by Merry Farmer
The minister nodded and turned to Natalia. “And do you, Lady Natalia, take this man, Dr. Townsend, to be your lawfully wedded husband?”
Natalia clenched her jaw and pursed her lips as she stared up at Linus. Her eyes flashed with indignation, but also with thought and, Linus hoped, a little affection. She was hurt, but Linus hoped the pain could be healed. Natalia peeked sideways at Lord Malcolm—who watched the entire ceremony with his arms crossed and a stern scowl—before letting out a breath and turning back to Linus. “I do,” she said, although it sounded more like an admission of failure.
The minister looked uncertain, but nodded and smiled all the same. “Then by the power invested in me by God and the Holy Church, I now pronounce you man and wife.”
“Good,” Lord Malcolm snapped. “Thank God that’s settled. Come on, back to the castle.”
Linus gaped at him. He’d already leaned toward Natalia, intent on beginning their marriage with a kiss that he hoped she would see as a peace offering. But before he got a chance, Lord Malcolm slammed the marriage certificate on a corner of the altar and snapped his fingers for a pen so that all parties could sign it.
Once that was done, Linus and Natalia’s fates were well and truly sealed.
“We need to get back to the castle as soon as possible,” Lord Malcolm said. “I plan to return to London to apprise your mother of the situation as soon as possible,” he told Natalia.
“Lord Malcolm, I was wondering if I could have a word with you,” Linus’s father said, scurrying after Lord Malcolm as he strode down the aisle toward the door. “It’s about a certain endeavor that I am about to embark upon that I think you would be most interested in.”
Linus grimaced at his father’s boldness, but if the man was foolish enough to approach Lord Malcolm, he deserved what he got.
“I can vouch for the divinity of this endeavor, my lord,” Lady Darlington added, hurrying after the two.
Lady Phoebe remained behind, looking miserable, exhausted, and truly sorry for Natalia as she and Linus finished signing the marriage license. She even signed as a witness.
“I suppose we should follow them,” Natalia sighed, glancing from Phoebe to Linus. Her gaze lingered on Linus’s lips, as though she, too, felt the lack of a kiss to begin their marriage acutely.
“We should,” Linus said, offering her his arm.
The rain was still pouring down by the time they returned to Dunegard Castle, but it felt as though everything had changed.
“I suppose you’re going to lecture us about all the things we should be doing as a married couple and all the ways you think we should live our lives,” Natalia told Lord Malcolm with a saucy look as soon as they all dragged themselves, soaked and subdued, into the castle’s front hall.
Lord Malcolm glanced at her in surprise. “Why would I do that?”
“Because you’re an overbearing tyrant?” Natalia suggested.
Lord Malcolm shrugged. “You’re married now. My work is done. Do whatever you’d like now. I intend to take a long, hot bath and sleep until supper.” He gestured toward the butler, who was directing a pair of footmen to take everyone’s sodden coats.
“I would like a warm bath as well,” Lady Darlington spoke up, her face lighting with energy that had slowly drained on the ride home. She pushed Lady Phoebe aside, causing her to stumble, as she approached the butler. “If that could be arranged.”
“And when you are finished refreshing yourself,” Linus’s father said, crossing to her and taking her arm, “we can discuss plans for our future.”
Linus would have rolled his eyes, if he’d had any energy left with which to roll them. His plans weren’t as grand as bathing or napping. He just wanted to get out of his wet clothes and enjoy a moment or two of peace.
Even that wasn’t in the cards, though.
“What is this about you rushing off to get married?” Fergus demanded, both humor and genuine offense in his eyes as he rolled into the front hall, cutting off Linus’s path to the stairs.
“It was Lord Malcolm’s idea,” Linus sighed, rubbing a hand over his face.
“And he didn’t stop to think that I might want to attend?” Fergus went on. “That I might want to stand up with the man who has been such a good friend to me?”
