He forced himself to tear his gaze away from her and fasten the last button on his shirt. Suddenly, he was thankful for this particular custom of his class—separate rooms. He was not sure he could cope with such intimacy too often. Perhaps, he thought with some curiosity, becoming too intimate and presumptuous had been his father’s downfall.
“I’ll come and see you of course,” he said in reply to her question.
“Come and see me? But you’ll leave like this every night?”
He chose not to answer that, for he wasn’t even certain he would come to see her every night. He wanted to produce an heir, not become besotted with his wife, and he surely would become besotted if he made love to her constantly. He reached for his waistcoat and pulled it on.
Sophia stood. She crossed toward him, her bare feet padding soundlessly upon the rug. Suddenly, she was standing naked before him, and he could smell her perfume. Her thick, wavy hair spilled over her shoulders and covered her breasts. Her turquoise eyes were wide and worried and brimming with anxiety.
She took hold of his waistcoat to prevent him from buttoning it. Boldly, she used it to pull him forward a step.
“Tonight’s our wedding night, James. Can’t you stay a little longer?” Her voice quivered a little, then she rose on her tiptoes to press her lips to his.
While he kissed her in the flickering candlelight, an involuntary tremor of desire began. He searched his frazzled mind for a reply to what she had just said—if he could even remember—and succeeded, thank God, in dragging his lips from hers. “Yes, exactly—it is our wedding night. I thought you might be…uncomfortable.”
“If you mean sore, I don’t care,” she said.
He wondered if she was afraid to be alone.
“I didn’t mind the pain the last time,” she continued. “In fact, I quite liked it.”
Her provocative words shocked him, and the last of his self-restraint was effectively pummeled. With a deep shudder of exhilaration, he found himself gathering his beautiful American wife into his arms and covering her mouth with his own. His blood quickened as she let out a little moan of pleasure and buried her fingers in the hair at his nape. The next thing he knew, he was tumbling her onto the soft mattress and coming down, heavy upon her, unfastening his trousers for the second time that night.
“Are you sure?” he asked her, as his hand traced a path down the sweet curve of her hip.
“Yes, if you’ll only stay....”
He realized that this was a form of bargaining, and his wife was a very skilled negotiator. For him, there was no backing out now, even if he wanted to. “Of course, I’ll stay,” he replied, kissing her again.
Adjusting her body to fit perfectly beneath his own, he entered her. The heat of her womanhood stole his breath, and sensation overpowered all reason. He let himself enjoy it until he felt the oncoming white-hot flooding of his passions. Then he surrendered to a potent release and held her and squeezed her beneath him in a strangely delirious state of being. For a long while, he could not think of his past or his present. It was as if he had even forgotten who he was. He could have been a simple American merchant or a poor blacksmith in bed with his wife for all he knew.
James lifted his head and gazed into the depths of Sophia’s long-lashed blue eyes. “Did you really think this was our bedchamber?” he asked, suddenly appreciating the charming, adorable sweetness of such a notion.
She smiled up at him. “I did. And it is.”
He stared at her for a startling moment, wondering what would happen if he did let himself love her. Truly and deeply. Was there a chance everything would work out? That he would never become like his father or his grandfather or the great-grandfather before him? Could James put an end to the poison in his bloodline, simply by loving his wife?
It was too soon to tell, so for now, he decided, the best thing for everyone was to play it safe and continue to keep his emotions in check.
Marion Langdon, the Dowager Duchess of Wentworth, sat down on a chintz chair in her boudoir at Wentworth Castle in Yorkshire. She gazed numbly at the pale blue walls framed in dark oak, the imposing family portraits hanging in precise balance upon them, and the bulky chest of drawers supporting a malachite vase that she hadn’t looked at in years. It had a chip near the bottom. Why had she not noticed the chip before and taken steps to have it repaired, she wondered with some irritation.
She supposed she’d become too comfortable in this room and had not noticed a great many things, and it was only a silly sentimental weakness that made her take notice of them now, for as of yesterday, her fate had become a certainty: Her son had taken a wife and she herself would be cast out to the east wing, where all the dowagers before her had always been cast when the new, younger duchess arrived.
She had been a new, younger duchess herself once, she recalled with some melancholy. Many, many years ago. She still remembered the day she walked into the house with Henry—proud and regal, for he enjoyed the pomp of his position—and was introduced to the servants as the new mistress of the house. She recalled how her frail mother-in-law had curtsied before her. How the servants had looked upon her with uncertainty, not knowing what to expect.
She, of course, had come from a great English family of her own, and had possessed every skill necessary to manage the household of Wentworth Castle. Surely her late mother-in-law, the former dowager, had relinquished her position with confidence. She must have felt some relief to know that her son had selected a worthy successor. Though, naturally, they had never discussed such things.
She herself was not so fortunate. Off on a honeymoon in Rome—no doubt corrupting her eldest son—was a little American upstart with the manners of a savage and the surface gush to make a proper Englishwoman’s toes curl. Her American dollars—substantial as they were—were her only recommendation.
