“I’m terribly sorry.” Desperate to escape him, she lurched away and fumbled around on the shadow-draped seats in search of her bonnet. When her hands seized upon something soft, an offended “Mrrwwww” warned her that she had found the cat instead.
“Looking for this?”
She straightened to find Simon dangling the bonnet from one long, elegant finger. “Thank you very much,” she said stiffly, seizing the hat and clapping it on her head.
“Shall I make arrangements for our lodgings?” he offered, reaching over and turning the bonnet around so that its saucy little velvet-trimmed brim would be facing forward instead of backward.
She brushed his hands away. “That won’t be necessary. I’ll take care of everything while you arrange for our bags to be brought in.”
He shrugged, retreating behind a shield of indifference. “Suit yourself. After all, you are the boss.”
Without waiting for the coachman or one of the inn’s grooms to assist her, she wrenched open the carriage door and scrambled out of the vehicle so fast she got her feet tangled up in her skirts and nearly fell. Regaining her footing, if not her dignity, she started across the courtyard. She was halfway to the door of the inn when she executed an abrupt about-face and marched back to the carriage.
She reached through the door and jerked out her portmanteau. After a moment’s thought, she reached back in and hauled Robert the Bruce into her arms as well. As she marched back across the courtyard, she could almost feel Simon’s arch gaze boring into her back. She lifted her chin, reminding herself sternly that any refuge she found in his arms was nothing but a dangerous illusion.
A short while later, Simon found himself following his betrothed up a narrow, winding staircase. The feathers in her bonnet might be drooping, but the saucy swish of her rump was as fresh as ever.
She turned right at the top of the corridor, counting beneath her breath as she led them past a handful of narrow oak doors. She stopped at the last door and slipped the beribboned key in her hand into the keyhole. The door swung open to reveal a bedstead of whitewashed iron.
Simon nearly groaned with longing. After so many grueling hours spent bouncing around the interior of the carriage, the thin mattress with its understuffed pillows and faded patchwork quilt looked as inviting as a celestial cloud.
He started forward, but Catriona turned in the doorway, blocking his path. She blinked up at him, her dewy gray eyes as innocent as a babe’s. “I’m sorry. Did I neglect to tell you that I’d arranged for separate accommodations? Since we won’t be officially wed until the morrow, it would hardly be proper for us to share a room.” She pointed down the corridor before offering him a second key. “You’ll find your bed right down the hall—the last door on the left.”
Simon slowly took the key, then nodded toward the cat cradled in her arms. “I suppose you have no qualms about letting that rascal share your bed.”
“Of course not. Unlike you, I can count on him to be the perfect gentleman.” With those words, she gently closed the door in his face, leaving him standing all alone in the corridor.
The wedding day Catriona had dreamed about for five years dawned with an ominous rumble of thunder and the steady patter of rain on the inn’s roof. By the time she and Simon had dressed and broken their fast with chunks of stale bread and lukewarm bowls of porridge, they were forced to wade through chill puddles to reach their waiting carriage. The coachman huddled atop his bench, rain streaming steadily from the brim of his top hat and the voluminous shoulder capes of his greatcoat. He looked even more miserable than Catriona felt as she dragged the sodden hem of her cloak and a yowling Robert the Bruce into the carriage.
As they resumed their journey on the Great North Road, the promise of spring slowly disappeared, leaving the hedgerows and tree branches bare of buds and the landscape bleak and wintry. At least Catriona didn’t have to worry about crawling back into Simon’s lap. With her nerves strung as taut as pianoforte wires, she was far too tense to sleep.
The man sitting across from her wasn’t some fairy-tale prince who would be content with a chaste kiss from her trembling lips. He was flesh and blood, with a man’s needs and a man’s hungers. Hungers she had foolishly promised to satisfy.
