Historical Romance – The Best Of The Year
As the vicar began to intone the marriage ceremony, Hal reached for his bride’s hand and held it firmly. She was his and he would care for her and protect her for the rest of his life.
The sun was shining through a high window, sending showers of colour through the stained glass on to the flagstones. A surge of happiness went through Hal as he glanced sideways at his bride. He wanted her, desired her, but most of all he wanted to make her happy.
* * *
Lord Ravenscar had made the dower house available to them for their first night together. Everywhere had been polished, fires lit and vases of flowers placed in every room. The chef at Ravenscar had sent down some delicious food for them and it was laid out in the small breakfast parlour, the candles arranged to give an intimate atmosphere. Maddie’s new maid had fussed around her, arranging her skirts in the carriage so that they would not crease and making sure that she had all she needed. She was even now upstairs in the bedchamber they would share, laying out her nightgown and making sure it was perfect.
Hal smiled at Maddie as she touched the silver horseshoes tied with ribbons, the small gifts that awaited them and the pretty flower arrangements on the table that held the tempting buffet.
‘Is everything as you would wish, my love?’
She turned to him, lifting her eyes to his with a shy smile. ‘Everyone has done so much. This is perfect, Hal—but I should not have cared if it had been a modest room in an inn. I have you and that is all I want.’
‘Will you have some wine, my love?’
‘I believe I’ve had enough,’ she murmured and moved towards him, lifting her face for his kiss. ‘I am ready to go up, Hal. I want to be completely alone with you—sure that no one will intrude.’
‘Go up, then, and send your maid away when you are ready. I shall come to you as soon as I’ve seen that the house is locked for the night.’
‘Yes...’ She gave a little gurgle of laughter. ‘That sounds as if we have been married for ever.’
‘Do not imagine I am not as impatient as you,’ he said and the fire leaped in his eyes. ‘But I want to give you time to be ready.’
Maddie nodded, leaned forwards and kissed him lightly on the mouth, then turned and left the room. She went slowly up the stairs, her mind reviewing the reception with her friends; more of them had come to wish her well than she would ever have expected. So many lovely gifts had been sent to them that Madeline thought it would take her many days to reply and thank them all. She seemed almost to float on air and could not help humming a little tune as she entered her bedroom.
‘I have laid out the lace nightgown, my lady,’ Maria said. ‘I hope this is the one you meant?’
‘Yes, it is,’ she said and smiled at the girl. ‘If you will help me to undress and then leave me, please.’
‘Yes, my lady. At what time would you like me to dress you in the morning?’
‘I shall ring when I need you.’
Maddie stepped out of her gown and then stood as the girl unlaced her bodice. A lovely filmy white nightgown was slipped over her head, and the pins taken from her hair, but when Maria offered to brush her hair she shook her head.
‘I can manage now, thank you,’ she said. ‘You may go to bed. I shall not need you again tonight.’
Maria curtsied, wished her happiness and went from the room, a little smile on her lips as she turned away.
Madeline began to brush her hair as the door closed behind the maid. It was a little strange not to have Sally waiting on her, but she would get used to it in time. She enjoyed the feel of the brush on her hair and had stroked it several times when the door opened and Hal entered. He was wearing a long dressing robe of dark-blue velvet and his feet were bare. As he approached she caught the smell of soap and knew that he had washed his face and shaved before coming to her.
‘I am not too soon?’ he asked hesitantly. ‘You know that I am prepared to wait until...’
‘There is nothing more to wait for,’ she said and moved towards him. She slipped her arms about his waist, lifting her gaze to his. ‘I love you, Hal. You are not Lethbridge. I love you and I trust you. Please make love to me. It is what I want—to be yours, to be your wife and to love you forever.’
* * *
Madeline woke slowly to a feeling of well being. She smiled as the memories of Hal kissing her, of his lips lingering in the most intimate places, came filtering back into her mind like sunbeams of pleasure. She had never known that she could feel this way...never known that her body could sing and cry out for more. She had been swept away on a wave of desire and sensual pleasure, reaching such heights as they loved that she’d cried out, her nails scoring his shoulder as she shuddered and moaned with need. All the love she’d shut away inside her for years poured out, welcoming this man who had taught her to feel again. She clung to him and wept when the storm of passion had settled and then laughed at his anxious face as he wiped away her tears, reassuring him that they were tears of happiness and not pain.
