“I don’t want him near Fiona again,” Neville insisted. “Now I see why we’ve resisted the Catholic reform bill all these years. They’re no more than a lot of narrow-minded pagan savages...”
Michael twisted his arm and shoved him in the direction of the library.
Instinctively, Neville raised his fists and swung, careless of his target or his reasoning. No one had shoved him since he’d come into his dukedom, and he’d had all he could take for one day.
Michael caught his fist in one hand, shoved harder, and blocked the second blow aimed at his stomach. “Stop it, Your Grace. It’s not me you want to hit. Fiona’s fine. She’s as furious as you are, and if you proposed to run off to Gretna, she’d no doubt accept, if just to get even with the priest. It’s a wonder his skin hasn’t been flayed from his back by the lash of her tongue. It will take me a bit, but we’ll have the wedding if you’ll let me talk to the father. Go on with you now. Eamon will drain the bottle before we get there.”
Robbed of his fight, Neville growled, scowled at the priest, and stalked off to the library. He had no quarrel with the drunken Eamon, but he tried to summon one. He needed something to hit, and with the priest removed from his reach, the Irishman seemed fair game.
“Got away again, has she?” Eamon asked caustically as Neville entered.
“Not this time, no thanks to you and your kind. The blithering priest refused his blessing. He won’t marry us. And the damned vicar hasn’t shown up yet.” Neville poured a large measure of the golden liquor into a glass.
“Surprise that,” Eamon replied lazily. “Imagine an Anglican priest roaming these parts. It’ll be a wonder if he keeps his head attached long enough to get here.”
Neville heaved the glass, whiskey and all, at the Irishman’s head. It smashed into a thousand tiny splinters and sparkling drops against the paneled wall. “I’d see the lying lot of you hanged and left out to dry. See if I let Michael persuade me to your charity again.” He headed out of the room.
“I see the cat’s let loose of your tongue,” Eamon called tauntingly as Neville walked out. “Do you think our Fiona will still take pity on your poor cracked head and marry you anyway?”
Michael caught Neville stalking the corridors, throwing open doors left and right in search of Fiona. “She’s locked herself in her room but the Widow Blackthorn is with her. The staff knows Fiona’s ways. They’ll not let her fling herself from a window or climb to the parapets at a time like this.”
Neville clenched his fists, trying to disguise his frustration. He didn’t want the widow sleeping with her. That was his prerogative.
As if reading his mind, Michael frowned and walked toward the library. “There’ll be none of that until after the ceremony, your worship.”
Neville could see where Fiona had learned disrespect. With nowhere else to go, he followed Michael. “Will there be a ceremony?” he demanded.
Michael threw him a hooded look as he opened the library door. “Your speech seems to have made a remarkable recovery.”
Now that the realization that he could talk sank in, Neville calmed to some extent. He could use his wits and tongue instead of his fists. He could go to Fiona whole. “Want to hit me over the head again?” he mocked.
“Yes,” Michael answered bluntly, pouring a glass of whiskey from the nearly empty bottle, scarcely giving Eamon’s drunken sprawl a second glance. “I’ve a plan to get the rebels talking to me. It will work much better if you’re still an addled idiot instead of a threat.”
“Thank you.” Neville threw back a swallow of the liquor, relishing the raw burn sliding down his throat. Perhaps Eamon had the right idea after all. Drunkenness had a certain appeal. “First, tell me what you’ve done to the priest. Then tell me your plan.”
“I’ve bribed the priest, of course. That’s all he was after. There’s not a clergyman in the country who can’t find use for a few extra coins for his flock. Although it cost me a good deal more than usual to soothe his umbrage after Fiona called him a bilious boil on the face of the earth. I think you owe the priest for your bride’s new loyalty.”
Neville wanted to chuckle, but he knew Fiona well. Once her temper cooled, she’d be back to questioning his safety, her purpose in his life, and whether the moon followed the sun.
“She could still murder him in his sleep and take the next ship to Boston,” he countered.
