The Notorious Scoundrel Page 24

  She caressed his hips in eager strokes. “That isn’t true, Edmund.”

  “Damn it, Amy!” He fisted her wrists again, for she tempted him with her sensual touches…tormented him. “It can’t be between us! Don’t fool yourself into thinking we have a future together. You don’t belong with me.”

  She kissed him.

  It was a hard, passionate gesture; it snatched his wits away. He cried into her hot, needful mouth with longing, and, in an instant, he smothered her in his embrace, keeping her locked between his arms as if he might cease to breathe if he let her go.

  “No,” he said hoarsely.

  “I want to be with you, Edmund.”

  He gritted his teeth at the wretched pain that churned in his belly, for he knew the words hollow, however sweet and tempting.

  She silenced his protests with another sultry buss; it seized his breath, his resistance. He was hungry for her, for every wistful fancy that she’d promised him. A darker sentiment prevailed, though. A miserable truth: He wasn’t fit to be her husband.

  “I can’t, Amy.” He cupped her cheeks in a firm hold. “Damn you, woman. Stop!”

  “You can’t do this to me,” she said, breathless.

  He gnashed his teeth. “Do this to you? Do you think I don’t cut my own heart out, turning you away?”

  “Then don’t turn me away.” Biting back the tears that had formed in her shaky voice, she pleaded, “Come with me to Gretna Green.”

  “No,” he returned tersely. “I have to protect you.”

  “From what?”

  “From myself!”

  “Arrgh!”

  She stepped away from him. He watched her fretful movements as she trolled the grounds in a circle, wringing her fingers, her each disorderly step mirroring the havoc in his soul.

  “I can’t marry the marquis!”

  “You’ll find a more respectable husband in time,” he said in a broken voice. “You don’t have to wed the marquis.”

  “He’s promised to make it very unpleasant for me if I cry off. And I’m to be married in one week! Where will I find another husband in that time?”

  He returned darkly, “I’m just preferable to the lout, then?”

  “He’s mad, Edmund!”

  “What?”

  “Gravenhurst is mad.” She paused and stared at him, her lips quivering. “He’s vowed to make me miserable. At the party at Mortlake, he offered me a glimpse of our future together. It’s dreadful.” She shuddered. “I can’t endure it.”

  “Did he hurt you?”

  The dark sentiment passed between his dry lips in a throaty rasp; his blood burned, pounded in his head.

  “He frightened me,” she returned in a low voice.

  He softened as he spotted the tears in her eyes, sensed her anguish. “What about your parents, Amy?”

  “I know, I’m a failure.” She sniffed. “I’ve not the strength to do my duty, to wed the marquis.”

  He hardened at the familiar sentiment; it festered in his head, too. “I mean, are you prepared to go against their wishes?”

  She wiped at her eyes with her sleeve; he hadn’t a kerchief to offer her, he thought sourly.

  “Yes.” She rubbed her nose in her sleeve, too. “I know they’ll be upset at first, but if we wed, it’ll lessen the scandal. I’ll be married to a respectable gentleman; there won’t be anything the marquis can do about it, either.”

  His ears burned. “Are you sure, Amy?”

  “Yes!”

  He stiffened with indecision, hounded by the primitive instinct to follow his wants and desires, to marry the lass and protect her from harm, even if she merely preferred him to the mad marquis. And yet he was troubled by the thought that he’d make her unhappy, that he’d harm her with an unsuitable match.

  As the contention within him intensified, he sifted through his muddled reflections, grasping at reason. Had she quarreled with the marquis over the engagement? Was that why he’d frightened her? Could she reconcile with the man? Be happy?

  The prospect gripped him, for if there was hope for a reconciliation, he shouldn’t whisk her away to Scotland for his own selfish motives; she belonged with a better man than he.

  He rubbed his brow. She was frightened, though. She had survived the rookeries. She had served the vicious queen for three years. If such hardships hadn’t frightened her enough to escape them, then her ordeal with the marquis had to have truly alarmed her…and he’d never leave her to such a dismal fate. If she asked him for everything in his possession, he’d give it to her.

