A Wedding by Dawn (20 page)

She opened her eyes. Saw herself in the glass, tangled and bedazed.

Virgin no more.

He let his forehead fall against her shoulder. His breath came hard, labored. His hands still gripped her hips beneath her mass of skirts.

More drunken voices came from the corridor. A woman’s squeal, a man’s bark of laughter. A great cheer went up from somewhere farther away.

Nicholas cursed and raised his head.

She looked in his eyes, and a protest keened inside her. It was too soon to let go.

You could tell him you’ll marry him, and then he would be yours.

No—
No.
If they married,
she
would be
his.

And yet...

“Let us go to your lodgings,” she whispered. “We could send word to Auntie Phil that I’m safe—” oh, his arms
did
feel safe “—and we can...continue.” Did people continue?

Nicholas gave a strangled laugh. Lifted her off him, his cock softer now but still thick and full as it left her. He tugged her skirts down. Stood up, pushing himself inside his breeches, while the aftermath of their lovemaking seeped warm and damp between her thighs and she tried to rearrange herself inside her stays.

He tried to help, and she might have laughed but he seemed agitated suddenly. “Christ,” he swore softly. “Is there anything to be done with your hair?”

And she realized, now, that he hadn’t meant for this to happen any more than she had, and that he was in a hurry to leave.

“It’s too dark to find the pins.”

He gathered her hair in his hands anyway and twisted as if trying to tame it, but gave up and let it fall. “Here—” He yanked off his jacket, draped it over her shoulders, covering her hair and buttoning it over her breasts that didn’t want to go back into their stays as easily as they’d popped out. “Keep this around you, and do not let go of me until we’ve left this place.”

They pushed through the crowd, and she nearly tripped over her skirts keeping up with him down the stairs. Below, they exited Madame Gravelle’s onto the dark, quiet street. He paused, and then—

“Over here.”

He practically ran with her toward a carriage. The coachman saw them coming and jumped to open the door. Nicholas handed her up—practically shoved her in his haste—and she stumbled onto the seat while he crowded in behind her. The door slammed shut, and the carriage jerked forward.

“Where are we— Oh.” She saw, now, that they were not alone. A small figure shared the bench with her, huddled on the other end, looking at them wide-eyed.

It was a girl. A young girl—perhaps nine? Ten?—huddled in a blanket and wearing a ratty mobcap.

The carriage rattled and shook as it raced through the city.

“Who is this?” India asked.

“This is Emilie. Emilie, this is Lady India.”

And India knew that this was his sister. The laundress.

A girl of this age?

“Bonsoir, Emilie,” India said.

“Bonsoir,” came an almost inaudible reply.

“T’as mangé?”
Nicholas asked her, in the same voice one might use to coax a stray kitten.

Emilie nodded, and now India saw a crumpled cloth on the seat between them. It was folded neatly around a lump of something, no doubt the remains of whatever Nicholas had given her to eat.

India looked at him across the carriage. A dozen questions that could not be asked in front of Emilie crowded her tongue and sat there, mixed with the lingering taste of him. How had she come into his care? Where was her mother? What did he intend to do with her?

What did this mean for the secret he carried?

And all the while their own secret ached sweetly beneath her skirts—the tender pain of fresh womanhood that gave rise to hopes she scarcely dared to consider.

Perhaps he did not want a marriage of necessity. Perhaps he felt as passionately toward her as it seemed—felt everything she was feeling. Desire. Tenderness. A yearning to be close.

Perhaps this would change things between them.

The carriage slowed. Stopped.

A coachman opened the door.

Nicholas leaned across the seat.
“Attends,”
he told Emilie, and then, almost as if an afterthought, touched her cheek. “We shan’t be long.”

The coachman helped India out of the carriage with Nicholas right behind her, and India now saw that they had not arrived at Auntie Phil’s, where she had assumed he was taking her.

