The Bridegroom

by Joan Johnston

  “Then you are untouched?”

  “I find this conversation tedious,” she said, turning to march back toward the house.

  He caught her arm and whirled her around to face him. “Stay.”

  “I see no purpose—”

  “I want you for myself.”

  Her gaze shot to his face, and she found his intense dark eyes staring back at her. An odd sensation curled in her belly. Her heart began to pound. Whatever he had done in the past, her own father had made him respectable again. And yet, he still had not answered that last question. Had the earl killed a man with his bare hands? “What makes you think I would consider marriage to a rakeshame like you?”

  “I do not remember offering marriage.”

  It took her a moment to take his meaning. “You are offering me carte blanche?”

  “Why not?”

  “I am a lady, an innocent—”

  “Your innocence is a bit of a problem.” He brushed a knuckle across her cheek. “But that can be remedied.”

  Reggie jerked away, unable to speak, she was so incredulous.

  He laughed. Again. “You are much too naive, my dear. And predictable. I am afraid we would never suit.”

  “What if I said I accept? What would you say then?” she demanded, incensed at his dismissal of her as unworthy of his regard.

  His eyes narrowed. “I wish I were as true a blackguard as you have painted me. But even such miscreants as I have scruples.”

  “Are you refusing me?” she asked in disbelief.

  “I will take a kiss,” he said. “As the price of your foolishness in playing such games.”

  “I will never—”

  His lips were firm and damp on hers, eliciting a moan of pleasure before she could squelch it. His tongue traced the seam of her mouth, but she kept her teeth tightly clenched, determined not to give more than he had already taken.

  He let her go and stepped back, his eyes gleaming in the moonlit darkness. “You are a tempting morsel, my sweet. But it is time we returned to the ballroom. Our absence will no doubt have been noticed.”

  Reggie’s eyes went wide. It was odd enough that she had danced with Carlisle. Their exit onto the balcony most certainly would have been remarked upon. Her continued absence with such a notorious figure would already have been the cause of speculation. “Was scandal your purpose all along?”

  “You elicited the invitation to dance, my dear.”

  Reggie knew he spoke nothing but the truth. Her behavior over the years had crossed the line beyond propriety on occasion, but being a great heiress—and the Duke of Blackthorne’s daughter—had given her a great deal of latitude and smoothed a great many important ruffled feathers. This time she might have gone too far.

  “Reggie? Are you out there?”

  “Is that you, Becky?” Reggie replied in response to the whispery voice.

  “Where are you?”

  Reggie walked along the gravel path, trailed by Carlisle, until she met her sister coming from the opposite direction. “What are you doing out here?” Reggie asked.

  “Looking for you,” Becky said in exasperation. “I followed you out onto the balcony almost as soon as you left, hoping to prevent gossip.”

  “That was cleverly done, Lady Penrith,” Carlisle said. He turned to Reggie and said, “Thanks to your sister’s quick thinking, you may escape with your reputation. All we three need do is return to the ballroom together.”

  “I would not accompany you—” Reggie began.

  “For my sake,” Becky said. “Please do as Lord Carlisle asks.”

  Reggie remained silent and did as she was told. Her sister would bear the brunt of the blame if she were found to have been compromised. There was no telling what penalty Penrith would exact from his wife if he heard of Reggie’s unchaperoned escapade. “Very well,” she conceded. “We will return to the ballroom together.”

  “Smile,” Becky hissed as they moved from the dark balcony into the candlelit ballroom, where the waltz was just ending.

  To Reggie’s surprise, Carlisle was the soul of propriety, bowing over her hand and thanking her and her sister, in words loud enough to be heard by those assembled, for the pleasure of their company during the dance. “I will look forward to calling on both of you tomorrow,” he said.

  Reggie was appalled by Carlisle’s obvious intention of furthering the acquaintance, considering how outrageously he had behaved during their tête-à-tête, but with so many gossips about, there was no way she could voice her objections.

  “We will look forward to your visit, my lord,” Becky replied with a smile.

