Her father had been distraught when he’d learned of Drake’s decision, but his good humor had been quickly revived when the Earl of Wilton arrived within the same hour to make his own offer for Abigail’s hand. Apparently Riley’s charm was quite up to the task of soothing her papa’s temper.
Her mother, however, was not so easily placated. The rumors of Wilton’s exploits on the London social scene had clearly not escaped her notice. Abby repeatedly heard them arguing far into the night about the suitability of the match.
“Perhaps he can tame her,” her papa said in exasperation several nights after the decision had been made in his mind, if in no one else’s. “It is clear we have not been able to. And I doubt if Drake could have done it. He was far too besotted. He would have indulged her every whim.”
“You would not have Wilton break her spirit?” her mama asked. “Abigail would surely die if he attempted that.”
“She must learn to do her duty. Despite your best efforts, she chafes at doing the simplest womanly task. Yet I find my books missing, especially those having to do with history and geography. No, my lady, this decision of mine is final. There will be no more of that nonsense once she is wed to Wilton. He will tolerate none of that, I am sure.”
Even standing outside the thick doors, Abby could hear her mother’s sigh. “If that is your wish, my lord.”
So, she thought, there would be no help from that direction. And as Wilton himself had warned, he was on to her tricks. What on earth was she to do?
She thought of the way she had felt when he’d held her, when his mouth had closed so hungrily over hers. The merest memory of it made her shiver from head to toe. That part, perhaps, would not be so bad. If only she could think of some way to make him give way on the other.
Eventually it came to her. Surely she, no less than he, had skills of persuasion at her command. She was not the only one who had trembled at those kisses. Surely, once they were wed, she could coax him into taking her along to the Continent, perhaps even beyond. She had read of so many exciting, unusual, far-off places in Papa’s books. Perhaps Wilton was her best chance of seeing them, no matter how dutifully he protested now.
Abby smiled slowly. Indeed, this might work out for the best, after all.
CHAPTER FIVE
Once a date had been set for the wedding, everyone at Briarcliff began to throw themselves into the preparations, including the very reluctant Abby. For someone who had never cared much what she wore, she suddenly found herself surrounded by exquisite fabrics, hundreds of the latest dress patterns and an entire room filled with seamstresses occupied with making her wedding gown and her trousseau. To her chagrin, she discovered that she was quite readily caught up in the feminine excitement of choosing colors and designs that suited her and that might please her fianc;aae.
In fact, pleasing the Earl of Wilton had become quite deliberately her single-minded goal. She believed with all her heart that if she pleased him well enough, then she could ultimately get her way and be invited along the first time he prepared to go off on some exciting, exotic adventure. She would show him that they could be real partners. Once he had accepted that, there were no limits to what they could accomplish together.
She was so uncharacteristically biddable, unfortunately, that he began to get suspicious.
“Lady Abigail, if you are any more accommodating, I fear you will choke,” he said, regarding her with some amusement as they took tea one rainy afternoon only a week or so after their betrothal.
It had become his custom to call on her every afternoon, and if she were to be perfectly honest, his presence was taking a toll on her. She was indeed about to choke on her own sweet words and tame behavior. It was unfortunate he had recognized that fact, though she intended to deny it. Perhaps a little more believable acting was called for.
“My lord?” she said, feigning puzzlement. “I am afraid I do not understand your meaning.”
He laughed. “Of course, you do. If there is one thing I know about you, Lady Abigail, it is that you never do anything without design.”
Abby scowled, her temper sorely tested. “I do not find that observation particularly flattering.”
“Nor do I,” he said bluntly. “So, tell me in plain words what you are about.”
Obviously she needed to perfect her demure tone. She tried again. “I assure you, my lord, I look only to your comfort,” she said sweetly. “More tea, my lord?”
“Balderdash!”
“My lord!”
“Abby, you are testing my patience.”
She turned her most innocent expression on him. “Truly, my lord, that is not my wish.”
His gaze narrowed. “What is your wish? To put an end to this betrothal? I am here to tell you that will not happen. You might as well make up your mind to that.”
Abby regarded him with honest dismay. Warning him off was not what she was about at all. “Sir, I never dreamed of such a thing.”
“If you say so, my lady.”
“I do,” she assured him emphatically.
“Then explain yourself. What are you attempting to accomplish with all of your sweetness and accommodation?”
“To please you, my lord.” Dear heaven, this was difficult, she thought miserably. Worse, it appeared to be wasted effort. He looked about to burst with anger.
“Why?” he inquired, still regarding her with impatience and skepticism.
“Is it not a wife’s duty to please her husband?”
“So they tell me. Personally, I cannot imagine anything more tedious than a wife who never speaks her own mind,” he said, giving her a look she interpreted as a warning. “Had I wanted so much honey in my life, I would have sought out a hive of bees. Do I make myself clear?”
“Quite, my lord.”
He gave a nod of satisfaction. “Then I am off.” He paused by her chair and drew her to her feet. “When I return tomorrow, my lady, will you see to it that the Abby I first met at the Foxworths’ ball is back? I feel a desperate need for a little vinegar.”
