The Hellion Bride

by Catherine Coulter

  Ryder blinked. "Good heavens, she's worked very quickly. Astonishing, I would say, but difficult to accept. Didn't you tell me he was at her cottage just two nights ago?"

  Emile grinned, pushed back a chair and sat down. "You don't suppose she's clearing out all the flotsam for you, do you?"

  Ryder was thoughtful for a long moment. He said finally, very firmly, "One could be tempted to think so at first blush. However, I still can't see her doing something so blatant. She's a subtle female when she sees it is called for and, more importantly, she isn't stupid. She's many things, but not stupid."

  "Really, Ryder, perhaps you're entirely wrong. Per­haps she wants to bed you. Perhaps she admires you and wants you, pure and simple. No ulterior motives. You aren't a troll, you know."

  "There is nothing either pure or simple about Miss Stanton-Greville. As much as I would like to preen myself on my manliness, on my utter magnetism with women, I would be a fool to do so. No, Emile, if she does indeed want to add me to her string, there's an excellent reason for it."

  "Fine. But why kick out Lord David, I wonder?"

  "Perhaps," Ryder said, stroking his long fingers over his jaw, "just perhaps he's outlived his use­fulness." But he was remembering his order to her that he wouldn't be one of many men in her bed. He would be the only one. He shook his head. No, he wouldn't be drawn into that conceit. This was really quite interesting.

  "What does that mean?"

  "I mean that everyone behaves a certain way for very solid reasons. If she dismissed Lord David, then there were very good grounds for her to do so. Remember, we spoke of motives. Lord David is young, handsome, a likely candidate if a woman wished to take a lover. But Oliver Susson? Charles Grammond? They're middle-aged, overweight, or stoop-shouldered . . . no, Emile, the selection isn't random."

  "Lord David is saying, of course, that he was tired of her but no one believes him."

  "No, indeed."

  "I stopped by the Grammond plantation to bid my good-byes to the family. They're leaving at the end of the week. I drank some rum with Charles and learned one thing of interest, but not until that boss-wife of his left the salon. What we had heard is true—he lost a bundle of money to Lord David. Didn't my father tell you of Lord David's phenom­enal luck at cards?"

  "Yes, he did and several others as well warned me to avoid him. This is interesting, Emile. So, as a result, he must leave Jamaica after selling his plantation, which, just as a matter of happenstance, is situated next to Camille Hall. Mr. Theodore Bur­gess—because he's such a fine, compassionate fel­low—is buying the plantation. I do wonder what he's paying Grammond for it?"

  "I can find out," Emile said. "I should have thought of asking but I didn't. Besides, his wife came back into the room. She quite terrifies me."

  "No matter. There are more pieces of the puzzle falling in place with each passing day. Lord, it's hot."

  Emile gave him an unholy grin, "It's not even noon, Ryder. I had thought to ask you to visit the stillhouse with me."

  "Kill me first, for it's as close to hades as men have managed to get whilst still flesh of this world. I have wondered how the slaves tolerate it."

  "They are quite used to it. Also, they all come from Africa, a country even more inhospitable than Jamaica."

  "Still," Ryder said, then shrugged at the sight of Emile's housekeeper, Coco, shyly peeping around the door.

  Emile turned and frowned at the girl. "What is it, Coco?"

  The girl showed another inch of herself, but her eyes were on her bare feet now. "I—I must speak with you, massa. I'm sorry, it's important." Emile turned back to Ryder. "Usually she doesn't say boo to anyone, thus it must truly be important, so I'll speak to her. Excuse me for a moment."

  Ryder wondered what Emile's housekeeper wanted. Then he felt the heavy, still air close in around him and he thought only of being naked in a snowbank on the very top of Ben Nevis, and wallowing and wallowing until he was freezing. He even thought fondly of a thick white fog swirling around him, making him cold to his very bones as he walked St. James's street to White's. Even a London driz­zle, frigid and miserable, dripping down the back of his neck, sounded remarkably inviting at the moment.

