His Bride for the Taking

by Tessa Dare

  By the time she had the kettle boiling, eggs and bacon frying, and bread sliced for toasting, her hair had begun to come loose, and perspiration dotted her brow. She meant to wash her face and pretty herself before Sebastian returned, but she didn’t have a chance. The clop of Shadow’s freshly shoed hooves on the lane told her he’d already returned.

  She patted her hair, hastily untied her apron and cast it aside. At the last second, she adjusted the bouquet of wildflowers she’d picked on a whim earlier and crammed into a crockery vase.

  As Sebastian came through the door, she clasped her hands together and tried not to appear as anxious as she felt inside. How silly, that she’d be nervous. But perhaps it was natural. This was her first morning as a wife, and she found herself eager for her husband’s approval. Maybe he’d be impressed by everything she’d accomplished in only a few hours, and then he’d embrace the idea of domestic bliss.

  My darling, you’ve worked a miracle. I can’t imagine how I ever lived without you. Truly, you are the best of wives.

  “Good morning.” She smiled and prepared herself to receive his praise.

  Instead, he shook his head. “Mary, what have you done?”

  Sebastian gestured broadly at the kitchen. “What is all this?”

  As he watched, the smile faded from her face. “It’s breakfast,” she said. “And we did a bit of tidying up.”

  The kitchen hadn’t merely been “tidied up.” It had undergone a complete transformation.

  The spiders had been evicted from the corners, and the thick layer of dust had vanished from the fireplace mantel. The smell of fresh sea air breezed through the open window, and a pair of lacy curtains fluttered in the wind. Everything in the place had been scrubbed and polished to a gleam. Even the floor looked to have been scoured.

  She must have worked every blessed minute he’d been away. Yet more impressive, it would seem she’d convinced Dick and Fanny Cross to do some labor, too.

  The prettiest thing in the room, of course, was Mary herself. She was lovely as a Dutch painting. She’d dressed in a sage-green frock with cap sleeves and delicate lace edging. Her skin seemed to glow in the morning light, and her cheeks had a fetching blush. She wore her auburn hair in a loose, haphazard knot, and stray wisps had curled at her temples and the nape of her neck.

  “You look as though someone stomped on your new hat,” she said. “Don’t you like it?”

  “It’s not that I don’t like it. You shouldn’t have put yourself to all this trouble, that’s all. We’re leaving for Ramsgate this morning.”

  “Yes, about that…” She chewed her bottom lip. “Let’s at least have breakfast first. I’m hungry. And if I’m hungry, you must be starving.”

  Sebastian was starving. He hadn’t had a bite to eat since breakfast yesterday, and that might as well have been last year. But since that kiss last night, another sort of hunger was tormenting him. He was ravenous for his wife.

  While she loaded a plate for him, he washed his hands. Then he sat down to a feast. Fried eggs, bacon, toasted bread with butter and jam. How had she managed all this?

  Eat first, his stomach growled. Talk later.

  He attacked his food, downing four eggs, two rashers of bacon, and six points of buttered toast in a matter of minutes.

  She filled his teacup for the third time. “Feeling human again?”

  “Mostly.”

  When she bent over the table to pour his tea, he could glimpse not only the sweet, abundant curves of her breasts, but the dark, secret valley between them. If he didn’t know better, he’d have thought she meant to give him the tempting view.

  “I’ve been thinking.” She propped an elbow on the table and rested her chin in her hand. “Instead of going on to Ramsgate, perhaps we could stay here.”

  “No.” He drained his tea and set down the teacup with authority. “We’re not going to spend another night in this cottage.”

  “But—”

  “I’m taking you to an inn. Or a hotel. The finest establishment Ramsgate has to offer, whatever that might be.”

  And wherever they stayed, he would demand the best room. Not merely a room, but a suite. An apartment with a soaking tub and a private dining room.

  And, most importantly, separate bedchambers.

