The Bashful Bride

by Vanessa Riley

  “Life isn’t fair, Ester. It’s hard, filled with difficult choices.” He pulled her close. “Why does it feel as if we are stepping away from something that could be wonderful if both of us weren’t so stubborn?”

  “Because we are, but it is for the best.” She loved the strength of his hold on her waist even with only one arm.

  “Goodbye, Bex.” A final stretch to kiss his jaw led to him leaning down. He intercepted her and took her mouth.

  The kiss was slow and patient, lingering, teaching.

  When she thought it done, his embrace tightened. His one arm sculpted her to his chest, angling her until it felt natural to cling to him.

  Her toes tingled in her worn slippers as the kiss deepened, and it felt like one of his speeches, wrapping her heart in warmth like she’d never known, not even in a steaming bath in a sparkling clean copper tub.

  Her hands collapsed about his neck as he backed her to the wall. “Yes, Ester,” he said between breaths, before tasting and taking her lips again and again. “This will never work.”

  His hand ripped away the heavy scarf that separated them. His fingertips traced the scallop lace of her collar. He spun the big pearl of her necklace and dragged a thumb along her throat, tweaking the ticklish parts, racing her pulse faster than his speeding phaeton.

  “Two handed you’d be mighty dangerous, Bex.”

  “Shh. I’m trying to remember why we won’t work. Maybe another kiss will tell me.”

  With his one hand, he sandwiched her between the wall and his solid chest, tasting her lips, as if they were covered in honey. “How do we let this go? I think we reconsider. We must, Ester.”

  Her name sounded like a prayer.

  But there was no folding of her hands, no room between them to allow it. And she was too busy holding on to a dream, kissing him with eyes shut tight to savor the last, luscious moment.

  “Tell, me Ester, darling Ester, that you’ll reconsider.”

  He didn’t let her respond. His mouth was upon hers, speaking of things she didn’t understand, things that tasted like sugar, and chamomile, and heaven.

  She was crazed against the wall, feeling each deep breath he took with the rising of his chest. Her fingers danced in his dark brown hair, trying to cling to a dream that was bigger than her, bigger than everything but her fears.

  “Oh, Ester. I can be everything that you want.”

  And Bex could be. He could be Romeo, Antony, a hundred others if she said yes.

  “How can we both think to end this elopement with passion such as this? Ester, we can be so good together. Marry me.”

  Did she love him enough to fight for this union? She didn’t know, not anymore. But no kiss, nothing but a full-throated direct address saying he loved her would salve her raw fingers.

  But none would come. He didn’t love her. And she’d finally remembered she was worth everything her parents had sacrificed for.

  “No. No, Bex.”

  He stopped, stared, then stilled his wandering fingers.

  Reason and a slowing pulse had to prevail. “Bex, passion passes the time until the next problem. It doesn’t fix anything. I have to say goodbye. That’s the reasonable thing to do.”

  He nodded and eased her to the ground. “I don’t want to be reasonable. Nothing about us is reasonable. I suppose I’ll tell Jonesy that I lost my greatest role, the husband of a remarkable woman.”

  “Careful who you tell, Bex. I don’t want to be in the gossip section of The Morning Post, Bex’s Blackamoor Lover.”

  He took her hand. “I hate the papers. I’ll never let them hurt you.” He put his jacket half on, draping his injured shoulder. “Let me escort you downstairs and make sure you get on a coach back to London. Maybe in a week or two, we could start again. This time with your parents’ approval.”

  She couldn’t agree, only stare down at the weathered threshold. It hurt too much now, walking away from him. Seeing him again, even on stage, would keep this ache always in her heart.

  Picking up her bag, Bex opened the door but then marched backward. A gun barrel was in his face, and an angry Josiah Croome, her father, held the trigger.

  Chapter Fourteen

  VOWS OF DURESS

  Staring at the gun barrel and the shaking onyx hand pointing it to his chest, Arthur stepped backward into his room and drew Ester behind him. “I think you have the wrong room. Don’t hurt her.”

  The large, angry man pushed deeper into the room, kicking the door closed. “You stole my daughter, and you’re worried about me hurting her? Do you know what side of the gun you’re on and where my sight is pointed?”