‘You are awake,’ Hal said and leaned up on his arm to gaze down into her face. ‘You looked so lovely as you slept that I did not want to wake you.’
‘Yes, I am awake.’ She glanced towards the window and saw that sunshine was peeping through the crack. ‘What time is it?’
‘About eleven, I think,’ he said and bent down to kiss the end of her nose. ‘I kept you awake most of the night, Maddie...but you tempted me so much I could not leave you alone. I have wanted you for so long.’
‘I hope you will always want me as much as you did last night,’ she said and reached up to kiss him at the corner of his mouth. ‘You made me so happy, Hal. I knew that I loved you, but I did not know I could feel that way...so content and secure in your arms.’
‘It is the way I always want you to feel,’ he murmured and bent his head to kiss the little hollow at the base of her throat. He kissed the valley between her breasts and then licked delicately at her nipples. ‘You taste so good that I want to gobble you up.’
Madeline laughed, because she had never known what it was to be teased like this or to luxuriate in the warmth of a man’s adoration and tender love. She trembled as his hand explored and stroked her body, feeling little flickers of desire shoot through her once more. She could feel the heat between her thighs and the moisture as her body welcomed him to her again, lifting her hips to allow him to ease into her, his smooth hardness filling her in a way that brought no pain, but only aching delight and pleasure that grew and grew until it exploded inside her.
Afterwards, they lay in each other’s arm, talking and laughing, remembering that time when they were young and forgetting the hurt that had kept them apart so long.
And when at last they rose and Madeline rang for her maid, while Hal went away to wash and shave, she knew the true meaning of happiness at last. After eating a light nuncheon they would leave for Hal’s estate in Cambridgeshire, for Madeline had wanted to begin her new life at once.
‘I have clothes enough,’ she told Hal when he’d asked where she would like to go for her honeymoon. ‘Why should I need a trip to Paris to buy more? I would rather spend the money on curtains and things for our home—and then perhaps another year, if we can afford it, we shall go on a little trip somewhere. If not to Paris, to Scotland or even to the coast of Cornwall, which I hear is very wild but beautiful in summer.’
‘We could have a wedding trip if you wished,’ Hal told her. ‘My mother’s brother has written to me. He tells me that I am to be his heir, because his son died in an accident, and asked that I should bring you to meet him in a few weeks. It is like to be some years before we inherit, but I am content to be a country gentleman, if you are content to be the wife of a gentleman farmer?’
‘Quite content, my love,’ she said, ‘but I should like to meet your uncle for he must be lonely having lost his family—and I should like to share a little of our happiness.’
‘And we shall have plenty to share,’ he said and kissed her again.
* * * * *
Lady Beneath the Veil
Sarah Mallory
‘There, ‘tis done,’ said the vicar.
‘So it is.’ The Honourable Gideon Albury smiled down at his new wife. ‘I think we can dispense with this now.’
He reached for her veil, but she quickly put her gloved hand over his.
‘Not yet,’ she whispered.
He laughed. ‘Be careful, my love, I shall begin to think I have married a little prude!’
He expected to hear her delicious throaty laugh but she was silent, merely putting her fingers on his arm as he escorted her to the door.
After the darkness of the stone building the spring sunshine was almost blinding when they stepped outside. He stopped and turned to her again.
‘Now, Miss Propriety, let me kiss you … Good God!’ He stepped back, his eyes widening with horror as he looked down into the face of a stranger.
AUTHOR NOTE
The very first page in LADY BENEATH THE VEIL is, in fact, the very first idea I had for this story. I wanted to explore what would happen if a man suddenly found himself married to a woman he had never seen before. Of course this is not a new idea—throughout British history many sons and daughters of the aristocracy have been married off for political or economic reasons to virtual strangers—but this was to be no reasoned alliance: it was to be a cruel hoax.
You might think that no one would play such a trick … Well, one only has to look into history to see that life in Georgian England could be cruel and brutally short and, as if in response, the Georgians could be tough, crude and boisterous. There are the much-recorded practical jokes of Sir Francis Blake Delaval, of Seaton Delaval in Northumberland, who played the most outrageous practical jokes upon visitors.
