Gideon raised a staying hand. “Let me make the introductions. Sabrina, this is Lady Veronica, a childhood friend. Ronnie, my wife. You are, I am pleased to say, too late to stop anything.”
“Not at all. You can have the marriage annulled.”
Gideon squeezed Sabrina’s hand and stepped from his protective stance to reveal her in her full blossoming glory. “Too late for that, too.” And in the event anyone could possibly have missed the imposing sight, Gideon patted Sabrina’s middle with a possessive hand. “We suspect it must be twins.”
Ronnie screeched theatrically, and Bilbury, who had referred to her as that toadying trollop for as far back as Gideon could remember, chuckled inelegantly.
Veronica shot his valet a withering glance before she regarded Sabrina with similar venom. “He is mine,” she announced with slow precision, punctuating each word with a poking finger to Sabrina’s swollen middle. “Do you hear me?”
“The world hears you,” Gideon said, bored for the first time in twenty-four hours, as he moved Veronica’s offensive digit aside. As all the world and his brother would hear, as soon as Ronnie quit these premises and got the gossip mill grinding, he thought.
Veronica slapped his hand aside before turning back to his wife. “I have planned to be the Duchess of Stanthorpe since I was six, and I will allow no dowdy upstart to displace me at this late date.”
Well, there went the cat among the pigeons, Gideon thought, not daring to regard his wife, who had stiffened perceptibly beside him. Damn. “You must have planned to marry my brother, after Cartwright’s death, then,” Gideon told his former mistress. “Since I never expected to inherit. Or did you know something that I did not?”
Veronica’s eyes widened and her nostrils flared for one terrible moment, and then she shrugged with forced nonchalance. But it was too late, because she had given herself away. Gideon realized, then, that Lady Veronica Cartwright was likely more dangerous than he had ever suspected.
“You would have inherited, eventually,” his formidable new enemy said.
Gideon shook his head. “You have not been content with anything less than immediate in your entire life.”
“Well you have the title, now, and I would be more than content.”
He doubted it. “Listen, Ronnie, this cannot come as a surprise to you, since I have told you a score of times, but I never planned for us to marry. You are a very resourceful and desirable woman, though, and I am certain you will soon find another—” Deep pocket with a coronet attached, he had nearly, insultingly said, but he did not want her any angrier than she already was. “I am sorry to disappoint you, but I will not be seeing you again, now that I am married.”
“What?” His former mistress gaped like a Drury Lane actress.
Gideon did not repeat himself; he could see that she had heard him clearly enough.
“We shall see about that!” she snapped into the ponderous silence. Then she turned on her heel and exited the room, and the house, itself, in regal splendor, each and every door slamming in her wake.
Gideon regarded Sabrina’s heightened color, no match for her white-knuckled grip stopping the blood flow to his arm. “I will have to speak with my grandmother about the company she keeps,” he said, but his bride did not smile.
She turned, in fact, to the Vicar. “How, Sir, did you say I should sign the register?”
“First, your grace, as Sabrina Whitcomb and then as Sabrina St. Goddard. Then you, your grace,” the Vicar drew Gideon’s attention from his wife’s cold and rigid expression. “If you would sign your own name and title, I believe a special wedding supper awaits you.”
Gideon had not expected Sabrina to sign so readily. He had supposed that she would be angry and intractable. But she wanted Stanthorpe after all, and he was Stanthorpe, so why should she change her mind, now she had him?
When everything seemed in order and he and his bride regarded their guests, everyone returned to Sabrina a glance of concern, even sympathy. But toward him, each retainer looked reproachful and each boarder, suspicious.
Nevertheless, Gideon invited them to celebrate his nuptials with a toast in the library, before the bridal supper. “My Duchess and I will join you in a moment,” he said, seeing them out.
Then he squared his shoulders, prepared himself for battle, and closed himself and his seething bride inside.
