Nils made a sound reminiscent of an enraged bull, while Jamie muttered a curse and followed that with a hoarse, “Now, just one damned minute—”
Bliss began to weep, copiously and with suitable drama. Wringing her hands, she paced and wailed, paced and wailed. Alexander sputtered ineffectually, Jamie cursed, and Nils drew a pistol from the inside pocket of his bulky coat.
Everyone fell silent at the sight of the weapon, except for Dorrie, who gave a little squeal of dismay and cried, “Don’t shoot ’im, now, gov. ’E ain’t a bad man, really—”
Bliss would have laughed out loud if she hadn’t been holding her breath.
“Get a preacher,” Nils said, and Dorrie scurried to obey.
Jamie swallowed visibly. “A preacher?” he echoed.
Nils looked as though he might be weakening, so Bliss let out another agonized lament, and Alexander pulled out his handkerchief and dabbed at his forehead, muttering, “Oh dear, oh dear—”
Jamie, meanwhile, looked at Bliss with utter contempt. “Tell him, Duchess.”
Bliss moved a step closer to her father. “We’ve been together for two nights now, Papa,” she confessed, with proper pathos. “We’ve shared the same bed.”
With the barrel of his pistol, Nils gestured toward the front of the inn. “The blokes out in the dinin’ room, mate—they say you’re a man of property. That true?”
Jamie sighed and gave Bliss a look fit to singe leather. “It’s true,” he admitted.
Nils smiled broadly. “Good,” he said, and then he took out his pocket watch and frowned at it. “What do you suppose is keepin’ that preacher?”
Chapter 5
“TRY AND UNDERSTAND,” BLISS PLEADED IN AN URGENT WHIS-per. “I’m desperate!”
A muscle in Jamie’s cheek twitched, and he kept his eyes fixed on Nils Stafford, who was still waving the pistol. “That makes all the difference, Duchess,” he said derisively. “Why didn’t you say so before?”
Alexander dabbed at his nose with a lace-trimmed handkerchief and gave Bliss a wounded look. “I will, of course, expect to be reimbursed for all my expenditures.”
Nils was glaring at Jamie. “Mr. McKenna will see to that—won’t you, mate?”
Jamie rolled his eyes, but he made no move to escape the small room or to disarm Nils. It occurred to Bliss that he was being remarkably compliant, given the situation. “I’ll double the amount,” he said evenly, addressing Alexander now, “if you’ll go ahead and marry her.”
Bliss felt all the color drain from her face. Oh, she knew well enough that Jamie wasn’t in love with her, but she’d thought he had more consideration for her feelings than this!
Alexander made a snuffling sound and shook his head. “It’s too late for bargaining, Mr. McKenna,” he said primly. “I never deal in used merchandise.”
Several seconds passed before Bliss absorbed Alexander’s meaning. When she did, she gave a cry of outrage and stormed toward him. “Used merchandise? How dare you talk about me as though I were a pickle jar or a piece of furniture? I’m a person, with thoughts and feelings!”
Jamie reached out unexpectedly, caught Bliss by the cloth of her skirt, and wrenched her backward to his side. “Shrill little bugger, isn’t she?” he asked companionably, assuming an expression of long suffering.
Her face hot and probably red, Bliss whirled on Jamie, one hand raised to administer the sound slap he deserved. Instead of submitting, however, he grasped her wrist before she could strike him and hauled her against his torso. It was like hitting a rock wall at a dead run; Bliss was rendered breathless.
“Time you learned who’ll be wearin’ the pants in this family, little lady,” Jamie informed her, in a deliberately obnoxious drawl. “Time and past, in fact.”
Bliss was dizzy with fury. Who the devil did this rounder think he was, anyway? “Let me go,” she hissed, for Jamie’s benefit alone, “or I swear I’ll sew your left knee to your chin!”
His mouth moved suspiciously; Bliss caught the hint of a grin before his lips descended to hers and appropriated a fierce kiss. At once humiliated and consumed with her own inexplicable passion for this man, Bliss struggled at first and then submitted, having no choice in the matter.
She was still gasping for breath when Dorrie arrived with a dour-looking clergyman in tow. He was a skinny fellow with a cold-reddened nose, and his spectacles were steamed over.
