His Unexpected Bride Read online

  “I will need directions to return to my own bedroom, for I fear I have no idea where it is in relationship to this room.”

  “Is that what happened? Did you get turned around in the corridors?”

  He started to shake his head, then flinched again. “The devil take this head!”

  “Please, my lord, watch your language.”

  Opening one eye, he looked up at her. “I can reassure you what I said was far less crude than what I was thinking.”

  “What you should be thinking of now is how you will get back to your rooms.”

  “And how I can find out what caused me to end up here last night.” Sagging into the pink cushions on the chaise longue, he said, “I recall nothing after I finished playing cards with your father and Eustace, just as some other chap came to call.”

  She sat on the stool facing the chaise longue. “What other man?”

  “A very thin man who was a full head taller than your father. What hair he had left was iron gray, and his clothes were simple and dark.” He pulled the cloth down over his eyes. “I do not recall anything much of his face.”

  “You are describing Dr. Tucker, who is the vicar at the church in the village.” She jumped to her feet, suddenly fearful. “Why did he call at such a late hour? Was something wrong?”

  Lord Hawksmoor grumbled, “I do not recall, and I do not, at the moment, care. Don’t we have enough wrong now to keep our anxiety focused on the problem at hand?”

  “A problem that will be solved if you would skulk out of here. The reason Dr. Tucker called …” She heard a distant clock chime the hour. Sweet heavens, it was already mid-morning. By this hour, Jenette should have come into the room to bring breakfast. If her abigail had entered and seen Lord Hawksmoor—no, it was too appalling even to consider, but every passing minute increased the chance of Jenette walking in here.

  Lord Hawksmoor must have taken note of the chiming as well. “It is time for me to try to be on my way.”

  “First, let me take that cloth.”

  He peeled it from his forehead and dropped it toward her hand. It missed and fell to the floor. With a grimace, she bent to retrieve it. She straightened, but faltered when she could not ignore his gaze sweeping along her with the unrestrained hunger that had been on his lips when he had pulled her into his arms.

  Going to the ewer, she hung the cloth beside it. She clutched onto the dressing table with both hands. No other man’s stare had ever unnerved her like this. When they had been introduced yesterday, she had not been so disconcerted, although she had noticed his good looks and charming smile. Had his kiss awakened something within her that she had not guessed existed?

  “Don’t be a widgeon,” she said.

  “I believe it is too late to tell me that now.”

  Tess did not want to own she had been talking to herself. If he took umbrage at her comments, so be it. Anything to get him out of her room … and out of her thoughts.

  “Can you walk to the door?” she asked.

  “I shall know once I have tried.” Lord Hawksmoor pushed himself to his feet. Swaying, he held out his arms like a rope dancer performing beside a gypsy wagon at a market day. He took one careful step, then another. He smiled triumphantly. “It seems I am steadier than I—”

  She caught him as his knees folded. The legs of the chaise longue thumped against the floor as she collapsed beneath him, unable to keep him on his feet. When she moaned with the last bit of breath she had, for most of it had been squeezed out of her when he fell atop her, he shifted so his weight was not over her.

  “Are you hurt, Miss Masterson?” Lord Hawksmoor asked.

  Opening her eyes, she realized he was lying beside her on the chaise longue. Not just beside her, one arm was beneath her with his hand cupping her shoulder, while his other hand was pressed to the cushions on the opposite side of her. She raised her eyes to meet his right above hers. She started to edge away, then realized his leg was across hers, pinning her to the cushions.

  “I did not mean to do you any injury,” he continued when she did not reply, for she was too shocked to utter any of the thoughts racing through her head. “Tell me you are all right.”

  A satisfied laugh from the other side of the room swept away any words she might have spoken. She heard Lord Hawksmoor curse, but she could only stare at her father who stood in the doorway. Tearing her eyes from his smile, she looked up at Lord Hawksmoor again. A desperate push against his chest persuaded him to sit up, then rise unsteadily to his feet. She grasped the blanket, which had fallen to the floor. Throwing it over her shoulders again, she stood.

