The Bartered Bride

by Mary Jo Putney

  “You’re welcome to send a footman, of course, but your friend is the Earl of Wrexham now,” Ashburton replied. “His father died about six months ago.”

  Given the state of the old earl’s health, the news wasn’t surprising. “I’m sorry to hear that. It’s fortunate Maxwell returned from the East when he did, so they could have some time together.” His friend’s letters had made it clear that he and his father had become closer in the two years since his return to England. That meant more sorrow, but fewer regrets. “I’ll have trouble remembering not to call him ‘Maxwell.’”

  The duke smiled. “When my son is called Lord Ben-field, I sometimes still want to answer even though I haven’t had that title for close to twenty years.”

  “Having one name for life is so much simpler.”

  “I can’t deny it.” Lady Michael and the duchess had moved away to greet a new arrival, so the duke added in a lower voice, “You’re welcome to stay at Ashburton House as long as you like, but I imagine you’ll want your own place. Perhaps I can help you locate a suitable house.”

  Gavin wondered if his unease was that obvious. “You’re very kind, sir. I appreciate the welcome you’ve extended, but I do want us to have our own home. One not too far away, so Alex and Katie can visit easily.”

  Lord Michael joined them, a purposeful expression on his face. Apparently the dissection wouldn’t wait until it was time to pass the port.

  “Captain, what happened to Alex?” Lord Michael asked without preamble. “It’s not a subject for dinner conversation, but…I have to know.”

  Alex’s stepfather had vivid green eyes, and there was torment in them. Given how much Gavin loved Katie after only a few months, he could imagine how Lord Michael felt after raising Alex from girlhood.

  Glad he’d asked Alex how much she wanted to reveal, he said succinctly, “The Amstel was attacked by Island pirates at dawn immediately after a severe storm. Those crew members who weren’t killed outright abandoned ship, leaving Alex and Katie to be captured and sold into slavery. They were separated immediately. Luckily, Katie was taken to the women’s quarters of an Island rajah where she became a pampered pet.”

  “And Alex?” Lord Michael’s voice was harsh.

  “She was taken to another island. By pure chance, I was in Maduri when she was brought to the local slave market. As soon as I realized she was European, I offered to buy her, of course.”

  Not noticing that Gavin didn’t say that he actually had bought her, Ashburton said, “Was this soon after she was captured, and you looked for Katie together?”

  Wishing he could lie, Gavin said, “Unfortunately, I didn’t find Alex until she had spent six months as a slave.”

  “How badly was she treated?” Lord Michael was white-lipped.

  “That is for her to say when and if she chooses to.” Trying to soften that, Gavin added, “She had…a difficult time, but was unbroken in either body or spirit. I’ve never known such an indomitable woman.”

  “Very like Catherine.” Lord Michael stared down at his sherry glass, turning it restlessly. “Women are stronger than men. If they weren’t, the race would have died out long ago. But no man wants to see the women he loves tested so severely.”

  There was a taut silence among the men until Ashburton said, “Yet Alexandra is now home, whole and safe. Tonight is a night for celebration.”

  “So it is.” Lord Michael’s face eased. “Captain, the worst thing about having children is letting them go. It would be so much more satisfactory if we could lock them in stone towers. Especially the daughters. You’ll find out with Katie.”

  “At least I don’t have to worry about that for a few years.”

  “Don’t count on it—my younger girl and Stephen’s daughter are even now giving Katie alarming ideas.” Lord Michael smiled wryly. “I guarantee it.”

  With surprise, Gavin realized that he had already been accepted into the family—and that he could grow to like his formidable new father-in-law.

  As the evening progressed, he realized that he liked the other guests as well. The surfeit of earls and countesses pained his democratic American soul, but he had to admit they were interesting people. Though they were living lives of wealth and privilege now, he suspected that most had weathered their share of trouble in the past, and in Gavin’s experience, surviving adversity made people worth knowing.