  She and Becky were left standing arm in arm as Carlisle made his way back across the ballroom. Reggie snapped open her fan and used it to cool her face. “I want to go home.”

  “I am afraid that is not possible just yet,” Becky said.

  “Why not?”

  “You must play the game a little longer.”

  At Reggie’s inquiring look, her sister explained, “To prove nothing untoward happened during your absence from the ballroom.”

  Reggie’s chin jutted. “I don’t give a fig what anyone thinks.”

  “A scandal will do none of us any good,” Becky said.

  Reggie saw the plea in her sister’s eyes and relented. “Very well. I shall be a flower and let the bees buzz around me for another half hour at least. Will that suit you?”

  “Yes, it will. Afterwards, I shall be glad to escape along with you.”

  Over the next half hour, Reggie laughed and smiled until her jaws ached. She was aware, the entire time, of Carlisle’s heavy-lidded gaze watching her from the other side of the ballroom. He spoke to no one. He danced with no one. Until at last the moment came when she looked for him, and he was gone.

  “Please, Becky, may we leave now?” she said.

  Becky squeezed her hand. “I think we have done as much as we can tonight. I will send a footman to find Penrith in the card room and tell him we are ready to retire.”

  On the ride home in the carriage, the thoroughly foxed viscount raged incessantly at his wife. “I feel certain my luck was turning when you sent for me,” he ranted, the words slurring together. “As it is, I left at least a monkey on the table.”

  “You could have stayed, my lord,” Becky said meekly. “We would have been happy to return home without you.”

  “What? And have it said I let ladies under my protection go about unescorted?” Penrith snorted. “I know where my duty lies. Even if it costs me dearly at times.”

  There was no winning the argument, as Becky well knew, yet Reggie watched her sister attempt to soothe her cupshot husband.

  “Regina met an acquaintance of yours this evening,” Becky said.

  “What? Who’s that?”

  “Lord Carlisle,” Becky said.

  “Good man to know,” Penrith mumbled.

  “Why is that?” Reggie inquired.

  “Rich as Croesus. Been advising me which funds are best in the ’Change.”

  Reggie frowned in confusion. “Did I understand correctly? You are taking investment advice from Lord Carlisle?”

  “Why not? Man has a fortune. Must know what he’s about, don’t you think?”

  “I think he made his fortune as a pirate,” Reggie said dryly.

  Penrith shook his head. “Shows what you know, missy. He earned a bit from shipping, but he doubled that in the funds.”

  “Why is he so willing to share his knowledge with you?” she asked.

  “Likes me,” Penrith said. “Said so himself.”

  “One scoundrel recognizes another,” Reggie muttered under her breath.

  “What’s that?” Penrith asked.

  “Lord Carlisle is coming to call on Regina tomorrow,” Becky said, stepping into the breach.

  Penrith’s eyes focused slyly on Reggie. “There’s a match I would pay to see. Such a man would soon put you in your place, young lady.”

  “Oh?” Reggie said, arching a
disdainful brow.

  Becky shot her a beseeching look, but Reggie was still stinging from her encounter with Carlisle and was in no mood to back down. “What place is that?” she demanded.

  “Lying beneath him,” Penrith said, his eyes glittering.

  Becky gasped. “How dare you—”

  Penrith’s hand lashed out and caught Becky on the mouth. The slap was loud in the carriage, and the sound of it echoed—along with Reggie’s cry of alarm—in the silence that followed.

  Reggie was already half out of her seat when her sister cried, “No, Reggie!” It took every ounce of restraint Reggie possessed to sit back down.

  She watched, tight-lipped, as Penrith reached out with a trembling hand to touch the edge of Becky’s lip, where blood had begun to seep. “I did not mean—I would never—” he stuttered. “It was an accident.”

  Becky fumbled to open the drawstring on her reticule, and Reggie reached across and opened it for her, drawing out a lace handkerchief and thrusting it into her sister’s shaking hand. Head bowed, Becky pressed the cloth against her wounded lip.

