Mary Brendan

by Wedding Night Revenge

  A musical chuckle put her at ease. Her fingers were squeezed, then released. ‘Thank you very much, my dear, for that compliment. And to return you one: you look more beautiful than you did as a teenager. I’ve never forgotten you; perhaps we should have made a better effort to properly get to know one another six years ago. I know we had very different social circles at that time, and you seemed so confident and popular that I didn’t want to intrude on you and your young friends and spoil your fun.’ She gave Rachel a sweetly rueful look. ‘But, for some reason tonight, something has been plaguing me. I hope you won’t mind me mentioning it. When you were engaged to Connor, I didn’t seem too…haughty or unapproachable…or unfriendly, did I? I would always have been pleased to chat or shop…or take a drive…’

  ‘No! Please don’t think it. It wasn’t anything like that.’

  Rosemary smiled. ‘I had to ask; I know that mothers-in-law can be very daunting.’ Her tawny eyes strayed sideways to where Pamela Pemberton, her jaw incessantly wagging, stood with her downcast husband.

  Rachel understood the subtle indication and gave a wry smile. ‘Yes, indeed…’ was all she said.

  ‘I remember that my first husband’s mother quite terrified me,’ Lady Davenport said. ‘They were very clannish…very proud people. And Michael was her blue-eyed boy. He looked very like Connor, actually.’ A maternal look sought and found her son’s sapphire eyes. She gave him a twinkling smile. ‘I think Connor would like me to leave you alone.’

  ‘Please don’t,’ Rachel quietly beseeched without looking around.

  ‘Ah, I see. Yes, gentlemen can be daunting, too. I understand that. I hope I don’t sound too much of a coward, but Connor’s father fair scared me witless, too. At first.’

  ‘He did?’

  Rosemary nodded. ‘But only at first. I wasn’t used to being kidnapped, or rough-handled, you see. I was the Earl of Devane’s daughter and used to being protected and pampered all my life. A handsome, eligible son of an Irish chieftain didn’t impress me. But he impressed the local colleens, which was why he hadn’t previously found it necessary to learn much about courting etiquette. I soon taught him all he needed to know.’

  ‘Kidnapped?’ Rachel breathed, her eyes wide.

  ‘Our marriage settled a feud: a matter of honour between our families that had festered through generations. As I didn’t respond to his initial overtures, he forced my hand…if you will. The Flintes were quite barbaric…very dynamic, and the most beautiful people ever. Connor didn’t tell you much of his father’s fabled background, I take it?’

  Rachel shook her golden head, her wide eyes fixed on Rosemary’s face.

  ‘I’m not surprised. I imagine he considered some things better left till after you were man and wife. I know he was keen at that time to seem a most conventional, honourable suitor. He wanted to be worthy of you. And he was,’ she stated with quiet, adamant pride. ‘But Connor could be…wild. He could be very like his father, actually. His grandfather…my father…would despair of him, at times. Yet how they loved one another. He should have had the fairest hands should my father,’ she said, her accent thickening with her memories. ‘Mother of Mercy, the amount of times he washed them on account of my son!’ Rosemary trailed off on a husky chuckle. ‘Enough. I’ve said more than enough. All I meant to say, Miss Meredith, was that I’m glad we’ve had an opportunity to meet again and talk a while. I see that supper is about to be served. I must go and find Sir Joshua and see to things.’ She moved away a little, pausing only to add, ‘I hope all goes well on your sister’s wedding day. In spite of the unfortunate distaff side, William Pemberton seems a fine young man. Convey my good wishes to the rest of your family, won’t you now?’

  ‘Yes, I shall. Thank you…’ Rachel half-turned politely as the woman smiled in farewell.

  Gracefully Rosemary moved away, summoning people to go with her and sample delicacies in the supper room. As the room emptied, the only person who appeared to be walking against the flow was the Earl of Devane. Hastily, Rachel turned back towards the terrace, just in time to see Paul and Lucinda emerging through a door at the other end of the room. After a cursory look about, they began to follow the crowd heading in the opposite direction, doubtless assuming she’d already quit the room.

