No Man's Bride

by Shana Galen

  And after all she had done, did she deserve any better?

  “Thank you, Mrs. Crumb.” As the housekeeper led Catherine away, Quint tried to give her a reassuring smile. She looked terrified, not a bit like the devious little liar he imagined her.

  At length, when Quint had settled back into his chambers, gone over accounts with his estate manager, and attended to various other tasks associated with being a property owner, he looked at the clock and saw that it was after eleven.

  He took a deep breath and ran a hand through his hair. No point in putting it off any longer. It was time he joined his wife in bed.

  And he wasn’t going to feel any qualms about doing so. She had wanted this marriage enough to have him drugged. She had duped him. Hadn’t she?

  The rest of the house was dark and silent as he walked up the stairs, lamp in hand, and opened the door to his room. Catherine was sitting in bed, book propped on her knee. She looked up at him, and he paused for a moment to catch his breath. Her long, silky hair flowed over the pretty pink nightgown she wore. Her cheeks were rosy, her eyelids heavy. He had the crazy impulse to go to her, take her into his arms, and just hold her. The impulse was shaken when she saw him. She clutched the covers, and shrieked, “What do you want?”

  Quint closed the door behind him slowly and set the lamp on a small side table. “I want to go to bed.”

  He sat in a silk-striped armchair and began taking off his boots. Dorsey, his valet, had not accompanied him on this trip, and that had not been an accident. Quint wanted no servants interrupting his time with his wife.

  “But why do you not go to your own room?” Catherine asked, scooting away from him.

  Quint noted her behavior. Could this fear really be an act?

  He set one boot on the floor and began on the other. “This is my room.”

  She blinked at him. “Then where is mine?”

  “Yours is under construction. Unfortunately, I have not been as diligent in the upkeep of this house as I should have. I intend to remedy that now. I am afraid we will have to share a room.” He finished with his boots and stood to remove his tailcoat.

  “Then I will sleep in one of the other rooms.”

  Quint shrugged off his tailcoat and laid it over the arm of the chair. “All are occupied.” That was not strictly true, but she did not know that.

  He began unbuttoning his shirt, and Catherine jumped up, grabbing the robe at the end of the bed. “Sir, you promised you would not”—she swallowed and clutched a hand to her throat, closing the robe over her neck—“you promised you would not force yourself on me.”

  He paused and looked up at her. Bloody hell. She was pale and trembling. Obviously terrified. Keeping his voice low, he said, “Nor do I intend to. I assure you that I will not touch you.” He pulled his shirt over his head, and she took another step back.

  “I-I do not believe you. How do I know—”

  “Catherine, I am tired,” he said, “I want to go to bed. Nothing more.” And at this point, that was true. Her behavior, as usual, gave him more questions than answers, and he needed time to consider them. He began to unfasten his trousers, and Catherine let out a small yelp.

  “Very well, if we are to share a room, then I will sleep on the couch.” She pointed to the velvet chaise longue across from the bed, then scurried over to it and lay down.

  Quint sighed. He should have foreseen this and had the damn thing removed before they arrived. “You’re not going to sleep on the couch. If you won’t share a bed with me, then I will sleep on the couch.”

  “But I don’t want—”

  “Catie, get in the bed. I’m going to blow out this lamp and lie down on the couch. Unless you intend to lie on top of me, you’d better be in bed.”

  She scrambled to the bed again and had climbed in when he blew out the lamp. He lifted his coat from the arm of the chair, and, feeling his way across the room, lay on the couch, with the coat over him.

  In the darkness, the room was silent. Quint did not even think Catherine dared breathe. He turned on his back, his feet hanging over the edge of the chaise. Shifting onto his side, his shoulder dropped off the couch. He sighed, wishing for his large, comfortable bed.

  But there would be many days to come. The better he knew her, the better he understood her, the easier it would be to win his way into his wife’s bed. Then he could mold her into the wife he needed. She was like a skittish horse who had to be calmed and soothed, and who, with a bit of attention would become a confident, prancing beauty. That was his Catherine.

  Quint rose early the next morning, dressed, and left his wife sleeping. She had curled into a ball and had one hand fisted under her chin. He restrained the urge to go to her and brush the hair from her face. Instead, he went down to the stable and found his groom. An hour later, he knocked on their bedroom door. It opened a sliver, and honey hazel eyes blinked at him.

  “Get dressed,” he said. “I have something to show you.”

  “But I don’t—”

  “If I have to break down this door and pull you out,” he hissed, mindful of a maid dusting nearby, “I will do it. Now meet me on the front lawn in a quarter hour. You’ll like what I have to show you.”

  And he marched down to the lawn and paced away the minutes. He’d stopped pacing and was watching the sun burn off the clouds and glint off the dew at his feet, when he heard behind him, “Is this what I’m meant to see?”

  He turned to see his wife in a thin summer dress, standing on the lawn behind him, shivering.

  Immediately, he swept off his greatcoat and draped it about her shoulders. He looked into her face and noticed it was pale and tired. “Didn’t you sleep well?”

