Puritan Bride

by Anne O'Brien

  She studied herself in a faded mirror. The foxing could not hide the glory of her appearance and she blushed with pleasure. Her cheeks were still pale, but her skin was glowing and her deep blue eyes held a sparkle of excitement. For her hair, there was no hope and she could not pretend otherwise. It was still far to short for fashionable ringlets, but she was able to thread a cream ribbon through her curls to tie in a provocative bow by her ear. A fan finally, decorated round the edge with violets. She clutched the ivory sticks with their painted flowers as if her life depended on it.

  She was ready far too early, so she sat and waited for him in the parlour. It seemed like a lifetime. And then tensed as she heard the sound of a coach on the carriage drive. So he had not chosen to ride from the Priory.

  She stood in nervous apprehension, suddenly wishing that she could refuse him entry once more. She could sit no longer, but paced the length of the parlour, trying to still her beating heart, chiding herself for her cowardly reaction. The knock on the door stopped her mid-pace, fan flattened against her breast. The slow footsteps of Crofton echoed in the hall. Voices. What would she say? What would he expect of her? Her heart still beat painfully within her laced and boned bodice. She found that she was holding her breath.

  The door to the parlour opened on a brief knock.

  ‘Lord Marlbrooke to see you, Mistress Harley.’ There was a knowing gleam in Crofton’s eye, quickly hidden. ‘Would you be wanting anything further, mistress? Or can I be off to my bed like all good Christians?’

  Kate shook her head distractedly and focused on Marlbrooke, who still stood in the shades of the hall. ‘My lord.’ She swept him a formal curtsy, worthy of the Court gown, her full skirts billowing as she sank gracefully to the floor.

  As she rose she lifted her gaze—and stood transfixed, her polite social smile frozen on her face. He stood in the doorway now and he too had dressed for the occasion. And he was magnificent. The situation reminded her forcefully of that day—so long ago, it seemed, and yet perhaps not so—when he had bowed himself into her uncle’s library and she had decided that he was no more than a pampered courtier whom she was free to hate. How wrong she had been.

  He remained in the doorway, a faint smile on his face, an appreciative gleam in his eyes as if he could read the trend of her thoughts.

  If she was tricked out in latest Court style, then without doubt so was he. The sleek black brocade coat and waistcoat swept from neck to knee, showing his figure to perfect advantage. Gold embroidery ornamented the heavy turned-back cuffs and buttonholes whilst a gold-fringed sash confined the waistcoat. His black breeches were gartered at the knee, the impression of wealth and elegance completed by silk stockings, and black leather shoes with high red heels and decorative ribbon rosettes. A white silk shirt displayed extravagant lace ruffles at throat and wrist. Finally, his own dark hair was arranged to fall in a profusion of heavy curls and ringlets to his shoulders. He carried a black wide-brimmed felt hat, ostentatiously decorated with ostrich plumes and ribbons, and a costly dress sword. He flourished the hat in elegant style as he swept her a magnificent salute.

  Then they stood and looked at each other.

  Marlbrooke broke the tension. ‘I decided that since my errand was to woo you afresh, I should dress the part. I am relieved. Otherwise you would have quite cast me in the shade, Mistress Harley.’

  ‘Impossible. You are far too splendid for me, my lord.’

  ‘Are you intending to invite me into this room, or do you wish me to leave now?’

  ‘Forgive me, my lord …’

  ‘Oh, Kate!’ He abandoned the rigid formality and approached to take her hand and lift it to his lips. ‘How could I have forgotten in three days how very beautiful you are?’ He turned her hand over to press his lips to her palm and then to her wrist, where her pulse beat against his mouth. It pleased him inordinately that she was wearing the sapphire ring.

  She was flustered. ‘Please sit, my lord.’ She fluttered the fan somewhat inexpertly and tried for composure.

  He sat.

  ‘Perhaps a glass of wine?’

  ‘Thank you.’

  She poured the wine with formal courtesy and placed the glass carefully at his elbow before taking the seat opposite.

  ‘Well, Mistress Harley?’

  ‘I do not know what to say.’ Kate’s formal manners deserted her and she frowned at him. ‘This is most unfair of you. You have me at a disadvantage, sir.’

  ‘How should that be, Viola?’ His smile was quick and utterly disarming. ‘You have kept the door locked against me for the past few days. Your servant looks at me as if I had crawled from under a stone and he would like to crush me as he would a cockroach under his boot. I have turned out tonight—in my coach, no less—wearing this extremely inappropriate outfit for country life, and you talk of disadvantage.’

  She came rapidly to her feet, dropping her fan. ‘I know. I am sorry I was so disobliging but I … What do you want from me?’

  He came gracefully to his feet, bent to pick up the fan and placed it on the table out of her reach. ‘Nothing that will make you uncomfortable, dearest Kate.’

  He took her hands in his. His smile had vanished, his face now serious and a little strained. It seemed to Kate that perhaps he had enjoyed as little sleep as she had.

