The Reluctant Suitor

by Kathleen E. Woodiwiss

  Now that Roger was in London and she had an opportunity to search through his accounts without fear of discovery, Felicity intended to acquaint herself with both. Unfortunately, soon after entering the mill, she discovered that her husband had taken measures to safeguard his secret room by locking its door. As for his ledgers, he had not been so careful. He had left the key for the cabinet where they were stored in full view upon his desk, no doubt believing she wouldn’t dare enter his office without his consent. Little did he guess her growing concern for herself and her offspring and her reluctance to go to the poor house should he lose the mill.

  Felicity had to give as much credit to her mother as her father for her own astuteness in mathematical matters. Although to her knowledge, none of the counting houses in London had ever hired a woman, her father had asked for her assistance in completing his work there on different occasions. As for her mother, Samuel Gladstone had once taught his daughter, Jane, and she, in turn, taught her daughter.

  It didn’t take Felicity long after initially perusing Roger’s books to discover that large sums had indeed gone out in various amounts to two individuals. Their identity couldn’t rightly be determined, however, since only the initials M.T. and E.R. were marked beside the extraction of funds. She lost track of the hours she spent just trying to find names to correspond with them, and her burgeoning frustration did much to heighten her fatigue.

  It was nearly midnight when Felicity finally turned down the wick in the small lamp she had lit over the desk. Hoping to continue her search in bed, she tucked one of the ledgers beneath her arm and locked the door of the office behind her before returning to the house. She had entered and was just crossing the hallway to the bedchamber she shared with Roger when she was brought up short by the realization that the room was occupied . . . by her husband.

  “Roger, I wasn’t expecting you until Sunday night!” she exclaimed, her heart hammering within her chest as she halted within the doorway. Clandestinely shifting the book to a table residing in the hallway next to the door, she forced a smile and then hurried forward to bestow a wifely kiss upon her boyishly handsome spouse.

  Roger averted his face, rejecting her offering, and then peered down at her coldly. “Where have you been?”

  Knowing she hadn’t been able to hide the ledger very well, Felicity shrugged and swept a hand to indicate the place where she had left it before entering the bedchamber. “I overheard some gossip about your father trying to cheat you, and . . . well, I just wanted to find out for myself if that were true. I brought one of the books back to look through when I have more time.”

  “No need to worry yourself about such things, my pet,” he said, moving past her to fetch the book. “I’ll do that for you. In any case, if Father has managed to cheat me, he’s in no condition to do so now. With each passing day, he seems that much closer to death.” Tucking the ledger beneath the frock coat that he had slung over the back of a chair near the door, he turned to her again, unbuttoning his waistcoat as he smiled meaningfully. “I decided to return tonight, because I was overtaken with a peculiar desire to instruct you in something entirely different.”

  Felicity went cold with dread at that ominous portent, yet in light of the fact that he had caught her with the book, she didn’t dare hint of her aversion. There had been times when she had striven valiantly to preserve some meager scrap of dignity in spite of what he forced her to do, but she had learned that such efforts only made her husband more malicious. Tonight she saw the necessity of complying with Roger’s every wish. Then hopefully he’d turn his mind to other matters rather than stew over the fact that she had entered the mill without his permission.

  Plucking open her bodice, Felicity did her best to convey enthusiasm in a seductive smile. She just hoped Roger wouldn’t notice how violently she trembled with the fear-instilling uncertainty of what he’d require of her this time. “You must have read my mind.”

  Twenty

  * * *

  My lady, there is a young woman here who insists upon seeing Lord Randwulf and claims the matter is of some urgency, but she refuses to give her name or any indication what her visit is about.”

  “His lordship is outside walking the dogs, Harrison,” Adriana replied. “Perhaps I can be of some assistance to the lady.”

  The steward seemed to hesitate before venturing further. “Your pardon, my lady, but the woman is not a lady in the same sense that you and the Lady Philana are.”

  The lovely brows gathered in confusion. “You mean the visitor is not an aristocrat?”

