The Rakehell Regency Romance Series Boxed Set 1

by Sorcha MacMurrough

  She stared at him, crestfallen. "What, no wedding trip? Not even to London?"

  At her questioning gaze, he shook his head. "Surely I do not need to explain why to you, do I?"

  "I know you have business here..."

  "It is also to prevent anyone from gossiping. I do not wish anyone to think that we did anything improper before we wed."

  "You mean you want to check to make sure I have not," she said angrily.

  He didn't trouble to deny it, just looked at her piercingly with his emerald eyes. "If you tell me you have not, it will be enough. But if one word were to ever get out about what happened that night, we would be able to refute it more easily were there a large enough gap between our ceremony and the birth of our first child."

  She shrugged uncomfortably. "Some people get caught the very first time, others not at all."

  He gave her a quelling look. "Let's hope you are the latter, not the former."

  She glared at him. "I've told you-"

  He shook his head. "Please, we will not argue about this, my dear. We will simply enjoy the benefits of our comfortable home and the good society of our friends and neighbors for the rest of the winter months, rather than trail off to Town, or to Scotland or Ireland to see my other holdings. I will have to go myself at some point this year when the weather improves and the roads are once more safely passable, but I have stewards I trust at all the properties, so it is not a pressing matter."

  "All of the properties?" she echoed in confusion "Why, how many are there?"

  Realizing his slip, he decided to tell her the partial truth. "Five or six in the United Kingdom. I can't recall all the others at present. I cannot live in more than one house, so they are all let to good solid respectable families. They bring in a good income, which our children will be grateful for. The poor certainly appreciate it, for I give half of it away at present to endow foundling homes and hospitals and other public works."

  "I had no idea." So much wealth...

  Her confusion came back full force. He seemed so honest and open, but he was most definitely hiding something from her. Something he would not let her get close to. No matter how many times he took her into his arms, no matter how hard she tried to break down the barrier of cool politeness he exhibited towards her, she was as much in the dark about him as ever.

  "There's no reason for you to know. But come, my dear, they're all waiting for you. I shall see you tomorrow."

  She would have asked far more questions, but once again he had effectively dismissed her without even being remotely impolite.

  He bowed over her hand and kissed it warmly. She started as she felt his tongue peep out for a sensual caress of its own, which sent shivers of delight through her veins.

  "Good night, Charlotte."

  "G-g-good night." She felt her turning her face up to his for a kiss, but he propelled her forward and up into the carriage, thwarting all of her simmering, inexplicable desires.

  The carriage ride back was uneventful, with her cousins and father full of praise for everything they had seen at Eltham Castle. Charlotte could find no fault with any of the arrangements Thomas had made, nor with her new home.

  But it was all so sudden. She found herself expecting at any moment to be awakened from the dream. Or nightmare. If anyone had told her even a week ago that she would become a Duchess, and marry a man like Thomas Eltham, she would have laughed and called them mad.

  Now it was really happening. In less than two days, she was going to marry a man who was a stranger to her.

  Yet as he had pointed out, she had little choice at this stage. She could not back out at this point. And she knew she would not. She was too much of a coward.

  She wished she were not so shallow. But the truth was that a good home, money, social status, meant a great deal to her. In fact, if she was being brutally honest with herself, she was little better than one of the prostitutes Sarah tried to help. She was selling herself for a fine home and jewels, plain and simple.

  But as she wandered around her own room back at her house, wondering where to start with her packing, she knew there could be so much more to their marriage than just the material things they had spoken of.

  There was warmth, desire, passion. She hardly knew Thomas, but he was absolutely correct when he said there was something between them that could not be denied. Whether it was love or lust, she could not tell.

  Her other qualms came when she looked at her gowns. They had been got up in preparation for her London season in the spring. The gowns were plain whites and creams, modest enough in the bosom, though still eye-catching. She had never even had the chance to go up to Town to meet other men. And never would now.

  Perhaps Herbert would have been a bad choice for her. Perhaps Thomas would be. She would never know now. All her life would be dictated by her role in society as Thomas's wife.

  She had no decisions to make. It had all been taken completely out of her hands. Even her choice of husband had been dictated to her by a fortune hunter who had snatched her from the arms of another man. And out of the hands of her own father, who was strict enough, and terrified at the idea of any scandal besmirching his family name.

  As Charlotte moved about the room emptying drawers, it was almost as if the walls were closing in on her. She knew she was making a mess. The maids would have to refold everything in the morning and put them in her boxes.

  Still, it soothed her to look her things over, to see that she was going to her new home with some lovely things, so that Thomas should not be ashamed of her. New linens, gowns... She could have a couple of darker ones like Vanessa's fine green velvet when she was a bit older. When they could afford it.

