Tess bit her lower lip hard. “You are just going to leave me here to face Lady Wingate and her houseguests alone?”
“You needn’t face them unless you wish to.” He cocked his head. “In fact, you are welcome to accompany me to London if you like, but I should think you would rather remain here and prepare for our wedding.”
She flinched at that. “I expect I should attend the play’s performance this evening if I hope to maintain my contributors’ goodwill, although it will be difficult to carry on as if nothing has happened. And it will be utterly impossible to pretend we are making a love match as Lady Wingate suggested.”
Ian didn’t reply directly, not wanting to delay his departure with a futile discussion about love and love matches. “Where would you like the ceremony to be held?”
Looking stunned again, Tess gazed mutely back at him, as if finally accepting that this was really happening to her.
Rising, Ian said in a bracing tone, “You may decide where the blessed event is to take place. Any of my homes might do … my house in London, the chapel at Bellacourt, here at Wingate Manor, your own house in Chiswick. Or you may prefer a church wedding. I doubt if St. George’s in Hanover Square is available at this late date, but you may have other ideas. If I recall, you planned to wed Richard in the village church in Chiswick.”
“No, not there,” Tess said. “It would be a mockery to wed in a holy church for an unholy union.”
She shuddered slightly, evidently an involuntary response. Even so, Ian couldn’t help wincing again, in addition to feeling another wave of guilt along with a fresh desire to comfort her. It would take a harder heart than his to be impervious to this beauty with the passion-bruised mouth and vulnerable eyes.
Stepping closer, he reached down to touch the backs of his fingers to her cheek. His voice lowered as he gazed down at her. “I truly regret that it has come to this pass, Tess.”
“So do I,” she whispered, drawing back and looking away.
Remorse was Ian’s chief sentiment as he waited in the entrance hall of Wingate Manor for his carriage to be brought around. He deeply regretted forcing Tess to the altar. In fact, he regretted the entire damned morning.
His first mistake was overreacting when he parted the stage curtains to find her kissing Hennessy. He’d felt an instinctive rage, a deep-seated, primal male possessiveness that he’d never felt with any other woman.
Then he’d compounded his error by taking Tess to task for her wanton conduct and revealing the extent of his jealousy.
It wasn’t that he harbored any deep feelings for her, Ian reasoned. He simply wanted to save her from a Lothario. Yet he couldn’t deny that he savagely disliked the idea of Tess giving herself to another man, particularly one of Hennessy’s hedonistic tendencies.
He hadn’t liked the idea of his cousin Richard having her either, Ian remembered. He could still recall his first sight of Tess at her comeout ball. She was laughing with Richard with the intimacy of old friends, the expression on her face one of fond delight.
Her delight had suddenly arrested, however, when Ian stepped forward, as if she’d become sharply conscious of the sexual awareness pulsing between them. When Lady Wingate made the introductions, Tess stared up at him warily through a fan of dark lashes. She wasn’t intimidated by him, Ian thought, merely cautious. And given his wicked reputation, he couldn’t blame her.
He’d wanted her from that first moment, though. When he danced with Tess at Lady Wingate’s urging, the heady sensation of being so near to her had gone straight to his head—and to his loins as well. He’d been immediately, shockingly aroused.
His wild physical response to Tess had no justifiable rationalization. The sensual hunger she stirred in him was far out of proportion to their respective ages and experience.
He’d been twenty-six at the time, well on his way to becoming a rake like his late father. As a genteel young lady making her bow to society, Tess was much too innocent and proper for his tastes.
Oh, she was an acknowledged beauty, no doubt about it. Her thick, glossy hair was mahogany dark and rich; her face fine-boned and captivating, her complexion pale and perfect. Her figure was slender but enticingly ripe in all the right places.
She had a serene loveliness about her, an unmistakable feminine allure that drew Ian against his will. She’d left a deep mark on his memory that night, a mark that had only increased over the years since. But even though Tess’s magnetic beauty bowled him over at a physical level, it was her passionate warmth and spirit that touched him on a much deeper plane—as did, ironically, her genuine goodness.