They crossed the Scottish border and rolled into the sleepy little village of Gretna Green just as the bleak day was fading into an even bleaker dusk. Catriona wondered how many brides had traveled this road before her—some giddy with joy, some still stinging from the scandals they had left behind, others being pursued by frantic parents and jilted lovers desperate to halt their elopements before they could be consummated in one of the seedy inns that had sprung up for just that purpose. As she took the hand Simon offered her and descended from the carriage, she realized that there was no one to rescue her from her folly.
She was about to marry the man of her dreams, yet she felt as if she were slogging through a nightmare of her own making. Instead of standing before the altar in a candlelit church and giving her his heart, Simon would take her money and her innocence. He would share her bed, but not her life.
They were directed to a smoky barn lit by the hellish glow of a forge. In lieu of a clergyman, a hulking blacksmith in a soot-stained apron strode forward to perform the ceremony. For all he knew, she could be an abducted heiress only minutes away from being ravished by her greedy groom. As long as his grimy paw was crossed with silver, he would gladly deliver her into the hands of the devil himself.
She stole a look at Simon’s profile. He bore little resemblance to the charming young officer who had fueled her innocent fantasies since the day she’d caught him making love to her cousin. This man with the sinister scar on his brow and the cynical quirk to his lips suddenly seemed like a stranger to her—forbidding and dangerous. She flinched as the sweaty blacksmith slammed his hammer down on an anvil and pronounced her and Simon man and wife.
A stranger who was now her husband.
As the blacksmith boomed out, “What God joins together, let no man put asunder!” she stole a glance skyward, half expecting a bolt of lightning to sizzle her into ashes where she stood.
They had exchanged no heartfelt vows, no golden rings, no tender kiss. It was a wedding without pledges or promises, tailor-made for a man like Simon Wescott.
“Is that all there is?” she asked, desperate to forestall the inevitable.
The blacksmith’s broad, leathery face split in a grin. “Aye, lass, that’s all there is. Once you and yer young man sign the register over there, ’tis every bit as bindin’ as a proper church weddin’ in the eyes o’ the law. And the Lord,” he added, shooting a glance toward the dusty rafters of the barn as if to cue a choir of angels eager to lend approval to their unholy union.
Simon quickly scrawled his name in the leather-bound register, then handed her the feather quill, his warm hand brushing hers. Catriona was trying to still her trembling long enough to dot her i’s when another couple burst through the door of the barn, laughing and shaking rain from their hair. Although they looked like a pair of drowned rats, their faces were glowing brighter than the forge.
“Are you the bloke who can make all my dreams come true?” the copper-haired young man demanded of the blacksmith, wrapping an arm around his apple-cheeked companion.
She patted his drooping shirtfront and gazed adoringly up at his freckled face. “You made all my dreams come true on the day you defied my father and begged me to elope with you.”
Her eager young groom cupped her radiant face in his hands and lowered his mouth to hers, kissing her with a tender yet passionate ardor that made a barbed blade of envy twist in Catriona’s heart.
The blacksmith cleared his throat. “Unless you want yer first bairn on the way before I can pronounce you man and wife, I suggest the two o’ you step over here to the anvil.”
The couple broke apart, giggling and blushing. The girl glanced toward the table where the register lay, noticing Simon and Catriona for the first time.
She smiled shyly, revealing a winsome gap between her two front teeth. “Did the two of you just marry?”
Catriona nodded. “Right before you came in.”
The girl rushed over and threw her arms around Catriona in an impulsive hug. “Oh, I hope you’ll be as happy as me and my Jem!”
Catriona gave the girl’s back an awkward pat before stepping away. Avoiding Simon’s eyes, she said, “Thank you. I’m certain we will.”
The young man strode over to give Simon’s hand an enthusiastic pump. “May your marriage bed be blessed with sons, sir. Lots of strapping sons.” He gave Catriona’s hips an appreciative glance before winking at Simon. “Your new missus there looks like she’ll make as fine a breeder as my Bess.”
