A Reluctant Bride

by Jess Michaels

  But somehow he still tried. And tried. And tried. It had always been that way, for as long as he remembered. His father had tried to talk to him about it once. Tried to steer him away from, as he had called it, dancing to her tune. They’d had a row, of course.

  But Jasper always had those words in his mind when he looked at her. That his mother would never be satisfied.

  He’d worried he might find the same in a wife once he had gotten to know Anne Shelley. Her hesitations about him and their future had become very clear over the weeks and months, even before she ran into the night with a villain to escape him.

  Now it was different. Now he was married to Thomasina.

  His gaze found her in the crowd. She was standing with her sister and another friend, smiling and laughing. She looked pleased and she was always pleasing. Her father had described her that way, and Jasper had felt it, her drive to make him happy and comfortable, even at the sacrifice of herself. But was that better than a lady who disregarded his comfort? He didn’t feel like it was.

  She must have felt his stare, for her gaze flitted toward him. Her smile broadened as she tilted her head in acknowledgment.

  And for a moment, everything else fell away. His worries about her quieted and the world was…right. It was right even though there were whispers in the room about the scandalous switch in brides. About Anne not being here to wish her sister well.

  About everything Jasper had fought to keep secret and private and failed at miserably. Even his own thoughts about the situation with Maitland and Anne faded a bit. He was able to forget the news he’d received from Reynolds earlier in the day.

  He forgot everything but Thomasina.

  “It looks as though some friends are coming to wish you well,” his mother said. “I will leave you to them.”

  She walked away without a backward glance, and Jasper sighed and forced a smile as two of his acquaintances from neighboring shires reached him. Lord Barnaby and Thomas Walker had been friends of his in school and in London. They were wilder than he was, of course. Everyone was.

  “Many felicitations,” Barnaby said, his words just a touch slurred as he pounded Jasper’s back a bit too hard. “You’ve landed a Shelley sister—that comes with a fine prize of a dowry.”

  Jasper pursed his lips, although the man was only speaking the truth. Still, it seemed uncouth and potentially hurtful to boil down his new marriage to such terms when it was hardly a few hours old. “And the bride is winsome, as well,” he said softly.

  Walker stared across the room at Thomasina and shrugged. “She is quite pretty, yes. Always were a bit of an oddity, those Shelley sisters. It’s hardly natural for three women to be identical in every way.” He shuddered. “Twins are bad enough.”

  Jasper glared at him, but before he could retort Barnaby was talking again. “Of course, it made switching one out for the other easier. They’re interchangeable and so is that lovely pile of money that goes along with them, eh?” He laughed. “Makes the peculiarity of their birth a little more palatable.”

  Jasper set his drink down on the nearest surface and stepped up in Barnaby’s face. “Listen here, you drunken lout,” he began, just barely containing himself from grabbing for the man’s lapels and shaking him. “I will not hear a bad word against my wife nor her sisters. Interchangeable they are certainly not. I will have you know—”

  “Harcourt?”

  He froze and so did the other two men, and they all turned to see Thomasina standing there, just at Jasper’s elbow, her face lined with concern.

  “My lady,” Barnaby said, at least having the awareness to blush at the idea she might have heard his unkind words. “I did not realize you were so near.”

  She smiled, a tight little expression. “I would assume not—you three seemed engaged in intent conversation. But I require the company of my new husband, if you do not mind.” She held out a hand, meeting Jasper’s gaze and holding there evenly. Her eyes said everything, telling him to come away.

  He looked around and found a few people watching. Although he hadn’t touched Barnaby when he stepped up to him, he realized now just how loudly and sharply he had spoken. No one within a five-foot radius could have been confused about his displeasure. They were all waiting for what would happen next.

  But what had happened was Thomasina. Who effortlessly inserted herself to keep him from his worst impulse, drawing him away from the new scandal he might have created. Being everything he needed in this moment and hadn’t realized.