  “No, madam, she is not. Neither is she a lady.”

  “Oh.” A moment of pensive silence followed as Adriana considered his statement. “My goodness, Harrison, I truly hope she’s no kin to Alice Cobble. I don’t know that this household can bear another sampling of her sort.”

  “Much more comely and cleaner, to be sure, my lady, but her manner of attire leaves one to imagine that she has had more worldly experience than one who has been carefully protected from unsavory influences.”

  “I think I shall have a look at this . . . ah . . . comely creature who wants to see my husband,” Adriana declared softly. Considering Colton’s earlier forced marriage, she could only wonder what other light-of-love had emerged from his past.

  “As you wish, my lady.” Harrison inclined his head in a shallow bow. “I shall show her into the drawing room.”

  As the man withdrew, Adriana approached the long, standing mirror in the dressing room and thoughtfully inspected her reflection as she turned from side to side. Her childbearing state was too far advanced for anyone to mistake her condition though she had trouble herself believing she had been married for five wondrously perfect months. Her union with Colton had been the sweetest bliss she had ever known. Indeed, each new day, especially now that June was nigh upon them, seemed filled with its own special euphoria, each night rapture beyond her wildest imagination, not only in the merging of their bodies, but in the deepening awareness that their unborn child was a unique entity forged by their union and yet an altogether separate individual. The hard knotting of her belly evoked their laughter as they lay side by side watching the small gyrations going on beneath the small, creamy, protective mound, which once upon a time had been flat stomach, and then feeling beneath their hands the wonder of their baby moving. Colton didn’t seem to mind at all that she had lost her winsome shape; indeed, he gave every indication that he was now just as eager to view her naked as he had been before. Ofttimes, he’d take the rose-scented oils and lotions she was wont to rub over her body and perform the task for her. Yet he seemed far more methodical about it, obviously enjoying the intimacy marriage and expectant fatherhood afforded him. Never once had she dreamt that he’d be such a wonderfully attentive, tender, and adoring husband, or that her love for him, which before their marriage had seemed far beyond the measure of reasonable logic, could deepen with each passing day.

  Although the weather was fairly warm, Adriana laid a lace shawl about her shoulders to hide to some degree her rounded shape. As she did, she realized how anxious she had become in the last few moments. In spite of her assurance that Colton loved her, the thought of facing another woman from his past unsettled her as nothing had done in some months.

  The visitor, upon hearing the lighter, feminine footfalls progressing rapidly across the marble floor of the central hall, turned from the mullioned windows of the drawing room with a brow raised in curious wonder, fully expecting to see the marquess’s mother. She was somewhat taken aback by the appearance of a younger woman and was immediately put to confusion. Her gaze swept the beauty full length, from sedately coiffed dark hair to the slender leather slippers barely visible beneath the hem of her gown, but it was the roundness beneath the intricately woven shawl that made her eyes harden.

  The stranger’s chin raised loftily. “I came here to see Colton, no other.”

  “I’m Lord Randwulf’s wife,” Adriana replied, rather piqued at the liberty th
e other took using her husband’s name. She concluded her own inspection of the caller in much the same manner as she had been perused and had to agree with Harrison. Although quite beautiful, their guest did indeed lack the elegance and refinement of a lady well tutored in social graces. Applications of rouge had been made to the woman’s cheeks, dark kohl lined her eyelids, and her softly curving mouth was vividly painted. Her garments also conveyed a boldness in both color and design that led one to mentally question her profession. Wrapped about her head was a paisley turban, from which a tightly curling mass of dark hair streamed over her shoulders and down her back. Large, gold filigree earrings dangled from pierced earlobes. A necklace of brightly minted gold coinage of questionable value, along with various other chains, hung about her neck. In height, the stranger was shorter than she, Adriana determined, but overtly rounder in places most men would have appreciated. Such attributes were deliberately flaunted. In spite of the hip-length, loosely flowing magenta robe she wore, her bosom seriously tested the shallow bodice of her empire gown, which readily revealed the deep valley between her breasts. If she wore any undergarments at all, then that possibility remained questionable, for the silken cloth clung to her suggestively.