  He wondered why Sophia Stanton-Greville had dismissed Lord David Lochridge. He believed he knew why she'd taken him as a lover in the first place. He wondered how the devil he would verify what he believed to be true. But primarily, he won­dered exactly why he'd been selected as her next lover. For the life of him he couldn't think of a thing to be gained by having himself in her bed.

  Theo Burgess was pale with anger when he came into her bedchamber. "Damn your laziness. He hasn't shown himself in two days."

  "I know," she said, turning slowly to face her uncle. "It's a game he's playing with me."

  "Game or no, I want you to ride over to Kimberly Hall and do whatever you have to. I want him at the cottage and soon, Sophia."

  He walked over to her, looked quickly around, saw there was no one in sight, and slapped her. She reeled back, bumping into a chair and careening to the side. She fell. She didn't move.

  "Stand up. I'm not certain you understand just how very serious I am about this."

  "I understand."

  "Damn you, stand up or I'll have your brother fetched and just see how much he enjoys pain."

  Sophie stood up. This time she was prepared for the blow, but still the fist in her ribs dropped her to her knees. More bruises, and the ones from his last beating had just begun to fade. She shook with rage and pain.

  "Now I trust you understand. Get yourself dressed and put on your cosmetics. You're pale and sickly looking. That little tap I gave your face just might discolor a bit. Cover it up. Go now and hurry."

  "Ryder Sherbrooke doesn't like my face painted."

  "Then do as he would like. Don't just lie there like a lame dog."

  An hour and a half later, just as the three men were preparing to sit down to luncheon, James announced the arrival of Miss Sophia Stanton-Greville.

  Emile shot Ryder a quizzical look. Ryder was frowning slightly. He hadn't thought she would come here, to him. It wasn't her style, at least he hadn't thought it would be. Something must have happened to get her here, that, or someone must have put the spurs to her to come.

  Samuel Grayson gave James a fat smile and actually rubbed his hands together. "Do show her in, James. Oh yes."

  When she came into the dining room, a vision in a pale yellow riding outfit, with only a minimum of cosmetics on her face, Ryder's eyes glittered. He knew her face wasn't completely clean because to do a good scrubbing would require utter compliance to his wishes. She would give up a single battle, but not the war.

  She was all laughter and charm. She was gay and witty and she played with incredible boldness to Samuel Grayson's besottedness. She cast Ryder sloe-eyed looks, remarkably seductive, really. As for Emile, she ignored him for the most part. She readi­ly accepted Samuel's luncheon invitation.

  Ryder was content to sit back and watch her per­form. He had no intention of entering the fray until he had her alone. And he did indeed want to be alone with her. As for Emile, he was clearly distracted.

  Near the end of the meal, Sophie raised laughing eyes to Ryder and said, "I'm here actually to ask Mr. Sherbrooke to visit a fascinating cave one of our field slaves just discovered. It is much larger than the one I showed him on Penelope Beach and it isn't quite so cold and damp because the entrance is larger and thus more sun can come in."

  "You would make a charming guide, my dear," Samuel Grayson said in a voice so infatuated that it made Ryder nauseous. "Ryder normally stays c>ut of the sun during this part of the day, the suffocating heat, you know, and he isn't yet used to it."

  "Perhaps Mr. Sherbrooke would consider himself to have sufficient fortitude, to be a man of strong enough will, to bear up under the heat when the end result would be this charming cave."

  Ryder recognized a bucket of bait when it hit him in the face. Ah yes, question a ma
n's virility and he would leap onto the hook with no hesitation.

  "I don't know," he said slowly. "Perhaps anoth­er time, Miss Stanton-Greville. I'm really quite fatigued."

  "Sophia," she said, her voice testy.

  "Yes, Sophia. You know I'm not all that strong and my fortitude appears to be at low ebb. Yes, I am a weak man, one who must take care of his precarious health."

  "Surely you can survive a simple ride to the beach!"

  "Do you have an umbrella I can hold over my head on the way there?"

  "A hat should be sufficient."

