скачать книгу бесплатно
Lucy glanced up from her book. “Troubling me? No…I mean, nothing. Nothing is troubling me. I am quite well. Whatever makes you think that?” Fortunately, Mrs. Sowerby’s cataracts prevented her from noticing the blush that smarted in Lucy’s cheeks.
The old woman chuckled. “Just because my eyes don’t work no more, doesn’t mean I can’t see what’s plain. I’ve counted seven times you’ve sighed since you last turned the page, and four times you’ve lost your place. Don’t try to fool Old Fanny that you haven’t got some’ut weighing on your mind.”
Lucy sighed for the eighth time. “I might as well tell you, Mrs. Sowerby. Everyone in Nicholthwait will know by tomorrow night. I’m getting married.”
“Is that so?” Mrs. Sowerby nodded over this information, and perhaps the marked lack of enthusiasm in Lucy’s announcement. “Anyone I know?”
Lucy nodded, then remembered her friend couldn’t see her. “Everyone knows him. I am to marry Viscount Silverthorne.”
Mrs. Sowerby’s knitting needles froze in midstitch. “His lordship? This is unexpected news. Most lasses would be singing it to the rooftops—a match like that.”
“It is a great honor.” Not to mention a great burden, sharing her life with the man she held responsible for Jeremy’s death. If she could have seen any other way to provide decently for her child, she would have taken pleasure in refusing Lord Silverthorne’s proposal.
“Oh, aye. A big estate. A title. A large fortune. Most lasses could ask naught more from a marriage.” The two women, sat silent for a moment. “Then again, you aren’t most lasses, Miss Lucy. I think you want more from a husband than his brass or his family name. You’d fancy a man with a ready smile and a way of saying your name that makes your heart beat faster.”
Lucy thought of Jeremy Strickland, his eyes as blue as the summer sky reflected in the glassy surface of Mayeswater, his golden hair ruffled by the upland wind. As her eyes began to water, she felt a pang of exasperation. She had always been of a sunny, optimistic nature. A sensible person, as the viscount so plainly put it. Lately it took nothing to make her weep. She hated having her emotions so out of control.
“Your description does not sound very much like Viscount Silverthorne, does it?” Lucy hoped Mrs. Sowerby would mistake the break in her voice for a chuckle.
“I suppose not. Nothing glib about his lordship, poor lad.”
“Nothing poor about his lordship either,” Lucy reminded her friend tartly. “They say he has the Midas touch.”
Mrs. Sowerby felt at her knitting to find where she’d left off. “As I recall, the golden touch didn’t make that Midas fellow any too happy.”
“You’re hinting at something, so you might as well tell me plainly. Why do you call Lord Silverthorne a ‘poor lad’?”
Now it was Fanny Sowerby’s turn to sigh. “Perhaps you should ask him, my dear. Let’s just say he had a childhood I’d not envy any lad.”
Something in Mrs. Sowerby’s tone gave Lucy a pang as she thought of her own idyllic girlhood, full of books and dreams and the small beauties of nature. The only passing shadows on those years had been the deaths of an infant brother and sister. Deprived of other children, her parents had lavished all their love on her.
Just then, Lucy noticed the long shadow cast by Mrs. Sowerby’s crab apple tree. Though she was curious to hear more about Lord Silverthorne’s unenviable childhood, she’d promised to meet him at the vicarage within the hour.
“I’m afraid I must be getting back home, Mrs. Sowerby. I’m sorry I was so distracted, and spoiled the reading for you.”
“Never you mind about that. I’m grateful for the company. Not many lasses would bother with a blind old woman.”
“That would be their loss.” Lucy stooped to bestow a gentle kiss on the woman’s weathered cheek.
