But after the war--after Henry died--everything had changed. He'd walled himself away again. She didn't know how to reach him, and she worried he'd never let anyone else draw close enough to try.
"You're being so good to me," she said. "I appreciate it, more than you know. But you needn't do this. I may find I'm well-suited to being a spinster. Or perhaps someone will care enough to wed me despite the scandal."
"Someone already does, Mary. You're looking at him."
In the silence that followed his words, they were both very still.
"If you think I'm being selfless, let me assure you I'm not. I could not keep Henry alive, and that failure will haunt me until I die. You must allow me to protect you, or I won't know how to live with myself. You'll have my title and my wealth at your disposal. As a lady of means, you can champion any cause you desire. Aside from giving me an heir, your life will be your own. Let me protect you. That's all I ask."
How could she say no to that? Mary rummaged through her mind for one last objection, but came up empty-handed.
No, not empty-handed. Sebastian's hand was in hers. If she married him, she wouldn't be alone. And neither would he.
Good heavens. She was truly going to be Mary Ives, Lady Byrne.
She gave his hand a squeeze before releasing it. "Take care on the road."
*
It wasn't quite the wedding Mary had expected.
No, it was much grander. And far more romantic.
Even with a rushed elopement, no guests, and a wedding gown crumpled from travel, the setting was undeniably enchanting. The soaring beauty of the cathedral, the solemn priest in his vestments, the spicy fog of incense. Fading sunlight shone through the stained glass windows, sending crescents of blue and red gliding across the floor.
The scene felt magical, timeless.
And she had the handsomest groom. Sebastian had never looked finer. He fit right into the medieval setting. Like a knight in invisible armor, ready to take on an impossible quest. Mary wasn't certain of her role in this story. Was she the fair maiden he sought to please, or was her broken engagement merely a dragon he needed to slay? His hardened jaw gave no clues.
As the priest began the ceremony, the words washed over her in a hushed murmur.
Sebastian's part came first, and he nearly stepped on the priest's words with his firm, "I will." No hesitation.
Then the priest turned to her. "Mary Elizabeth Clayton, wilt thou have this man to thy wedded husband, to live together after God's ordinance in the holy estate of matrimony?"
She nodded. Thus far, everything sounded acceptable.
"Wilt thou obey him..."
Oh, dear.
"...and serve him..."
She cringed.
"...love, honor, and keep him, in sickness and in health; and, forsaking all others, keep thee only unto him, so long as ye both shall live? If so, answer, 'I will.'"
Mary hesitated.
"If so," the priest repeated, leaning on the words, "answer, 'I will.'"
She couldn't say it. Not quite yet.
She addressed Sebastian directly. "I don't have to do this, you know. I do have a choice."
"What choice? To be a ruined spinster surviving on a meager income?"
"It wouldn't be so bad as you're implying. At least I'd be free to do as I like."
"Mary," he said in a low voice, "this is not the time to argue for the sake of arguing."
"I'm not arguing. Just listen to me for a moment, will you?"
"I don't see the point in discussion."
"Well, I see the point in it," she said, affronted. "When I have something to say, I'd like to be heard. Especially by the man who'll be my husband."
"There's no way in hell I'm taking you back to--"
"Ahem." The priest looked perturbed. "Shall we return to the ceremony?"
"I'm paying for a new chapel," Sebastian snapped. "You can wait until my bride and I are finished speaking."
Mary found his gruff protectiveness oddly endearing, especially since it came under the imminent threat of damnation.
"I'm making a choice, Sebastian. That's all I meant to say. When I make these vows, I'm choosing to do so freely. I'm choosing this." She lowered her voice to a whisper. "I'm choosing you."
The casual observer would never notice it, but Mary knew her words had a profound effect. The tension left his shoulders, and suddenly his flinty eyes weren't quite so stern.
For the moment, at least, the warrior had lowered his shield.
She looked at the priest. "I'm ready now."
"If so, answer, 'I will.'"
She looked into her groom's eyes. "I will."
The remainder of the ceremony was brief, in part because there were no rings. Sebastian didn't even have a signet ring. He would have never worn anything of his father's, and most especially not that.
There were vows and a prayer or two, and before Mary even knew it, the thing was over.
"I pronounce you man and wife."
It was done. They were married.
Sebastian leaned forward as though he would kiss her, but then he seemed to change his mind. She might have suspected he'd lost his nerve, if she didn't know Sebastian to be entirely composed of nerve to begin with.
Instead of kissing her lips, he brushed a kiss to her cheek and then rested his temple against hers. A tender gesture, somehow more intimate than a kiss.
"I'll take care of you," he whispered. "Always."
"I know you will," she whispered back.
Mary had no doubt in her mind whatsoever that Sebastian would provide for her every need and guard her with his life.
But it was probably going to knock him on his arse when he learned that she intended to do the same. He needed understanding, warmth, family, love--and she needed all those things, too. This was not going to be a practical arrangement, nor a way for him to satisfy his conscience.
This was going to be a marriage.
And that marriage started tonight.
Chapter 3
By the time they left Canterbury, daylight was fading and thunderclouds had gathered on the horizon. The coachman was not pleased when Sebastian told him they'd be traveling on to Ramsgate in foul weather, but a few guineas made a marked improvement in his mood.
