He wanted her. He wanted her above him, below him, in daylight, in candlelight. He wanted her head on his shoulder, her breath in his ear.
But in that place where his demons lurked, he knew he would rather hurt her now than have her turn away from him when she realized how thoroughly society despised him. He felt better every day, and when he was capable he would flee Bronwyn’s vicinity like the coward he was and never see her again.
His life had been arduous, and it had made him strong. He would do what was right—but oh, how hard it was, to place the brightest star of his sky beyond his own reach.
The scene in the entrance hall at Boudasea Manor rivaled the most dreadful amateur dramatics Adam had ever seen. His mother wept in his embrace while Lady Nora wiped invisible tears from her artfully rouged cheeks. Lord Gaynor slapped Adam on the back and roared, “Good to see you, me boy,” while a sobbing Olivia gripped Bronwyn in what looked like white-knuckled desperation.
Bronwyn patted her sister on the back while supervising the transportation of their luggage up the stairs.
“Come into the parlor at once and put your feet up. Got some of your finest brandy waiting for you there.” Lord Gaynor winked. “Gave m’wife and I quite a scare with your little illness.”
“I’m sure.” Adam watched with a sardonic gaze as Lord Gaynor led the way, ordered the seating, poured the drinks, made it clear how well he played host in Adam’s own house. Mab, he noted, let Gaynor do as he would, and he wondered at it. What game was his mother playing?
“But relieved we are to have you here at last.” Lord Gaynor smiled fondly at his wife. “Lady Nora and I feared the first of the wedding guests would arrive before you.”
As Adam watched, little waves rippled in his brandy glass, and he noted the tremble in his hand. After placing his drink on the table, he twisted to face Lord Gaynor as his mother’s hand tightened around his fingers. “Wedding guests?”
“You could have at least let him rest before you told him our surprise,” Lady Nora reproved. Abandoning her own advice, she said, “We’ve planned the entire wedding, Rafferty and I, set the date and ordered the dress. You will marry our very own Olivia a week from tomorrow. Isn’t that breathtaking?”
“Exactly the word I would have chosen.” This was a joke. A joke of phenomenal bad taste, but a joke nevertheless. “Mab?”
Mab answered his reproach with a reproach of her own. “When I heard of your injury, my health failed me for a short time. When I recovered, I found the Edanas had taken care of the wedding, right down to the details.”
Horrified at his mother’s defection, he gasped, “But Mab—”
“And as they pointed out, the reasons for this marriage still exist, just as they did when Bronwyn first came to the house to be your bride.” Mab smiled at him like a woman who understood fate and had at last become resigned to its workings. “You want an impeccable bride who will advance your standing in society. The Edanas want money.”
“Mab, you and I discussed this, and we decided that—” That Bronwyn was the woman for him. What malevolent demon had changed his mother’s mind? Seeking support, he looked about for Bronwyn, but he saw only Olivia. Never before had the beautiful Edana sister looked gawky in his eyes, but she did now. She stood awkwardly, like a bird undecided about flight. She flapped her arms, bit her lips, shredded her handkerchief as her sister used to do.
“Olivia!” Lady Nora’s sharp tone brought her to attention. “Tell your bridegroom how happy you are to share the marriage rites with him.”
Olivia tried to speak, but though her lips moved, no sound came out.
Lady Nora provided the dialogue. “She’s thrilled.”
Awash with pity, Adam protested, “I doubt I’ll be a worthy bridegroom in only a week’s time. Perhaps—”
“You’ll have your whole life ahead of you to perform a bridegroom’s duties,” Lady Nora told him coyly.
“Besides, the autumn has far advanced,” Lord Gaynor added. “’Tis October, and Lady Nora and I have a desire to see our Olivia settled before we go into London for the Season. So when Lady Nora suggested we use this as the Season’s first party, I agreed. Of course.”
“Of course. But I think you underestimate the depth of society’s abhorrence for me.” Adam’s smile stretched his mouth, but his lips felt tight with tension, and he abandoned his attempt to be tactful. “No one will come to this wedding.”
