Katharine Ashe - How a Lady Weds a Rogue

“There will be no dancing tonight in any case, so you needn’t worry over it.”

“That is a relief. Good heavens, this is remarkably fine fabric!” She stroked her fingertips across the silk of his waistcoat.

“Only the best for my wedding night.” His voice sounded hoarse.

“Wedding night?” She snapped her hand away and somehow his hand was around her shoulder then, which was a good thing because in his grasp she swayed gently into the stable wall instead of into air. She regained her footing. “Have you gotten married today?”

“Yes, Mrs. Dyer.” He released her. “To you, according to everyone you spoke to this evening.”

“Oh.” She felt her lips curve into a smile. Feeling! But now her nose was numb. “That is a relief. Because I ex-press-ly wished to—to—” She pawed at the air and her hand landed again on his chest. “—to touch you.” She sighed. “If you were married I should not, of course.”

“Even if I were not married, you should not.” His hand came around her wrist, large and warm, and then her hand was again dangling at her side, not touching any part of him, which really was a royal disappointment. She frowned at her fingers, then up at him and his intriguing mouth. His delicious-looking mouth.

“Mrs. Polley has not yet awoken,” he said with that mouth, and she blinked to keep it in focus. “We must wait for her to rouse before we set off. If we awaken her abruptly, she might be startled and alert others, though it seems that Sir Henry’s servants and remaining guests are either abed or too cup-shot to notice.”

“Oh, yes. She might believe she was being abducted and scream. I would.”

“I doubt it. You would be more likely to quash your abductor over the head with whatever came to hand and grab the ribbons yourself.”

“I don’t suppose you will let me drive. Papa never lets me drive, though I am quite a fine whip as ladies go. Good heavens, that sounded remarkably petulant, I think.”

“It is to be expected. And no, minx, I will not allow you to drive. Not in this condition.”

“What condition?” She sucked in a great lungful of air and shook her head. “Mr. Yale, Mr. Yale. I am in no condition for anything but one thing.”

“What is that?” His voice smiled. She adored the way his voice smiled, because it revealed so much. It told her he thought she was amusing, and perhaps even a pleasure to be with. Gentlemen did not feel that way about her. Oh, everybody else did, but that was only because she liked them, and people liked to be liked, of course. But young gentlemen did not notice her. Handsome men did not notice her. Rather the opposite. She was the spotty little fat girl that no one wanted to dance with unless it was to taunt and mock her and pull her hair and ribbons and pinch her until she wept.

Except him. He had danced with her, with her spots and puffy cheeks and all.

“I am in the perfect condition, Mr. Yale, for you to put your hands on me.” She closed her eyes and let the night air filter over her lips and eyelids and—

She was hot.

“I am hot.” She tugged at her cloak fastening. But her eyes were closed so she could not see it. Or perhaps her gloves were too tight. She picked at them, but it turned out she wasn’t wearing any.

“Where have my gloves gone?”

“You removed them some time ago. They are in your pocket.”

“Oh, good. Papa gave me to them—them to me last Christmas. They are quite fine. From London you know. Like you.”

“I am not from London, Miss Lucas.”

She gripped his lapels and pressed her cheek to his chest. So solid. So warm. So Mr. Yale. He smelled very, very good, of clean linen and something else that was deeply nice.

“Do cease calling me Miss Lucas.” She squeezed her eyes closed. “I don’t like it, but I would like to remove this cloak. I am positively sweltering.”

Her back met the wall of the building and then he was unfastening her cloak and she was so happy she nearly wept. She danced free of it.

“Oh, thank you. Thank you. A thousand thank you’s!”

“One will do.” He followed her across the nubby drive farther into the dark.

She spread her arms. “Am I drunk, Mr. Yale?”

“You are, indeed, Miss Lucas.”

She whirled around to face him, the cool night air swirling in her skirts and across her neck where it felt positively wonderful. “And are you drunk, Mr. Yale?”

“Relatively speaking, no, Miss Lucas.”

“Oh.” She pivoted to a halt. The world spun, disappointment smothering her. “Because if you were you would put your hands on me again, I daresay.”

“Then we must both be very glad that I am not.”

There were many thoughts in her head then. Her mouth tasted like paste. She could not bring the lamp-lit tufts of grass poking up from the drive into focus. It was too dark and a big black circle surrounded her tube of vision.

She peered at the building. “Whose carriage are we stealing?”

“Sir Henry’s.”

“That seems terribly rude after we enjoyed his hospitality all afternoon.”

“Yet unavoidable. It is the only vehicle remaining at this late hour that accommodates your traveling trunk and the three of us. Unless you wish to make the journey in a hay wagon?”

She laughed. Then she sighed. She could sigh forever if he stood before her. “Four.”

“Four?”

“Ramses.”

“Ramses?”

She pointed behind him. “Our dog, Mr. Yale!”

“Ah.” He nodded.

“It was that name or Spider. He has black eyes, you know. Unlike yours. I admire your eyes very much. I will leave my necklace.”

“Your necklace?”

“As recompense.”

“You wear no necklace, Miss Lucas.”

“You told me to remove my valuables from the traveling trunk, and so I did. It is in the bandbox. We must leave it in the stable to pay Sir Henry for his carriage and horses. It is very valuable.”

“That will not be necessary.”

“I insist! I hid it, you see, so when my mother stole my sisters’ jewels she did not find it.” She wagged a finger. “It is not right to steal, Mr. Yale, whatever you have been accustomed to doing in the past.”

Her cloak was folded over his arm and he stood three yards away. The drive tilted this way and that, taking him and the spot of golden-orange lamp with it from side to side. She was excessively uncomfortable.

