Bride of the High Country

by Kaki Warner

  “For now. But I can’t cover for you forever.”

  Her fiancé laughed. “Pog mo thoin.”

  A bit shocked, Margaret glanced at Rylander, wondering if he knew his friend had just told him to kiss his backside in Irish Gaelic.

  The taller man sighed. Turning to Margaret, he gave a slight bow. “Miss Hamilton, always a pleasure. Doyle, I’ll let you know how it goes with Hammond.”

  After he left, Doyle led Margaret to the sitting room, where a fire crackled in the fireplace and a frosty bottle of champagne stood beside his usual decanter of fine French brandy. While he poured, Margaret went to stand at the hearth, feeling a bit chilled from their walk through the cool hallway.

  “Drink, a ghra,” he whispered in her ear as he reached from behind to press the tall flute into her hand. “Let the bubbles trap your worries and carry them away on a sigh.” His lips brushed the side of her neck.

  She could feel the heat of him against her back, the whisper of warm brandy-scented breath flowing past her shoulder and down her chest to the lace edge of her low square-cut gown. Tipping her head back, she took a sip of champagne, knowing it opened her bosom to more of his gaze.

  She hadn’t been touched intimately by a man in a dozen years, ever since she was fifteen and had attempted to use the greengrocer’s son to dispel the shame and horror that had been—and still was—Smythe’s legacy. It hadn’t worked. Their furtive fumblings had been just another degrading, painful memory to add to the others from Mrs. Beale’s. Hopefully with Doyle it would be better.

  Champagne bubbles burst on her tongue, sent warmth down her throat to pool low in her belly. She took a deep breath, let it out, heard his breathing change, and felt her own excitement build with his.

  Perhaps tonight. She had denied them both all these months, partly because of concern about pregnancy, partly to keep his interest peaked, but also partly from fear. What if this attempt was a failure, too? Not for Doyle, of course. She knew what the marriage bed entailed—she had lived two years at a brothel, after all, and had seen more than most women could even imagine. She understood the mechanics of the thing and that men derived enjoyment from it even if the woman didn’t. But what of her own hopes—that abandonment and emotional loss of self that put one utterly in the power of another person? Would that happen this time? Did she trust Doyle enough to allow it to happen?

  Perhaps tonight. Perhaps if she shared that intimacy with the man she was about to marry, all the little fears and niggling doubts would go away, and she would know she was doing the right thing. Perhaps then she would be able to love him as she should.

  She took another swallow of champagne, then Doyle reached around to lift it from her hand. Even his hands were beautiful—no scarring or enlarged knuckles beneath the faint dusting of golden hair. She imagined them moving over her body and shivered as something went liquid deep inside.

  “Are you cold, lass?” The words rustled in her ear. She watched his hand set the goblet on the mantle, then come back to stroke the flushed skin below her throat, those beautiful, unmarked fingers just long enough to slip below the lace-edged neckline of her gown. “Shall I warm you like this?”

  His hand sipped lower. Flesh to flesh. Kisses along her neck.

  “You are so soft, leannan. Except here.” He tweaked her nipple.

  She sagged back against him, her eyes drifting closed.

  Think only of Doyle. Let the past go.

  Before she was hardly aware of it, he had both cap sleeves of her gown pulled down, trapping her arms at her sides and exposing her breasts to his gaze and the heat rising from the fire.

  A tingling weakness enveloped her as he continued to leisurely stroke her while he whispered in her ear how beautiful she was, how smooth her skin felt, how much he wanted her. Her legs were starting to tremble when his other hand came around to caress her throat.

  She jumped, startled, and the next instant her mind was spiraling back in time and other fingers were tightening around her neck and Smythe was laughing, squeezing—

  A cry pressed against her clenched teeth. But before it passed her lips, a distant door slammed.

  Doyle froze. Voices rose in the foyer.

  With a curse, he jerked up the sleeves of her gown so that she was covered again, then stepped away from her as purposeful steps approached the sitting room. A perfunctory knock sounded on the door just before it swung open.

  “Doyle—”

  “Don’t you knock?”

