Wedding of the Season: Abandoned at the Altar

by Laura Lee Guhrke

  He held up the shiny sliver of metal, a gift for the pixies to ensure he wouldn’t be pixy-led. The myth of leaving pins or other small gifts for the pixies to prevent being bewitched by them was as much a part of their childhood at the cove as sea bathing and eating ice cream and sneaking out at night, but Beatrix had forgotten to bring a pin this morning, and she wondered if perhaps she was being pixy-led in consequence, for her heart was pounding in her breast with a force that hurt, and her wits were utterly gone.

  He moved to weave the pin back into the fabric of his cuff, and as he did, Beatrix took a deep breath, got hold of her common sense, and reminded herself that she didn’t believe in childish magic anymore, or the myth of one true love that lasted forever, and her inability to think at this moment had nothing to do with pixies, and everything to do with the scandalous fact that the man in front of her was half naked. “The pixies don’t count!”

  He gave her a look of mock pity. “Say that at your peril. It would be a shame if they turned that adorable nose of yours into a sausage for saying things like that.”

  She gave a vexed sigh, unappeased by compliments or nonsense talk. “I mean that the pixies—if they really existed at all, which they don’t—are not chaperones! You can’t bathe here while I’m here.”

  “No?” A glint of mischief flashed in his brilliant green eyes, and he gave her that pirate smile as he tossed the shirt aside. “Just watch me.”

  “But it’s not proper!” she cried, turning as he walked past her and strode toward the water.

  “Sod proper. A dare’s a dare.” His steps didn’t falter for even a second, and she scowled at his magnificent bronzed back as he strode into the water. He walked out until the water hit him mid-chest, then he stretched his arms out, bent his head between them, and dove under, vanishing from view.

  She didn’t wait for him to reappear before she began packing up her supplies. This was a completely improper situation, and she had no intention of being here when he came back to shore. By the time his head broke the surface of the water, she had placed her pastels back into her art box and closed the lid. As he began swimming away from her toward the sea, she jumped up, slung her art box over her shoulder, and with her partially completed picture in her hand, she started toward the ladder. Her goal was to be gone before he could perceive her departure, but she had barely reached the ladder before his voice called to her.

  “You’re running away again.”

  She stopped and glanced over her shoulder to find him standing on one of the big rocks off shore, watching her. His wet breeches clung to his hips and thighs like a second skin, and he stood so still that his hard, chiseled body might have been part of the rock itself, a carving of a sea god by some unknown ancient sculptor. Though she was too far away to look into his eyes or read his expression, she knew he was looking at her the same way he had yesterday on the boat. His desire seemed to pull at her with all the power of an undertow, threatening to take her down to drown.

  With a shuddering gasp, she turned her back on him and went up the ladder as fast as she could. He was right, of course. She was running away from him, but this time, she didn’t intend to stop. Even after six years, he could still start her heart hammering and send her wits to oblivion at the slightest provocation. Even now, she felt the pull of his desire, but he wasn’t the man she was going to marry, and running away from him was the only thing she could do.

  It took thirty-eight full laps across Phoebe’s Cove for Will to cool the lust raging through his body, the same lust that had started yesterday on the boat, tortured him all through dinner, kept him up all night, and spurred him in desperation to take a morning dip, only to run squarely into the entire reason for his torment. He’d chosen this spot because it was his favorite place at Pixy Cove. Damn him for not remembering it was hers, too.

  He’d seen her before descending the ladder, of course, but he’d come down anyway, drawn to her like a moth to a flame, unable to resist the chance to be near her when no one else could see what he felt.

  He’d been abominably rude, he knew, dressing down right in front of her and scorning her perfectly valid concerns about chaperones, but damn it all, he’d wanted her to feel something of what he felt. He wanted her to burn as he burned, ache as he ached. He’d succeeded, too, at least a little, for she’d gone pink as a peony and stared at him as if she’d never seen a man’s bare chest in her life before.