  Then she shook her head. She would do better to think about improving her education, as she had suggested to Thomas. She did not need material things. If that was all this marriage would be about, then she was indeed little better than Haymarket ware plying her trade at a street corner. No, she would make Thomas proud for her accomplishments, not her wardrobe, just as Vanessa Stone did her husband.

  She laughed. If she didn't know better, she could have sworn she had fallen a little bit in love with her mature and solemn future spouse. Yet she could have sworn just a short time ago that she hated him for forcing her into this marriage. Oh, it was all so confusing.

  She changed into her night rail, brushed out her hair, and then snuffed out the candles. Far from dropping off into an exhausted slumber, she lay tossing and turning, remembering his kisses and caresses, the arguments they had had, the warmer, more intimate conversations they had shared.

  What was there not to love about him? At least on the surface, anyway. He was handsome, suave, mature, worldly, kind.

  But all the same, there was something very troubling about him, something....

  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  Charlotte awakened groggily at seven, and noted with relief that she had dropped off to sleep in the end despite her restlessness the night before. She recalled the clock striking three just before she had drifted into dreamland.

  She poked her head out of the covers, and looked at the mull she had made of her room.

  Pulling the bell, she instructed her maids to fetch all her boxes and begin packing them. She also asked for a hot bath. She hoped it would wake her up, and fortify her for another long day of wedding preparations.

  After she had bathed and had completed her toilette, dressing in a serviceable pale gold cotton day dress with a small checked pattern in cream, she decided to attempt to see her aunt once more.

  But when she got to that wing of the house, her entrance was barred by her aunt's maid Betsey, a stolid country lass as broad as the door she was blocking. "Forgive me, Miss, but your aunt is indisposed. She says-"

  "Is that my niece?" came the piercing voice of her aunt.

  "Yes, Aunt Margaret. I'm here. May I come in to see you?" Charlotte called.

  "No. I shall give you no such indulgence. Willful, ungrateful girl. If you're determin
ed to throw your life away on a man such as that-"

  "Such as what, Aunt?" Charlotte asked in astonishment. "I have heard no gossip about him worth worrying about."

  "Humph. Surely you recall him running off to the Army. Goodness knows what he got up to there. He's acquired all sorts of dreadful habits, I'm sure," came the strident voice from the chamber beyond. "Not to mention his disappearance last year, and the mysterious disappearance of his sister."

  "His sister? Elizabeth is just fine, Aunt."

  "I know what I know," she said in strident tones.

  Charlotte pushed past the buxom maid and peeped her head around her aunt's door to glance into the luxurious silk-swathed interior, finer than many of the reception rooms downstairs.

  "I have no idea what you think you know. But before I listen to another word, I'd like to know the source of these accusations," she demanded.

  Her aunt was sitting up in bed eating bon bons, but tried to hide them under the covers as she heard the approaching footsteps.

  "I would never dream of breaking a confidence," she proclaimed in her most haughty tone. "All I know is I'm so distraught over you marrying that, that FIEND, that I cannot eat a bite."

  Charlotte shook her head, and pointedly stared at the half-concealed confection box. "If you won't tell me the source of this gossip and tittle-tattle, I shall simply have to conclude that it has either been made up by yourself, or invented by someone who is greatly envious of the Duke. Therefore, I shall not listen to your evil words. I've already made up my mind to have him, so there is no point in trying to pollute my mind against him."

  "But my dear, you're so young and credulous. You have no idea what monsters men can be," she said, trying to give her a winning smile.

  Charlotte spun on her heel. "Or women either, apparently. If you cannot be happy for me, Aunt, then I shall take myself off elsewhere."

  "You will live to regret this match! You mark my words!" the older woman shrieked after her.

  Charlotte pressed her hands to her ears, and fled back to her own chamber. Confusion reigned in her mind once more. How could she have been so cruel? Or was she trying to be kind? Why was her aunt so adamant that she not marry Thomas? Could there be any truth in her accusations?

  But it made no sense, not when he had such decent friends and seemed so respectable and compassionate. A few weeks ago, she would have been more than happy to listen to salacious gossip about the Duke. Now she was convinced that there were certain people who lived for triumphing over others. Who loved spreading wicked lies to do the most hurt. She did not like to think ill of her own aunt, a woman who had raised her ever since her own dear mama had died and she had come home from school to take her place as her father's hostess.

  As she contemplated the recent scene with her aunt, she saw her own failings, passed on to her by this thoughtless and not particularly intelligent or genteel woman. She could see now that her own excessive concern with being fashionable and popular at the expense of being decent Christian had been foolish in the extreme.

  And truth to tell, Agnes was no better. She loved to spread rumors, and was certainly incredibly flirtatious, for all her rather plain looks. Or perhaps because of them.

