lord.”
Chapter Eight
The sweet, dew-misted air played about Lucy’s heated face as she stepped out of the church at Hound’s Way and into an uncertain future.
She stared down at the ring on her finger, her throat thick with the tears she had walled in behind her belligerent facade during the endless wedding ceremony. She was the countess of Valcour. Never to be plain Lucy Blackheath again.
Lucy, who had climbed trees in the midst of storms and frightened bullies by playing at ghost. Lucy, who had dashed through Blackheath Hall like a whirlwind of pure mischief, secure in her parents’ love.
Lucy, who had taught her sisters how to slip despised bits of vegetables beneath the tablecloth to feed to their father’s hounds. The Raider’s daughter, who had ridden secret missions for the bold patriot Pendragon, was now the wife of an enigmatic stranger.
Lucy’s lips trembled at the memory of that night she’d first decided to race off to England on this “grand adventure.” She had never seen Ian Blackheath look so stricken. You belong here, he had raged. With us.
I’m not trundling off with “prospective bride” marked on my forehead, Papa, she had said, so certain in her own power. All I want is to take a holiday… for a year at most…
I don’t understand, Lucy, he had said. Help me to understand….
But Ian Blackheath would never understand this.
No, that was wrong. He would understand only too well the recklessness that had driven her into the middle of such a disaster. Most likely he had expected her to become embroiled in some kind of debacle from the moment she cajoled the Wilkeses into bringing her to England.
Lucy bit her lip until it bled. There had been real fear in her father’s countenance that night. Even Emily’s teasing hadn’t driven it from his eyes.
Are you afraid some dashing English rogue will carry her off to his castle and we’ll never see her again?
Oh, God, Mama. Lucy felt the wrenching agony in her chest. What have I done?
She wanted to fling herself upon the bishop’s chest and beg the holy man to ignore the vows she had spoken. She hadn’t meant them, hadn’t wanted to make them. But it was too late.
Anxious to be quit of the whole affair, the bishop was lumbering into his coach, leaving Lucy alone with the man who now stood as a dark silhouette against the first mauve ribbons of dawn.
Valcour’s back was to her, and she was struck again by the imposing width of his shoulders, the long, muscular length of his thighs. His hair was liquid silk, caught back with as much precision as her own curls were tumbled in disarray.
Since the moment he had stalked into the stable, Valcour radiated power, ruthlessness. But now, as he stood with the fingers of the dew-kissed morning breeze threading through his hair, there was a curious hesitancy about him, almost as if he were uncertain what to do next.
Lucy swallowed hard, his taunting words about the wedding night echoing in her mind. Her only hope was that he’d continue to stare off into the mists of the newborn morning for all eternity.
“So, it is done,” Valcour said at last.
“Yes.”
“In spite of all that has gone before, I will try not to be too reprehensible a husband to you. You will not find me an exacting master, Lucinda.”
“I will not tolerate you being my master at all.” Her chin bumped up a notch despite her melancholy.
Valcour’s face angled toward her, and she was suddenly aware of dark circles beneath the earl’s eyes, the faint lines that bracketed his mouth. “Would it be possible to lay down our weapons for a little while?” he asked. “Not surrender, by any means. A negligible truce. No more than that.”
She didn’t know what to say. God in heaven, she didn’t know the man at all. “I suppose,” she allowed. “But I’ll keep my hand on the sword hilt just in case.”
Valcour smiled a little. “I don’t doubt you will.” He walked past the coach he had hired to bring them to the church and leaned against a stone fence that meandered along the road. A baby duckling paddled blissfully in a miniature pond last night’s storm had created in a particularly deep rut. The little creature reminded Lucy poignantly of those few moments she and Valcour had been in harmony, watching the cygnet and its mama swim away.
“I will need an heir,” Valcour said at last. “I will make no other demands on you.”
That demand alone was enough to make the blood rush to Lucy’s cheeks, images of how he would sire that heir playing with disturbing vividness in her mind.
Instinctively, Lucy crossed her arms over her tingling breasts.
“I—I have hardly had time to get used to being a wife. Surely—”
“Lucinda, I am very selective in my villainy. I hardly intend to fling you to the ground and get you with child at once. You will have whatever time you need to… accustom yourself to the idea of me coming to your bed.”
Lucy sucked in a shuddering breath at this unexpected consideration on his part, but she didn’t dare show such a formidable adversary any weakness. “I suppose you expect me to thank you for that?”
“That would hardly be fair, would it? Considering what I’ve put you through the past few hours?” Valcour dragged one bronzed hand through his dark hair and rubbed at his eyes.
“Is there anything else you require of me?” Lucy demanded, hating the sensation of empathy she was beginning to feel toward him.
“Honesty. I have a great aversion to lies.”
“That may be difficult. From the time I was a child I’ve been a most accomplished liar.”
The hard edge was back in Valcour’s voice. “You’re not a child anymore, Lucinda. You needn’t fear any repercussions as long as you are hones
t with me. Once our son is born, you may conduct whatever affairs you wish with impunity, as long as you exercise an appropriate amount of discretion.”
Lucy’s cheeks stung with outrage. The man had just forced her to marry him because of some crazed notion of honor, and now, before an hour had passed, he was giving her permission to sleep with half of London as long as she didn’t flaunt her actions.
His impatient words in the stable replayed themselves in her memory: I was roused from my mistress’s arms…. Thunder in heaven, the woman’s bedsheets probably hadn’t even had time to cool. A prickly knot of something Lucy couldn’t name bubbled up in her chest.
Shadows from the past drifted through her mind: Celestia Blackheath, Ian’s sister and Lucy’s adoptive mother. A frivolous, petty woman who so thirsted for the attention of her lovers that she’d locked up the pianoforte that had given Lucy so much joy. It was the only way the woman could be certain that no man would be distracted from her beauty by the magic of Lucy’s music.
Lucy might bow to giving Valcour a child. Heaven knew, she’d been terribly lonely without her own family, and the babe might fill a part of the empty space their absence would leave in her heart. But the thought of her husband—even a husband in name only—being entangled with another woman was something Lucy could not endure.
“You have laid out your demands, my lord. Now I will give you my own.”
Valcour’s brow slid upward in silent query.
“I will not take another woman’s leavings.”
“Pardon me?”
“If I am to bear you a son, I will not tolerate you coming to me with your lips warm from another woman’s kisses. I know this is not a love match, but I would find it humiliating.”
“Lucinda, a man has needs. I’m no different from any other.” He paced toward her. Lucy stepped backward, bumping up against a tree.
She stiffened as his hand came up to catch her chin, tipping her face to his. “You are beautiful, Countess.”
He reached out to touch a tendril of hair that straggled across her shoulder. “You have a tantalizingly ripe look about you. Your lips full, like berries ready to burst in the sun. Your breasts perfection, pale as milk, with that tracery of blue veins like ribbons beneath the petals of a white rose.”
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