Regency Scandals: Touch Me, Tempt Me & Take Me Box Set

by Lucy Monroe

  Morning sickness.

  She was pregnant with Drake’s child.

  CHAPTER SIXTEEN

  Langley must now realize that Estcot’s word of honor is as reliable as Prinny’s temper. Had this happened five years ago, I would have taken the first ship back to England, sure that I could finally convince Langley of my innocence. Yet, in all this time, he has never mentioned me to Lady Upworth. She despairs of raising the subject of my seeing Jared anymore because of his cold reception to the idea. It is no use. I have built a life for myself and Thea here. There is no hope of seeing my son before he reaches his majority.

  March 1, 1804 Journal of Anna Selwyn, Countess of Langley

  She exalted in the knowledge even as she accepted the ramifications it must bring.

  The prospect of bearing his child sent warmth and trepidation cascading through her all at once. Could she risk her freedom and perhaps her happiness as well by marrying Drake?

  She chewed on her lower lip. Were she to admit the truth, she would have to acknowledge that the decision to marry him had occurred the moment she accepted his body into her own. Not because he so arrogantly assumed she would marry him, but because once they had made love, he owned a part of her that would never be wholly hers again.

  It had been inevitable. No matter how desperately she had tried to protect herself from her feelings for him, they had steadily grown within her.

  She feared she loved him and it was all his fault.

  With silky black hair that she longed to bury her fingers in, eyes that mesmerized her with their depth, and a male physique that Gentleman Jackson would be proud to possess, Drake was more attractive than any gentleman had a right to be.

  Added to his immense physical appeal, he had unswerving honor and diligence. Even his arrogance had appeal. It went against everything she believed she would want in a husband and yet she found that she actually had come to rely on it.

  When she lacked confidence, his supreme assurance buoyed her. When she had first stepped off the ship and realized what a totally different world England was from her island, her belief in herself and her ability to find the embezzler in her company failed. Drake, on the other hand, had not wavered in his certainty that they would unmask the thief before any harm could come to Uncle Ashby.

  Further, he exhausted himself making it happen. She had noticed dark rings under his eyes this morning at breakfast. When she had taxed him with it later, he admitted that he had been participating in the nightlong watch over Merewether Shipping offices.

  He pushed her to make amends with her family, but only because he wanted her to have everything. A place in the ton, a father, a brother. If only he knew the final act of cruelty her father had committed. He would understand that though she would attempt to have a relationship with her brother, she could never give her father a place in her life.

  “What?” His irritated voice startled her out of her musings. “You’ve been staring at me for the past ten minutes. What is it?”

  She stalled for time before answering his question. “Does it bother you when I look at you?”

  “It bothers me when you look through me.” He pushed the ledger away. “We will find the thief. You need to stop making yourself sick with worry about it. The man I sent to watch over Merewether is tough and trustworthy. He won’t let anything happen to your uncle.”

  There was another example of his protective concern for her. He had sent an agent to watch her uncle immediately upon reaching port even though she had told him about her confiding in Philippe.

  “I’m not worried about Uncle Ashby.” At least he wasn’t the foremost worry on her mind.

  “Then what is the matter? Is it because I pushed you last night about reconciling with your father?”

  She shook her head. She knew that Drake would not force the issue, regardless of what he believed to be best. Look at the issue of their marriage. Although he made his desire to marry her clear, he had not resorted to intimidation or blackmail. He had brought up her aunt’s place in society and then protected it with their engagement. He could have used her consideration for Lady Upworth to force her hand, but he hadn’t.

  “I have never been good at parlor games, particularly the guessing variety.” He leaned back in the chair behind the desk, tapping his pencil against his other hand. “Why don’t you just tell me what has you so preoccupied?”

  “I think I may be pregnant.” She blurted the words out without making any attempt to soften them.

  He shot up from the desk, dropped the pencil and practically leaped over the desk to reach her.

  He gripped her shoulders. “How can you tell? Have you missed your menses?”

  She smiled at the urgency in his voice. “It hasn’t been long enough, but this morning I woke feeling every bit as seasick as I ever did aboard ship.”

  He dropped his hands and stepped back. “What are you going to do?”

  She cocked her head to one side and studied him. He didn’t look like a man who had just heard he was going to get his own way in a very important matter. He looked wary.

  “What do you mean?”

  He curled his hands into fists. “Are you going to marry me or go back to your island and pretend to be a widow like your mother did?”

  If she had any doubt that she could trust him, it dissolved with his question. He was giving her a choice, refusing to allow her to feel trapped, although he must realize as she did that her returning to the island as a widow would be ludicrous. No one would believe it.

  “I had thought to marry you.”

  “Why?”

  She hadn’t expected that question. If he thought she was going to admit tender feelings for him when he wasn’t even sure he believed in love, then he was in for a disappointment.

  “You made your feelings about having a child of yours grow up illegitimate very clear. I thought you would be happy with my decision, not asking for justification.”

