Sara tried to listen humbly to the Earl’s words, but his every utterance set her teeth on edge. She intended to work hard to become worthy of her position and to pay heed to Gavin’s slightest wish, but to be told that she was fortunate to be marrying a peer made her angry. Her father might not have had a title and he might have made his money in trade, but her birth was just as good as any Carlisle, and she was a considerable heiress as well. Gavin ought to be grateful that she was marrying him! After all, she had led an exemplary life, was quite well educated, had perfect manners, and was a notable player on the harpsichord. She could also sing and draw quite well, and she did not regularly indulge in dissipation, whatever that might be. It was quite possible he should come to her for guidance.
“My wife has commanded me to tell you that she is delighted you are to become a member of our family. She has long known of your partiality for Gavin. For my part, I have guarded you in the hope that Gavin might find with you the kind of happiness your father found with your mother. You greatly resemble her.”
“But I’m not as beautiful,” said Sara, unsure of how to respond to the Earl’s kindness. “I have all the same parts, but they don’t go together in the same way. And I have freckles.” A ghost of a smile flitted across the Earl’s face. This whole business of Gavin’s marriage had tried his patience severely, but he was too much a connoisseur of women not to have some appreciation of Sara’s beauty, her obvious intelligence, and this slender bit of female vanity.
“Will it make you feel better if I tell you Gavin has a mole on his cheek?”
Sara smiled. “Yes, it does. I remember him as being perfect.”
“That was some years ago. Much has changed since then.” A wintry coldness returned to the Earl’s voice. “Now it is time I call your maid to put on your veil. If we don’t appear soon. Miss Rachel may think I have abducted you.”
“Nobody would ever think that,” Sara said, brightening considerably. “I’m not pretty enough.”
“I don’t know who has been filling your head with such nonsense, but you are pretty enough to cause men to do foolish things.”
“Will Gavin think me pretty?”
“If he doesn’t, he’s a bigger fool than I thought,” said his father roughly. “Now let me summon your maid. Is that extraordinarily tall person really your servant?”
“Yes,” Sara laughed nervously.
“I would have thought such a female would have been more likely to give you palpitations than inspire confidence.”
Sara got butterflies in the pit of her stomach when Betty opened the door and the Earl led her out of the room. She closed her eyes, unable to stand the suspense, then opened them again, when the heavy doors to the chapel were thrown open. She heard the organ playing softly.
They entered a rather large and dark chapel, one of several built around St. James’s Church. The thick stone walls were pierced by seven ornate stained glass windows, which would probably have admitted insufficent light even on a bright day, but the sun was not shining on this late November morning, and Sara felt as if she were entering a dark, gloomy tunnel. Seeing Miss Rachel seated primly in the disconcerting emptiness of the chapel helped to calm her nerves, and she was able to lift her gaze as she began her journey down the short aisle.
Two men waited at the altar. Ignoring the priest that was to marry them, Sara’s eyes strained to see the man who would soon be her husband.
Ramrod straight and scowling heavily, Gavin towered over the priest. Yet in spite of the frown and the gathering gloom, Sara easily recognized him as an adult version of the boy she had last seen seven years before. His features had lost some of their youthful beauty, but they had matured in definition and gained in sheer masculine strength. His tight-fitting coat and breeches did nothing to conceal his powerful shoulders and muscled thighs, and Sara felt her knees grow weak with excitement.
Sara was not aware of walking down the aisle, only that she was drawing nearer to Gavin. How was it possible that this magnificent man was about to become her husband? He was even more handsome than she remembered! She ignored the brooding eyes and heavy scowl and saw only the heroic proportions of his body, his staggering good looks, and the powerful physical atttraction that communicated itself to her immediately. She didn’t know why just looking at him should set her pulses racing, but her body seemed to understand all too well.
At last they reached the altar, and the priest began to speak. “Dearly beloved, we are gathered here today to join this man and this woman in holy matrimony.”
The priest’s voice droned on, but Sara didn’t hear his words. The moment she had thought about continually for the last week was here, and she was incapable of doing anything more than holding on to the Earl’s arm for fear she would swoon. For one dreadful moment the contents of the room did begin to swim before her eyes, but she resolutely forced herself to be calm. She had made a solemn vow that she would never do anything to embarrass Gavin or cause him shame. To faint at her own wedding would undoubtedly do both.
She focused her eyes on the small cross that hung from a black ribbon around the priest’s neck, and concentrated intently. Slowly her vision cleared, and the objects before her eyes became stationary once more. The priest’s voice came to her out of the mists as he turned to Gavin.
“Wilt thou have this woman to be thy lawfully wedded wife? Wilt thou love her, comfort her, honor, and keep her in sickness and in health, and, forsaking all others, keep thee only unto her, so long as ye both shall live?”
Sara had a sudden foreboding that if Gavin could have answered that question as he desired, he would have done so with a resounding negative. She didn’t know why that presentiment should have come over her, yet it was unmistakable. A chill ran through her that had nothing to do with cold.