Linus’s brow went up. “I didn’t realize you felt that way.”
“Of course, I do, you dolt.” Fergus grinned and rolled himself close enough to thump Linus’s arm. “Henrietta is put out as well. She’s insisting we have a small celebration tonight for the two of you.” He glanced past Linus to Natalia.
Natalia looked startled for a moment before shaking her head and continuing on to the stairs. “I don’t care what Henrietta wants to do as long as I can sleep for the rest of the afternoon in a warm, dry bed.” She stomped on to the stairs, leaving a trail of rainwater in her wake.
Linus glanced to Fergus with one eyebrow raised.
Fergus had the gall to laugh at him and thumped his arm again. “Well, if that’s not a fine way to start out a blissful union of two kindred souls, I don’t know what is.”
Drying off and sleeping for hours did nothing to improve the restless feeling in Natalia’s gut. It was a feeling that she should have been blissfully happy instead of empty and hollow. She was a married woman now. It was exactly what she’d longed for. On top of that, she’d managed to marry the man she’d thought she wanted, in spite of her parent’s objections. By any modern woman’s standards, she was triumphant.
But it felt wrong to be celebrated by Henrietta over a fine supper that evening. As delicious as the food Dunegard Castle’s staff had cooked for the occasion was, she couldn’t taste it. As much as everyone—except Lord Malcolm, of course—smiled at her and Linus, asking about their plans for the future, she felt as though she’d made a horrible mistake. But not the mistake she’d been convinced she was going to make on the island days before.
“Would you truly be content continuing to live under Lord and Lady O’Shea’s roof?” she asked Linus once the painful supper was concluded and the two of them headed upstairs to bed.
“Fergus wants me to stay on as his personal physician,” Linus explained with a shrug. “And if we do continue to stay with them, you’ll have the sort of roof over your head that you’re accustomed to.”
His consideration was sweet, but it made Natalia burn with shame. She stood by her determination that she had been raised in a certain way, to live a certain kind of life, but in the cold light of day, with time and distance between her and the argument they’d had on the island, she wondered if Linus might not have had a point after all.
“I will support whatever decision you want to make,” she sighed as they reached the upper hall.
She turned to go on to her bedroom, but Linus continued to hold her arm, which jerked her to a stop before she could get going. She turned to him with a questioning frown.
“You would really support me that way?” he asked, warmth in his eyes.
In a rush, Natalia remembered all the reasons she had fallen in love with him. He was different. He was kind. He was better than any other man of her acquaintance. And he had the most beautiful eyes.
But pride stopped her from melting into his arms like the ninny she’d been, up until a few days before. “Of course, I would support you,” she said. “I’m your wife now. That’s my duty.”
He arched an eyebrow. “Your duty?”
She blinked at him. “What else would it be?”
His grin grew, as if he thought she was the most amusing thing in the world. She wasn’t certain she liked it.
“Now, if you will excuse me, one small nap this afternoon was hardly enough to restore me. I’m going to bed.”
She tried to break away from him again, but still he held her arm.
“You’re forgetting,” he said, smiling even wider. “Our room is this way.” He pointed down the hall to the room he’d been given when they arrived.
Heat flooded through Natalia’s i
nsides, settling in delicious places that she would much rather it hadn’t, given she was more interested in being angry at the moment than feeling sensual. She tilted her chin up, doing her best to imitate her mother in a particularly stern mood. “Oh, yes. I suppose that is the way of things now. I do seem to recall a maid coming in to pack and transfer what few things I have with me when I came down for supper.”
Her heart raced as she glanced to Linus, waiting for him to make the next move.
“I’m glad that’s taken care of,” he said, escorting her on down the hall toward his room.