Jamie looked skyward. “At any other time,” he muttered, the brogue upon him, “there wouldn’t ’ave been a preacher within screamin’ distance.”
The minister glanced suspiciously from Jamie to Bliss, his mouth drawn into a tight, hard line. It was clear that he suspected them of the grossest wrongdoing.
“If you please,” he said, in crisp, no-nonsense tones, shooing the small congregation toward the front room of the inn.
Jamie and Bliss were positioned before the fireplace, where a homey blaze was crackling, and the sacred words were spoken. Only Dorrie, the housemaid, seemed profoundly moved by the ceremony; she twisted her apron into a handkerchief of sorts and sobbed with loud sentiment throughout.
The moment the wedding was over, Bliss turned to Jamie and whispered, “I’m sorry.”
He gave her a look chilly as a winter wind at midnight and turned away as if to leave. Instead, he all but collided with Nils.
“I’ll just have a word with you, if I might,” Nils said, his tone laced with the kind of friendliness that lacerates. He was trying to maneuver his son-in-law aside, out of Bliss’s hearing. “You don’t mind, do you, mate—since we’re family and all?”
Jamie’s gaze sliced to Bliss and then returned disdainfully to her father’s face. “Anything you have to say to me can be said in front of my—dear wife.”
Bliss felt color rise in her face. Jamie had spoken with a cruel sort of gentleness, and his words had left her wounded. She was anxious to be alone with her “husband” and explain to him that his life didn’t need to change and neither did hers. Since there was no question of consummating the marriage, they could obtain an annulment in Auckland and then go their separate ways.
“There’s the little matter of Mr. Zate’s expenses, and my own,” Nils said, not even having the decency to be embarrassed. Not for the first time, Bliss reflected that it was little wonder her mother had run off to America with a man who wrote poetry and played the mouth harp.
Jamie’s look was level and steady, never wavering from Nils’s face. “If you think I’m going to reward you for doing this to me, you’re dead wrong,” he said flatly.
Though he was big and strong, with little reason to fear any other man, Nils retreated a step. He didn’t seem so sure himself now, and his normally ruddy complexion paled. “I don’t see any need to be unreasonable,” he complained, in a near whine.
Clearly, Jamie was a man to press an advantage when he had one. He inclined his head slightly in Nils’s direction and once again prevailed. “You ’aven’t yet learned the meanin’ of the word unreasonable, me friend,” he said.
Intimidated by Jamie, Nils turned his ire on Bliss. She was afraid of her father, with good reason, and her heart surged into her throat at the look in his eyes.
In a lightning-swift movement of his hand, Nils entangled his fingers in Bliss’s hair and pulled hard. “You were never anything but trouble—” he began. “You’re no better than that slut of a mother of yours!”
Jamie’s intervention was as much a surprise to Bliss as it was to her father. A knife materialized in his hand, so quickly that it seemed to appear out of nowhere, and the point of the blade made a nasty-looking indentation at the base of Nils’s throat.
“Unless you fancy comin’ up short a few pints of blood, mate,” he warned, in that dangerous undertone that was rapidly becoming familiar to Bliss, “don’t ever do that again.”
Nils released Bliss, with a spasmodic motion of his hand, and the wicked-looking blade was withdrawn from his throat.
“Now, see here,” protested Al
exander, albeit belatedly. “This is a public inn and you, Mr. McKenna, have no right—”
Jamie’s knife made a whistling sound that chilled Bliss to the bone as it flew through the air and landed, with a reverberating thump, squarely between Alexander’s expensively shod feet. Bliss’s knees felt weak, and she sagged onto a bench beside a nearby trestle table, one hand rising briefly to her forehead. Merciful heavens, she’d gone and married a ticket-of-leave man, a criminal.
It did appear that she might have gotten herself into more trouble than she had the wits to deal with.
“Get out,” Jamie said coldly, and no one in the huge and drafty room had the slightest question in their mind who he was talking to.
Nils was clearly enraged, but he gestured to Alexander and, together, they left. It was now completely dark outside, and Bliss knew a moment’s trepidation. Nobody was more aware than she was of how many perils could befall those foolish—or desperate—enough to go abroad at night.