  “Papa, please. Put the gun away.”

  “Mr. Croome?” Arthur had dealt with a few jealous husbands of women who’d claimed to have fallen in love with his stage performance, but never did he think the men’s anger would lead to his death, not until now. “Your daughter is unharmed.”

  The man put the gun barrel atop Arthur’s nose. “Take your filthy hands from my Ester.”

  He dropped her bag but stayed in front of her. “Mr. Croome, your daughter is safe. Please lower your weapon.”

  “Safe! You take my daughter to a remote coaching inn, share a room with her. Defile her. How is that safe?”

  Ester came from behind, leaning against Arthur’s hurt arm. “I stayed in the servants’ quarters. Bex has done nothing to me.”

  “What? My daughter was good enough to steal from her home but not good enough to stay in a room?” Mr. Croome cocked the pistol.

  “Papa, you’re not listening. The servants’ quarters were my idea. Bex didn’t want me there, either.”

  Croome’s jaw trembled, as did his finger on the trigger.

  Arthur swallowed hard. “You’re not helping, Ester. The man just needs to know you have not been injured or taken advantage of.”

  Mr. Croome gritted his teeth. “Don’t tell my daughter what to do. I’ll do that. You defiled my girl, took her without permission from my house. A man would have had enough respect to come and ask to marry her.”

  Ester left Arthur and grabbed hold of her father’s muscled arm. The bulging strength of it was barely hidden beneath the gray-weave greatcoat. She forced him to lower his hand. “Papa, I left on my own. I chose to jump out that window.”

  “A window? Not even dignified enough to leave through the front door.” He raised the gun again. “You stole her from my house and defiled her.”

  “Sir, nothing has happened. I’ve not dishonored your daughter.”

  “Bex, I can speak for myself.” She tugged on her father’s coat again. “Papa, nothing has happened. Put down your weapon.”

  “Bex?” The man’s hand dropped to his side. “The actor? Arthur Bex, the actor you always talk about? You were serious about being in love with him?”

  Ester had tears in her eyes. “Yes, I talked foolishness, Papa, about Arthur Bex, but nothing happened. Bex has been a gentleman to me.”

  “Nothing?” Croome shook his head. “Ester Croome, you disappear from my house during your mother’s party. You have me thinking you’ve been kidnapped or lost to the violence of the streets. There’s a brothel with Blackamoor women that caters to the lords. I don’t want that for you.”

  Knowing the things that they’d faced on their travels, he couldn’t fault the man’s fears. Arthur tried to make his bad arm work a little to pull his coat back on, but it was bound too tightly. “Your daughter’s safe. I’d let nothing happen to her. I was escorting her to make arrangements to send her home on a coach. No one will know that this elopement occurred or that it never came off. You have my word.”

  Ester came back to Arthur and swiped up his good hand in hers. “He’s telling the truth. I wanted to elope, and we are only a few miles from Gretna Green, but we’ve called it off.

  Croome’s finger eased, but he could easily still lift and fire. “I don’t know whose word to believe—you, who ran away, or your Bex, who changes his mind after all the trouble of escaping
with you from my house. What happened, Bex? Did you come to your senses and realize she wasn’t wife material for the likes of you?”

  Oh, Ester was wife material, more than he’d hoped for. “She changed her mind, Croome. She decided to end things, perhaps with the hope of starting a new courtship—with your consent.”

  The man frowned and put his gun into his coat, but Arthur dared not move. He might change his mind again.

  “Ester, why would you do this to me and your mother? Why did you believe this actor’s words and risk all to leave with him?”

  “Papa, the elopement was my idea. I chose to come with Bex. I wanted to elope because I wanted to choose my husband. I chose Arthur Bex, and you and Mama didn’t.”

  Croome patted at his pocket—his gun pocket. “Bex, you let a slip of a girl drive you to this? How long has this romance been going on?”

  Arthur had a feeling that Mr. Croome didn’t know about the advertisement in the paper. He’d at least protect her from that. “Long enough for me to ask her to marry me.”

  “That’s not an answer, Bex. Ester, how long? Tell me how long you’ve been running around behind my back.”