She watched him silently, wondering if he would demand his rights as her husband on their wedding night. As soon as they entered his room—their room—her heart beat double time. Her things had, indeed, been transferred. Her nightgown was draped across the foot of the room’s large bed, right beside his nightshirt. Several vases of hot-house roses had been placed around the room, including a scattering of rose petals on the coverlet. A fire burned cheerily in the grate, taking the chill and damp out of the room. The scene was blissful and cozy, and Natalia’s body responded to the sights, sounds, and scents of it in rebellious ways.
Worse still, Linus watched her as though calculating how the night would go.
No, what was even worse than that was that she didn’t know how she wanted the night to go. If she’d still been a virgin, it would have been one thing. But she knew how delicious Linus’s touch was and how perfect it felt to be filled and consumed by him. Surely that was something that could be enjoyed even if her heart was still furious with him. Her mother had always implied a woman didn’t have to be blissfully in love to enjoy being bedded by a man.
Linus cleared his throat and broke away from her, heading to the wardrobe. “Do you need help dressing for bed?” he asked without looking at her.
She noted that he hadn’t asked if she needed help undressing.
“No,” she said, launching into motion herself. She crossed to the bed, snatched her nightgown, then marched behind a tall screen in the corner of the room. “I’m perfectly capable of seeing to myself.”
“I don’t doubt you are,” he said. She could hear the sound of him shedding his clothes. They both continued the process of getting ready for bed in silence for a moment before he said, “I had high hopes that Lord Malcolm would put an end to my father’s plans the moment he caught wind of them, but he seems more interested in returning to London than anything else.”
“I’m not surprised,” Natalia said, shivering as she removed her evening gown and unhooked her corset. It made no sense to her that the simple act of undressing should cause her skin to prickle and her insides to quiver. Although, if she were honest with herself, that was a lie. She knew exactly why she felt all quivery inside.
“I suppose this means it will be up to you and I to stop my father from bilking Lady Darlington after all,” Linus went on.
An unexpected sense of purpose joined the fluttery, distracting sensations flying through Natalia. “Do you have something in mind?” she asked, shimmying out of her underthings and slipping into her nightgown.
“We have to expose him as the fraud he is,” he said. The sound of shifting material and the wardrobe door snapping shut hinted that he was finished changing as well. “As much as part of me wants to let the whole thing drop, wants to say that a woman like Lady Darlington gets what she deserves, I worry about Lady Phoebe.”
“So do I,” Natalia said with vigor, stepping out from behind the screen. Her heart fluttered as Linus glanced over his shoulder at her from the bed, which he was turning down. Her whole body heated at the smile he gave her.
“I’m glad you care so much about your friend,” he said, sliding between the sheets.
Natalia’s light heart thudded to her feet. That was all he had to say? That he was glad she cared about Phoebe? When she stood before him in nothing but her nightgown?
“I don’t truly know Phoebe that well,” she said, using the sting of his failure to notice her as a woman, as a bride, and letting it fuel her indignation over their whole, ignominious marriage. “Not very many people like her, you know. She’s been rather shunned from society of late.” She slipped into the opposite side of the bed from Linus, careful to leave several feet of bed and bed linens between them.
Linus frowned. “Why? She seems intelligent and agreeable to me, although somewhat timid.”
Prickles of jealousy raced down Natalia’s back. “Would you rather have married her?” she asked, against her better judgement.
“No,” Linus said without any artifice. “I prefer women with life and enthusiasm.”
His face flushed as he spoke. Or perhaps his flush was because of the way he raked her with a hungry glance. His gaze lingered on her chest for a moment before he shook himself and settled against the pillows behind him.
Natalia felt as hot as though she’d spent the last few days in the tropics instead of rainy Ireland. She didn’t have to be on the very best of terms with him to inch her way over to his side of the bed. If she were bold enough, she could straddle him, like the naughty drawings she and her friends had giggled over after finding them in her friend, Percy’s, brother’s room. She had enough personal knowledge now to fill in the blanks of what those pictures depicted. In fact, her sex ached at the idea of mounting him that way and riding him until they were both satisfied.
