The Cold Earl's Bride: A Historical Regency Romance

by Audrey Ashwood

  Either he accepted the duke’s gauntlet and met with him for a duel, which he was certain he would win, or he took the only other option open to him – marry the girl and save her honour – while keeping his own actions from being discovered. Marcus St. John closed his eyes and tasted the last breath of freedom before he turned towards his future father-in-law. His gaze brushed over Greywood’s face. The desire to catapult the man with his bare hands into the afterlife was almost overwhelming.

  Marcus St. John had lost a battle. However, intended to win the war.

  Chapter 2

  Two months later

  Annabelle stood before the priest and barely heard what he was saying. One reason was the monotonous voice of the man. However, what weighed much more on her was the fact that she was about to marry a man whom she hardly knew, and whose coldness filled her with fear, disgust, and anger. Marcus St. John, Earl of Grandover, had agreed to take her as his wife to save her from disgrace. Those had been his words.

  Anger still boiled inside her when she thought of his condescending, arrogant way in which he had treated her since that unfortunate encounter.

  “I do not need anyone to save me from a disgrace that does not exist,” she had wanted to say to him and “You kissed me. Not the other way around.” But the warning rasp of her father and the disappointing gaze of her mother had finally convinced Annabelle to accept his proposal. With grinding teeth, mark you, and a fake smile that would have earned her a standing ovation in the Globe Theatre.

  Maybe Annabelle could have done the unthinkable and defied her parents, safe in the knowledge that she had done nothing wrong, but there was still Felicity. In the hustle and bustle surrounding Annabelle’s escapade, her parents had not noticed their middle daughter’s demeanour. The mood swings of her younger sister had not only become a continuous state, but they had increased significantly. Since the night of the kiss, which was what Annabelle called those tragic hours, Felicity had barely been approachable. Sometimes she ran around the house singing (particularly when they were invited to a ball), however, most of the time, she silently stared out of the window and refused to talk to Annabelle. Suddenly stuck in the midst of the whirlwind of wedding preparations and not knowing whether she was coming or going, Annabelle had allowed Felicity to carry on behaving like this, hoping that her younger sister would come and find her to start a conversation.

  With red-rimmed eyes from all the crying, but with her head held high, Felicity had joined them in the carriage after her father had firmly instructed St. John to call on him the following afternoon. Annabelle had noticed how Greywood had barely been able to hide his triumph when he had caught St. John and her together. To this day, she was not sure what role he had played in the sudden appearance of her father and if he had anything to do with their discovery at all. The important thing was that Felicity’s failed attempt to elope never came to light. As time progressed, and as Annabelle’s wedding day drew ever closer, Felicity became more and more melancholic. The fear that Felicity would actually harm herself, should her transgression ever be known, became Annabelle’s constant companion. So, she had not said anything and instead agreed to marry the Earl of Grandover.

  “… for as long as you both shall live,” the priest interrupted her thoughts. The heavy odour of the incense, which was burned in abundance during Catholic ceremonies, made her feel nauseous. That was St. John’s petty revenge, she thought. If he had to marry a woman he did not want, then at the very least a Catholic priest should be present in addition to her Anglican minister. Her father had agreed – well, he had been forced to agree, in the face of the witnesses to her… transgression.

  Annabelle briefly glanced up at the man she was going to spend the rest of her life with. Then her eyes wandered over to one of the statues that were so numerous in this house of God. The saviour with his face distorted from the pain, behind the pastor (or was she supposed to call him a priest?) scared her, but there was one of the Mother of God – and a gentle, kindly smiling one at that. It almost seemed as if the holy woman winked at her in an expression of womanly accord.

  From under the flowered wreath in her hair, she looked back to Marcus St. John, who stood with his lips tightly pressed together. His posture was that of a man who had discovered, too late, that he had handed over his life, not into the capable hands of a doctor, but instead to those of a mere quack.

  It seemed the ceremony was over. He reached for her hand somewhat roughly and led her down the aisle towards the church doors. The lump in her throat thickened. He had not even bothered to lift up her veil, and she could barely see where she was going. Was it the fine lace that obscured her view, or was it tears? At least she could not see her sister’s pale, stiff face, which had not been the same since that night.

  She held on to the earl’s arm and walked with small steps beside him. Someone opened the gates of the church. The sudden sunshine and warmth surrounded them, but even the heat of the mid-August day was better than the oppressive narrowness of the Catholic Church.

  Her husband’s carriage, which was hitched to four horses, stood nearby. The coachman stood next to the vehicle, one hand resting on the back of a horse. When the church gates had opened, the man indolently lifted his head and stared at her for what seemed like an unseemly amount of time, before he looked for her husband’s gaze.

  The realisation that she was now a married woman hit her with full force, and for a moment she forgot about the coachman’s rather strange behaviour. Annabelle’s knees buckled beneath her, and more than anything, she would have liked to let go of the Earl of Grandover’s arm to run back into her parents. As if he sensed her urge, he tightened his grip.