As Catriona let out a shocked gasp and his Bess smothered a giggle behind her hand, Simon winked back at the boy, his stage whisper loud enough to be heard by them all. “You’ve a good eye, son. That’s precisely why I married the lass.”
Keenly aware of Simon’s presence behind her, Catriona trudged up the inn stairs to their room. There would be no leaving him standing in the hallway tonight. He had laid claim to her heart five years ago and as far as society and the law were concerned, her body now belonged to him as well.
She couldn’t even count on Robert the Bruce to defend her honor tonight. Despite Catriona’s protests, the innkeeper had insisted that the cat remain in the stables with the coachman.
As they reached the top of the stairs, the shadows that draped the narrow corridor threatened to consume her. No one in Gretna Green was worried about the elegance of their accommodations. The only requirement for a room was that it contain a bed. And judging from the grappling couple they had glimpsed in the courtyard, some of the more eager newlyweds were even willing to forgo that luxury. She felt her cheeks heat all over again as she remembered the man’s groan of appreciation as the woman’s naked breast had spilled from her bodice into his eager hand.
“Ah, here we are,” she said with false cheer as they reached the room they had been assigned.
After she’d made three futile stabs at unlocking the door, Simon gently removed the key from her trembling hand and slid it smoothly into the keyhole. Their bodies brushed as he held the door open and ushered her inside, making her aware all over again of how much stronger and larger than her he was.
The innkeeper had delivered their baggage, but the stone hearth was cold, with no fire to welcome them or burn the damp chill from the air. A rough-hewn table squatted in front of it. There was no wedding supper waiting for them either. No steaming pigeon pie or even a moldy hunk of cheese and stale bread.
Perhaps that was just as well, Catriona thought. With all of the butterflies waltzing in her belly, she doubted there would be any room for food.
The single lamp cast a grudging glow over the narrow iron bedstead in the corner. It looked as if it had barely enough room for one occupant, much less two. It was a far cry from the luxurious half-tester she and Simon had shared at her uncle’s house.
She was fretting needlessly, she told herself. Simon had probably already forgotten the foolish pledge she’d made in the jail. He had only been bluffing to frighten her away. She removed her bonnet and placed it on the table before turning to face him.
Eyeing her with an intensity that could only be called predatory, he leaned his back against the door as if to block any hope of escape, tugged the knot from his cravat and said, “Enough dawdling, darling. Let’s have done with it, then, shall we?”
Chapter 9
Catriona froze. Given Simon’s reputation, she had expected at least a token attempt at seduction—a coaxing smile, a tender touch, some honeyed words flattering the silkiness of her hair or the intoxicating aroma of the lavender water she had dabbed behind her ears. She knew firsthand just how persuasive his tongue could be. Especially when employed in the service of a kiss. But at the moment he was eyeing her as if he had every intention of bending her over the table, throwing her skirts up over her head and ravishing her like some sort of marauding Viking.
She awkwardly cleared her throat. “We just arrived. There’s really no need to rush, is there?”
He straightened to his full height, the impressive breadth of his shoulders making him look even more forbidding than he had in the forge. “And why not? I’ve done the deed and now it’s your turn. I want what I was promised.”
Catriona gazed at his implacable face for a long moment before slowly nodding. “Very well. Now that we’re wed, I suppose I have no right to deny you.”
With shaking hands she stripped off her damp cloak and draped it neatly over one of the rickety chairs. She moved toward the bed, measuring her every step as if it were carrying her toward the gallows. She settled herself gingerly on the thin heather-stuffed tick, then lay back and squeezed her eyes shut. Perhaps if he was ruthless and impersonal—taking his own pleasure without offering any in return—she would be better able to hide her feelings for him. There would be no danger of her melting beneath his tender caresses or crying out his name in a moment of blissful madness.
“What in the bloody hell are you doing?”
Catriona opened her eyes to find Simon leaning over the bed, frowning down at her as if she’d lost the last of her wits.
She blinked up at him. “Preparing to perform my wifely duties.”