  ‘Look at me,’ he commanded gently when her eyes fell before his. ‘It is no very great matter, Kate. Simply this. Do you love me enough to put the past behind us?’ And here was the crux of the problem. ‘Do you love me enough to live comfortably with me, even though you know that I challenged your cousin to a duel and that my sword was the cause of his death? If you feel that you cannot, then I will not hold you to the settlement. We will end the agreement, break the settlement, whatever it is that you wish. I will not force you into a union that you cannot bear and which would ultimately destroy us both. I love you too much to allow that.’

  Her eyes were locked with his now, overwhelmed by the sacrifice that he would make for her. ‘Would you indeed do that?’

  ‘Of course.’

  ‘Your generosity takes my breath away.’

  ‘Dearest Kate.’ He frowned down at their joined hands. ‘You must also be able to forgive yourself for the past tragedy. And, indeed, there is no blame attached to you. You must not take on the burden of the sins of others. Richard and Simon must be allowed to carry their own responsibility in this.’

  ‘I know. I have thought about this.’ Her voice was low but certain. ‘I was wrong.’

  He surprised her by releasing her hands to drop to one knee at her feet, head bent in supplication.

  ‘I told you once that I loved you. That has not changed, nor ever will. Will you love me, Kate, and accept my love in return? Will you do me the honour of wedding me?’

  She touched the dark silk of his hair, savouring the warmth in her heart that began to melt her fears. He waited in some trepidation, realising that he had never wanted anything as much as he wanted this woman to give her heart and her hand to him. The silence between them seemed to stretch endlessly.

  Then, ‘Yes. I will marry you. I will love you and take your heart for my own.’

  He looked up at her, seeing the glint of tears in her eyes, but her lips were smiling. ‘Do you realise that if you had said no, you would have condemned my soul to endless night?’

  ‘Oh, Marcus!’ She opened her arms to him. ‘I have loved you for longer than I would admit to myself—and I have been so lonely here without you.’

  ‘I know.’ He rose to his feet and gathered her against him, his arms enclosing her, turning his face into her hair as waves of relief swept through him. ‘I have spent the last week prowling aimlessly round the Priory, driving my mother and the servants to distraction.’ His hands swept down her back with more than a hint of possession. ‘I suddenly find it impossible to live without you.’

  His mouth found hers in a kiss that devastated her and left them both shaken with the depth and intensity of emotion
between them. ‘You know what I want,’ he murmured against her lips.

  ‘And I.’

  He took her hand, linking their fingers. ‘Show me where your room is.’

  She led him up the darkened staircase to her bedchamber. Kate knew that it was now free of dust and herbs, polished and tended for this one occasion, the linen laundered and fragrant with lavender, but it would not have mattered. They had eyes for no one but each other.

  Without words, he undressed her carefully, laying the magnificent gown aside with the lightest of touches, even though his hands trembled from the iron control he exerted. He wanted to drown in the glory of her body. To claim what was his and possess her completely. He forced his will and his heart to rule his senses.

  When she stood naked before him he pressed his lips to her forehead, holding her away from him with gentle hands on her shoulders as he looked at her.

  ‘Forgive me, Kate. I want you so much. I will try to use you gently and with the courtesy you deserve, but I fear that this night my need may be greater than my control.’

  ‘I am not afraid.’

  ‘You should be.’ His eyes blazed. ‘For I am. Afraid of the depth of desire that I feel for you.’

  ‘Then take me, my lord. For I am yours. And I love you with all my heart.’ Her smile was one of total trust and love. And she reached up to press her lips to his with a whisper of mouth against mouth.

  He removed his own finery and would have led her to the bed, but she stopped him with a hand lifted to his shoulder.

  ‘What is it?’ He searched her face in concern but saw only her glorious smile.

  Kate came to stand before him, and touched in tentative recognition the vicious line of the raw scar that still scored his ribs. She ignored his sharp intake of breath as he realised her intent. Leaning in to him, she bent and traced its path with her lips, caressed the length of the newly healed wound with tender kisses. She touched him slowly, lingering over her task. It was the last visible remnant of Richard and the ugly deeds that had almost destroyed them, almost divided them irrevocably. Kate’s deliberate act of love purged the bitter memories and obliterated the final division between them.

  It was Marlbrooke’s undoing—his absolution and his salvation. The depth of her understanding and love took his breath away. And when he finally lifted her to the bed, and covered her with his body, his fierce passion had been overlaid by an overwhelming tenderness that reduced her to amazed delight.

  ‘Tonight is ours,’ he promised, framing her face in his hands. ‘No shadows will threaten us. Not Gilliver nor Richard. Not Isolde. Tonight I will fill your thoughts, your body, your whole experience. Only me. I adore you and I will drown myself in you.’ His mouth sealed the promise, a searing heat.

  With utmost care and finesse his hands and mouth touched and awoke every part of her to mind-shattering pleasure. And she responded without restraint to caress and smooth, delighting in the hard, well-defined muscles of his arms and shoulders. When she allowed her lips to brush his throat, along the flat planes of his chest, her sweet breath whispering against his skin, she drove him to the edge of that hard-won control.

