by Olivia Drake
Mama’s refuge was gone. Gone.
Someone touched her shoulder. “Answer me. Have you nothing to say?”
Drake Wilder loomed beside her. A moment ago, he’d stood halfway across the library, but she was too numb to feel startled. She glimpsed only his charcoal sleeve with its glinting silver buttons. She couldn’t wrench her gaze from the legal document. Quite possibly, her mother’s death warrant.
“You aren’t about to swoon, are you?”
“Swoon?”
“You’re deathly pale. Don’t you have any chairs in this godforsaken place?”
“Sold.” She didn’t bother to mention the few furnishings in the drawing room.
What would happen to Mama?
“You’ll sit on the damned stairs, then. Come.”
He caught her slender wrist, his long fingers entrapping her chilly flesh with a band of heated steel. He gave a tug and her legs moved obediently, her skirt whispering like the frantic pulse beat in her ears.
Somehow Drake Wilder had coerced her brother into signing over the house. Why hadn’t Gerald told her?
She couldn’t think why; she knew only that Drake Wilder had breached the last of her defenses, conquered the final outpost of her independence. They would be turned out into the street.
Unless she bound herself in marriage to this gambler.
Black dots swarmed before her eyes. In a stupor, she stumbled on the threshold of the doorway. The deed slipped from her fingers and fluttered to the checkered marble floor of the foyer. With a choked cry, she stooped down to retrieve it.
Wilder reacted more swiftly. He snatched up the document and handed it back to her. Their fingers brushed with a bolt of lightning.
Half crouched, Alicia stiffened. So did he. Their gazes locked. A frown quirked his black brows, and those uncommon blue eyes raked her features. If she didn’t know better, she might believe him concerned for her well-being.
But he cared nothing for her. If it suited his ruthless purpose—and she knew it did—Drake Wilder would toss her and her family into the gutter. Who was he to destroy their lives?
Unexpectedly, he cupped her cheek in his big, warm palm. “Your skin is like ice. I’ll help you up.”
His sham compassion shattered the glass wall around her emotions. A storm whipped to life inside her, washing hot color into her cheeks, filling her emptiness with blinding rage.
Springing up, she shoved him away. “Villain!”
He staggered backward and caught his balance with the flat of one palm on the floor. With quick canine grace, he vaulted to his feet. His eyes glittered in the sunlight from the long window. “Virago,” he said in a level tone. “Don’t think you can get the best of me.”
“And don’t you ever touch me again.” She crumpled the deed and hurled it at him.
He caught the wad of paper with an easy flick of his wrist. “A husband has the right to touch his wife.”
“You aren’t my husband.”
“But I will be. As soon as arrangements can be made.”
Goaded by his confidence, she yanked the tatters of composure around her. He would not cause her to lose control again. He would not. She lifted her chin. “We still have the entailed estate. You can never take it from us.”
“That house lies in ruins. It’s uninhabitable.”
His knowledge rattled her. Two years earlier, a fire had destroyed their manor house in Northumberland. They could never survive the icy moorland winter by camping in the burned-out shell. “I’ll find another man to wed, then. A gentleman.”
“With madness in your family? I think not.” A strange watchfulness on his flinty features, he smoothed out the deed and tucked it into an inner pocket of his coat. “The nobility place great value on pure bloodlines. Not even the Marquess of Hailstock can tolerate such a taint.”
His perception struck Alicia like a blow. How did Wilder know so much? How did he guess that Richard had refused to marry her unless she committed Mama to that hideous asylum?
Then Alicia understood the ugly answer. “You’ve been spying on me.”
“It pays to know one’s opponent.”
Outrage soured her tongue. Defeat tasted even more bitter. Wilder had maneuvered her into a corner, stolen her home, outflanked her at every step. “Why me?” she asked. “There are plenty of impoverished noblewomen who would marry you for your money. Ladies from families more accepted in society than mine.”
He shrugged. “Perhaps so. However, it seems that fate, in the form of your brother, has intervened. You will do well enough for my purposes.”