  “I am happy.”

  “Well you aren’t acting like it.” If she sounded like she was complaining, she felt justified.

  The tears came as a complete shock.

  “Bloody hell.” He stepped forward and pulled her against him. “Hush, sweetheart. I am happier than I can say that you’ve agreed to marry me. Even if I don’t completely understand why.”

  She sniffled against his shirt. “I should think it’s obvious. I’m pregnant with your child. It is the accepted course of action.”

  Laughter rumbled in his chest even as he rubbed her back in a soothing motion. “You so rarely take the accepted course that I can’t help being a little surprised you choose to do so.”

  Really. She expected a much different reaction and her patience had worn thin waiting for it.

  She struggled against his confining arms. “Let me go.”

  Rather than let her go, he leaned down and caught her legs under her knees and swung her up into his embrace.

  “Put me down.”

  He ignored her protest and carried her to the infamous sofa near the window.

  He sat down with her ensconced firmly in his lap. “Relax. All this struggling can’t be good for the baby.”

  She snorted.

  From what she had seen of pregnant women back home, babies could withstand a great deal. “Our baby is not so fainthearted.”

  “Then stop struggling because if you don’t we are going to end up making love again and this time I didn’t lock the door.”

  She glared at him, but stopped squirming against his lap. The growing bulge under her thigh confirmed that he meant what he said.

  “If you don’t want to marry me, I’m sure I can manage on my own. I am financially independent and every bit as capable as my mother of raising a child without a husband.”

  He gripped her chin his hand and forced her to meet his gaze. “We are getting married. You agreed to it and I’m not about to let you renege on your word. My baby will be born with my name.”

  “I never said I wanted
our baby to do otherwise. You are the one acting less than enthusiastic about the idea of marriage.”

  He frowned and the wary expression came back into his eyes. “Perhaps I had hoped that you would want to marry me for my sake, not just as penance for allowing me to make love to you.”

  “I didn’t say it was penance.”

  “You did not have to.”

  She couldn’t believe it. He felt insecure. It was there in his eyes. He thought she only wanted to marry him because of the baby. How could she convince him otherwise without sharing her innermost feelings?

  Feelings she still did not trust.

  “I’m not marrying you just because I’m pregnant.”

  “Are you saying that you decided to marry me before you got sick this morning?”

  Placing her hand on his shoulder, she sighed. “No.”

  “Then you are marrying me because of the baby.”

  “Well, isn’t that why you want to marry me?”

  “I asked you to marry me after we made love the first time.”

  That was true. Suddenly she felt better than she had in days. He must have some tender feelings for her. She could not believe that he had proposed to every woman he had every lain with. He’d be married by now if that were the case.

  She smiled. “It’s true that my morning sickness precipitated my decision, but I would have come to the same one eventually, regardless.”

  “What of your promise to your mother?”

  “Melly is right about one thing. Mama wanted me to be happy.” Leaning forward, Thea caressed the skin of his jaw with her lips. “Marrying you will make me very happy.”

  As she said the words, she knew deep in her heart that they were true. She wanted him in her life. The thought of returning to her island without him, to spend the rest of her years alone, held no appeal. She might be independent, but she wasn’t stupid. She knew a good thing when she saw it and life with Drake was a very good thing indeed.

  “Your happiness is necessary to my own. I will do everything in my power to see that our life together never causes you to regret your decision.”

  Tears stung her eyes at the sincerity she heard in his voice. He might not love her, but he cared for her. Her father had claimed to love her mother, but been content to see her unhappy. Drake did not claim to love Thea, but she knew with absolute assurance that he would only be content if she were happy.

  “You are crying again.”

  She nodded, her throat too constricted to speak.

  “Have I said something to offend you?”

  She shook her head.

  “I had heard that pregnant women were emotional, but confess I am not sure how to deal with it.”

  She smiled. How could she put into words what she was feeling right now? She had spent her entire adult life, and most of her girlhood, convinced that marriage was a fate worse than death. Now that she faced the possibility with Drake, all she felt was anticipation and relief that she would not have to tell him goodbye.

  Happy tears seemed like the appropriate response.

  ******

  “What do you mean the wedding is scheduled in two hours?”

  Thea felt hysteria rising like a tidal wave inside her. Married? Today? She grabbed frantically at the doorjamb to her room. It felt solid enough. She hadn’t dreamed the loud knocking and Drake’s demand for an audience from the other side. She truly was standing in the doorway to her room wearing nothing but a nightrail and wrapper while Drake informed her that they were scheduled to marry in less than two hours.

  “You’ve gone mad. We can’t get married this morning. The banns haven’t been read. I don’t have a dress. Nothing has been planned. It is impossible.”

  Drake smiled at her with the devil’s own charm and waved a piece of white parchment in front of her face. “This is a special license. It says that we can marry today. You cannot tell me with the numerous new dresses you have bought, you don’t have one suitable for a small wedding.”