  In a guise of serenity, Adriana offered their guest a smile. “Since you’re now acquainted with who I am, may I be allowed the pleasure of knowing the name of the one to whom I am speaking?”

  The red lips angled upward patronizingly. “Well, I guess you may address me as Lady Randwulf . . . or Wyndham, if you’d prefer.”

  Adriana frowned, thoroughly confused. “I assume, then, that you’re not related to my husband since he’s the last of his family to carry on the Wyndham name.”

  “Colton Wyndham is my husband,” the visitor announced with a challenging brow raised, “which, of course, makes you no wife at all.”

  Had she been struck a debilitating blow, Adriana would have reacted no differently. Staggering on trembling limbs to a nearby chair, she eased herself carefully within its confines. As if sensing her distress, the baby moved suddenly within her womb, causing her to gasp in sharp surprise and clasp a hand to her tensed belly.

  “Now don’t lose the little bastard,” her guest cautioned with a smirk. “Of course, the way things stand now, ‘twould probably go better for you if you did. The slander will be bad enough without people cruelly ostracizing your chit for the sins of his parents.”

  “Who are you?” Adriana cried in anguish. “Did you come here for the sole purpose of tormenting me? Or do you have some ambiguous motive in mind?”

  “I don’t know what you mean.” The visitor had definitely never heard the word ambiguous before. “I simply came here to stake my claim upon my husband, and I find you living here under his roof. As for my name, I am Pandora Wyndham, and if I’m not mistaken, my daughter is living here with my husband.”

  Adriana now understood only too well. “Obviously you’re not quite as dead as my husband was led to believe. Yet I cannot help but wonder where you’ve been for the last five or six months. Had you sent some missive informing him of your good health soon after you and he were married, the two of us would never have wed.” Considering the length of time it had taken the woman finally to come forward and make them aware of her existence, Adriana couldn’t resist a bit of sarcasm. “Was that a minor detail you failed to consider months ago, or merely a lack of etiquette? Whatever the case, you’re a bit late informing us that you’re not dead.”

  “I did die, at least for a moment or two, as the good rector will attest, but I revived. Yet I was so weakened by the birth of my daughter that friends immediately whisked me off to warmer climes in hopes of bringing about a full recovery. As you can see, their nurturing attention rejuvenated me, and I have returned to England to claim my husband and my child.”

  A sharp whistle in the main hall alerted Pandora to the approach of the one she had come to see. Colton’s voice verified that fact as he instructed, “Go find Adriana.”

  The joyful barking of the wolfhounds changed forthwith into a vicious growling that evoked a frightened screech from Pandora as the two animals came bounding into the room, sending her stumbling hurriedly back in rising panic. She halted only when the back of her head hit the mantel, where she was forced to a terrified halt. Hysterically, she tried to shoo the hounds away, flicking her hands outward cautiously, as if afraid one of them would snap off her fingers or take a large chunk out of her arm.

  “Get away! Get! Get!” she shrilled. “Get away, you beasts!”

  “Aris! Leo! Behave yourselves!” Colton commanded from the main hall.

  Obediently the pair sat down on their haunches in front of their captive and looked back over their shoulders as their master approached the room. The dogs’ proximity made Pandora wary of even moving, much less crossing the room to greet the marquess.

  “Adriana, who in the world was doing all that frantic screeching? Do we perchance have a visitor—?” Colton’s words halted abruptly as he entered the drawing room and finally saw the woman the dogs had cornered. “Pandora!”

  “Get these animals away from me!” she railed in outrage, indicating the pair with a wary flick of her hand. “You shouldn’t have beasts like that running loose in the house! They could kill somebody!”