  Stopping abruptly, Rylander looked from Margaret to Doyle, then covered his surprise with a curt nod. “My apologies.”

  Margaret hoped those sharp eyes would think her flush was from the heat of the fire, rather than acute embarrassment.

  “What are you doing back here?” Doyle snapped.

  “There’s been an explosion at the foundry.”

  “The one I just sold to Hammond?”

  Rylander nodded.

  “What’s that got to do with me?”

  “I thought you should know.”

  “Why? It’s Hammond’s foundry now. Let him handle it.”

  “Hell, Doyle, show some concern.”

  Margaret stepped forward. “Was anyone hurt?’

  It was apparent from Doyle’s expression that he hadn’t considered that. “Surely no one was there at this hour?”

  “A night watchman. He wasn’t harmed.”

  “Well, then.”

  Rylander’s brows shot up. “‘Well, then?’ That’s it?”

  “Faith, man! What do you want me to do? I had nothing to do with this. It’s not my foundry anymore.”

  “You can give Hammond your support.”

  “For what? His own stupidity?” Running fingers through his blond hair, Doyle went to the beverage cart and poured himself another brandy. He tossed it back in one swallow, then returned the glass to the tray with a loud clink. “He knew the risks.”

  “Perhaps to ease the situation,” Margaret said, glancing from one scowling face to the other, “you could offer a no-interest loan to replace the damaged machinery. It would cost you little and might buy back his good will.”

  Both men turned to look at her—her fiancé’s expression showed impatience. Rylander’s was harder for her to read.

  Then he stunned her by saying, “She’s right, Doyle. And it would deflect some of the suspicion that’s sure to be headed your way.”

  “Suspicion about what? I didn’t do anything.” He was starting to sound like a little boy caught with an empty jar and cookie crumbs on his face.

  “Maybe not. But you’ll do this.” Spinning on his heel, Rylander walked toward the door. “Hurry,” he called back from the hall. “We can drop Miss Hamilton off on the way.”

  “Bossy bastard.” With an apologetic smile, Doyle offered his arm to Margaret. “Tomorrow, a ghra,” he whispered in her ear as they left the office and turned toward the foyer. “You’ll stay with me. You’ll let me love you all night long, so you will.”

  She glanced up at him, saw the hunger in his beautiful hazel eyes, and felt that shivery, shimmery feeling run through her again. “I promised to spend the evening with Mrs. Throckmorton.”

  “Then come after.”

  “She’s helping me pack.” More like supervising, and no doubt making several last-minute attempts to talk her out of this marriage. But it would be their last night together and Margaret didn’t want to miss it. The cranky old dear was the closest thing she had to family, and Margaret cared deeply for her. “Besides, we’ll be married in two days.”

  He put on a pained expression and groaned. “I can’t wait that long.”

  “You’d better.”

  His laugh echoed through the foyer, bringing Rylander’s head around from where he stood by the front door, issuing instructions to Do
yle’s footman. For a moment, before he masked it, Margaret glimpsed the oddest expression in his slate gray eyes. Something fleeting and unexpected and utterly confusing—a flash of anger so intense it felt like a slap. But directed at Doyle, not her.

  Three

  The morning of the wedding dawned clear and sunny with the faintest touch of spring in the crisp breeze. Margaret tried to sleep in, but excitement had her climbing out of bed not long after dawn, her mind churning with last-minute details. Padding barefoot to her desk, she looked over her lists.

  Everything had been checked off her to-do list. Her dress had been delivered to the hotel suite assigned to her and Mrs. Throckmorton, their bags were packed, and anything of hers that remained in this room would be sent directly to Doyle’s townhome after she and Mrs. Throckmorton left for the hotel. Mrs. Bradshaw was handling everything else.

  Which left her wedding day list, starting with the carriage taking her and Mrs. Throckmorton to the hotel later this morning. There, she would suffer through a final dress fitting and meet with Mrs. Bradshaw and Father O’Rourke. After a light luncheon, she would bathe, sit for the hairdresser, take a last tea with Mrs. Throckmorton, dress, and just before six, Rylander would come to escort them down to the ballroom. Then the ceremony, the signing of the marriage certificate, more photographs, the reception line, dinner, toasts, dancing, and finally—if she could stay awake for it—her wedding night. All that on four hours of restless sleep.