  Breaking away from the past isn’t easy, I know. But you have a chance to make a new start for yourself with Amy, and if you don’t take it, it’s your own damn fault.

  Edmund closed his eyes; he let the scoundrel in him win.

  “I’ll wait for you in front of the house, Amy.”

  She gasped. “Oh, Edmund!”

  She ravished him with another hearty kiss, wrested the groaning desire chained in his belly, and at the warm and pulsing thought that she’d be with him forever, he relished in the hot blood that drummed through his veins.

  “Do you want…to be…in Gretna Green…by Sunday?”

  “You’re right,” she whispered as she ended the shower of kisses. “I’ll sneak through the garden with you. I don’t want anyone to see me in the house.”

  “You can’t scale the wall in your skirt.”

  “I can try.”

  “Amy.”

  She huffed. “Oh, all right.”

  She picked up her bag again. She was teeming with energy. He sensed every breathless, bouncing movement. It nourished him as well, stilled his reservations.

  “Go, Amy.”

  She dashed across the terrace, through the parted doors. As soon as she’d entered the dark passageway, he scaled the stone wall and skulked through the shadows, making his way toward the entrance of the town house, where he waited for her.

  He spied the deserted street, the light fog rolling across the road. He rubbed his fingers together even though the late-summer night wasn’t very cool. With his eyes on the door, he listened to the blood throbbing in his head. His older brother’s stern reprimands resounded in his skull, too. Bellowed, really.

  Irresponsible!

  But he silenced the outcry, convinced himself he was making a wise decision, he was protecting Amy…and yet the niggling doubt remained, vociferous. It gnawed at his spirit, slowly turning cold. He was making a mistake. He was going to disgrace the lass with their marriage. A respectable gentleman? Him?

  I hope the last few years you’ve spent playing gentleman in society has taught you one important lesson. A woman of noble blood does not associate with a seaman.

  The duke’s biting warning filled his head, cramped his other spirited reflections. As he fingered his hair, feeling the pressure building in his skull…a blackness came over him, snuffing his thoughts.

  Chapter 23

  “Dearly beloved, we are gathered together here in the sight of God, and in the face of this congregation, to join together this Man and this Woman in holy Matrimony…”

  Amy stood at the foot of the altar in St. Paul’s Cathedral, staring at the old bishop with wide eyes. He was so aged, his bony fingers trembled as he read the verses from the Book of Common Prayer. She spied his shaking mannerisms; he had the palsy. He might suffer an apoplexy at any moment, she thought. If the Almighty summoned him home in the next few seconds, it would postpone the wedding. She wouldn’t have to marry the marquis…but the bishop still lived. He still prattled onward about “men’s carnal lusts and appetites.”

  She glanced at the gold pillars that framed the quire, the breathtaking stained glass looming in the apse. At almost two hundred feet, the holy structure’s impressive height seemed so ominous; she sensed its weight bearing down on her, crushing her…

  “First, it was ordained for the procreation of children…”

  Amy looked sidelong at her father. The duke was positioned between
her and the groom, holding her right hand in a firm and proper manner, keeping her caged, his eyes directed at the bishop. A thin smile touched his otherwise dour mouth. At least he was cheerful about the union.

  “Secondly, it was ordained for a remedy against sin, and to avoid fornication…”

  She peeked at the marquis askance. He was stiff as stone, his expression inscrutable, but she was privy to his innermost thoughts, his wickedness, and as the wedded vows unfolded, her heartbeats increased, her skull teemed with the knowledge: she would soon belong to the vicious man.

  If the devil wasn’t so fit and robust, she might wish him an apoplexy instead, but he was filled with a dark energy that maintained his formidable physique, his miserable existence—and soon he’d set that deep-rooted rancor upon her.

  “Thirdly, it was ordained for the mutual society, help, and comfort, that the one ought to have of the other, both in prosperity and adversity…”

  Comfort in adversity.

