Chapter 19 #2
With a groan, he glanced away. “No.” He sighed. “I’m sorry. I wasn’t thinking. I shouldn’t have forced you.”
“Do you mean that?”
“Yes.”
“So if I don’t marry you, you’ll do nothing to stop me?”
His gaze shot to hers, a cold sweat breaking out on his forehead. My God, would she refuse him now? With everyone waiting in the church? He scanned her face for some sign of what she intended.
And saw none. Yet he knew that only one answer would show his sincerity, however much it pricked his pride to give it. “No. Yes. I mean I’ll do nothing to stop you.”
The blood thundered in his ears as he waited for her response, but she wasn’t finished with him yet. “I have one more question. If you answer it to my satisfaction, I’ll marry you.”
That put him on his guard. “If you mean those tales of Lady Brumley’s—”
“No. It’s something that ... has been troubling me since you made love to me. Why did you choose me to marry? Why not any of those other women you courted?”
Sara had asked him the same thing, and his answer hadn’t changed. “Because I want you more than any of them.”
For the first time since they’d begun this ludicrous discussion, she looked agitated. “If by wanting me, you mean desire, I should warn you I still intend not to share your bed until we work out our differences.”
“Fine.” That particular threat didn’t worry him.
No woman with Felicity’s passions abstained from pleasure after she’d had a taste of it.
Not when the man with her was bent on seduction.
“But that wasn’t what I meant. I want you, the person Felicity.
No other woman will suffice. You ... intrigue me.
” At her slow smile, he grew inexplicably nettled.
“And I don’t know why, so don’t ask me to elaborate further or to spout a lot of nonsense about your virtues. ”
“I wouldn’t dream of it. If you begin cataloguing my virtues, you’re certain to add my flaws as well, and I’m sure the latter outweigh the former in your mind.” Her smile broadened. “But I suppose that answer will do. For now, at least.”
The extent of his relief staggered and alarmed him, so much so that he couldn’t keep the harshness out of his voice. “Then may we please have a wedding?”
“Oh, very well. I mean, you’ve gone to so much trouble, after all. I wouldn’t want to disappoint you. Or humiliate you publicly.”
He snorted. “Yes, you’re always so careful on that score.”
A grin was her only response. But as she drew her hands from his and hurried to the stairs that led up to the choir room, he felt the casing of ice around his chest start to melt.
He didn’t care what she threatened about not bedding him.
Let her have her bit of fun and think she was in control.
As long as the wedding went on and she became his wife once and for all, she could threaten whatever she wished.
Because in the end, he would win.
This was a most peculiar wedding, Felicity thought.
The bride given away by her twelve-year-old brother.
Only two attendants, and they were sister and brother—Sara standing up for her and Jordan standing up for Ian.
And a former pirate captain flanking the bride’s squirming triplet brothers on the left while a housekeeper sat on the right.
Why, the only other guest was Emily, so it was both a motley assortment and small.
Yet they made up for it by being merry beyond their size, more merry than the bride and groom, to be sure.
As the vicar read the service, Jordan smirked and Sara smiled indulgently.
Mrs. Box cried tears of joy from the beginning, while the boys wiggled and grinned in the pew, only too delighted to add a viscount to the family.
Even the generally stern-faced Gideon looked pleased at the whole affair, even while darting out a hand to subdue the antics of one triplet or another.
As the vicar read the vows, Felicity stole a glance at her husband-to-be, looking so tall and strong in his white velvet waistcoat and his tail coat of dark blue saxony with gilt buttons.
One would have thought from his unruffled countenance that this wedding was as easy for him as a ride in the country.
But she knew better. There’d been that moment in the vestibule when she’d glimpsed the depth of his uncertainty, the sheer intensity of his desire to marry her and his equally intense fear that she might not.
That glimpse had prodded her forward when every thought in her head had told her this was madness.
Somewhere inside his cool facade lay a heart so bruised that he couldn’t love until it was healed. And she wanted to heal it. She had to. For she’d already lost her heart to him, and she wasn’t giving up until he’d done the same.
Ian began to repeat the vows, and the steadiness of his deep voice soothed her worries. It will be all right. Somehow I’ll make it all right.
