The Earl and the Wedding Crasher (The Brides of Elderglen #3)

Chapter 11

CHAPTER ELEVEN

" W here is my wife, Mrs. Brooks?" Cedric asked slowly, not wanting to vent his frustrations on the wrong person.

Mrs. Brooks looked up from where she was overseeing some girls clearing away the supper plates. "Good evening, my lord. My lady came in from her outing a few hours ago, supped and has retired."

"She is not in her room," Cedric said, taking a piece of fruit from one of the plates. He had missed the evening meal but was not hungry yet, being used to building up an appetite with fencing and dancing and hunting had left him struggling to eat at the normal times now most of what he did was to work through the mounds of paperwork in his study. "Where might she be if she is not in her room."

"I am sure I do not know, my lord," Mrs. Brooks said, her lips pinched together disapprovingly. "Might she be with the children?"

"I have looked there," he said, trying his best not to snap. He had a brewing headache and the fruitless task of trying to track down his wife was proving to be more frustrating than he had expected.

He had clearly not managed not to snap as Mrs. Brooks looked offended. "I am sorry, my lord, but your lady has not told me where she would be so I cannot tell you where she is. I doubt she is in the gardens at this time. Perhaps she is in a study or the music room."

Cedric sighed, muttered his thanks and stalked from the dining room. There were numerous such rooms in the estate and he had rather hoped that someone would be able to point him in the right direction without him having to then spend his precious time searching all of them.

Cedric was not used to looking for something or someone he wanted. In fact there were now a lot of things happening in his estate that he was not used to. It would have been normal and expected for Louisa to be in her chambers so of course she was not there! She never did what Cedric thought she would. It was rare that he found someone he could not predict.

Even his group of friends were predictable in their own ways. Gabriel would be watching whatever happened from the side, considering the best course of action carefully before doing anything, but when he did act it would always be decisive and devastating. Theodore was prone to whisky and sarcasm, though less so since his marriage. Hector was still so wonderfully unaware of how to be a duke and cared just as little.

Even Lady Bettie Beaumont had been an open book to him. He had known that she had her own reasons for wanting a quick wedding, but he had not considered the one reason that should have been the first to cross his mind. He had simply assumed and am I just that arrogant? that he was such a good catch that she had leaped at the opportunity.

Perhaps he was that arrogant. Louisa had certainly thought so from the moment that they had met. Was it arrogant when it was true?

Ever since I have been in society women have thrown themselves in my path , he thought, stalking down the hall and checking the various chambers that he passed for his errant wife. It is hardly arrogance to assume that it is happening again.

Ah of course. He paused outside the library door. Of course it was here that he would find her. She was well-read, even perhaps bookish. From what her sisters and his friends had said she had spent most of her season with her head in books instead of engaging in the parties and gatherings, or standing near a wall trying to disappear at balls.

Whoever that shy little girl had been, he certainly didn't see much of her left in his bride. This was no wallflower. She was a threat to his sanity.

Cedric pushed the door open and stepped inside, a little disappointed to find Louisa curled in a chair wrapped in a plain and sensible wrap with her hair plaited down her back. He had rather hoped she would be wearing one of her new pieces of finery, but it was late for that he supposed. Still, every time he saw her he felt like he wanted to peel her sensible and boring clothes from her and see her dressed in something that would suit her station. It was infuriating the way that she hid herself away behind greys and browns and plain styles.

"Have you seen the children?" he asked abruptly, entering the room with a bang that startled her enough to drop her book. It was an old battered tome of the Castle of Otranto, something that his own father had been fond of, and Cedric winced a little as it hit the floor.

"They have been asleep for a little while," Louisa said, flushing and bending to retrieve the book. "I told them a story, which Abigail insisted had pirates in it. Kenneth asked that the pirates not be scary so they were cat pirates looking to conquer a land of cheese. This seemed to make both of them happy and they fell asleep shortly after I started."

The words were very pleasant, but Cedric noticed the way she wasn't quite meeting his eye and the shortness of her tone. Interesting. "Indeed? How did the story end?"

"Only people present at bedtime get to hear the story," she said pertly. "If you want to know how the story ends you will simply have to come say goodnight tomorrow night."

He bristled a little at that. Was she implying that he was not spending enough time with the children? "I can hardly spare time from managing the estate to listen to you create fairytales."

"Then you cannot be expected to spare that time now, can you?" Louisa looked up at him and smiled in such a sweetly sharp way that he raised an eyebrow.

"Oh so the lamb has teeth, does she?" he stepped closer to her. "What has you so annoyed, my wife?"

She frowned. "I cannot remember saying I was angry. In fact you are the one who came in here and told me you didn't have time for fairytales."