CHAPTER FOUR
As soon as the drawing room door clicked shut, Sabrina’s eyes blazed, except that she also seemed frightened. Perhaps she feared releasing the anger Gideon could plainly see seething beneath the surface of her feigned calm.
“Well?” he asked.
“Well, you tricked me into marrying you.”
“Hah! Do not pretend that you were not prepared to trick me into marrying you, except that you thought I was a rich old man, instead of a rich young one. So, what do you have to say about this marriage of ours?”
Sabrina raised her chin. “I am satisfied, as I hope you are.”
“Oh, my dear, sweet Sabrina, it will take a great deal more than stepping into a Parson’s mousetrap to satisfy me.”
Again, emotion flared in her eyes. Again, she held her tongue.
“Being married to me does not mean you cannot say what you think,” Gideon pointed out. “You had no trouble baring your claws yesterday, when you thought I was an ungrateful wretch, begging at the back doors of my betters.”
His bride winced.
“So, please, tell me what you truly think of this unexpected turn of events.”
“I think—” Her breasts heaved and her fists clenched and as Gideon watched passion simmer within her, he could think only of getting her into his bed. “I think...you lied to me.”
“You discharged my housekeeper.”
“And you tried to talk me out of marrying the Duke.”
“I am the Duke. I tried to talk you out of marrying for money. And I did not lie. I simply omitted my title.”
“Your pardon, your grace, but why the ruse? You do not even want me.”
He did, physically at any rate, but that did not seem a clever weapon to place in her hands at this juncture. “You cannot imagine how difficult it is to find a good housekeeper,” he said, foolishly. “For what reason did you say you discharged her?”
“You did not have a good housekeeper. You had a brandy-faced gabble-grinder. You should have seen the state of your poor home when I arrived. Why did you not tell me you were the Duke?”
“Rich and convenient?” Gideon quirked a brow. “Shame on you.”
His bride had the good grace to pale and cover her face with a hand. “I cannot believe I told you that.”
“Fortunate, am I not?” he said, in sincere self-mockery. “That I can afford to purchase anything, even love.”
“No.” Sabrina’s head came up at that. “No one can buy love. Not even you, your grace. And I do not have a heart to give, or sell, make no mistake on that score.” That organ she would retain, intact, Sabrina had promised herself. For if she so much as offered it, and another rejected it,—which this charming rogue most certainly would do—then she would have lost the last trace of self remaining to her.
Brian Whitcomb had stolen almost everything worth having from her, including her pride and self-respect. All she had left at his death was her heart. That, and her children, the only good to come from the union. But children carried an awesome price, precious though they were; they required a lifetime of responsibility.
If not for them, she would never have entered into this arranged marriage. Oddly, though, now that the bargain was sealed, she was not near as fretful as she had expected to be.
After all, her father had sold her into marriage the first time, and she had no say in the matter. Certainly, a marriage of her own choosing, an arrangement that would actually serve her and her children well, could be no worse.
“Why did you go ahead with the marriage, once you understood my intent?” she asked her handsome, and annoyed, new husband.
He scowled. “I can be an idiot sometimes.”
An idiot, perhaps, but a man of honor, nevertheless. Sabrina knew that already. She was quite sure he would not set her aside, now that the marriage had taken place, no matter how much he might rue his actions. Especially since his note suggesting a proxy wedding had come this morning, after he had learned almost everything about her last night. She only wished she had told him then about the children. Now was certainly not an appropriate time, after everything. Though telling him was going to become ever so much more difficult as time went on.
“Why did you marry me?” she asked, again. “If you regretted your promise to Hawksworth upon seeing me.”
He took her arm, led her to a chair and knelt before her. “You are with child for heavens sake.”
“You married me because I am with child?”
“And beautiful.” He took her hand.
He was beautiful. “Do you like children?”
“And I promised Hawksworth.”
“That you would like children?”
“He lied. He led me to believe that you were a virgin.”