Mrs. Sowerby dropped her knitting and caught Lucy’s hand. “I wish you and his lordship every happiness. He’s a fine man, for all he don’t say much. Once a month, like clockwork, I’ll hear him ride up to my gate. Never says a word, just checks to see how I’m getting on. Once he came by when it was raining, and my roof was leaking like a sieve. The next day a crew shows up from the big house with orders to rethatch it.”
Lucy could not think what to reply. Mrs. Sowerby’s story contradicted her lifelong perception of the stern autocrat.
“He needs a bit of happiness in his life,” Mrs Sowerby added. “Deserves it, too, with all he’s done for folks round here. If there’s a woman can make him happy, I fancy it’s you.”
“I’ll try, Mrs. Sowerby.”
The old woman waved Lucy on her way. Then, perhaps thinking her out of earshot, Mrs. Sowerby mused aloud, “And you might just be surprised at how happy he can make you, my dear.”
Lucy turned away, sighing for the ninth time that afternoon. She doubted it was in the power of any woman to make his lordship happy. And she was certain any chance of her own happiness had died on a Spanish battlefield with Jeremy Strickland.
At a wary distance from the vicarage, Drake sat on his horse trying to screw up his nerve for an interview with Vicar Rushton. He had made his initial marriage offer to Lucy in a momentary surge of moral obligation. Jeremy had used her abominably, and Drake felt it his duty to rectify the situation. He relished breaking the news to his family. Their opposition had only strengthened his resolve. During his ride to the vicarage, a host of doubts had risen to assail him.
Could he manage to put up with a wife underfoot all the time? He’d lived a solitary existence, apart from his years in school—years he’d hated. Ragged and bullied by highborn louts with no interests beyond their own pleasure, he’d fought hard for the simple right to be left alone. It went against his grain to surrender his hard-won privacy.
He wasn’t thinking only of himself, either. What kind of life would it be for Lucy and the child—mewed up at Silverthorne with a man temperamentally unsuited to marriage and fatherhood? Desperately as he wanted an heir to supplant Neville, he could not consign Jeremy’s son to a bleak, joyless childhood like he had suffered.
“It’s no good,” Drake muttered through clenched teeth.
“Do you not think so?” Lucy suddenly emerged from a wooded path nearby. “Most people would call this a fine day, after that dreadful storm. Or were you referring to the view?”
Drake looked down the lane to Saint Mawes vicarage, a cosy stone house, green with ivy and hemmed in by an inviting miscellany of trees and shrubs. Not merely a house, the vicarage looked like a home. The sight of it stirred a long-buried wistfulness in Drake Strickland’s practical, impervious heart.
“No, indeed.” He strove to sound impassive. “The view is very well.”
Planting herself squarely in front of his horse, Lucy looked up at him, a challenge glittering incongruously in the depths of her wide, soft eyes. “Then I must assume you are having second thoughts about marrying me?”
He fixed his gaze on a point just above the crest of her bonnet. “By no means, Miss Rushton.” Drake surprised himself with the ease by which he delivered this bold-faced lie. “I see clearly where my duty rests.” At least that part was true.
“How priggish you sound. As your wife, will I be subjected to daily sermons at the breakfast table?” Drake felt the sting of her rebuke. This was not the Lucy Rushton who had won his distant regard—the generous, unpretentious girl who read to Widow Sowerby and wandered the countryside with a book under her arm. That winter in Bath of which she boasted, had spoiled her completely. Turned her into one of those tart-tongued brittle creatures he despised.
“I can assure you, madam, I will subject you to as little of my objectionable discourse as appearances permit.”
“If that’s how you feel, perhaps we should call off this ridiculous charade.” With those bold words, her face went white and she swayed as though buffeted by a strong wind. Drake vaulted from his saddle, sending his startled horse skittering sideways. He caught Lucy just before she hit the ground.
It took a moment for her to recover, a moment during which Drake found himself torn by conflicting emotions. Part of him protested that it was most indecorous for the scion of Silverthorne to be kneeling in a country lane with a half-conscious woman in his arms. Even if she was his intended bride. Another part felt a passing qualm of guilt that he had subjected Lucy to an unpleasant exchange, in her delicate condition. An overwhelming sense of protectiveness conquered all other feelings.
