The Bewildered Bride (Advertisements for Love)

by Vanessa Riley

  How could I explain my fears for him, for us? I bit my lip and closed my eyes for a moment. “You shared so much, last night.”

  “Yes, we did, my love.” He brushed my mouth, handling me like a fine crystal goblet. The taste of him almost succeeded in distracting me, but this argument was too important.

  “I wasn’t talking about that. The conspiracy with your uncle. I’m scared. I couldn’t wait. I had to see you. We’ve only been married five days.”

  “And four glorious nights. This fortnight of eloping from London was the best time in my life. I have you, my queen, at last.”

  He was back to kissing me again, smooth and gentle, each moment like a first, like a good last time.

  His lips won. My fears disappeared. I stretched and wrapped my arms about his neck.

  I’d never felt so much or so deeply. Every time he touched me, the more in love, the more in want, the more lost, I became.

  “We haven’t started living our happily-ever-after. Only death shall part us, nothing else. I’ll always be yours, Ruth. Always.”

  He pulled a sliced document from his pocket and stuffed it in the lining of my trunk. “But you are right. We’re not safe. The innkeeper’s upset is the beginning. He may alert someone. My cousin Nickie warned me that Uncle won’t be stopped this time.”

  Adam put my hands in his. His skin was warm but his palms damp. “If anything happens to me, you need this piece of the registry. Take it to my father, Wycliff. He’ll take care of you.”

  “Who?”

  “It’s on the paper.”

  “Adam, what’s this all about? Is that half our marriage registry?”

  He stuffed my trunk into the carriage. “Yes. My half is already on the way to my father’s.”

  “Something is wrong. Why would your cousin go against his own papa? That’s nonsensical.”

  “I saved Nickie, Nicholas’s life. He almost drowned. We have an amiable relationship. Hopefully that will be enough.”

  Adam examined me anew.

  My wrinkled, misbuttoned dress made me tug at my shawl. I hid behind my folded arms.

  “Ruth, my dearest, you didn’t wear a coat. It’s October. The slight wind has caused your shivers.”

  That wasn’t it, but I’d already learned to lie. “Too much in a rush.” I said. “I didn’t bring one from home.”

  He unlaced his cape and placed it about me.

  The velvet shrouded me, splashing down like ebony ink. “Papa would approve of your fabric.”

  He pulled the cape tighter about my shoulders. “The fabric king. Mr. Croome is one of the best in the trades.”

  Adam’s sigh was hot on my cheek, the inch of my neck I offered.

  “The night’s chill will make you ill. And I’ve upset you with my crazed talk.”

  My fear of being found weak made me grasp tighter to his lapels. “You have to tell me everything. I’m not a wilting daisy.”

  “But you like daisies.”

  Adam pried my hands free and held them to his bony chest.

  In my head, I stroked the birthmark, the strawberry shape below his throat. Such an intimate thought. It made me giggly to know so much of him.

  “Up you go, my lady.” He lifted me into the well-lit carriage.

  He knew I liked the light, liked how it made things feel safe and confined and cozy.

  “Ruth, we are dusting our feet of this place.”

  Despite being so thin, thin like he had a worm, as Mama would say, Adam was strong and wonderful in every other way, so kind and handsome with his short-cropped wavy hair.

  He climbed inside but kept his hands to his knees. He didn’t tap the roof. “I wish there had been another way to marry. Something that would’ve garnered your parents’ blessings. You may need them if things don’t go well. But I must do what is right for my father. My uncle has embezzled from him and others. I made copies of the ledgers. Uncle Soulden and his business partner forged initials to the transactions to look as if my father is the thief. It’s not right. Righteousness must win against the darkness.”

  I tried to ignore the scary words in his speech like embezzled and forged and don’t-go-well. I needed to make a joke like Adam always did. “That vicar training in you is too strong, but maybe it blesses us.”

  “My father’s fault. When he took me to St. George’s, all those bright stained-glass panes never left me. But I am to be a gentleman running his estates, financing his business interests. You think you will enjoy being a gentlewoman, having parties?”