“If that pleases—”
He cut off her accommodating words with a kiss that left her gasping. This was no chaste peck. The slow, rhythmic thrust of his tongue made her knees go weak. The sensation was highly provocative. Thoroughly decadent, in fact, and most inappropriate. She might have offered up some pale protest out of a sense of duty, but he never gave her the chance. He was off before she could quite catch her breath. The man really was a scoundrel, a most devious one, if the truth be told.
One thing she was discovering rapidly about the earl was that it wasn’t always possible to tell which one of them had come out the victor in this battle of wits in which they were engaged. She would have to say, though, that this round appeared to have gone to him. Yet, for some inexplicable reason, she did not feel herself to be entirely the loser.
She uttered a small sigh of regret. Things, indeed, had gotten very complicated. The truth of it was that for all her claims to being worldly, she knew very little about conquering the male of the species.
* * *
Riley woke with a start, his gaze immediately, inevitably drawn to Abby. Had she moved? Made some sound he had missed? A sigh, perhaps? There was no way to tell. She looked unchanged to him, as still and silent as ever.
The small hospital room was bathed in shadows. It had been hours since the nurses had come by and dimmed the lights, no longer bothering to question his presence by her bedside. He’d grown used to the long, uncomfortable, silent nights in a chair more suited for torture than sleep.
He had not grown used to Abby’s stillness. He longed for just one tart word, one challenging glare, one hesitant touch. He would have preferred accusations and disdain to this awful silence.
“Oh, Abby,” he whispered. “Please, come back to me. Yell at me. Kick me in the shins, if you must. I deserve that and a whole lot more.”
His gaze, fastened on her face, caught what seemed to be the faint beginning of a smile. Could it be s
he had responded to his voice? More likely she had greeted his suggestion about that kick with enthusiasm.
“Abby? Can you hear me?”
To his regret the smile faded so quickly he couldn’t be sure he’d seen it at all. But for the first time in the past several days he began to have hope that she was going to regain consciousness.
Her parents, to his consternation, had decided not to come to Mexico. After talking with the doctor and determining that Abby was in no immediate danger, that her vital signs were steady and strong, they had told Riley they had every confidence that he would pull her through. They were content with his twice-daily reports, as vague and unsatisfying as they were.
“How can you say that?” he had protested to Mrs. Dennison. “It’s because of me that she’s here in the first place. She needs people she can count on. She needs her family.”
“She has someone she can count on. And she has her family,” Mrs. Dennison had said emphatically, leaving Riley to decipher her meaning.
Still thinking about that, he picked up Abby’s hand and brushed a kiss across her knuckles. What if her mother was wrong? What if the voice Abby longed to hear was Martin’s or her mother’s or one of her sister’s? What if she needed to be badgered by her brothers or coaxed back by her father? What if she was somewhere very far away and only memories of home could draw her back? Riley wasn’t the one to provide those. His own memories of home weren’t all that pleasant.
Except when he thought of the Dennison house, he reminded himself. There, thanks in large measure to Abby’s determined efforts to include her best friend in everything from rare family outings to holidays, he had learned about love and laughter and generosity of spirit. An only child living with an elderly aunt, he had treated all of Abby’s younger siblings as his own, behaving as the wiser, more heroic big brother he had always longed to be. Perhaps those were the memories he should be sharing, letting them warm her now as the events themselves had once warmed him. He sorted through the best of them and found there were many more than he’d imagined.
He chose one, a smile forming at the memory. “Abby, do you recall the time you insisted on going fishing with your brother and me?” he asked quietly. “I think it was soon after I caught you when you fell from that tree, so you must have been about ten, which would have made me fourteen. Luke was barely seven. You were so sure that if boys liked to do it, then fishing must be a grand and glorious adventure. You refused to be shut out of it.”
He laughed out loud as he recalled that hot, spring afternoon. He and Luke, laden down with fishing poles and bait, had trudged off to a stream three miles from the Dennison house, Luke struggling to keep up with Riley’s long strides. The walk had been hot and dusty and miserable. Abby had borne that much in stoic silence, thrilled in fact that Riley hadn’t forced her to remain behind. Her eyes had lit up with excitement when they reached the banks of the meandering stream.
Silently Riley had handed her a pole and the box of bait. She wrinkled her nose, but bravely plucked a worm from the box and jammed the hook through it.
“What do we do now?” she had asked.
“Drop it in the water and wait for a fish to bite.”
“Okay.” She had regarded him imperiously. “I don’t know why you made such a fuss about my coming. There’s nothing to this.”
Grinning down at her now, he linked his fingers through hers. “I was so afraid you’d try to talk the fish to death. You did tend to chatter, Abby. As it turned out, though, the fish weren’t biting. You were bored within the first fifteen minutes, but you were too stubborn to admit it. An hour later you were sound asleep. You didn’t catch one single fish the entire afternoon. Luke and I caught such tiny ones we threw them all back.”
He shook his head. “The most amazing part, though, was that when we got home you declared that it had been the most exciting adventure you had ever had. I never understood why you sounded as if you really meant it.”
He studied her thoughtfully. “I wonder, though, was it because it was something we did together, Abby? Was that what made that afternoon so exciting for you? Could it be that that’s why I’ve remembered it all these years, because it was the first adventure we ever shared?”
