“And you don’t think that I could do as much?” he asked with a lifted brow, astonished to discover that he was a trifle put out that Daphne would look to someone else to launch her sister and brother into the heights of the ton.
“Could you?” Daphne asked innocently. She touched his sleeve. “Oh, Charles! Would you? It would be more than I ever dreamed to have them welcomed into the midst of the haut ton! The doors that would open for them! The opportunities!”
Staring down into Daphne’s face, her love and pride in her brother and sister blazing in her eyes, Charles wondered bleakly, and not for the first time, if the day would ever come that she would look at him with that same intense loving expression. The lowering thought occurred to him that in Daphne’s world, he came a distant third to Adrian and April. He wasn’t exactly jealous, at least he didn’t think so, but he wished that his rivals for her affections were not her brother and sister. A male rival, he would have known precisely how to disable, but he was defenseless against Adrian and April. If they had been a pair of selfish, scheming hellborn babes, he could have, and would have, dealt summarily with them, but what was he to do when pitted against a disarmingly charming youth like Adrian and a beguiling little darling like April? They might not come from a socially powerful and aristocratic family as he did, but their bloodline was certainly respectable, and with Adrian’s newly inherited title and wealth, there was nothing to hinder their advancement amongst the rich and powerful. Charles smiled. Who could resist them? They deserved to have all those golden opportunities that Daphne longed for them to have. To his astonishment, he realized that he wanted their advancement into the ranks of the ton as much as Daphne did, and he shook his head at how quickly he had entered the ranks of every scheming, matchmaking parent he had ever met.
Charles glanced over to where Julian, Marcus, and Adrian stood talking. “I may not have the cachet of the Earl of Wyndham or the staid respectability of my cousin, Marcus, but there are few doors that are closed to me,” he said carelessly, “and as his brother-in-law, I will be more than happy to ease Adrian’s path into society.” He made a face, honesty making him add, “However, in April’s case…I think, perhaps, that her social advancement would be best left in yours and Nell’s hands.” He grinned down at Daphne. “There are a few of the reigning hostesses who might look askance at any female I sought to fire off into society.”
“Is your reputation very bad?” Daphne asked uneasily. She was curious about his life prior to coming to Cornwall. She knew of his relationship to the earl, knew that his family was highly esteemed, knew that he was wealthy and owned his own estate, but beyond that, there was a whole blank canvas.
Charles rubbed his chin. “Let me put it this way: a few years ago, mamas with lovely marriageable daughters tended to keep them under lock and key when I was in the vicinity.” He smiled charmingly at her. “But most gentlemen found me more than tolerable.”
“Do not let him bamboozle you,” said Julian, coming up to join them, Marcus and Adrian trailing behind him. Grinning at Charles, Julian continued, “I tell you, my dear, that he was the worst kind of rake. A handsome, utterly charming ne’er-do-well, a neck-or-nothing rider, and an incredibly lucky gambler.”
“Don’t forget,” chimed in Marcus, “handy with his fives, a devil with a sword, and reckless and wild to a fault.”
“All of that,” Julian agreed easily, the expression in his gaze hard to define as he stared at Charles, “but also the very man you want at your side should your back be against the wall.”
“I shall have absolutely no character left if the pair of you continue to fill her ears with that sort of tittle-tattle,” Charles complained. To Daphne, he said, “Do not listen to them. They were always an envious pair. You see before you a changed man. I have sworn off my rakish ways.” He lifted her hand to his lips and murmured, “And you, my sweet, have nothing to fear. I shall be an exemplary husband.”
“If it kills him,” said Marcus sotto voce.
Baron Templeton, his wife and heir, the Honorable Stacy Bannister, arrived shortly, and there was another round of introductions, although Daphne took one look at Lady Templeton and Stacy Bannister and knew them to be related to Charles. Both had the Weston family looks, and it came as no surprise to learn the Lady Templeton was his aunt and Stacy, at twenty-five, his youngest male cousin. She was even more gratified when Stacy took a liking to Adrian, and the stunned look on his face when he met April filled her cup to overflowing.