Perhaps because it was such a contrast to his own misspent youth, Ian suspected, when he was a wild, moody lad with a tree-sized chip on his shoulder.
He had wasted his younger years living on the edge of compulsive excess, defying society’s dictates and living down to his licentious father’s expectations. After inheriting the title at twenty-two when his ducal father was shot in a duel by a jealous husband, Ian had further tarnished his reputation by spending all his time in gaming hells winning enormous fortunes, and in various bedrooms indulging in amorous affairs with women who pursued him primarily for his title and wealth.
Compared to him, Tess Blanchard was a saint. Even without the comparison, she was laudable. She had a giving heart that was unfeigned, and an indomitable spirit that had earned his admiration. Even though she had suffered bitter disappointments in recent years—having lost both her parents and then her beloved betrothed—she’d risen above her own misfortunes to lessen the misfortunes of others. Ian couldn’t help but be impressed by her strength and resilience, by her tenacity and courage.
Tess was a fighter as well as being a pioneer of sorts. Like other young ladies of her genteel station, she made up baskets of food for the poor, stitched shirts and knitted stockings, and collected donations from the neighboring gentry. But her efforts went much farther and had a far greater impact.
One of her chief causes was the Families of Fallen Soldiers, relatives and loved ones of those who had died fighting in the decades-long war against French tyranny. She also visited soldiers’ hospitals in London to comfort sick and wounded veterans. And over the past summer, she had expanded her solicitations to the entire Beau Monde and organized several charitable benefits that drew the cream of the ton, including the Prince Regent.
It amused Ian to watch Tess at work, soliciting funds from the wealthy denizens of the ton. She was sweetly ruthless, persuading with charm and common sense, and if that failed, shaming them into opening their purses. She frequently managed to get her way, despite the obstacles in her path.
But admiration or not, Ian had done his utmost to quell his attraction for Tess because Richard had laid claim to her the night of her comeout ball. He might covet what his cousin had, he might still feel the pull of desire every time he looked at her, but he possessed enough honor to consider her strictly off-limits. He’d even helped Richard salvage his courtship of Tess four years ago, Ian recollected.
And while Richard was abroad fighting a war, he’d kept away from her as much as possible. If he was forced by family duty or social convention to interact with her, he made certain he always riled her—picking fights, dictating to her, generally throwing around his weight as head of Richard’s family—in part to conceal his craving for her, but also because his state of arousal around Tess frequently put him in a foul mood.
Even after his cousin’s death, Ian kept up the pretense of being at odds with Tess and only backed off a little out of consideration for her grief.
He hated to see her grieving, though. He’d been the one to break the news to her of his cousin’s death two years ago, conveying the letter from the War Ministry commending Richard’s valor on the battlefield at Waterloo.
It was the second hardest thing Ian had ever done. The hardest was seeing the resulting devastation in Tess’s eyes. Her sorrow had ripped through his chest. Even though he’d brought Lady Wingate with him to t
ry and console Tess, she had proved inconsolable, then or in the months that followed. Her betrothed’s untimely death had changed her, had stolen the laughter from her eyes.
A fierce protectiveness had welled up inside Ian that day. And he still felt protective of her, whether he wished to or not. As a consequence, he’d made certain that Tess was well guarded by her servants whenever she went to London to visit hospitals or asylums to care for wounded war veterans. And more recently, he’d commissioned actor Patrick Hennessy to look after her when she visited the theater district to foster clever new projects that generated income for her charities.
He hadn’t wanted Tess to know he was so concerned for her welfare. There was no point in advertising his involvement with her charities either. As soon as he returned from London, he would remind the actor of his promise to keep quiet, Ian noted.
His outsized protectiveness was largely the reason he hadn’t fought having to wed her. He felt obliged to save Tess from a scandal he had caused.
