The Bridal Season

by Connie Brockway

  “Angela?” she asked. “Is she all right?”

  “She’ll be fine.” His teeth clamped shut as he turned, dragging her roughly in his wake. He limped heavily, leading her to where she’d tethered her gelding. Elliot’s black stood beside it.

  Without a word, he scooped her up and deposited her in the saddle, then swung up onto his horse’s back. He glared at her. “Will you follow me back to the house?”

  She nodded. Through the driving rain he led the way down the road and to his home. Once there he dismounted, cursing as he dropped from the saddle and his leg buckled. She slipped at once to the ground and went to him, but the glare he threw her warned her against offering her assistance.

  He took the horses’ reins and moved with painful deliberation toward the stables. He did not look back. “The door is open. Go in.”

  She did as he bid her, entering the house with a little wistful sense of anticipation. Elliot’s home.

  The redbrick manor house was built around a central hall and a graceful staircase that switchbacked up three stories. Behind this, a hallway led to the back. A set of doors faced each other across the foyer in which she stood. The one on her left was partly open.

  She peeked inside. It was evidently a woman’s room. White-and-poppy-red floral chintz covered a pair of sofas and a hassock. On delicate piecrust tables stood bell jars filled with brilliantly hued butterflies and porcelain figurines. Above the mantel hung an oil painting of a dark woman flanked by two curly-headed boys. The older one looked composed and thoughtful, the black-haired younger one merry and inquisitive.

  The front door opened behind Letty, causing her to jump back from the door. Elliot came in, shedding water like a great spaniel, flapping his arms and shaking his head. He peeled off his jacket and tossed it over the stair rail.

  “The Buntings sent a boy on horseback here an hour ago,” he said. “Thank God someone showed some sense.”

  He was soaked through to the skin, his white dress shirt and vest plastered to his arms and chest. Through the fabric she could see the play of his muscles. She looked away, her cheeks warm. “I’m sorry. What were you saying?”

  “The Buntings’ bridge is flooded and too dangerous to take carriages over. The Buntings’ guests will be staying until the morrow.” He met her gaze grimly. “Angela came to as soon as we arrived. No, don’t look like that. I meant it. I’ve seen my share of head wounds. She’ll be fine. I promise.”

  She nodded. If Elliot promised Angela would be fine, she accepted that she would. Elliot would never disguise the truth. Unlike some.

  “How did you know where I’d gone?” she asked. It didn’t occur to her then to ask how he’d known she and Angela were at the witch tree to begin with. She’d needed him and he’d come.

  “As soon as I got Angela inside and into my housekeeper’s care, I realized that you weren’t ‘right behind me.’” His look was condemning. “I went back to the witch tree, but you were gone, so I rode for The Hollies. You weren’t there, but I heard a great deal from Cabot, little of it to my liking.”

  “I hardly dared believe my suspicions were correct but I had no other leads to follow so I headed for Himplerump’s house. Imagine my amazement when I saw you creeping down the wall.

  “Although in retrospect, I don’t suppose I should have been surprised. You had already, after all, evinced a certain interest in ivy and the climbing of it.” He finished his sentence between stiff clenched jaws.

  She swallowed. He looked very, very angry.

  “I… I had to fetch something that’s…that’s—” she began to stutter.

  “Angela told me about the letter,” he broke in.

  Of course. Everyone relied on Sir Elliot March. Everyone told him their secrets and their past transgressions, their fears and their little crimes. Everyone but her. But then, no one’s crimes were quite as damning as hers, either.

  “She told me about Kip’s demand and why she’d gone there. This storm might be our salvation yet. We’re lucky.”

  Not she was lucky, not Angela was lucky, but they were lucky. He’d already assumed responsibility, made their problems his own.

  “As I said, I’ve spoken to Grace Poole and Cabot. They’re eager to help and most willing to put about the story that, being unhappy with the notion of Angela and you alone at The Hollies on such a night, I fetched you both here.

  “Do you understand? Do you agree?” He was short to the point of curtness.