Dinner that evening was lively, the conversation scintillating, and the food superb. By the time the ladies rose from the table, leaving the gentlemen to their port and wines, she was so filled with optimism for the future for Adrian and April that Daphne’s feet hardly touched the floor.
She was still floating, visions of Adrian and April taking London by storm drifting through her head, when she prepared for bed many hours later. Sitting at her dressing table, she swung around and stared at the now opened doorway that led to the sitting room she and Charles would share, and the reality of what was happening filtered through her brain. The day after tomorrow, at eleven o’clock in the morning, she would be married to a man whose name she had not even known a month ago. Her heart gave an uncomfortable lurch. Soon she would be Mrs. Charles Weston, and her fate and those of Adrian and April would be in the hands of a stranger, albeit one whom she had grown to trust and respect. She did not know whether to be ecstatic or terrified. Or both.
Chapter 13
The day of the wedding dawned bright and clear, and for Daphne, the intervening time had passed within the blink of an eye. A formal dinner with all of the local gentry in attendance had been held the previous evening, adding to the madness surrounding the wedding.
Daphne was so busy that she had no time to think about her coming nuptials. Before she knew it, the cumbersome Beaumont family coach was depositing her, Adrian, and April at the broad stone steps of the local church. Flanked by her siblings, she picked up the skirts of her white- and silver-spangled gown, and her heart beating fast, she entered the church.
Her hand trembling on her brother’s arm, Daphne slowly walked toward the front of the church where the vicar, Charles, and his groomsman, the Earl of Wyndham, awaited them. She was hardly aware of the dark wooden pews festooned with pink roses and sweetly scented white lilies, hardly aware of the encouraging smile flashed her way by the countess, hardly aware of anything but the austerely handsome man standing so tall and imposing at the front of the church. When their eyes met, her heart, already thudding madly beneath her breast, felt as if it would leap right out of her chest.
Reaching the vicar, Adrian, looking absurdly formal and very young, took Daphne’s hand from his arm and placed it in Charles’s. As Charles’s hand closed warmly around hers, Daphne was startled at how very right it felt, how very comforting it felt, and her fingers tightened on his. Her gaze searched his dark face, the enormity of what was happening flooding through her. In a matter of moments, she would be the wife of this man, this stranger, yet not at all a stranger. Once the vicar pronounced the words, their lives would be forever linked, and Daphne was astonished by the surge of sheer pleasure that raced through her at that knowledge. Soon, she and her siblings would no longer be just a little trio against the world—when she married Charles, she was marrying into a large and extended family, a family that had welcomed not only her, but her brother and sister as well. She studied him, this man she would marry, conscious of the unraveling of the small knot of uncertainty that had always lingered at the back of her mind. Standing before the vicar, like a bolt from the sky, she realized that she could not imagine marrying anybody else. In that stunning second, she knew three things: she trusted him implicitly, his touch sent her body up in flames, and she was in love with him….
Her eyes widened, and she stood there, shocked. Of course she loved him! How could she not? He was honorable and kind and handsome and everything she would have wished for in a husband, his affection for Adrian
and April only adding to his appeal. With a blinding flash, it dawned on her that she had been so concerned with Adrian and April’s future that she had ignored what her own heart had been telling her for weeks. She loved him! Utterly, completely, and for all time.
Her lips curved in a smile so dazzling that Charles blinked and caught his breath, instinctively moving closer to her. He hadn’t a clue what she was thinking; he only knew that he wanted her to keep looking at him with that same sweet expression on her face and that he wanted desperately to kiss her. His eyes locked on her soft mouth, he was actually bending forward when the vicar’s voice, speaking the opening words of the marriage ceremony, forcibly reminded him of the matter at hand.
