Mary Brendan

by Wedding Night Revenge

  He smiled a savage smile that just took his lips back against even teeth. ‘Neither do I. I haven’t the vaguest idea where I went or how I got so drunk. Suffice to say that when Jason found me unconscious on Clapham Common a day or so later he thought I’d killed myself. Another night there, comatose, and perhaps I would have died. It was two days after he got me home before I came to—a week after that when the fever abated. The first coherent thought I had was quite uncharitable; I wanted to kill him for not leaving me there.

  ‘For six years on and off I’ve fantasised about my wedding night. At first it was an obsession…wanting those blasted lost dark hours back; to have them as I was entitled to have them, in passion and pleasure. Later it mellowed into a nagging curiosity about you…about what I’d missed. But it’s never gone away. It’s always been there, an irritating scar on my mind. I want my wedding night, Rachel. You owe me my wedding night.’

  She hadn’t realised he’d got so close. He raised a hand. She flicked it off. He raised it again, then again and persevered until she simply stood still, lulled by fingers that circled with tantalising light strokes on the satiny skin of her arm.

  What he was suggesting was horrendous, outrageous. She supposed she should swoon in shock. But she wouldn’t. It wasn’t a shock, or even a surprise. A remote part of her mind had realised as long ago as their tense reunion on that hot apple-scented afternoon, that he would aim to lock her into this ultimate revenge.

  ‘A wedding night, by definition, follows a marriage,’ she mentioned with cool logic. ‘The ceremony never took place. I told you on the terrace, you’re not my husband.’

  ‘I came close enough with just twelve hours to go. Give me my wedding night, Rachel, and set us both free. It started with me wanting you, it’ll finish there too. And if you get nothing else out of it, you’ll get back your inheritance and the sure knowledge that when your father finds out, he’ll want to shoot me down dead.’

  ‘That’s what I must do or you’ll auction Windrush?’ her faint voice asked.

  ‘I don’t want a house in Hertfordshire. I’m going home to Ireland. You give me my wedding night and I’ll give you your deeds. You’ll get the property sooner than you thought. If you agree—and I want your full agreement, Rachel; I want you willing—Windrush is yours, not your father’s.’

  ‘And do you think I could do that? Do you think I could keep the estate myself and return home with those papers and boast to my family how willingly I whored to get them? Do you expect me to do that?’

  ‘Return the title to your father, then. Tell him I seduced you. Deal with it as you see fit. Either way he’ll hate me. It’s what you want, isn’t it? For your father to wish me dead?’

  ‘Yes,’ she whispered in a hoarse croak. ‘And he ought to wish that already.’ She viciously slapped away his hand from where it still soothed her. ‘How satisfying was it for you to steal a drunken man’s house? How proud…how clever did it make you feel gambling with a man who had lost his wits to alcohol? God in heaven, it would have been better sport for you taking candy from a baby. And wouldn’t a gentleman have at least given him a chance to win back such a valuable stake?’

  ‘I did offer him the chance.’

  ‘Are you telling me he lost to you twice?’

  ‘No, I’m telling you he passed out before the cards were dealt again. He couldn’t stand up or see straight Rachel, let alone tell a diamond from a spade.’

  ‘He couldn’t see the knave in the pack either, could he? Even when sober he couldn’t see that,’ she jeered in raw rancour.

  Connor laughed, shrugged negligently. ‘Don’t worry; he’ll see him now. And he isn’t going to like it that I’ve stood his scheme on its head.’

  ‘His scheme?’

  ‘He might have been under the influence, but he was sober enough not to want to risk a second game. He didn’t want Benjamin Harley to get Windrush. He intended I should have the estate. He didn’t stake it until I sat down at the table and once I had it he didn’t want it back. So I obliged him and took your birthright, fair and legitimate. But the only way I’ll take you is the way I’ve just described. That’s as far as I’m prepared to fall in with his plan to resurrect our relationship.’

  Rachel felt the blood drain from her face. ‘What are you saying?’ she whispered, horrified.

  ‘I’m saying, my one-time love, that your father is labouring under the foolish hope that I’m still besotted with you. He thinks I’m the honourable fool I was six years ago. He thinks if he puts you in my way and in my debt enough, I just might marry you and provide the Merediths with a happy ending. That won’t happen.’