When it was her turn, she spoke slowly, the words weighing down her tongue, for they were most solemn vows. If she were wrong about Ian, they might one day rise up to haunt her. But his stalwart presence at her side gave her the strength to finish them.
She and Ian exchanged rings. She gave him her father’s old wedding ring—it was all she could afford—but the one Ian slid on her finger was obviously new and costly. He’d certainly meant it when he’d promised to be a generous husband, hadn’t he?
“You may kiss the bride,” the vicar intoned.
Her blood clamored foolishly as Ian faced her and lifted her veil.
She’d forgotten about this part of the ceremony, and it had been two days since he’d last kissed her.
His kiss was swift and circumspect, a mere press of his lips to hers, but fire scorched her lips where he’d touched them and fire rose up in her loins.
Nor could she mistake the possessive glint in his midnight eyes as he drew back from her.
It found an answer in the smile she couldn’t keep from springing to her lips.
Oh, but she was a hopeless case. His every motion called to her senses, which in turn clamored for his attentions. A glance here, a touch there ... any and all sparked flames in naughty places.
And she thought to resist this? She hardly even noticed the wedding guests’ broad smiles as she and Ian walked down the aisle.
His gloved hand covered hers where it was tucked in the crook of his elbow, but even the chaste contact proved too much for her wild imagination, which kept seeing his naked hands on her breasts and belly and thighs.
She swallowed. Thank God they both wore gloves or their hands would surely meld together from the heat of her thoughts. In a sensual haze, she let him lead her into the vestibule. In the same sensual haze, she went with him and the vicar into the chamber where they signed all the necessary papers.
But though it was only a few minutes, it seemed like hours before they walked out of the church to the carriage that would take them to the wedding breakfast Sara had insisted upon giving them.
By the time they reached his carriage, her body was awash with accursed need, and all from just the mildest of husbandly contacts.
If she could only escape him for a moment, only catch her breath before Ian had her to himself.
But that was impossible. Now they would be alone in the carriage all the way to Sara’s breakfast. Well, he would surely not attempt anything in so short a distance, and maybe that would give her time to clamp down on her wicked urges before they set off on the two-hour journey to his estate.
Unfortunately, once they were in his carriage, he took the seat next to her. The curtains were closed, and the coach was as small and intimate as any bedchamber. She groaned aloud at the thought, and he shot her a concerned glance.
“Was the wedding not acceptable?” he asked as the coach set off.
“The wedding was fine.” That was all she could manage.
His carriage was roomy, but she couldn’t avoid touching him when he shared her seat, and the press of his thigh to hers offered new temptations.
Having shared a bed with the man should have quelled all her body’s eager stammerings and starts, but if anything it made them worse.
“I’m glad it met with your approval,” he said. “I meant to tell you, your choice of a gown is excellent. How did you manage it on such short notice?”
“It was Mama’s wedding gown. Mrs. Box altered it for me.”
“With admirable success. It fits you well.”
Good Lord, must he say it in that rumbling male voice that made the most innocuous of comments seem seductive? “I’ll tell her you said so.”
Catching her hand, he laced his fingers with hers. “You look lovely in it.”
Now, that he’d intended to be seductive.
She mustn’t let the conversation wander in that direction.
“If I’d had time,” she said, trying to sound irritated, “I could have had one made that was more fashionable. But you were in such a dratted hurry to have your bargain sealed.” She blurted out the words, frantic to say something, anything, that might anger him enough to drop her hand.
Apparently, that wasn’t it, for his grip on her merely shifted so that his thumb could stroke across her wrist. She could feel the sensuous touch even through her gloves. “I compromised you, remember? We had to move swiftly to preserve your reputation.”
“Yes, and to gain possession of any heir you’d sired. You paid quite dearly for that heir of yours.”
That didn’t work either. As if he knew why she goaded him, he chuckled, then released her hand, but only to draw off his gloves with slow movements that turned her insides to mush.
She swallowed and added, “Well, you may find you got the worst of the bargain.”
He tossed the gloves aside. “How so?”
“Papa’s debts are rather substantial, my brothers are likely to eat you into the poor house, and I myself may decide it’s time to indulge my taste for luxuries heretofore inaccessible to me.”