“What?” she whispered. “No!”
He reached and caught her hand, and squeezed it. “Hush.”
She probably wouldn’t have hushed if he hadn’t just spanked her, but something in his tone and his glance warned her to obey.
Lord Baxter tilted his head, studying the two of them. Again, he addressed his question—and his regard—to Lord Warren alone. “Would you have requested her hand if I had not caught the both of you out here together?”
“No,” Lord Warren said. A muscle ticked in his jaw as he clenched his teeth. “Yes. Eventually. If there was no other way.”
“No other way for what?” she asked. He squeezed her hand again and she fell silent.
“What will you do now?” Lord Baxter asked him. “What is the plan?” He glanced at her. “I think the quicker, the better.”
“I’ll get a license this afternoon, if you think that’s soon enough,” he replied with a touch of acid. “We can honeymoon in Oxfordshire for a little while.”
“Yes, that would be best,” said Lord Baxter. “Then you must return to London and behave like a couple swept away by love.”
“Of course. That’s how it generally goes.”
Lord Warren’s chilly manner unsettled her. And Baxter’s frown… Her guardian had never been anything but kind. She didn’t wish him to imagine things about her that weren’t true.
“Lord Baxter, you must believe that nothing untoward has happened, nothing at all to require a marriage,” she pleaded. “This really isn’t necessary.”
“I have been patient with you, my dear, but this is not a negotiable thing.”
“But I would not have you think badly of me.” Her voice cracked on the last words. Not only because she had taken the horrid spanking for nothing, but because she’d die if Lord Baxter despised her. “Nothing happened.” She turned to Lord Warren. “Won’t you tell him? Won’t you explain?”
Something glinted in his deep blue eyes. “Do you really wish me to explain? To tell him all? I said I wouldn’t, but I will, if you wish it.” He said these words very slowly and deliberately, so she understood exactly what he meant.
She scowled at him and turned back to Lord Baxter. Perhaps she ought to be perfectly honest. Perhaps it was pointless. Lord Warren seemed to think so. He had already given up, given in. He hadn’t protested any of this in the slightest.
Lord Baxter came to her and touched her cheek, and gave her a tired smile. “I love you, my dear, and I always will, no matter your mistakes and your stubborn reluctance to marry. In time, you’ll see it’s not such a bad thing. I only wish you to be protected and taken care of. You’ll be a countess now, as well as a baroness by right.”
“But…” Her voice trembled as her fate closed around her like a vise. “I don’t care about being a countess. I do not wish to marry Lord Warren or anyone else.”
The man in question let go of her hand and looked down at her with a daunting expression. His lips were pursed in a very tight line.
*** *** ***
Warren married the Baroness Maitland the next day at the small church in Chapley, with only Minette and the Baxters in attendance. His bride wore her second best black gown because she had no other color gown to put on, and because her first best black gown had got hopelessly wrinkled and dusty in the woods the day before.
He brooded over the black, and thought that she deserved a grander wedding, but Baxter had wanted it done quickly, before the lady could launch some further revolt. Thanks to the gossip going around the parlors of Lord Baxter’s manor, no one was very surprised at the sudden nuptials. Well, Warren was a bit surprised. By some bizarre cycle of events, the strange woman he’d seen peeking out from a wall of house plants a few days ago was now his wife. In some backward and iniquitous way, he had played the hero after all and rescued her from Stafford.
He wasn’t sure whether he ought to be proud.
After the wedding ceremony, Josephine asked for a moment alone in the church, “to pray,” she said, but Warren knew she was crying. He sat on a churchyard bench outside with Minette, and looked up at an overcast sky.
“I believe it was a very charming wedding,” his sister said in her bright and brisk way. He thought he might hug her for it, or go into the church and start crying along with Josephine. “I mean, some people might think it hurried, or inelegant, or some such thing,” she went on, “but all that matters is that the two of you are joined together in affection and love. Stafford put about the worst rumors as soon as he heard the news, but no one thinks him of any account, anyway. They knew he felt jealous that you won her instead of him, and so what else would he say, but that the two of you behaved badly? But I told everyone that was absolutely untrue.”
“Thank you, Minette.”
“Josephine did want to marry you, didn’t she?” Her lips turned down in a frown. “I can’t imagine why she wouldn’t want to. I think it’s ridiculous when people say weddings are forced. She stood up there and said her vows as clear as day.”
Minette had not been able to see the tears in Josephine’s eyes. Or perhaps she had, and preferred not to let that fact sully her happy view of the world. “Josephine is a little upset,” he admitted to his sister. “But I had to marry her. You must trust me when I tell you there was a very good reason to do it. A marriage to Lord Stafford would not have suited her at all.” He smiled at her. “And you dreamed of having Lady Maitland for a sister-in-law.”