  A knock on her door heralded the arrival of breakfast.

  And her wedding day began.

  Most of it passed in a haze. She couldn’t have managed without Mrs. Bradshaw and the efficient staff of the Fifth Avenue Hotel. The only worrisome moment came when Mrs. Throckmorton had a brief fainting spell while Margaret was absent at her meeting with Father O’Rourke. She was quite recovered by the time Margaret returned to the suite, but as a precaution throughout the rest of the afternoon, she lay in regal repose on the settee in the sitting area of the suite, happily supervising the final preparations.

  Margaret might have suspected her guardian of making another sly attempt to delay the marriage if not for the paleness of her face and the dark smudges beneath the faded eyes. But with sniffs and dramatic sighs, the elderly woman waved away Margaret’s concerns, insisting she would “see the wretched thing through as a show of support even though it was all a ghastly mistake and would no doubt bring endless despair and regret to both of their lives.”

  Quite the thespian, Mrs. Throckmorton. No wonder she so favored the Shakespearean tragedies.

  By the time everyone but Mrs. Throckmorton had left and Margaret stood bathed and coiffed and weighted down by her elaborate wedding gown, waiting for Mr. Rylander to come escort them down to the ballroom, all those second thoughts her guardian had warned her about came rushing into her mind.

  “Let it stay in the past,” Father O’Rourke had advised when she’d asked if she should tell Doyle about her Irish roots and those sordid years at Mrs. Beale’s. “Cathleen Donovan is dead and buried. Let her rest, poor mite.”

  She’s hardly resting, Margaret thought. In fact, since Margaret had come face-to-face with Franklin Horne at the engagement ball, poor Cathleen had been even more active than usual, plaguing her with appearances every night since.

  “I saw Franklin Horne at the engagement ball,” she had told the priest earlier that afternoon. “I don’t think he recognized me.”

  “Sure, and why should he, lass?” A look of disgust had crossed Father O’Rourke’s lined face. “He prefers children, so he does. He’ll not be a threat to a beautiful grown woman like yourself.”

  Now as Margaret regarded herself in the mirror of the suite several hours later, she fervently hoped that was true. The burden of having to guard all these secrets was preying on her, and the thought of having to watch over her shoulder for the rest of her life left a bitter taste in her mouth.

  “There’s still time to decamp,” Mrs. Throckmorton said from her settee beside the hearth. She was dressed in her finery as well—a deep purple gown, strings of pearls around her thin neck, and an elaborate ostrich plumed chapeau atop her tight gray curls. Queen Victoria couldn’t have done better. “You could slip down the servant’s stair and be out in the back alley in a trice. No one would even notice.”

  “Except for my wedding dress.”

  “Don’t be pert. You could borrow my funeral gown. I take it everywhere I go, just in case, and I have a lovely hat with a heavy black lace veil. You would look quite mysterious. And old.”

  To combat her impatience with the waiting, Margaret played along. “And where would I go, ma’am? Would I sail back to Ireland? Travel up into the frozen north? Cross the bridge to New Jersey?”

  “West.” The watery blue eyes took on a distant look. “There’s a vast country beyond our little island, my dear. Mountains so tall they brush the clouds. Deserts of painted rocks and prickly plants. Endless rolling plains covered with thousands upon thousands of those big hairy buffaloes. Were I younger, I would drag you there myself.”

  “Why, Mrs. Throckmorton.” Margaret smiled in fond surprise. “I never knew you had such an adventurous spirit.”

  The older woman waved a blue-veined hand in dismissal. “We’ve made a mess of this place. Factories spewing smoke and soot into the air, starving children working for a pittance in mines and foundries, too many people in too little space. The constant noise makes me grateful my hearing is failing. But west . . . now there’s a grand place to make a fresh start.”