Mechanical hoists were installed so that when unsuspecting guests were undressing the bedroom walls would suddenly be lifted up, exposing them. In one bedroom the bed could be lowered into a tank of cold water, and in another guests would wake to find everything upside down—the whole room inverted—with furniture suspended from the ‘floor’ and a chandelier rising up from the middle of the ‘ceiling’. It must have been a most unnerving experience. One elderly (but rich) widow was even persuaded to marry Sir Francis after a charade involving a fortune-teller and an ‘accidental’ meeting.
So I thought the marriage of Gideon and Dominique might well have happened—but what about the happy-ever-after? Could such a marriage work when it was not the fairytale wedding that either of them had wanted? Well, they struggle, of course, but I think I have found a way for them to resolve their differences and find happiness together. I hope you agree. Please feel you can contact me at www.sarahmallory.com
SARAH MALLORY was born in Bristol, and now lives in an old farmhouse on the edge of the Pennines with her husband and family. She left grammar school at sixteen to work in companies as varied as stockbrokers, marine engineers, insurance brokers, biscuit manufacturers and even a quarrying company. Her first book was published shortly after the birth of her daughter. She has published more than a dozen books under the pen-name of Melinda Hammond, winning the Reviewers’ Choice Award from singletitles.com for Dance for a Diamond and the Historical Novel Society’s Editors’ Choice for Gentlemen in Question. Sarah Mallory has also twice won the Romantic Novelists’ Association RONA Rose® Award for The Dangerous Lord Darrington and Beneath the Major’s Scars.
To Sally, my best friend through good times and bad.
Chapter One
‘Those whom God has joined together let no one put asunder!’
The words boomed around the small church, echoing off the walls. The Honourable Gideon Albury grinned down at the heavily veiled figure at his side. Bless her, she was taking maidenly modesty to new heights!
Perhaps she thought it would inflame him, but she did that perfectly well without dressing as a nun. With her voluptuous body, golden curls and cornflower-blue eyes, she was a rare beauty. And that little trick she had of peeping up at him from under her lashes, those blue eyes promising the lush delights to come—his body hardened with anticipation. At last he would be able to enjoy those ample curves to the full!
Not that the little darling had flaunted her charms. She was, after all, a lady—the Earl of Martlesham’s cousin, in fact. He would not else have contemplated marriage without his father’s approval. Depraved as Lord Rotham might think him, he had not sunk so low that he would marry out of his sphere. But ’fore Gad, Gideon had never before seen such perfection in a gently bred young lady. She had allowed Gideon a glimpse of her pretty ankles, his hands had spanned that tiny waist and her plump, snow-white breast had been just crying out to be kissed. By heaven, just the thought of it made it difficult to concentrate on the marriage service. The register was produced. Gideon scrawled his own name carelessly and watched as his bride added her name to his. He guessed that damned veil was making it difficult for her to see because her hand shook a little as she held the pen. As a witness, Martlesham signed with a flourish and grinned.
‘There—’tis done.’
‘So it is.’ Gideon smiled down at his new wife. ‘I think we can dispense with this now.’
He reached for her veil, but she quickly put her gloved hand over his.
‘Not yet,’ she whispered.
He laughed.
‘Be careful, my love, I shall begin to think I have married a little prude!’
He expected to hear her delicious, throaty laugh, but she was silent, merely putting her fingers on his arm as he escorted her to the door.
After the darkness of the stone building the spring sunshine was almost blinding when they stepped outside. He stopped and turned to her again.
‘Now, Miss Propriety, let me kiss you... Good God!’ He stepped back, his eyes widening with horror as he looked down into the face of a complete stranger.
Chapter Two
Dominique stood very still, staring up into the shocked face of her new husband. It was all there, everything she had expected: horror, revulsion, disgust. She had known how it must seem to him once the trick was revealed. He pushed his fingers through his auburn hair, disturbing the carefully arranged disorder, while behind them Max’s cruel laugh rang out.
‘Caught you there, Albury!’
‘But I don’t understand. Your cousin—’
‘This is my cousin.’