She shifted uneasily on the bench, afraid to speak.
“You was a bit ’ard on ’em, Jamie boy,” protested Dorrie, and there was an intimacy in the remark that distracted Bliss, however momentarily, from the immediacy of her situation. “It’s cold out there, and it’s dark.”
“So it is,” Jamie conceded. “Be a love, Dorrie, and fetch them back.” For the first time, he seemed aware of the travelers seated at the tables around the dining hall. “Ale for everybody,” he added as a generous afterthought.
A coarse cheer rose and, before Bliss could decide what to do next, Jamie’s fingers closed inescapably around the nape of her neck. He drew her to her feet as easily as a fiddler draws music from a violin, and even though he caused her no pain at all, she couldn’t remember being more uncomfortable.
“You and I, my love,” he said, “are going to have a word or two—in private.” With that, Jamie propelled Bliss across the dining room, lewd cries of encouragement rising on every side, since the crowd entirely misread the bridegroom’s intentions.
At least, Bliss hoped they did.
They proceeded down the hall and into their room, and Jamie kicked the door closed behind them with the heel of one boot.
“I’ve been waiting for a chance to explain,” Bliss was quick to say. Jamie had at last released his hold on her, and she retreated a few steps, only to feel the foot of the bed come up hard against the back of her legs.
“Oh, I’ll just bet you have,” Jamie said, with an unnerving tone of indulgence in his voice. Bliss hadn’t missed the fact that his jawline had gone tight again and his eyes were glittering, and she was careful to keep her distance.
She swallowed hard, remembering Jamie’s shady past and his deftness with a blade, and eased to one side so that the bed no longer barred her retreat. “I beg you, just take me to Auckland—o-or Wellington. An annulment should be easy to get, given the fact that we’re not—we won’t—” Bliss paused to swallow again, miserably embarrassed. “In any case, I can still travel to America and you can go on about your business.”
Jamie held up both hands, palms out. “Wait a minute. It seems to me, Duchess, that you’re assumin’ a great deal. After all, as your ’usband, I’ve got me rights.”
Bliss bit down on her lower lip. She’d known Jamie McKenna for only a very short time, but she already knew that, when he fell into the brogue, his mood was generally uncharitable. “Rights?” she whispered, fairly choking on the word.
He folded his muscular arms. “Aye, Duchess,” he replied. “Rights.”
“I don’t know what you mean,” Bliss lied valiantly.
Jamie smiled a slow, obnoxious smile. “I think you do,” he replied. He shifted, placing his hands on his hips, and looked pensive for a few moments. “I’m going out and celebrate me weddin’ with a mug or two,” he announced presently. “When I come back, I’ll be expectin’ you to be in bed and ready.”
Bliss’s throat tightened painfully. Granted, she’d felt longing for this man hardly more than an hour before, but that had passed. Now, she was cornered, and more than a little afraid. If she didn’t submit to this stranger who was her husband, would he force her?
Jamie gave Bliss a lingering look and then went out. She was reminded of a fairy tale she’d loved as a child: Rumplestiltskin. She’d been left, in a manner of speaking, to spin straw into gold, but no temperamental elf was going to come along and help her. She was on her own.
A sudden rap at the door made her start. She was almost expecting that elf when she turned the knob and pulled.
Dorrie was standing on the threshold, her eyes puffy and red from crying, a stack of clean sheets in her arms. “I’ve come to make the bed ready,” she said, quite unnecessarily.
Bliss thought quickly as she stepped aside to admit the maid. Dorrie began stripping the blankets and sheets from the mattress, sniffling loudly as she worked.
“I never thought I’d be makin’ up a marriage bed for me own sweet Jamie boy,” the servant lamented. “Never.”
Cautiously, Bliss approached. A flicker of jealousy moved in her heart, but she quelled it with her considerable will. This was no time to be worrying about Jamie’s romantic history. He’d probably tumbled many a serving girl in his time, and if Bliss were to start fretting over the number, she’d get nothing done for counting.
“You’ve known my—my husband for a time?” she asked.
After making a truly disgusting sound to clear her clogged nose, Dorrie nodded. “Aye—I knew Jamie long before ’e became a man o’ property, I did. Things was better, I swear, when ’e wasn’t above pickin’ a pocket now and again. It’s ruined ’im, bein’ rich.”