"No, I came in here to see where my wife had gotten to," Cedric said slowly, watching the angry flush go up her cheeks. "And now I have found you I can see that you are cross about something. Come, let us be friendly. I will tell you how much I like your stories and in turn you can tell me what has you upset."

She seemed to be fighting a smile which Cedric found encouraging. "My lord, you have much more important things to be busying yourself with."

"And yet this is what I want to spend my time doing. Come now, out with it."

Louisa sighed and pressed a palm to her head. "You will never let up until you get your own way, will you my lord?"

He grinned, fierce and bright. "It is a talent."

"It is not a talent, sir, it is quite definitively a flaw!" she stood and paced from him, so he followed her, fighting a laugh. "You think that you can dictate everything that happened around you. What business is it of yours what I wear to a party or where I spend my evenings or what stories I tell the children?"

"I never said I minded you telling stories to the children," he said mildly enough that she spun and caught him smiling at her.

"And this! You are humoring me! That is what you are doing, humoring me! Instead of deciding things you should have talked to me first. I was quite embarrassed when I spoke to the modiste and found you had already sent her instructions without even letting me know."

Cedric crossed his arms. "In a perfect world I would have taken you there myself and chosen a color that would look well with my suit alongside you. As I was not able to attend I did not want there to be any misunderstanding on the matter. I am the Earl and you are my wife. You were therefore to have the best dress that money can buy."

Oh the man was impossible! Louisa wanted to fling up her hands and shout at him or storm away to her room, but he would just follow after her and keep acting like he was being logical and reasonable instead of an arrogant man deciding what she would wear because he was her husband.

"I don't want a fancy dress, Cedric!"

He looked startled. Perhaps it was the passion in her voice or the first time that she had used his Christian name, she didn't know. But she kept speaking quickly before he could talk over her and make it sound like his point of view was the only reasonable one to have.

"I don't want to wear something eye-catching and beautiful, something everyone will stare at and talk about. People will be staring at me enough without it! I hate when people look at me, I have always hated it. It feels like they can see right through me to my bones and it makes me feel like I'm being - " she caught her words, shoved them back down her throat as hard as she could. No. Too much. Too open. Too honest. "I hate being stared at and with the wedding we will be the most stared at and noticed people at the party. I do not want to wear a dress that will only make that worse!"

Cedric was looking at her as though he was seeing something entirely new about her, and Louisa wasn't sure that she liked it. He took a step towards her, gaze dark and weighty. "I am the Earl of St Vincent. I am the wealthiest man in the county - if not the entire British Isles. The Pembroke name holds weight, holds history. You are my wife, Louisa. I will not allow my wife to attend a social gathering in anything less than the best no matter what."

He was close to her now, one hand catching her chin so she was forced to look him in the eyes. "Do you understand me?"

Her heart was thudding loudly in her ears and she could not take her eyes off him. Any time he touched her it felt as though his skin seared hers, burning and hot. "But I don't want -"

He frowned, his voice lowering into something deep and commanding. "I will not force you to wear it. You do not have to wear it. But I will have you understand that you are married to a man who is always in the spotlight and therefore you will be in the spotlight along with me."

Louisa swallowed hard, her mouth suddenly dry.

"More than this," he said, his voice quieter and gentler. "No matter what you do there is no hiding what you are. You are an astounding woman. You will always be noticed, Louisa. You may have managed to fade into the background for a while but you were never going to be overlooked for long. Everyone will see what I see."

What?

Her mouth was hanging open, her skin warm where he had touched her.

What did he mean by that? What was he saying?

Louisa felt faint, like she might collapse, like she couldn't catch her breath. Cedric was still looking at her with that expression, like he was trying to see into her and she couldn't look away from his piercing eyes. Those eyes slowly dipped, skimmed to focus on her lips and she realized that they were close enough to touch - close enough that she could almost feel the warmth of his breath on her skin.

Her lips tingled and she wet them nervously. Oh I should move. I should back away. I should go back to my room and remember this changes nothing.

But she couldn't move. She could barely breathe.

Cedric stood for a long moment as though frozen, looking at her. Then he cleared his throat and stepped back.

"Good evening, my lady," he said, voice rough.

Before she could reply he had left the room, leaving her breathless and confused and needing to splash her red cheeks with water so badly that she almost fled back to her room. She wasn't sure what any of that had been but she was sure that she had somehow lost that particular argument. She left the book she had been reading and wrapped herself tighter in her wrap, hurrying to the safety of her bedroom and flinging herself on her bed.

Would she ever understand her husband? For that matter, would she ever understand herself? Somehow she was going to end up wearing the dress he had bought her, she just knew it.