“I will.” The voice was like a slashing sword edge, and involuntarily Sara drew closer to the Earl. There was no warmth in Gavin’s voice, no invitation, no yielding, no desire, only the naked words themselves, forbidding and unwelcoming. It sounded more like the passing of a sentence. Fearfully, Sara raised her eyes to Gavin’s face, and was startled by what she saw there. The look in his eyes was not reluctance or resistance; it was pure rage. He looked as though he would have preferred to leave her standing at the altar; he looked like he could have murdered her just as readily.
The twin sensations of alarm and anger flung their mantles over Sara. How could she be marrying a man who hated her, who at the very least hated having to marry her? This was not the wedding she had dreamed of. This was not what she had been led to expect by Miss Adelaide or the Earl. Why hadn’t they told her? Why had they concealed his rage? But there was no time to think. The priest had turned toward her.
“Wilt thou have this man to be thy wedded husband, to live together after God’s ordinance in the holy estate of matrimony? Wilt thou love him, comfort him, honor, and keep him in sickness as in health; and, forsaking all others, keep thee only unto him, so long as ye both shall live?”
Sara’s tongue cleaved to the roof of her mouth. Why hadn’t she had time to talk with Gavin, to find out how he felt? Why had he agreed to marry her, if he still disliked her so? The course of her whole life was to be decided in the next minute, and she didn’t have time to ask a single question. How could she agree to marry Gavin after the look she had just seen in his eyes? But at this point, how could she do anything else? She had paused so long, the priest looked questioningly at her. Even Gavin turned those cold, anger-filled eyes on her. Her fear of what might happen in the future withered in the face of her terror of what would happen now if she didn’t answer the question at once. She dared not even contemplate the consequences if she were to say no.
“I will,” she managed to say in a barely audible whisper. The words were dragged unwillingly from her lips, and she guiltily averted her gaze.
“Who giveth this woman to be married to this man?”
“I do,” responded the Earl in a cool, even voice. Then he placee Sara�
�s hand in that of the priest and stepped back, leaving her alone beside Gavin. She was petrified. The Earl had been her only support, and now he was gone. Then the priest took her hand and placed it in Gavin’s hand, and the electricity of his touch made her forget her fears.
Sara had never touched anything so dramatically alive. It was like holding on to something dangerously potent and quivering with barely contained power. The energy traveling from his hand made her fear she would be consumed. This was not the boy she remembered. That boy was gay and cheerful and reckless; there had been nothing threatening about him. He had frequently been angry with her, but she had never been frightened. She had been drawn to him because of his boundless energy, his questing spirit, and his ability to exact the greatest amount of pleasure from each day. How could he have turned into the man beside her?
A tremor ran through Sara. How could she marry someone whose mere touch frightened her? Did she still want to become his wife? Gavin was speaking to her, saying words that should have been sweet to her ears, but how could he mean any of them and look at her like that?
“I Gavin take thee Sara to my wedded wife, to have and to hold from this day forward, for better or worse, for richer or poorer, in sickness and in health, to love and to cherish, till death us do part.”
Sara’s eyes swam with tears. How many times had she dreamed of hearing these words spoken to her in loving accents? How many times had she imagined Gavin coming to her with his handsome face wreathed in smiles, welcoming her into his arms, eager for her to become his wife? How often had she told herself it would never happen, that she had to accustom herself to his marrying someone else? Yet somehow the impossible had happened. Gavin stood next to her saying the longed-for words without pause or stumble, and each pledge was like a fatal knife thrust in the very heart of her dream. She wanted to run away, to hide from everybody and everything, but there was nowhere to go. She had to stay here; she had to become his wife.
Sara mumbled her vows in a halting whisper, praying all the while that the service would end soon, but the priest’s voice droned on and on.
“Bless, O Lord, this ring, that he who gives it and she who wears it may abide in Thy peace, and continue in Thy favor, until their life’s end.”
The golden band encircling her finger burned her skin so, Sara tried to withdraw her hand from Gavin’s grasp. Every nerve in her body became numb until her entire concentration was welded to that gold band, that shining symbol of her bondage. There could be no drawing back now; she was forever bound to this rage-filled man. Banished were her dreams of happiness, of a lover who would long to take her into his arms, who would seek ways to please her, of a man whom she could trust with her person, her worldly possessions, and her love. All that was left was the grim reality of this scowling Adonis who terrified her.
“For as much as Sara and Gavin have consented together in holy wedlock, and thereto have given and pledged their troth, each to the other, and have declared the same by giving and receiving a ring, I pronounce that they are man and wife. Those whom God hath joined together, let no man put asunder. You may kiss the bride.”
Sara’s heart almost stopped beating. If his touch had nearly been her undoing, how could she survive his kiss? She comforted herself with the certainty that he would do no more than brush her lips with his own, but she swayed ever so slightly when Gavin released her hand. She doubted she could stand unassisted, yet she remained immobile when he lifted the heavy veil. Then those searing, terrifying eyes encountered hers, and she felt like running from the church heedless of the consequences. They were hard, fierce, and challenging eyes, that defied her to love him, denied her right to anything that was his. They were angry and unforgiving, and there was no trace of warmth or tenderness in their black depths. It was like a sword thrust to her heart, and all remaining hope for her future collapsed.
