The Bridegroom

by Joan Johnston

  “Oh, but I do.”

  The duke’s brow furrowed.

  “Don’t you see, Alex? I cannot tell her the truth. If I explained what I’ve done, she might accept me out of some feeling of obligation. I want to know she’s marrying me because she loves me and wants to make a life with me.”

  “Becky has never been the strong one,” the duke cautioned. “She may never find the resolve to take such a risk. Especially since she knows I would never condone such a match.”

  Mick stood, braced his shoulders, and lifted his chin. “I believe Becky has more spirit than you think. But I suppose we will simply have to wait and see.”

  “Why not at least tell her I will allow the marriage?” the duke offered.

  Mick shook his head. “She will expect—and rightly so—that your approval means an appropriate dowry to ease our life together. I don’t want her to make that assumption. I want her to understand that she will be giving up everything if she chooses to marry me.”

  “Is that fair to her?” the duke asked. “If you love her, why are you forcing her to make such a choice?”

  Mick met Alex’s hard look with bleak eyes. “If she truly loves me, nothing else should—or will—matter.”

  “You belong in Bedlam.”

  Mick shrugged. “Perhaps. But I want to know if she can learn to love the man she sees before her,” he said, letting Alex see his hope that she might, and his fear that she might not. “Not my title. Not my fortune. Me.”

  “If that was your intention all along, why did you tell me the truth?” the duke asked.

  “Because I owe you too much to court your daughter without your permission. Do I have it?”

  The duke hissed out a breath of air. He stood and walked the few steps that put him face-to-face with Mick, then held out his hand for the second time and said the words that Mick had been waiting to hear.

  “If Becky will have you, she’s yours, with my blessing.”

  Chapter 16

  Reggie was so busy with work inside the castle over the next two days, while she waited for the muddy roads to dry enough to make travel to Blackthorne Hall possible, that she never had a chance to start the work outside. However, she had a great deal of help, since she managed to hire two more maids, a groom, a falconer (she decided Carlisle would want gerfalcons once he realized he had a man to train them), a huntsman (whom she immediately sent out to find game), and a wizened gatekeeper named Cameron MacTavish.

  Of course there was no gate for MacTavish to keep, since the outer stone walls that had once surrounded Castle Carlisle had long since crumbled. But Reggie had heard MacTavish tell such a glorious tale of jousting knights and their fair ladies at the kitchen table—where he had been offered a cup of tea, hot-from-the-oven butter biscuits, and a place to warm his bones—that she had begged him to stay and tell more stories.

  “I canna stay without worrrking for my hirrre,” the Scotsman said in his thick burr.

  “What can you do?” Reggie asked.

  “In days of old, when Scottish lairrrds lived in these castles, I was a gille-coise,” the old man said.

  “What is that?” Reggie asked, not recognizing the Scottish word.

  “A bodyguarrrd to the clan chief.”

  “I don’t believe I could convince Lord Carlisle to accept a personal bodyguard,” Reggie said hesitantly. Then she had come up with what she thought was a positively inspired alternative. “But you could guard the gate to his castle.”

  “The gate?” he said. “Therrre’s no gate herrre.”

  “Well, no,” she conceded. “Castle Carlisle does not actually have a gate. But you could keep watch and make sure that all who live and work here are safe.”

  So Cam MacTavish had become gille-coise—though his title was gatekeeper—of Castle Carlisle.

  Reggie was ever mindful of the fact she must make do with what was available for repairs, but she was equally determined that the castle should become a comfortable place to live. So she took unbroken windows from the third-floor nursery and used them to replace the broken panes in the second-story bedrooms. She made sure the rotten treads on the stairs were replaced with solid wood from the floor of the attic. And she cleaned. And cleaned. And cleaned.

  She emptied every cupboard in the kitchen and scoured everything she found. She washed all the floors and walls and windows. She dusted every corner of the ceiling. She scrubbed the fireplaces free of soot. She stripped the draperies from all the windows, because they were uniformly faded, moth-eaten, and moldy. In any case, they were nothing but decaying decoration, since the dense growth of ivy allowed little sunlight inside.

