The Wedding

by Edith Layton

  But she pulled back and looked at him gravely and fearfully. “Truly, Crispin?” she asked, unable and afraid to believe in such an ending to her sorrow and loneliness. “Truly?” she asked, touching his lips with trembling fingertips, as though she might only be sure of finding the truth that way. He kissed her fingers and then found her lips again, and kissed her until she no longer cared about anything else.

  His kisses were sweet but urgent—harder and softer, longer and deeper than they’d ever been. And his hands roved everywhere. When he opened his shirt to get closer to her, she was so entranced by the soft curling hair on his hard-muscled chest that she couldn’t stop touching and petting it. He lifted his head from her breast, and laughed low in his throat.

  “Now who’s the little cat?” he said.

  She didn’t know exactly how they got her out of all her clothing. It required effort and cooperation and haste, she knew that. She remembered how they tore her hoop away and how he slipped off her garters and rolled down her stockings, following the slide of the silk with his hands, and the look in his eyes as he did it. She would never forget that. But she recalled little else besides his kisses and caresses and the scent and feel of him.

  And so she only realized she had completely undressed when she discovered herself sitting in her bed watching Crispin extract himself entirely from his shirt—the last thing he wore. But she had no time to think, and when he turned toward her, she gasped.

  This thing they were about to do was real, and she had real fears about it. But not about him. She’d never seen anything like him. He was lean and muscled, his chest wide, his stomach flat, his limbs long and graceful. He was as beautiful as he was unexpected. That part of him rose up to her gaze, long and supple, an ivory and coral column.

  “What is it?” he asked gently, pausing, seeing her sudden doubt.

  “I was about to ask you that,” she said with a nervous laugh, hiding her face in his chest. He smelled like herbs and soap, and himself, and she shuddered with expectation as much as fear.

  He smiled at her shyness and lifted her head in both his hands, tilting it so he could see her expression clearly. “Are you sure this is what you want, Dulcie? Because I am telling you now that if we go any further, I won’t be able to stop…I want you so much.”

  She nodded. He drew the bed curtains halfway closed, but they could still see well enough. He came to her, and she wished she had something equally beautiful as his body to show him. But he gazed at her tilted breasts and then followed the arc of her ribs down to her gently rounded stomach, and his eyes glowed. Her hand went to the thatch of curls at the apex of her thighs, to conceal it. It was too private, too vulgar, she thought. But he picked up her hand and smiled, and replaced it with his own. She lay back as he nudged her down onto the bed, and she shivered in his arms.

  She was beautiful everywhere, just as he’d known she would be. Her breasts, high and shapely, were infinitely sweet to his taste. Her legs were slender and curved and smooth to his touch. Her grace and delicate shyness enthralled him. She was elegant in her response, eager but gentle. She charmed him, even in the tumult of his need, and though he knew he should go slowly, he couldn’t think anymore; he could only feel, and he tried to make her feel the same way.

  He was successful, for she thought of nothing but sensations. She was very cold, and his mouth was a fire at which she warmed herself. Then she was hot, but when he lifted his body from hers for a moment to adjust their position, she felt chilled without him. She wished she could touch him as he touched her, but a flood of sensations overwhelmed her, and she could only lie back, amazed at his knowledge, yearning to know more. Sometimes she shrank away because his touch was too new, and when his hand moved between her thighs and then inside her, she drew back.

  “No,” he said, breathlessly, “you’ll like this, I promise.”

  She was unable to protest because she hadn’t the breath or the sense left to do it.

  When she felt she could bear no more, and wanted to bear more, and all her thoughts were a jumble, he kissed her and moved over her. She felt the wonderful strength of him against every inch of her. When she felt unexpected pain, she gasped and tried to draw back. But before she could move, he had his arms tightly around her and was whispering comforting words to her.