He fell silent then and considered whether that might explain why so little in all the years since had been nearly as satisfying as that one sweetly innocent afternoon. For all of the far more daring adventures he’d had, for all of the wild risks he’d taken, for all of the dangers he’d faced in places whose names he could barely pronounce, he couldn’t recall one single moment so indelibly printed on his mind as that afternoon by a rain-swollen desert stream, a fishing pole in his hand, and Abby by his side.
* * *
Abby jammed a needle into her finger for perhaps the hundredth time. She would be very much surprised if she had a single drop of blood left by the wedding, if her mama insisted on making her embroider her own linens for the bridal bed. She looked at the little speck of blood on the fine white cloth and grimaced. This was the very reason why she had wanted to avoid a traditional marriage. She would never live up to expectations when it came to sewing or playing the piano and such. Her fingers simply were not nimble enough.
She glanced over at Lizzy, who was thoroughly engrossed in her own stitchery, her expression as contented as could be. Lizzy, even at eighteen, would make a far more adept and dutiful wife.
“Lizzy, do you truly enjoy this?”
Her friend regarded her blankly. “Of course. Whyever would you ask such a thing?”
“Because I find it tedious.”
“Do not let the Earl of Wilton hear you say that. Every husband expects his wife to know how to do such tasks. If he learns you hate them, he might very well call off the wedding.”
Lizzy sounded perfectly serious. If Abby had thought for one single minute that her friend was right, she would have detailed her dislikes immediately. She was growing increasingly convinced that she could never be the wife Riley Walker expected. She surely couldn’t keep up her sweet charade much longer.
“Call off the wedding? Not likely,” she said wistfully. “It seems to me that the Earl of Wilton is caught up in his own machinations to which I am not privy.”
Lizzy seemed puzzled. “Machinations?”
“I mean he’s an even more elaborate schemer than I am. He cannot possibly wish to marry me, and yet he insists on going through with this charade. I shall very likely be left standing at the church door with no groom in sight. He probably longs to humiliate me to get even for what I did to him at the Foxworths’ ball.”
“Abby, you cannot possibly think such a thing,” Lizzy protested. “He would never have declared his intentions if he did not intend to marry you. That would be most dishonorable.”
Abby shot her friend a wry look. “Were you not the very one who chose him for me at the Foxworths’ because he was known far and wide for precisely that trait?”
That silenced Lizzy for a time. Eventually she asked in a small voice, “Do you not think he is in love with you? My brothers say he acts as if he is thoroughly besotted. They are quite disillusioned with the turnabout. He impressed them more when he was gambling his nights away in London and paying visits to his mistress.” She regarded Abby seriously. “Men are not always terribly smart about such things, are they?”
“Apparently not,” Abby agreed. “Though I must admit to having some sympathy for your brothers’ position. I, too, thought I was getting a more daring suitor. Now it appears Wilton has gone and done a switch on me and turned into a most respectable gentleman.”
“Perhaps you have tamed him,” Lizzy suggested, putting an optimistic spin on things.
“Or perhaps he is merely trifling with me.”
Before they could resolve which might best explain his surprising behavior, the very gentleman in question was announced. Lizzy stared in open-mouthed admiration as the Earl of Wilton strode into the room, his breeches clinging to his well-muscled thighs, his hair tousled
from his ride. Abby could understand her friend’s reaction. Though Riley Walker was not the most handsome of her suitors ever, he looked intimidatingly masculine, Abby decided as she studied him objectively. Her pulse, undeterred by any attempt at objectivity on her part, picked up speed just at the sight of him.
“Ladies.”
“My lord, I wasn’t expecting you to call this early in the day,” Abby said. “Is there some problem?”
“Nothing that cannot be resolved with a trip to London. I just wanted you to know that I most likely will be away for a week or more.” Apparently interpreting her expression as one of concern, rather than fascination, he said, “Never fear, my dear. I shall be back in plenty of time for the wedding.”
Though his words diminished the seriousness of the problem, Abby was certain she detected worry in his eyes. This seemed the perfect time to show him how helpful it would be to have a true partner who could share his burdens. “Perhaps I could assist in some way, my lord.”
His lips curved slightly. “This is not a household matter, my lady.”
“I was not suggesting that it was,” she retorted irritably. “I do have a brain, my lord. I was merely intimating that I would put my wits at your service if that would help.”
“It has to do with business. Walker Shipping to be precise. Are you familiar with shipping, Lady Abigail?”
His acid, mocking tone set her teeth on edge. “Perhaps as much as you, if the tales of your disinterest are true,” she snapped. “As it happens, my lord, I have read a great deal about shipping. Books can be quite educating if they are well-chosen, and my father has quite an extensive library.”
“You could read a hundred books, and it would still be a far cry from having practical experience.”
She frowned at his refusal to bend on the point. “To be sure, but many matters can be resolved with logic and quick thinking, can they not, my lord?” she countered tartly. “I do not believe that those abilities are limited to the masculine brain. In fact, I have had cause to wonder quite recently if men have such powers at all.”
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