  Reggie wanted desperately to cut away the ivy from the windows and let in more light, but it made no sense to do so until she could replace the rest of the cracked windowpanes and find a way to restore the missing draperies. She would gladly have used her own money, but upon her marriage, all her funds had legally passed into Carlisle’s control, and she had been unable to cajole him into releasing any to her.

  “You will suffer nothing by it,” she had argued, standing across from him, as he sat behind his desk in the library. “Since the money was never yours in the first place.”

  “It is mine now,” he pointed out, yielding nothing.

  “Do you plan to keep me destitute?” she demanded.

  “Do you plan to keep me out of your bedroom?”

  She had taken a step back, shocked at the turn the conversation had taken. “Are you suggesting you would pay for the privilege of sleeping with me?”

  “That was not my intent, but now that you mention it—”

  She had already whirled and started for the door when she heard his amused laughter. She stopped in her tracks and marched right back to him. “I do not find it in the least amusing that you would make a whore of me. All I asked for was enough of my own money to make a comfortable home for us. Only a dastard would—”

  “Enough!” he roared, coming out of his chair, his palms slapping the desk in front of him with enough force to send papers flying. “I never asked you to make this a home. And you are the one who mentioned bartering yourself for draperies and furniture, not I! We are husband and wife, yet you lock your door against me at night. Bloody hell, woman, make up your mind. You want a wife’s allowance. Are you willing to be a wife?”

  Reggie had retreated without a word. Her bedroom door had remained locked, and she had made do with what she had. She had worked each day until there was no more light to see the dirt, pushing herself and every servant in the house to their limits.

  By late afternoon of her sixth day at Castle Carlisle, Reggie was satisfied that she had done everything she could, with the few resources she had been given, to make it a comfortable place to live. However, so far as she had been able to determine, Carlisle would have been just as happy if she had left the castle teeming with cobwebs and vermin.

  Reggie decided to give the servants the rest of the afternoon off as a reward for their unceasing labor and to give herself the afternoon off as well. Even God had rested after six days of labor. All day as she worked, she had been eyeing the distant pond that was half-hidden by white-trunked birch and rowan and elderberry trees, imagining how wonderful it would feel to immerse herself and wash away all the sweat and grime she had accumulated after a day spent dusting and scrubbing.

  She waited until the sun was headed downward, depending on the dusk to hide her from prying eyes, before she grabbed a towel, a bar of scented soap, and some clean clothes and picked her way down the hill across the untended lawn to the pond. The surface of the water was smooth, and the sun reflected a perfect mirror image of the spoor-ridden ferns and graceful cat-o’-nine-tails that grew along the bank.

  Reggie looked around to make certain she was alone, but the shadows were already growing among the trees, and it was difficult to see to the farthest reaches of the pond. It would have been wiser to survey the area completely, but she was in a hurry because, once the sun set, it would take
with it what little warmth there was. Besides, she reasoned, if anyone had been in the pond, the currently unbroken surface would have been rippled by his presence.

  Reggie said, “Brrrr,” as she dipped a toe into the pond, then laughed aloud with delight as she strode into the cold water. She was quickly immersed up to her waist and used the washcloth and soap she had brought along to clean herself briskly and thoroughly, humming one of the more ribald sea chanteys she had learned on her recent voyage to Scotland.

  She washed her hair last, laying the washcloth over her shoulder while she worked. When she was done rinsing her hair, she squeezed out the cloth, wrapped the cake of soap up in it, and threw both soap and cloth onto the bank.

  Once both her hands were free, Reggie dove underwater and swam for the sheer love of it, heading for the mound of large flat stones located in the center of the pond. When at last she came up for air, she realized she was not alone.

  Carlisle was sitting atop the stones, his arm resting on one upraised knee, which coincidentally hid certain parts of his body. He was stark naked. His hair was still damp and slicked back from his face, and although his skin was mostly dry, here and there a pearl of water clung to him.

