by Anne Ashley
A possibility occurred to her so startling that she almost dismissed it as ludicrous, but it persisted, swiftly becoming a firm conviction. Of course, there was only one person it could possibly be!
Had the gag firmly tied about her mouth not prevented it, Emma would have happily released the swell of indignation bubbling up inside by uttering a stream of colourful invective. It was all so blatantly clear now—she had been betrayed by those she trusted. And, worse, unless she very much mistook the matter, those she held most dear had aided and abetted in this disgraceful escapade!
Swinging her legs to the floor, she managed to ease herself into a sitting position, and then commenced to hammer her heels on the floor of the carriage for all she was worth. Her exertions had the desired effect. The carriage began to slow down immediately, the blind was raised, the window was pulled down, and her suspicions were confirmed a moment later by that unmistakable, beloved voice.
‘It is all right, John. You may continue. Our passenger is merely feeling a trifle—er—fractious.’
Benedict clearly detected the muffled squeal as he closed the window, and resumed his seat, but was not above fuelling the furnace of her justifiable wrath by announcing, ‘Now, if you promise to be a good girl, and behave yourself, I shall remove your bonds.’ Reaching out one hand, he pulled off the sack covering her head to reveal a riot of deliciously tussled brown locks, and a pair of stormy grey eyes. His lips twitched. ‘Even though I suspect I am being most imprudent, I shall remove the gag.’
His reservations were justified, but he made not the least attempt to stem the ensuing diatribe which left him in no doubt of her opinion of his manners and morals. ‘You wretch! Untie me at once!’ she finished, breathless, but not in the least mollified.
Again he obliged her, but found his hand being slapped away none too gently when he made to untie her ankles. ‘Your annoyance is very understandable, my darling, so I shall overlook these needless displays of childish temper.’ He reached for the journal on the seat beside him. ‘We shall discuss the situation when you are a little more yourself.’
Incensed that he could calmly apprise himself of the latest news at such a time, Emma snatched the paper from out of his hand, and screwed it up into a ball before tossing it into a corner of the carriage. ‘You will return me to Ashworth Magna at once, do you hear! Otherwise I shall not hesitate to jump out of this carriage!’
The threat did not succeed in wiping the infuriating smile from his lips, but Emma was left in no doubt that he was very much in earnest when he said, ‘Endeavour to do anything so foolish, and you might find it impossible to sit with any degree of comfort for some considerable time.’
Indignation held her mute, but only for a moment. ‘Ha! And this from the very man who swore he would never so much as harm a hair on my head!’
The infuriating smile widened. ‘It isn’t your head that need concern you, my darling. Quite another part of your anatomy, in fact.’
It was an effort, but she managed to suppress a tiny squeal of vexation. ‘And I suppose it was you who struck me back in that barn,’ she accused, memory returning.
Benedict didn’t attempt to deny it. ‘No more than you deserved after the little farce you enacted for my benefit the other week.’
It needed only that to quell the anger which had sustained her thus far, and bring about a swift return of searing heartache. She lowered her eyes, but was very conscious that his own never wavered from her face. ‘Who told you?’ she asked softly.
‘My sister.’ This succeeded in raising her eyes once more to his, and Benedict, silently cursing himself, had little difficulty in recognising more than just puzzlement in those lovely grey depths. How he had ever been so foolish as to doubt the strength of her regard for him he would never know.
‘The instant Agnes revealed that she’d paid you a visit, I began to suspect the truth,’ he freely admitted, before the line of his jaw noticeably hardened. ‘She’ll think twice before interfering in my affairs again, you can be sure.’
For her part Emma had little difficulty in detecting his lingering resentment. ‘Lady Fencham was only thinking of you, Ben,’ she assured him, thereby revealing that she bore his sister no ill will. ‘And what she said to me was no less than the truth.’
‘What she told you was utter twaddle,’ he countered. ‘And she knows it!’