  “I might have slept better if I’d been alone,” she grumbled. “Why did you drag me out of bed so early?”

  He grinned. Very well. She wasn’t a morning person. He’d be certain to schedule only afternoon social events.

  Without asking permission, he took her hand and led her down the path. They walked in silence for the first few minutes. Catherine yawned and blinked at the rising sun, and generally looked about herself as though she could not quite believe what she saw was real. Quint was fascinated by the play of emotions on her face, though it hurt his opinion of her devious nature. As he watched her, it seemed her every thought was revealed. He saw the surprised and mulish look on her face when he’d taken her hand and refused to let go. He saw her face light when she glimpsed a deer standing in the distance, still as an icy pond, watching them. And now he watched her face again as they rounded the next corner and the stables came into view.

  He needn’t have bothered to pay such close attention. When she saw the horses in the paddock beside them, she let out a gasp of pleasure so loud that Quint’s stableboy looked up.

  “You have horses,” she breathed, and he noticed that her pace was no longer sluggish. Now she was all but pulling him forward.

  “I thought you might like a morning ride,” Quint said.

  “Oh, yes! Yes!” By then she was almost running, and her smile of joy practically split her face. But when she reached the horses, she slowed and looked back at him. “Which one shall I ride?” she asked.

  Quint glanced at the chestnut mare he had been about to suggest she take, and then decided against speaking up. There was a gelding so pale he appeared white that Quint preferred when he was home, and he saw Catherine’s face break into a rapturous smile at the sight of the horse.

  “You choose,” he said.

  She glanced away from the white gelding. “Really?”

  “Please. Take your choice.”

  “I—” She glanced at the white horse again and then at the others. With a last longing look at the gelding, she said, “I’ll ride the chestnut, I think.”

  Quint laughed, and she spun round.

  “Why do you laugh, sir?”

  “Because that was very noble of you, but I didn’t bring you out here this morning so you could be noble. You want to ride Thor,
don’t you?”

  Her eyes strayed to the white horse again. “Is that his name?”

  “Yes, and you’re staring at him like a starving child stares at a mince pie. Ride him, Catherine. He’s yours whenever you want.”

  She blinked at him, and he could see the uncertainty in her eyes. “But what will you ride, then? I am sure Thor must be your favorite horse. He is such a beauty.”

  “I’ll ride Hazard over there.” He pointed to a dappled tan-and-brown horse. “Come on, let’s go. The morning is getting away from us.”

  They rode away from the stable, Quint leading the way. Initially, they gave the horses their heads and galloped into the brisk spring morning. When the horses tired, Quint took her on a meandering tour of Ravensland’s extensive grounds.

  “You have a good seat,” Quint said. “And you handle Thor very well.”

  “Thank you,” she said, but he saw the telltale blush.

  “Now what have I said to embarrass you?” he asked.

  “I’m not used to compliments,” she said, looking away. “And I couldn’t tell if that one had a double meaning.” The last was said so quietly, Quint missed several of the words and it took him a minute to piece the statement together. When he did, he laughed.

  “Yes, that seat is nice, too.”

  “Sir!” she said with a shake of her head, and then she spurred Thor faster. The horses galloped over the green countryside, up small hills and past rambling brooks. Flowers were beginning to bloom in the wild places, and birds sang with abandon from the trees.

  A while later they rode beside one another again, and Catherine said, “This is beautiful country. Did you grow up here?”

  “No. My family estate is in Derbyshire, but I spent the occasional week or two here when I was a boy. My grandfather acquired the land and built the house. He intended it for my father, a house of his own until he inherited the marquessate.”

  “And did your father ever live here?”

  Quint shook his head. “My grandfather died just after the house was finished. My father became the marquess at age fifteen. The house was given to me when I became of age, and I hope to live here many years.”

  Catherine nodded. “I am sure your mother and father are very nice people. What do they think of all that has happened between us?”

  Quint gave her a sideways glance. She didn’t ask the easy questions. “Naturally, I wrote to my father as soon as I realized what had happened. I asked his advice, but as yet have received no reply.”

  “Too soon, I imagine,” she said.

  “Yes.”

  “Was that one of the ‘friends’ you told me about?”

  He nodded and turned his horse back toward the house. He was growing hungry, and morning was fading fast into a blue-skied April noon.

  “What do you think he will say?” she asked, turning Thor and spurring him to catch up.

  “I think he will say what he always says in these situations.”

  “And what is that?”

  “To do my duty.”

  She laughed, and the reaction surprised him. She must have seen the look on his face because she added, “That sounds like something a father would say.”

  “Yes, yes it does,” he agreed. “My father is nothing if not conventional.”

  “And you are not?”

  “Not at all. My father is a member of the old guard. Sometimes I think the man should have been on the boat with William the Conqueror. He has that conquering mentality.”

  “And you do not.”

  He saw the doubt in her eyes.

  “I want reform. There are people starving in London and throughout the countryside. The poverty is wretched, while so many of us live in luxury.” He gestured to their horses and the beautiful rolling landscape surrounding them. “How can I have all this and begrudge a poor man, woman, or child a full belly?”