  ‘No, it’s too late for that. Far too late for that.’

  ‘I’m glad you agree.’

  ‘I do,’ Rachel breathed, sweetly courteous, as she came close to him again. ‘The only way the Merediths would ever have been assured a happy ending was if your stupid grandfather had found the courage to pull that trigger when you were eighteen.’

  Her hand flew up, cracked resoundingly against a lean dark cheek. Immediately she flew backwards away from him. ‘But that was quite satisfying,’ she bit out before turning proudly for the door.

  An arm curved about her tense body, jerking her off balance and back against him. Immediately she fought his hold, then swirled about in his arms. The pearls twined into her hair scattered on to the floor like glimmering hailstones as five dark fingers supported her scalp. Slowly, deliberately he kissed her, plundered the mutinous soft lines of her lips with ruthless seduction until she was whimpering with tense frustration. Just as she succumbed to the sweet torment, allowed his tongue to tease hers, he took his mouth away.

  ‘That wasn’t very satisfying,’ he breathed against her quivering flesh. ‘So let me know by midweek if you want to negotiate on my terms or the estate will be auctioned at the beginning of July.’

  Her large, glistening eyes raised to his, seeking some compassion beneath the fringe of preposterously long lashes. There was nothing but a diamond-hard glitter.

  ‘And that’s an end to it? It’s enough that you finally humiliate me in the most sordid and basic way? You won’t then feel inclined to find other things you want?’

  ‘I won’t humiliate you and I won’t renege on my word. There’s nothing else I want but peace. I told you: it started in lust, it’ll end there too.’

  ‘And that won’t humiliate me?’

  ‘No.’

  He caught her wrist this time before her hand made its mark.

  Wrenching herself free, she backed off two paces, then swept with wordless dignity to the door to find her friends to take her home.

  ‘There’s a rider approaching,’ Sylvie called over her shoulder to her mother.

  Gloria Meredith joined her youngest girl at the morning-room window. She squinted off into the distance at a dark blurry shape moving at some speed towards the house. ‘I must purchase some spectacles. My eyesight is not what it was…’

  ‘It’s William,’ Sylvie advised with a laugh and turned to look at June, sitting, feet curled beneath her, with sewing in her lap.

  It seemed a moment before June’s dreamy expression registered that the stuff of her reverie was, in body, in the vicinity. She started to her feet. ‘William? Here? In Hertfordshire? Are you sure?’

  ‘Well, come and look,’ Sylvie ordered with a scowl for her dithering sister. In Sylvie’s opinion, June didn’t suit being in love. She wandered about like a witless idiot most of the time. Only yesterday she’d sat on a needle that June had forgotten she’d left idly poked into the arm of a chair. Of course, June had been so distraught at the sight of the small puncture mark on her little sister’s thigh that she had sobbed and wept until Sylvie, in desperation, had apologised for bringing it to her attention, for she’d barely felt it, she’d insisted graciously.

  June flew to the window and peered out. A smile of sheer rapture lit her face and in a swirl of pretty tiffany skirts she was gone from the room.

 
; June encountered her father in the hallway in the process of shaking hands with her fiancé. William had his attention immediately on the alluring sight of his betrothed as he pumped his prospective father-in-law’s arm. Edgar Meredith, with a little smile for the young couple, made his excuses and ambled off to his study.

  ‘I’d no idea you were coming to Hertfordshire before the wedding,’ June breathed.

  Her fiancé managed a passably casual shrug. ‘I found myself at a bit of a loose end in London. Philip Moncur and Barry Foster and some others have gone off to Brighton. They wanted me to accompany them, but I can’t say I fancied it. I can’t say I’ve fancied seeking my parents’ company too much either these last few weeks…Father’s well enough on his own…’ A meaningful grimace followed the remark. ‘So I thought a bit of country air was the thing; a constitutional before all the excitement starts in earnest. I’ve been staying for a few days at the King’s Arms. It’s a quaint place. Good food and ale. Decided today I’d just drop by on a visit…see how you all do…’

  That was all the standing on ceremony that June could bear. With a little sigh she propelled herself into her fiancé’s embrace. He hugged her tight. ‘I don’t think I can endure another day without you, let alone three weeks,’ he whispered hoarsely against her soft hair.