  Last night, that simple goodnight kiss had nearly been his undoing. This morning he was slavering like a dog, after just one glimpse of her breasts. If he shared a bed with her again tonight, he’d risk losing all control.

  “But Ramsgate is so popular this time of year. It will be full to bursting with ladies on holiday. Too many prying eyes. Someone will recognize us, and then the rumors will be all over England.”

  “Unless we’re visiting the shops or the seaside, we won’t attract notice.”

  She laughed to herself. “Sebastian, you are like a walking exhibition of Grecian sculpture. Wherever you go, you attract notice. Once we ride into town together, we may as well put a notice in the The Times. Can’t we remain here and avoid the gossip? In just one morning, I’ve already improved the kitchen. Give it a few more days, and this cottage will be positively charming, you’ll see.”

  He relented. “Very well. If that’s truly what you want.”

  “It’s what I want. If it weren’t, you know I wouldn’t hesitate to tell you.”

  “This is true.” He tapped a finger on the table’s edge. “But I have one condition. We must do something about our sleeping arrangements.”

  “I wholeheartedly agree.” She pushed back from the table. “Which is why I’ve something to show you upstairs.”

  Chapter 6

  Sebastian followed her up the stairs, feeling strangely wary. Just what sort of surprise did she have in mind?

  “I found it in the attic,” she chattered on the way. “It must be centuries old. We dusted it off with rags, and Dick carried it down to this room. It’s the largest.” She led him into a bedchamber branching off the corridor and made a sweeping arm gesture toward one corner. “See? It’s a bed.”

  Sebastian blinked at the jumble of timbers. “That’s not a bed. That’s firewood.”

  “It’s a disassembled bed. And I think you’d have a difficult time burning it. It’s heavier than bricks.” She lifted one end of a plank. “I don’t even know what kind of wood this is.”

  He ran his fingers over the surface and examined the grain. “I’m not certain, either.” He picked up a lathe-turned wooden leg. Or was it a finial? Time had coated the wood in a dark, impenetrable patina that he couldn’t even gouge with his thumbnail.

  “I don’t think it’s English. What style of carving do you make that out to be?” She leaned close to him, offering a piece decorated with a chain of stylized wildflowers.

  He shrugged. “Swedish, maybe?”

  “Well, wherever it came from, it’s going to be slept in tonight. I already told Fanny to stuff a mattress tick with fresh straw. We just have to put the frame together. All the pieces seem to be here.” She took hold of a board and lifted it, eyeing the dimensions. “Do you think this is a slat, perhaps?” She tipped her head to regard it from another angle. “Or a rail?”

  With a shrug, she carried it to the center of the room and laid it flat on the floor.

  Sebastian poked through the stack of planks and pieces. “Simple mortise and tenon joints. Shouldn’t take long.” He chose two pieces that looked as though they’d been hewn to fit together, and the tenon slipped into the mortise like a hand into a fitted glove. “That’s one joint connected.”

  Mary paused in the act of laying a second plank next to the first, lining up their bottom edges for comparison. “Oh, no. We’re not going about it all higgledy-piggledy. We don’t know if those two pieces belong together.”

  “Of course they do. They were made to fit.”

  “You can’t be sure of that.”

  He held up the joint for her, sliding the tenon in and out of its slot a few times. “Is that not proof enough?”

  “P
erhaps there are two that would fit the same hole.”

  “Well, I don’t know how you propose to complete this bed without joining pieces together. Did you find a leaflet in the attic with instructions? In Swedish?”

  “Of course I didn’t. That’s why we need a plan. Now, we’re going to arrange all these pieces neatly in rows first, laying them out on the floor so that we can count and compare. We’ll put a little mark on the similar ones. Plank A, plank B, and so on. Then we’ll chalk up a diagram on the floor and—”

  “I thought you wanted to sleep in this bed tonight. Not next week.”

  “What’s wrong with planning first?”

  “You’re making it more complicated than it needs to be.” He lifted the wide, flat headboard and placed it against the wall. “Is this where you want it?”