  She nodded and caught her movement in the mirror. She glanced sideways. She looked awful. It wasn’t fair. While he looked like Poseidon taking on mortal form, she looked like a sea hag. Beneath the streaming slicker, her skirts hung from her waist in sodden, mud-smeared folds. Her tangled hair dangled in wet ropes, slithering along her neck, and her skin was so white it looked bluish.

  “Would you tell me what you were doing climbing the Himplerumps’ wall?” he asked as though the query was forced from him.

  Her gaze met his in the mirror. For the first time in her adult life she couldn’t think of a glib story to account for her actions. She didn’t try. She was tired of speaking lines, of dodging verbal traps.

  “I went to get Angela’s letter from Kip Himplerump. I got it.”

  “Did Kip Himplerump see you?”

  She nodded.

  “Will he tell anyone?”

  “No. I guarantee it.” He was so aloof. So coldly efficient. She had hurt him. She hadn’t wanted to. “Elliot, I have to tell you something. My reaction to what you said to me earlier this—”

  “Good,” he broke in. Clearly, he didn’t want to hear anything of an intimate nature from her. “Though just to be on the safe side, perhaps I should make a morning call on my young neighbor.”

  Good God, she thought, her breath leaving her, perhaps he regretted saying he loved her. She felt hollow inside, as though a vacuum had suddenly developed around her heart. “Things will all turn out all right,” she managed to say.

  “What I would like to know,” he said in a careful voice. “What I would very much like to know, is why you risked life and limb to play cat burglar with that…that…boy. You might have been killed!”

  The last words exploded from him causing Letty to flinch. He saw it and cursed vividly under his breath, raking his hand through his hair. “Where did you learn to climb like that?”

  He cared. The realization made her giddy. “A youthful peccadillo?”

  “I won’t even honor that with a response,” he grated out. “Might I suggest you take that wet coat off?”

  She tried to comply but she was shaking so badly her teeth were clicking. She fumbled at her slicker’s fastenings with fingers too numbed to work properly. Before she realized what he was about, Elliot had brushed her hands aside and, with cool competence, unbuttoned the slicker. He turned her with a hand to her shoulder and stripped the coat from her. All very economical and all most impersonal.

  “Thank you.”

  He stiffened. “I don’t want your gratitude.” He looked as if he wanted to say more, but decided against it, instead tossing her coat over his. “You’ll need to get out of those clothes. We only have a housekeeper, Mrs. Nichols. She’s sitting with Angela right now, but I’m sure she’ll help you with your dress.”

  “No need,” she said. “I’ll be fine. Really. Angela will want her.”

  “Fine.” He motioned for her to precede him up the stairs and she went, her wet skirts slapping against the risers. Behind, she heard Elliot’s slow progress. At the top she turned around. Elliot’s face was ashen, and tension marked the corners of his eyes and mouth. He was hurting.

  “Elliot, please. Is there something I can do for you?”

  At once, his expression became remote and imperial; the quintessential British gentleman, stiff-upper-lipping it straight into perdition. “Nothing. Thank you for your concern.” He pointed down the short hall. “Angela is at the far end left. Your room is two doors up from hers.”

  She hesitated. �
��Elliot, please—”

  “I’m sure you’ll find everything in order,” he said, and walked stiffly down the opposite hall. He did not look back.

  Elliot limped across his bedroom floor, heading for a small cabinet. From it he withdrew a squat brown glass bottle and measured out a good ounce of liquid into a shot glass. With a grimace, he tipped his head back and swallowed the draught. Morphine.

  He disliked its effects. It clouded his thinking and tricked his senses, but as a painkiller it was undeniably effective. And tonight, tonight by God, he was in pain.

  It occurred to him to try to use the deep throbbing ache in his thigh as a distraction. But he doubted it could distract him from thoughts of her. Instead, he’d opted for the narcotizing effect of the drug. If he were very lucky, it would help him forget that she was in his house, sleeping in his bed, so close to being where he wanted her, but under such completely different circumstances.