Lady Nora sucked in her cheeks in a practiced expression of superiority. “Of course they will. You underestimate the influence my husband, my daughters, and I have on society. And”—she held up her hand to stop his protest—“should society really be so disapproving of you, there is still the curiosity factor. Oh, they’ll come, for one reason or the other.” She looked about her. “Where’s Bronwyn? I haven’t got to greet my own dear child.”
Bronwyn was nowhere to be seen, and Olivia stammered, “She went upstairs. Perhaps she is exhausted from the journey.”
“More likely she is exhausted from her family,” Mab said. “Poor girl, what a thing to come home to.”
“You can’t hide from me forever.” Olivia stood before Bronwyn, twisting her handkerchief. “I’m your sister. I love you.”
Bronwyn settled her back firmly against the stone bench artistically placed beneath a spreading yew. The fall colors of the garden comforted her, turning as it was from living bits of creation to the dead dull of winter. As the cold of the seat seeped through to her spine, she replied, “I know you do.”
Shuffling the gravel of the garden path beneath her shoe, Olivia said, “I can’t stand this estrangement between us. You’re my best friend. You’re the only person who understands me.”
Brief and bitter, Bronwyn laughed. “I don’t understand you. I thought I did, but I don’t.”
Olivia dropped her outstretched hand. “What do you mean?”
As it filtered through the leaves, sunshine speckled Olivia’s lovely face as if nature herself were complimenting the girl. That infuriated Bronwyn. Since she’d returned from London and discovered the wedding date set, everything had infuriated Bronwyn. “You said you didn’t want to get married yet,” she accused. “You said you didn’t want to marry Adam. Yet tomorrow you’re going to.”
“You’re just angry because you love him and you can’t have him,” Olivia cried.
“A silly little reason, I know.”
“Then you admit it?” Olivia pounced like a cat on a juicy mouse. “You love Lord Rawson?”
Sulky at being cornered, Bronwyn drawled, “Yes. I suppose.”
“I told you so! I told you you loved him.” Olivia ground her fist into her palm. “Well, it’s your fault I’m marrying him.”
“My fault?” Bronwyn put incredulity into her tone, but not much conviction. She knew what Olivia would say.
“Yes, your fault. You ran away and stuck me in that situation. You even knew Maman and Da would suggest I take your place.”
“I didn’t know it.” At Olivia’s skeptical sniff, Bronwyn admitted, “I suspected.”
“So it’s up to you to avert this disaster and stop the wedding.” Olivia tried to sound authoritative and succeeded in sounding doubtful.
“How do you propose I do that?”
“Just tell Lord Rawson you want him.” Olivia’s authority strengthened. “He’ll take the appropriate steps.”
Brushing a leaf from her lap in elaborate carelessness, Bronwyn asked, “What makes you think he cares?”
Olivia laughed, a merry, tinkling laugh that ran like the bells of the chapel. “I think he would not only do anything not to marry me, I think he would do everything to marry you.”
Mulling that over, Bronwyn said, “Think of the scandal. First me, then you, then me again.”
“That’s Maman talking.” Olivia sat beside Bronwyn and caught her hands. “You’ve always been the brave one. In Ireland you used to jump off the cliffs onto the sand, remember?”
Bronwyn smiled. “You used to stand
on the beach with bandages.”
“You snuck into that dark old tomb.”
“You ran and got help when I got stuck.”
“You’re the one who insisted on rescuing Henriette.”
Bronwyn sobered. “You made her last moments comfortable.”
“You wanted to live like a scholar, and ran away to that salon.” Olivia glowed with excitement. “If you want Lord Rawson, you could stop the marriage.”
“Olivia, the wedding’s tomorrow.”
“All the more reason to do it now.”
“Why are you begging me to make a scandal? Is Adam cruel to you?”
“Oh, no.” Olivia’s hands jerked as she twined them together. “If I had to marry someone, he would do better than most. He doesn’t want me.”
“Then why—”
“I don’t ever want to get married.”
“Don’t be silly,” Bronwyn said. “Every woman has to get married.”
Straight and stubborn, Olivia retorted, “No, they don’t.”
