Barely a Bride

Griff sat silently as the two solicitors, his and Lord Tressingham’s—hammered out the terms of the marriage contract and the marriage settlement. He listened as the two men argued each point of the contract, negotiating compromises, until both parties reached a satisfactory conclusion. Changes in the terms of the contract were noted, and after two hours of haggling, the solicitors pronounced the documents ready to be signed.

  Griff heaved a sigh of relief as he watched Tressingham scribble his name at the bottom of the document. Griff added his signature to the parchment, signing it with a flourish.

  “Well done, my boy!” Tressingham slapped him on the back. “Well done.”

  Griff opened his mouth to speak, to ask for a few moments alone with Alyssa, but Tressingham was quicker. He walked over to the side table and poured two glasses of brandy. He handed one to Griff and lifted the other in a toast. “Here’s to our long and mutually satisfying alliance!”

  Griff frowned. Good grief! Tressingham made it sound as if Griff had just become engaged to marry him, rather than Alyssa.

  “Drink up, my boy!” Tressingham urged, his jovial generosity returning now that legalities were over. “Did you bring the betrothal ring?”

  Griff swallowed a mouthful of brandy and nodded.

  “Good.” Tressingham walked over to the bell and pulled it.

  The butler appeared almost immediately, and Griff decided that he must have been waiting outside the library door. “Tell Lady Tressingham and the gel that I wish to speak to them.”

  “At once, sir.”

  “And tell them to make it on the quick,” Tressingham added.

  Griff waited until the butler exited the room to speak. “I requested a few moments alone with Lady Alyssa,” he reminded his future father-in-law. “I should like to present her with her betrothal ring in private.”

  “Plenty of time for privacy after all the preliminaries have been taken care of.” Tressingham turned to Griffin, rubbed his palms together in anticipation, and said. “Where is it?”

  “Where is what?” Griff asked.

  “The ring, boy. The ring.” He grinned. “I hear the Abernathy family has a magnificent betrothal ring with a big yellow diamond.”

  Griff nearly groaned. He should have realized Tressingham would have heard of and expected to see Great-grandmother Abernathy’s ugly canary diamond betrothal ring. He looked at Tressingham steadily. “I’ve selected another, more suitable ring for Lady Alyssa.”

  Tressingham winked. “Big diamond still at the jewelers, eh? Well, it happens to the best of us. But it’s damned decent and smart of you to remember to bring another more suitable ring for the gel. Still, it isn’t every day that two great families, such as ours, become allies. Not every day that a gel like Alyssa—” He broke off as Needham opened the door.

  “Lady Tressingham and Lady Alyssa, my lords,” Needham announced, stepping back to allow the ladies to precede him.

  “Do something with your hair,” Lady Tressingham whispered to Alyssa. “And for goodness’ sakes, smile. You’re about to become a duchess.”

  As far as Alyssa was concerned, becoming a duchess was nothing to smile about. But she reached up and touched her hair and discovered that a mass of baby-fine curls had escaped from their pins while she labored over the boiling pot of rosewater. She smoothed the tendrils into place as best she could and rubbed her damp palms down the front of her dress. She stared down at her toes and took a deep breath, preparing herself for whatever lay ahead.

  “What is he doing here?”

  Alyssa breathed a prayer of thanks to God and all of her guardian angels for the note of irritation in her mother’s voice, for it could only mean that the man waiting inside the library with her father was not His Grace.

  Praying that it was Lord Abernathy, Alyssa straightened to her full height, held her head high, and beamed, hoping that, this time, her papa had managed to live up to her expectations.

  “Here you are, my dear.” Tressingham ignored his wife’s rude outburst. He opened his arms wide in a gesture of welcome and goodwill.

  Lady Tressingham surprised Griff by stepping into the circle of her husband’s arms.

  Tressingham gave his wife an affectionate hug. “That’s my girl,” he pronounced, opening his arms wide once again and gesturing for his daughter to join them in a family embrace. “Come here, Alyssa, and say hello to Lord Abernathy.” Tressingham gave his daughter a nudge in Griffin’s direction.

  Alyssa did as her father instructed. “Hello, Lord Abernathy.”

  “What is he doing here?” Lady Tressingham asked again, this time in a stage whisper.

  Tressingham shushed her. “All in good time, Puss.”