  And so he took her hand and let her be that.

  “Many felicitations, my lady,” Walker called out weakly, and Barnaby muttered the same as she and Jasper walked away.

  She guided him through the crowd, friendly and easy as she maneuvered him toward the terrace, smiling at their guests, responding with everything pleasing and light as they were acknowledged and congratulated.

  But once they exited the ballroom and she shut the door behind them, he felt the weight of the effort in her every move. Her shoulders rolled forward a fraction and her smile faltered. She released his arm and motioned toward the terrace wall. They moved to it together and she faced him, exploring his expression carefully.

  “How much did you hear?” he asked softly.

  She shrugged one shoulder. “Enough to know that nothing was said that hasn’t been said a dozen times over the years. A hundred times, probably. Why did it upset you so much? Neither of them meant any harm.”

  He drew back. “They didn’t mean any harm? How can you say that? You and your sisters may look alike, but you are not identical, not truly.”

  “It means a great deal to me that you do not think we are, but the rest of the world has always seen us as an oddity.”

  “Don’t say oddity,” he grumbled.

  She smiled, as if she were far older and wiser than he was. “Do you know how rare it is for triplets to survive birth? Even twins do not always make it. I have never met another trio like us and neither has anyone else in our acquaintance, I would wager. We are an anomaly, Jasper. To some we are like a traveling show with its attractions.”

  “Still, they shouldn’t say it,” he said.

  “It’s rude, I agree. But I have grown accustomed to their whispers, though I am sorry you are just realizing them now. Perhaps you would have chosen differently if you had known that simply linking yourself to us is yet another of your hated scandals.”

  He pursed his lips at her response, which she gave with such an attitude that their whispers didn’t matter. And perhaps after hearing them all her life, they didn’t to her. But he found it wasn’t the scandal that bothered him about what had been said…it was that the words about his wife…his wife…were so cruel and untrue.

  “You should not have been exposed to such falsehoods and slurs all your life,” he said softly.

  She sighed. “Perhaps not. But I have been, so it is not new to me. And if you are going to shout at everyone who says something unkind about me or my sisters, you will be hoarse by the time the leaves change. It is best to ignore them, and to focus on those who know the truth.”

  “That you’re not the same person, copied over and over,” he said.

  She nodded. “Yes. Although I have never met a friend who could identify me immediately as you claim to do, I know many who can if I start talking.”

  “And aren’t pretending to be your sister,” he said, arching a teasing brow as his defensiveness and heightened emotion began to fade a little.

  She laughed, for which he was grateful. Not so many days ago, she would have blushed or apologized for her deception. “Yes, obviously when I am being deceptive everyone falls under my spell but you.”

  He let his gaze flit over her face in the fading light of the sunset in the distance. “I am definitely more than capable of falling under your spell, Thomasina. I assure you of that. And very much look forward to proving it as soon as we can manage to get all these people out of our house.”

  Pink tinged her cheek
s and she laughed again. “I am glad we are of a mind. Interlopers, all of them. Just here to drink our wine and eat our food. I would much rather be alone with you.”

  He could no longer deny himself, and with a broken sigh, he reached up to stroke his fingertips over her cheek. Her breath grew ragged and short with the action and her pupils dilated with a desire that made him rock hard in an instant. He leaned in, brushing his lips to hers.

  She wrapped her arms around his neck, opening to him in that moment, and he let his mind empty as he kissed her. Lost himself in her. Drowned in her.

  “We should go back inside before I do something imprudent on the terrace,” he said as he broke the kiss but not the embrace.

  She stared up at him with a smile. “Perhaps we’ll save imprudent for another day. Come, let’s go pretend we actually like all these people.”

  He took her hand again, threading his fingers through hers as they broke their embrace. And as they returned to the house together, he couldn’t help but feel a bond between them. A connection he had always drawn away from.

  But in this moment, it felt right. And that made him question everything he’d ever planned, everything he’d ever wanted. And everything he was keeping from her about her sister and his part in her disappearance.