  “Pull yourself together,” he murmured, leaning down towards her. “You wanted it this way, so you need to get through this. Or do you want a scandal?”

  “I most certainly did not want this marriage any more than you did,” she replied, gathering all her courage. Defying a man such as Marcus St. John was not easy, especially when she became aware of his size and had to look upwards to him. Determined not to show her fear, Annabelle let go of him and pulled her veil back from her face.

  She almost gasped for air when she saw his face without the protection of the soft fabric, which had shielded her gaze from him so far. His mouth was but a thin white line, his jaw tense. However, it was his eyes that scared her the most. They were a deep dark blue, which she would have liked if the circumstances had been different, and if they had not shown an expression that went far beyond rage and fury.

  Marcus St. John looked as if he wanted to strangle her with his bare hands.

  Annabelle backed away involuntarily, but he was faster again. With a gesture that reminded her of their first encounter in the darkness of the gardens, he pulled her towards him.

  “We will finish this together,” he said quietly and did not even turn his head when her family spilt out from inside the church. “You are now the Countess of Grandover, so act like it.” Annabelle swallowed and forced back her rising tears. For a split second his features softened, and a different, much more gentle expression appeared in his eyes, but the change was so short-lived that Annabelle thought that she had imagined it.

  She nodded stiffly. “I will say goodbye to my family, and then we can begin our honeymoon.” She did not even know where he would take her since he had kept their contact to an absolute minimum. He had visited her family in their city home only twice to pay his respects. The first time had been the day after that fateful night when he had come to formally ask for her hand in marriage. She had no idea what he and her father had discussed, but both men had come out of the library in a significantly bad mood. The second time she had met Marcus St. John had been when he had brought her his mother’s jewellery and instructed her to wear it on the day of their wedding. Not one personal word had been exchanged between them over the next few weeks.

  Sometimes, when she lay in bed awake, with her insides curled up into a tight knot, Annabelle had tri
ed to remember their kiss. Often, she had felt both hot and cold, all at the same time, when she thought of the endless minutes. Sometimes she felt euphoric, because the connection and the intimacy she had clearly felt that night, could only be a good omen for a marriage. But then there were moments when the memory of his kiss only strengthened her fear, to the point where Annabelle could no longer think clearly and only look into her future with panic.

  Just like now, as she sank into her mother’s softly scented embrace who silently let her know that she would always be there for her. Her father stood with a frozen face and arms crossed in front of his chest, as if he had nothing to do with the wedding of his oldest daughter. Annabelle kept looking for Felicity, but it was in vain, until her youngest sister Rose fell about her neck. At fifteen years old, she was still half a child, and she had often driven Annabelle to the brink of insanity with her disobedience, but today Annabelle was thankful for her little sister’s genuineness. Amongst all the stiff faces, including Annabelle’s own, Rose’s face was the only one that was lit up with a beaming smile.

  “You look so beautiful in your dress,” she whispered into her big sister’s ear. “And the jewellery is out of this world. It really complements your eyes.”

  Annabelle did not say anything and pressed Rose against her as tightly as she could in her full-skirted dress. But her youngest sister was not yet finished.

  “The ladies are already gossiping viciously about you,” she continued, “but do not mind. They are just jealous that the earl chose you as his bride.” Despite her fifteen years, Rose had kept her innocence, Annabelle thought, feeling a crazy giggle rising up in her throat. As if St. John had had a choice! Most certainly, his decision would have been different, had there not been three witnesses on the scene. A girl such as herself, who lacked elegance and grace, and who, in addition, was utterly incapable of bland chatter, was at the bottom of his wish list.

  She knew she would make a lousy countess.

  “Are you coming? It’s time,” her husband urged and bid her family farewell by nodding just the one time. Well, his manners also left much to be desired, Annabelle decided. He could at least pretend that she and her family did not completely repulse him. She noticed that while he addressed her less formally, which was acceptable between spouses, not once had he called her by her first name. She wondered how her name would sound if it ever came out of his mouth. Then again, she had not called him by his first name either, at least not aloud. Even in her thoughts she continuously wavered between “Marcus”, “St. John”, and “earl”. The names she called him depended entirely on the mood she was in. Did he have multiple names for her as well? Maybe he called her “Anna” or maybe even the French and slightly daring sounding “Belle”? Or was she “the unwanted” for him?

  It was time to find out. One last time, she searched for Felicity, but she was not there.

  “Come along,” the man next to her repeated with noticeably increasing impatience. Just when she expected him to grab her wrist and drag her with him, he held out his hand towards her, palm up. The gesture was in stark contrast to his previous behaviour, so much so that Annabelle first stared at his fingers in disbelief, then at his face.

  Reluctantly, her fingertips touched his, then she followed him into the waiting carriage.

  Marcus St. John did not feel at all like a married man, and he was fine with that. He still could not make out whether Lady Annabelle had volunteered as bait to lure him into a trap, or if she was the innocent victim of Greywood’s intrigues. He had tried to assess the situation methodically, replayed and dissected the scenario in his head over and over again, looking for clues that would tell him who had concocted this perfidious plan, but to no avail.