Instead, they had stopped in front of a simple door at the back of a stone building. India glanced up, saw the unmistakable heights and arched windows of an old church.

“No.” She tried to stop, but Nicholas’s hands on her arm and waist kept her moving toward the door. She struggled against him. “No, you can’t be doing this now.”

“Stop—not where Emilie can see.” But a moment later they were through the door and into a darkened corridor, out of Emilie’s view.

“But I thought...” Clearly she’d been wrong.

The lingering soreness between her legs screamed betrayal.

“You can’t do this,” she said a little frantically, planting her feet to fight him. “There must be some other way for you to repay your debts.”

A murmur of voices drifted down the corridor as they approached a lit doorway. “India—” she struggled harder
“—stop.”

They reached the door, and Nicholas turned her suddenly to face him. “I can’t wait any longer, India. Holliswell will take ownership of Taggart in four weeks. He’s likely already measured the rooms for new furniture.” She didn’t want to hear this. She wanted him to tell her he’d changed his mind. That he wouldn’t marry her for the money, that she meant more to him than that. “We still have a journey to London ahead of us, and now I’ve got Emilie to care for, and I don’t know what the devil I’m supposed to do with an eleven-year-old girl, but there it is. And I don’t have to tell you what Emilie is to me, do I, because that day you followed me into that church you heard every bloody word.”

Her heart pounded. What was she supposed to say to that? “It doesn’t give you the right to force me into captivity.”

“Bit of an exaggeration, don’t you think?”

“No. I don’t. I shall be trapped, and I shall despise you, and you shall come to hate me. I can’t possibly imagine that’s what you want.”

“What I
want—
” he cut short and glanced through the door they were about to enter “—is irrelevant. I’ve played your game, India, but I can’t play it anymore. I’ve got too much at stake.” He eased his grip a little. “You have my deepest apologies.
This
is the last thing on earth I would choose—” the truth of it was etched into the hard planes of his face “—but that’s just the trouble. I have no choice.”

And he pulled her through the door.

Inside were the Duke of Winston and a man she didn’t recognize.

“For God’s sake, Taggart,” the duke said, “what could possibly have taken so long?” He glanced at India, and comprehension lit his eyes. “Ah— Never mind.”

Next to him, the other man observed her with a combination of reservation and interest, as if he knew exactly, precisely what she and Nicholas had done at Madame Gravelle’s.

A wizened priest stood near the wall next to an ancient wooden table with crosses carved into the legs. A large book bound in wood and metal sat on the tabletop. “We are ready?” he asked.

No. No, she wasn’t ready. She fixed her eyes on the duke. He merely shrugged. “I owe Cantwell a favor.” Next to him, the other man blocked the door.

And India knew there was nothing more she could do. This was going to happen. Here, tonight, despite everything she and Nicholas had done not half an hour ago. Or perhaps as part of it? God help her—perhaps
this
was why he’d pulled her down that corridor.

An awful ache settled into her chest. “Does my aunt know about this?” she asked Nicholas.

“Winston will tell her.”

“And Millie—”

“Is perfectly astute enough to make her own way,” he said with a tone of finality, and turned to the priest. “We are ready.”

He’d known. He’d looked into her eyes, urged her to offer herself, and all the while he’d known what he was about to do.

She was such a fool.

Already the priest was intoning the vows, as if even paying attention was optional. He asked for promises. Nicholas gave his. The priest turned to India, repeated the questions.

And now she could continue to fight a fight she could not win, or she could hold her head up as the man on whom she’d just bestowed her virtue laid his final claim to her.

The world inside her went numb.

She raised her chin, barely recognizing her own voice as she spoke the words. “I do.”

CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR

T
HEY
RACED
OUT
of Paris, headed north to the Channel, and Nick tried not to think about what he’d just done.

He’d done what he had to do. And now, finally, he would be able to resolve things with Holliswell. There would be enough left over to invest in the new mill projects, and then he could turn his attention to Emilie.