“She’ll come to love you, even if she doesn’t yet,” Minette said staunchly. “I’ll tell her you’re ever so sweet and kind, and that you’re a crack of a horseman, and jolly fun to be around, and that the both of you will have a wonderful marriage.”
“How kind of you to try to comfort her, and to speak so highly of me. And you’re perfectly right. When she knows me better, everything will be well. Will you do something for me in the meantime, sis? It’s very important.”
“Of course,” she said, nodding. “I’ll do anything you need.”
“You must stay here with the Baxters while I take Lady Warren away to Oxfordshire for a while.”
“For your honeymoon?” she asked, blushing.
“Yes, exactly. And while we’re away, you must whisper a very romantic tale in all your friends’ ears. You must say how Josephine and I fell madly in love at our first acquaintance. You must speak to them of passion and desire and other such scandalous, silly things, and tell them we simply couldn’t wait to wed one another and be joined for life. Perhaps you can allude to the lady’s exotic upbringing to explain the impetuousness of this whole affair. Can you do that, Minette? If we’re to come back to London and face everyone afterward, we desperately need your help.”
“I’ll do my best. But, oh, will people say mean things? You won her from Stafford fair and square.”
“Stafford will spread the worst gossip of all, because he’s a heartless, petty man. But you must tell everyone the truth, that Josephine and I fell in love.”
God forgive him for telling such tales. Minette smiled at him with so much trust. She either truly believed, or wanted to believe.
“Felicitations on your marriage,” she said, grasping his hand tight. “I’m sure mama and papa are looking down from heaven, and feeling ever so proud of you, and thinking this the most lovely and magical day.”
He glanced up at the gray sky. “Yes, probably.”
This was not the way he’d pictured his eventual wedding day, but he supposed that could not be helped.
Chapter Five: Complexities
Josephine startled awake. She had dreamed of her tiger again, lithe and snarling in the humid night. She tensed as someone shifted beside her. “Are you all right?” a deep voice asked. “Did you have a nightmare?”
It took a moment to remember where she was, and who she was with. She couldn’t see Lord Warren’s eyes in the dark carriage, only the tall, broad shape of him silhouetted against the silk paneling. “Go back to sleep,” he said after a moment. “I’ll wake you
when we get to the inn.”
She wasn’t sure she could go back to sleep now. “It’s so dark in here.”
“Yes, and quiet.”
Lord Warren had been exceptionally quiet on the trip. He only looked at her every so often, as if surprised to find her there. She wondered if he was sad to be married to her. She didn’t know how she felt anymore. Sad? Not exactly. Angry, frustrated? Yes. And fearful. She hardly knew this man she was married to.
“You should have allowed Minette to come,” she said as the silence stretched out. “Then it wouldn’t have been so quiet.”
He laughed at that. “I love my sister, but she’s not the sort of person you want along on your honeymoon.”
He stretched his legs to the opposite bench, stretched his whole body in fact, reaching his arms up and puffing out his chest. It alarmed her, this display of masculine physicality. While he flexed and sighed, Josephine sat very still and thought about a honeymoon. The word always made people smile, and sometimes blush. She knew a honeymoon was something newly married people did, that was appropriately private, but she wasn’t sure about the finer details or why they had to travel all the way to Oxfordshire to accomplish the thing.
She was not a complete idiot. She knew honeymoons involved intimate behavior. The man beside her would embrace her again, and probably kiss her as he had in the forest. But she’d heard other things that gave her pause. She knew for certain she must not allow him in her bed. She hoped the inn tonight had plenty of beds, so she needn’t worry about it.
When Lord Warren finished stretching, he sat forward on the seat. “Would you like me to light the lamp?”
Josephine agreed that she would like that, for she still felt leftover anxiety from her dream. She knew there were no tigers here, and no danger. Well, not the sort of danger she was used to. She stared at Lord Warren’s thighs as he reached to light the candle in the glass lamp and hang it overhead. You’ve been spanked over those thighs, she thought. She couldn’t stop thinking about that whole affair, or the kiss that had come afterward.
The candle filled the traveling compartment with a soft, warm glow, illuminating velvet pillows and gilt trim. It illuminated him too, so she could see his features and the fine gold embroidery on his coat. He touched her hand, just for a moment, and she remembered the way he’d clasped her in the woods. She remembered the leashed strength in his body, and the way they’d kissed. What did that touch mean? Had the honeymoon begun yet?