  Ester slipped in front of Bex and now was a wedge between them. “I’ve been infatuated with Bex for at least two years. You know how I’ve talked about him. So longer than a day, but less than the timing of your indiscretion.”

  Croome swiped at his brow then clasped a big hand about Ester’s arm. “We’ll discuss this later. Forget about her, Bex, about all of this. Girl, you’ll be lucky if Jordan takes you at all. We’ve already started installing gaslights in the warehouse. Our businesses are already in bed together. Maybe his son will still want you, and you will be back with your own.”

  Shaking her head, Ester pulled free and stepped next to Arthur. “I’m not getting in bed with anyone but him.”

  Arthur waved his arm in protest. “Figure of speech, sir. Nothing happened. Don’t shoot.”

  “Papa, you don’t need me to do deals with Jordan. You have already done them.” Ester looked up at Arthur, and she had that look in her eye, the one where she made up parts to play. She slammed into him and tossed her arms about him. “If I marry, it will be to Arthur Bex. The man I’ve loved for more than two years. Every one of his performances, whether at the Theatre Royal or Covent Gardens, they’ve been coded messages to me. Every word he’s said on stage, it was for me. Like Antony for Cleopatra, he’s made war for me. I have his heart, for he has mine.” She planted a kiss on Arthur’s lips.

  Her words—he didn’t have time to examine them for truth. Arthur knew he was a goner now, so he embraced her boldly, a daughter in front of a father with a gun. But if he was to die, why not let it be in the arms of this African queen? He didn’t hold back on this performance. He kissed Ester with everything in him. It was the perfect way to die, with Arthur as Antony in his Cleopatra’s embrace.

  …

  Her father groaned. She smelled the scent of black powder but didn’t care. Papa would never take the shot with her arms wrapped about Bex. And this kiss was different. It didn’t feel like goodbye, but something amorous and thrilling. It had to be the threat of the gunpowder.

  “Stop it, Ester. Unhand him. You’ve made your point.”

  Clinging to his neck, she held Bex more tightly, and he wound his good arm about her. “Only if you promise not to kill him. As you see, I’m a very willing participant.”

  Bex’s heart raced against her cheek.

  He lifted his head. “Sir, nothing happened between us, but I can’t deny the attraction. I want no harm to come to her. I’ll do what you think is right.”

  If her father was still determined to give her away, then it would be to Bex and only Bex.

  “No, Bex. Don’t step aside.” She took Arthur’s hand in hers as she claimed his gaze. “I’m not ready to marry yet, but if I were, it would only be to you, Arthur Bex. That is my vow to you.”

  Bex’s gaze softened. His hand tightened about hers.

  The door swung opened and then slammed shut.

  She turned, expecting her father to have left, but a new pair of eyes stared at her.

  Her mother’s.

  The stoic woman stood just inside with her back to the door. A scarlet cape shrouded her, and a thick, dark ebony bonnet covered her straight black locks. “Get your hands off of her. You can’t know her love. It’s not possible for the likes of you.”

  Mama had an off look about her. Her fury seemed deeper than Ester had ever seen, as if she were unbalanced. “His hand. Get his hands off her.” She came over and beat on Bex, punching his hurt arm with her reticule. “Get ’em off her.”

  Papa came to her side and pulled her back. “Horatio. Stop it. They say nothing happened.”

  “He can’t touch her. Can’t put his hands on her. He can’t hurt her.”

  Papa tightened his hold, almost yanking Mama off her feet. “Don’t go off, woman. This is Ester and that actor, Arthur Bex. Nothing from Jamaica, girl. No slave master going after his enslaved woman.”

  But Mama wouldn’t stop. She kept swinging at the air. “Don’t touch her. You’ve no right. It’s started again. He’s got no right.”

  Her father put both arms about her mother, lifting her in the air. “Horatio, come back. This isn’t the past. This man Bex ain’t from where you’re from. Ester says she loves this man and won’t marry Jordan. That’s why she ran away. Come back to yourself. Reason with her and him to keep this quiet, and for her to do her duty.”

