Oh What A (Wedding) Night (Brazen Brides #3)

by Cheryl Bolen

  “Lord Finkel must be stopped.”

  “I agree.”

  “You are acquainted with Sir George Malvern, are you not?”

  He raised a brow. “I am.”

  She strode to William's ledger and opened it. “We know from Mr. Birmingham's book Sir George is one of Finkie's victims. What we need is someone like Sir George to be willing to come forward with accusations of Lord Finkel's evil deeds. Mr. Birmingham wasn't able to persuade him, but I think you can. Everyone respects you.”

  His eyes narrowed suspiciously. “What are you proposing?”

  “For you and me to pay him a visit. We must appeal to his compassion for others who've been injured by Finkie.”

  “What makes you think he'll agree for us when he's already turned down your Mr. Birmingham?”

  She recalled the names in William’s ledger. Sir George’s recently deceased son was one of Finkie’s victims. “I shall first point out the person he wished most to protect from exposure is now dead. Secondly, you will assure him that he'll be doing what's right, that he'll save many, many people from Lord Finkel's treacherous clutches.”

  “It's not as if I really know Sir George. I merely nod to him from time to time at White's.”

  “But, my dear brother, you outrank almost everyone at White's. Everyone curries your favor and is flattered by your attentions.”

  Devere did not protest.

  Her brother was inherently honest. He could not deny that his sister spoke the truth.

  “Very well. I'll send around a note asking to see him on a private matter Wednesday afternoon. Can you meet me at his house on Half Moon Street then?”

  “I will.”

  * * *

  As William made his way home from visiting Adam, the skies erupted. He was in for another drenching. A pity he hadn't taken the coach. When given the choice, he always preferred to ride Thunder. Being on horseback made whipping in and out of London's snarled conveyances a great deal faster. On a cold, damp day like today, though, exposing himself like this was sheer lunacy. Especially given his state of ill health.

  He'd had a miserable night sleeping—and not just because Isadore haunted his thoughts. He would go to sleep only to be awakened by a coughing fit. When he had finally awakened for good, it hurt to swallow. His throat felt as if it had been ignited by a torch.

  He could have lain in bed all day, but he refused to. It was far too painful to be in the same house with Isadore. How difficult it had been to be in the same room with her last night and know he could not act upon the strumming desire he was incapable of suppressing.

  But now he had no choice. His bloody bed beckoned. He felt wretched. The stinging rain wasn't helping matters. It drilled into him, through his woolen pants, its chill penetrating to his very bones.

  He dismounted in front of his house, handing his horse off to a footman, and inside, handing his dripping greatcoat off to Fenton. Climbing the stairs was an effort. He felt so bloody bad.

  When he reached his chambers, Thompson greeted him. “It appears the master has once again experienced a thorough soaking. Come, we must get you out of those wet clothes!”

  William collapsed into a chair. “Be a good man and help me out of my boots.”

  Thompson stooped down and began to tug. “Your voice sounds awful.”

  “I feel awful.”

  “What you need is a warm bed.”

  “Excellent advice.”

  Thompson's eyes rounded. “I've never known you to lie abed in the daytime in all these years I've been serving you.”

  “That's because I haven't been sick in all these years you've been serving me.”

  After the boots were removed, Thompson stood. William stumbled to his feet, peeled off his soaked clothing, and climbed into bed.

  “Allow me to close the draperies so the room will be dark,” Thompson said. “What you need is a good sleep.”

  * * *

  Sophia had seen him enter. The poor man looked like a drowned pup. She heard him pass her door when he went to his chamber. When she heard footsteps on the corridor fifteen minutes later, she opened her door, hoping to see William. But it was not William. It was Thompson.

  She pushed aside her initial disappointment and called out to the valet.

  He stopped and turned. “Yes, Miss Door?”

  “Do you know if your master is dining at home tonight?” What business was it of hers to be asking such a question? She prayed William was planning to so that she could join him.