Everything that would entail was more than he could contemplate now.

Which left him contemplating India. His wife—who had said the vows after all. The memory of her voice sent a chill across his skin even now.
I do.
Toneless. Flat. Quiet, but not a whisper.

And now it was done.

As was the consummation, which was the bloody
last
thing he’d intended when he’d gone into that hellish place.

Perhaps he’d succumbed to the environment. Been momentarily debased by the erotic activity assaulting them from all sides.

But whatever the reasons, one thing could never be changed: he’d taken her virginity.

The moment burst to life in his mind at the same time the carriage hit a particularly nasty pothole. The jarring only seated the memory more firmly at the front of his thoughts.

A woman’s virginity was supposed to be taken, at the very least, in a bed. Beneath concealing covers to help her preserve her modesty. In the traditional position, where a man could more easily control his rhythm and use the strength of his arms and the leverage of his knees to avoid penetrating too deeply or powerfully.

At least, that was how he would have envisioned the proper way to do it. Claiming a lady’s virtue wasn’t something he’d ever actually done.

Until now.

And he definitely had not done it that way.

But devil take him, when he’d pushed up against her in that darkened corridor, with the sights and sounds of sex all around them and her own lips weaving preposterous fictions about a Mr. Giroux, something inside him snapped.

And given the opportunity, he would do it all again.

But there wasn’t going to be another opportunity, because after what he’d done tonight she bloody well wasn’t going to give him one.

India sat across from him now, silently staring out the window while Emilie slumbered innocently, her head lolling to one side and bobbing a little with the motion of the carriage.

The very sight of her made him want to hurt someone. And perhaps he didn’t know the first thing about raising a child, but he would never
—never—
sell one to a stranger for one bloody pound.

But you’d marry a woman against her will for fifty thousand.

He reminded himself India faced no less than what hundreds of other young ladies faced every year as they were married off to men of their parents’ choosing—men much uglier and crueler than he.

He wondered why she wasn’t screaming. Threatening to load her pistol and shoot him in his sleep, toss his body to the fishes in the Channel.

But he knew. He knew why, and the truth made him feel more weary than he had during his entire effort to find her.

He’d defeated her, and nothing would ever be the same between them from this point forward.

* * *

M
ARRIAGE
CHANGED
EVERYTHING
.

India stared out at the gray sodden city and felt a chill creep across her skin that had nothing to do with the weather.

He’d done it. He’d forced her to become Lady Taggart. And now all hope of ever determining her own destiny was gone. And the small hope she’d begun to reach for that perhaps being Nicholas’s wife would not be so terrible... That was gone, too. In the days it had taken them to journey here, there’d been no banter with Nicholas. No innuendo, no semi-accidental touches.

And she felt so, so betrayed. And so very stupid, because it wasn’t as if she’d believed he had abandoned his idea of their marriage. Hadn’t that been precisely the game they’d played in Paris? More the fool, her, for imagining he might be wishing for something more than a marriage of necessity with her.

Next to her, Emilie put a finger to the glass and traced the path of a dirty raindrop sliding down the outside of the pane. Nicholas’s sister looked so small, so lost. During the journey here, India had come to know Emilie as a shy, quiet girl who was much too serious for her age.

I don’t have to tell you what Emilie is to me, do I, because that day you followed me into that church you heard every bloody word.

India stroked Emilie’s hair and put an arm around her shoulders, hugging her close.
“Ça va?”

Emilie nodded, staring down at the street below, where carriages clattered and splashed along just as they might on a rainy day in Valletta or Venice or Constantinople. Yes, everything may have been all right, but India could only imagine what Emilie might be thinking. There were no clothes to wash, no work to be done, no hordes of people crowding along a dirty river. The town house where they stayed—Nicholas’s brother’s house—was a temple of splendor even by London’s standards, but compared to what Emilie was used to...