  Blinking, Mama’s stricken face cleared. “No, Josiah. Charles Jordan won’t have her now. He’ll be mean to her once he learns of the scandal. No, this one, the man from London, is the one she wants. This is the one she’ll have.”

  Ester focused upon her mother’s blank face. If one could age a hundred years in a day, her beautiful mother looked as if she had. Her cheeks had sunken in, probably from grief and that heart of hers that Ester had broken again.

  Longing to make things good with her mother swelled inside. “Mama? I’m so sorry.” She released Bex like he was fire. “I have given you such concerns.” She tried to smooth her wrinkled dress. “But nothing has happened.”

  “Horatio,” Papa said, “Bex said he didn’t defile her. They both say nothing has happened. We can still go on with our plans. We can buy his silence.”

  With her hand to her hip, Mama stared at each of them, her head snapping back and forth between them like the clicking minute hand of a grandfather clock. Her forest-green eyes were black ice. “Silence, Josiah. You threatened the duke’s daughter to learn of Ester’s plans. You think one of the duke’s maids didn’t hear? You don’t think Clancy won’t accidentally say the wrong thing? What about one of those fancy servants who saw your angry tirade when we discovered Ester missing? No, this story will be out, and she’ll be ruined like Ruth, but at least she won’t be pregnant and deserted like her sister.”

  If eyes could explode—splat on the wall from shock—Ester’s might. Hers stretched so wide they hurt. “No one ever said Ruth eloped and that it didn’t work. She has an arranged marriage, doesn’t she?”

  Papa lifted his gun again and aimed toward Bex. “I don’t want my daughter to marry an actor. Actors are the lowest class.”

  Seeing Bex endangered again, Ester linked arms with him, and he whimpered for she’d chosen his injured one. “Sorry,” she said to him before turning back to her father. “He’s not any actor. He’s the best. Mama knows. She’s read about him in her papers.”

  Mama clasped her father’s arm and made him lower the gun. “The scandal papers.” She shook her head. “She’s chosen him, Josiah.”

  Papa stomped his feet. His big arms looked as if they’d break through his great coat. “I’ll not—”

  “Yes, you will Josiah. You owe me. I told you that you’d honor one request from me if I forgave you for your sins. This is my one request. Let them elope. Let us take them to Gretna Green and see that it is done. She won’t be jilted and use
d up like Ruth.”

  “Mama, tell me about Ruth.”

  Her mother’s hand waved, the jeweled rings flashing as if she’d thrown fire. “Silence, Ester. You have brought shame to the family. I don’t want to hear anything from you.”

  “We’ve too many secrets, Mama. Just tell me.”

  Her mother looked up at her father. When he nodded, Mama said, “Your sister Ruth had no wedding. The blackguard bedded her and tossed her aside. Your father made up the story of a strict husband that forces her to live in the country to explain her baby.”

  “That is why she’s banished, because she’s disgraced?”

  “Yes. Because she didn’t value what we have, what your father and I have worked for, just like you.”

  Ester turned to Bex. “They said my sister eloped. They lied again.”

  Bex wiped at his mouth. “They had their reasons.” Even his voice had lost its confident swagger. Papa’s happy trigger finger would do that.

  Pounding her skull, Ester couldn’t take it. “Is anything true?”

  “Your sister eloped, too, but the man used her, then dumped her like trash. Papa had to rescue Ruth from a brothel, where her beau had left her. Your sister didn’t trust that we knew best. Ruth learned the hard way that she did not know best, either.”

  Ester reeled. Another lie had been spun about the Croomes, and Ester had been shielded from the truth. “Why didn’t you tell—”

  “Hush, daughter. I’m waiting for your father to answer. Josiah, this is my request. You promised me.”

  Papa raked a hand through his thick jet-black hair. “Can’t I just kill him?”

  Bex retook Ester’s hand. His palm felt warm against her freezing fingers. Shock must do that, too. “I’d rather you not shoot. I want to marry your daughter if you will allow me. If Ester—Miss Croome will have me.”

  “Josiah, if you hurt that actor, the magistrate you think you’re cozy with will string you up faster than you can blink. Then those same sympathetic people you do business with will try to use the courts to take away your legacy. Or worse, they’ll come for me. A widow with half your money is still a prize.”