  Alex was blossoming like a new rose in this atmosphere, laughing and teasing with family and friends. He remembered what she’d said when he asked her to marry him: that he’d never seen her at her best. Tonight he did, and she was dazzling. Beautiful, vibrant, a woman whose clever tongue was always tempered by kindness.

  As he chatted with the countess on his left, who turned out to be a former schoolteacher, he thought about how damnable fate could be. He should never have married Alex. He’d done it with the best of intentions—pregnant and desperate, she had needed a husband to protect her from slander and despair. But if she’d miscarried earlier, there would have been no marriage. She would be reentering this glittering world as a beautiful widow who was free to love and marry a man of her own background. Instead, she was tied to him. He wondered when she would begin to resent that.

  Across the table she laughed and rested her hand on the arm of another of her honorary uncles, a lock of dark hair falling forward to curl against her neck. Gavin swallowed and looked away.

  He also was caught in an inappropriate marriage that should not have happened. Yet he could not bring himself to be sorry.

  Hazy with champagne, Alex bid the last of the guests good night. It had been a marvelous evening of talk, food, talk, tea, and more talk. Returning to England during the Season had been a stroke of luck. Since a number of the colonel’s friends sat in the House of Lords, they were in London until Parliament ended and she could see many of her favorite people at once. She was really home. Home.

  Despite his misgivings, Gavin had made it through the evening with ease and apparent enjoyment. She wasn’t surprised—anyone who could navigate Sultan Kasan’s court could manage anything. He’d been well liked, too. Several of the women had made approving comments to her.

  She was home—and it was time to take the next step in their marriage. After the last good night hugs, she took Gavin’s arm and they headed up the wide staircase together. She asked, “You had a good time, I hope?”

  “Yes, your family and friends are very pleasant, though I’m beginning to think that everyone in London is a peer or peeress.” He steadied her arm as she stumbled at the top of the steps. “You shouldn’t have let them ply you with so much champagne, though,” he said with a smile. “It appears to have affected your navigational abilities.”

  She chuckled as they reached her bedroom door. “A little. No one forced me to drink, though. I had all that champagne deliberately.”

  She tugged him inside after her, then closed the door and turned the key in the lock with unsteady fingers. In the dim glow of the night light, he was as handsome as a young girl’s dream of her future husband. Reminding herself that she’d been planning this all evening, she said in a voice that wasn’t quite even, “I…I want us to be really married, Gavin.”

  His smile disappeared. “You’re asking me to stay with you tonight?”

  She nodded, her hands clenching and unclenching. “I want to put the fear behind me. That’s why I drank more wine than usual. I’m floating and happy now. Perhaps that will make this first time easier.”

  “In my experience, drinking makes most things more difficult, not less.” He hesitated, visibly torn. “Are you sure you want to do this tonight, at the end of such a tiring day?”

  “I don’t like being afraid, Gavin.” She pulled the pins from her hair so that it fell over her shoulders with bedroom intimacy. “As a soldier’s daughter, I need to face fear head-on. Once I’m past it, we can look forward instead of being chained by the past.”

  He closed the distance between them in one long step. “I hope you k
now what you’re doing, my dearest wife, because I want you too much to be sensible.” He brushed his hands into her hair and held her head gently as he bent in to a kiss.

  She clung to him, a little dizzy from champagne. The first time he’d kissed her, after their wedding, she’d been on edge, anxious about what he might expect of her. She knew him better now. Trusted him, recognized his warm, firm, lips. I can do this, she thought to herself. Such a simple thing to relax and let my husband make love to me. I can do this.

  She refused even to consider the possibility that she couldn’t.

  Chapter 19

  THOUGH ALEX had known Gavin was a patient man, she hadn’t fully appreciated the advantages of that until tonight. Instead of rushing her to the bed, he kissed her by the door for long, luxurious minutes, his hands gliding over her body to create uncomplicated pleasure. If she’d been a cat, she would have purred.

  Clever, clever hands…Dreamily she realized that he’d unfastened the fussy hooks and ties that secured her gown in back. With his encouragement, the rose-colored silk slid down her arms and over her hips before rustling to the floor.