“You want to be a spinster?”
“No.” Olivia took a big breath, then another. “I want to be a nun.”
“A nun?” Bronwyn screamed, but it came out in a tortured whisper. “A Catholic nun?”
Olivia nodded, her enormous eyes pleading for understanding.
“Olivia.” Bronwyn gulped. “Olivia. Olivia, listen to me…”
“I know what you’re going to say.”
“I’m glad someone does,” Bronwyn muttered.
“You’re going to say we’re not Catholic.”
Bronwyn tried to keep the sarcasm out of her tone, she really tried. “That’s a point.”
“But I remember the convent so well,” Olivia explained patiently. “I remember all their teachings. I loved the chapel, and the singing, and the nursing. I loved Ireland, and the feeling that God dwelt so close among the crags and the mists.”
Hoarse with distress, Bronwyn offered, “We’ll take you back to visit Ireland.”
“But it’s not just Ireland. No matter where the Church is, I feel at home. I’ve thought about it all my life, but these last few months…” Olivia leaned her head against Bronwyn’s shoulder and smiled. “This is all your fault, you know.”
Bronwyn jumped. “Oh, no. You’re not blaming this on me. I’m not jumping onto the sands with the tide coming in. You are.”
“When you left, I thought you had run away to a convent.”
Bronwyn swung on her sister. “To a convent? What made you think that?”
“You talked about how you wanted to go someplace where you could do as you wish, speak as you wished, not have to marry.” Olivia faltered under Bronwyn’s incredulous gaze.
Comprehension burst on Bronwyn. “You thought I was in a convent, because that’s where you wanted to be.”
“Oh, yes.” Olivia sighed in relief. “I knew you’d understand.”
“Understand? I don’t understand. Not at all,” Bronwyn said in horror. “And even if I did, do you understand what you would do to us all if you became a Papist? You don’t even have to become a nun, just a Catholic. The whole family will be disgraced. The ministers will roar at us from the pulpit. Da would be justified if he locked you up with bread and water.”
“You could intercede for me,” Olivia said eagerly.
“Intercede for you? You’re marrying Adam tomorrow!”
“But if you took him for yourself, then I wouldn’t have to marry him, and we could gently break it to Maman and Da about me later.”
“Just a minute.” Bronwyn turned to her sister. “You want me to create the greatest scandal to rock England as a distraction for you? You won’t stop the wedding yourself? You won’t make the decision to tell Maman and Da? I’ll help you?”
“You’ll do it, won’t you, Bronwyn?”
Olivia had never looked so beautiful. The sun shone on her porcelain skin, her red lips rounded in a pleading bow, her blue eyes sparkled with tears. “If I don’t stop the wedding tomorrow,” Bronwyn elucidated, “you won’t become a nun, because you’ll be married to Adam.”
Olivia nodded.
“Which would save the family two scandals, me untold humiliation, and you the mistake of your life.”
“No!”
Bronwyn stood. “Thank you, Olivia. You’ve helped me make the right decision.”
Olivia dropped to her knees before Bronwyn and grabbed her hand. “Please, Bronwyn. Please help me.”
“I am helping you.” Bronwyn wrestled her hand away and started down the path toward the house. “If you’re too frightened to refuse to go through with the wedding ceremony, then you don’t want to be a nun very badly.”
“I do.”
The sound of Olivia’s sobbing followed Bronwyn, and she pivoted. “You’re an Edana, just like I am. If you want something, you have to reach out and take it. Just”—she waved her arms—“take it.”
Chapter 21
“What difference will it make?” Adam wiped his sweaty palms on the needlepoint cover of his desk chair. “Once the wedding is over, Olivia will never be subjected to the scorn of society. I’ll receive whatever benefits of the Edana persona that are possible for me to receive, and Olivia will be everything I ever wanted.”
Northrup said nothing. He simply stared at Adam, his mouth puckered, his eyes accusing.
Adam snapped, “Mab looks at me in that manner, Northrup, but I’d like to remind you, she is my mother. I’ll accept her evaluation, but not yours.”
