A Groom of One's Own

by Maya Rodale

She felt his touch in a hot, wonderful way she had never before experienced. This was desire.

  Fighting her instincts, she took a step back. He followed. Her back was up against the wall, and he was trapping her against it.

  It was not at all unpleasant.

  “Unless . . .” she offered, grasping his shirt in her fists and aching to raise her lips to his. His hands grasped her hips and with an exquisite lack of speed, slowly skimmed up to her waist, and higher still, spurring a trail of deliciously wicked sensations.

  “There is nothing I can do, Sophie.” The pain of his words clashed with the pleasure of his hands upon her.

  “I don’t think that’s true,” she challenged. He was a man, a double duke. Surely there was something he could do—if he wanted her enough. Unless he did not, but if so, what was he doing here, holding her and having this conversation with her?

  Such thoughts, and his touch made her dizzy.

  He wanted her. She was sure of it. But what of it, if he would marry Clarissa anyway? Her breath caught in her throat.

  He pressed one light delicate kiss upon her temple.

  There was nothing she could do, and she despised it.

  “The contracts have been signed.”

  His words ignited a war within her. She loved his honor. If he cast Clarissa aside quickly, on a whim, she would always live in fear that he might do the same to her. His struggle was a good thing.

  She understood. But she didn’t like it.

  “Then what are you doing here?” she cried, struggling to escape from his embrace. Brandon would not let her go, and she wouldn’t have expected this possessiveness from him. She was reminded that he was not always only a gentleman, but a powerful and hot-blooded man.

  “I don’t know,” he said. She could hear, and she could feel his frustration.

  He moved against her, and she bit back a sob, or a sigh. His lips brushed over the shockingly sensitive skin of her neck, pausing just around the earlobe and moving lower still. Brandon pressed a hot kiss against the place where her shoulder curved into her neck. And then she did sigh and arch against him. He might have groaned. It was an exquisite agony for them both.

  He moved so that his lips brushed fleeting across hers. Just as the kiss was to become real, and deep, and truly magnificent, the audience outside broke into sudden thunderous applause.

  Chapter 28

  Sophie was right: he was not powerless.

  What he could not confess was that, for the first time in his life, he was unsure of how to employ that power. It was not merely a matter of his desire. Even if it were, he could not say what he would do.

  He desired Sophie in such a base, primal way—with an urgency that shocked him.

  Yet he also wished to lead a quiet life. One in which he was not tormented by passion, or love. One where he would not be possessed by jealousy, and driven across a crowded theater for a heated, yet hushed, whispered discussion combined with a decidedly erotic encounter.

  He vowed to consider his options, and made a note to request the marriage contract so he could review it, just in case there was a clause that he might invoke so as to dissolve the engagement without disastrous repercussions.

  When Brandon returned to his seat, von Vennigan had taken it, and Clarissa was laughing. It might have been the first time he’d seen her do so. Her parents, he was told, were visiting the box of some dear, dear friends.

  “Frederick was just saying the funniest thing,” she said, giggling slightly. So it was Frederick now, was it?

  “In my country . . .” Frederick started. But Clarissa began to laugh again. It was obviously a private amusement between the two of them, and one he had no interest in sharing.

  When, he wondered, had they become so intimate?

  “Oh, never mind. It is clear that he is in no mood for humor, Clarissa,” von Vennigan said. And then he remembered his manners and acknowledged him, “Your Grace.”

  “Your Highness,” Brandon responded in kind. Privately, he thought the prince was ridiculous, though he was the only one in London to hold that opinion. It was probably due to his long hair, but also the lack of gravity in the man’s demeanor as he hopped from one party to another.

  “When are we going to fence?” von Vennigan asked. Reluctantly, Brandon was interested in this offer. He remembered, vaguely, that Harry Angelo had declared him one of the best fencers in Europe. Brandon looked forward to thoroughly trouncing him.