  He paused. “Oh, Dulcie,” he sighed, his damp forehead against her own. “I’m sorry. I know it hurts, but it will pass, please trust me. Let me show you,” he said, as he began moving again, bringing jolts of fire as he probed deeper, losing all control. He was one with his pleasure now and couldn’t stop. He was driven, his body a hammer, until he was gripped by an ecstasy so keen it looked to her as if he was in pain. She felt his pleasure and yet she felt regret when he groaned and slumped against her, exhausted.

  He was instantly contrite. “Dulcie,” he said, gathering her in his arms. “I wanted so much for this to be perfect for you, but I felt so overwhelmed. It gets better, I promise. You’ll see.”

  “It wasn’t awful,” she said, but so doubtfully that he winced.

  “You are a terrible liar,” he sighed, holding her close. “Is that sort of talk your idea of making love to me?” she asked.

  She felt his body shake with laughter. “Oh, Dulcie,” he said as his hands caressed her, “how is it that you bring me as much laughter as pleasure?”

  “Did I bring you pleasure?” she asked, eager for his approval.

  “Entirely, Dulcie,” he whispered into her hair. “Sweetly, and generously, and completely. Thank you, my lady.” His arms went around her again and did not loosen, even in sleep.

  Dulcie was too pleased to sleep, so she curled up against him instead, and sighed at how right it felt—as though she had come home at last.

  *

  “I don’t care,” the lady said, turning away and fanning herself. “He is married. I am not. As far as I am concerned, he is dead.”

  “He still lives. He was married under false pretenses. The point, my dear,” the lanky gentleman told the lady, “is that we have little time and much to do. Granted, you detest me. Given, I dislike you. But we both wish to save Crispin from the clutches of the little jailbird. So, then, I ask you, will you cooperate with me, or will you not?”

  “How do you know it isn’t already too late?” Lady Charlotte asked.

  “Because,” the earl of Wrede said, “it is never too late to redress a wrong. We have the means and the power, and she is nobody.”

  “Why should he repudiate her?” she asked with a show of disbelief, but with hope that he had an answer. “She is young and passing fair, and not without wit.”

  “Yes, but I know Crispin. He is sensual, but his passions are fleeting.”

  “He is honorable,” she argued.

  “She is not. Is it dishonorable for him to admit that he made a mistake?”

  “You interest me,” the lady said, turning to face him at last. “Go on.”

  CHAPTER 14

  The maid sat at the far end of the long gallery, close enough to see what her lady and the tall gentleman were doing but too far away to hear what they said. It was a very long hall in a fine house, and the two gentlepersons in it suited its grandeur as much as the portraits that frowned down from the high walls. The lady wore a voluminous sack gown of ivory with yards of precious blond lace at its waist and sleeves.

  The two drifted through the hall, still talking, while the maid dozed with her eyes open, as she’d learned to do. She was there for propriety’s sake, after all, only to be seen, not to hear or be heard.

  Charlotte looked at the earl of Wrede with equal parts suspicion and distaste. That was how she had always looked at him. He was oddly attractive in his saturnine way, and he was very wealthy and wise, but he left her unmoved. Still, he was Crispin’s friend, and so she had to be civil to him. Perhaps, she thought now, eyeing him over her fan, they didn’t get on because they were too much alike.

  “But of course,” Wrede said silkily now, “if you prefer
to forget the matter and wed Prendergast after all, there’s nothing for me to do but wish you joy. You will invite me to the wedding, will you not?”

  He looked at her shrewdly, and she damned his eyes. He knew that Prendergast was much less attractive to her now that she could no longer use him to make Crispin jealous. She had always wanted Crispin. She had led him a merry dance, but that was just her way. Things fell flat when there was no friction, and life was too short to be dull.

  She’d accepted that she had to give Crispin up when he lost his money. It was unfortunate, but she was a mistress of reality. Her options were very simple, her life lay clear ahead of her. There was no way she could share his poverty, but she had consoled herself by thinking how she would share herself and some of her money with him after she’d married the way society and her upbringing demanded. Of course she had expected to get him back again when she heard he’d recovered his fortune.