  “A little to the left.” She waved him to the side. “No, back to the right a touch. There.”

  He set the piece down, then returned to the stack of timbers and selected the largest. “This goes at the foot of the bed.”

  “Are you certain?”

  “Yes.” He lifted the board with a grunt, swung it about, and positioned it parallel to the headboard. “Hold that in place.”

  She sounded skeptical. “So you’ve done this before. Assembled beds.”

  “Loads of them.”

  “Loads of them? When and where was that?”

  He gave a strangled groan of impatience. “Just trust me, Mary. I have it all under control. This won’t take but a few minutes.”

  One hour later

  Mary pulled to a standing position and massaged the wrenched muscle at the small of her back. “It’s still not right. That one doesn’t go there.”

  “Yes, it does.” As she stood observing, Sebastian tried once again to shove the wooden tab of one rail into the slot carved into a leg.

  “See? It doesn’t fit.”

  “It will fit. There aren’t any other pieces left that it could be.”

  “It’s probably one of the pieces we’ve already used. It could be anywhere.” She gestured at the half-finished bed frame. “Or maybe the right piece was never here to begin with. This was why I wanted to make a plan, you know.”

  He gave her a look. “Don’t be that way.”

  “Don’t be what way? Right?” She huffed a breath, blowing a wisp of hair off her cheek. “There’s nothing else to be done. We’ll have to take it apart and start over.”

  He swore with passion. “We are not taking the thing apart. And this piece does fit.” He glared at the wood, as though he could force it into submission through the sheer power of masculine brooding. “I just need a mallet.”

  “I think I need a mallet,” she grumbled.

  “What?”

  “Nothing,” she chirped with bright innocence. “I’ll find you that mallet straightaway.”

  Two hours after that

  Mary sat in the corner of the bedchamber with her knees hugged to her chest.

  With a grimace of effort, Sebastian gave the bed-key one final twist to tighten the ropes. “There.”

  Mary watched as he dragged the freshly stuffed mattress tick onto the frame.

  She would have offered to help. But by this point, she knew better than to touch—or even breathe on—his work in progress. And God forbid she make a helpful suggestion.

  He stood back, straightened, and used his sleeve to wipe the sweat streaming off his brow. “Finished.”

  She stared at the bed, biting her tongue.

  “Well…?” He propped his hands on his hips. “I told you I’d have it put together.”

  “Yes, but—”

  “But what, Mary? But what?”

  “But there are three boards left over.” She stood and pointed. “Where do they go?”

  He gave a one-shouldered shrug. “Must be surplus.”

  “Surplus? What centuries-old bed comes with surplus pieces?”

  “This one.”

  She rubbed her temples.

  “It doesn’t matter.” He took a pace backward. “It’s sturdy enough to hold an ox. Just watch.”

  “Sebastian, wait.”

  He took two running steps and launched himself at the bed, twisting in midair so that he landed on his back. All sixteen stone of him, squarely plunked in the center of the mattress.

  “See?” He folded his hands under his head and gave her a smug look. “I told you it was st—”

  Crash.

  One side of the bed frame collapsed beneath his weight, tipping the mattress at an angle and shunting him to the floor.

  Mary stood very quietly.

  He stared blankly at the ceiling. “Go on. Say it.”

  “Say what?”

  “I know you’re thinking it. You may as well have out with it.”

  “I’m not sure what you mean,” she lied.

  “Yes, you are.”

  “Let’s go downstairs for some tea.”

  “For the love of God, Mary. I know it’s coming. Just say it now.”

  “I don’t—”

  “Say it.”

  “I told you so!” she shouted. “Is that what you want to hear? I told you this would happen. I told you you were doing it wrong. I. Told. You. So.”

  He stared up at the ceiling, infuriatingly silent.

  Mary, however, was only getting started. “I wanted to make a plan. But noooo. You don’t need a plan. You’ve assembled loads of beds. You know exactly which pieces fit where. Because you, like all men, have a magical nugget of furniture-assembly expertise dangling in your left bollock.” She flung a hand at the unused boards. “Surplus? You’re telling me sixteenth-century Swedish artisans made surplus?”

