Chapter Fourteen
Jackson informed the staff that he would escort his bride-to-be to the wedding and that those who were not in charge of seeing to the carriage and trunks for their immediate departure after the ceremony should head to the church to see to the needs of the guests.
A groom was not to act the chaperone to his own wedding, but nothing of this engagement was ordinary. Including the bride.
Jackson stood at the bottom of the staircase and glanced at the clock.
An hour until the ceremony. A morning wedding had always seemed hasty.
Jackson knew different now. Time to get the thing over and done with so they may be on their way back to London.
But as Jackson watched the long hand of the clock count down—fifty minutes to ten, forty, twenty-five—he began to pace.
The chapel was no more than a fifteen-minute walk along a nicely wooded path.
Fifteen minutes to ten came and passed.
She wasn’t coming.
She must have run.
Body strung tight enough to snap, Jackson took the stairs two at a time, making it to the last stair before the top when movement above him had him stopping. Raising his head.
And gaping.
Anna stood a foot away, her hair in intricate braids and wound around her head like a living crown.
And her dress . . . there were no insects to be found.
A clean, white cotton dress with an ice-blue ribbon woven in and out of hidden seams to give the impression of a basket weave.
Simple, but not boring. The simplicity only emphasized the rich, fiery tones in her hair, the gem-like color of her eyes, and the faint pink blush across her cheeks.
“Beautiful,” he breathed.
Her lips curved into a small smile. “Thank you.”
That smile was sunshine.
He cleared his throat and wrangled in his reaction. “I thought you’d decided you had a more pressing engagement this morning.”
He’d never been more relieved to be wrong.
“Yes, well.” She shifted her weight and bit her lip. “I was waiting for my maid to return to help finish dressing me, but after she’d left to find more pins to fix my hair, she never returned.”
Because he’d ordered all staff to leave.
Jackson winced. “That was my fault. I—” His mind caught up to her words. “You aren’t fully dressed?”
Her cheeks flushed a brighter red. “I did my best, but I can’t reach the last of the buttons in back.”
Her dress is unbuttoned.
Jackson swallowed hard. “I can”—another clearing of his throat—“can assist you, if you’d like?”
Anna bit her lip again and glanced around the deserted floor below. “Since there doesn’t seem to be another living soul around . . .” She turned to give him access to the buttons.
Jackson had to grip the staircase railing to hold himself upright.
The valley of creamy skin went all the way down to the small of her back.
Her naked back.
“You’re not wearing underclothes,” he got out. A miracle because he was sure he’d swallowed his tongue.
“The chemise was too cumbersome without a corset,” she said.
“And why aren’t you wearing a corset?”
“Because I forgot to order one from the modiste and my other was mud stained.”
From our race to the creek.
Factual. Rational.
His heart was about to beat out of his chest. If she wasn’t wearing her top underthings, did that mean she was bare lower—
Jackson forced his gaze above her waist. Fixed his wandering eyes to stare at a banal painting of a haystack down the hall.
“Do you need a button hook?” she asked, her voice a bit breathless.
He glanced at the buttons and away. “No.”
“Then are we to stand here the rest of the morning? Because I believe both of us have a more pressing engagement.”
He rallied at her dry tone and remembered exactly whose bared back he faced. “Forgive me, General Greene. I will see you are properly uniformed and ready for the firing squad posthaste.”
“‘Firing squad’? Here I thought marriage was more of a slow death while suffering daily torture.”
He chuckled. “I see you’ve written your wedding vows.”
“Great, aren’t they? Now, hurry up, soldier, before I forget the latest statistics on infectious diseases through the marriage bed.”
With that sensual thought running through his head, Jackson secured the first half of the buttons without issue. Then his grip on the next button slipped and his fingers brushed the exposed skin between her shoulder blades.
The gasp she made—somewhere between a moan and a quick inhale—caused fire to flare in his gut.
He tried again, taking his time. Then the next button. And the next.
Don’t rush, his thoughts taunted.
Clearly, this was not the time to take Roberts’s advice.
The last button was mercifully hooked, and Jackson dropped his hands to his side, his fingers tingling and aching to undo all the work with less finesse.
He didn’t step away, but she didn’t turn to face him, either.
They stood like that, the tension in the air unmistakable.
The clock chimed ten.
Distant bells tolled the same. Wedding bells.