  “Papa,” she whispered, “please let me tell you what has happened. It is not as it seems.”

  She wondered if he had heard her when he walked past her and offered his hand to Lord Hawksmoor. The marquess stared at it in an amazement she understood far too well. Why was Papa smiling when he should be furious to find a man in her private rooms?

  “Welcome, Cameron, my boy,” Papa said. “Welcome to the Masterson family.”

  “What?” gasped Tess at the same time as Lord Hawksmoor.

  “I know the welcome is a bit late.” Papa laughed loudly. “’Twas something I forgot to say last night when you married my daughter.”

  Two

  Tess stared at her father, then dragged her eyes toward Lord Hawksmoor, who was doing the same, his mouth agape before he closed it in a scowl. Married? Married to this marquess she had met only yesterday? What flummery was this?

  Papa came to where she was sitting. There was a lilt in his step she had not seen in several months. That devil-may-care saunter had drawn the eyes of many women, even when Tess was old enough to notice. His sandy hair, still full, matched a neatly trimmed mustache. Although he wore the wrinkles of time on his face, they seemed to vanish when he smiled.

  He kissed her cheek. “Many congratulations, my dear. This marriage is everything I would have wished for you.”

  “Marriage?” She wanted to accuse Papa of being as muzzed as Lord Hawksmoor, but no odor of brandy billowed from him. “How can I be married to Lord Hawksmoor?”

  “I understand your confusion, Tess.” He patted her cheek as he had when she was a child and had pelted him with dozens of questions, one after the other. “When Dr. Tucker arrived so late last evening to preside at the ceremony, we did not wish to wake you.”

  “You did not wish to wake me last night for my own wedding?” Her voice had a hysterical tinge to it, but she could not help herself. “Papa, you are making no sense. What is going on?”

  “Yes, Masterson,” added Lord Hawksmoor, coming around the chaise longue to where they stood. He kept one hand on the back of a chair by her bed, but his steps were steadier than they had been just moments ago. “Do tell us what is going on. This jest is not amusing, neither for me nor your daughter, who has the most to lose from your hoax.”

  “’Tis no hoax.” Papa’s smile did not waver as he faced Lord Hawksmoor, whose face was now blank of any emotion. “You should know that, Hawksmoor, because you were present during the wedding.”

  “I recall nothing about a wedding ceremony. There was conversation among us as I recall—quite convivial conversation, but a wedding ceremony? You are mistaken, Masterson.”

  “I feared you might be questioning what had happened when I realized this morning how many times you had refilled your glass with my best brandy. That is why I have intruded upon your honeymoon even before the start of the wedding breakfast.” Papa withdrew a sheaf of papers from beneath his coat. “I thought you might want to see these to help you remember. You signed these in front of me, the vicar, and Knox.” He held up two fingers. “Me and Knox. The required number of witnesses to make this wedding legal.”

  “Very conveniently,” Lord Hawksmoor said.

  “Yes.”

  “But no wedding is legal without a license.”

  “There was one. You will see a special license amid the papers.”

  When Papa added no
thing else, Tess wanted to reach out to grab the pages he held. What had Lord Hawksmoor signed in the presence of her father, Dr. Tucker, and the marquess’s traveling companion, Eustace Knox? The special license? But why would he come here with a marriage license when he had not known her before they were introduced last night? This was making less sense all the time.

  Lord Hawksmoor took the pages and scanned them. His fingers curling into a fist crushed the papers in his hand. He tossed them onto a table, every motion taut with anger. Still his face remained blank and his words calm. “This is madness, Masterson. I was completely foxed last night, if my aching head is any indication. If I was so foolish as to agree to a marriage to your daughter, it was because I had too much brandy.”

  “You insult my lovely daughter!”

  The marquess bowed his head toward Tess. “Belittling you in any way was not my intention, Miss Masterson, for I am indebted to you for your kindness with my pounding head this day.” Looking back at her father, he said with a hint of an emotion she had not heard before in his voice, “I do not comprehend why you believe I would be a willing party to any such match, Masterson. By the elevens, I never laid eyes upon your daughter before yesterday.”