By marrying her, he would also be making reparations of another sort. Although for good reason, he’d been the one to send Richard off to war in the first place, thus changing Tess’s fate irrevocably.
At least Lady Wingate should be pleased by the marriage, Ian surmised. The baroness’s violent reaction to their wanton conduct had seemed a bit overplayed, now that he had time to consider it. In fact, he suspected her ladyship of trying to throw them together, much as she’d done four years ago at Tess’s comeout ball. But if she wished to promote a love match between them, this was hardly the way to go about it, forcing Tess to choose between her beloved charities and ruination.
“Your carriage is ready, your grace.”
His reflections interrupted by the Wingate butler, Ian donned his greatcoat and beaver hat and stepped out into the rain.
He likely wouldn’t sort out his complicated feelings for Tess any time soon. And just now he had to drive to London to procure a special license for a marriage neither of them had anticipated … and she, at least, violently opposed.
The impending termination of his bachelorhood didn’t exactly fill him with delight either, Ian admitted. Yet he couldn’t deny that it had crossed his mind recently to court Tess himself. Indeed, for the past several months—ever since Lady Wingate had insisted her goddaughter was coming out of mourning—he had toyed with the notion of seriously considering matrimony, and of making Tess his first choice.
He’d doubted she would be amenable to his suit, though. He had done too good a job of deliberately antagonizing her.
And now, Ian thought with a sardonic twist of his lips, it probably served him right that he had to deal with the extreme ill will he had purposefully sown.
Shaken and dismayed, Tess was grateful to reach her bedchamber at Wingate Manor without encountering anyone. She couldn’t bear to face the baroness or any more gawking houseguests just now. Not when she had to struggle with such a life-altering decision.
As Tess let herself into her room, the weight settling on her chest made it difficult to breathe. She was aghast to think she would have to marry Rotham despite their mutual antagonism—and furious at herself for letting this disaster come to pass.
Yet you will be facing a worse disaster if you don’t accept his offer, she reminded herself. Not only would scandal render her an outcast in society, her precious charities would be devastated.
Tess didn’t doubt that Lady Wingate would carry out her threat to ally with the entire ton against her. The baroness actually had ties to Rotham’s family by marriage; Judith’s late sister-in-law had been his maternal aunt. But they might as well have been related by blood, given their forceful natures. Her ladyship had an acerbic wit just like Rotham, and had regularly run roughshod over her weakling husband before Baron Wingate’s untimely demise from a lung ailment several years ago.
Rotham was just as strong-willed as Lady Wingate, perhaps more so, Tess acknowledged. He was a nobleman accustomed to getting what he wanted—which was one of the prime sources of friction between them.
How could she wed a man who was so vexing, so overbearing, so dictatorial? His arrogant highhandedness made her blood boil.
“If anyone could induce me to murder, it would be Rotham,” Tess muttered to herself. “How can I endure an entire lifetime of being his wife?”
He was right on one score, however, she conceded grudgingly. It was difficult enough for her as a woman—and a single lady at that—to raise funds for even the most worthy causes. It would be impossible if she lived under a cloud of scandal.
And as Rotham had pointed out, as a duchess, she would be in a much better position to aid her charities. As it was now, she had only a fraction of the power and influence Rotham possessed by virtue of his rank and fortune.
Marriage to him, though, would shatter all her plans and hopes for her future, Tess thought despondently. She had earnestly hoped to find true love again. And recently she’d been encouraged by the success of her closest friends—the three beautiful but staunchly independent Loring sisters—and even her cousin, Damon Stafford, Viscount Wrexham. She’d watched this past year as one by one, they found love and happiness in marriage.
Although Tess didn’t know if she would ever love again, their felicity—no, their joy—had inspired her to play the matrimonial mating game once more. Besides, she wanted a husband and children someday. Thus, she was willing to risk the whims of fate, even though she knew firsthand how incredibly painful it was to lose a loved one.