What will the servants think when that woman walks into the house for the first time, Marion wondered, almost wincing at the thought of it. How on earth will the silly girl ever learn all that she needs to know in order to perform the duties of her position with dignity and grace?
She will come to me for help, Marion reasoned with a hint of cruel anticipation, for James will offer no support to her.
It was a miracle he’d even gone through with the wedding. Marion had begun to believe the dukedom might pass through her younger son, Martin. Not that that would have been the end of the world, but Martin was not reliable. He was too impulsive and quick to follow his heart. He could not be depended upon to do what sometimes needed to be done.
James, however, was nothing of the sort. Sometimes Marion wondered with a hateful feeling if he possessed a heart at all. Then again, he was his father’s son....
A knock sounded at her door. A footman entered. He presented a silver tray to her, and she reached for the letter upon it, which was sealed with silver-gray wax. The paper smelled strongly of cheap perfume—a vaguely familiar scent that caused a tightness to squeeze around Marion’s chest. She turned the letter over a few times before breaking the seal, barely noticing the footman exiting the room.
Carefully unfolding it, she glanced at the fancy penmanship. Her anxious eyes fell to the bottom, to ascertain the name of the sender. Recognizing the signature, she felt as if her lungs were going to fail. A sick feeling moved through her body.
The letter had come from Paris. From Madame Genevieve La Roux.
Before the dowager could comprehend the idea of having to again protect her exalted place in the world—and the place of her son—she cursed her late husband with foul, loathsome words in her head, then fainted dead away in her chintz chair.
Chapter 14
After a fortnight’s honeymoon in Rome, where they spent their days touring the city and viewing the antiquities, and their nights tangled in sheets and poetry and each other’s arms, the Duke and Duchess of Wentworth prepared to return to England. They d
id not make love during the journey, however, for Sophia’s monthly had begun.
On a misty, cold, overcast day, they arrived at the Yorkshire train station to find it adorned with flags fluttering in the wind and triumphal arches of white carnations and English ivy shivering in the cold.
Sophia stepped off the train just as the whistle blew three times and a burst of steam hissed from the engine. A sudden gale came out of nowhere and she had to hold on to her hat.
James assisted her down to the red-carpeted platform, where a welcoming committee of local dignitaries had been awaiting their arrival. Included among them was the local mayor, dressed in his formal regalia.
Not knowing quite what to do or where to step, Sophia held tight to James’s steady arm.
They stood by the mayor, who gave a brief speech about history and tradition. A young girl, no more than four years old, brought a heavy bouquet of roses to Sophia, and curtsied.
A short while later, they stepped into their waiting coach. They drove through the village, waving at the tenants who had turned out with their pitchforks along the cobbled market square, to cheer and wave flags to welcome her and James home. Church bells pealed as they drove through. They began the journey to the castle.
The coach bumped and rattled along a muddy road. They drove into a cold damp fog and traveled over rolling moors and dales and past meandering stone walls. There was a bleak emptiness to the land, Sophia thought to herself as she peered out the window into the mist. It was as if she were being driven to the farthest reaches of the earth.
Soon, they rounded a curve. James—who had been disconcertingly quiet since their arrival in Yorkshire—leaned forward in his seat and pointed. “There it is.”
A rush of anticipation burst forth in Sophia’s heart as she stretched to see her new home. It would be the core of her existence, where she would raise her children and be a loving wife to the man she adored. She promised herself she would be a charitable and devoted duchess for the good people of Yorkshire.
At last she ascertained a clear view of the estate. The castle loomed like a fortress at the top of a steep hill, beyond iron gates and a stout stone wall with crenellated parapets, battlement walks, and hexagonal belvedere towers. What a giant dragon it was in the distance!
She reached nervously for James’s hand and squeezed it. He gave her a small smile of encouragement, then turned his face away to look out the other window.
A short time later, they reached the gates, which had already been cast open for them. At the gatehouse, their coach came to a halt.
“Why are we stopping?” Sophia asked, watching a dozen or so men come darting toward them to unharness the team. It was all done in a matter of seconds, the gray horses were led away, and the men took hold of the poles to haul them the rest of the way. Sophia heard them grunt in unison as they pulled for the first time, to set the carriage in motion.
She laid a gloved hand upon her breast. “Oh my goodness, James, is this really necessary? You needn’t do this to impress me. I’m quite impressed already.”
“It’s not to impress you, my dear. It’s tradition.”
Tradition. She’d heard that word a great many times that day.
They embarked upon the final leg of the journey—a steep, bumpy hill up to the house—and Sophia felt her muscles tense in sympathy for these men who were dragging the carriage like mules!
She glanced at James, who was still looking off in the other direction, unaffected by any of this, it seemed.
They finally reached the front door of the massive stone castle—solid and imposing—and upon a closer look, stained black in places where the weather had been unforgiving over the years. Sophia’s sense of wonder and awe began to recede. Apprehension took its place. London balls and drawing rooms and lace-trimmed parasols suddenly seemed a thousand miles away from this place. Not that she wasn’t happy to be married to James, but the castle seemed less like a home and more like a Gothic museum—massive and sprawling and daunting.