  A sad look came over his face. “I couldn't say, Miss. Mr. Birmingham has come down with a nasty chill. He's in bed now—a first for my master.”

  Her face turned sad. Twice now—three times if one counted their miserable journey to London—he had foolishly exposed himself to the brutal cold and punishing rain. She felt responsible. Had William not been so angry with her he wouldn't have acted so foolishly. She was even responsible for the destruction of his carriage that had made their drive to London so uncomfortable. (Of course, if one were laying blame where blame belonged, Finkie was actually responsible.)

  A pity she'd brought her own grief upon dear William Birmingham. If something happened to him, she truly would enter a convent and spend the rest of her days eschewing her riches, repenting her sins, and helping lepers. Isn't that the sort of thing one did in a convent? She wondered if convents permitted Anglicans. She really didn't know anything at all about convents.

  “Oh, the poor, dear man!” said she. “I must hasten down and ask that the cook make soup for the master.”

  * * *

  He'd been dreaming that he was trudging, half clothed, through fields of snow. He was bitterly cold. When he awakened he realized it was the damn cold in his bedchamber that had cut short his slumber. Neither a blazing fire nor a pile of blankets could compensate for the damp chill which permeated the room.

  He looked at the clock upon his mantel to discover he'd slept for more than two hours.

  He'd thought he would awaken and feel his old self, but he still did not feel quite the thing. He didn't actually have a fever. He just felt like his head might explode. And he was beginning to think he would never again be warm.

  By the time he had fully separated dream from reality, a knock sounded upon his door. He'd sent hovering Thompson away hours before. “Who is it?” He was surprised at the hoarseness of his voice.

  The door inched open, and Isadore stood there holding a bed tray. She had apparently enlisted her sister to do the door duties because her own hands were otherwise occupied. She dismissed the poor mute, then turned all her attention—and a most angelic smile—upon him. “I had Cook make you some fresh lentil soup. My nurse used to swear that highly seasoned lentil soup warded off the most offensive cases of lung fever. She always insisted that we have lentil soup at the first sign of a chill, and we were all remarkably healthy.”

  So he'd been right about her being gently bred. Only the wealthy and the nobles employed nurses to raise their children. But, then, Lord Evers would hardly be marrying a woman from a lower station.

  She wore white again and looked far too ethereal and far too flawless to be a mortal. He was mesmerized by her loveliness as she gracefully moved toward him. The white was a stunning backdrop for her luxurious dark brown locks.

  As she came closer, his breathing accelerated. He wished to God she didn't have such an effect upon him, wished to God he could be impervious to her.

  Bloody hell. He'd have to sit up now, but he couldn't do so while she was in the room. He hadn't a stitch on. And, besides, the prospect of leaving the warmth of his blankets was not pleasant.

  “I will own,” he croaked in his compromised voice, “my throat craves something hot, and I cannot deny that I'm hungry.”

  “You sound terrible!” Her gaze went to his bare shoulders and froze.

  His breath grew even more labored.

  She recovered promptly. “Direct me to where I can find you a night shirt. You must be freezing in this
chilly room. I don't know why your house is always so beastly cold.”

  His misery was stronger than his desire to appear unaffected by the cold. “Look in the linen press.”

  She set the tray down on his writing desk and went to the apple green, Chinoiserie-style press, withdrew a heavy twill night shirt, and brought it to him.

  His brows lowered. “You shouldn't be here.”

  She started to giggle.

  “What do you find to laugh about?”

  “Can you be saying it's improper for me to see your bare shoulders?” She laughed some more.

  “It's not proper!”

  “Have you forgotten that I've seen every inch of you beneath the glow of firelight?” She spoke in a velvety timbre.

  Never mind that he was sick man, he was instantly aroused.

  But he had vowed never to act on his desire for her. She was Lord Evers' wife.

  “That was before I knew you were married to another man,” he grumbled. “Turn around whilst I put on my shirt.”