Sabrina chuckled, surprising even herself. “Hardly.”
“No bloody fooling.”
He looked so annoyed, she laughed again. “I knew you were too self-assured to be a penniless wanderer, your grace.”
“And you were too...everything. Call me Gideon.”
Encouraged by the warmth in his gaze, Sabrina wanted to ask him to define everything, but she might not like his answer.
“And you bring home stray kittens and feed penniless wanderers,” he added.
“Hawksworth did not lie,” she interjected. “He simply failed to tell you everything.”
The man who could stir her with a look, scowled once more. “He said you were his sister!”
Sabrina sighed. “I should have married him, instead of Brian.”
Gideon scoffed inelegantly. “Just what a bridegroom wants to hear on his wedding night.”
“Wedding night? I...You—”
“Out with it. How many times must I tell you that I will not beat you for speaking your mind?”
Sabrina decided then and there that she must begin as she meant to go on. She knew, first hand, the pitfalls of not doing so. Once burnt, twice wary. So she squared her shoulders, raised her chin, and faced her newest, and, perhaps, her greatest challenge thus far. “I would rather we did not share a bed.”
Her new husband actually growled. “Were you going to tell my grandfather that?”
“Your grandfather?”
“The man in the portrait.”
“Oh. Well, he would have been too old to care.”
“Not my grandfather. ‘Twas death, alone, kept him from bedding every female in the kingdom.”
Dismayed by his ribald statement, Sabrina wanted to fan the heat rising in her face. “Tell me you do not take after him!”
Gideon flashed a grin that held the power to enslave her, which it might have done, were they discussing any other subject.
“I hate the physical side of marriage!” she cried. Then she covered her mouth with a hand, horrified at her revealing statement.
Her bridegroom reared back, no less horrified, his grin gone, his utter astonishment comical. In slow measure, he seemed to recover his equilibrium, until only a slight frown remained. “When you set yourself to speaking your mind, wife, I must say you succeed with a vengeance. But I do believe you must have...been...with the wrong men. I promise you will like the physical aspect of marriage, when I am the one to—”
All warmth deserted Sabrina, as if the blood drained from her body, and she shivered.
Gideon went for the pitcher of water.
Tense moments later, she gratefully accepted the glass he brought her. “You may be right,” she said after a slow sip and too long a silence. “But we will never know.”
Gideon tensed for a moment before gathering his wits about him. “I believe I should be given the same opportunity that you afforded your first husband, to prove myself. I deserve that much, and more. I, at least, can afford to support you, and if I precede you in death, rest assured you will not need to seek support elsewhere. You owe me a husband’s due.”
“I cannot give it to you.” Sabrina rose with the alarming pronouncement, a riot of emotions pummeling her—nervousness, panic...anticipation?
She was so agitated, she took to pacing.
She could not believe they were having this infamous conversation. Whatever happened to sweeping such indelicate issues beneath the proverbial carpet?
“Sabrina.”
Her husband’s determined voice halted her mid-step.
“I will sleep in your bed. Beginning tonight.”
“All night? Every night?”
“I promise you will enjoy it.”
“You will not.”
“I will, too.” He stood as well and approached her. “I always enjoy it, and so do the w— Er, so will you.”
“That is the most conceited … so do who?”
“Accept my word. We will both enjoy it.”
“I meant that I did not want—”
“I know what you meant.”
“Oh.” She blushed.
“You would have accepted a tired old man in your bed, but not me? I do believe that might be cause for annulment.”
“Too late for that. You told the strumpet this was your baby.” And why she did not feel the least threatened, even by her bridegroom’s perfectly clear threat, Sabrina could not imagine.
“Oh, no one will believe Ronnie.”
Sabrina quirked a questioning brow.
“Unsavory reputation,” he explained.
“A reputation you gave her.”
Relief flooded Sabrina when he shook his head in denial. “I hate to admit this,” he said, looking abashed, “but she initiated me.”