  Margaret wondered if such a thing were possible. How did one escape one’s own past?

  Mrs. Throckmorton must have guessed her thoughts. Leaning forward, she whispered urgently, “Do it, dear. Make your own destiny rather than trying to fit into a mold made by another. Take a chance—”

  A knock sounded on the door.

  The lovely images in Margaret’s mind faded.

  Mrs. Throckmorton sank back with a deep sigh.

  The floor maid announced herself and opened the door. A figure loomed in the hallway behind her and Margaret wondered if she had been saved—or doomed—by Mr. Rylander’s arrival. He filled the opening, tall and elegant and very dark, the crisp whiteness of his starched shirt and cravat a blinding contrast to his glossy black hair and severely formal black tails. Then he looked up and saw Margaret.

  His lips parted. She could almost feel the sharp intake of breath, then the slow release, and she wondered how she had ever thought those gray eyes cold.

  But the next instant, as if a shutter had slammed closed, all expression left his face. With a curt nod, he stepped into the room. “Miss Hamilton, you look lovely. As do you, Mrs. Throckmorton. If you’re ready, ladies, I’ll escort you down now.”

  “I won’t take that screw thing,” Mrs. Throckmorton announced as the maid helped her from the chair. “It could blow up and kill us all.”

  When she saw Mr. Rylander’s frown of confusion, Margaret explained. “The vertical screw railway that moves between floors.”

  “It could catch on my skirts and grind me up like blood sausage.”

  While Margaret struggled to block that grisly image, Rylander stepped smoothly in. “It’s protected by a screen, ma’am. And the steam engine is in the basement where it’s constantly monitored so it won’t explode. You would be quite safe. But if you prefer, I’ll be glad to carry you down, myself.”

  Down three flights of stairs? Was he jesting? Margaret wished Mrs. Throckmorton would accept the offer just to watch him try to weasel out of it.

  Instead her guardian batted him away with her fan. “You’ll do no such thing, you upstart. I shall go down on my own or not at all. But you may offer me your arm.”

  He did and, with grave solemnity, ushered the elderly matron from the room.

  “Don’t dawdle,” Mrs. Throckmorton called back to
Margaret, who followed behind them. “And you,” she added with a wave at the maid, “bring her veil and see that her train doesn’t catch. Come along.”

  It was slow going, but eventually they made the ground floor, where Mrs. Bradshaw was waiting to sweep the bride into a small alcove beside the ballroom. There Margaret would wait, unseen, until Mr. Rylander seated her guardian, then returned to escort her down the aisle.

  Margaret’s nerves were so frazzled her skin felt prickly and hot. Her tight stays made it difficult to take a full breath, which threw her into a mild panic she had to struggle to keep under control. She dreaded the ordeal ahead, having all eyes turned on her. It reminded her of those awful evenings at Mrs. Beale’s when Smythe would parade her through the downstairs gaming rooms and men would look at her in pity or disgust or with that grinning, slack-faced hunger that made her feel dirty and nauseated.

  “You’re a beautiful bride,” Mrs. Bradshaw said, reaching up to pin Margaret’s veil to the tiara already anchored in her upsweep. “I’m sorry the staff at the townhouse couldn’t be here to see you.”

  “Please don’t,” Margaret said when the housekeeper tried to pull the veil over her face. “Not yet. It makes me feel . . . smothered.”

  “Would you like some champagne? That might settle your nerves.”

  “Water would be nice.” No use adding lightheaded and tipsy to her list of ailments.

  “Of course. I’ll send for some with ice.”

  After Mrs. Bradshaw left, Margaret took a few moments to gather her thoughts and settle her breathing. This was supposed to be her grand day. She didn’t want to be so addled she couldn’t even remember it.

  Late guests were still arriving, their voices carrying from the hallway as they waited outside the ballroom to be ushered to their seats. Gradually, the voices faded until only two remained. Margaret stiffened when she recognized one from her past.

  “I swear she’s Irish,” Franklin Horne said. “I don’t care who her guardian is, the bitch has the look of the Irish in her. It’s those green eyes.”