  "I'm also worried about my horse," he said. "He pretends to be a mean devil, but underneath he's just as weak and low-ebbed as I."

  She sucked in her breath. He was slippery as a spotted moray eel. Then she smiled. "Very well, then. I'm off to visit the cave. Good-bye, Mr. Grayson. Thank you for the delicious luncheon."

  "But you didn't eat anything," Grayson called after her.

  Emile began to laugh. His father spun on his heel and hurried after Miss Stanton-Greville.

  "You have her going every which way, Ryder. I fancy this has never happened to her before."

  "Yes. But enough is enough. I think I will have to follow her now. She just learned an important lesson in control. Now it's time for a frontal attack."

  "No flank? No coming around the back?"

  "You're becoming impertinent, Emile," Ryder said, grinned from ear to ear, and left.

  Sophie didn't know what to do. She let a small slave lift her onto Opal's back. She sat there, staring blankly ahead of her. What to do?

  She couldn't simply return to Camille Hall because Uncle Theo would know she'd failed. She shuddered at the consequences of that, unconsciously touching her fingertips to her cheek. It was a bit swelled from his blow. The powder covered it, but it didn't bury the memory of the pain, the humiliation. She would have liked to shout to that smug bastard, Ryder Sherbrooke, that she didn't wear makeup to look like a tart. She wore it to hide bruises, at least she had at first until Uncle Theo decided she looked more worldly, more seductive, painted like a whore. Of course he also realized that he could hit her more often without chance of discovery if her face was covered with cosmetics.

  She had no choice. She would ride to the beach and loiter about before she returned home. Then she would lie to him. She would tell him that Ryder Sherbrooke had kissed her, had told her he wanted her. But then why wouldn't he want to take her to the cottage immediately? In her uncle's mind, a kiss made a man think instantly of bed. In her experi­ence her uncle was quite right. Her brain closed down. She would deal with that when she had to.

  Her decision made, Sophie urged Opal forward and made for the beach. It was called Monmouth Beach and it lay a mile farther east from Penelope's Beach. It was littered with jagged rock formations, the sand was a dirty brown from the swirling tides that crashed over and around the rocks. The cave was real. A slave had found it but yesterday. Opal picked her way carefully through the rocks, avoiding tide pools and battered tree limbs.

  She didn't want to go to the damned cave. She pulled Opal to a halt, dismounted, and looked around. Within minutes, she was spreading the saddle blanket beneath a coconut tree and sit­ting in the shade, staring out over the brilliant blue sea. Her thoughts were, oddly, of her par­ents, of the last time she'd seen them four years before.

  Her mother had been as strong-willed as a bull, beautiful of face and bountiful of figure, Corinna by name, a woman who loved her children very much, too much to take them on the journey to America, a journey she considered too fraught with danger. Her father had said "nonsense," but he didn't have her mother's strength of character and thus Sophie and Jeremy were fetched from Fowey, Cornwall, by their uncle Theo after the drowning of their parents, and brought to Jamaica. She remembered clearly her grief as well as her gratitude to her uncle. She had loved him, then.

  She prayed her parents' deaths had been quick. Even now after four years she still repeated that prayer. Somehow she just knew that her mother had eased her father at the very end. It was the way her mother had been. She closed her eyes and felt the cool breeze from the sea on her face. She slipped out of her riding jacket and unfastened the top buttons of her linen blouse. She removed her riding hat, lay­ing it gently atop her jacket, smoothing its curling feather as she did so.

  Within minutes she was asleep.

  When Ryder saw her mare, he smiled. So, she had come here after all. Perhaps that cave was really something. Then he saw her, leaning against that coconut tree, sound asleep.

  Despite the heavy humid air, here on the beach, out of the sun, it was cool enough. He dismounted a good distance away from her, tethering his stallion close enough to some sea grass so he could graze.

  He stood over her, staring down at her face, still now, and he realized that she looked very young despite the cosmetics that still coated her face. Very young indeed. Why, he wondered, why had she tak­en all those men to her bed?

  Now she wanted him.