  He was so deft at unlacing that she scarcely noticed what he was doing until her corset miraculously released its grip on her torso. She inhaled deeply, her unbound breasts tingling at their new freedom.

  Despite his skilled touch, uneasiness penetrated her pleasant haze as he rubbed her back with only the thin fabric of her chemise separating his palms from her bare skin. When his hands moved below her waist, she involuntarily moved away.

  Wanting to cover up her reaction, she tried to remove his coat. He shrugged his way out of the closely cut garment with some difficulty while she worked on the buttons of his waistcoat. He chuckled when her fumbling fingers tickled him. “You’re dangerous, lass.”

  She liked the deepening of his Scottish accent as much as she liked the idea of being dangerous. She tickled him again.

  Laughing, he peeled off her corset, then swung her into his arms to carry her the half-a-dozen steps to the canopied bed. Her head spun dizzily and she swallowed hard, hoping she hadn’t had too much champagne.

  The bed was sumptuously soft after a year of Indies’ pallets and firm shipboard mattresses. While she breathed deeply to steady her head, he removed her slippers. “What elegant feet you have.”

  “They’re large, like my hands,” she protested. “Not dainty and ladylike at all.”

  “They’re fine and strong and shapely, like the rest of you.” He massaged one silk-stockinged foot, then the other. Her toes curled with unexpected pleasure as he gently rubbed the arches.

  Then he untied her ribbon garters. Anxiety spiked through her again at the feel of his hands at her knees. Instead of moving higher, he merely removed her stockings, then leaned over to kiss her throat. Though he didn’t pin her down with his weight, she could feel the warmth radiating from his arched body.

  He took her nipple in his mouth, kissing through the fine Indian muslin of her chemise. She gasped, startled by her dual reaction of excitement and alarm. Her pulse drummed in her head. Blood? Champagne?

  Fear.

  As his caresses became more intimate, she clamped down on her anxiety, reminding herself that this was what she wanted. The first time would be the worst. After that it would get easier, and soon the horrors of slavery would be buried so far in the past that she would never think of them again.

  He was breathing heavily, his desire barely in check. A hard pressure throbbed against her thigh, and she sensed that the rational man she trusted was being eclipsed by fierce male urgency. Her own breath quickened with rising panic. He wouldn’t hurt her, she knew that. Even in the humiliation of the Lion Game, he hadn’t hurt her. She had endured that, she could endure this in the privacy of her own bed.

  His hand was under her chemise, inexorable on the soft fabric of her drawers. Her breathing was so rapid that she was on the verge of blacking out because she couldn’t inhale enough air into her lungs.

  Relax. Relax. A few minutes more and it would be over, and never so difficult again.

  Yet she whimpered with fear when his fingers slid to the apex of her thighs, stroking deep. Oh, God, he was inside her, invading her body. She bit her lip so hard she tasted the metallic tang of blood.

  Then he was on top of her, his hard muscled body trapping her, violent manhood jabbing against her. Her owner, violating her at will. Panic erupted and she shoved him hysterically. “No! No!”

  Her mind a red scream, she hammered at his face and shoulders as she struggled for enough breath to cry out for help. Abruptly she was free of the crushing weight, but a hard hand clamped over her mouth.

  “Alex. Alex!” He gave her shoulder a rough shake. “It’s over. Over.”

  Reason began to penetrate her panic, and she managed to focus on his face. He was breathing heavily, his skin sheened with sweat.

  “Will you promise not to scream if I take my hand away? I don’t think either of us wants your family crashing in here because they think I’m murdering you.”

  It took several deep breaths for her to regain her wits enough to nod. He released her and swung from the bed, grabbing at a carved bedpost to steady himself. Shoulders shaking, he inhaled deeply, then crossed the room. The connecting door closed soundlessly behind him.

  She was alone, safe—and shattered. Wrapping herself around a pillow, she fought to prevent uncontrollable sobs from escaping. She had wanted so much for this to work. He was right, she shouldn’t have hazed her mind with champagne. Though at first it had helped her relax, when she had most needed to control herself she’d become a frantic, mindless beast.