Hands held tightly, they repeated their vows, Charles’s voice ringing emphatically through the church, Daphne’s quieter, more muted. And then it was over—they were married and leaving the church, the others following them out into the pale yellow February sunshine.
Charles and Daphne drove back to Beaumont Place in the smart, well-sprung black and burgundy carriage he’d had delivered by his coachman and groom from Stonegate a few days ago. The coach was pulled by a quartet of gleaming blaze-faced bay horses, each with four flashy white socks, whose spanking trot ate up the distance between the church and Beaumont Place.
Leaning back against the burgundy velvet squabs of the coach as the vehicle swayed and bounced along the road, Daphne stared dazedly out the window. Staggered by the knowledge that she was madly in love with her very new husband, her brain simply could not get over that fact, and coherent speech was beyond her. Blind to the passing scenery, she thought, “I am in love with my husband. I love Charles Weston! I love him.”
It was only when Charles lifted her hand from the seat and pressed a kiss on the back of it that she started and looked at him.
Charles sent her a quizzical glance, wondering what had prompted that dazzling smile in the church and what precisely was now going on in that pretty little head of hers. He sighed inwardly. Probably some grand scheme involving Adrian or April’s debut into society, he thought wryly. Aloud, he merely said, “That went very well, didn’t it?”
She nodded, suddenly shy with him. This handsome, charming man was her husband!
Kissing her fingers, his eyes fixed on her face, he said, “Hello, wife.”
A smile that caused his heart to stop beating before resuming at an alarming pace crossed her face. “Hello, husband,” she said softly, her other hand coming up to lightly caress his cheek.
At her touch, the warmth of her hand branding his cheek, Charles swallowed, tongue-tied for perhaps the first time in his life. Christ! She was lovely. And he was bloody fathoms deep in love with her and had been, he suspected, since the moment he’d laid eyes on her. Why else had he risked his life in that blasted cave with her? And saddled himself with a pair of brats? A pair of brats who ranked ahead of him in her affections? He shook his head, unable to concentrate, unable to think of anything but how much he loved her, and how very, very much he wanted to make love to her. And if she didn’t stop looking at him that way, he was afraid that he’d consummate their marriage right here and now on the coach seat. His loins clenched, the idea of sliding his hand under that white spangled gown and finding all the sweet heat he knew would be there almost overpowering him.
Wrenching his thoughts away from visions of sleek, naked flesh, he stared hard at their clasped hands. Frantically, he searched for a topic of conversation that didn’t involve his desire to rip off her clothing and bury himself in her body. Reminding himself of the plans that he had made, plans he had not yet mentioned to his new wife, he snatched at them like a drowning man does a piece of driftwood. The timing was all wrong, he admitted, although he had not yet been able to think of any time when she would welcome his news.
Better now when we are alone than at the house, he decided uneasily. She wasn’t going to like it no matter when he told her, but it seemed a sensible and necessary plan to him. As he fumbled to break the news to her, he wondered where his arrogance and determination to arrange things to suit himself had gone. A little slice of guilt knifed through him. Well, he had arranged this to suit himself, he admitted, but it was for Daphne’s sake as well. And since when, he mused, did he go around nervous about a woman’s reaction, even if the woman was his wife. His lips twisted. Probably since I fell in love with the little witch. He took a deep breath. Better get it over with.
His elegantly arranged cravat feeling as if it would choke him, Charles muttered, “Uh, I’ve spoken to Julian and Nell, and they have agreed to stay on at Beaumont Place for a trifle…while we make a lightning trip to Stonegate. I’ve arranged for us to leave this afternoon. We will stay the night at an excellent coaching inn I know of outside of Looe and arrive at Stonegate sometime tomorrow afternoon, early evening at the latest.”