  Chapter 11

  By the time they had managed to force the farewells of their guests, it was late. After midnight, in fact, and as she sat in the dressing room of her new chamber with Ruby brushing out her hair, Thomasina could not help but wonder if Jasper would want to consummate their union tonight. He had to be as tired as she was, after all the excitement of the past few days.

  She stared at the door that connected the countess’s chamber to the earl’s and shivered at how close she was to him now. So close and yet it felt like miles away.

  Not that she didn’t know he wanted her. After the unpleasantness at their wedding gathering, he had remained by her side the rest of the evening, his hand finding the small of her back when she needed strength, his gaze holding hers with intention and a new connection that she had to hope was real.

  She wanted it after all, more than anything. Enough that it frightened her, because Jasper had been very honest when he told her he hadn’t intended to share his heart with his wife. But then again, he hadn’t intended to marry her at all. So intentions could be thwarted, couldn’t they?

  She smiled up at her maid. “Thank you, Ruby,” she said. “I think that will be all for tonight.”

  The maid cast a quick, nervous glance toward the adjoining door before she set the silver brush down on Thomasina’s dressing table and bobbed out a curtsey. “Yes, my lady. Good luck.”

  Thomasina caught her breath as Ruby hurried from the room and left her alone in the chamber. Good luck. Great God, but it seemed everyone was determined to see her as going into a lion’s den tonight. But she felt a sense of rightness as she thought of surrendering to Jasper.

  Assuming, of course, he wasn’t already snoring away in the chamber next door. Did he snore?

  “I suppose I’ll find out,” she muttered to herself before she got up and moved to the full-length mirror across the dressing room.

  She was wearing another of Anne’s castoffs from her trousseau. A pretty, pale pink nightgown that was almost sheer, the fabric was so thin. It had elbow-length sleeves and tied with a perfectly formed bow right between her breasts. After brushing it until it gleamed, Ruby had bound her hair loosely with a ribbon that matched the nightgown, and Thomasina pinched her cheeks to give them the color her nervousness did not allow for.

  With a long breath, she faced the door and marched to it. She lifted her hand to knock and then hesitated. She was Jasper’s wife now. Did a wife knock? Did she just come in to show she was confident? It would be a lie, of course, but…

  She cut off her thoughts by pushing the door open and caught her breath. It was a lovely chamber, with a large bed across the way. A fire burned on the back wall, brightening the room. And even if it hadn’t, there were dozens of candles and lamps lit to make the room glow in a romantic way.

  If she’d thought Jasper might be sleeping, she was very wrong. Instead he stood beside the fire, poker in hand as he stirred the coals. When she entered, he pivoted toward her, the poker going slack in his fingers as he stared at her.

  She stared back. Jasper had always been so pulled together, almost perfect. Even the day he had stripped her naked and pleasured her, he had remained entirely clothed. Tonight, he was not. While she had readied, so had he. His jacket and cravat were gone, his boots too, so that he was barefoot.

  But the place her eyes went, could not tear away from, was his bare chest. He was shirtless and she could no longer breathe. He was spectacular, with a body that rivaled that of any statue in any garden or museum in all of England. All the world. He seemed to be formed from granite. He had defined shoulders, a broad chest, and there were ripples of muscle on his stomach. Muscles that trailed tantalizingly into the waist of trousers, which slung dangerously low, indeed.

  She felt a little dizzy at the idea that she would be allowed to touch him tonight. He would touch her. And then they would truly be wed in the eyes of any entity that might question the union.

  “You are lovely,” he said, and suddenly it felt like she could move again.

  She smiled at him, trying to return focus to his face and not the shockingly bare chest displayed for what felt like her pleasure.

  “Thank you,” she said. “I-I wasn’t certain if you would want me. I thought with it being so late you might wish to just sleep.”