  Which was probably true, he reflected as he somersaulted in the water, flipped his body over with a hard kick, and started swimming back across the cove. He knew he’d never bared his chest in front of Trix—not since he was a boy, anyway—and he certainly couldn’t imagine Trathen doing so. And Trix had been so sheltered all her life—hell, she hadn’t even been allowed to go to Italy because of her father’s obsessive fear that she’d be so corrupted by the atmosphere of artists and the statues of naked men, she’d never come home again. Fear that she’d turn out to be like her mother.

  After two more laps across the cove, Will felt that he was once again in control of his body and his emotions, enough so that at least he could sit down to breakfast at the same table with her and not feel as if he emanated desire like a house on fire. He emerged from the water, toweled off, and slipped on his shirt. Damp towel slung round his shoulders, he started for the ladder.

  He was halfway up before he remembered the pin. He paused, considering, then descended the ladder again and crossed the sand to one of the caves that ringed the cove.

  Stepping inside, he blinked several times, waiting until his eyes had adjusted to the dimness, then he glanced around, trying to remember just where Marlowe kept the jar for this particular cove. It had to be here—there was at least one jar for the pixies in every cove along Marlowe’s property.

  He searched for several minutes, and he began to think his memory was at fault and he was in the wrong cave, but then he spied it perched on the rocks piled to one side, above the high water mark. He climbed up on the rocks and pulled the pin from his sleeve, then took the glass jar down from its perch and dropped the pin inside. It was a glint of shiny silver atop a pile of corroded brass buttons, bits of colored glass, and rusty pins—tokens that he and Trix and dozens of other children had left for the pixies over the years to gain their goodwill. Smiling a little, he put the jar back where he’d found it and left the cave.

  He didn’t believe in pixies anymore, of course, but it was a tradition. Besides, to get through the remainder of the month without going insane, he would need all the help he could get.

  During the next few days, Beatrix took great pains to avoid Will, hoping to put that awful sunrise encounter out of her mind, but it wasn’t easy. She went for long, quiet walks with Aidan, or rode in the motorcar with Julia to do a bit of shopping in Torquay. Or she spent time with Emma, talking about the other woman’s three children—Ethan, Robert, and little Ruthie—and dreaming of the days ahead when she’d have children of her own. All these were successful distractions that enabled her to avoid Will.

  In the evenings, however, avoiding him was much more difficult. Thankfully, her place at dinner was near the other end of the long dining table, but afterward, when the children were in bed and everyone else was gathered together in the drawing room, there was no escape. On the third evening of the house party, when Lord Weston suggested auction bridge, that newfangled version of whist, she was happy to participate. Auction bridge was a complicated enough game to occupy her mind and keep her from thinking about the man across the room and how he looked without his shirt.

  Cutting for partners, she found herself paired with Aidan against Lord and Lady Weston. Cards were dealt, and play began, but she managed to hold out for only a few rounds before her gaze inevitably strayed across the room to where Will sat with Julia at the piano. They were playing duets, and Lord Marlowe’s sister Phoebe stood by his shoulder, turning the pages for them.

  Like all the men in the room, he was wearing a black evening suit, but the image o
f him a few mornings ago was still vivid in her mind. Nothing untoward had happened, she kept reminding herself, but every time she looked at Will, the image of his smooth, bronzed skin and sculpted muscles came into her mind, and every time it did, she felt a searing flood of heat and a wretched pang of guilt.

  It had been wrong of her, very wrong, to stand by as a man undressed in front of her, and every time she thought of it, Beatrix berated herself for having allowed it to happen. The moment she perceived his presence, she should have gathered her things and departed. The fact that she had not done so, that she had not turned her back on him and walked away immediately, was something she could not excuse.

  Not that she blamed only herself. Will was even more at fault for subjecting a lady to such an unthinkable display. It had been deliberate, she knew, and provocative, meant to unsettle her in just this way, but knowing that didn’t help Beatrix ease her own conscience.

  “Beatrix?”

  “Hmm?” She returned her attention to the table and realized Aidan had said something to her. “I beg your pardon?”

  “It’s your bid.”

  “Right. Sorry.” She rubbed her fingers across her forehead with a laugh as she invented an excuse for her absentmindedness. “I’m accustomed to whist. This auction bridge is still a bit new to me. Umm . . . three hearts.”