Although he had sounded totally sincere, Emma wasn’t wholly convinced. ‘If you honestly believe that what your sister predicted would not happen if we…if we did ever marry, why then did you wish to keep our betrothal a secret, if it wasn’t in an attempt to protect me?’
Benedict was silent for a moment, scrutinising every fine contour of her face. ‘So, that’s what you thought…you thought I was trying to protect you from scurrilous, wagging tongues.’ He shook his head at her. ‘My darling, you couldn’t have been more wrong. I was trying to protect you, right enough,’ he readily confirmed, ‘but from only one person—Isabel Ashworth.’
He smiled at the frown of consternation which swiftly followed the admission. ‘I strongly suspected Isabel was responsible for the deaths of both Dr Hammond and the servant girl quite some time before I paid that visit to Worcestershire. Such a hard and ruthless woman would not have thought twice about making you a further victim. I knew that she was suspicious about my presence in the locale. Consequently I was afraid that if she discovered that I was near to exposing her, she just might be vindictive enough to extract revenge by harming you, if she discovered just how much you had come to mean to me. And I couldn’t risk that possibility, remote though it might have been.
‘Then, after my return from Worcestershire, you were fully occupied nursing Richard. Besides,’ he shrugged, ‘it was hardly the most appropriate time to announce a betrothal to the world at large, given the recent tragic events at Ashworth Hall.’ He paused to run impatient fingers through his hair. ‘Perhaps I was wrong not to have confided in you completely. Had I done so it might have saved us both all this quite unnecessary heartache.’
Emma gnawed at her bottom lip in an attempt to stop its trembling. ‘Have—have you been so very miserable?’ she managed in a shaky voice.
‘Utterly wretched,’ he wasn’t too proud to admit. ‘I suppose you have the right to make your own life a barren waste, Emma, because you are afraid of what a few, and I repeat, a very few foolish people may choose to say about our union,’ he continued gently. ‘But do you have the right to make me suffer the same fate? I would willingly sacrifice the good opinion of the whole of the polite world if it meant I would be granted the chance of attaining a lifetime of happiness with you.’
Stifling a tiny cry, Emma buried her face in her hands. ‘Oh, I wish I knew what to do!’
‘You may not know, my darling girl. But I most certainly do know,’ was Benedict’s prompt response.
That night, as Emma lay protectively cradled in her husband’s strong arms, she could not help but reflect on the happenings of the past hours which would inevitably change her life forever. But it was rather too late to do much about it now, for she had become in every sense Mrs Benedict Grantley.
Using his no little expertise, Benedict had initiated his bride into the gentle art of lovemaking so tenderly that the moment’s pain Emma had suffered not so very long ago, when she had become wholly his, was over almost before she realised she had felt the least discomfort. It was an experience which left her, now, wondering how it was humanly possible for someone to rise from the depths of despair to the heady heights of sensual euphoria in the space of less than twenty-four hours, and which left her foolishly fearing to sleep, lest she wake to discover everything that had happened had all been some wonderful dream.
Seeking immediate reassurance, Emma nestled more comfortably in the crook of her husband’s arm, and absently began to reacquaint herself with the triangle of soft, dark hair which she had unexpectedly discovered covering his chest. This wholly masculine attribute had been no less a startling discovery a
s the array of beautiful clothes which she had found awaiting her in the bedchamber of her wonderful new home; had come as no less a delightful discovery as finding both Samuel and Martha, together with Lavinia, Deborah and Richard, amongst the small congregation in the village church to witness the wedding ceremony.
She could not say in all honesty that it had come as any great surprise that her new husband had managed to arrange everything so swiftly and so perfectly in such a short space of time. She knew enough about him to be certain that he was an immensely capable man, remarkably astute and methodical. Yet, the truth of the matter was that she really did not know him very well at all, for she would never have supposed for a moment that such a level-headed, meticulous person would ever lend himself to such an outrageous start as abducting a young female. Not that she would ever dream of remonstrating again over the less than gentlemanly tactics he had adopted in order to attain his ends. She only hoped that she would never experience the least regret that she had not displayed more strength of character by demanding time in which to consider more fully before willingly acquiescing to his every wish.