So small and childlike in his arms, she needed him as much as any of his tenants or employees. But she was not a child—she was a woman. Through the light fabric of her dress, he could feel her delicious feminine curves. This whole arrangement would work better if he did not find her so dangerously attractive. All the same, Lucy and her baby were his responsibility. Though it might prove the most difficult undertaking of his life, he must do right by them.
“Where am I?” Her eyelids fluttered. “What happened?” She struggled to sit up.
“Easy now.” Drake gently restrained her. “Do let me know the next time you feel faint. You gave me quite a turn.”
She quit trying to get away from him, but her whole body stiffened, reluctant to yield. “I seem to make a habit of discommoding you, my lord. It’s a habit I am eager to break, I assure you.”
What a prickly temper! Drake frowned. Making any overture toward Lucy Rushton was like trying to engage a hedgehog. Were all expectant mothers like this? he wondered.
As he slackened his hold, Lucy pulled free of his arms. Jumping to her feet, she slapped the dust from her pale-blue dress. “Forget what I told you last night. I absolve you from any moral obligation to me.”
Drake unfolded his tall frame from the crouched posture in which he’d held Lucy. “That is the trouble with moral obligations—one can never quite absolve one’s self.” He tried to smile, to show he was partly in jest and hopefully to ease some of the tension between them. The muscles of his face didn’t seem to understand what he was asking of them. They could only manage a lopsided grimace.
“If you wish to reconsider your decision to marry me, that is your right. In fact, I urge you to weigh your options carefully before choosing the course that will best serve you.and your child,” he added almost under his breath, in case anyone should be within earshot of their conversation.
“Options?” She gave a bitter little laugh. “I have no options, Lord Silverthorne, as you are well aware.”
“Of course, you do. You must. If you choose not to marry me, I’ll still provide for you.both. I’ll give you money to go away until the child is born. If you choose not to keep him, I’ll secure him a good home.”
“That is very generous of you.”
“It is my duty.”
“Ah yes, that irksome word again.”
Drake was tempted to launch into a lecture on the importance of ideals like duty and honor, but he restrained himself. “Bear in mind, if you choose to go your own way, I will never be able to acknowledge Jeremy’s son as my heir.”
“I understand.”
“However, it would leave you free to forget the past and, one day, make a marriage more to your liking.”
“I will never forget Jeremy.” She declared it as a fundamental truth. “And I will never love any other man. It would be wrong of me to marry a man I could not love.”
“What if the man knew you could not love him?” Drake asked quietly. “What if he did not want your love?”
“I suppose…” Lucy looked over at the spire of Saint Mawes, rising from behind the vicarage. “Won’t it be a sin to speak marriage vows we have no intention of keeping?”
“I doubt we will be the first couple to do so.” Drake scuffed the grass with the toe of his Hessians. “Or the last.”
Lucy made no reply. Assuming she must be weighing her options, Drake held himself still and silent. He’d had his say, whether or not she’d listened to him. In the end it all came down to her life and her child’s. She must be free to choose, without pressure from him. Yet, as the minutes passed with no sound but the occasional swish of the horse’s tail, Drake found himself earnestly hoping Lucy would not change her mind. Perhaps her doubts had tempered his resolve. Or perhaps he wanted a son of Jeremy’s to call his own.
Finally she spoke. “Very well, sir. I will marry you.”
Drake suddenly realized he had been holding his breath. “I must speak to your father.” He gasped out the words. “Then I must hunt up Squire Lewes and have him issue us a special license. Is tomorrow too soon?”
“For the wedding?” A faint blush mantled Lucy’s cheeks. “Considering our reason for marrying—the sooner, the better. First.” She laid a hand on his coat sleeve. “Can we make a private vow, truthfully, with only God as our witness?”