  It was unthinkable that she should not, and wrong that the little adventuress had caught him first. More than wrong, it was criminal, and painful, because she had no way to fight back. Until now. Perhaps.

  “No, I’ve no immediate plans to wed Prendergast,” she said, and turned aside so she wouldn’t see Wrede’s mocking smile.

  “Ah,” he said, and strolled on with her, his hands locked behind his back.

  “What have you in mind?” she was forced to ask when he said nothing more.

  “A great many things,” he answered with that same smile.

  “If you want to fight with me, I’ll oblige you,” she said, “but I thought you came for my cooperation. I assume you’ll need it. I know you’re all-powerful, Wrede, but it does appear that you’ll need me—as bait for a trap perhaps?”

  “If it was Crispin I wished to trap—perhaps. Just perhaps, of course,” he added to make her fume and stir the air angrily with her fan, “but I don’t think you would appeal to her.”

  “Cut line,” she snapped. “What does appeal to her? Money? I have that, but so do you. You didn’t come to me for that. What is it you want of me?”

  “Just your awareness of my game. And your word that you won’t plunge headlong into marriage with anyone else just yet.”

  “I see. Do you want me to become a nun? Or merely take a vow of celibacy? For how long? Twenty years? Done. Anything for love.” She laughed without humor.

  “Don’t be absurd,” he said with a withering glance that silenced her. “Listen. I cannot tell you all, but I can tell you something: the marriage may not be permanent. There may be a way out of it.”

  “Does Crispin want a way out of it?” she asked bitterly.

  Wrede stared down at her from his great height. “You are jesting, surely,” was all he said, but it made her smile, and her spirits rose.

  “Why can’t you tell me more?” she asked, as wary of him as ever. Her doubt was clear in every line of her posture and expression.

  He sighed. “Because you are a woman, and women love gossip. Men do too, but we are cumbered with a code of honor. I have not noticed such a code among members of your sex. This information isn’t for others’ ears, no matter how delicious the gossip would be. And ladies of fashion, I fear, have long tongues.”

  “I see,” she said, as slow rage burned in her. But she was a woman in a man’s world and had learned to control her rage long years before. The earl might be feared for his rapier wit, but hers was no less deadly. Nonetheless, she was a lady. She couldn’t use aggression as openly as he, and so she had other weapons at her disposal. Silence was the last and most effective refuge of the weak as well as the strong. “Very well,” she said and began to walk away from him, down the long hall. “If you cannot talk, I cannot listen. Good afternoon, my lord.”

  His long legs took him to her side in seconds. “Do you promise to keep silent, then?” he asked. “Swear it on your honor, if you have it. Or on your life, if you don’t believe me when I say this goes no further. I am quite serious.”

  She stared up at him, her anger warring with her curiosity.

  “This is very important, Charlotte,” he said. “I do not jest now. I haven’t been sworn to silence myself, only because I suppose Crispin has known me long enough to trust me. Ordinarily I would tell no one and he knows that. But these are not ordinary times. I have to help him, and only you can help me. Your spreading the tale would only make matters worse for him—and for whatever ambitions for him you might still cherish. So, before I say another word, I need your vow of silence.”

  “You have it,” she said at once. She would have sworn to anything to hear what Wrede had to say.

  “Now,” he said quickly and quietly, “listen. It was a Fleet wedding—”

  She gasped and he shot her a furious look. “Are you going to keep interrupting?” he said savagely. She fell still, but her round blue eyes were wide with shock, and her hand remained over her mouth.

  He went on, glaring at her to warn her against interrupting. “I’ll spare you the details. The prison wench trapped him in bizarre fashion. You may let your imagination run rampant, I assure you that you’ll not be far off the mark, whatever you conclude. He did not truly intend to marry her, that I will tell you. And he’s been racking his brain for a way to free himself of her—until recently. Recently I fear he has begun to accept the situation. Worse, I fear he may yet come to accept her as his wife.