  Reggie was still in shock. She had known Penrith was not the best of husbands, but during the entire four years Reggie had been living with Becky in London, she had never—not once—witnessed any physical mistreatment of her sister. But there was no denying what she had just seen. Reggie felt sick to her stomach, wondering what Becky might have been enduring behind closed doors.

  What Reggie found most difficult to credit was Penrith’s evident remorse. She watched in disbelief as he brushed a trembling hand across Becky’s hair, smoothing a stray curl from her brow, and pressed a gentle kiss to her temple. “Forgive me,” he pleaded. “Please.”

  Becky glanced across at her, then looked down at her hands and said, “I forgive you, William.”

  Reggie’s nose curled in distaste. It could have been the offal she smelled on the cobblestones as they drove by. But it was not. Her teeth were gritted, and her fingers were so tightly threaded she could feel the bite of her fingernails, even through her gloves. Penrith’s behavior could not be allowed to continue. She would inform Papa of the situation in the next mail, and he would—

  Reggie realized that was exactly what she could not do, for the same reason she could never tell Papa how Lord Carlisle had treated her this evening. Papa would demand to meet William on a field of honor. Reggie was not willing to take the chance that William’s aim with a dueling pistol might be true. Even worse, if Papa killed William in a duel, three-year-old Lily would be left without a father.

  But there was someone who might be able to help.

  “I have been thinking of inviting Michael O’Malley to come for a visit,” Reggie said. “What do you think, Becky?”

  “I think Papa needs Mr. O’Malley to help oversee his estate in Scotland, especially now, with Kitt due to deliver at any time.”

  “I shall write to ask Papa if Mr. O’Malley can bring the news of whether we have a new brother or sister in person,” Reggie said. “Surely Papa will let him come.”

  In the flickering light from the gas lanterns on the street corners, Reggie could see that Becky’s face looked stricken. And well it should. Ever since their father had brought Michael O’Malley home with him as a gangly boy of thirteen, he had been like an older brother. Mick would be incensed when Reggie told him how badly Penrith was treating Becky.

  Reggie was sure that together, she and Mick could come up with a way to make certain that William never laid another violent hand on his wife … even if it meant finding a way to end the marriage.

  “If I am not mistaken, Rebecca, you enjoy Mr. O’Malley’s visits,” Penrith said. “I will add my letter to Regina’s.”

  It was clear to Reggie that Penrith’s offer was intended as an olive branch. She watched to see whether Becky would accept it.

  “Very well,” Becky said at last. “I will prepare a room for his arrival.”

  As they left the carriage and entered the Penrith town house on Berkeley Square, Reggie reached out and squeezed her sister’s hand. “Shall I say I am ill and ask for your company tonight?” she whispered.

  “Please don’t,” Becky whispered back. “All will be well. Go to bed.”

  Reggie watched as William solicitously escorted Becky up the stairs, as though the blow had never happened. She would not sleep tonight until she had written to her father and to Mick. It would not be fair to Becky to tell Mick precisely what had happened tonight, but she could hint at some trouble Becky was having that required Mick’s assistance and encourage her father to send him to London.

  But even after she had written her letters, Reggie tossed and turned in bed, plagued by a pair of dark dragon’s eyes that would not give her peace.

  Chapter 2

  “Revenge is a dirty business. I thought you had decided to leave the second chit out of it.”

  Clay Bannister eyed his solicitor, and former classmate at Oxford, Roger Kenworthy. “My plans changed,” he replied, returning his attention to the precise mathematical he was creating with his neck cloth.

  Roger settled back more comfortably in the wing chair in the far corner of the Earl of Carlisle’s dressing room. “When did this change of heart occur?”

  Clay smiled at his friend in the looking glass above his dressing table as he struggled with the resistant neck cloth. “The instant I laid eyes on her. Or rather, the moment she laid eyes on me.”

  “You were not so enchanted when you met her twin. What makes this one so different from the other?” Roger asked.

  “Everything.”

  Roger chuckled. “Well. That clarifies the situation.”

  “You would have to see them together to understand. They are identical, and yet as unlike as a rose and a peony, as a terrier and a spaniel, as a Thoroughbred—”

  “You are determined to have her?”