“As a precaution,” Michael continued, ignoring the comment, “I have men looking for the vicar. McGonigle’s probably holding him for hostage to get some of their own back. There’s none hereabouts happy to pay their tithes to the government church while their own goes begging, so you’ll understand their resentment.”
Neville supposed he could understand a lot of things if he put his mind to it, but his mind wasn’t on churches and priests and misbegotten Irish rebels right now. His thoughts were of a warm, soft woman and a tumble of auburn curls. He nearly groaned his need, and despised himself for it.
“All right, let’s hear the plan then.” With resignation, Neville dropped into a seat by the fire, prepared to wait out the long night before his nuptials by getting royally drunk.
***
The next day, still wound tighter than Effingham’s eccentric floor clock, Neville waited at the makeshift altar in the far end of the Great Hall, his head pounding more from an excess of whiskey than any blows.
Everyone in the whole blamed castle had conspired to keep him from Fiona all night and morning. For all he knew, she’d resorted to her grasshopper ways, and they planned to leave him standing at the altar like a bloody offering to their pagan gods.
Beside him, Michael balanced a prayer book on his finger and spun it around. The earl’s highly irreverent outlook on life applied equally to religion and government. Neville wished he could be a little more like him, but whereas Michael had spent nearly thirty years of his life wandering the world without a care to his name, Neville had spent those same years worrying first on how he would make a living, and then on how he could make a living not only for himself, but for the hundreds of tenants and servants he’d inherited. Somehow, in that mass of responsibilities, he’d lost any ability for careless impulse.
Someone produced a melodically angelic riff on a fiddle, and Neville’s back stiffened. A mouth organ joined the melody, and he held his breath. His gaze skipped over both the priest and the rescued vicar and fastened on the fairy-figure stepping through the far doorway.
Candlelight from the hundreds of wall sconces danced patterns of light and shadow over his bride’s pale features. The heavy velvet gown clung to a figure so slim, Neville feared a sudden draft would break her in two. A single emerald stone on a thick gold chain rested at her throat, drawing his attention to the expanse of creamy flesh swelling above her bodice.
Neville’s mouth went dry. He wanted to cover her up so no other greedy eyes but his could see her. At the same time, he nearly burst with pride that Fiona came to him and no other man.
She was finally close enough that he could see her eyes. They looked shadowed and worried, but they fastened on him as if he were the last bastion of sanity in a world gone mad. With a lump lodged in his throat, Neville reached out to take her hand. Her fingers were icy as she grasped his.
***
With the priest speaking in Latin and the vicar reading from the prayer book, the room could have been the Tower of Babylon for all Fiona knew. The dozens of candles on the altar and the wintry light angling through the high slots in the walls cast a holy aura over the scene. If the priest’s sonorous tones and the scent of incense were intended to impress the solemnity of the occasion upon her, she was suitably impressed. In fact, she was damned intimidated.
She took a deep breath to steady herself as she kneeled beside Neville at the makeshift altar to accept Communion. That the duke had endured this madness for her sake confirmed the decision she’d finally made. He was a good man, far better than most, one worth trusting, even if she wanted to rip out his hair f
or risking his life like this.
Perhaps because he was willing to risk his life for her.
Problems aplenty awaited them, but he was right. The strength of their characters and what they had between them might be enough. The infuriating priest had made her see clearly—she could not, would not hurt Neville anymore.
From beneath the lacy mantilla covering her hair, she glanced at the man who had claimed her hand and held it firmly now. The duke’s expression of complete certainty reassured her. He was the one getting the wrong end of the bargain, yet he didn’t express a single doubt. Perhaps the blow had addled his brain more than anyone knew.
Fiona’s heart danced a reel in her chest at the light in Neville’s eyes as he raised her up and held her with his intense gaze. Holy Mary, Mother of Christ, if he looked at her that way every day of their lives, he would not only have his herd of heirs, he would have her slavering at his feet.
Fiona returned her attention to the priest, but she heard nothing. This was her wedding day. Unlike other girls, she had never planned it. So she didn’t know what she felt now as the words of the ceremony demanded her vow to love this man from this day forth. The “honor and obey” part went right past her head.