Relief vanished. “But she is a woman and she seems younger than you.”
“I had to work hard to catch up. I was heartily ashamed of myself.”
Sabrina nearly choked on her sip of water. She coughed to catch her breath while Gideon removed the glass from her hand.
“What if we were to compromise?” she asked when he returned.
“Compromise?” He stepped near enough for her to detect the subtle fragrance of wintergreen amidst other enticing scents of brandy and man. The blend made her head spin and her body tighten.
“I can help you catch up, too,” her seducer whispered, his lips so near her ear, she felt the warmth of his breath to her thrumming center.
If he climbed into her bed tonight, she just might melt on the spot. “About sleeping arrangements...”
“Sabrina, I am paying a premium price to bed you.”
She reared back, stunned. “That is a crude way to characterize marriage.”
“Perhaps, but I should receive some compensation for being rich and convenient.”
Sabrina groaned and accepted his supportive embrace. This new husband of hers was not the doddering old duke on canvas, but a flesh and blood man, young vibrant and alive. A rare one who stirred her senses and became awed by the movement of her unborn child.
What had she gotten herself into?
In an effort to recreate the extraordinary connection she had experienced the night before, when he touched her burgeoning belly, Sabrina stepped back, took her husband’s big, capable hands and placed them flat against her child’s cocoon. “Will you become this child’s first pony?”
When Gideon’s haughty, aristocratic features softened, so, too, did the brittle wall Sabrina had built around her oft-pummeled heart.
“Of course,” he said, with so easy a smile, Sabrina fancied they could both imagine the resultant giggles, and suddenly she dared hope that her bargain of a marriage might not be so unpleasant an arrangement, after all.
No matter her previous experience in marriage or in life, this enigmatic man deserved an agreeable, if not an enthusiastic, bride. Nervous,
however, about committing herself to the overwhelmingly physical being before her, and uncertain as to how to phrase her cautious bravado, Sabrina toyed with his cravat. “Your grace—”
“How much of a compromise?” He looked down upon her as if he might discover what beguiling trick she contemplated, as if he might eat her alive.
“We...sleep...in the same bed,” she said, taken aback by the question, when she had been prepared to grant...everything. “But no...touching.”
“We touch,” he quickly countered, and stroked the skin above her bodice, setting word to action and claiming her by branding her. “Everywhere. But no actual—”
“Fine!” she said fast enough to halt the knee-weakening word, but not fast enough to stop anticipation from coursing through her.
Her husband regarded her with knowing eyes, then, as if he could see her nipples tighten beneath her gown and the scurrilous skitterings within her traitorous body. “Fine,” he conceded. “No consummation, in fact, until after the baby.”
“Wait a minute,” she said with no small degree of panic. That would be no more than a matter of weeks. Too soon.
Not soon enough.
“You would rather not wait until after the baby?”
“Yes,” she amended. “No. Fine. Until after the baby, then.”
Gideon slid his hands upward, from the mound of her child to rest lightly beneath her breasts, and as she watched, he skimmed the tight, aching nubs with his thumbs, shivering her to her marrow and flooding her with need.
“Now I begin to anticipate our wedding night,” he whispered, nipping her lobe. “Within the allowed perimeters—” He laved and suckled that skittery spot. “There are any number of ways—” He kissed a trail to her lips. “In which to satisfy and amuse ourselves.”
Sabrina shivered again. “There are?” Her voice came out a squeaking croak and she swayed on her feet. “Oh.” She covered her belly with her hand. “I think the babe must be hungry.”
Gideon steadied her and walked her to the door. “I suggest a relaxed wedding dinner and then an early night.”
Perhaps if she seemed tired enough and was agreeable to retiring early, Sabrina thought, denying the sparkle in her rogue bridegroom’s mesmerizing eyes, she might shut herself safely away from him and his alarmingly resolved wedding night.
Undeniable Rogue (The Rogues Club Book One) Page 4