Crossing to her valise, Tess pulled out the last letter Richard had ever written to her. My dearest love, the salutation began.
Her eyes welled with bittersweet pain as she smoothed the well-worn pages with her fingertips.
She had known Richard Sutherland all of her life, having grown up in the same country neighborhood in Chiswick, partway between London and Richmond. Since he was only two years older, they had played together as children. Surprisingly, their friendship blossomed further after he went off to university, chiefly because they kept up a written correspondence.
Tess was glad to have her dear friend Richard’s support at her comeout ball, particularly since she was flustered to meet his handsome elder cousin, Ian Sutherland, the sinful Duke of Rotham. Rotham had a wild reputation, but had attended her ball at the invitation of Lady Wingate, who had sponsored Tess’s entire London Season. His wickedness should have made him anathema at a young lady’s debut, but in the eyes of the hypocritical ton, the duke’s family connections combined with his high rank and enormous fortune made him a supremely eligible match.
Rotham’s powerful physical allure had unnerved Tess, though. In comparison, his younger cousin Richard was a much gentler man, sweet and thoughtful, instead of intense and dangerous to her peace of mind.
When that same night Richard had asked to court her, Tess had welcomed his suit and forcibly repressed her forbidden attraction to his wicked cousin.
She’d always wondered, however, if Richard had acted out of jealousy that night. Certainly he resented his cousin’s wealth, since Rotham controlled the purse strings and refused to increase his quarterly allowance.
Richard had chafed at his lack of funds, yet it surprised Tess when shortly after her comeout ball, he had entered the army on an officer’s commission purchased by the duke. Richard had never before shown interest in a military life, but he was not cut out to be a clergyman, and a gentleman of limited means had few ways to earn a livelihood other than the military or the Church.
He was off fighting the war when Tess lost her mother to a lung fever late that same year. Richard’s letters had comforted her greatly, though, and when he came home on leave and proposed to her, they had agreed to a quiet betrothal. They planned to marry after her official year of mourning for her mother ended, but before the wedding could take place, Napoleon escaped imprisonment and Richard was called back to war. Tragically, he was killed in the Battle of Waterloo in the summer of 1815.
To shut out her grief
at losing her betrothed, Tess had thrown herself into supporting various charities, including founding the Families of Fallen Soldiers. She also continued teaching classes part-time at her friend Arabella Loring’s Academy for Young Ladies. She had a modest fortune, so she wasn’t forced to work for her living, but she wanted to give herself a sense of purpose as well as fill the vast hole in her life.
Now, two years later, Tess had overcome her numbness of spirit and was satisfied with her life for the most part. But she still longed for love to replace the emptiness.
If she were ruined by scandal, though, what chance for love and marriage would she ever have? The lonely dreariness of a life lived in chaste spinsterhood held scant appeal.
That was the chief reason she had kissed Hennessy today, Tess remembered. For two years now, she’d led a colorless, passionless existence, one with no spark, no fire, and she’d vowed to change that.
But her resolve to live life more fully had landed her in deep trouble—
A quiet rap on her bedchamber door startled Tess out of her reverie. Quickly she wiped her damp eyes and returned Richard’s treasured letter to its velvet pouch and tucked the pouch into her valise.
When she opened the door, she found the youngest and most passionate of the three Loring sisters standing there. Lily had recently married Heath Griffin, the Marquess of Claybourne, after a spirited courtship. With Lord Claybourne’s financial support, she had initiated her own charitable endeavor, starting a home for destitute and abused women, and had attended Lady Wingate’s house party to help promote Tess’s causes.
“Is it true that you accepted Rotham’s proposal of marriage?” Lily demanded as she swept into the room.
“It is true that he proposed,” Tess said, shutting the door after the dark-haired beauty, “because we were caught in a compromising position. But I haven’t yet accepted his offer.”
“What in the world happened, Tess? I heard you were discovered together in a passionate embrace, but I thought you and Rotham were mortal enemies.”
To Desire a Wicked Duke Page 4