  Rachel dithered on the spot for barely a moment before deciding she was ravenous. As she prepared to take a detour to the exit, she felt her wrist taken in a powerful hand and she was jerked about and lead none too gently on to the terrace. She tensed, preparing to throw him off, at the same moment he let her free. Her own violence made her stumble back a few paces; then, with a steadying breath and an indignant toss of her golden head, she swept with wordless aplomb back towards the drawing room.

  He blocked her path. ‘If you think I’m about to chase you the length of that damned room again, you can forget it.’

  ‘Let me pass,’ she demanded, yet a hint of pleading made hoarse her voice.

  She heard him swear beneath his breath before a hand touched her chin, tilting it up. She withdrew at once, retreating until she could go no further and her hands gripped the chilly iron balustrade behind. Their eyes met, merged through the moonless dusk.

  ‘Rachel, if I’d been your husband you wouldn’t have objected,’ he reasoned softly.

  ‘You are not my husband,’ she choked out.

  ‘I almost was.’

  ‘Almost is a million miles away. And if you had been my husband and had ever treated me with such…such vile disrespect, I would have objected very strongly. I would have killed you.’

  ‘And if you had been my wife and had spoken to me with such vile disrespect, I just might have throttled you first,’ he countered quietly.

  Rachel launched herself from the railings and rushed towards the light. ‘It’s as well then, my lord, I had the foresight to abscond six years ago and give us both a fair prospect of attaining our dotage.’

  He easily intercepted her before she was even close to getting indoors. ‘Move aside, I’m going home,’ she icily conveyed to his figured waistcoat.

  ‘Before we’ve had a chance to discuss Windrush?’

  ‘There’s nothing to discuss,’ she stated with a shaky triumph in her voice. ‘I have it from Mrs Pemberton that the dispensation you spoke of is already arranged with my father and June’s fiancé. I have it that you and William seem quite friendly. I don’t believe for one moment even you would renege on your word now it is common knowledge.’

  ‘That’s because you’ve never really known me, Rachel.’

  She looked up slowly, with shimmering, solemn eyes. ‘Yes. That I can believe. I’ve never really known you at all.’

  ‘Good. We’re agreed on one thing. Do you want to discuss Windrush?’

  She swallowed, moistened her lips. ‘Are you saying you will go back on your word?’

  ‘I’m saying I’ve been ridiculously generous and I want something in return.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘Ah, what…’ he repeated wryly, self-mockingly. ‘Two things, actually. I’ll start with the good news. I want you to take a young woman off my hands and on to your staff. She’s proving to be a trial through no fault of her own. She’s a reasonable housemaid and you needn’t worry about the cost of her wages and so on. I’ll continue to pay her for the time being. I just want her out of my house…’

  ‘That’s the good news?’ Rachel asked with silky sarcasm. She returned to her place at the railing. ‘You really are the most loathsome man, aren’t you? If you imagine for one minute I shall take one of your doxies, swelling with your bastard, under my roof simply to oblige you and minimise a scandal…’

  ‘That’s precisely why I do want you to take her under your roof: to oblige me and contain a scandal. For her sake, not mine. Gossip doesn’t bother me; soon I’ll be overseas. Her brother maintains she’s chaste, so she ought not to be increasing with anyone’s bastard. But she’s uncommonly pretty, which presents problems for her and her brother who’s trying to prot
ect her. The usual conclusions are being drawn to my interest in them. Not least because certain individuals are exciting speculation by stirring and spicing the pot. I want to thwart any rumour that I’ve a fourteen-year-old concubine in Berkeley Square. It’ll not help her to gain respectable employment once I’m in Ireland. She and her brother are in my employ simply because they have nowhere else to go at the moment.’

  ‘God in Heaven! Fourteen years old? She’s a child, just two years older than Sylvie!’ Rachel exclaimed, repelled. ‘Wasn’t the Italian woman mistress enough for you? Was she too old? Do you really expect me to believe that from the goodness of your heart you’ve taken to rescuing harlots and housing them in a palace? Do you think me a fool?’