Max chortled and Dominique’s heart went out to the man standing before her. He looked stunned.
As well he might. Instead of the beautiful, voluptuous blonde he had courted for the past two months he was married to a diminutive brunette whom he had never seen before in his life.
‘Is something amiss?’ The vicar looked from one to the other before directing a vaguely worried look towards Max. ‘Lord Martlesham?’
‘No, no, nothing’s wrong,’ declared Max, still chuckling. ‘The groom is struck dumb by the enormity of the occasion, that’s all.’ He began shepherding the guests away from the church. ‘Come along, everyone, the carriages are waiting!’
‘Just a moment!’ The man beside her did not move, except to shake her hand from his arm. ‘Where is Dominique?’
‘Lord, Albury, have you not understood it yet? You have married her!’ Max gave him a push. ‘Come along, man, don’t stand there gawping. Let us return to the Abbey.’
‘Please.’ Dominique forced her vocal cords to work. ‘Come back to the Abbey and all this can be explained.’
Frowning, he grabbed her arm and set off for the gate with Dominique almost running to keep up with him. As was usual with weddings, the path was lined with well-wishers who showered them with rice as they hurried to the carriage. It was decorated with ribbons for the occasion, the Martlesham coat of arms displayed prominently on the door. Without ceremony her escort bundled Dominique into the carriage, climbed in after her and the door was slammed upon them. Max’s grinning face appeared in the window.
‘Now then, Gideon, try to contain your lust until after the wedding breakfast. The journey from here to the Abbey ain’t long enough to tup a woman properly. I know, I’ve tried it!’
Dominique closed her eyes in mortification. The carriage began to move and the raucous laughter was left behind them.
‘So, this was one of Max’s little tricks.’
Dominique looked at Gideon. His voice was calm, but there was a dangerous glitter in his hazel eyes that made her think he might be about to commit murder. She swallowed.
‘Yes.’
‘And everyone at the Abbey was privy to the joke, except me.’
‘You and...my mother.’
‘Max told me she was too unwell to attend the ceremony.’
Dominique bowed her head.
‘She does not know. Maman would never have agreed to such a scheme.’
‘I take it the female I knew as Dominique was hired for the part?’
She nodded.
‘An actress. Agnes Bennet.’
‘And a damned good one. She fooled me into thinking she was a lady. Whereas you—’ His lip curled. ‘You may be Max’s cousin, but no true lady would lend herself to this, this joke.’
His contempt flayed her. Given time, she could explain to him why she had agreed to Max’s outrageous scheme, but they had already arrived at the Abbey. She waited in silence for the carriage to stop and a liveried footman to leap forwards and open the door. Her companion jumped out first and with exaggerated courtesy put out his hand to her.
‘Well, madam, shall we go in to the wedding breakfast?’
Miserably, Dominique accompanied him into the house.
* * *
‘Now, perhaps you will explain to me what the hell is going on.’
Gideon looked about him at the company assembled in the dining room. The servants had been dismissed and it was only the twenty or so guests who had comprised Lord Martlesham’s house party for the past two months—with the exception of the blonde beauty, of course. The woman he had believed was Martlesham’s cousin. She had been replaced by the poor little dab of a girl who was now his wife.
Everyone stood around, ignoring the festive elegance of the dining table, all gleaming silver and sparkling glass, set out in readiness for the wedding breakfast. His eyes raked the crowd, but no one would meet his gaze.
‘It’s a practical joke, old boy,’ said Max, who was helping himself to a glass of brandy from the decanter on the sideboard.
‘Not one that I appreciate!’ Gideon retorted.
Max turned to him, still smiling.
‘No? Strange, I thought you would, given what happened at Covent Garden last year.’
‘Ah...’ Gideon nodded slowly ‘...so that is it. You are paying me back for stealing the divine Diana from under your nose!’
The scene came back to him. He had been one of a dozen rowdy, drunken bucks crowding into the dressing rooms after the performance. Max was paying court to a pretty little opera dancer, but Gideon knew from her meaningful smiles and the invitation in her kohl-lined eyes that she would happily give herself to the highest bidder.
‘Confound it, Albury, I had been working on that prime article for weeks, then just when I thought she was going to fall into my lap you offer her a carte blanche!’