  She giggled some more as she faced away from him.

  He eased from beneath his warm covers in much the same way one eases into a frigid lake on a warm day. Damn! His room was bloody cold. He threw on the nightshirt, which did offer a modicum of warmth. Then he launched into a coughing fit.

  “I know it's beastly cold in this chamber,” she said, “but the soup will help to warm you.”

  He looked up at her—or, rather, at her back. “You can turn around now.”

  She lifted the tray and came to him.

  “What else do you have on the tray?” he asked.

  “Before I tell you, I have something to say.”

  He glared, trying to appear as if he were completely unaffected by her. Though he was anything but.

  “I know you're angry with me, and you have every right to be, but as long as we're waiting for the bullion, as long as you're kind enough to permit me to stay here, can we at least act friendly to one another?”

  She sighed and her voice softened. “I know there can't be anything more between us, but please don't completely slam the door on me. I couldn't bear it. Can we not be friends?” Those huge dark eyes of her were incredibly sorrowful when she looked at him.

  He must be bewitched. Though he'd somehow managed to deny himself what he wanted most, he seemed incapable of denying her anything else. He had permitted her to continue on at Grosvenor Square. And now he was agreeing to feign friendship with her when with every breath he drew he wanted so much more. He solemnly nodded.

  A smile lifted her beautiful face. “Good.” She set the tray in front of him. “I've also brought you a decoction of lungwort to help you feel better. My old nurse- - -”

  “Swore by its effectiveness.”

  She laughed. “What a pity it is, Mr. Birmingham, that you are so easily anticipating my sentences. I must be as dull as Hannah More.”

  “I thought all women admired Hannah More.”

  “Simple minded women who are exceedingly pious. I hardly fit that description.”

  His thoughts exactly. He'd rather undergo a bloodletting than read one of the More woman's didactic tracts. “It appears there's another area in which we are in perfect agreement, Miss Door.”

  He had suffered a flinch of disappointment when she'd addressed him by his surname. It was better this way, though. It was better not to recall a night when a lady he'd called Isadore offered a woman's most precious gift to a man she called William.

  He still couldn't shake those memories from his mind. He had been her first. It would have been so much easier now, so much less painful, had he not been!

  “And I brought this,” she said, smiling as she held up a volume of Pope's poems. “As you did to me when I was infirm, I shall read to you. I shouldn't like for you to leave your bed until I can verify that your good health has been restored.”

  She remembered how much he admired Pope. “You must have been a firstborn,” he muttered with mock indignation.

  Her dark eyes danced. “Are you saying that I am accustomed to ordering about a pack of younger siblings?”

  “I am.”

  A look of concentration crossed her face. “I was not the first born. I have an elder brother, but I was the first daughter, and I regret to admit that I was rather authoritarian with my younger siblings—and still am.”

  “I rest my case.”

  She moved closer. Her light rose scent affected him almost as profoundly as her reminder that she'd seen every inch of his flesh beneath candlelight. “I would rather you drink your lungwort. It's preferable, I am told, if one takes medicinals along with food.”

  “Miss Door, you might call a bowl of lentil soup food, but I most certainly do not.”

  Her laughter once again rang out.

  A woman who laughed. He could only plight his life to a woman with an excellent sense of humor. How it tortured him to know the one woman with whom he was perfectly compatible was already wed. William had never before been a jealous man. Until now. As honorable as Lord Evers was, William was beginning to loathe him.

  “Spoken like a man.”

  “I am a man.”

  Her long, dark lashes lowered, and her voice went husky. “Yes, I know.”

  Dear God, give me strength. To get his thoughts away from the dangerous trajectory they'd taken, he grabbed the decoction of lungwort and gulped it down. “Why in the blazes did you not tell me how foul tasting it was?”

  “Because I suspected you'd be like my youngest brother and refuse to imbibe.”