  Griff stared at Alyssa, nearly dumbfounded by the sight and the scent of her as the memories of the kisses they’d shared in the ladies’ retiring room the night before came roaring back. He sucked in a breath. Her light brown hair curled in tiny ringlets about her face, and her cheeks were pink, providing her flawless complexion with a most becoming blush. He would never have believed it possible for any woman to look as if she’d just spent all morning or all evening making love with a man—unless she had. But Alyssa Carrollton had that flushed, slightly disheveled look about her that set his heart racing and sent blood pooling in his groin. And her scent…she smelled of roses. Acres and acres of roses. Fields of roses. The scent emanated from her hair and her dress and her skin as if she were made of rose petals instead of flesh and blood. He’d never smelled anything as softly delicate or as powerfully erotic, and Griff knew with a certainty that he would never again be able to smell the scent of roses without thinking of Alyssa. His mouth went dry, and Griff fought to form the simple words he needed. “Hello, Lady Alyssa.”

  Alyssa couldn’t stop smiling. He was every bit as gorgeous in his buff doeskin trousers in the light of her father’s study as he had looked in knee breeches, stockings, and buckle shoes beneath the bright gaslight in the ballroom at Almack’s. But it was her memory of the way he’d looked beneath the softened gaslight in the ladies’ retiring room that was the most powerful. It seemed impossible, but she was quite certain he was more handsome now—for he was standing before her after having spent the majority of the afternoon in the company of her father negotiating for her hand in marriage.

  “It’s a pleasure to see you again, Lord Abernathy.” She kept her voice low, but she couldn’t keep her bottom lip from trembling.

  “You knew I would come.” He focused his attention on her mouth and the way she bit her lip to stop its tremor.

  “I knew you would come,” she answered, “but I didn’t know if you would prevail.”

  He smiled at her. “Then, you’ve much to learn about me, my lady.”

  “Have I?”

  “Yes,” he answered. “And a lifetime in which to learn it.”

  “Enough!” Lady Tressingham’s single word broke through the rosy haze and soft conversation surrounding Griff and Alyssa.

  “Enough suspense,” she continued, glaring at Lord Tressingham. “I want to know why Lord Abernathy is here and His Grace, the Duke of Sussex, is not.”

  Lord Tressingham took a deep breath. “I decided to accept Lord Abernathy’s offer and grant him our daughter’s hand in marriage.”

  “What!” Lady Tressingham practically vibrated with outrage.

  “Lord Abernathy is about to become our new son-in-law,” Lord Tressingham repeated in a firmer, no-nonsense tone.

  “We agreed, Johnny.” Lady Tressingham ignored the no-nonsense tone in her husband’s voice and continued to take him to task as only a wife could do. “We agreed that His Grace was the best husband for Alyssa.” She shot a disapproving look at Griffin. “Lord Abernathy is from a fine family, and I am certain that he possesses many admirable qualities—not the least of which is a desire to marry our daughter—but the fact remains that he is only a viscount, while His Grace—”

  “I know we discussed it, Puss. I know we decided upon His Grace. I know young Aberna
thy is only a viscount. But he’s the Earl of Weymouth’s viscount.”

  “What has that to do with anything?” she snapped, before the answer began to dawn. Lady Tressingham closed her eyes for a moment and gritted her teeth, then glanced up at the portrait of Fancy hanging over the mantel. She eyed Griffin with renewed irritation mixed with the tiniest hint of admiration. Outranked and outmatched by His Grace in every way that counted, Lord Abernathy had found a way to stack the deck in his favor. “Weymouth owns—”

  Tressingham beamed at his clever wife. “King George’s Prince of a Fellow.”

  “I see.”

  Everyone who was anyone in the ton knew Johnny Tressingham’s obsession. Few, except few his circle of loyal cronies, could tolerate it. Most wondered how his wife managed to do so. But few members of the ton understood the depth of love the former Miss Penina Sykes felt for her husband. When they’d met, she was in her first season. He was Lord Carrollton then, and heir to his father, the Earl of Tressingham. She was a poor relation by marriage of the Viscount deLancere. Her status, or lack of it, hadn’t mattered to Johnny, He’d been instantly smitten. And if it had taken her a fraction longer to fall in love with him, it had only been because she couldn’t believe her good fortune.

  Johnny was the kindest and gentlest man she had ever met. A man who understood his shortcomings as a husband and who went out of his way to please her in other ways, especially at night in the marriage bed. He was the first man she had ever met who treated her with kindness, who treated her as if she were more than the sum total of her looks. Johnny Tressingham treated her as an equal. He admired her not just for her beauty but also for her brains, and he had always been proud of her. Proud that she was clever and accomplished, and so well liked and accepted. And, although he didn’t know how to show it, Johnny was equally proud of the four daughters they’d produced, never once expressing disappointment or displeasure over the lack of a son and heir. If he loved his horses and hounds as much as he loved her, Lady Tressingham thought that was a small price to pay for all he had given her.