  For the first time since finding Angela and Letty at the witch tree, he allowed himself to think back on the events that had driven him from the Buntings’ party.

  He’d told her he loved her. He’d never told another woman that, and when he did, she turned as white as Dover sand. Clearly, she’d been shocked. He’d been shocked himself. But as soon as he’d said the words, he’d known they were true: deeply, incontestably true.

  For a fleeting instant something that sent elation coursing through him flickered across her expressive features, only to disintegrate into horror. Then she’d run. She couldn’t have gotten far enough, fast enough. His hands balled into fists at his side.

  He’d tried to stay on at the party, but the thought of Letty avoiding him, laughing nervously in his company, of his vibrant, audacious, unguarded Letty becoming stiff and clumsy with him—he hadn’t been able to stand the idea.

  It had been no more palatable here at home where, after an hour of relentless pacing, he’d come to understand a vital truth: He would rather have some small part of Letty’s friendship than nothing of her at all.

  He’d written her a letter, explaining that he would not ever again infringe upon the friendship he most sincerely desired and felt them already to enjoy. She must not worry he would ever again distress her with talk of his feelings. That was his intent anyway. He’d prayed to God that he was strong enough to carry it out.

  Then, loath to have a single day pass without doing everything in his power to put things right between them, he’d ridden to The Hollies intending to give the letter to Cabot, to be delivered as soon as she arrived home. From there things had gone to hell.

  Elliot poured a half tumbler of brandy and swallowed it in a gulp, washing the bitter flavor of morphine from his mouth. Experience had taught him how easily liquor compounded the drug’s effects. It couldn’t act fast enough for his purposes.

  He unbuttoned his vest and stripped it off, tossing it to a chair. From there, he pulled off his collar and tie and began unbuttoning his shirt as he limped to the window and stared out at the darkness.

  Angela had told him about Kip and the letter as soon as they’d discovered Letty wasn’t ‘just a few minutes’ behind them. He couldn’t believe she’d broken into the Himplerumps’ house to get the damned thing. He smiled unwillingly. Had he called her audacious? Reckless.

  His smile faded as he recalled his eviscerating fear as he’d watched Letty dangling from the ledge and knew there was nothing he could do to help her. Nothing had ever scared him so profoundly. Nothing in war or peace, no threat of injury, nor foreboding of defeat, nothing. Once she was on the ground, it had taken all his self-restraint not to haul her into his arms.

  But he didn’t have the right. She didn’t want that from him. She’d made that clear enough. The letter promising he’d never importune her again lay folded in his pocket, a bitter reminder of his pledge.

  Being Letty’s friend was quite possibly going to kill him. But what in God’s name was he to do? He couldn’t think clearly anymore. His thoughts were distant, as was the pain in his leg, both dulled by the encroaching effects of the morphine. He braced his hands on the sill.

  She would be asleep by now, hair the color of mahogany spilling across crisp white linen, warm skin delicately flushed. He pressed his forehead against the cool window.

  He’d spent a lifetime subjugating his emotions to his intellect, trying so damned hard to keep control, to maintain balance, to act judiciously, prudently. He smiled bitterly. Thirty-three years had brought him to this place, to the point of awakening, to this sharp, bittersweet shattering of his heart. How many more would it be before it no longer hurt?

  “Elliot.”

  Her voice.

  “Elliot, please. Turn around.”

  “Why? You’re not real,” he said practically, sensible even in his drugged state. “You’re a combination of morphine and brandy. And want,” he added as an afterthought. “Unbearable want.”

  “I’m real. Please. This is difficult. Turn around.” What difference would it make? He turned and inhaled sharply. She stood inside his door, wrapped in his father’s old dressing gown. Her hair, glorious and unbound, rippled down her back and spread like a veil over her shoulders. Beneath the robe’s frayed hem, her feet were bare. Slender, narrow, delicate as gulls’ wings, white and unspeakably vulnerable.

  She shouldn’t be here. But then, she didn’t know about the morphine and the brandy. She didn’t know that the restraint he’d always found his most formidable challenge no longer seemed an issue. “Go back to your room.”