“What a clever idea.” Drake found himself smiling. “Like in business—a prior contract. What did you have in mind?”
Her hand slid slowly down his sleeve, and after a moment’s hesitation, clasped his hand. “I, Lucy Rushton, promise to raise my child, with you as his father. I vow to treat you with the respect due to a husband. I will never burden you with unwanted affection or be jealous of your interest in other women.”
That summed up the whole situation quite well. Drake cleared his throat. He liked the feel of her hand in his-too much so, perhaps. “I, Drake Strickland, promise to raise your child as my own and treat you with the respect due to a wife. I’ll never…”
“Burden,” Lucy prompted him.
“Oh, yes. Never burden you with unwanted affection or be jealous of your interest in other men.” For some reason, he had trouble saying that last sentence with conviction.
Lucy let go of his hand. “You needn’t have added that last part. I told you, I will never care for any man but Jeremy.”
“And I have no interest in any woman.” Though he stressed the words most emphatically, Drake could not forget the way she’d felt in his arms. “I believe that sets us even. Now, shall we go break the news to your father?”
Chapter Three (#ulink_2fec7041-a549-5453-bb15-638a8a78bfb2)
All things considered, her father had taken the news quite well, Lucy reflected as she sat before her dressing table preparing for bed the following night. Though the best of men and the kindest of fathers, Vicar Rushton had a vague, preoccupied air, that had deepened over the years since the death of his cheerful, practical wife. Lucy often had the feeling he was only half listening when she spoke to him.
When Lord Silverthorne…Drake, had formally asked for her hand, her father only shook his head and chuckled, “Well, well, well. Bless my soul!” Perhaps he thought they’d been courting for ages under his nose, but couldn’t bring himself to admit he hadn’t noticed. He raised no objection when Drake requested a hasty wedding, without benefit of banns, blithely agreeing to conduct the ceremony himself.
The ceremony. If their union lasted fifty years, Lucy knew she would always cringe at the thought of her wedding—brief, awkward and decidedly unfestive. As she spoke her vows to love and honor her husband, forsaking all others, her thoughts resonated with earlier promises to do nothing of the kind.
“Will you be needing anything else, your ladyship?” asked the serving girl who had just finished unpacking her trunk.
The silver hairbrush slipped from Lucy’s fingers, but made scarcely a sound as it landed on the thick pile of the carpet. Glancing around her bedchamber in alarm, she wondered if Lady Phyllipa had managed to enter without her noticing. Then she realized the girl was addressing her.
“Excuse me…Mary, is it? I’m afraid it will take me some time to become accustomed to my new title. As a matter of fact, plain ‘ma’am’ is good enough for everyday use.”
She retrieved her brush from the floor and checked it over for dents. Such luxuries would take some getting used to.
“Let’s see?” She surveyed the spacious, elegantly appointed room. The very style of it emphasized that she was far out of her social depth. “The fire’s been lit. You’ve turned down the bed and given it a pass with the warming pan. You’ve unpacked my clothes. I doubt I’ll require anything further tonight.” Back home at the vicarage, she’d have tended to those chores herself. Would she ever get used to ordering a houseful of servants?
The girl curtsied. “Very good ma’am. I hope you rest well your first night at Silverthorne.”
Feeling a blush begin to prickle in her cheeks, Lucy turned back to her dressing table. If young Mary was privy to the gossip buzzing around Nicholthwait about Lord Silverthorne’s hasty marriage, she probably doubted her mistress would get any sleep at all on her wedding night.
“Thank you. I’m sure I shall.” Lucy tried to sound more certain than she felt.
She heard the door of her bedchamber open, and Mary let out a squeal of surprise.
“Excuse me, your lordship,” the girl gasped. “I was just on my way out.”