  Amy’s lips quivered. She glanced from one side of the nave to the other, searching for comfort, but the stone walls, the religious monuments offered her poor succor. She was sinking, drowning in an indefinable heaviness—and she hadn’t the wherewithal to save herself.

  “I require and charge you both, as you will answer at the dreadful day of judgment when the secrets of all hearts shall be disclosed, that if either of you know any impediment, why you may not be lawfully joined together in Matrimony, you do now confess it.”

  Within the structure’s vast space, the bishop’s voice boomed, resounded in her head. She swallowed, her throat tightening. There was a smarting in her breast. Perhaps she was going to have an apoplexy. Perhaps the Almighty was going to strike her dead for the dishonesty in her heart.

  “For be you well assured, that so many as are coupled together otherwise than God’s Word doth allow are not joined by God; neither is their Matrimony lawful.”

  Amy was feeling ill, a churning movement in her belly. The marquis looked at her in an oblique manner, communicated with her using his eyes: You belong to me.

  She pinched her lips. It was too late to voice her objections now, to break the engagement. She was trapped. The congregation was seated behind her; the legion of society members had swarmed the cathedral to witness the union. It would be a scandal, a shame beyond words if she grabbed her skirts and dashed from the holy dwelling.

  Besides, where would she go? Home? The Duke and Duchess of Estabrooke would disown her, surely. And she wouldn’t go to St. James, to Edmund. Never again. She would never again beseech the scoundrel for help. The bloody bastard had already abandoned her.

  She inhaled a deep breath at the recollection, so cutting. After she’d reached the front entranceway of the town house, slipped through the door, her heart beating with vim…she’d found the street deserted, filled with mist.

  The coward!

  He’d changed his mind about wedding her; he’d surrendered to his misgivings, his perceived shortfalls, and had slipped away, into the darkness, dooming her to a marriage with the mad marquis.

  “Samuel, wilt thou have this Woman to thy wedded Wife, to live together after God’s ordinance in the holy estate of Matrimony? Wilt thou love her, comfort her, honor, and keep her in sickness and in health; and, forsaking all others, keep only unto her, so long as you both shall live?”

  A set of icy gold eyes pegged her. “I will.”

  She shuddered. She had to go through with the wedding, even if her heart was bleeding, her pulses screaming.

  “Amy, wilt thou have this Man to thy wedded Husband, to live together after God’s ordinance in the holy estate of Matrimony? Wilt thou obey him, and serve him, love, honor, and keep him in sickness and in health; and, forsaking all others, keep thee only unto him, so long as you both shall live?”

  She blinked, feeling woozy. A sound pressure at her hand and a stern, reproaching look from her father rustled her voice, so weak, and she said, “I will.”

  The bishop looked at the duke. “Who gives this Woman to be married to this Man?”

  “I do,” said the duke.

  The bishop stepped forward.

  Amy prayed he’d stumble over his ecclesiastical vestments, but he maintained his poise. He clasped her right hand between his freckled fingers, breaking the bond between her and her father. The duke walked off to the side.

  Bullocks!

  With trembling muscles, the bishop then guided the marquis’s right hand over the bride’s. “Say after me as followeth…”

  Amy stared into the pair of wicked eyes, sparkling with warning. She was covered in a cold sweat. She had contracted the clergyman’s palsy, it seemed, for her own fingers started quaking; her toes, too.

  After the instruction, the marquis followed with the recitation, his voice low:

  “I, Samuel, take thee, Amy, to my wedded Wife, to have and to hold from this day forward…”

  He squeezed her hand.

  She winced.

  “…for better for worse, for richer for poorer, in sickness and in health, to love and to cherish, till death us do part…”

  Amy was about to vomit.

  “…according to God’s holy ordinance; and thereto I plight thee my troth.”

  The bishop loosened their hands, and for a moment, Amy breathed without restraint, but just as swiftly, the old minister set her fingers over the marquis’s right hand.