“We should go,” he said.
“We should,” she agreed.
He stepped back the same time she turned, their bodies seeming to ebb and flow like water on the shore.
The additional stair meant they were nearly eye level with her but a fraction taller. Where he could see every flicker of emotion cross her expression: Want. Excitement. Humor.
And the less pleasant: Apprehension. Distance.
Distrust.
Jackson didn’t pretend not to see it. “I’m sorry your brother is not here,” he said, refusing to look away. “I broke my promise.”
Her brows lowered, but not in anger like he’d expected. “You did not promise he would be here for this, and I would not have held you to such a thing if you had.”
“You wouldn’t?”
She shrugged. “If I could not locate my brother, I had little hope of some dog on the scent runner finding him.”
How Roberts would delight in being likened to a filthy mutt.
“Me being reasonable shocks you?” she said at his continued silence.
“No, but I thought . . . I could see today being difficult without William by your side.”
A grin. A small one, but it was there. “My brother would have taken cruel pleasure in teasing me about everything from my dress to my hair to the way I inevitably will insult the archbishop.”
Jackson understood. “Brothers.”
He was sure Figaro had his own sick torture planned for during the ceremony.
“Y-You are not angry with me, then? My recent behavior—” Jackson gritted his teeth. Spit it out plainly, man. “I will not impose on you again. If or when you choose to engage in a physical relationship with me, I will wait until you are ready.”
Her eyes widened, but she looked away quickly. “Another promise, Duke?”
He didn’t return her teasing. “One I will keep, Annabeth Greene.”
She didn’t meet his eyes. Simply nodded.
Jackson’s shoulders went tight at the loss of her gaze. He cleared his throat, taking on a flippant tone he didn’t feel. “My declaration has caused you to falter, General? I suppose I have a chance to win this war, after all.”
She snorted. “Don’t think contemplation in any way means my surrender. Willingly binding myself into legal bondage does cause a certain hesitation to take that walk down the aisle.”
Relieved at her show of fire, he held out his arm.
Don’t rush.
“Then, how about we simply take a walk and see where we end up?” he suggested.
Her eyes brightened, but her words were tempered. “Like we used to?” Her eyes dimmed. “Everyone will be waiting.”
“And?” he challenged, finding he was in no hurry to share her with a chapel full of people. “They can hardly start without us.”
“They’ll think you mad,” she said, but her eyes were dazzling when her hand nestled into the crook of his elbow.
He covered her hand with his free one, the weight and feel of her easing the tension in his gut.
“Oh, my dear.” He patted her hand. “I plan on blaming everything on you. Would you prefer I say you’d succumbed to a bit of vapors at the prospect of your intended’s striking features and manly physique, or something less dramatic, like a clothing mishap? It would be true, after all.”
“Hmm,” she said, the beautiful woman—at last—playing along. “What was the first one again? Something about striking you?”
He threw back his head and laughed.
Jackson’s laughter sent feathers of warmth fluttering through Anna’s belly and to lower, private places, lingering long after they’d descended the stairs and made their way out into the yard.
He led her around the estate and into the woods, along a path that had become overgrown.
She didn’t ask after the state of things or the direction; she was too conscious of the firm muscles of his arm under her hand, of the brush of his thigh against hers as they walked.
The awareness was unexpected and unwanted.
But his presence . . . She was finding it harder to deny the ease his company afforded. After her behavior yesterday, she wouldn’t have blamed him for being angry. Instead, he’d waited for her. Basically apologized. Promised she could take the lead in their marriage bed.
And he’d looked at her as if she were nothing short of miraculous.
Beautiful.
She’d felt beautiful as he’d looked up at her.
Seen her. Not only the elegant coif and the flattering dress.
Few other people would find her brashness tolerable or align themselves to share scrutiny because of her personality. But Jackson walked straight for the fire instead of shying away from the flames.
There was a wedding ceremony on hold. Dozens of well-connected lords and ladies waiting. Yet he didn’t pick up his pace, didn’t so much as glance in the direction of the chapel. She’d claim it was in fact he who needed courage to face the altar, but she knew him too well for that lie to settle.
He was stalling, meandering, for her.
Her heart squeezed because deep down she knew, Jackson Cole would wait forever, if that was what she wished.
They kept on, walking in silence until they’d stepped into a small clearing.
“Here we are,” he said.
Anna looked around.