Daphne sat up, her brow clouding. “Leave Beaumont Place this afternoon? Oh, we cannot! I am not packed. There are guests in the house. And Adrian and April…”
“Adrian and April will be fine—Julian and Nell will watch over them. And I took the liberty of having Nell tell your maid to pack your bags. Your maid and my valet are even now on their way to Looe. It is all arranged. We shall be gone little over a week.” He waited for the storm to break over his head, but to his relief, she looked more bewildered than angry.
“But why? Surely I can see Stonegate soon enough.”
His hand tightened on hers. “Because,” he said very deliberately, “I want you to see your new home, meet your new servants, but mostly because I want to make love to you without having to run the gauntlet of knowing eyes every time we step out of our rooms.”
Daphne flushed, thinking of sitting down to breakfast tomorrow morning with Adrian, April, the earl, everyone in the household knowing…Her flush deepened. “Oh. I hadn’t thought about that.”
I had,” said Charles with feeling. “We shall enjoy our wedding breakfast with our family and friends, and then we shall leave for Stonegate.”
Charles’s plan went off exactly as he had arranged, and Daphne was surprised at how lighthearted she felt as she waved good-bye to her brother and sister and the others as the coach pulled away from Beaumont Place. She’d never been separated from Adrian and April before, and while their well-being was of great concern to her, it occurred to her with a funny little start that miraculously, Charles had become the most important person in the world to her. She looked across at him. Her husband, her soon-to-be lover…
They arrived in Looe after dark. But since Charles had sent Bledsoe and her maid, Jane, ahead to prepare things for them, when she entered the suite of rooms that had been procured for the night, Daphne found all in readiness. Her clothes had been unpacked, a bath had been ordered, and Jane said that Mr. Weston had instructed Bledsoe to order a light repast for them.
Daphne was too nervous to think of food, and as she stepped from the copper tub, she glanced at the big bed where she would sleep that night. A shiver of anticipation rippled through her. Charles would come to her, and he would do all those marvelous things to her, and this time, she swallowed, and this time, there would be no stopping. Her nipples peaked, her lower body hummed, and laughing at herself, not certain whether to be glad or appalled at her wantonness, she slipped into a pale pink nightgown of softest cambric, delicate rosebuds embroidered around the neck, sleeves, and hem. She brushed her wild black mane of hair and pinched her cheeks and surveyed herself in the small mirror. She saw a passably attractive woman, not in her first blush, a beanpole with a mop of unruly hair, and wished for just a moment that she possessed April’s fair beauty…and rounded curves.
When the door between their two rooms opened, Daphne gasped and instinctively clutched the matching pink robe to her small bosom. Dry-mouthed, she stared as Charles walked into the room. Her knees felt weak at the sight of him, his thick black hair damp from his bath, his powerful body cloaked by a robe of heavy silk. She could see sprigs of black hair where the material cros
sed at his chest, and she knew that he was naked underneath.
She thought the moment would be awkward, but with an expression in his eyes that thrilled her, Charles simply walked up to her, took the robe from her nerveless hand, tossed it on the floor, and pulled her into his arms. He kissed her, his mouth, teeth, and tongue urgent against hers, his hands cupping her hips and pulling her next to his hard warmth.
Daphne moaned, melting into his heat, reveling in the deep thrust of his tongue, the warm slide of his lips on hers. There was no mistaking his arousal, the rigid length of him pushing forcefully against her lower belly. Never breaking stride, never lifting his hungry mouth from hers, he walked her backward toward the bed.
The bed reached, they fell down together onto it, Charles half on her, half on the mattress. It was only then that his mouth lifted from hers, and smiling down into her face, he said huskily, “Hello again, wife. I’ve missed you.”
She touched his cheek, unbearably conscious of his muscled weight pressing her down into the mattress. “We’ve only been apart for minutes.”
“Too long,” he said fervently. He brushed a kiss along her jaw. “I need you, Daphne. I want you badly…” He kissed her eyelids. “I will try to be gentle…know that if I hurt you, it will only be once and that it is passion for your lovely body that drives me.”
Seduction Becomes Her Page 20