India had checked the wardrobe in the room where Katherine and Captain Warre’s daughter Anne stayed, but Anne was several years younger and much smaller than Emilie. None of the gowns were appropriate for a girl Emilie’s age anyhow.

“Un chien,”
Emilie said, pointing to a dog nosing through refuse.

“Oui,”
India said brightly, though it took all her effort. She pointed out a man with water running off the brim of his hat, and Emilie smiled—but still no laughter. Emilie never laughed.

“What will we do here?” Emilie asked, looking up at her.

Worry was so plain in Emilie’s eyes, and it mirrored too closely India’s own fears. Very shortly, what India would do was accompany Nicholas to visit her father. Already she felt sick. Imprisoned, this time by a new gaoler.

India shrugged lightly, hoping Emilie would not sense her fear.
“Rien.”
She walked to the door as she spoke and opened it. It was unlocked, so she could do that much—for now, at least. She left it open wide and returned to the window, taking Emilie’s hand. “We are guests here, and guests may do anything they please. Even nothing at all. Come here,” she said, and climbed onto the bed. “I’ll show you.” She scooted up against the pillows, or as much as she could with her skirts tangling around her legs and her panniers tugging awkwardly this way and that, and patted the spot beside her.

Emilie climbed onto the bed next to her.

“See?” India said. “
This
is what we do.” She settled against the pillows, looked at the room and prayed this was not what she would be doing for the next fifty years of her life. She’d done plenty of it already, during the first fifteen.

She looked at Emilie, who was looking up at her.

“Fun,
non?
” India said, and couldn’t help laughing, because this wasn’t fun at all. And for the first time in all these days, Emilie laughed a little, too.

At that exact moment, Nicholas appeared in the doorway.

Next to her, Emilie started forward. “Nicholas—”

“Vous vous amusez bien?”
he asked them, but mostly he asked Emilie, who nodded—still a bit shy of her brother, but already full of adoration.

“We most certainly are having fun,” India told him in French, hating that she still felt something when she saw him. More than something. She felt
everything
—the same excitement she could hear in Emilie’s voice, coupled with so much more. “I’ve been showing Emilie how to do nothing.”

“Mmm. A very important skill. And I expect you to master it,” he told Emilie with a wink and a quick smile that wasn’t meant for India, but that she felt in her toes, anyway. The smile dimmed when he shifted his attention to her. “Are you ready?”

The moment of joy she’d experienced at Emilie’s first laughter faded as she rose and made her way to the door. “Yes.” It was the answer she’d been giving him ever since Paris.

Yes, she slept well at the inn he’d chosen in Calais.

Yes, the cabin she and Emilie shared during the Channel crossing was comfortable enough.

Yes, she was warm enough in the carriage.

It was the only answer she could afford to give now. Perhaps, if she were compliant enough, he would allow her a measure of freedom as his wife.

She felt him behind her on the staircase, too aware of him, while the possibility that he might touch her tangled with the nerves already cramping her belly at the idea of facing her father. A thought flew in from nowhere:
please don’t let Father change his mind and declare the marriage invalid.
She foolishly wished he would reach for her. Touch her. Reassure her.

She stepped into the entrance hall, and panic flared up. But there was no time to think of it, because a guest was just being admitted, a beautiful, dark-haired woman in a gorgeous floral gown—

“La, Nicholas! What a relief to see you in London again!” She swept toward him, and he kissed her cheeks. “I’ve been so terribly worried about you, traipsing halfway around the world. And this must be Lady India,” she said.

“My sister,” Nicholas told India, “Honoria, Lady Ramsey.”

India curtseyed and murmured all the right formalities.

“Why did you not send me a note immediately?” Lady Ramsey complained to Nicholas. “I had to hear the news of your arrival from a servant.”

“I’d planned to write you this evening,” he told her. “At the moment, I have a pressing need to pay a call on Lord Cantwell.”

“Lord Cantwell. But—” She looked back and forth between them. “Well, of course, you wouldn’t have heard. He sailed for the colonies a fortnight ago.”