  “But you have had the opportunity to see far more than her pretty face since then.” Papa’s smile began to fade.

  “Regardless of that, this marriage is in error. It is time to put an end to this conversation and this unwanted marriage.”

  “Are you saying you wish to annul whatever ceremony took place last night?” Tess asked, unable to keep hope from her question.

  Her father frowned, but the marquess smiled tightly at her as he replied, “It would seem, Masterson, your daughter wishes this marriage no more than I do. There is no time to delay. If we get a quiet annulment …”

  “No!” Papa’s voice was thunderous.

  Tess stared at her father in astonishment as Lord Hawksmoor cursed and winced with pain as he held his hand to his head. Papa often expressed himself with enthusiasm and candid fervor, but she had never heard him speak with such cold vehemence.

  “Papa—”

  “Stay out of this, Tess.”

  She opened her mouth to protest, but closed it. Getting into a brangle with her father would humiliate him in front of Lord Hawksmoor. She sat on the very end of the chaise longue as she watched the two men face each other. They reminded her of two dogs sizing up each other as they met for the first time.

  But that made no sense. Papa had known Lord Hawksmoor’s father for years, for they once had belonged to the same club in London. Papa no longer belonged to that club, because, she guessed, the money was not available for the dues. He had traveled often to London in recent months, but she had not heard him speak of the club again.

  When the duke had died last year, Papa had delivered his condolences to the duchess in person. He had been at the family’s estate of Peregrine Hall for nearly a week for the funeral. Surely Papa must have spoken with Lord Hawksmoor, the duke’s younger son, while there.

  So why were they acting as if they were strangers? It was all too puzzling.

  Lord Hawksmoor’s eyes narrowed, but no other expression eased his taut face as he took another wobbly step toward her father. “Masterson, why do you wish to bring your daughter unhappiness in being wed to a man she barely knows?”

  “Because if you annul this marriage, she will never find another man willing to marry her.” Papa flung out his hands, his voice still booming so loudly Tess suspected it would reach the kitchen. She wanted to urge him to lower it, especially when he added, “You spent the night with Tess, Hawksmoor. Who would have her now?”

  “She is untouched.”

  “So you say.”

  “And so she says.” Lord Hawksmoor put his hand on the blanket over her shoulders. Was his motion meant to comfort her? It did not, for his chaste caress brought to mind how his arms had enveloped her and held her to his firm body. “Speak the truth to your father, Miss Masterson.”

  “Nothing untoward happened, Papa,” she hastened to say. “Lord Hawksmoor is being honest about that.” She clenched her hands under the blanket as she gave her father a supplicating look. He must be able to find a way to put an end to this, and she longed to beg him to do so. Unable to speak the truth—that this man frightened her—for she did not want to heap insult on Lord Hawksmoor, she shivered. ’Twas not Lord Hawksmoor who scared her, but the power his kisses had had over her, stealing her good sense and teasing her to find a way to sample another one.

  She could not keep her gaze from him. His wrinkled shirt clung close to his muscular chest, and its full sleeves could not hide his brawny arms. With his hair tousled and his eyes still heavy with sleep, he had a charm that teased her to trust him.

  Was she as mad as she had accused him of being? This man had spent last night drinking so much that he had agreed to marry her.

  Agreed? Why had Papa even allowed Dr. Tucker to begin the marriage ceremony? Had Papa and the vicar been so intoxicated as well? She wanted to ask her father that question, but did not have a chance.

  “He is being honest that he did not touch you?” her father asked, now scowling. “Is that so?”

  “Yes, I did not know he was here in my room until he woke me.”

  “Woke you?” Papa demanded. “How?”

  Tess was sure her cheeks were aflame, because a potent heat surrounded her. In the glass in the hallway, she could see servants clustering near the door, eager to eavesdrop on what was happening within her rooms. The door beyond the bed was ajar, held open by a single finger, so Jenette must be listening there as well. Alone? There might be others with her abigail, each one agog with what was taking place. Even if Papa ordered the servants not to gossip, she knew at least one of them would be unable to keep this tale untold. Before day’s end, everyone in the parish would know of how Miss Masterson had found herself surprisingly married to a marquess.