  “At your earliest convenience,” Brandon said, “provided I have room in my schedule.”

  “I am due to spend the afternoon at Court tomorrow, but I think I shall excuse myself,” the prince declared, and Brandon thought that this was why he could not respect the man, and certainly could not entrust Clarissa and—he hated to recall this—all the obligations that attended her.

  Responsibility cast aside when more pleasant activities were offered. This attitude made Brandon wonder how the prince’s feelings might change should he learn that Clarissa’s hand in marriage came with monstrous debts, or if he learned of some other details of her past that Spencer had told him.

  “You’ll both be careful, won’t you?” Clarissa said, worried. She anxiously twisted her betrothal ring around on her finger.

  Brandon eyed the token, remembering that his father had given that emerald and diamond ring to his mother upon their own engagement. She had loved it, but not nearly as much as she had loved his father. Once upon a time, it had symbolized a love match.

  Brandon ignored the tightening in his throat and returned his attention to the conversation at hand.

  “Of course, Clarissa, I would never slay your fiancé and claim you for myself,” von Vennigan said with a sly smile. Clarissa offered a little laugh and Brandon maintained his stony expression.

  “That would be an unsporting way to win her.”

  “Positively archaic. Medieval. And we are enlightened men,” von Vennigan stated grandly. Brandon did not return his smile.

  “I will enjoy our fencing session. Tomorrow,” Brandon said pointedly.

  “In my country,” von Vennigan said, sending Clarissa into giggles again, “we can take a hint. Good evening, Your Grace. Clarissa, till next time.”

  “Clarissa, a conversation is in order,” Lord Brandon began.

  Clarissa’s heart began to beat faster at his words, and not in a pleasant way. She could think of nothing for them to discuss, other than her shameful behavior with Frederick and his shameful behavior with Sophie. Both were conversations she’d rather not have.

  “What is on your mind, Lord Brandon?” she asked politely, thinking it prudent not to presume anything.

  “You,” he said, and she immediately thought, That’s a first, and she felt ashamed. He was a good man, and it would be an honor to be his wife. But he did not love her, and she did not love him.

  “You and I, our marriage,” he finished. “You did not choose me, did you?” he asked bluntly, and she was taken aback.

  “I didn’t not choose you,” Clarissa answered.

  “You’ll have to explain. And please, Clarissa, speak honestly to me,” Lord Brandon urged, and it was a good thing he had, for it reassured her. Slightly. Her fiancé had always intimidated her, with his size, and how he seemed so remote. And so ducal.

  Her father was a duke, but he bumbled about in the muck with horses most of the time and there was nothing fearsome about that (other than for one’s shoes and hem).

  Frederick seemed to her to be more like Prince Charming than intimidating, highly ranked royalty.

  Brandon was different. And now he was sitting next to her, initiating a serious and heartfelt discussion. She found it strange.

  “My mother,” Clarissa explained, “strongly championed you and I had—have—no aversion to you. You are a very good man.”


  He managed a slight smile. She feared she might have offended him, but he had asked for the truth and thus he had been given it. She was nothing if not dutiful.

  “Thank you,” he said. “But why me? There are other rich peers. Wealthy princes, even.”

  “I suspect it all has to do with my aunt Eleanor,” Clarissa said with a sigh.

  “Your aunt Eleanor?”

  “It’s unlikely you’ve heard of her. Are you prepared for a long tale of love, loss, and unimaginable woe?” she asked with a halfhearted smile.

  “We are at the theater. Of course,” he responded, and they managed smiles at each other.

  Clarissa took a deep breath, and gathered her courage to tell a story she had only told once before, to Frederick, in one of their many letters. It was a lot to confess to a man she found difficult to talk to. An abbreviated version would do, Clarissa decided, because he had to know the essential details so he could understand her, and her mother, the way things are and had to be.