  “Leo, Aris, come,” Adriana urged, snapping her fingers. Wagging their tails, the wolfhounds readily answered her summons and received from her several fond strokes along their backs before they plopped themselves down on the rug near her feet.

  Pandora glared at the brunette, realizing she could have called off the animals just as easily as the man. In nettling ire, she lifted her upper lip in a caustic jeer at that one, allowing her unspoken insult to convey her thought.

  In spite of the venom bestowed upon her by the actress, Adriana returned her gaze unwaveringly before lending her attention to her husband, whom she eyed quizzically. For one so mentally astute, it was taking him an unusually long time to recover his aplomb. Obviously, he was trying to understand all the whys and wherefores of how this situation had come about, much as she had been.

  Pandora sought to salvage as much of her pride as she could manage after the dogs had sent her fleeing like a squealing pig. Difficult as it was, she lifted her head in an elegant manner, as if posing for a stately portrait. “Well, Colton, aren’t you happy to see me?”

  “Not especially,” he retorted brusquely. “I thought you were dead.”

  “I was, at least for a moment or two, but I revived. And now I’m here to claim my rightful place as your wife.”

  “The devil you say!” he barked, his gray eyes flaring. “I have only one wife, and she is the one you have most recently met!”

  For a moment, Pandora’s jaw sagged in shock at his thunderous declaration as he swept a hand about to claim Adriana as his only true spouse, as if he’d fight heaven and hell before relenting to any other state of wedlock. The tenacity he displayed while making that statement left Pandora feeling as if he had just slapped her across the face. Making every attempt to keep her chin elevated in a guise of dignity, she insisted, “Legally, Colton, I am your wife. Nothing you can say or do can change that.”

  “Well, I intend to! Although I agreed to let Reverend Goodfellow speak the words over us, ‘twas done merely to give Genevieve my name and protection.”

  “Genevieve?”

  “The child to whom you gave birth, but now I’m wondering if she really is mine. Perhaps you tricked me into marrying you . . . for what purpose I cannot as yet say exactly, although I have the distinct feeling that I’m about to learn what that is.” His lips turned sardonically. “Lucre, no doubt.”

  The woman blinked her eyes, a bit perplexed. “I’m not sure I understand the meaning of that word . . . lucre.”

  “Profit, money.” His wide shoulders lifted in a casual shrug. “It’s all the same.”

  “Oh, Colton, how could you even suggest that I’d stoop to such a despicable level? Genevieve is our daughter, and, a
s her mother, I only want to be with her . . . and you.”

  He seemed to grow increasingly museful as he lifted his head to the decorative molding edging the lofty ceiling. “How long has it been now since you supposedly passed on? Six months? Or has it been seven? At least long enough for my wife to be nearly six months along with child. Considering the length of time it has taken you to get around to telling me that you didn’t die as I was led to believe, I seriously doubt that you’ve had any desire to be with Genevieve. I’m sure whatever you were doing, you were enjoying yourself immensely. Otherwise, I would’ve heard from you sooner. What made you finally come? Did your funds run out? Or did your lover decide to toss you aside for some new diversion?” He caught the sudden flare in her eyes and decided the latter conjecture was closer to the truth, if not the very reason for her appearance. “Is that it? Were you rudely spurned by your rich admirer? I can more easily entertain that notion than I can believe you had any desire to see Genevieve.”

  “Of course, I’ve wanted to see her, Colton. She is my daughter, after all . . . as surely as she is yours.”

  “Is she really mine?” His tone suggested that he now had serious doubts about that possibility.

  “Of course she is. How could you have forgotten that she bears your family’s mark? Tell Alice to bring the girl down here, and I’ll have her refresh your memory. That mark is incontestable proof that she is your offspring.”

  Adriana opened her mouth to explain that Alice was no longer living under their roof, but Colton surreptitiously motioned to her behind his back, silently bidding her to remain silent. She readily complied, perceiving he had some viable motive in mind.

  Facing the actress, he inclined his head briefly. “I shall ask one of the servants to convey the news that the child is to be brought down.”