Neville’s hand tightened around hers, and nervously, she met his gaze as she murmured “I do.” His response was firmer than hers, but then, men thought “love” something one did in bed. Still, his confidence again bolstered her flagging nerves.
Fiona’s eyes filled with tears as Neville completed his vow by sliding the silver bracelet she’d sold onto her wrist, before placing the ring on her finger. The bracelet was all she had of a grandmother she’d scarcely known. Her mother had passed it on to her the day she died. She’d hated selling it, but feeding the children had more priority than sentimentality. That Neville had guessed how much it meant to her shattered all her defenses. She scarcely noticed the gold band with which he formally claimed her. The bracelet said everything their words had not.
She hoped it was a sign that he respected her and her wishes.
The phrases pronouncing them man and wife reached her through a daze. The brush of Neville’s lips reminded Fiona they had scarcely had time to learn even such a minor part of courtship as kissing. And now they were married, irrevocably tied for eternity.
At least, as Neville had promised, she need not spend her wedding day dreading the night to come. If nothing else good came of this entire fiasco, she knew she could anticipate the pleasure of her husband’s bed.
Her husband. Gulping back her terror, Fiona clung to Neville’s arm as the crowd swarmed around them, kissing, shouting congratulations, crying, patting them on the back. Her husband. His wife.
The moment someone called her Your Grace, the blood drained from her head, and Fiona shot Neville a look of panic. All those times she’d mocked his lordly title, and now she shared it with him.
Obviously reading her expression, the duke raised that damnable shaggy eyebrow of his and grinned. The grin did it. She wanted to smack it off his smug face. She finally let loose of his sleeve.
“Would you prefer Mrs. Perceval, or Lady Duchess?” he whispered, accepting a drink someone shoved into his hand.
“Mrs....” she spluttered, before her entire body stilled. “A complete sentence. You just said a complete sentence,” she marveled.
He held a finger to his lips as someone barged between them, separating them at last.
Fiona scarcely had a moment to question him after that. Every woman in the village had to hug her and whisper words of advice, advice that became increasingly bawdy as the brew flowed and spirits rose. Young boys tried to kiss her cheek. Young girls stared at her gown in awe. The men maintained a wary distance, occasionally touching a forelock in respect, sending Neville a nervous look, or shaking Fiona’s hand with cautious praise.
All except Colin and Eamon. With the kegs of ale flowing freely in one of the empty chambers set aside for refreshments, Colin and Eamon found reckless fortification in the brew and hovered at Fiona’s side.
The fiddle and mouth organ began a reel that set feet tapping, and Fiona searched for Neville in the throng. He stood surrounded by men who argued vociferously with him as they would never do with her. He was still treating them with one word replies. She prayed they were forming a peaceful alliance.
“Let’s have a dance, Fiona, my own,” Eamon called when he noted the direction of her glance. “Let the asses bray while we enjoy the day.”
She should be dancing with Neville. But her anxious glance told her he would be embroiled for a long time to come, and with a sigh, she accepted Eamon’s offer. The day loomed forever long. She might as well make what she could of it.
She skipped up and down the hall with Eamon, spun in a reel with Michael, lifted her skirts and tapped out a jig to beat Colin at his best. The crowd roared with approval and gaiety. After a cup or two of punch to quench her thirst, Fiona’s head spun with the noise, and her laughter flowed as freely as the music and the spirits.
McGonigle took his place in the line of dancers beside her. None of the men had bothered telling her the outcome of their confrontation with the rebel leader, but the fact that they hadn’t thrown him from the castle said Neville had brought him to a truce. She didn’t dislike the man so much as his methods, and for the sake of the orphans, she didn’t object to his presence.
Eamon did, however. With drunken bravado, he lurched into the line beside Fiona, taking the place between her and McGonigle. “My turn, I believe.” He hiccuped.
The burlier man tapped Eamon on the shoulder. “I’ve come to talk with the lady. Out of my way, you whiskey-laden sot.”