  “My mama will appreciate that.”

  His face became more serious. The little lines around his dimples eroded to a frown. “What if you have to sit at the back of St. George’s with the servants, because someone like the innkeeper can’t imagine you are my wife?”

  We were the same, but Adam’s light skin gave him access to that different world, one where even Croome money couldn’t buy entry.

  I clasped his hand, my darker palm over his. “We’ll figure everything out. I’m happy to be Mrs. Adam Wilky.”

  After patting my fingers like the patronizing fellow he could be, he leaned back and folded his arms with the panache of a peer, far above a mere rich man’s son. “Last chance, my Ruthy, my dearest darling. I know we are only a few hours from London, but we could turn around and head to Scotland. I’ll spoil you rotten there. It’ll be better until Nickie tells me the danger has passed. I can decipher the ledgers in peace.”

  “We must go to my parents, so they know I’m safe. I have to let them know what we’ve done.”

  “Not everything we’ve done, my dear. Some secrets should remain between husband and wife.”

  Oh, Adam. His wicked smile, his sing-song voice. “How can you get me so worked up fearing for our lives and then try to make me laugh?”

  His soulful eyes, luscious and dark, beamed. “You need to be happy. You deserve it. I’m most fortunate to have your love. Any chance I could seduce you on a grassy knoll by some babbling Scottish brook? It would be safer, Ruth. So much safer.”

  “To London, sir.”

  He closed his eyes and became stiff. “What Ruthy wants, Ruthy gets. Then to London we go, and we shall hope for the best.”

  He bounced out, gave instructions to his driver, then slipped back inside. This time he sat next to me and looped his hands with mine.

  I rested against him, leaning into his shoulder. His sweet scent, the Bay Rum, made breathing easier. Oh, how I loved it, loved him.

  As the Croomes’ wild child, I had my wildest dream in Adam Wilky.

  A glance at Adam’s perspiring brow sent a chill down my spine, one that didn’t stop until it froze my toes.

  Adam wasn’t convinced that London was the right decision, but he’d given in to me.

  Maybe once we were settled and living a quiet married life, he could finally be comfortable.

  “We may struggle a bit.” His voice was low, each word perfectly formed as if he’d thought and thought again about what to say.

  “You don’t have to be so careful with me. I married you for you.”

  “Ruth, there are so many things I’ve yet to say.” He stretched and again threaded his fingers with mine. “My father wasn’t happy at me demanding to marry you. He’d picked out an heiress, a Mayfair neighbor’s daughter.”

  I reared back, smiling big and proud. “I’m an heiress. When my papa calms down, you could discuss a dowry.”

  “No, Ruth. I don’t want his money. My father begrudges me nothing, but he wants me to have a safe life. He wants me to assimilate into the Ton, to pass for something I’m not. He’d hate me having to sneak you into inns or seeing you sit in the rear of St. George’s.”

  The passion, the angst in his voice barely masked his pain, feelings he’d never expressed. He’d always had jokes and punny phrases.

  “Adam, you’re working yourself up. What is it that you are trying to say? You’re unhappy with me? You already have regrets?”

  “Never think th
at. I could die a thousand times and will awaken in glory always loving you. I think I’ve outwitted Uncle Soulden. We just need to be undetected a little longer so my father can dismantle the dangerous man’s business.”

  My husband was trying again to dissuade me, but this tactic wouldn’t work. I’d offer him a compromise. “Once we see my parents, we can leave. You can take me anywhere. I’ll go anywhere with you.”

  “No one can see us but your parents. My sister Cicely has been sent away to school to keep her safe while my father seeks legal redress against Uncle Soulden.”

  There he was using those big words, biting that wonderfully soft lip which he should save for kissing. My husband, thoughtful, educated, and in love with me. That was all that mattered. “Our love is enough. We can do anything.”

  I smoothed my hands against his waistcoat. “Always so serious, always checking corners, watching for evil that never comes. You’ll fret yourself into a head of gray hair, or worse, it will all fall out.”