  “Say after me as followeth…”

  Amy fingers twitched as the groom glowered at her with silent promises of pain—everlasting pain. Weakened, she let the hot tears form in her eyes as she recited:

  “I, Amy, take thee, Samuel, to my wedded Husband…”

  She choked. After a short pause, she recommenced in a shaky voice:

  “…to have and to hold from this day forward, for better for worse, for richer for poorer, in sickness and in health…”

  Slowly her voice withered, her last vow a mere whisper:

  “…to love, cherish, and to obey, till death us do part, according to God’s holy ordinance; and thereto I give thee my troth.”

  The bishop disentangled their hands.

  Amy’s head was pounding with blood, making her dizzy. The vertigo threatened to immerse her in darkness, and she welcomed the thought of that darkness. It was a far better fate than wedded matrimony to the mad marquis.

  The bishop placed a gold wedding band on the Holy Bible, assisted by his clerk, blessing the ring. He then handed the band to the marquis.

  “Say after me as followeth…”

  His expression black, the marquis captured her left hand; his eyes narrowed on her until the gold orbs peered at her through dark slits. He repeated:

  “With this Ring I thee wed…”

  The marquis slipped the cold, smooth band over her fourth finger, claiming her as his wife.

  “…with my Body I thee worship, and with all my worldly Goods I thee endow: In the Name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost. Amen.”

  “Amen,” she whispered weakly.

  The bishop opened his arms. “Let us pray.”

  The newlywed couple knelt at the altar.

  “O eternal God, Creator and Preserver of all mankind, Giver of spiritual grace, the Author of everlasting life; Send thy blessing upon these thy servants, this Man and this Woman, whom we bless in thy Name…”

  The tears poured from her eyes; she sobbed. The congregation likely believed them tears of joy, but she ached in her breast…ached for another, worthless man who’d devastated her heart.

  “It’s too late, Lady Gravenhurst,” her husband whispered into her ear. “You’re mine.”

  Edmund sat on the dank floor in the dark cell with his legs raised and his bruised hands folded between his knees. He’d pounded on the iron door, groped through the chinking between the blocks in the wall, screamed himself hoarse…and still he was trapped.

  The fire had fizzled from his soul; he had lost all sense of time and orientation. He was weak with hun
ger, his only salvation the cool water that trickled into the compartment through the stone slabs.

  Was she safe?

  The thought hounded him. In the stillness, it tormented him. He had waited for her at the town house’s entrance, but the blackness had smothered him before he’d reunited with her. He had stirred from his dreamless sleep to find himself in the small room, his head in pain. But the injury had passed. The zeal in his breast had sustained him, pushed him to struggle against his captivity…but his gaolers consisted of cold stones. Invincible. Impenetrable. Not a sound penetrated the room. Not even a sliver of light. And he suspected his woeful cries went unheeded, too.

  He assumed the attackers at fault. The rogues, desperate for their fortune, had likely incapacitated him in the hopes of getting to Amy.

  He stiffened at the pain that welled in his belly. Was the lass hurt? Was she even alive? Or had the queen had her revenge? The very thought crippled him; he refused to believe Amy was dead. He dwelled on another matter, sighing with a heaviness in his breast. How many days had passed? Was Amy wed?

  He imagined her, frightened. A marchioness. Or had she escaped her fiancé? He suspected the former. She had a loyal heart. She’d not disgrace her parents with a scandalous disappearance; she’d not be welcomed home from Gretna Green without a husband.

  “Arrgh!”

  He slammed his fists into the floor, his knuckles smeared with dried blood from the previous fruitless poundings. How long would he remain imprisoned in the interminable darkness? It niggled at him, small bites. Was she furious with him? Did she think he’d abandoned her? Forsaken her? It cut his heart, the idea that she believed ill of him.

  An iron key rustled in the lock.

  Slowly he lifted his head, listened, but there was someone at the door; he wasn’t imagining the noise.

  He bounded to his feet in a burst of energy, his heart palpitating, strengthening him. As he fisted his fingers, he meshed his lips together in hunger; he yearned for revenge.

  The door creaked.

  He grabbed the iron entrapment and yanked it; it pounded the adjacent stone wall with trembling force.