His purposes. If she must give in to him, at least she could make some demands of her own. “I’ll consider your proposal, then,” she said frigidly, “on two conditions. First, you shall sign a legal document granting me sole guardianship of my mother. Wherever I live, so will she. I’ll never let you lock her away in a rathole where she would suffer abuse.”
A muscle jerked in his jaw. “I’ve already told you, I bear no ill will toward Lady Brockway.”
“And why should I believe the brute who would coerce a woman into marriage?” A knot aching in her breast, Alicia shook her head. “You’ll sign the agreement, else I’ll never stand with you before a clergyman.”
He gave a terse nod. “As you wish. And your second stipulation?”
“That we will have a chaste marriage.”
His guffaw echoed through the foyer. “Don’t be ridiculous. Yesterday, you were eager to be my mistress.”
She battled an angry blush. “The game has changed now. The stakes have been raised.”
“My prim little virgin,” he said, shaking his head, his expression one of droll charm. “You can’t imagine what you’d be denying yourself.”
His cocky grin only fueled her fury. Lest she fly at him again like a fishwife, Alicia held herself rigid. “I assure you, Mr. Wilder, I have never been more serious. I will not allow you in my chambers. Not ever.”
“People often regret vows made in anger.”
“Then you know only riffraff who lack moral fiber.”
“I know that moral fiber is a cold bedfellow.”
Alicia compressed her lips, then said calmly, “We will make a fair exchange. I require cancellation of my brother’s debts. And you require an introduction to society. I owe you nothing else.”
He regarded her with a faintly calculating stare. Sunlight limned his powerful form; he had the brawny physique of a street fighter garbed in the trappings of a gentleman. A gentleman’s thoughts she could read, but not this man’s. Drake Wilder had risen from the criminal underworld where honor was a weakness to exploit.
“I’ll accept both of your conditions with a provision of my own,” he said. “You will permit me the right to coax you into my bed.”
Into her mind flashed the image of herself, stark naked, sprawled wantonly astride him. She staved off a shudder as a shameful warmth slithered past her defenses and curled low in her belly like a snake. “No. I can’t trust you not to force yourself on me.”
Those impenetrable eyes watched her with shrewd amusement. “Quite the contrary. You can’t trust yourself to resist me.”
“Don’t flatter yourself. I’d sooner kiss a hedgehog.”
His smile broadened with a flash of white teeth. “You could use a few lessons in kissing.”
“You could use a few lessons in manners.”
“I propose we educate each other, then.”
He strolled toward her, and Alicia refused to give ground, though a brittle panic enveloped her. Would he kiss her now? Would he show her how a scoundrel seduced a woman? If he dared to ridicule her again …
But he didn’t touch her. He slid back his coat and planted his hands on his hips in a gesture of masterful male assurance. “So, Lady Alicia. Give me your answer before you take me on a tour of my new town house.”
It rankled her, to obey this arrogant upstart. “Planning to move in?” she said icily.
“As a matter of fact, w
e’ll live at my house near the club.”
“Not without Mama. And you’ll allow Gerald to stay here without charge.”
“Agreed.” He looked more amused than angered by her demands. “And now I will have your promise to be my wife.”
His superior height required her to tilt up her chin to hold his gaze. With studied poise, she clasped her tense fingers together. “Only if you promise to cease your attentions when I tell you so.”
That sly grin came again. “If you tell me so.” His heavy-lidded gaze caressed her, roving up and down, lingering at her breasts and hips until her skin prickled. “Beneath all that refinement, my lady, you’re flesh and blood. And before the Season is out, you’ll come begging to share my bed.”
* * *
Gloom shrouded the sparse furnishings in the bedchamber. Standing by the night table, Alicia measured several drops of laudanum into a cup of weak tea. She added a crumbling of coarse brown sugar, stirred the liquid until the lumps dissolved, and then turned to the woman in the four-poster. “Your posset is ready.”
Sitting against a bank of goose-feather pillows, Lady Eleanor looked lost in the huge bed with its swags of aging rose velvet. A white lace nightcap perched on her silvering fair hair. She kept her tattered moleskin cape tucked close like a young child might hold a beloved blanket. The sputtering tallow candle added luminescence to her blue eyes.