Sara sensed rather than felt Gavin take her into his arms, in a way that didn’t in the least resemble the chaste embrace expected in the hallowed precincts of St. James. Abruptly his lips descended on hers; they were hard, brutal, angry lips, and they hurt Sara’s mouth, but the impact of the kiss was so shattering she didn’t feel the pain. For one brief moment those forbidding eyes relented and something of a question entered them, but it was quickly routed by a suppressed fury; powerful arms encircled her and pressed her against his rigid body. Fear, wonder, and an odd assortment of emotions jostled each other in Sara’s mind, but she was beyond being able to sort them out. She was just trying to survive until the next moment.
Then, as suddenly as it began, it was over. Gavin released her and turned away, as though she had never been there. After the savage kiss, this brutal rejection was too much for Sara, and she fainted.
Chapter 6
Gavin stared at the limp figure collapsed into the corner of the coach. She looked so young and helpless—she was nothing but an innocent pawn in his father’s schemes—that some of the fury went out of his black eyes. At least his mother’s future was secure, he told himself guiltily. Gavin had signed over control of Sara’s fortune to his father. “I want no part of your blood money,” he had stated furiously, but he knew even then his rage was half-directed toward himself.
As long as he could remember, Gavin had bridled at his father’s treatment of his mother, but it was not until he entered Oxford that he realized the full extent of his father’s ruthlessness. In a revulsion of feeling, he had turned away from everything his father stood for, in fear that he might have it in him to become the same kind of cruel, unfeeling man. He had even gone to the extent of choosing his mistresses in direct variance to his father’s tastes. Yet he had just married a girl he didn’t love—one he knew almost nothing about, a perfect stranger actually—and all for the sake of the fortune she brought with her. Nothing could have more effectively branded him his father’s son, for that was exactly what the Earl had done nearly thirty years earlier, and Gavin cursed himself roundly.
He looked out the window, trying not to think of the girl across from him, or of the vows he had taken to love and cherish her. His mind rebelled at the very thought, and he cursed himself and his father once again. Why should he be forever bound to some girl with no knowledge of the world and no more gumption than to faint at her own wedding? What did she know about the life he enjoyed? How would she behave when faced with the cold, unforgiving curiosity of society? His friends would laugh at him, and Clarice would taunt and plague him, and with good reason, too. What could this thin, cringing girl offer him to compare with Clarice’s ripe charms?
Still, he could not forget the feel of her lips when he kissed her. They had been very tantalizing, and that had been a surprise. He didn’t know why he had handled her so roughly. He hadn’t intended to kiss her at all, at most he meant to plant a chaste salute on her cheek, but instead he had kissed her with fierce intensity. He had done it more out of anger at being forced to marry, rage that he had been forced to do something he disliked because of his mother, rather than anger at having her for his wife. He also felt trapped; it was a new feeling for Gavin, and he didn’t like it. He intended to make it plain to this frightened fledgling that though she shared his name and position she would never have any claim on him.
Still, as he looked at her slumped in the corner, miserably uncomfortable as the carriage bounced along, he couldn’t help but feel more sympathy for her plight. What of her hopes and her feelings? Had she wanted to marry him, or had she been forced to wed him to escape her own confinement? If she was any happier to be espoused to him than he was to her, she didn’t show it in the chapel. She looked like all she wanted to do was run away. He had been too angry these last few days to even think of her, much less think to ask his father about her wishes. Now it was too late for both of them.
Gavin found it difficult to believe that any girl, particularly one without parents and family, wouldn’t welcome the chance to marry the son of a peer. In a single stroke, it provided her with money, a title, and social position, eve
rything she needed to be a success in the eyes of the world. Yet the young girl Gavin remembered from those few visits to Estameer would unquestionably have preferred a husband who loved her rather than her money. As she had lived out of society most of her life, perhaps it was possible she didn’t know the value they placed on money and a title.
But he was being ridiculous. No one, however sequestered or whimsically educated, could be without some understanding of the value of wealth and position. Her classmates would have taught her that lesson if no one else had.
Still, his memories of those few meetings were of a straightforward girl who could meet a man without coquettish flirting or youthful embarrassment. She had even had the courage to laugh at him and tell him that he had no business doing what he’d been forbidden to do if he didn’t want it to come to his parents’ ears. It had made him furious at the time, but now it made him wonder.
But speculation was useless now. Regardless of her feelings or of her situation, it didn’t alter his feelings toward marriage. His anger had cooled and his resentment softened when he saw how helpless and vulnerable she was, but he refused to be imposed upon by a wife he neither wanted or cared for. He would be courteous—he had initially intended to be so cruel she would be only too glad to be spared his company—but he would make it plain he intended to be her husband in name only. He still had Clarice, and when his interest in her faded, there would be another to take her place. He had no intention of allowing himself to fall in love. He had seen what it did to his mother, and he had sworn a bitter vow it would never happen to him.
Sara opened her eyes. For a brief moment she was only aware of the uneven movement of the carriage as it lurched over the cobblestones, but then her eyes fell on Gavin seated across from her, and she sat up quickly, stiff with fright.
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