  “You don’t have to convince me,” she said. “My cousin Maddie runs an orphanage, and she preaches reform all the time.”

  “Yes, the orphanages are only the beginning. There’s so much to do, so many reforms to pass, and they are increasingly more difficult to shoulder through Parliament.” He spoke with real feeling, warming to the conversation, until he remembered that he was supposed to be learning more about her. And somehow she had tricked him into opening up.

  “And what does your father think of all your efforts at reform?” Catherine asked, and Quint took the opportunity to direct the topic back at her.

  “He thinks I am young and idealistic. He thinks poverty has always existed and will always exist. He thinks I waste my time.” The stables were coming into view, and Quint raised a hand to the boy waiting for them.

  “I see.” She was looking into the distance when she said it, and Quint wondered what she was seeing there. Her own father, belittling her efforts? Finding her interests and diversions a waste of time? Or had she and Edmund Fullbright been of the same mind? Annoyed, Quint continued to teeter between believing her the victim of a barbaric father or a deceitful little vixen. Which was she?

  Finally, he said, “And my father thinks I am the greatest son a man could have.”

  She turned then, her eyes wide with surprise. “But you said—”

  “A man can be proud of his son without approving all he does. My father thinks I walk on water. Perhaps it’s a good thing we have our political differences. If I were any more perfect, he’d petition to have me canonized.”

  She smiled, and he slowed his horse to give them a few more minutes alone. “I do not expect perfection, Catie. My parents love me in spite of my flaws, and I will treat my children the same.”

  “Your children?”

  He nodded and took another chance to prod her. “I know you have not agreed to that aspect of our marriage, but I want you to know, before you make up your mind, that I will treat our children well, and I will love them no matter what.” He watched her closely and saw the flash of disbelief in her eyes.

  “The sons, you mean,” she said.

  The stableboy was approaching now, and he took Quint’s reins. With practiced ease, Quint dismounted and was beside her, his hand on her waist as he set her down. He looked into her eyes. “The sons and the daughters. If they are our children, Catie, I will love them with all my heart.”

  Again, he saw the play of emotions on her face—disbelief, scorn, skepticism. “You don’t look as though you believe me, Catie,” he said, still holding her, hands wrapped around her warm waist. “Why not? Didn’t your father love you?”

  The veil fell over her face, hiding her emotions for the first time that day. “Let me go,” she finally said, pulling out of his arms. “You’re hurting me.”

  He held his hands up, palms out. “I’m not even touching you.”

  “You don’t have to.” She turned and fled. He watched her go, and then bent to lift his greatcoat from his feet.

  Chapter 13

  Catherine didn’t know where she was running or why. She simply knew that she had to get away. She couldn’t breathe when Valentine was close to her. She couldn’t think or reason. For the past two days, it seemed all she did when she was in his presence was to obsess about the way she felt when he touched her. Lord, she did not even believe he had truly begun to woo her yet, and he was already too much in her thoughts.

  Not that he could be otherwise, considering she was now in his house and under his protection. Catching her breath, she slowed to a walk, angling away from the house and toward a sparse copse of trees. She needed a moment to be alone. In the past two days, Valentine had spoken first of her sharing his bed and now of their shared children. She’d never considered that she would have either opportunity. She’d vowed to be a spinster, and suddenly she was in the position to be a wife and a mother.

  She took a seat on an enormous root poking out of the ground. She wanted children, but she also feared motherhood. Her own mother was little more than a slave to her father. She was at his every whim, his beck and call. She suff
ered first and most severely when he was not pleased.

  As a result, Cordelia Fullbright was a hard, cruel woman. Catherine did not know if she had always been thus, but she remembered her father berating her in front of Catherine and Lizzy. Catherine had learned to see her mother as an object of disgust. What if Catherine was forced to stand helplessly by as Valentine turned their children against her? Or worse, he might mistreat their children.

  No, she would never allow that. She would not be like her mother.

  Catherine sighed. More and more, she was torn between yielding to Valentine and resisting him. If she yielded, she risked so much. If she resisted…

  But she was in far too deep to think of resisting now.

  Yesterday he had said the decision to share the marriage bed was left to her, but a man who would one day be a marquess would need an heir. And surely he would need a legitimate heir. She was his wife. That was her duty. She could refuse him, and the result?

  No heir.

  Catherine stood and paced in front of the tree. So the truth of the matter was that Valentine was playing with her. In reality she had no choice. She would bear his children whether she wanted it or not. That was, unless he found a way to be rid of her. And why should he want her to stay? He’d never wanted her to begin with. It was Elizabeth he’d courted, and Elizabeth he obviously still loved. Catherine knew she was a pale second.

  She managed to avoid him the rest of the day. She even escaped dining with him as he’d been overseeing a business matter with his steward. But that still left the entire night to be shared, alone with him in their room. She tried to wait up for him, not wanting to be asleep and vulnerable when he came in, but as the hour grew late, her eyelids drooped. There was a creak and she jerked awake. Somewhere a dog barked, and Catherine shook her head to clear it.