  ‘No, I don’t think you a fool and I don’t expect you to believe me, Rachel. You of all people I knew would think me a degenerate and a liar. That doesn’t matter. This is a deal. You want your sister married at Windrush and I want this favour. A favour that’s to cost you nothing. In fact, the Merediths will get two extra staff, gratis, until such time as you might decide to move the girl and her brother on with a character in their pockets. That’s my only stipulation; that you provide them with suitable references when you let them go.’

  Rachel simply stared at him in confused amazement. Of all the things he might have required of her, making respectable a courtesan and her pimp hadn’t figured at all. But he would relish outraging her. He was probably quite piquantly diverted by the fact that the woman who once had been his future wife, the woman who had rejected him, was now coerced into housing one of his whores. He was a vindictive man, that he had admitted. His intention was to even the score between them, he had admitted that, too. In a way she had to admire him for devising such ingenious methods.

  His mother’s recent revelation that he could be wild had disquieted her; now that description seemed like a fond defence. This was a man who was sunk in depravity. She thought of her schemes to regain her inheritance and felt no guilt at all. Deception was the only way. Any residual hope that she might charm or flatter or strike a reasonable deal with this reprobate was gone.

  She quickly turned things over in her mind. A glib acceptance of what he was proposing was the way forward. He could only humiliate her on the matter if she let him. In fact, she might turn it to her advantage.

  Beaulieu Gardens was, at present, seriously understaffed. Noreen was running herself ragged covering all aspects of household chores. Mr and Mrs Grimshaw, who oversaw things, were too old and set in their ways to keep the place as spick and span as was warranted by an establishment occupied during the fashionable Season. Yet as she was in her father’s house with only his tacit permission, she’d not felt able to incur him extra expense by taking on domestics.

  Connor watched her eyes flit from side to side, her finely drawn brunette brows meet then quirk as she strove to come to terms with what he was asking of her. He considered again defending himself and reiterating that his dealings with the girl were platonic, but he knew it would achieve nothing but rouse her disgust. Inwardly he smiled; if she was contemptuous of his altruism, he wondered how she would react to knowing what next he wanted. To resume conversation and come closer to that personal issue, he said mildly, ‘I’ll write to your father and explain the situation before you return home. He won’t object to employing the pair at Windrush, I’m sure.’

  ‘Oh, indeed,’ Rachel snapped out bitterly. ‘I’m sure he’d oblige you by taking in a dozen of your cast-off drabs. Whenever was there something that you did that my father didn’t like?’

  ‘Now that brings me to the second thing I want…’

  Rachel felt her stomach clench at his drawling tone. It was quiet, cynical, yet so very honeyed. She looked up warily at him, but he seemed momentarily distracted.

  ‘Why is it you despise your own father?’

  ‘I don’t,’ Rachel gritted tightly.

  Connor shrugged. ‘You could have fooled me.’

  ‘Yes. I could. He obviously could not. That’s why he lost Windrush to your mean thievery and why I now have to be here at all, listening to your revolting catalogue of requirements…’

  He smiled as she tailed off into frustrated, resentful silence. ‘And one of those requirements is knowing why it is you despise your father.’

  ‘Perhaps because he is idiotic enough to still think so highly of you,’ she snapped.

  ‘I thought so. I could change that. Would you like me to? Will you then think highly of me, Rachel? If I make your father hate me?’

  ‘Say what you mean. I’ve no inclination to unravel riddles.’

  The consequence of her snappish, insolent dictate was silence. She seethed inwardly in impotent frustration. He was well aware he could present as many enigmas as he liked. He could give or withhold information, just as he could give or withhold rights to her home. She imagined her parents must even now be beholden to him for still residing there. How he loved to impress on her just how firmly he had her pinned beneath his thumb. As the silence continued she blurted, ‘You don’t even like my father, do you? He thinks so much of you and you don’t even like him.’

  ‘I’ve no reason to dislike him. He always treated me well.’

  ’Well?’ she cried scornfully. ‘He used to treat you as his own flesh and blood. I thought perhaps you might have more to say on the subject than that. You and he would spend a ridiculous amount of time together…riding to hounds…smoking in clubs…playing at cards…’

  ‘You were jealous of your own father?’