  The bidding moved on to Lord Weston on her left, then to Aidan, then to Lucy, Lady Weston, on her right. It went around one more time, trump was decided, and play commenced. Beatrix tried to concentrate on the game, but despite her hopes, her attention began to wander again after only a few minutes of play, and it was all she could do to keep it away from the man across the room.

  On a pair of settees nearby, her aunt was seated with Lady Debenham; Marlowe’s mother, Louisa; and his grandmother, Antonia. They were gossiping, no doubt. Standing near them was Marlowe’s other sister, Vivian, fitting one of her newly designed gowns for Vivienne onto a form. Emma, Lady Marlowe, was sitting near her, mending something pink and lacy. Probably one of little Ruthie’s dresses.

  As if in tandem with Beatrix’s own thoughts, Vivian spoke up. “I can’t believe how big Ruthie’s grown,” she said, nodding to the garment in Emma’s hands. “And starting to walk now? When Beatrix and I saw her take those steps earlier today, we couldn’t believe it. Could we, Trix?” she added, glancing over her shoulder at the card table.

  “No,” she agreed. “It was beautiful to see, though.” She smiled, remembering the scene she and Vivian had witnessed that afternoon—Emma in the grass with her arms outstretched and her hands clasping Ruthie’s fingers as the baby had wobbled forward on chubby legs for three full steps before falling down on her bum in the grass. She felt a wave of longing at the memory, longing for the day when she’d be kneeling in the grass, encouraging her own son or daughter to take those first steps. Children were something she’d dreamed of as far back as she could remember, as far back as when she’d still played with dolls in the nursery and believed Will Mallory would marry her someday. Her smile faded. Like pixies, it had never been real.

  “Ruthie is looking quite bonny, Emma, by the way,” Julia commented from her place at the piano. “She’s got that gorgeous chestnut hair of yours, I’ve noticed. And Harry’s blue eyes. She’ll be a beauty, mark my words. Her papa had best keep a close watch on her.”

  Marlowe, who was playing auction bridge with Geoff, Paul, and Sir George at a nearby table, looked up from his cards long enough to comment. “I intend to. She isn’t leaving the house once she turns thirteen.”

  “Harry!” Emma admonished, laughing.

  “What do you intend to do, Marlowe?” Julia asked, her fingers tapping piano keys in an aimless tune. “Lock her in the attic to keep her from all the dishonorable young men?”

  “Absolutely,” Marlowe answered with fervor and returned his attention to his cards.

  Beatrix glanced at Will, and as she studied his strong, wide shoulders above the piano, she thought perhaps Marlowe had the right idea. Could she lock herself in an attic until Will went back to Egypt?

  He was studying the pages of sheet music with Julia, discussing what they were to play next, but he suddenly looked up and caught her watching him.

  He smiled his pirate smile, and it hit her like a shaft through the heart. She inhaled sharply and looked away.

  Across the table, Aidan was shuffling in preparation for the next deal, but his attention was not on his task. Instead, his face was turned toward the pair at the piano. In contrast to the busy movement of his hands, his handsome profile was impassive, revealing nothing, but as if he felt her gaze alight on him, he turned his attention to her, and suddenly she felt as if she had a big scarlet A emblazoned on her chest.

  When he began to deal the cards, she breathed a sigh of relief, and she willed herself to keep every scrap of concentration on the game. She did not look across the room again during the entire round, but she still found it almost impossible to keep track of the cards being played, a crucial component of bridge, and because of that, Weston and his wife won the round.

  “And that’s it,” Weston said, as his wife pulled in the final trick. “Game and rubber. Excellent play, Lucy,” he complimented as Aidan began to tally the scores.

  “Oh, let’s play this one next,” Julia exclaimed, her lively voice ringing through the room. “ ‘The Maple Leaf Rag.’ ”

  Beatrix watched Aidan lift his gaze heavenward as if praying for patience. It was plain he didn’t care for the music Julia was choosing, but he did not say so, of course, or ask her to make a different choice. That would have been rude, and Aidan was never rude.