Bliss suppressed a smile. In a little while, Jamie was going to come through that door planning to deflower her, in this very bed. She certainly had nothing to smile about. “Jamie was a pickpocket?” she asked, wondering at her own surprise. After all, he’d told her that he’d been transported for stealing.
“That he was, mum,” Dorrie answered, without pausing in her work. “And worse.”
Bliss couldn’t help remembering how those thugs had flown in every direction at the mere mention of Jamie’s name, abandoning her in their camp the night before. “What changed him?” she asked in a soft voice.
Dorrie gave a moist sigh. “Well, missus, it ’appened when ’E went to Australia, two, maybe three years ago. Somebody bested ’im in a fight, I think—’e ’as a nasty scar on ’is arm, you know. I wasn’t none too clear’eaded when Jamie was about, though, so I couldn’t tell you exactly what ’appened. ’E ain’t one for explainin’ such things, neither.”
Bliss drew a deep breath. Dorrie’s sympathies surely lay with Jamie, though she might be a sort of hostile ally, considering the circumstances. “I have to escape, Dorrie,” she confided, “and I need your help.”
The pillow Dorrie had been fluffing fell from her arms, and she looked at Bliss with enormous eyes and a mouth rounded into a horrified O.
Bliss glanced back over one shoulder at the door, all too aware that Jamie might return at any moment. A part of her yearned for that, and for the conquering that would inevitably follow, but Bliss took her emotions firmly in hand and pressed, “If you could just—just invite him to your room or something. That would give me time to take one of the horses and get away.”
Dorrie’s mouth finally closed, but she looked pale and her eyes were still big as saucers. “You want me to bed Jamie—your own ’usband—and this your weddin’ night?”
The very thought caused Bliss incomprehensible pain, but she refused to give in to her baser instincts. For the moment, however, she could not speak.
Dorrie looked appalled. “Didn’t you learn nothin’, mum, by what ’appened last night?”
Bliss shivered with remembered terror, but quickly recovered her self-control. Given Jamie’s anger over being forced into a marriage he hadn’t wanted, the two situations weren’t so different. It was a matter of numbers, that was all: she was about to be thoroughly used b
y one man instead of a dozen.
“Do you want to help me or not?” she countered.
A certain mischievous lechery was shining in Dorrie’s swollen eyes. “Well, it ain’t a ’alf nasty job, pleasin’ that man,” she mused.
Bliss’s cheeks burned hot. Even though she had only the vaguest knowledge of what it meant to “please” a man, she hated the idea of someone else rendering the service to Jamie. “What’s your answer?” she demanded. “May I count on you or not?”
Dorrie extended one chafed and callused hand to seal the unholy bargain. “Aye, Mistress McKenna. When Jamie’s proper into ’is cups, I’ll lead ’im upstairs.”
Bliss gathered the few belongings she’d taken from her satchel earlier and repacked them, feeling the need to make preparations even though it might be a long time before it was safe to leave. “How will I know when you’ve—when you and Jamie are t-together?”
Dorrie paused in the doorway. “My room is right above this one, love,” she said, with a sort of coy smugness in her voice and in her face. “You’ll know when you ’ear a ruckus.”
Bliss fought down an urge to cross the rough wooden floor and box Dorrie’s ears. She’d made her choice and she must abide by it. After all, she could not both go to America and stay in New Zealand with Jamie McKenna.
Still, she felt tears gathering in her throat as she proudly turned her back, waiting for Dorrie to go on about the business of seducing the one man Bliss had ever truly wanted.
A full hour passed before Bliss heard the promised hubbub upstairs. With tears stinging her eyes, she took her satchel into her hand and, for the second time in twenty-four hours, opened the window and climbed outside.
This night was darker than the one before had been, and it was only her proficient memory that guided Bliss around the side of the inn, along the splintery fence of the paddock, and into the stables.
There were lanterns burning there, and the two lads who had been so eager to look after Jamie’s horses were sitting in one flickering cone of light, playing a game of cards. Bliss caught her breath and receded into the shadows near the rear door.
Angelfire Page 7