  Rachel gave a hysterical choke of laughter. ‘No. I was jealous of you. Never in all my life has he given me much time or attention. Had I been a much-wanted son, things might have been different. But I’m a bitter disappointment. I’m a girl, you see.’

  ‘I do see. You’re a woman. That’s a fact. Believe me, Rachel, I’ve always been far too aware of that.’

  Rachel felt her face burn beneath his steady, sleepy scrutiny. She swirled about, gripped the balustrade and inspected the gloomy gardens. ‘How do I know you’re not lying?’ she demanded shrilly. ‘You’ve already implied you might rescind your agreement. Do you imagine I’ll concede that you dump these people on me without first I am certain there is such a document?’

  ‘Perhaps you’ll just have to trust me on it.’

  She spun about, laughed scornfully. ‘I’d sooner put my trust in a trading justice.’

  He smiled sardonically, knowing what he did about his worship, Arthur Goodwin. ‘You’re still a child, Rachel, aren’t you? Beneath that powder and paint—which incidentally you don’t need—you’re just a little girl.’

  ‘I sincerely hope not,’ she silkily demurred. ‘Not now I know how your tastes run.’

  He walked close to her, halted in front of her with a look of thoughtful contemplation slanting his sensual mouth. ‘It always was hard to decide whether to put you across my knee or kiss you.’

  ‘Well, let me solve the dilemma for you then, my lord,’ she carefully enunciated, attempting to slip sideways and avoid his closeness. ‘If you attempt either I shall scream blue murder and cause this so refined soirée to end in chaos.’

  A casual hand was planted on the iron railing, preventing her straying too far. ‘I don’t think you’d do that,’ he answered smoothly. ‘Not with your sister’s wedding imminent and half the invited guests here tonight. I think you’re childish, Rachel, not stupid.’

  With both of her hands, Rachel gripped the wrist preventing her escape. Her small fingers curled spitefully over braced muscle, her nails pinned against his cambric cuff. Abruptly she ceded trying to shift him and instead turned about to sweep off in the other direction, only to find that barred by a dark, immovable arm, too.

  ‘Do you want to see it?’

  She gazed up through the dusk into his brilliant, preying eyes. ‘See it?’

  ‘The dispensation. You said you want proof it exists.’

  ‘Yes,’ she gasped quickly, noting his gaze had dropped to her
mouth. ‘Yes, I do,’ she repeated. With brisk businesslike action she stepped against him in a way calculated to make him move reflexively aside. He remained as he was, apart from his hands; they relinquished the metal balustrade to slide about her and keep her close.

  Rachel grew rigid, quivering with feverish anticipation; waiting for a cruel, lustful hand to force together their hips, for malicious lips to bruise her own. Instinctively one of her hands thrust between them, pressed to her bosom as if to shield it from his plundering fingers.

  Connor looked down at the splayed fingers and the high-buttoned demure bodice, under protection. A ghost of a smile touched his mouth. He lowered his head. ‘Nice dress. Are you wearing it for me?’ he taunted softly as his lips cornered hers in a kiss that was both seductive and reassuring.

  Rachel waited for his anger, his spite to filter through the sweetness. She wouldn’t be tricked by his sophistication just because brute force had previously trampled her defences. Determinedly she steeled herself to remain impassive, unyielding. His eyes were closed, hers were open, watching his face, searching for a warning sign of that vengeful lust she’d endured before. It was sure to come. She’d responded before. Never again…never again, drummed in her mind as her mouth parted beneath the sensual insistence of his and her prepared fist, planted between them, relaxed, flattened against the cool silk of his waistcoat. His lashes raised; somnolent and wary eyes fused before he unsealed their lips. He gave her a smile, the one that June could mimic, the one that was barely there.

  ‘Come to the library, I’ll give you the document to take home with you tonight.’

  He was back by the door to the drawing room, beckoning her, before Rachel had marshalled strength or sense enough to move.

  Chapter Eleven