Before Fiona could gather her spinning thoughts, Eamon’s fist shot out, McGonigle retaliated, and a woman screamed.
The melee spread quickly. Someone attempting to separate the combatants got hit, roared with rage, and launched into the fracas. Another jumped in to help him. With blood riding high on liquor and the tension of the past days of army occupation, tempers frayed rapidly.
Accustomed to the swift degeneration of frivolity into violence, Fiona backed away. They’d all be weeping in their beer and singing mournful ballads together before the day ended, but she’d had enough violent emotion for one day. If she didn’t escape soon, she might surrender to the temptation of smacking someone. Her missing husband might be a good one to start with.
She saw Colin fighting his way through the mob in her direction, but she would have none of the slippery bastard. He had a wife big with child at home. That’s where he belonged. She wanted Neville, and if her husband didn’t have sense enough to know that, she would take herself out of here.
She smacked off Colin’s hand as he reached for her. “Leave off and let me by, Colin.”
“Let me take you out of this, cailin. I’d have a word with you, if I might.”
“Not with my wife, you won’t.”
Before Fiona’s wondering gaze, Colin rose several inches into the air. Her eyes widened as she realized Neville held him by the back of his neckcloth. The duke appeared perfectly calm, but Colin’s face was turning blue. Her already shredded nerves and temper gave way.
“If I’m supposed to be impressed by your prowess, my lord husband, let me assure you, I am not. But by all means, don’t let me disturb the two of you. Go about your games without me.”
She shoved past, lifting the nuisance of her heavy train and all but running from the room, her head pounding in fury, her eyes filled with tears. Nothing, but nothing was going right. The whole damned world was run by apes.
As his wife ran from the room, Neville exploded with the frustration that had been building within him for two days. Torn from her side by McGonigle and his demands, forced to watch every man in the room dance with his bride—while he grunted inane responses to political diatribes and Michael talked them into reason—Neville could no longer keep the volcano of his long dormant emotions from erupting.
Slamming Colin against the wall and
letting him slide to the massive ebony table beneath, Neville clenched his fists and ran after his wife.
He’d be damned if he let Fiona escape again.
Twenty-six
Neville found Fiona in her bedchamber, heaving clothes into a trunk. She looked up when he slammed the door behind him, then ignored him by defiantly flinging her mantilla into the trunk’s rummage heap and reaching for another garment from the stack upon the bed.
Neville swept the entire stack from the bed and in the general direction of the trunk. Clothes tumbled in disarray all across the floor. “No more running away!” he yelled.
Not one to be caught off balance, she scowled again. “I’m not running!” she shouted back, kicking the trunk out of the mess he’d created and bending over to retrieve her scattered garments. The wooden trunk scraped against the wooden floor, but the rising noise of the fracas below drowned out the worst of it.
“Dammit, you just did.” Neville finally gave in to the need to punch something by striking at a moldering tapestry on the wall. He choked on the clouds of dust billowing from the ancient cloth, then pounded it again in retaliation. The rusted chain holding it in place broke, and the heavy piece collapsed on the floor in another storm of dust.
“Look at what you’ve bloody well done!” Fiona screamed, heaving a crewel work pillow at the wall where the tapestry had been instead of the more obvious target of his head.
“I’ll take the damned thing and wrap it around the clothheads downstairs.” With a remarkably cleansing fury surging through his veins, Neville dug his fists into a matching tapestry and ripped it from the wall. The chain shrieked with protest before snapping. He heaved the heavy cloth toward its companion piece as if it weighed nothing. “If I ever see that piece of scum near you again, so help me I’ll...” He kicked the entire stack of cloth toward the door, effectively barring exit or entrance.
“To which piece of scum do ye refer, yer lordship?” Fiona asked mockingly, grabbing a handful of clothes from a wardrobe and flinging them at the already overflowing trunk. “The ones who danced with me when my husband wouldn’t? The ones who brought me punch when my throat grew dry explaining why I didn’t dance with my own damned husband?”
The Irish Duchess Page 21