“You look more like you’re preparing to be roasted on a spit.” He grabbed her by the upper arm and hauled her to a sitting position. “If I were you, I’d sit up before someone stuffs an apple in your mouth.”
Flushing to the roots of her hair, she jerked her arm out of his grip, mortified that he found her so clumsy. “As you probably guessed from our earlier encounter, I’m not particularly well versed in the art of lovemaking.”
Taking his pained cough to be one of agreement, she scowled. “I’ve never been a professional libertine, while you, undoubtedly, have had the opportunity to practice any number of creative perversions.”
“Oh, dozens. Each more creative than the last,” he agreed cheerfully.
“What I’m trying to say,” she continued through gritted teeth, “is that I might require your instruction. I have no idea what will please a man like you.”
Simon dropped to his knees in front of her and gently folded her hands in his own. As Catriona met his eyes, she felt a reckless hope stir in her heart. Perhaps she had misjudged him. Perhaps he too had secret hopes that their marriage could be more than just convenient.
He stroked his thumbs over her knuckles, his touch even more seductive than she’d dreamed it could be, his voice even more tender. “I can tell you exactly what would please a man like me.”
“Can you?” She was mesmerized by his husky murmur, and her gaze wandered from the sparkling green depths of his eyes to the beguiling curve of his lips.
He leaned closer to her, his warm breath caressing the wispy curls at her temple. “Nothing would please me more than…”
She closed her eyes and held her breath, promising herself she would maintain her composure no matter how scandalous his suggestion.
“…being paid the money that I am owed.”
Catriona’s eyes flew open. Snatching her hands out of his, she rose to her feet so quickly she nearly sent him tumbling to his backside. He recovered his balance and slowly straightened, but she was already pacing fitfully in front of the hearth.
For a few foolish seconds, she had allowed herself to forget just what sort of man she was dealing with. A rogue. A mercenary. A man who would barter away his own soul if it meant he had a fistful of farthings to squander in the brothels or at the gaming tables. Of course, she had bartered her innocence away with even less care, so she supposed she had no right to condemn him for his greed.
She swung around to face him. “I’m afraid that won’t be possible.”
He eyed her warily. “And why not?”
“Because you haven’t yet completed the task for which I hired you.”
“You hired me to marr
y you.”
It sounded even more humiliating when stated so baldly, as if it had been the only way for her to obtain a husband. “I also hired you to escort me to my brother in the Highlands. Once you’ve completed that task to my satisfaction, you’ll receive your payment in full. Until then, I can’t have you sneaking off in the dead of night and leaving me to my own devices.”
They gazed at each other in silence. They both knew he now had the legal right to not only his half of the dowry, but hers as well. According to the courts, every one of her pennies, every stitch of clothing she owned, every hair on her head had become his sole personal property in the moment they had signed the marriage register. He could steal from her, ravish her, even beat her with his fists, and no judge in England or Scotland would condemn him.
“Let me make sure I have this straight,” he said softly, stealing a glance at the bed. “You were willing to trust me with your body, but you refuse to trust me with my own money.”
She had no answer for that. Especially since he’d made it painfully clear that he was more interested in the money than her body.
“You disappoint me, Mrs. Wescott,” he finally said. “I know I’m not a man of my word, but I thought you were a woman of yours.”
He turned and strode toward the door.
“Where are you going?”
“Out,” he said shortly without slowing his stride.
Catriona watched him walk away from her, her sense of helplessness growing. Even though their marriage was to be only a mock one, she couldn’t bear the thought of him spending their wedding night in another woman’s arms.
“No! You mustn’t go!”
He turned on his heel, lifting one eyebrow in blatant challenge. “And why not? Can you give me a good reason to stay?”
For one desperate moment, Catriona considered marching over to him, throwing her arms around his neck, pressing her lips against his and doing just that. But if he refused her again, she didn’t think her bruised pride would survive the blow.