  “Aunt Eleanor was my mother’s younger sister and she fell madly and passionately in love with a dashing rogue. When she found herself with child, he vanished. Thus she was shunned from society and utterly penniless before she and the child expired during the birthing.”

  “Oh my God,” Brandon said under his breath.

  “Yes. It’s a horrible, wretched story. I suspect it might even be exaggerated. But this is the story of love and marriage—or lack of—that has defined my mother’s life, and mine.”

  “Not very inspiring,” he remarked dryly.

  “Not at all. She had already married my father when this happened, but it certainly solidified her disdain of the rakish in favor of more upstanding gentlemen. She is obsessed with the social whirl because her sister was cut out from it. She is overprotective of me because her sister lost her child . . . You see how this all goes on.”

  “Yes,” Brandon said softly. “It does explain everything.”

  “She sees you as the savior of our family. Because you are wealthy, composed, and can be counted on, and are unlikely to cause any sort of scandal. As a duke, you will always be welcomed in society. And you are a man who will always stand by your wife.”

  It all made sense to her. It was why she must marry Brandon and why to marry anyone else, particularly a dashing, rakish foreign prince, would kill her mother.

  While everything she’d said was the absolute truth as she understood it, she did glide over the part about Lord Brandon’s wealth, and how necessary it was for her family. Clarissa was so thankful for this hot weather, since they wouldn’t have been able to afford wood for fires otherwise. The money they now had left was spent on keeping up appearances.

  “I don’t know what to say, Clarissa, other than you have given me much to think about.”

  “I recognize that this puts a lot of responsibility upon your shoulders,” Clarissa said.

  “I know nothing else,” he said.

  “No one doubts that. Please don’t mention to anyone that I’ve told you this. My mother doesn’t like to hear about it,” Clarissa said.

  “Understandably. We shall change the subject, as I suspect she will return any minute,” he offered, and she thought that he was very considerate and perhaps not as intimidating.

  “One last thing, though, Lord Brandon. I know she’s”—and here Clarissa faltered, not sure exactly how to describe her—“I know she’s a challenge, but she’s my mother. I’ll do anything to see that she’s happy.”

  “Even if it’s something you don’t wish to do?” Brandon asked.

  In other words, why would she deny her love for Frederick to marry a man she had no deep affection for?

  Of course, he had noticed the devotion between her and Frederick; he was not blind and they were not discreet. She had merely assumed that he had been so involved with his own affair that he hadn’t noticed hers or cared. But it was clear that he was watching out for her after all. This was comforting, yet also made her feel slightly ashamed. He knew that she had no particularly strong desire to marry him.

  “If it makes her happier than it makes me miserable. Does that make sense?” Clarissa hoped it did, because she couldn’t bear to explain how she would marry him even if her heart wasn’t in it.

  For the money. For her mother’s approval. Because those things mattered more than her own happiness.

  Because being disobedient was such a strange notion that she couldn’t imagine herself capable of it.

  “It does,” he answered. Brandon placed his hand on hers in a comforting manner, and too late did Clarissa remember the ink stains on her fingers that he really shouldn’t see.

  She had taken her gloves off to show Frederick, and likewise, he had removed his. Her prince had then delicately traced his fingertips along her palm, making her skin tingle with pleasure.

  Oh, she shouldn’t have allowed that liberty, and she certainly should not think about it while holding the hand of her fiancé! Discreetly, she tried to pull her hand away.

  Lord Brandon saw the ink stains.

  “What have you been writing?” He seemed benignly curious. His lack of suspicion made her feel all the more guilty.

  “Oh, nothing,” she said, quickly pulling on her gloves. If her mother saw, she would have a fit, and likely remove her dwindling supplies of ink, pen, and paper.

  “Clearly you have been writing something,” he pointed out kindly.

  “Merely correspondence. Nothing of interest,” Clarissa lied with a blush.