  “Tess,” Papa said sternly, “you may now be a marquess’s wife, but you remain my daughter, and you will give me the courtesy of an answer to my question.”

  She raised her head and met her father’s eyes evenly. Yet, in spite of herself, her gaze shifted … to Lord Hawksmoor’s. Why was he not revealing any hint of what he was thinking? He should be furious, stamping about the room with a curse that would burn her ears.

  Lord Hawksmoor might be stolid, but Papa was not, for his impatience heightened his voice. “Tess? How did this man wake you?”

  “He woke me with a kiss,” she answered, knowing that lying now would only worsen the situation.

  Lord Hawksmoor’s fingers bit into her shoulder before he snatched them away. “This whole discussion is ludicrous, Masterson. I was drunk last night. Your daughter was horrified to find me in her bed this morning.”

  “Her bed?” Papa’s mouth twitched, and something sparked in his eyes. She had an odd sensation that this was what Papa had waited to have said.

  “Where we slept as innocently as two pups.”

  “Without a watch-dog, however.”

  “True,” Lord Hawksmoor said. He reached for his coat, which had been tossed, she noticed, on the foot of her bed. Seeing it there suggested a familiarity that did not exist. “And it is just as true your daughter remains a maiden—if she was one before last night.”

  Tess leaped to her feet and closed the door to the hallway. She heard the door to her dressing room click shut, and she guessed Jenette did not want to be caught eavesdropping. Picking up her dark blue wrapper, she pulled it on and buttoned it from her waist to her chin. Only then did she face her father and the marquess.

  “I trust, my lord,” she said coldly, “you can continue this conversation without resorting to demure hits. I have made every effort not to point a finger of blame at others involved in this bumble-bath. If you will recall, I am an innocent victim of this contretemps.”

  “Innocent being the critical consideration, I collect.” Lord Hawksmoor shrugged on his coat.

&nbs
p; “Yes.” She would not be intimidated by his unrelenting calm. If he thought to betwattle her and her father with it, he was wasting his time … and theirs. She had seen the passion in his eyes when he stood by her bed and drew her into his arms.

  Something flickered through his eyes now before he looked once more at her father. Was Lord Hawksmoor astonished she would not cower before his frigid serenity?

  Smoothing wrinkles from his coat, the marquess said, “You have heard your daughter’s comments, Masterson. Neither she nor I wish to be married to each other. If we handle this quietly, we all can return to our lives as they should be.”

  “You know that is impossible.”

  “I know there are ways of resolving any problem.”

  “Mayhap you do, but I believe there is nothing else to be said.” Papa patted the front of his coat. “I have Tess’s copies of your marriage agreement here, and I will repeat what I told you when I entered the room. Welcome to the family, Hawksmoor.” He glanced at Tess, then walked out of the room, closing the door behind him.

  Tess was tempted to run after him and throw the door aside and shout that she would not be forced into this marriage with a man who did not want to be her husband. She did not move as she continued to stare at the flowery design on the rug.

  “Weeping will gain you little favor in my mind,” the marquess said.

  “Weeping?” She raised her head and scowled at him. “I am giving in to neither tears nor vapors, my lord. I fear I am too enraged for either.”

  “I have no interest in your scolds.”

  “I have already seen what you have interest in.” She crossed her arms in front of her. “First finding the bottom of a bottle of brandy and then seducing me when you believed I wished to welcome you into my bed as my husband.”

  He lowered himself carefully to the bed, and she flinched. She did not want him making himself so comfortable in her private chambers.

  “You are my wife,” Lord Hawksmoor said.

  “You did not remember that when you tried to persuade me to surrender to you. You did not know then I had been buckled to you by proxy.” She arched a brow. “I understand it is the way of a fine lord to have his wife and his mistresses, but—”