  “Where did you come from?” she demanded angrily, treading water, unwilling to swim any closer, since she was equally naked. The ravenous look in his dark eyes left no doubt what he would like to do with her. To her. “How did you get there?” she snapped.

  “I swam here,” he replied with a wolfish smile.

  Reggie realized that the large flat stone was shaped like a step. Carlisle must have been hidden from view on the lower level. “Why didn’t you make your presence known sooner?”

  He lifted a brow. “You must know the answer to that.”

  “How would you like it if I—” That line of reasoning would not work. He obviously did not care if she saw him bare-bottomed, since he was sitting naked before her.

  Reggie had been keeping her eyes cast downward, trying not to see him, and suddenly realized that the only way he could know what it felt like to be scrutinized was to do the deed herself. She lifted her gaze and did a slow, thorough survey of his body, starting with his face—meeting his eyes to let him know what she intended—and then moving downward.

  His hand dangled off his knee, and she noticed how large it was, how long and narrow his fingers. She was spared a full view of his masculine endowments, but there was enough of a shadow for her to realize he was aroused.

  So was she, by the time she had finished. Which was the last thing Reggie wanted to be, when she had no intention of satisfying either him or herself. So far Carlisle had not made a move toward her, but Reggie did not think it would take more than an eyelash flickered in invitation for him to join her in the water.

  The lesson she had hoped to give him had miscarried miserably. She sought some other way she might punish him for his flagrant behavior and realized reprisal was within her grasp.

  “Where are your clothes?” she asked, backpedaling in the water, slowly but steadily putting more distance between them, hoping he would not notice.

  He pointed toward shore, a short distance from where she had left her own. “There. On the bank.”

  While his gaze had been distracted, she had put even more distance between them. Then, before he could discern what she intended, Reggie turned and swam as fast as she could toward the bank. She expected Carlisle to come after her, but it took him an extra few seconds to realize her intent, unwind his body, and dive off the rock.

  In that time, she reached the bank, pulled her dress over her head, yanked on her half boots, and ran as fast as she could toward where he had left his clothing.

  She discarded his trousers, shirt, and smalls, but grabbed up his shoes and stockings.

  “Reggie, I do not find this amusing!” he shouted as he ran toward her along the slippery mud bank.

  “Have a nice walk home through your manicured lawn, my lord,” she said with a laugh as she raced for the castle.

  “It is full of thistles!” he shouted. “And prickly weeds I cannot even name. And sharp stones!”

  “I will make sure Pegg has some figwort waiting to salve your wounds,” she called back.

  She was grinning from ear to ear, running as she had not run since she was a child. In those long ago days, she had pretended to be a wild horse, leaping from green hillocks and galloping down grassy vales, Becky chasing after her with a noose made of knotted scarves, trying in vain to capture her. Reggie had forgotten what it felt like to be so free. She had forgotten the feel of the wind in her hair, the aching stitch in her side, the burning in her thighs as she pushed herself harder and faster.

  A figure stepped out of the darkness, and she started in fear and dropped everything in her hands. She paused, ready to dart away again, lungs heaving, side aching, legs burning.

  “My lady, are ye in dangerrr? What’s wrrrong?”

  Reggie managed a ragged, relieved laugh. “I’m fine, MacTavish. I’m only playing a trick on my husband.” She huffed out a breath, then reached down to retrieve her clothes, managing to hold up one of Carlisle’s Hessians. “He’s walking back from the pond barefooted,” she explained.

  The wizened old man laughed. “ ’Tis a good joke, my lady. Is he likely to be verrry angrrry with ye?”

  Reggie sensed the old man was ready to protect her, to be her gille-coise, if she had need of him. “He will do me no harm, MacTavish. Although, I believe I will play least in sight when he returns,” she said with a grin.