Gideon felt his temper rising. There was a world of difference between competing for the favours of a lightskirt and trapping him into marriage!
‘And because I bested you on that occasion you concocted this elaborate charade?’
‘Why, yes, and I thought it rather neat, actually,’ returned Max, sipping his brandy. ‘I hired Agnes Bennet to play my cousin and you fell for her—quite besotted, in fact. All I had to do then was persuade you to propose. Of course, it helped that you were still smarting from the roasting your father gave you at Christmas and ripe for any mischief that would pay him back.’
Gideon could not deny it. He recalled that last, fraught meeting with his father. They had rowed royally. If he was honest, Gideon had already been a little tired of Max and his constant tricks and stratagems, but he did not like his father criticising his friends. He had lost his temper, declaring that he would do what he wanted with his life. He remembered storming out of the house, declaring, ‘I will make friends with whom I like, do what I like, marry whom I like!’
How unwise he had been to relay the whole incident to Martlesham.
The earl continued, ‘You knew that marrying any cousin of mine would anger your father. It helped, of course, that she was such a little beauty. A typical English rose.’
‘Couldn’t wait to get her into bed, eh?’ cried one of Max’s cronies, a buck-toothed fop called Williams.
Dear heaven, Gideon wondered why he had never noticed before just what a hideous smirk the fellow had! Max filled a second glass with brandy and handed it to him.
‘Then, of course, you said you could never marry a Frenchie.’
‘Well, what of that?’ said Gideon, stiffening.
Max’s smile grew.
‘It so happens that my dear cousin here is most definitely French. Ain’t that so, m’dear?’
The girl made no answer, save for a slight nod of the head. Gideon’s eyes narrowed.
‘Reynolds is an English name. And you told me Dominique was an old family tradition...’
‘Now there I admit I misled you, my boy. The name is a family tradition, but it belongs to her French ancestors, not mine.’ Max’s hateful smile widened. ‘My dear Gideon, you should have looked more closely at the register before you signed it. You would have seen then that her father’s name was Rainault, not Reynolds. Jerome Rainault, a wine merchant from Montpellier. A full-blooded Frenchman, Albury, and a paid-up Girondin to boot.’
‘What!’
Gideon was surprised out of the dispassionate hauteur he had assumed. Max’s pale blue eyes gleamed with malicious triumph.
‘Oh, yes,’ he said softly. ‘You swore that the French were all your enemies, did you not? It seemed poetic justice to marry you off to a Frenchwoman.’
More of Gideon’s last, heated exchange with his father flashed into his head.
‘Martlesham is a bad lot,’ the viscount had said. ‘You should choose your friends more carefully.’
He had been angered by his father’s words, but now the truth of them stung him even more.
Williams guffawed loudly. ‘What a good joke. You have been well and truly duped, Albury! You fell head over heels for Max’s actress, didn’t you? He made the switch this morning. He even had shoes made with a heel so that you didn’t see that your new bride was shorter than the lovely Agnes.’
Williams pushed his silver-topped cane under the bridal skirts, but the girl whipped herself away from him, her cheeks aflame with embarrassment. The others sniggered and Gideon cursed silently. How had he ever found their childish humour amusing?
He said furiously, ‘This goes beyond a joke, Martlesham. This time you are meddling with peoples’ lives.’
Max shrugged.
‘We all found it devilishly amusin’, old fellow.’ He held out the glass. ‘Here. Admit we caught you fair and square. Then let us enjoy the wedding déjeuner and afterwards I’ll summon the vicar and my lawyer from the village and we can arrange to have the marriage annulled. After all, there’s witnesses enough to the fact that you have been tricked.’
Gideon took the brandy and sipped it. Everyone around him was grinning, save the bride. The heat had left her cheeks and she now stood beside him, pale and silent. This slight, dark figure could not be less like the bride he had been expecting. The enormity of his folly hit him. He had not consulted his father about the marriage—a petty revenge against his parent for daring to ring such a peal over him at that last meeting. He had not even notified his lawyer, knowing that Rogers would demand settlements should be drawn up. In his eagerness to secure his bride he had accepted Max’s assurances that they could deal with all the usual formalities later. Now he knew why and a cold fury seized him.