Her eyes widened. “I think I am going to be ill.”

He moved toward her.

She was ill. Violently so.

It was horrid.

Diantha awoke in a sticky sweat with her mouth lined in gum paper. Wretched tasting gum paper. She swallowed thickly and her tongue felt large. So did her eyelids, and her stomach, and her head. She groaned a little and tried to breathe.

“Awake, then?” Mrs. Polley spoke close by. “Must feel like old Beelzebub himself. Mr. Polley always did when he enjoyed too many pints at the miller’s on a Sunday.”

Diantha cracked her eyes open. “He drank on Sundays? At a mill?” The room was minuscule, allowing only a small bed, the chair that Mrs. Polley’s little round form inhabited, and a rustic dressing table. The fabric over the window was striped and drawn back to allow in gray light. “Isn’t that blasphemous?”

“Mr. Polley left the praying to womenfolk, miss, as good men do.” She went to the foot of the bed. “That man—and I’m not saying he’s a good man—will be wanting to speak with you now. But we’ll have you dressed before I’ll allow him in here.”

She blinked to clear the discomfort in her head and stomach, to no avail. “Whyever would you allow him into my bedchamber at all?”

Her companion held forth stays and petticoat. “We were needing some explanation to these nice folk for you being weak as a chick and none too clear-headed, I told them you were expecting a wee one, and bad off because of it. I’ve seen ladies worse on account of babes in the womb. Seeing as they believed it, they’d surely wonder if I didn’t allow him in here.”

Good heavens; they were not at an inn apparently. She dragged her legs over the edge of the bed and pressed her face into her hands. “Who are the nice folk, Mrs. Polley?” she uttered into her palms, her stomach doing thick, nasty flip-flops.

Mrs. Polley strapped the stays around Diantha’s ribs. “A farmer and his wife, and a pack of children.” She scowled. “He’s charmed the lot of them with his pretty London ways.”

Diantha cupped her splitting brow in one palm and pressed the other over her rebellious midsection. “Has he?”

“Took the four little ones up the hill to see the sheep this morning, and brought them back smiling and so worn-out they dropped right off after lunch.”

The petticoat came over her head. “Is it afternoon already?”

“Near four o’clock, miss.” Mrs. Polley guided her hands through the sleeves and tugged Diantha to her feet.

She swayed and grabbed the bedpost. The night was coming back to her in bits. Awful, shameful, truly appalling bits. She sincerely hoped the bits she did not remember were not any worse than those she did. Her throat felt prickly.

“I think I may be ill.”

“I don’t imagine there’s anything left in there to come up, miss.”

Her modesty? Her self-respect? Oh, no, of course not. Those were already thrown entirely to the wind.

She clutched the bedpost while Mrs. Polley fastened her gown, then pinned her hair with the same swift efficiency with which she did all such tasks. It was remarkable that anyone would release such a servant from service. But of course Mrs. Polley hadn’t been of much use to her modesty and self-respect, sleeping the evening away while she drank glass after glass of punch.

“Now there, miss, you go out there and hold your head up.” She clucked her tongue. “It wasn’t your fault that man led you into debauchery.”

“He did not lead me, Mrs. Polley. I drank the punch by my own will.”

Her companion’s bulgy eyes narrowed. “I know what I know.”

Then she knew wrongly. One of Diantha’s few pristine memories of the night was of Mr. Yale gently but firmly removing her hands from his person. Repeatedly. The debauchery had been entirely hers.

She faced the door, heartbeats smacking against her protesting stomach. But there was nowhere to hide, and she did not particularly wish to hide now. Last night she had seized life and lived it with abandon—at least the parts she recalled. She would not now cower in a tiny bedchamber of a farmhouse somewhere in Shropshire for another moment, no matter the certain embarrassment she faced beyond.

She grasped the handle and went out.

It was a long, unadorned room boasting a wooden table flanked by benches and an enormous kitchen hearth before which an apron-clad woman and girl stood. Ramses popped up from a spot before the fire and padded over to her, wiggling happily. Standing at the far window, Mr. Yale turned.

He smiled his slight smile, nothing mocking or knowing or any different from before, and a little chord of dread unwound within her. She curtsied and nearly tumbled over. His smile lengthened only a bit. He bowed.

“Good day, ma’am. How are you feeling?”

“Not perfectly well.” Wretched. She smelled wretched too, her skin radiating a treacly acridness that made her nostrils curl. She probably looked wretched too. But the bedchamber had no mirror, which was for the best. Best not to know what he saw now.

Because what she saw was perfection. Even garbed in his usual black coat, breeches, and boots, a waistcoat of exquisite quality and crisp white shirt and cravat, he made her throat tighten up a bit. But today he looked different. His cheeks carried a glow even in the dimness of the gray day filtering through the windows, and his eyes seemed especially clear.

“Mrs. Dyer, may I make you known to our hostess, Mrs. Bates? And this is her eldest daughter, Miss Elizabeth Bates, whose excellent cooking we enjoyed for dinner today.”

“How do you do, ma’am?” The mistress of the house curtsied with a rustle of apron. “We’re sorry you’ve been poorly. I was ill when I carried my first, Tom, and Betsy here too.” She nodded confidingly. “It’ll be easier with the third.”

“Thank you for your hospitality.” She went forward, the steam from the pot rising to her nose and catching up her throat again. She swallowed tightly and smiled. “I cannot imagine what you must have thought when we were obliged to stop here in the thick of the night like that. You and your husband are very kind to have taken us in.”

“The good Lord says that when we invite in a stranger, we invite Him in, ma’am. And Mr. Dyer being so gentlemanly, we’d no worry.”