“The colonies,” Nicholas said sharply.

“I understand he’s been sent as an ambassador or some such—political unrest or something of that nature. I can scarcely follow all the twists and turns of it. But the fact remains, Lord Cantwell is not in London.”

Not in London.

But...Father wouldn’t have left without making arrangements, would he? Already India could see that was exactly what Nicholas was thinking.

“I must speak with his man of business at once. Excuse me.”

He strode out the door, leaving India standing there with Lady Ramsey, who stared after him for a moment, then turned her stunning green eyes on India.

“I’d hoped we might have a moment to speak privately,” she said.

And now India realized that she herself was the hostess—no matter that it was Lady Ramsey’s brother’s house—so she led the way into the nearest sitting room and called for tea.

“Please, Lady Ramsey,” she said, “do sit.”

“Thank you. And I shall come straight to the point,” Lady Ramsey said, seating herself on a nearby chair. “Lady Croston is a dear friend, and I am outraged on her behalf that you and your friend stole her ship. But more than that, my brothers mean the world to me, and Nicholas is especially dear to my heart. I begged him to reject your father’s proposal, but Nicholas is nothing if not strong willed, and he refused to listen. But that doesn’t mean he doesn’t deserve happiness. It’s what I want for him more than anything in the world.”

What about my happiness?
India wanted to ask. But it was too late for that now, and nobody cared about her happiness, anyway. “I’m sure Nicholas will be happy the moment he receives what my father has promised him,” she said.

“La, that dreadful agreement!
Our
father would turn in his grave to know what Nicholas has resorted to—and through no fault of his own.”

“Except for his debt,” India couldn’t help reminding her, even as she thought how Nicholas’s father was not in any grave, but was in Paris probably reciting a mass.

“Is dear Nicholas to blame for tempests? Pirates? My brother’s debt is the result of a string of unfortunate circumstances and nothing more. Nobody expects every single investment—every last one—to fail. Diversification is supposed to mitigate the risk.” Lady Ramsey accepted a cup of tea and sipped. “But it didn’t, and now Nicholas has been up to any number of things to try to right himself, such as this silly new investment consortium—mills or some such.”

“Nicholas doesn’t think it’s silly,” India objected, thinking of all the hours he’d spent studying those plans during their journey.

Lady Ramsey cocked her head and looked at India. “No, I suppose he doesn’t.”

“Nicholas is very hardworking.”

“
Too
hardworking. Both my brother James and I think so. There’s no reason for it, all this scrapping about.”

“Perhaps he enjoys it.”

There was a soft noise from the doorway, and India saw Lady Ramsey’s attention shift curiously past her. India turned.

Emilie!

Quickly she set down her cup and saucer. “A moment, please,” she said, and hurried to the door.

“Qu’est-ce que c’est?”
she asked Emilie in a hushed tone, bending down and touching her cheek. “Are you all right?”

Emilie nodded, casting a worried glance into the salon. “I should not have left my room. I only wondered where you had gone.”

“Shh. It’s all right. Only return upstairs, and I’ll be there shortly, and I shall teach you a new game to play. All right?”

Emilie nodded, her eyes full of fear and guilt even now.

India reached for her hand and squeezed it.
“Bien. Va-t’en.”
Emilie hurried toward the stairs, lifting her skirts to practically run up them, and India turned back to the salon and Nicholas’s other half sister, who sipped her tea and regarded her curiously.

“Who on earth was that?” Lady Ramsey asked.

What would Nicholas want her to say? She knew very well what he would
not
want her to say. She smoothed her skirts and returned to her seat, trying to act as if it hadn’t been Nicholas’s sister who had just run up the stairs to hide.

“A young girl Miss Germain and I took aboard the ship,” she explained, reaching for her tea. “An orphan.” She made herself smile at Lady Ramsey. “I told Nicholas I would raise hell if he did not agree to give Emilie a home.”