  He dropped silently to his knees beside her. Very gently, very slowly, he began to unfasten the remain­ing buttons on her blouse. She wore a very plain batiste chemise beneath. No fancy frills or lace. He frowned and finished with the buttons.

  But he couldn't peel the blouse off her because it was tucked into her riding skirt. He wanted her to remain asleep a bit longer.

  He pulled the blouse back as far as he could then took a knife from his pocket and slit the chemise down the front to just below her breasts. Ah, he thought, as he eased the light material back, her breasts.

  They were beautiful breasts. She stirred, but didn't awaken.

  He waited a few minutes, then slowly eased her down until she was lying flat on her back. He waited longer, hoping she would remain asleep. She turned on her side, moaned just a bit, then fell back again. Smiling, Ryder then began to work up her riding habit, slowly, ever so slowly, until it was bunched at mid-thigh, and he could see the plain garters that held her stockings in place. Very nice legs, he thought, long and sleekly muscled.

  He was still looking at her legs when he eased down beside her and waited for her to awaken.

  He wasn't quite certain how he expected her to react when she did wake up. He supposed she'd look up at him, be a bit aroused already, and hold out her arms to him. He waited, picturing his hand easing up her inner thigh to touch her intimately, and she'd be eager, and she'd beg him to take her here, now. He looked at her mouth.

  She awoke in the next instant, and out of that love­ly mouth came an actual scream, loud and embar­rassed and utterly horrified. The scream dwindled into a squeak then a gasp.

  He sat up next to her. She was staring stupidly from him to her naked breasts down to her legs.

  "Damn you, what did you do to me!"

  "I kissed your breasts and you moaned and arched your back. You thrust your breasts into my face so I was forced to slit your chemise open to help you get what you wanted. But you're a greedy woman. You wanted more, so you came down upon your back and lifted your hips and I helped you by pulling up your skirt."

  "No, no, damn you, that's a lie!"

  Her face was red and she was actually sputtering. Ryder frowned. This was unexpected. Where were her teasing smiles, her outrageous, coy, very sex­ual remarks? He watched as she regained control, watched the blankness disappear from her eyes, watched the control and that damned cool smile set itself into place.

  What Sophie was thinking was, Did he see the bruises on my ribs? Dear God, please no.

  She got herself in control. Slowly, giving him a very tempting sideways smile, she pulled the sides of her chemise over her breasts and began to work the buttons closed again, all the while keeping her legs exposed to him.

  When she'd finished, she slowly rose and stared down at him. She smoothed her skirt, then put her hands on her hips.

  "You damned bastard," she said, surprised at the mildness of her voice. "Damn you, you came."

  "Yes, I decided my manhood co
uldn't tolerate your obvious scorn."

  "Most manhoods couldn't. You are no different."

  "No, probably not."

  "You had no right to do what you did to me."

  "I wanted to take you off guard. I find you exces­sively unpredictable whenever I manage to do it. You shrieked, just like a maiden aunt. Most delight­ful. It sweetens the pot, one could say, all these varied and unexpected sides of you. I wonder how many other sides you will show me if I'm quick enough to catch you showing them."

  "You have had your fun, Ryder."

  "Oh, I haven't as yet begun, as you will see. But I do have a question for you, Sophia. Why did you dismiss Lord David Lochridge from your harem?"

  "Harem? I think you're confusing your genders."

  "It's the same concept. Why, Sophia?"

  She shrugged and turned away from him for a moment, looking out over the sea. She was silent for a very long time.

  Finally, she turned back to him and that damned flirtatious mask was well in place. "He bored me. He was a boy in a man's body. He cared only for his own pleasures, his own amusements. I grew tired of him, that's all."

  "You're lying."

  "Oh? Why would you say that?"

  "You wish me to believe that you dismissed him because you wanted me and you remembered my demand that I be the only man in your bed and thus in your body?"

  "Yes, I remember you saying that."

  "What about Oliver Susson? Will you dismiss him as well?"

  She shrugged, saying nothing.