Lucy jumped from the stool in front of her dressing table. Her hairbrush tumbled to the floor for the second time. She heard her bridegroom reply heartily, “How convenient, Mary. I was just on my way in. By the way, tell Talbot I said not to be stingy with the champagne below stairs tonight.”
Drake’s long lean frame filled the doorway as he stood there bidding Mary good-night. His dark hair clung to his head in damp curls, leading Lucy to guess he had bathed in the short interval since dinner. A pair of bare feet and firm bare calves showed below the hem of his lordship’s olive green dressing gown. Was he wearing anything beneath that dressing gown? Lucy wondered, her throat constricting.
They’d politely danced around the subject in their discussions, but she thought she’d made plain her reluctance to share his lordship’s bed. Unwanted affection, indeed. She had loved Jeremy in a way she could never love again. It would be like the worst kind of infidelity to give herself to another man with her beloved barely cold in his grave. But what if her new husband insisted? She hadn’t the strength to resist him physically. To call for help would mean the end of her marriage and the exposure of her secret.
In the few seconds it took for Lord Silverthorne to close the door behind him, Lucy’s pulse sped to double time. She took a step back. “Why are you here?”
He swept her a casual glance, a glint of amusement in his dark eyes. “Not to claim my marital rights, if that’s what you presume.” As though to prove his innocent intentions, he sauntered over to the velvet-upholstered chaise before the hearth. “I merely wish to convince our household that I am an attentive husband.” He lowered himself onto the chaise. “If our marriage is to serve its purpose, everyone must believe I sired your child. I took a rather circuitous route to get here. By my count, five of the servants saw me, as well as Lady Phyllipa—an unexpected bonus. With any luck, tales of my ardent regard for you will spread far and wide.”
“I see.” Lucy’s heartbeat slowed again. Something made her ask, “Was it necessary to arrive in quite this state of undress?”
She could see a wedge of his tanned chest, lightly matted with dark curly hair. How different Drake Strickland was from his brother. Jeremy had been of an elegant, compact build. With his fair complexion and blond hair, he’d made Lucy think of gold and ivory. Spare and rangy, with a fiercely masculine presence, Jeremy’s brother was a creature of bronze and sable.
Drake leaned back on the chaise with an air of polite indifference that enraged her. “Merely useful costuming in our charade of a marriage. I did not want anyone mistaking my intentions.” One dark brow cocked expressively. “Why all this virginal prudery, my dear? Surely it’s nothing you haven’t seen before.”
The cruelty of his words smote Lucy. Had Lord Silverthorne taken her to wive purely for the pleasure of humiliating her? A passionate rage overcame her. She fairly flew the distance between them, striking his cheek with her hand. “Never speak to me that way again, do you hear?”
She gasped with pain as Drake clutched her wrist. “Keep your voice down, woman, or the whole house will hear you. If you’re so afraid of seeing something improper, get into bed and draw the hangings.” None too gently, he pushed her toward the bed. “I will see myself out after a suitable interval.”
Part of Lucy could not believe she’d dared to strike Viscount Silverthorne, a man she had looked on with awe and more than a little fear for most of her life. Would anything cure her of such reckless impulsiveness? Another part was glad she had slapped him, would slap him again if need be. Insufferable creature!
“I will retire to bed when I am ready, sir. Not when you command.” She sat down on the stool and began pulling the bristles through her golden brown curls. Her hands trembled.
In the looking glass, she saw Drake shrug his wide shoulders. “I did not command. I merely suggested.”
Lucy could see the red mark on his cheek where she had slapped him. Coupled with her other contradictory emotions, she felt a sudden pang of shame. More disturbing still, she felt an inexplicable desire to anoint that tiny welt with a kiss.
“I’m sorry I slapped you.” She tossed the words carelessly over her shoulder.
He chuckled faintly. “This?” He pointed to his cheek. “I hardly felt it, I assure you.” Then his expression turned gravely earnest. “I apologize for my flippant observation. It was uncalled for.”