  His brows lifted. “You think after three days of being unable to think of anything except touching you that I would want to stay away tonight?”

  She bit her lip. “You thought of me?”

  He nodded. “Very much. Perhaps more than I should. But there it is.” He tilted his head. “Although if you are tired, I would never dream of making you—”

  “I’m not tired,” she interrupted, her voice lifting. She blushed at her own ardor, revealed in three tiny words. “I want to be here.”

  “Then come in,” he said with a half-smile. “And shut the door.”

  She did so and caught her breath at what seemed like the exceedingly loud sound of the door clicking shut. Now they were alone in his chamber. And it was time for everything she both didn’t fully understand and yet wanted.

  “I won’t know what to do,” she blurted out.

  He cocked his head. “You will once we start,” he promised, and held out a hand to her.

  She took it, her fingers shaking as they met his, and didn’t resist as he drew her into his arms at last. She shivered at the feeling of his bare skin against her. So intimate and arousing without him even doing anything but holding her.

  And then he did more and her world ceased to exist.

  He kissed her and she opened to him, surrendering because she had longed to do so for what felt like forever, even though it had only been a few days. He took what she gave, gently, almost reverently, as he tasted her and teased her with his tongue. When she shivered with pleasure, he smiled against her lips.

  “May I undress you?” she asked.

  He chuckled. “You took the words out of my mouth—I was going to ask to undress you.”

  She shook her head. “You’ve already, er, seen me. I’m sure there is nothing new for you to find. But I’ve never seen—that is, I don’t know, er…”

  “Firstly, there will never be nothing to find when it comes to undressing you,” he corrected. “But I understand why you would want to do the honors first. A man’s body is new to you.” He lifted his arms. “You may unfasten me or I could do it for you.”

  She stared at the fall front of his trousers, stared at how the thing underneath strained against it, just as it had a few days before. And her nerve vanished.

  “You will be better at it,” she said, covering her hot cheeks with freezing hands.

  He chuckled and lowered his fingers to the butto
ns. He unfastened them slowly, watching her as he did so, and made what felt like quite a show in lowering the fall front and then pushing the entire contraption down around his ankles. As he kicked the trousers away, she gulped.

  So there it was. His…his member? What did a man call it? She didn’t know, but it was something to behold, far bigger than that of any statue she had ogled in her day. And it was hard too, curling up toward his stomach almost like a weapon to be wielded.

  “And what do you think?” he asked, amusement in his tone, but not cruelty. “Now that you’ve seen what the fuss is about?”

  “I don’t know what to think,” she admitted as she forced her gaze back to his. “I know you put that…” She motioned vaguely at it. “Into me. Which seems unlikely, but that is the story, so who am I to argue? I’ve heard it hurts. But your fingers didn’t hurt. Still, it is bigger. And yet I don’t think you would hurt me.”

  His expression softened a fraction. “I wouldn’t hurt you on purpose,” he corrected. “But your innocence will make you very…” He swallowed. “Er…tight. And it will hurt the first time I enter you. Though hopefully not too much since I intend to make you very ready for me.”

  “How?” she asked, truly curious.

  “You are certainly direct,” he said with another laugh. When she drew a breath to apologize, he held up a hand. “I like your directness, Thomasina. I’ll touch you like I did before.”

  She smiled wider. “Oh good. I liked that. Though when I did it myself it wasn’t quite as, er, intense as it was when you did it.”

  He stared a beat, two, and then cleared his throat. “You touched yourself since that night?”

  “Every night since.” She tilted her head. “Was that wrong?”

  “Definitely not,” he croaked, and sounded like he was having difficulty breathing. “But I would very much like to stop talking now and just—”

  He interrupted himself by grasping her waist and tugging her against him. His mouth came down again, this time a little less gently, and he devoured her as she lifted into his naked body and opened herself to everything that was about to happen. He pushed her toward the bed, but when her backside hit the edge he stopped, drawing away, the only sound in the room their shared panting breaths.