  She was angry at his decision, but she wouldn’t stay that way for long. He hadn’t deliberately set out to thwart her ambitions; he’d simply succumbed to his great obsession. She could forgive him for that because he loved his horses and hounds with as much abandon as he loved her. He couldn’t help it. Johnny never did anything in half measures. He wasn’t made that way, and she had long ago learned to accept and appreciate it.

  “And wait until you see the new stallion munching hay in our stables…”

  Lady Tressingham fought to keep from smiling at Johnny’s boyish excitement. But she felt no such compunction about Lord Griffin Abernathy. She narrowed her gaze at her husband. “In order to win our daughter’s hand in marriage, Lord Abernathy gifted you with a stallion?”

  “Not just any stallion,” Tressingham told her. “But his prized breeding stallion. One of his father’s famous Thoroughbreds of pure Arab descent.” He glanced at Griffin. “And Lord Abernathy didn’t give him to me. He entrusted Apollo to me to care for and to manage while he’s away at war.”

  “How fortunate for Lord Abernathy that you were willing to accept such a great responsibility.” She turned her glare on Griffin.

  “Indeed, it was, ma’am,” Griffin responded to her challenge. “But entrusting Apollo into your husband’s capable hands is nothing compared to the trust Lord Tressingham has shown in entrusting the care of Lady Alyssa to me.”

  “I trust”—Lady Tressingham emphasized the word—“that my daughter will have as much to gain as my husband.”

  “I trust that she will find it so,” Griff replied.

  “Well.” Lady Tressingham injected a note of cheer she didn’t feel into her voice. “It isn’t every day that a young woman is granted the right to wear a man’s family heirlooms—especially when they’re beyond price.” She narrowed her gaze at Griffin once more. “I trust that my daughter will be taking possession of the Abernathy diamonds?”

  “Of course,” Griff answered. “The necklace, brooch, bracelet, and diadem will all belong to her—as soon as she becomes Lady Abernathy.”

  “And the betrothal ring?” Lady Tressingham asked.

  Griff looked Lady Tressingham in the eye. “I prefer to present Lady Alyssa with her betrothal ring in private.”

  “That is out of the question, Lord Abernathy,” Lady Tressingham replied. “You should appreciate the fact that while my daughter is unmarried, she will remain uncompromised.”

  “I do appreciate it, Lady Tressingham, but our society does grant engaged couples a few unchaperoned moments.” He stood firm. “This is one of them.”

  Lord Tressingham intervened. “Come, Puss.” He took his wife by the arm. “Lord Abernathy has just purchased the right to spend time alone with our daughter.”

  “But…” She gave a token protest.

  Lord Tressingham smiled at his wife. “It will be all right, Puss,” he said, glancing at Griffin. “Lord Abernathy is a gentleman. He’ll not be compromising our gel with her parents in the next room.” He led Lady Tressingham to the door of the library that connected with the lesser salon where he paused. “You’ve a few minutes out of sight of the parents,” he said, winking at Griffin. “I suggest you put them to good use.”

  “Johnny!” Lady Tressingham protested as he escorted her through the door.

  “Now, Puss,” he soothed. “They’re young and engaged. So what if he steals a kiss or two? I did the same with you.”

  Griff waited until Lord and Lady Tressingham left the room before turning to Alyssa.

  “So,” she drawled. “You traded a prized breeding stallion for me…”

  Griff bit back a grin. “I prefer to think of it as using the right incentive to get what I want.” He took her hand in his. “And I prefer to think that I got the best part of the bargain.” He leaned closer.

  She met him halfway. “I’ll try to insure that you always feel that way, my lord.”

  “Will you indeed?” he breathed.

  “Indeed,” she promised, rising on tiptoe in order to give him full access to her lips. “I will.” She smiled up at him.

  “Your parents are in the next room,” he warned. “Probably listening at the door,” she agreed.

  “We do have permission,” he whispered.

  “Then, stop wasting time,” she whispered back, “and kiss me.”

  “My pleasure,” he breathed, seconds before he covered her lips with his.

  Alyssa melted into his arms, returning his kiss with a passion that surprised both of them. She teased and tantalized and tasted him, engaging him an erotic duel, sweeping his mouth with her tongue, filling her taste buds with the essence of Griffin Abernathy.

  “We have to stop.” He forced himself to end the kiss.

  “You’re the second person today to tell me to stop doing what I want to do,” she complained, brushing his lips with hers.