‘If you intend to sleep at all before morning, madam wife,’ the deep voice of her husband unexpectedly warned, ‘I would strongly advise you to stop that at once.’
Chuckling as his hand came down over hers, stilling the trail of her tantalising fingers, Emma raised her head from the comfort of his broad shoulder to cast a glance towards the window. ‘By the look of the sky, I should say that it very soon shall be morning. I wonder what time it is?’
‘I neither know nor care,’ was the surprising response. ‘The only time which is important to me now is the time I spend with my wife.’
In one swift movement Benedict flicked her over on to her back and was above her, caressing the delicate bones of her shoulder before running his fingers down the length of her arm, marvelling yet again at the perfection of skin that was as flawless as silk and as soft as the most expensive velvet. ‘Why aren’t you asleep? What have you been thinking about?’
‘About you, and everything that has happened.’ Raising her hand, she traced with one finger the outline of a jaw now slightly roughened by bristles. ‘A part of me, I suppose, cannot believe that it has all really happened, and that I am in truth your wife.’
His body shook with gentle laughter, and a look appeared in his eyes which left her in no doubt that he would have no objection whatsoever in putting her mind quite pleasurably at rest over that. He might have begun to do so immediately had he, in turn, not detected the flicker of unease in her eyes which her openly inviting, provocative smile could not quite disguise.
‘What is it, my lovely Emma? You’ve no regrets, I hope?’
She quite sensibly accepted then that she would never be wholly successful in hiding anything from him, and did not choose to begin their life together by foolishly making the attempt. ‘Certainly not at this moment in time, no,’ she freely admitted. ‘I only hope that in the future I do not come to regret not displaying more strength of character by demanding more time to consider.’
‘More time in which to worry unnecessarily, you mean,’ he corrected with that rapier-like perception which was all too often ruthlessly accurate.
A sigh escaped him as he was forced to satisfy himself for the time being by placing just one kiss in the cleft between her breasts. ‘Very well, madam wife, I shall tell you precisely what will occur as it continues to cause you no little concern… Firstly, we shall journey to Paris at the end of the week, where I know you shall swiftly become the toast of that romantic capital. Then early in the autumn we shall return in order to pay visits to certain members of my family, if by then they have not already taken the trouble to cross the Channel in order to make your acquaintance. My brother Giles is very fond of that particular city and makes frequent visits. Needless to say both he and his very complaisant wife, Serena, will adore you, as will Agnes, who has informed me already that she fully intends to offer you every support, as she now considers me the biggest beast in nature, for reasons into which I shall not go at this juncture. She will, of course, become your devoted slave after you have given birth to our first son, which in all probability will occur towards the end of next year.’
He took a moment to ponder pleasurably over this startling prediction. ‘To continue—we shall also make time to visit several of my closest friends, including your cousin, Charles, before we travel to London in order to celebrate the engagement of Richard and Deborah. By which time, if I know anything of my sister at all, Agnes will have already smoothed the way for your introduction into the polite world by assuring one and all that you are the sweetest creature who ever drew breath, if slightly eccentric, which quite naturally only adds to your abundance of charm. Consequently in the spring, when we return to the capital in order to hold a ball to celebrate our marriage, the whole of the polite world will be eager for an invitation in order to make the acquaintance of the lady who is destined to become one of Society’s leading hostesses, owing to the excellence of the food served at her table.’
‘Stop, stop!’ she laughingly begged, half-amused, half-exasperated by this outrageous display of self-assurance. ‘Very well, I shall tease neither you nor myself further by worrying unnecessarily,’ she promised.
Which was possibly just as well, because everything her wonderfully astute husband had predicted turned out to be uncannily accurate.
ISBN: 978-1-4592-2961-7
TAVERN WENCH
Copyright © 2002 by Anne Ashley
First North American Publication 2006
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