“Ah, ye’re a dear,” she said, accepting the chipped china with the reverence worthy of a communion cup. “Bless ye for takin’ me in. ’Tis ever so cold and lonely to sleep in the alleys.”
Alicia concealed a grimace at the irony of her mother’s current delusion. The Countess of Brockway had never spent a single night out on the streets, and never would if Alicia had her way. They shared this bedchamber, partly because it was cheaper to heat one room than two, and partly so that Alicia could keep a close watch on her mother. Before the doctor had prescribed the laudanum, she’d had a habit of wandering around the house during the night, sometimes venturing up to the darkened attic to search through the trunks of antique clothing left from decades of Pemberton ancestors. Alicia feared Mama might knock over a candle and set the house afire, not to mention cast herself into danger in other ways.
Once, after garbing herself in heavy brocaded robes as the Queen of Sheba, Mama had taken a nasty tumble down the steep wooden stairs. A sprained ankle had incapacitated her for a fortnight. Another time, fancying herself to be Joan of Arc, she had found a battered breastplate and an old dueling sword, and Alicia had caught her in the foyer, ready to charge out the front door and into the night.
Heaven knew, she needed a guardian angel. Not a devil of a son-in-law who would dislodge her from these familiar surroundings.
Torn between anger and affection, Alicia reached down and smoothed a stray curl from her mother’s brow. “Drink now,” she murmured. “Every last drop.”
Obediently, the countess drained the cup and handed it back. Then she patted her lips with a lace handkerchief, which she tucked into her voluminous sleeve. Like a child, she snuggled down and let Alicia settle her beneath the embroidered coverlet.
A contented sigh eddied from Lady Eleanor. “I been thinkin’, dearie. There’s somethin’ so familiar about ’im.”
“About who?”
“That polite young man of yers. I wonder if ’e’s bought posies from me before.”
Alicia stiffened, though she was careful not to show her rancor. “I’m sure you’re confusing him with someone else.”
“One don’t forget such a ’andsome gent. He was smitten with ye, buyin’ every last flower. Ah, ’twas so romantic.”
Alicia avoided looking at the vase of bedraggled blooms, which she’d placed on the mantelpiece for her mother’s sake. She resented the oily charm he’d used to win over a vulnerable woman. But like it or not, she would have to endure his presence in her life. She knew her duty. She had taken him on the requested tour of the house—his house now. He had behaved with perfect courtesy, though she trusted him about as far as she could throw the contents of a chamber pot.
“His name is Drake Wilder.” She bit her lower lip and tasted the metallic zest of blood. Earlier, she had forced herself to pen a note to Lord Hailstock, informing him of the news. Now she must tell her mother. “You’ll be seeing more of Mr. Wilder from now on. Today … we became betrothed.”
Those papery eyelids blinked. Like clouds parting to blue sky, Lady Eleanor’s drowsy eyes grew slowly lucid, focusing on her daughter. “Alicia?” she said wonderingly. “Did I hear you right? You are to be wed?”
The elegant, aristocratic voice startled Alicia. Overjoyed by the transformation, she sank to her knees beside the bed. “Yes,” she whispered. “Oh, Mama. Mama.”
Her eyes brimming, she smiled at her mother. She never knew when to expect these rare episodes of sanity; they might last mere moments or long, treasured hours. But why now? Why when she didn’t dare pour out her fears and uncertainties?
The countess groped for Alicia’s hand. “My darling girl, that is wonderful news. Who is this Mr. Wilder? Why haven’t I made his acquaintance?”
“It all happened rather quickly,” Alicia said evasively. “I suppose you could say we had a whirlwind courtship.”
Her mother’s brow pleated. Horror flirted with her fragile features, and she raised herself on one elbow. “Oh, dear. I’ve been drifting again, haven’t I?”
“You’ve been … ill. But I’m sure you’ll feel better now.”
“What day is it? What month?”
“April the eleventh.”
“Dear heaven. Last I recall, ’twas Candlemas Day and Gerald brought me the most beautiful bouquet of snowdrops.…” Sinking back onto the pillow, the countess shook her head in despair. “God have mercy. Whatever is happening to me?”