  It was so interesting and fascinating to exchange soul-bearing letters with Frederick! To learn so much about another person, and to share the deepest parts of one’s own self was to forge a bond, the likes of which she had never experienced. The letters were splendid, and wonderful, but still she ached to be near Frederick.

  This, of course, she kept to herself for she had shared enough. In fact, this was certainly their lengthiest and deepest conversation to date. Part of that was due to Frederick encouraging her to speak her mind, and Aunt Eleanor had been on her mind of late.

  Secretly, in the dead of the night, Clarissa dared to consider a scandalous elopement with her own dashing rogue, à la Eleanor.

  She would never do it, of course. That was utter madness.

  And so, she had to explain to Lord Brandon why she would still marry him when their hearts belonged to other people.

  Because it would make her mother happier than it would make her miserable.

  Because passionate love, the sort flaring up between her and Frederick and Brandon and Sophie, never lasted. It would fade, or it would spectacularly implode and they’d all be devastated and ruined in the end.

  But she and Brandon could, in time, develop a strong affection for each other.

  And then there was the matter of her outrageously expensive dress that had taken half a dozen seamstresses forty hours to sew, the two hundred handwritten invitations, hundreds of hothouse flowers and beeswax candles, a massive vanilla cake with lemon-flavored icing, a special license from the Archbishop of Canterbury, and a reoccurring story in the newspaper about all of it.

  Furthermore, the contracts were signed, and the creditors were looming, and the fates of many were resting on her delicate shoulders. All she needed to do was proceed according to plan.

  The lights dimmed and Clarissa was thankful to have the second act to distract her from her own drama. And yet, she kept stealing glances at Frederick and wondered if only . . .

  Chapter 29

  Six days before the wedding . . .

  24 Bloomsbury Place

  Things had been so heated, so charged, and so unsettled there at the theater, and Sophie had not heard from him since.

  As promised, Lady Richmond sent over a copy of the wedding breakfast menu. Sophie was not sad to miss an afternoon in h
er company, but she did lament the loss of the opportunity to see Brandon. It was better she did not.

  Though the wedding menu detailed dozens of undeniably delicious dishes, they were not at all appetizing to her. Still, she included it with her other notes, such as: Fancy dress. Silver lace. Lady Sophie Brandon. And, How could he!

  She had not yet figured out how to compile it into a column that would not result in her dismissal. The threat loomed like a storm cloud over her life.

  Sophie had no appetite, so she merely sipped tea whilst her fellow Writing Girls enjoyed freshly baked ginger biscuits and chattered on about the latest installment of the ongoing Darcy Darlington mystery story, the new fabrics that had arrived at Madame Journelle’s, and who Lord Roxbury was supposedly bedding this week.

  “Speaking of scandalous Lords—” Julianna started with a sly grin.

  “You and Lord Brandon made the dailies again!” Annabelle said gleefully. Sophie’s heart sank. Lady Richmond would see it. Clarissa would see it, too. Sophie shifted in her chair, feeling awfully guilty. When she was with Brandon, it felt so very right. When she imagined how Clarissa might feel, she despised herself.

  But then again, Clarissa was admittedly in love with another.

  “It was noted that you both disappeared during the first act of The Rivals the other night,” Eliza informed her.

  “Curses,” Sophie swore.

  “It’s scandalous and shameless. Am I the only one that remembers the man is betrothed?” Julianna remarked with a strident tone of voice.

  They all mumbled that they did indeed recall that pertinent detail.

  “His fiancée is madly in love with another man and would not think twice about enjoying a romantic interlude with him,” Sophie replied defensively. “Provided her mother allowed it.”

  “So that excuses everything, does it?” Julianna retorted.

  “It certainly means the situation isn’t so black and white, right and wrong,” Sophie countered. It felt like a dozen shades of gray. Clarissa loved Frederick, but did not seem to consider escaping her match with Brandon, who was definitely infatuated with her. And then there was the matter of von Vennigan, to complicate, or solve, everything, she knew not. Gray, gray, gray . . .