  She didn’t move. A cherry-colored stain swept up her throat and flamed in her cheeks. “I can’t,” she whispered.

  His hands clenched on the sill behind him. He didn’t dare move. “You’re an adventuress now?” He tried to make his voice light. It sounded ragged.

  “I guess so.” She didn’t sound like an adventuress. She sounded lost, and as hungry for love as he was starved for her.

  “God, Letty. You haven’t a cautious impulse in you, do you?”

  “I guess not.”

  She doesn’t want love from you, he reminded himself savagely, hoping that the knowledge would somehow give him the strength to resist this. Resist her. Because she was set on seduction. The rawest boy could see that. There was nothing subtle about her. Apprehensive, anxious, skittish, yes, but also expectant, breathless, and irresistible.

  She moved toward him, her unbound breasts moving beneath the ruby silk. By God, she was naked under the robe.

  “I’m cold.”

  He would not do this. He would not do this. It went against everything upon which he’d based his life. He was stronger than this. “I’ll get you an extra blanket.”

  “I like that blanket.” She pointed to the blue duvet on his bed.

  “Here,” he clipped out, striding across the room and snagging the corner of the blanket. He flung it at her. She made no effort to catch it. It landed on the floor.

  She swiveled slowly, deliberately bending at the waist. The silk robe stretched across her derriere. She looked back at him, her hair falling forward provocatively.

  “Don’t.”

  She flicked her hair behind her ear and smiled, wise and knowing and merciless.

  “You don’t understand, Letty.” He fought to hold to the ragged edge of his control. He was a civilized man. No matter what the provocation, he had always maintained self-control. It was a standard he not only lived by, but believed in. But he’d never been tested in such a manner or to such a degree. He wanted her. He ached for her.

  “I wouldn’t want to leave you wanting.” She piled the blanket in her arms. He saw, too late, that he’d handed her the excuse she needed to draw nearer. She moved toward the bed, coming within a few feet of him, still smiling enigmatically, her perfume filling his nostrils…

  He didn’t even know what happened. One minute she was moving past him, the next she was in his arms and he was lifting her up, walking her backwards, his mouth open over hers, hunger pouring out of him, engulfing her
, overpowering her.

  And she was clinging to him. And her mouth was open. And her hands were on him, touching him, his shoulders, his arms, his chest, delving beneath the open edges of his shirt and setting him on fire.

  He yanked her belt from her waist and pulled the silk lapels open, peeling the robe from her shoulders. She pulled back, looking up at him, her gaze no longer knowing and worldly, but uncertain, a bit frightened.

  “Perhaps… I… I shouldn’t… we shouldn’t—”

  “Too late.” Far too late. There were no codes here. No rules. Just imperatives: Want. Desire. Love. “You know it as well as I.”

  He released her in increments, letting her slide down his body and feel the hard evidence of his desire. Her breasts dragged across his shirt, her robe caught on his waistband and twisted up, rucking up around her thighs.

  Letty shivered. Her toes touched the ground but her ankles felt liquid and her knees weak. His hands dropped to his side. He didn’t step back. Each breath he drew brought their bodies back into brief, tantalizing contact.

  She looked up into his face, her gaze dazed. She needed something to hold on to. She wrapped her fingers in the edges of his open shirt, twisting the cloth, her knuckles pressing into the hard muscle of his chest.

  “If you want to leave, go. Last chance, Letty. Last chance for either of us.” He bent and traced a kiss across her mouth. “But I think you should stay here.”

  She stepped back a little. He followed, dipping his head so that his lips teased her ear. “Stay.” His breath warmed her ear, sent gooseflesh rippling down her throat and arms.

  He didn’t touch her, hadn’t touched her since releasing his grip, and yet he surrounded her, enveloped her in longing, kept her anchored here, wanting…

  His fingers touched the side of her breast and with gossamer lightness he traced its curve, following the nether swell. His fingertips moved up to her nipple, outlining the silken areola, round and round. His gaze never left her face, lupine with intensity, unwavering and mesmerizing.