  The most probable explanation was that it had been Greywood’s intention to discredit him and to manoeuvre him into a duel with the Duke of Evesham. Both possible outcomes would have pleased his enemy. If he survived, he would have to deal with the legal consequences. In the case of his death… well, there was not much to say about that.

  St. John’s theory was as follows: Greywood had ensured himself both sisters’ complicity – either by making false declarations of love or by forcing them with some kind of extortion. The viscount was, as Marcus knew from his own bitter experience, a master at spinning intricate webs of lies and seduction. It would have been easy for the deceitful bastard with his misleadingly open face, to convince both sisters to help him, without each of them knowing that the other one was involved. Only time would tell to what extent his wife was guilty – because St. John had very little doubt that she was somehow involved with Greywood.

  Annabelle’s resemblance to Matilda was remarkable, and he was certain that his enemies had noticed it too. He suppressed the stinging pain he felt at having to think of her name and of his enemy in the same thought. How Greywood and the man, whom he knew kept himself consistently in the background, must have laughed when they had found the perfect tool in Lady Annabelle to destroy Marcus once and for all. But were his arch enemies also smart enough to come up with a complicated plan that involved both Annabelle and her sister? After all, the intricate manoeuvre to include Lady Annabelle through her sister at least explained why the viscount had refrained from seducing Annabelle himself. He had wanted her to be pure when she entered Marcus’s bed so that no suspicion of a possible double play with his new wife came up. His instinct had told him, back then, that Annabelle was not a scorned lover of Greywood’s and most likely, he was right about that.

  However, all theories led to one particular point where Marcus got stuck. Setting up the trap with the lovely Lady Annabelle Carlisle at the centre meant that Greywood knew of his, St. John’s, intentions. Marcus asked himself over and over again about when and how he had given them away, but he could not come up with anything satisfactory. Even Finch, his trusted servant and confidant, found no answer to the pressing question.

  Therefore, he had no other choice but to make a virtue out of necessity and have Annabelle as his wife. In this way, Marcus believed he was one step ahead of Greywood. If Greywood believed that he had fallen into his trap, he would fall into a false sense of security, which in turn would cause him to lower his guard and he would no longer be as vigilant, which increased Marcus’s chances of getting to him via Annabelle – in case his other attempts failed. He had no intention of putting a woman in danger, even if she was an ally to the enemy, but desperate situations demanded desperate measures.

  For the most part, the marriage with a spy inside his own home was a first-rate opportunity that Marcus wanted to take full advantage of. They wanted to lure him into a trap? He almost laughed out loud. He would show the bastard what he thought of his malicious plan. He, Marcus St. John, the last of the Grandover line, would turn the tables and laugh as he watched Greywood going down in flames. And not just the man alone, but also the one who held the strings, the faceless stranger, the mastermind behind the perfidious plans. It was only a question of time and patience before his identity would be revealed, and Marcus had plenty of both. In the end, the man would fall just as his henchman would.

  Until then, Marcus intended to use his new wife as a means to an end. Since she and Greywood were in cahoots together, St. John was determined to make it as difficult as possible for Annabelle to gather information that she could relay to Greywood. It was up to him to take advantage of Greywood’s accomplice, whether she had agreed to it or not, and to incorporate her into his plans. After all, if one plays with fire, one runs the danger of getting burned.

  Her horrified face, when he had told her father that he would take her as his wife, was something he would remember until the end of his days. He was convinced that this had taken the wind out of both of their sails, hers and Greywood’s. His own reputation remained that of a bon viveur, not that of a defamatory plunger, and thus, he could continue to move in the circles where his findings were pointing to so far. He did not believe that Lady Annabelle’s father was in league with Greywood, but he w
anted to be vigilant all the same.

  He looked at her, his newly wedded wife, and saw how she tried to press herself into the opposite corner of the carriage, in order to stay as far away from him as possible. A small seed of doubt as to his conviction that she was part of the game rose in him, and he pushed it aside with the utmost willpower. He had experienced first-hand just how well women could disguise themselves. She played her role of the anxious bride convincingly, but not well enough to fool him.

  He watched as she leaned forward and pushed the curtain in front of the small window to the side to take a peek outside.

  “Where are we going?” Her voice sounded calm and collected, but the rapid rise and fall of her breasts revealed her inner turmoil. She was still peering out into the street that led from the rural suburbs of the capital straight into the heart of London. “If I am not mistaken, we are driving back into the city.” It sounded like half a question, half a statement. Should he leave her in the dark a little while longer?

  “Very well observed, indeed,” he said and reached over to close the curtain again. The temperature inside the dark carriage was unbearably warm, but the less comfortable his wife felt, the sooner she would become careless and make a mistake. She froze as his fingers brushed against hers and hastily withdrew her hand. With courteously folded hands in her lap, she truly offered the image of a virtuous debutante, but Marcus knew better. He had kissed her – and she had reciprocated the kiss with complete and utter unladylike passion.