  He finally pulled himself off the floor. “I”—he jabbed a finger in his chest—“told you”—the finger turned on Mary—“that we should go to Ramsgate. Where they have beds already. Assembled beds. Comfortable beds. Beds just sitting there in well-appointed rooms, waiting for someone to use them.”

  “I don’t want to go to Ramsgate.”

  “Yes, so you told me. You’re very keen to avoid the gossip. God forbid you be seen with me in public.”

  Her chin jerked. “What?”

  “I mean, you could have been married to Giles Perry, a barrister’s son with a promising political career. Instead, you’re with the disgraced Lord Byrne. The one who dirties his hands in trade, because his father drove the estate straight up to the brink of insolvency and only failed to take it over the edge because he drank himself to death first. Those ladies on holiday would cluck their tongues, wouldn’t they? All of England would be shaking their heads.”

  “Sebastian. You can’t think I’m ashamed of having married you.”

  “Of course not,” he said mockingly. “You prefer to spend the week squirreled away with me in some ramshackle cottage, scrubbing floors and assembling furniture, when you could be staying in the finest seaside resort.”

  “I do prefer it.”

  “To be sure.” He rolled his eyes to the ceiling. “Why wouldn’t you? Just look at all the fun we’re having right this very moment.”

  She shook her head. “I can’t believe this.”

  “Well, I can’t believe you. It’s clear you’re trying to persuade me into remaining here. Vases of flowers on the table, breakfast.” He gave the unfinished bed a disgusted look. “That.”

  “Well, pardon me for attempting to make our honeymoon cottage just the tiniest bit romantic.”

  “It’s not supposed to be romantic. You were jilted by your groom. I stepped in to marry you out of loyalty to your brother. It’s not as though we clasped hands and ran away into the sunset, Mary.” He swept her with a cold look. “We’re not in love.”

  His words struck her in the chest with such force, she couldn’t breathe.

  And she hadn’t any logical reason to feel hurt. He was only speaking the truth. She simply hadn’t realized, until this moment, how much she wished the truth were different.

  “I…” She bli
nked rapidly, forcing back a hot tear.

  He pushed his hands through his hair and cursed. “Mary, don’t listen to me. We’re both exhausted, and—”

  “It’s all right, Sebastian. You don’t need to explain.” Mary backed her way toward the door. She had to escape this room. The walls were closing in on her, squeezing at her heart. “We can leave for Ramsgate whenever you’re ready.”

  Chapter 7

  It took Sebastian about five seconds to realize what a bastard he’d been. However, he forced himself to wait a few hours before attempting to tell her so. She needed time and space to breathe, and so did he.

  As penance, he did exactly as she’d suggested from the start.

  He took the whole damn bed apart, sorted the pieces by size and function, chalked an outline on the floor, and wouldn’t you know. It all fit together as it should.

  When he finally went looking for her, she wasn’t in the cottage. He searched through every room, growing increasingly concerned, until he returned to the master bedchamber and happened to look out the window. She was down by the water, walking along the sandy shore.

  He picked his way down the winding path to the beach. As she came into view, he paused a moment to recover his breath.

  Her lovely profile was to him as she stared out over the ocean. The breeze whipped at her filmy summer frock and toyed with the loose strands of her hair. Before she walked on, she stopped and bent to gather something from the sand, adding it to a collection in her palm.

  “Mary!” He jogged down the beach until he reached her side. Once he’d reached her, he searched his brain for the right words. Only three came to mind. “I’m a jackass.”

  She ducked her head. “You’re not alone.”

  They walked on together.

  “What is it you’re collecting?” he asked.

  “Cockleshells.” She held them up for him to see. “Couldn’t resist.”

  Mary, Mary, quite contrary, how does your garden grow?

  With silver bells and cockleshells, and pretty maids all in a row.