  He caught his breath as her breasts tightened under his palms, as her nipples hardened into peaks of desire under the assault of his lips and tongue. He allowed his fingers to feather along her soft belly, his senses swamped by the instant quiver of her muscles. She purred, a low sound of pleasure, deep in her throat, when he used his knee to open her thighs so that his hands could glide over that impossibly satin skin and taste the hot wetness of her body’s responses to him. He felt her gasp in wonder as his accomplished, skilful fingers touched and caressed before finally sliding possessively into her receptive body. Such an intimate touch ignited fire to flame through her body’s myriad of nerve endings. In reply she arched, moved beneath him in unspoken demand, letting her hands drift to touch where they would. He set his teeth against the immediate instinct to answer her demands, but continued to touch and taste, replacing his fingers with his mouth and tongue until her breath came in agonised gasps and her fingernails scored his shoulders. His seduction was complete and he gloried in it, the fact that she could accept the worship of his body without restraint.

  Uncontrollable shivers overtook her, racing through her blood to engulf and finally explode through her very soul as the fragments of a meteor spangled the heavens.

  ‘Marcus!’

  He slid to take possession of her mouth with his once more, capturing her breath, tasting her delight, as she cried out in the devastating splendour of the sensations that shook her from head to foot.

  Finally, impossibly hard and ready for her, he could withstand the invitation of her body no longer, but lifted her hips and slid into the velvet depths of her. Then held himself still, looking down at her radiant face.

  ‘Open your eyes. Look at me, Kate.’ He waited until she obeyed, every muscle taut. ‘Say it. Tell me that you love me, Katherine. Tell me when I am inside you. Tell me that I may believe it.’

  Her eyes looked deep into his, allowing him into her soul. ‘I love you,’ she breathed and arched her body against his in instinctive response, lifting her hips to take him deeper yet, to allow him to fill her.

  ‘You are mine. You always will be. Do you accept it?’ He forced himself to remain motionless in spite of the pulsating heat that surrounded him and demanded his response.

  ‘Yes!’ It was little more than a sigh but it was all he needed to hear.

  Desire now overtook control, mind giving way to demands of the flesh, and he thrust again and again with long smooth strokes to fill her completely, driving her over the edge of feeling once again, absorbing her response as it shimmered over her skin, the pleasure over her face.

  ‘And I am yours,’ he answered, feeling the ripples of her muscles as she surrounded and enclosed him in her glorious heat.

  Her skin glowed beneath his, her body warm and supple, answering his every need with instinctive anticipation, shining with a love far more brilliant than he could ever have imagined or dreamed of.

  He lost himself in her, hearing only her words as the tremors overtook again with overwhelming sensations. ‘I love you, Marcus. I love you.’

  ‘And I you.’

  A final thrust brought his own release, plunging into the raging torrent, to drown there, as he had promised.

  Chapter Eighteen

  ‘Katherine, my love. You look rested. In spite of everything.’ Marlbrooke rose to his feet, his eyes alight with pleasure as they rested on her. ‘I gave Bessie instructions that you were not to be disturbed.’

  He had brought her back to the Priory from Widemarsh Manor in the early hours of the morning, putting her to bed and ordering her to sleep. Elizabeth had rejoiced—and found something time consuming to occupy herself and Felicity in the far reaches of the house, to give her son and his reunited love time and space together.

  ‘I feel well.’ Kate walked forward into the library where Marlbrooke had been sitting at his desk before an array of documents, coming to stand beside him and placing a hand on his arm.

  ‘I am relieved to hear it.’ He stood, smiled down at her, still not quite daring to believe that she was here with him at the Priory. Reaching for her hand to lead her to the window, he watched as the light fell on her face, gilding the soft planes and curves. She was pale and there were faint smudges of violet below her eyes, reaction to the long days of grief, self-doubt and heart-searching after Richard’s death. It worried him, but she looked content, at ease, within the circle of his arm.

  ‘I liked you in your court finery …’ he touched her sleeve ‘… but this suits you very well.’ She had exchanged the formal cream-and-silver creation of the previous night for a pretty bodice and skirt in pale blue watered silk. The low neckline that skimmed the swell of her breasts was stylishly obscured by a deep lace collar, but it could not hide the blush which rose to her fair skin as she read the latent desire in his eyes and remembered their night at Wide
marsh. He ran a finger down her cheek, grinning at her confusion, and then raised her hand to press his lips to the fragile skin on the inside of her wrist.

  ‘I thought it better to bring you here—I could not leave you at Widemarsh. And you will now stay here with me. Until we are wed.’

  ‘Of course.’

  No argument here! It pleased him that she accepted his arrangements without question. She smiled up at him, love and trust in her clear gaze. They had come a long way together since their first meeting. He felt the familiar surge of blood through his veins at the realisation that she was his—for the moment, at least. He quelled the quick surge of renewed fear in the region of his heart, working hard to hide his emotions from her.

  ‘Come with me. I want us to do something—together.’ He would say no more, so she lapsed into silence at his side, content simply to be near him. He led her to the Long Gallery, guiding her to stand in the centre where sunlight gilded a pathway along the dark oak boards. There, he turned her to face him, took her hands firmly in his own and searched her face to see if she would read his intent.