  “I’ll take those boots for ye,” he said. “And give them a shine before I rrreturn them,” he said with a gleam in his eye. “That way, if yerrr husband comes askin’ if ye have them, ye can honestly say no.”

  Reggie laughed. “Thank you, MacTavish.”

  She was inside before she realized she had been talking to MacTavish with her dress still unbuttoned! Reggie blushed when it was too late for anyone to notice, then finished dressing quickly and quietly by the fire in the empty kitchen, before she fulfilled her promise by seeking out Pegg.

  She found him sitting in the wing chair in the library, a warm plaid wool blanket across his lap, a glass of brandy at his side, a book in his lap, looking very much like the lord of the manor. Except he wore a black eye-patch and a golden earring and only one foot stuck out from beneath the blanket.

  “Carlisle will be needing some of your famous salve this evening,” she said as she stepped into the room.

  He looked up from what he was reading and asked, “Why is that?”

  “I believe he misplaced his boots and had to walk back from the pond barefooted,” she said with a grin.

  “Ye can be a trial, lass,” Pegg said, returning her grin.

  “What are you reading?” she asked, curious because she had not expected someone who had made his living as a card sharp to be an educated man.

  “ ’Tis a pamphlet Clay asked me to look over.”

  “Oh? What is it?” She crossed to Pegg, leaned over his shoulder, and read aloud, “How to Make Your Farm Produce a More Substantial Yield. Carlisle asked you to read this?” she said, her brow furrowing.

  “I think, given the chance, the lad would rather farm than sail the seas,” Pegg said.

  “But he has the chance,” Reggie said. “Castle Carlisle is surrounded by land he could farm.”

  “Did ye not know, lass? His brother sold all the land to yer father. None of it is Clay’s. It all belongs to the duke.”

  Reggie suddenly felt chilled. She walked around the chair and stood directly before the fire, searching for warmth. “No wonder he hates my father.” She had a sudden thought and turned excitedly back to Pegg. “Carlisle could buy it back!” she said. “He’s rich now, and I know my father would be willing to part with the land if I asked.”

  “I don’t want any favors from your father,” Carlisle said from the doorway.

  Reggie wished she had gone straight to her room. She glanced down and saw Carlisle was sti
ll barefoot. Blood wept from a dozen tiny cuts she could see on his ankles and toes. She did not wish to imagine the condition of the soles of his feet. She swallowed hard and met his eyes. She had not intended to hurt him seriously. “Are you badly injured, my lord?”

  He sighed and limped his way across the Turkish carpet. “There is no damage a good soaking and some figwort won’t cure,” he conceded.

  “I’ll leave ye to tend to yer husband, lass,” Pegg said as he rose and stumped out of the room.

  “But, Pegg—” It was plain she would get no mercy from him. “Will you sit, my lord,” she said, gesturing to the chair Pegg had vacated. “I will send one of the maids for some hot water.”

  Then she realized she had given all the maids the rest of the day off. “Oh, dear. There is no maid to bring water. I will have to do it myself. Will you wait here for me, my lord?”

  He raised a brow and said wryly, “I am not inclined to do a great deal more walking this evening.”

  Reggie hurried away to boil some water and happily discovered that someone had put a large pot of water over the fire in the kitchen to heat for tea. She decided that Carlisle’s feet needed the hot water more, and she carried the teapot, and a pan large enough to hold both of Carlisle’s feet, back to the library with her.

  She set the pan down without speaking and poured in the steaming water. She dipped her fingers in to check the temperature. “Hot, but not too hot.” She sat back on her heels and watched as Carlisle eased one foot into the pan of water, making a hissing sound like steam, as though his foot were a hot poker being dipped into cold water.

  Reggie lifted the other foot and hissed in his stead as she eased the wounded limb into the water. Once both feet were ensconced, she looked up and said, “I’m sorry, Clay. I didn’t think such a silly joke would have such cruel consequences.”

  “There is a way you can make amends,” he said.

  She met his gaze and saw the need he made no effort to hide. She rose and took a step back. “I think not, my lord.”