  She interrupted before he could go on. “For someone else’s small wedding, not my own.”

  “Don’t whine, Thea. You are the one that told me you cared nothing for clothes.”

  “I didn’t say nothing, or maybe I did, but I didn’t mean I cared not a whit what I wore to my wedding.”

  He had the unmitigated gall to shrug. “You will look beautiful in whatever you choose.”

  He refused to understand.

  She ground her teeth in an effort not to scream. “What of a wedding breakfast?”

  “Lady Upworth has planned a small gathering at her home.”

  “You told my aunt about our wedding before you told me?”

  “You don’t need to shout, sweetheart. I’m standing right here. Of course I told her, or how could she have planned the breakfast? Now stop being difficult and get ready.” He pulled his watch from his waistcoat pocket, flipped it open and looked at it. “You have an hour and forty-five minutes before we have to leave.”

  He sounded so bloody logical, except what he was saying made no sense. The blackguard.

  “I think that if you wanted to be guaranteed of my cooperation you would not have waited to spring my wedding on me as a fait accompli with less than two hours to prepare.”

  An expression of guilt crossed his features and then she understood. That was the whole point. Drake still wasn’t certain of her and he believed this was the way to ensure she showed up at her own wedding. Give her no time to talk herself out of it. His next words confirmed her suspicions.

  “What would you have had me do? Wait for the banns to be read and risk you changing your mind? Marriage makes you more skittish than a newborn foal. Once the deed is done, I’m sure your nerves will settle.”

  She wasn’t positive that she agreed with him, but one thing was certain – he would settle down once the deed was done. He had been acting all over strange since she’d agreed to marry him three days ago. Not only did he make himself a complete nuisance wanting her to put her feet up, rest and other such nonsense supposedly good for a woman in her delicate condition, but he had spent the last three days recounting the benefits of the wedded state. Just last night at dinner, he had informed her that married women lived longer. Just look at the evidence of his aunt and Lady Upworth. Why, they were practically in their dotage and both had been married.

  She could only be grateful that her morning sickness had not come back the last two mornings. She was positive she had enough on her plate without the awful nausea.

  “You should have told me about the wedding. A woman wants more than a bloody hour to prepare for such an event. Sacré bleu.”

  His brows drew together and she knew that his patience was slipping. “Thea, you’ve spent most of your life thinking you wouldn’t get married. Our child will be in leading strings before you are ready.”

  “I’m talking about the things that go along with a wedding, not my mental preparation.” She wanted to shake him, but knew from experience that he was immovable. “As for my not being ready to marry, I already agreed to do so. Do you doubt my word?”

  He wrapped his fingers around hers over the doorjamb and moved forward until their lips met in a soft, lingering kiss. She closed her eyes, savoring the sensation. When it ended he pulled his mouth away from hers, but remained close. She opened her eyes and met his watchful gaze.

  “Yes. I trust your word. Knowing that you already agreed to marry me, I convinced myself that you would be pleased about a surprise wedding. It would take the advance worry out of the event for you.”

  She sighed. She was beaten and she knew it. She had given him her word. What’s more, she wanted to marry the man. As impossible as she found it to believe, she had actually come to a place in her life when the idea of marriage played heavily in her future happiness.

  “I’ll be ready in two hours and not one minute less. I’ll be late to my wedding, but I won’t get married looking like I just rolled out of bed.”

  His smile made her smal
l sacrifice seem worth it.

  ******

  Married.

  The single word continued to resound through her mind with the force of a town crier, despite the innocuous conversations she engaged in during her wedding breakfast.

  She was married.

  Thea played with the ruby ring Drake had given her during the ceremony, the large oval stone a profound weight on her finger. She had never intended to marry, had never looked to her wedding day. If she had, it would not have taken its true form in a million imaginings.

  From the moment Drake had pounded on her door announcing their wedding plans, she had been in a constant state of activity. Even now, she could not completely relax. Lady Upworth had invited every member of the ton who had come early to Town to the small wedding breakfast she had planned. Or at least that was how it appeared to Thea.

  She had shaken hands and received good wishes until her fingers had grown numb. Finally, her aunt had allowed her and Drake to leave the reception line, but not together. Drake had been instructed to make his aunt comfortable and to mingle, while Lady Upworth had taken Thea in tow to introduce her to some people she had not yet met.

  Impossible. She had met every person in the crowded rooms.

  Once Lady Upworth introduced her to an elderly couple that actually had managed to avoid the receiving line, she allowed Thea to find some food. She stood at the buffet table, considering the incredible diversity of offerings when a familiar voice interrupted her thoughts.

  “Hello, again.”

  Thea turned and met warm brown eyes.

  Her sister had come to her wedding breakfast.

  “Hello. I did not realize you would be here.”

  “Aunt Harriet would not have heard of otherwise. She is quite fond of you.”

  “She has said many complimentary things about you as well, Lady Irisa.”

  Irisa’s smile touched Thea deep in her heart. “I am glad.”