  It had been her own silly fault for wanting to compete with Agnes for the largest number of beaux. Why, if Agnes had not sung Herbert's praises so highly, she might never even have considered him seriously...

  Still, Agnes had shared a great number of her joys and triumphs. It would be a shame to become cut off from her most intimate confidante so completely. Not when they lived so close to one another, and were bound to meet.

  For the sake of civility, if not rekindling the friendship, Charlotte decided to pay her a visit. If Agnes cared about her at all, she would be happy for her unexpected luck in finding so good a man as the Duke to marry.

  But when Charlotte arrived at Agnes's house, a small cottage on the outskirts of her property, which Agnes shared with her older sister, a widow with an eight-year old son, she was told she was not there.

  "She got an invitation to go to London, and just up and left," her sister said with a resigned air. "Hardly took a stitch with her. Must have been a pretty important friend."

  "Not a man friend, surely?" Charlotte asked, a cold hand gripping her heart.

  "Could be, I'm sorry to say." She sighed. "Well, beggars can't be choosers. If she's found a good'un to marry her, I say good luck to her. When Pa died, he was in quite deep. He would have ended up in debtor's prison if he hadn't popped off."

  At Charlotte's stunned look, the older woman added, "We were raised better, but there aren't too many choices for financially embarrassed women of our class. I married, but then he upped and died."

  She sighed and shook her head. "I'm not badly off, but I'm not wealthy enough to take care of all Agnes wants and needs. Not with my young one to take care of as well. I know she and you were friends, but you're probably better off without her hanging on your skirts for a leg up in the world."

  "That's not why she was-" Charlotte began to deny, but the words stuck in her throat. The sister's pitying gaze sent a chill up Charlotte's spine.

  Agnes had not been in the district all that long before she had earned a certain reputation for 'borrowing' money, gowns, jewels. She had not paid attention at the time, thinking it just malicious gossip directed at someone vulnerable, not as well off as the others. Now she was not so sure...

  Charlotte turned for home with a heavy heart. Her friend was gone, her aunt furious with her.

  But worst of all, her head was now full of rumors, suppositions, and questions not only about the man she was about to marry, but the whole way of life she had once taken for granted.

  She prayed that something would ease the turmoil in her mind, or else she would never be able to walk down the aisle tomorrow.

  CHAPTER TWELVE

  After her visit with her friend Agnes's sister, Charlotte returned home to look over her room one last time. She searched through the boxes, and extracted a few items she would need for her first night at Eltham Castle. Then she gazed around her pensively. She would miss the little pink and cream room where she had dreamed so many dreams.

  But a new life awaited her, whether she liked it or not. Perhaps it would not be so bad. After all, she was only going a relatively short distance away from her father, only a few miles. Many women had to marry much further off than that. She would still be with many of the neighbors she was accustomed to. Most of them were pleasant and affable enough, and she would enlarge her circle of acquaintance once she was married.

  These thoughts about Thomas's friends reminded her that the Duke's coach would be there at four, and they were supposed to be staying for supper. She chose a white gown of muslin which was heavily embroidered at the hem and train, and intermittently all over the skirt of the gown, with black and silver thread in a floral pattern. The high waist was confined with a twisted braid of black and silver ribbon, and she had a matching black and silver reticule and fan. She wound black and silver ribbons into her hair, which was piled high on the back of her head in the neo-Classical fashion. She was just putting the finishing touches to the ensemble, long white gloves and black jet bracelets, when there was a tap at the door.

  "The carriage is here, Miss," her maid informed her.

  "I shall be down shortly."

  She donned her black pelisse with silver trim, and checked her slippers, black velvet with silver bows on top. Taking in her appearance in the mirror, she decided she had achieved the effect intended: cool sophistication and elegance. Now if she could only stop her tongue from running away with itself, all would be well.

  She had to bite her tongue as her father exclaimed, "My goodness, don't you look fine! Very fine indeed! You will most certainly shine down everyone else this evening. Thomas is a lucky man. Not to mention you. It's amazing what love can do. Why, it makes even a plain woman look beautiful. Er, not to say that you are plain, my dear, far from it! You are a most tooth
some wench."

  Charlotte cringed as her father only succeeded in digging his own hole deeper.

  "Never mind the backhanded compliments, Father," she said through stiff lips. "We're keeping everyone waiting."

  When they arrived at the Castle, Thomas came out to greet them in the vast marble foyer, and kissed her hand warmly. "You look wonderful, my dear."

  "Well, that's better than saying I'm a toothsome wench," she said with a moue of distaste.

  He laughed, guessing at once who had made the remark. "Your father means well, and it's true, even if inelegantly expressed. You are quite delectable."

  "Spend your Spanish coin on another gullible girl."