Willing her hand not to tremble, Alicia stroked her mother’s slender forearm. “You’ll be fine,” she soothed. “You’re weary, that’s all, and it’s difficult to focus your mind. Close your eyes now and rest. I’ll answer all your questions later.”
The countess’s eyelids drooped. “Such a sweet daughter you’ve always been. I don’t mean to be a burden.”
“You’re not! You’re my pride and joy,” Alicia said fiercely, leaning down to kiss her mother’s pale cheek. The faint comforting fragrance of lily of the valley clung to her skin. “How ridiculous to think otherwise.”
“I am silly, aren’t I? Your papa always teased me about my fancies.” A dreamy smile smoothed the lines of tension from Lady Eleanor’s face. She shifted onto her side and rested her cheek on her folded hands. “In the morning, we must plan your nuptials. And you must promise to invite your betrothed here to meet me. If you love him, then so shall I.”
“Of course,” Alicia said woodenly.
“It shall be the event of the Season. Gerald will escort you down the aisle at St. George’s. You’ll carry lilies trimmed with white satin ribbons…” Her voice drifted off, and her breathing became quiet and regular with slumber.
A familiar twist of melancholy encircled Alicia’s heart. She couldn’t be certain her mother would even remember the news come morning. The countess’s recollection of the distant past could be sharp and clear, while present events often slipped through her muddled awareness like water through a sieve. Though perhaps in this case, her tendency to forget was a blessing. Heaven forbid Mama should learn the true circumstances behind the marriage. Or the brutal nature of the man Alicia intended to marry.
Before the Season is out, you’ll come begging to share my bed.
Too restless to sleep, she snatched up the candlestick and hastened to the door. The laudanum would ensure that her mother slept deeply for hours, and it was the only time Alicia felt safe leaving her alone. She would make her way down to the kitchen and brew a pot of tea. Then perhaps a tome from the library would provide sufficient distraction from her emotional turmoil. An hour or two of deciphering Latin never failed to exhaust her. Especially a difficult
work of essays like Plutarch’s Moralia.
Drake Wilder had traveled to Rome searching for that particular work. Was book collecting such a lucrative investment? Surely the hard-bitten owner of a gaming club could have no liking for intellectual pursuits. When would the ruffian find time to bilk his customers and seduce his whores?
When would he find time to prey upon mad widows and naive earls? To coerce a desperate woman?
In a fit of ire, Alicia surged out into the darkened corridor. And collided with a solid shape.
A yelp pierced the gloom.
Startled, she lifted the candle and saw her brother. Gerald hopped on one stockinged foot, a small box tucked beneath his arm. His hair was mussed and his cravat untied, baring his prominent Adam’s apple. “Ye-ouch! You trod on my toes.”
“Hush.” She quietly shut the bedroom door. “You’ll waken Mama. She’s just now taken her draught.”
“You almost burned me, too,” he grumbled. “You should watch where you’re going.”
“It’s time you came home. I’ve been wanting to speak to you.” Prodded by anger, Alicia grabbed her brother by the arm and marched him down the passageway and to the grand staircase. “Drake Wilder came here today. On a small matter regarding ownership of this house.”
“Oh … that.” Clutching the box, her brother hunched his shoulders. “I meant to tell you, Ali, truly I did.”
“When? After he had served us an eviction notice?”
His green eyes rounded. “He swore he wouldn’t. By God, I’ll call him out for going back on his word.”
When Gerald would have leapt down the stairs, Alicia stepped in front of him. The candle flame wavered as she pressed her other hand to his scrawny chest. “Mr. Wilder has done no such thing. Instead, he has agreed to absolve the debt.” The disclosure nearly stuck in her throat. “You see, he and I … shall be married.”
“Married—?” Gerald’s jaw dropped. He stared at her as if she’d sprouted whiskers. “You’ll marry him?”
“Yes.”
“But … you’re not his sort. He likes wenches who—” Gerald cleared his throat, his cheeks turning ruddy. “That is, he likes common women.”