  June happily disengaged herself, took his arm and led him towards the morning room. ‘Well, you must,’ she said archly. ‘And you will probably be quite disappointed to have left London. A friend for you was on her way into the city, just as you were heading here. Rachel is not long ago returned to Beaulieu Gardens. She will be upset to have missed you. Perhaps you passed each other on the road, unawares.’

  Soon they were ensconced in the morning-room chairs with the warm sun slanting to beatify their faces. Sylvie had wandered off to change her clothes and take a ride on her pony. Thus, just Mrs Meredith played gooseberry to the lovers.

  ‘More tea, William?’ Gloria called, holding up the pretty pot.

  ‘Yes, thank you, Mrs Meredith.’

  Gloria attended to his cup, slid a glance between the couple. The young man seemed to have trouble detaching his eyes from her daughter’s sweet countenance. I have one child settled, she stressed for herself before her anxious thoughts again returned to Rachel.

  She just wished she’d come home, for no good would come of chasing what was lost. She knew that her eldest daughter was pursuing her inheritance rather than her friendship with the Saunders. Her husband knew it too. Not that they had spoken of it; in fact, since the day he had returned to tell them of his grossly selfish behaviour, they had spoken little at all. Just essentials, over the running of the household or the wedding preparations brought them close enough to exchange a few frosty formal words. Gloria sighed depressively. It went unnoticed. With a murmured excuse about seeing to the luncheon, she withdrew.

  William sipped from a delicate china teacup that looked imperilled by his big fingers. He frowned. ‘Why has Rachel gone back to London so soon?’

  June sent a circumspect look towards the door as though fearing they might be overheard. ‘It’s the business with Windrush: Papa losing it to Lord Devane,’ she informed little above a whisper. ‘Rachel was furious. I’ve rarely seen her so angry. She and Papa were at terrible loggerheads. She insists we be married here and has gone to do battle with Lord Devane over it all. I told her that it would not matter if we married instead in London…’

  William’s frown deepened. ‘Well, I’d rather be married here at Windrush and told Devane so. He wasn’t put out by allowing us to keep to our arrangements. He has no use for the place, after all.’

  ‘What do you mean?’ June asked in surprise. ‘That Rachel is gone on a fool’s errand? Had you already approached Lord Devane over it all?’

  ‘He approached me…and your father. As soon as Edgar was lucid enough to understand what was being said we all met the next day. Why did your father not tell you that, I wonder?’

  June looked shocked. She shook her fair head. ‘I don’t know. Surely it would not have slipped his mind. Perhaps the alcohol affected his memory.’

  William’s curious expression turned bleak. ‘I hope there is not some deviousness in it all.’ He sighed. ‘It seems strange to me, for unless I’m much mistaken, I’d wager a fortune that Devane is still much taken with Rachel.’

  ‘I think so too,’ June agreed. ‘And can’t see why he’d be mean enough to ruin things for us.’

  ‘I’d as soon start married life without being central to all this skulduggery, my love.’ William sighed. ‘No good ever comes of such underhand behaviour: withholding information and harbouring secrets and so on. It is something I cannot abide…’

  June looked alarmed at his vehemence. Her large hazel eyes attached to his for so long that he rose and, crouching by her chair, asked, ‘What is it, dear?’

  ‘I don’t want us to have secrets either. There’s something I must tell you, William…about Isabel…’

  Chapter Twelve

  ‘Faith, it’s you back. Now, what might you be after wanting this time?’

  ‘The same as last time.’ The repartee was ready but there was little confidence in Sam Smith’s demeanour today. In fact he barely raised a smile and twitched a bit beneath the steady glare directed at him from beneath brows like rusty arches.

  Noreen Shaughnessy crossed her arms over her starched bosom and pointedly examined two sets of scuffed boots planted on her recently scrubbed steps. Her eyes belligerently widened, daring the young couple not to scarper.