“Of course, sir.” Northrup transferred his gaze to the figures he was adding. “However, I’m not the one who brought up the matter of your nuptials.”
It was true. Adam couldn’t keep quiet about this marriage. He returned to the subject, prodding it, justifying it, assuring himself he was doing the right thing when he knew damn good and well he wasn’t. “Gorgeous, none too bright, a good breeder, a good manager, comfortable on the pedestal I place her on. That’s all I ask. That’s all I ever asked.”
“Is it, sir?” Northrup scribbled something on the paper.
That was all Adam had asked from a wife. Too bad it wasn’t what he wanted anymore. Now he wanted conversation, love, laughter with a good woman. With Bronwyn. Bronwyn, who whisked around corners and faked headaches to avoid him.
She wasn’t pregnant, then. He’d been hoping, praying she would come to him, hand on her expanding belly, and screech, “I’m anticipating. What are you going to do about it?”
In his lonely bed he’d spend long hours comforting Bronwyn, placating the Edanas, rearranging the wedding. He’d imagined Bronwyn at his side as they took the marriage vows and he bounced an infant boy on his knee. Of course, Bronwyn was so obstinate, it would probably be a girl.
God, his own head ached when he thought of Bronwyn. “It’s too bad no one will come to the wedding.”
Northrup had not followed the switch of subject, for he said, “Beg pardon, sir?”
Restless, Adam stood and limped across the study to the window. “What with the way everyone feels about me.”
“I think you’re refining a bit much on this, sir. I’d like to point out that this evening the house is filled with guests awaiting your nuptials tomorrow.”
“Waiting for me to make a fool of myself.”
“I’d say you’re already doing that, sir.”
Adam swung on Northrup, but Northrup bent to his work. Adam sighed. Reinstating Northrup had proved to be a problem. The young man no longer respected him. Actually, Northrup respected him, but he no longer feared him. He seemed to think that the gunshot wound he’d suffered freed him to make comments about the wedding, about Adam’s cowardice, about Bronwyn’s sorrow. All in a deferential tone that made it difficult to upbraid him.
“Does your wound ache, sir?”
Unconsciously Adam had been rubbing his recent wound, and he snatched his hand away. “Better call for candles. You’ll hurt your eyes working in this dim light.”
Again Northrup said n
othing with great eloquence.
Adam rubbed his leg again and admitted, “Itches like the devil. Looks like hell. Yours?”
“I’m going to burn these bandages when they’re removed,” Northrup groused.
From the door Bronwyn asked, “Yet Daphne did do a marvelous job, did she not?”
Adam spun around. In a simple dress of sapphire, Bronwyn looked wonderful. Her silver hair trailed over her shoulders and caressed her breast, exposed by the bodice and not shrouded by a handkerchief. Her eyes reflected the blue velvet. Her skin appeared to be golden, and a delicate blush tinted her cheeks. Her lips were red, and he found both her lip and cheek color to be suspect. She’d been biting her lips, probably unconsciously, and pinching her cheeks, quite intentionally, he was sure. He’d seen her do that when she wanted to make an impression.
She had succeeded. He was impressed.
He wanted to run to her, take her hands, hug her to him, lead her to his room…
Northrup stood up, straightening slowly, favoring his hurt side like some war hero who wanted to impress a maiden with his courage. “Lady Bronwyn, how beautiful you look, like a rose in spring.”
Perversely, Northrup’s admiration made Adam angry. Perhaps, too, his own unrestrained emotion irked him. Whatever the reason, he decided he would regain control of himself. He wouldn’t let her know how he felt. “Northrup, don’t you have something to do somewhere else?”
He spoke to the empty place where his secretary had been. Northrup had already slipped away, had shut the door behind him.
At the cabinet that held the drinks, Adam poured a shallow draft of brandy. Glass in hand, he saluted her with it. “Daphne did a marvelous job—for a woman.”
Bronwyn’s maidenly blush faded. Her eyes sparkled, her bosom heaved. Fists clenched at her sides, she stepped into the room. “No man could have done any better. No man ever searched for the silvers of wood that caused you so much discomfort.”