  As her heart slowed and her dizziness faded, she realized that she couldn’t leave matters as they stood. He must be furious, and as shattered as she. Perhaps worse, since he’d had reason to believe that all was going well. Her responses could easily have been interpreted as enthusiasm right up until she’d gone berserk. She shuddered, wondering if she’d finally pushed him beyond his ability to understand and forgive.

  Even if she had, she must apologize for what she’d done. She blew her nose and donned a warm wool robe and slippers borrowed from her aunt. Then she tied her hair back with a ribbon and crossed to the connecting door.

  She wouldn’t have been surprised if he’d locked it against her, but the knob turned silently in her hand. She entered quietly, not sure what she’d find. As in her room, a well-shielded night lamp on the bedside table cast just enough light to prevent stumbling over the furniture. The bed was flat and undisturbed.

  A quick scan revealed that he was seated by the window, his white shirt faintly visible and his profile dark against the night as he gazed out over London. He was sprawled wearily in the massive chair, his long legs stretched in front of him. Though he must have heard her come in, he didn’t turn or speak.

  She took a deep breath. “You must be furious, and you have every right to be.”

  “I’m not angry.” His voice was painfully cool and remote. “You tried your best. One can ask no more.”

  “Nonetheless, I’m deeply sorry for what happened. I…I thought I could do it.”

  “Don’t apologize for being brave.” A brief flare of light illuminated his still features as he drew on a cigar, the wispy smoke curling out the window. She’d never seen him smoke before.

  “I wasn’t brave—I was a fool. You were right—the champagne was a terrible mistake. It made everything worse.” She moistened her dry lips. “Beyond mending, perhaps.”

  He sighed. “Most things can be mended, though this one won’t be easy.”

  Encouraged that he was willing to talk, she asked, “Did I hurt you?”

  “Not physically. Luckily you don’t know any pentjak silat, or I’d be dead.”

  But she’d certainly inflicted emotional harm. Gavin couldn’t be so sensitive to others without having deep feelings of his own. “It wasn’t you I was fighting.”

  “I know.” He drew on the cigar again. “If
we are to have any chance of getting beyond this, I think I must understand a good deal more of your mind and past.”

  At least he was still thinking of them as “we,” but she realized with despair that she must tell him everything, revealing the full depths of her degradation. Fists clenching, she perched on the wooden chair by the desk. “Ask whatever you wish. I’ll answer as best I can.”

  “Do you find me attractive?”

  Surprised by the question, she said honestly, “I think you’re the handsomest man I’ve ever known.”

  “Thank you, but that’s not the same thing as attraction. One can admire a Michelangelo statue and not want to bed it. One can be powerfully attracted to someone whose appearance is quite unremarkable.”

  She gnawed at her lip as she recognized the depth of his question. Thinking of the itchy, uncomfortable feelings he’d aroused in her even in Maduri, she replied, “I am attracted to you, but it’s tangled up with everything else that has happened.”

  “So your natural responses are tempered by fear and revulsion.”

  He was depressingly right. “I…I’m afraid so.”

  “Understanding is a beginning.” He tapped his cigar against the edge of an ashtray. “Forgive me for asking, but what was the intimate side of your marriage like? Did you enjoy, or merely endure?”

  Glad the darkness concealed her heated face, she replied, “I was not a shy bride. I found Edmund very attractive, and was…impatient to marry him.”

  “So your marital relationship was good?”

  She should have known Gavin wouldn’t settle for the simple answer. “To be honest, I was a bit disappointed. Mother and the colonel are always restrained in public, but even after twenty years, one can feel a kind of humming between them. It’s clear that they rejoice in every aspect of marriage. It was never quite that way with Edmund and me. But truly, I did enjoy my wifely duties, and I loved that I could please him. He said once how proud he was to have me as his wife. He was always affectionate and indulgent after we…had relations.”