  His tell-tale full lips drooped into a deeper frown. “You wouldn’t adore me if I were bald?”

  “Of course I would.”

  He smiled for a moment, then peeked out the window.

  Were we being followed?

  “Adam, when will joy hit you? I’ve spent five days as Mrs. Adam Wilky. I’m happy.”

  He retook my palm and played with my thumb.

  My heart beat like a drummer boy.

  “Sorry. I’m going to be like this until we get to London, see your parents, then disappear. Then you’ll promise to listen to my cautions.”

  “Yes.”

  “No more making me rethink my plans?”

  “Why would I agree to that? You need someone to keep you from brooding.”

  A hiss siphoned through his lips and fluttered one of my drooping curls.

  “Brooding but lovable.” Adam embraced me, wrapping his rail-thin arms about my waist. “I love you. I’ll love you forever.”

  “When we settle, sir, point me to a kitchen. I’m going to fatten you up, make you overflow with happiness and tender beefsteak. You’ll never regret choosing me, to live like me. And I’m going to do my best to keep you distracted from nonsense.”

  “You will, aye?” He kissed my nose. “Ruth Elizabeth, my loosey-goosey Ruthy, my queen. You’re my heaven. How can I fear anything when you finally promised to be mine?”

  His head dipped. I sniffed more of his savory cologne and the daisies I so loved.

  Then he took my lips.

  His kiss made everything right.

  Our happy forever had begun.

  Chapter Three

  A Groom’s Hell

  An hour of travel.

  So close to London.

  The man who moved under the discreet name of Adam Wilky, Chatsworth Adoniram Wilkinson, had entered hell.

  His carriage careened off the road after being chased by bandits. His driver ran off at the sound of flintlocks belching, boom, boom, boom.

  The assassins dragged Adam from his carriage, separating him from his wife, his poor, hysterical Ruth.

  The terror in her voice was so heavy, and awful, and gutting.

  How could someone not help her?

  How could they do this?

  “Let us go!” He said the words even as they bound him with more ropes, even as Ruth sobbed and shrieked louder.

  He needed to break free and hold her one last time, to lie to her sweetly that they would be freed, unharmed, anything to stop those tears.

  But Adam knew he would die.

  He just wanted Ruth to live. “Let her go. She’s nothing to this.”

  His answer—a club cracked across his face. Wham.

  Dizzy, falling to the ground, he saw four men, two fast ones and two lumbering, slow ones, strike him again and again.

  The lumbering ones.

  A sense of knowing them punched through him, but it was hard to tell with his eye swelling.

  Fists and sticks continued pummeling his flesh. The scent of his sweat and blood stung his nostrils, but he stayed close to the lead man. He’d know the name of his killers. Then he’d pray for them to rot in hell.

  Blam. A blow to his jaw.

  The world grew black for a moment, then snapped back. Uncle’s ring. These were no bandits looking for gold.

  Uncle Soulden.

  A dying man should think of salvation, but all Adam could muster was the hope for vengeance, vengeance now, or in eternity, or both.

  Holy righteous anger coursed through him.

  The desire to be a flame to burn them up made him lunge at them. These evil men needed to be consumed with the hellfire flooding in his veins.

  He punched back and dragged off the sack covering Uncle’s face. “Uncle, how dare you?”

  A few henchmen stopped kicking Adam.

  Maybe they could be swayed. “I’m the son of a peer. Let us go, and he’ll pay your ransom.”

  “Adam, help!” Ruth screamed and kept crying out his name. “Don’t kill Adam. Stop beating him.”

  He squinted and saw men holding her back. His Ruth!

  “Let her go, then do your worst.”

  Adam shouted the words again, tossing them over his swollen lips. “She’s just a woman. Nothing to this.”

  “Nothin’ but a witness.”

  The voice was a confirmation. Nacknel, a ship captain, Uncle’s fixer. Was the lumberer in the back Johnson, Uncle’s partner in his firm?

  Adam seized a breath. Emboldened like his father, he jerked up. “How dare you? I’m the son of a peer. The wages of sin is your death. Don’t add to your judgment by killing innocents.”