Now she understood the gossip about ghosts.
Would there at least be a cozy corner somewhere, for her and James? A place to be a close-knit family when their children were born?
The servants were lined up on the front steps, steely-faced and silent as the wind tugged at the girls’ caps and the men’s lapels. They were all dressed the same: black uniforms and white aprons for the women, everyday black-and-white livery for the men. There was no cheering or flag-waving here. No generous, heartfelt gushing of welcomes or giggling chatter or warm hugs. Sophia felt very alone suddenly and out of her range of experience. She wished her sisters were here with her.
They were not, however, and she would have to learn to get along without them. Without her mother or her father—who used to snap his fingers, and with a laugh and a big bear hug, make everything better.
James helped her down from the carriage, and she walked past the men who had hauled them up the hill. Discreetly, she glanced at one of them. His eyes were lowered, his chest heaving, for he was out of breath, for good reason. His face was covered in a shiny film of perspiration. Sophia wanted to thank him, but he would not meet her gaze, and her instincts warned her that it would not be appropriate. She felt another wave of wariness spread through her.
You’re just nervous, she told herself. You are about to meet your mother-in-law and see your new home, and you’re worried they won’t approve of you, and surely everyone else is nervous, too.
James led her up the stone steps, between the rows of servants, none of whom offered the smallest welcoming smile. Even James seemed distant at that moment, avoiding her gaze, his expression serious. Sophia cleared her throat and stepped across the threshold.
Inside, more servants stood like soldiers in a straight line to greet their new duchess. Sophia smiled at them, then her attention was arrested by the great hall around her. Her gaze traveled up giant Corinthian columns to a towering cathedral ceiling, the walls made of enormous blocks of gray stone. There was a chill in the air as her heels clicked over the floor. She took a breath and hesitated. Still holding her hand, James stopped to look back at her questioningly.
Just then, Sophia noticed a woman emerge from the shadows at the base of the staircase. She was clearly not a servant, for she was dressed differently, but the drab color of her gown and the lack of jewels made Sophia wonder if perhaps she was the housekeeper. Her face was thin and the angle of her jaw, hard.
The woman walked toward Sophia and curtsied before her. James said matter-of-factly, “May I present my mother, Her Grace, the Dowager Duchess of Wentworth.”
Sophia’s eyes widened. “Oh!” she said with a smile, offering her hand. “Yes! It’s so nice to meet you at last! I hope you are feeling better.”
The woman rose from her curtsy, her expression edged with steel. Without responding to Sophia’s effervescent greeting, she simply said, “Welcome.”
James let go of Sophia’s hand and crossed the hall to stand beside an empty suit of armor.
A dark tension closed in around Sophia’s heart, coupled with a sudden fear that she had made a terrible mistake. Poor sweet Cinderella came to mind. What was Sophia doing here in this spooky old castle with these unsmiling strangers? Where were her sisters and her mother now? Had they left the country? Were they on a ship bound for America yet?
She turned her head then, toward the opposite side of the hall, and saw James, standing beside that steely suit of armor. Her prince. How handsome he looked. She told herself that he was her hearth and home now, and no matter what kind of house they lived in—whether they were rich or poor—her heart would forever be full of cheer because they were together.
At that moment, Sophia heard the fast clicking of heels down the staircase, and she turned to see Lily scurrying down in a blue-and-white-striped dress. As soon as she reached the ground floor, she slowed to a more ladylike pace and approached
Sophia, who exhaled a breath of relief to see a familiar face.
Lily curtsied. “Welcome, Duchess.” She gifted Sophia with an extravagant, twinkling smile. Lily wiped the smile away, however, as soon as she stepped back in view of her mother.
Sophia then understood the family dynamics at work here. All this cool detachment was for ceremony, and clearly, her mother-in-law was a strict woman, but behind closed doors, perhaps she would be more relaxed. Perhaps everyone would. Surely, their true personalities would surface then, and Sophia, over time, would come to know and care for them in a deeper, more intimate way.
She was handed over to the housekeeper, Mrs.Bealer, who stood at the front of the line. The stout little woman escorted Sophia up the stairs to the ducal rooms.
When she reached the top, she glanced down over the railing to where James had been standing—for one last look at his handsome face before she retired for the afternoon. She felt a ripple of disappointment, however, to discover that he was gone.
Chapter 15
Mere minutes after Sophia was shown to her rooms, the household—like a well-oiled machine—returned to its crank and turn, and she was left alone to take a much-needed and well-deserved nap. She had not been awake long, however, when the loud dinner gong sent its pompous call echoing off the stone walls of Wentworth Castle. Mildred had at least prepared her for it with a few simple words: “The family dresses formally for dinner, Your Grace. The dressing bell will ring at seven for dinner at eight.”
To Marry the Duke (American Heiress Trilogy Book 1) Page 12