  “Ah ha! Now I know the source of your propensity to lie! I can see you telling an innocent little lad that a decoction of slimy lungwort tastes as good as plum pudding.”

  Her response was another laugh. “Really, Mr. Birmingham, it is vastly UNgallant of you to continue referring to my falsehoods. A gentleman simply doesn't do such.”

  Yesterday he would never have dreamed that he could be laughing over the many ways she had duped him. As much as he wanted to dislike her, he could not. In fact, he was happy she had come to brighten what had been a miserable day.

  He started on his soup. It felt soothing on his raw throat. After three or four spoonfuls, he was warming. “Thank you, Miss Door, and thanks to your old nurse. The soup is the very thing. I'm feeling much better.”

  She still stood beside his bed, and now she came closer and pressed a gentle hand to his forehead. “Thank God you don't have a fever.”

  He could not deny that she'd been concerned over him. How much less agonizing it would have been if she had no feelings for him whatsoever.

  As he was finishing his soup, she took the slender chair from in front of his desk, brought it to his bedside, and sat. “Before I begin reading, should you like more soup?”

  He shook his head. “For something that is not food, it was rather filling.”

  They both laughed.

  “I wish I could make this room warmer for you,” she said. “I think it's a matter of the excessive cold outside. It's now snowing, you know.”

  “Good thing I wasn't riding when that started.”

  “You shouldn't have been riding anything in this nasty cold!”

  “Spoken like the firstborn daughter.”

  It was funny how they knew little things about one another but knew so little of the whole picture. He knew enough to know that if she hadn't been married, he would have raced her to the alter less than a week after they met. It was a source of almost unimaginable pain that what had started out so sublimely had ended so cruelly.

  “Are you ready for me to read to you?”

  He nodded.

  Her voice was lovely, even melodic, as she read. His lids began to droop. The last words he heard were not proud Olympus yields a nobler sight.

  Chapter 13

  At the time she calculated he normally awakened—judging from the time he left his chambers each day—she brought a breakfast tray to his room. Once again, Dottie knocked upon and opened the door, and then So
phia strolled in, a bright smile on her face.

  She'd actually been smiling quite a bit since she'd walked into this same chamber eighteen hours earlier. Even as she had lain in bed pondering the hopelessness of her marital situation, she smiled because she and William were friends again. She smiled because they could laugh together. She smiled because as long as she was permitted to stay at his house, she could be with him. She valued these moments all the more after the days of their estrangement—and because these moments would be taken away far too soon.

  Her gaze connected with his. There was a flash of some emotion in his mossy eyes as they lazily traveled the length of her. He was sitting up in bed, still in his snowy white nightshirt. How rugged he looked with a day's growth of beard.

  She hadn't been prepared for the effect it would have upon her to see him when he awakened in the morning. Memories of that other morning flooded her. How she wanted to climb in that bed with him and feel her flesh pressed to his. Her breath sputtered in her chest like a kettle about to boil.

  Perhaps if the draperies were opened her mind would not be reverting to those nocturnal memories. She gathered her wits. “How are you feeling this morning?”

  “Not good,” he said in a nasal tone.

  She moved to the bed, set down the tray, and began to pour his chamomile tea into an eggshell-thin porcelain cup rimmed in gilt. “My old nurse said chamomile tea is the best thing to open up the stuffy head in the morning.”

  “And we know your old nurse was always right.”

  Even as she nodded, her brows squeezed together as she regarded him. His croaking voice sounded terrible. “I had so hoped you'd be better this morning, but Nurse used to say that when the head is clogged, it's always worst in the morning. Then once one is sitting up and can expel the clogging, one can commence to feeling better.”

  “I do hope your old nurse is right about this.”

  “You sound awful.”

  “You look beautiful.”

  She was completely taken aback by his compliment. For a moment she wondered how she should respond, then she decided a simple, “Thank you,” would do.

  “I must tell you I'm impervious to beautiful, married females,” he said.