  “ . . . and two, and three, and four,” Will was counting, and then he and Julia began to play, but they had completed only about four bars before Julia burst out laughing.

  “Wait, Will, wait,” she cried. “You’re going too fast! I can’t keep up.”

  Wait, Will. I want to go, too.

  Over the frenetic sound of the piano and the eddying conversations all around her, Beatrix’s own voice echoed to her from many years ago, stirring a vague memory of herself as a little girl, sitting on a stone wall and watching the lane at Danbury, waiting for Will to return from a horseback ride with Paul.

  Waiting for Will, the story of her life.

  Beatrix glanced sideways at the laughing pair across the room, watching them play the already lively tune at an even more frantic pace. They managed several more bars before they muffed it utterly, the song ended in a jangle of discordant notes, and they fell back against the wall behind them at the same time, laughing together.

  It hurt, somehow, watching them, but she couldn’t look away.

  “Oh heavens!” Julia exhaled a heavy sigh, resting her cheek on Will’s shoulder. “Next time we play that tune, I’m bringing out the metronome to keep you in line.”

  “Stuff,” Will told her. “Metronomes are for sissies.”

  Julia lifted her head, shaking back wisps of her black hair. “Still, can we give my fingers a rest and play the next song at a slower pace?”

  “Hear, hear,” Aidan muttered, and then, as Beatrix looked at him, he once again turned his attention away from the couple at the piano and looked down at the card table, his mouth tightening as if he felt ashamed of himself for making such a comment.

  “Why don’t you sing something, Julia?” Phoebe suggested from her place near Will’s shoulder. “You have a lovely voice.”

  “Mmm, do,” Vivian added around a mouthful of pins. She pulled them out to add, “It’s so much fun hearing all the modern songs.”

  “All right, what about this one?” Without the aid of sheet music, Julia began to play another ragtime melody. When she began to sing in a deep, bawdy alto about someone named Bill Bailey who wouldn’t come home, Aidan stood up and turned to Beatrix, a hint of desperation on his face. “Would you care to take a stroll on the terrace, Beatrix?” he asked her. “It’s a lovely night.”

  She froze, staring up at him, the g
uilt that had been gnawing at her giving way to dismay. She couldn’t do it. She simply couldn’t take a stroll along the terrace with Aidan as if nothing was wrong while those damnable images of Will’s bare chest went through her mind.

  “No,” she answered with a glance at the clock on the wall. “I think I shall go to bed. It’s quarter past twelve, and besides, I—” She broke off, not wanting to admit she hadn’t been able to sleep the past few nights. “I have a bit of a headache,” she improvised.

  He nodded, but she could feel him studying her face, and such careful scrutiny made her feel even worse. “If you have a headache,” he said, “rest is perhaps the best treatment.”

  “Yes.” She forced herself to smile. “I’m sure I shall be right as rain tomorrow.”

  She rose, bidding a quick good night to everyone, but when she started out of the drawing room, Aidan followed her. “I shall walk with you to the stairs,” he said, falling in step beside her along the corridor. “I intend to take a stroll in the front gardens,” he added, as if feeling the need to explain.

  At the foot of the stairs, they paused. Neither of them spoke, and the silence between them, instead of being the companionable sort of silence she was used to with Aidan, seemed painfully awkward.

  “Beatrix—” he began, but she cut him off, fearful of what he might say, the questions he might ask.

  “It is such a lovely, fine night,” she said. “I regret that I’m not up to taking that stroll with you. Another night, perhaps—”

  “Beatrix.” His voice was firm, and as he took her hands in his, her dismay deepened into a sick dread. “We have been engaged for nearly nine months now, but I have only kissed you once.”

  She blinked in surprise. Of all the things she might have expected him to say, that wasn’t one of them. “True,” she murmured, wondering why he was choosing this moment to bring up that particular point.

  “I have held back from physical displays of affection because that is the gentlemanly thing to do. But perhaps—” He stopped and drew a deep breath, glancing down the corridor toward the drawing room, then back at her. “Perhaps I have made a mistake there.”