  The brash whippersnapper was easily recalled from the time he’d delivered that letter from Himself. The small female tucked behind him was a stranger. As Noreen slyly cocked her head to get a better look at his timid companion, she noticed there was a fancy-crested coach at the kerb with a solitary battered travelling box atop it. It was a rich man’s rig bearing a poor man’s luggage, and she recognised the coachman. He’d been driving the vehicle that brought her mistress home—with the earl of Devane escorting her—the first night they arrived in town. This was his lordship’s coach and this, she’d believed, was one of his lordship’s servants. So why was he here, with his chattels, delivered to their door in such style?

  Noreen had her hunches. In fact, she’d done little else but brood on her suspicions for weeks past. Since they’d arrived in town and Miss Rachel insisted on immediately confronting the Major, Noreen knew something big was brewing. When he’d come back the following morning, looking like the handsome prince from a fairy tale, and her mistress acting for all the world like an excited girl set on hooking her beau, Noreen had put her faith in dreams: Windrush regained, things back as they should be. As they would be, but for the master acting like a proper fool. Then the front door had slammed like it was surely coming off its hinges and she’d been summoned by her white-faced mistress to sweep up the bits of clock and best china that marked the dream’s departure.

  Yet she’d seen the way the Major looked at her; and she’d seen the way Miss Rachel looked right back, with her chin high and her nose high…and that hunger in her eyes, as though something miraculous was just within reach but she was scared to reach out and grab lest it turned right round and bit her.

  Now he was a hero and a lord to boot, but he was a man first. An influential man. And Noreen guessed a lesser fellow might feel entitled to impress all that on a woman who’d left him, practically at the altar, looking like every sort of fool. No one could deny Major Flinte had had cause to feel bitter and angry six years ago. And if he were biding his time for the perfect opportunity for tit-for-tat, it wouldn’t come any sweeter than now. With Windrush gone to him, and Miss Rachel determined her sister’s wedding go ahead as planned, he sure enough held the whip hand…

  But Noreen knew the Major was a decent man, an honourable man. It was one thing, she realised, that she and the master had in common: their lasting faith in the Major’s honest goodness. He wouldn’t ruin a woman he’d once loved. He just wouldn’t, Noreen w
ould stake her life on it…

  ‘Your mistress is expecting us,’ Sam Smith announced proudly, erasing the contemplative grimace from Noreen’s countenance. ‘We’re taken on, Lord Devane says so…’

  Gently he drew forward the girl from where she hovered behind him. ‘I’m Sam Smith and this is me sister, Annie. I’ll introduce you to Noreen, Annie…’

  ‘Don’t you be after taking liberties! And how is it you know me name?’ Noreen barked.

  ‘Sure and it was your mistress said it, Noreen,’ he drawled in a fair approximation of her brogue. ‘Miss Meredith called you that last time I was here with that letter from my master. My master as was, that is.’ He rocked high on his toes, expanding his chest, keen to appear unconcerned about this abrupt downturn in his and Annie’s prospects.

  Noreen blushed again at the memory of him teasing her that day. ‘It’s Miss Shaughnessy to you. Or you can call me ma’am. God’s own truth! It’s a jackanapes you are. You’re naught but a kid!’

  A few days ago Noreen had tried not to look too relieved…or offended…when Miss Rachel told her new staff were to be taken on. But, in her heart, relief reigned, for she knew she was doing too much. Vera and Bernard Grimshaw, the old retainers who oversaw the place when the family were away, were as much help as a sack on the back. He was afflicted with arthritis so badly he could scarce move out of a body’s way, and she was deaf as a post and too fat to do much more than loll about eating what she’d just took out the oven. Which left herself working dawn till dusk, and then some, which was more than a mortal could stand.

  But she’d never have guessed this cheeky devil might some day be a colleague at Beaulieu Gardens. He looked big and ugly enough to do a full share, but that sister hiding behind looked like she might be as much use as fat Vera when it came to getting down and putting black on a grate or a scrubbing brush on a step. Noreen found herself again trying to peer beneath the girl’s lowered bonnet brim. Weak and weary or shy and retiring, it cut no ice with Noreen. If she was here to work, work she would.