  “But there is a chance…for now, however, we must keep the hope of freedom alive in him. This is where you are important. So long as you remain unwed, his hope of reclaiming you will remain alive. The thought of being wed to you may help him keep her at arm’s length. Failing that, it may overcome any qualms he might feel if we are successful in freeing him from the wench. He has a conscience, does our Crispin. I lament it, but it’s why we’re friends, I suppose. I find him unique. I know his history, and history sheds light on a man’s character.

  “He’s easily bored,” the earl went on pensively. “He may hope to make the best of it now, but there’s nothing but lust and pity in this union for him. When the lust fades, so will the pity, I think. Men have wed beneath themselves, for money or for love—look at Trencher and that actress, or Bradford and his wife, who was once his mistress. Those women came from nowhere and are recognized everywhere now. Those marriages were shocking at first, but we are an enlightened society, after all. Noblemen have married merchants’ daughters, millers’ daughters, even actors’ daughters. But not felons’ daughters. At least, not convicted felons. That, never.

  “It’s more than her not being his kind. Where is the love? Where is the passion? Where is the meeting of minds? This union was only the result of a passion for money. It was the work of crafty minds. No. This marriage is outrageous. Even if Crispin thinks to accept it now, why should he have to endure a lifetime of misery because of a fleeting fancy? Crispin’s passions have always been short-lived. She won’t enchant him for long—no female ever has, except you, and I assume that’s because he hasn’t had you.”

  She glowered at him. It would have been useless to play an outraged innocent maiden with Wrede. She might remain chaste until she was wed, but there was nothing she didn’t know and little she hadn’t said, for a jest, or for the sake of good gossip, and Wrede knew it.

  “Yes,” he said, unmoved by her silent fury, “that’s precisely why I believe Crispin hasn’t gotten over you. Your aloofness would explain his sustained interest. He never finds the prey as interesting as the chase, or satisfaction as glorious as anticipation. He may deny it, but I know him well—better than he knows himself.”

  “Which is how you think you know everyone,” she muttered, unable to stop herself.

  He either didn’t hear her or didn’t bother to answer, but went on. “He may not have cluttered up his estate with Gothic ruins, as is the current craze, but Crispin is a Romantic, and this girl won’t keep him fascinated for very long. But if you were to wed… Men do strange things for revenge. He may decide to remain in that foul marriage no matter how many a
venues of escape are open to him, just to show you how content he is—if you marry another.”

  “And if I do not?”

  “Ah, then there are possibilities. No one approves of these sordid Fleet marriages. There is proposed legislation afoot. These things move slowly, I grant, but it will happen. Too much money is being lost when pauper brides hand over their debts to nonexistent husbands. The situation can’t last long. Money likes to remain at home, and wherever there’s a leak, you may be sure the government will plug it up—when it notices. It’s like pricking an elephant: it takes a long time for the beast to realize that it’s bleeding. There are, however, other things we might do—like separate Crispin from the girl, for a start.”

  “I see. You want to send in some of her naughty friends from the Fleet to throw a sack over her and carry her off?” she said, only half joking.

  “Alas, abduction has already been tried by lower minds than ours. No. Absolutely not,” he said. “Not only would that be difficult, but it would run counter to our cause. Crispin would grieve. Nothing fosters love like forcible separation. Haven’t your novels taught you that? No, not abduction. But comparison might do what separation can’t.”

  “Very well, I’ll go there,” Charlotte agreed eagerly. It was a confrontation she was sure she couldn’t lose.

  “No, no,” Wrede said wearily. “That would frighten the girl, rouse Crispin’s protective instincts, and end badly, I assure you. But I do think that if he could see you again, in a different setting, it would help. If he could be away from her for a while and see what he’s missing. If we could arrange for him to see her in his natural element, after they’d been parted for a while. That might do it. And that might buy me time to push and wheedle and pay in the right quarters, to get the carcass of government to sit up and take notice.