  Clay’s eyes narrowed. “She will make a formidable weapon in my hands against her father. I will make Blackthorne rue the day he had me transported to Australia for a crime I did not commit.”

  “You are not the same man I knew at Oxford,” Roger said quietly.

  Clay’s eyes took on the look of obsidian, cold and hard. “That blameless boy died twelve years ago. In his stead was born the Sea Dragon, merciless pirate, plunderer, plague of the Seven Seas.”

  “Are you sure you did not conjure this marauder from a lady’s novel?” Roger asked, his lips curling with amusement.

  “He is real enough. And ruthless enough to take the vengeance that is his due.”

  “In the year since you reappeared, the duke has made an honest effort to undo the harm he did. He has had your name cleared by the House of Lords and your title restored.”

  “Too little, too late,” Clay said bitterly. “Blackthorne must pay.”

  “To what purpose?” Roger questioned. “Revenge will not bring back what you have lost. Why not forget the past and go on from here?”

  “I cannot. I want Blackthorne to know the depths of despair, the loss of all hope. I want him to know how it feels to lose what he loves most in the world. I want his life ruined, as he destroyed mine!”

  Clay realized his hands were shaking and grasped the neck cloth more firmly to hide his agitation from his friend.

  Roger rose and crossed to stand at Clay’s side. The two men eyed each other in the looking glass. One was the epitome of British manhood, blue-eyed with fair hair cut in a stylish Brutus. The other was dark, his skin bronzed by the sun and weathered by the sea wind, his unruly hair the color of soot, his eyes as black as his soul.

  “Bringing about the financial ruin of Blackthorne and his family is one thing,” Roger said. “Despoiling an innocent is another thing entirely.”

  “You knew what I planned when you agreed to act as my solicitor.”

  Roger shook his head. “I did not realize the extent of your hatred for the man.”

  “Are you quitting me, Roger?”

  “I would like nothing better. Howev
er, I think I may have more chance of convincing you of your folly if I stay involved in your affairs. If the chit is everything you say, perhaps she will not be as vulnerable to your wiles as you believe.”

  Clay gave a wolfish grin. “She will be a challenge. Of that I have no doubt.”

  Roger reached for the bouquet of wild red roses that sat on the dresser to take a sniff, yelped when he got pricked, and dropped it. He brought his forefinger to his lips to suck on the wound. “Be careful,” he warned. “Roses always come with thorns.”

  “You forget, my friend. Before I became the Sea Dragon, I spent five years under the lash on one of His Majesty’s frigates. I’m not likely to be brought down by anything less than a wound to the heart.”

  “That is precisely what I’m afraid of,” Roger muttered as he took his leave.

  “Never fear. I know what I’m about,” Clay replied as the door closed behind his friend. “Pegg,” he said in a quiet voice. “I’m ready to be poured into that jacket.”

  A huge man stepped through the door that led from Clay’s bedroom into the dressing room. He wore a small gold hoop in his left ear, a patch over his left eye, and his left leg ended at the knee and had been replaced by a wooden peg. The burly Scotsman had been transported to Australia on the same convict ship as Clay, and they had been together ever since.

  “Ye did a fair job with the neck grabber,” the giant conceded as he held up an exquisitely tailored jacket.

  Clay eyed the mathematical critically in the looking glass as he allowed Pegg to drag the tight-fitting garment up his arms and onto his shoulders. “Symmetrical, at least,” he conceded.

  “Chokes ye just the same, whether it be tied foul or fair,” the big man mumbled.

  “Agreed,” Clay said. “But my purpose is to appeal to one of the fairer sex, who have definite ideas about what is proper fashion for a gentleman of the ton. So, Pegg, will I do?”

  Pegg studied him, then snorted in disgust. “Seems a lot of bother for one small girl. Ye should just steal the lass and run. What could her father do?”

  “Kidnap her?” Clay said in surprise.

  “Why not? The Sea Witch is tied up at the London docks. We could set sail with the mornin’ tide. The duke’d never find us.”