  Griff buried his nose in her hair. “You smell of roses,” he replied. “Fields of roses. And lavender.”

  “Much better than the sulfur and peacock feathers, don’t you think?”

  “Much,” he murmured. “What were you doing? Bathing in the essence of roses and lavender?”

  She shook her head. “Distilling it.”

  Griff blinked.

  “You spent the afternoon closeted with my father while I spent the afternoon making rosewater.”

  Griff stepped back. “I didn’t spend the entire afternoon closeted with your father. Believe it or not, I somehow managed to work in a bit of shopping at Dalrymple’s Jewelers.”

  “Prove it,” she challenged.

  Griff reached into his jacket pocket and pulled out a ring. “Will you do me the honor of becoming my wife?”

  Alyssa gasped at the beauty of the ring as he withdrew it from its velvet drawstring bag and offered it to her.

  The delicate gold ring contained a large purple center stone surrounded by a ring of smaller green
stones, and accented by several diamonds. It looked like a purple flower blooming in the midst of bright green leaves sparkling with droplets of rain or dew. Alyssa instantly adored it.

  “It isn’t the traditional Abernathy betrothal ring,” Griff told her, “but this one is unique. I thought you might like a betrothal ring no one else has ever worn. And with your love of gardening, I thought this one was particularly apropos.” He slipped the ring onto the ring finger of her left hand. “Besides,” Griff grinned, “I like amethysts, peridots, and small, tasteful diamonds. But if you prefer otherwise…”

  “It’s beautiful!” Alyssa exclaimed. “And it fits perfectly.” She held out her hand to admire the ring. “However did you manage it?”

  “I’m afraid you’re missing a pair of gloves, my lady.”

  “Am I?”

  “Yes, indeed.”

  She pursed her lips. “I don’t remember dropping them.”

  “That’s because I asked your butler to appropriate your gloves for me to take to the jeweler’s.”

  “Then I’m happy to sacrifice them,” Alyssa said, wiggling her fingers, admiring the way the light reflected off the stones in her betrothal ring.

  “Prove it,” he challenged.

  And Alyssa did, wrapping her arms around his neck, kissing him to show her pleasure in his gift.

  “Ahem.”

  Lord Tressingham cleared his throat in polite warning as he and Lady Tressingham reentered the library.

  Alyssa dropped her arms from around Griff’s neck and would have moved completely out of his reach, but Griffin stopped her by catching hold of her wrist and interlacing his fingers with hers.

  “That’s not the Abernathy betrothal ring,” Lady Tressingham complained the moment she caught sight of the ring on Alyssa’s finger.

  “It is now, Mama,” Alyssa said, “for I’m about to become the new Viscountess Abernathy.”

  “The original Abernathy betrothal ring contains a priceless yellow diamond,” her mother retorted, “and that isn’t it.”

  “No, it isn’t,” Alyssa said. “But I’d rather have this one.”

  Lady Tressingham shook her head. “I don’t understand you, Alyssa. I’ll never understand you—”

  “No matter, Puss,” Lord Tressingham interrupted. “The original Abernathy betrothal ring is still at the jeweler’s. If the gel is happy with the new ring, so much the better, for she’ll receive the other one after the wedding. It’s like getting two rings for the price of one. Besides, the contract is signed and the gel is no longer your concern.”

  “She is until she’s married,” Lady Tressingham reminded him.

  Lord Tressingham rubbed his palms together in anticipation. “Then all I have to say is: When shall we have the wedding?”

  “A proper wedding will take months of planning,” Lady Tressingham said.

  “It will take seven days,” Alyssa answered. “For that’s all the time we have before Lord Abernathy leaves to join his regiment.”

  Lady Tressingham gasped. “Seven days? That’s impossible!”

  “Not for me,” Alyssa announced. “We will be married at Saint Paul’s and host a wedding breakfast for two hundred guests here following the ceremony. And we’ll do it in seven days’ time.” She glanced up at Griffin. “You lived up to your end of the bargain, my lord. Now, I’ll live up to mine.”

  Griffin met her gaze with a smile, suddenly completely at peace with his choice. He knew in his heart that Lady Alyssa Carrollton would live up to her end of the bargain. She wouldn’t fail him.

  Chapter Twelve

  “My bride-to-be is planning our wedding with all the precision of a general planning a military campaign. My role is minimal. I’ve been asked to show up at all appointed times in order to escort her to the rounds of parties, and fetes, and to stay out of the way otherwise. I’m following those orders.”

  —Griffin, Lord Abernathy, journal entry, 26 April 1810