She scooted subtly closer to him, her heart racing.
“What we need to do,” Linus said with a frown, “is expose my father as the charlatan he is before Lady Darlington gives him any more than her attention. Honestly, the best way to do that is to give him enough rope to hang himself with.”
Disappointment dampened the growing fire within Natalia. “What do you mean by that?”
Perhaps if she reached out for him, he would grasp what she wanted from him.
“If he felt as though he were winning, as though his community might actually form, he might get sloppy with Lady Darlington,” Linus said, staring up at the canopy above them.
The idea of the older Dr. Townsend getting sloppy with Lady Darlington extinguished every last ounce of passion Natalia had within her. She flopped against the pillows herself.
“How are you going to find enough people to make your father think his plan is succeeding who aren’t actually interested in what he’s trying to do?” she asked, disappointment making her drowsy.
“I’m not sure,” Linus said in a distant voice.
He continued to stare up at the canopy for a few more minutes before dragging his gaze down to hers. She turned her head to meet that gaze. A bolt of excitement shot through her at the clear hunger in his eyes. She might not have had the experience of her mother or Bianca, but she knew what that look in a man’s eyes meant.
She held her breath, hoping and praying that he would do something about what he was obviously feeling, that he would reach for her. If he did, she would tumble into his arms without a second thought. She held her breath, bristling with need.
“Well, good-night, then,” he said before twisting to the side to extinguish the lamp on the bedside table.
Natalia’s heart sank. “Good-night,” she said, pulling the bedcovers up to her neck.
It certainly wasn’t the wedding day she’d always dreamed of, even if the groom was the man she thought she wanted.
Chapter 16
Linus awoke the next morning with the deep-seated feeling that something wasn’t right. His mind instantly went to work trying to figure out what that was before he rolled over and began to stretch himself out of sleep.
Instantly, he bumped into Natalia lying in bed beside him, and memories of the day before, their wedding day, returned to him. He sucked in a breath and scooted to the side, trying not to touch her or disturb her sleep. It was no use, though. He’d bumped her hard enough that she grunted and woke up as well.
The urge to reach for her, to pull her into his arms, press her body against his, and kiss her into full wakefulness washed over
him. She was his wife now, and he had every right to follow the dictates of his heart and body. But he restrained himself, especially when Natalia’s sleepy expression hardened into a confused frown. He had no idea where he stood with her. Was their fractured relationship on the mend after the forced wedding, or were they still at war?
“Oh,” she said softly, letting go of a moment of tension that had seized her. “That’s right.” Her frown softened as she closed her eyes again and snuggled against the pillow. A moment later, they snapped open once more, and she stared straight at Linus. “Oh,” she repeated more ominously.
“Good morning,” he said, feeling lame for it, but not knowing what else to say.
She hesitated, pulling the sheets around herself, before replying, “Good morning.”
Linus could feel the chasm between them. He wanted desperately to close it, to go back to the island where everything had fallen apart so that he could find some other way to express himself. The things he wanted for himself and for Natalia had seemed so clear and obvious on the island and before. A simple, normal life hadn’t felt like too much to ask for. But in the past few days, he had started to see that a normal life just wasn’t in the cards for him. It never had been.
“Are you feeling rested enough to put our plan to defeat my father and save Lady Darlington and Lady Phoebe from ruin into action?” he asked. His father was the one who had doomed him to forever live on the outskirts of society, after all.
Natalia blinked. She studied him for a moment as though there were something she wanted to say to him. Though the only thing that came out of her mouth was, “How do we even start?”
That was as much of an invitation as any for Linus to sit up, swing his legs over the side of the bed, and get up to start the day.
“I’m not sure,” he said as he walked to the corner of the room where a chamber pot sat behind a screen. “I think the best course of action is to get dressed and go downstairs to assess the situation as it stands today. And perhaps Fergus has some suggestions of how we can dupe my father into thinking he’s succeeded.”