  Someone shoved him, but the laughter had stopped.

  There were at least one or two men who might fear judgment.

  Soulden wiped his hands of Adam’s blood. “Finish him.”

  “What’s the matter, Uncle? Not man enough to do it yourself?”

  “The ledgers, boy. We know you copied them. Where are they?”

  “Don’t know what you mean, Uncle. Beating me or her won’t make me remember.”

  Dark hair and eyes, the man shouldn’t look anything like Adam’s father, but he did.

  Uncle spit on him.

  Adam couldn’t wipe his face. The ropes to his neck kept him from even brushing against his jacket. The high-collared knot of his cravat was probably the only thing keeping him from suffocating. “Your fellow embezzler. Show your face. Let me know who’s to blame.”

  Soulden picked up a stick and cracked it across Adam’s back. “Tie him good, Nacknel. I don’t want to hear his voice again.”

  “Lord Wycliff!” Adam shouted the name three times. “He’ll pay a ransom if you let us live. The truth will out.”

  Adam lunged again. He was thin, but strong like a lion. He headbutted one of them. The man fell to the ground.

  Curses and orders ensued.

  Wrenching an arm free, Adam scrambled. Pow. He punched one man in the nose then rammed closer to Ruth, almost near enough to wrench her away.

  His effort was for naught.

  A henchman seized him again, the ropes growing tighter and tighter about his neck, dragging him back.

  The distance between Adam and Ruth was like a river, wide and flowing with his blood.

  Another punch landed on his gut, doubling him over.

  That poor organ, that wise organ. He should’ve listened.

  Lord, he knew better.

  Ruth’s happiness had been his weakness. Now it would be his death.

  Blam. A knock upside his head spun him to the left.

  Adam coughed then vomited.

  Swoop.

  He wouldn’t beg.

  He refused to scream. “To hell with you all.”

  He didn’t recognize what was left of his voice, harsh and guttural. The ropes burned and cut more into his flesh.

  “Adam!”

  His Ruth sounded so frightened, so lost and hurting.

  For her—he’d steal, he’
d wither, he’d beg. “Let her go.” He reared up. “I could get you money.”

  Another blow was his answer. He sank again to one knee.

  Then the fiends mocked him. They’d sell him like an enslaved man.

  Adam was enslaved to none but Ruth’s love. She was all he needed. If he’d not given in to what she’d wanted, this one time…

  No. No, this was his fault.

  She screamed, and he dragged his captors to reach her.

  Adam was wild, clawing and scratching and flinging his fists.

  But the ropes about his neck dug in deeper. He could barely breathe.

  She yelled his name and begged for his life.

  He tried to tell her he loved her, but words and air couldn’t both exist in his throat.

  Then some fool hit her across the skull with her trunk.

  She sank to her knees then sprawled headlong into the dirt.

  Her curly hair was matted in blood.

  Her beautiful body convulsed then stopped moving.

  Adam stretched, linking his fingers with hers, and touched a lock of her curly hair for a last time.

  A shadow covered him.

  A gun butt cracked his skull.

  Stars and blackness draped him.

  Better to die than to live without Ruth’s love.

  Chapter Four

  March 12, 1822, London, England

  No baby, no whoring, no, none of these things for me.

  I wasn’t pregnant, nor any of the horrid remarks my mother’s knitting circle had insinuated for the past two hours.

  My special punishment, my personal reminder of hell for loving Adam Wilky.

  Tuesdays.

  Tuesdays were when the dragons gathered.

  Mama’s gossipy friends visited in her parlor at our family’s townhouse at Nineteen Fournier Street. They were the dragon council, gossips who breathed fire with their snide comments, especially when Mama left the room. Thank goodness she was here.

  “Mrs. Croome,” Mrs. Carter said. She was Mama’s oldest, dearest, and meanest friend. “You putting t’ings together the menu for Ruth’s upcoming wedding breakfast? Her second wedding should be nice, like a first.”

  “Ruth and her barrister are still getting to know one another,” Mama said. “We shall have to see.”