Halfway through the journey, both night and rain were falling. Then Sebastian's horse threw a shoe, slowing their progress to a walk. When they finally arrived at the cottage, the windows were dark. No one came out to greet them. Country hours, he supposed. Perhaps folk went to bed at sundown hereabouts.
Sebastian dismounted Shadow and saw the weary gelding settled in the stable--which looked and smelled as though it hadn't been used in years. Fortunately, the horse had been fed and watered in Canterbury. Any hay in the loft would surely be rotted.
After seeing to his horse, Sebastian pounded at the cottage's front door.
No answer.
Naturally, he had a key to the place, but he didn't carry the thing on his person. It was in a strongbox underneath the desk in his London town house. When he'd left the house this morning, he'd expected to sit quietly seething in a church while he watched Mary wed another man. He never could have imagined that by nightfall he'd be standing in front of this stone cottage on the coast of Kent, having married her himself.
When another round of knocking produced no response, he rattled the door to judge the strength of the bolt. It was already loose--a fact that would have angered him, had the circumstances been different. Tonight, however, this particular instance of shoddy upkeep was a gift. One swift kick, and the bolt gave way.
That accomplished, he darted back to the coach. First he needed to untie Mary's trunks from the carriage and bring them in before they were completely drenched. After he'd stashed her luggage inside the cottage, he returned to the coach for her.
"Put your hands around my neck," he shouted through the rain. "I'll carry you."
"I can walk."
Sebastian didn't have time for
this. He hefted her out of the coach without further discussion, tucking her against his chest and carrying her into the cottage.
"You didn't have to do that," she said, once he'd set her down.
"The ground was wet and muddy."
She smiled wryly. "I'm not too concerned about the hem of my gown. It's not as though I'm going to wear it again."
"It's our wedding night," he said. "On the wedding night, the groom carries the bride over the threshold. As hasty and patched-up as the whole thing has been, and considering that you didn't have so much as a ring, I thought I'd do that one thing properly."
"Sebastian. That's terribly sweet."
Sweet, she called him? Good God.
Outside, the coachman snapped the reins and drove off into the night.
Sebastian shoved the door closed and propped it shut with a chair. Mary located a flint and used it to light a candle, giving them their first proper look around the cottage.
Sebastian cursed. It was a shambles. He'd seen henhouses in more habitable condition.
"How long has it been since you visited this place?" she asked.
"Years. But there's supposed to be a caretaker living here with his wife. At least, I've been paying a caretaker's wages. I didn't expect the place to be sparkling, but this?" He batted at a cobweb.
"At least we're out of the rain."
Except that they weren't truly out of the rain. When he looked up at the leaking thatch roof, a cold rivulet of water hit him square in the eye.
Not a few hours ago, he'd stood before a man of God and vowed to keep and protect Mary for so long as they both shall live. He wasn't off to a smashing start.
"We'll go to an inn for the night," he said.
"How? The coachman already left. Shadow's thrown a shoe. And I don't recall seeing an inn when we passed through the village."
"Well, we can't stay here."
"It's only a few leaks, some dust and cobwebs." She scouted around the place, holding her candle high. "This room off the kitchen isn't so neglected. It's dry, at least. And there's a bed. I have fresh bed linens and a quilt in my trunks. They're part of my trousseau."
He slicked back his wet hair. "At least let me walk to the village and find us something to eat."
"Oh, no you won't. You are not leaving me alone in this place." She picked up a hamper he'd unloaded from the coach and set it on the kitchen table. "Giles's sister said she'd packed us a little something. Well, not us, but you know."
Yes. Sebastian knew. And he hated the thought that if she'd married that prig she'd be warm, dry, and fed right now.
She opened the hamper. "We have a bottle of wine. That's promising. And..." She unwrapped a packet of brown paper. "Cake."
Sebastian looked at it. That wasn't merely cake.
That was wedding cake.
Suddenly, he wasn't hungry.
She broke off a hunk of cake and took a healthy bite. "We'll survive until the morning," she mumbled with a full mouth. "It will be fine."
He supposed they didn't have much choice.
"Are you sure you don't want some?" She took another bite of cake, then licked her fingers. "It's good."
He shook his head. "I'll lay a fire. You make up the bed."
While she unbuckled the straps on her trunk to search for the bed linens, Sebastian removed his coat and undid his cuffs, turning his sleeves up to the elbow. He searched the kitchen for firewood and found a paltry number of logs. Nowhere near enough to keep a blaze fueled through the night.
He ventured out into the rain and made his way around the cottage's exterior until he found a depleted woodpile beneath a crumbling lean-to. The wood atop the stack was damp. Much of the rest was rotting.
When he got his hands on that caretaker, he would make the man pay for leaving his property in such a state of neglect.
He scavenged a few of the driest logs from the heap, carried them to the chopping block, and gripped the ax handle to pry it free. He braced his feet in the mud and gave it his best one-handed pull. Instead of the blade coming free of the block, the handle broke off in his hand. Sebastian stumbled backward and fell on his arse.
Brilliant. Now he was soaked with rain and coated with mud. He carried his armful of unsplit wood back into the cottage and stood in the entry, shaking himself like a dog and sending muddy droplets in all directions. He pried off his boots before crouching at the hearth to make a fire.
With a bit of work, he'd built a respectable blaze. Toasty warmth spread through the kitchen. If they left the door to the bedchamber open, the heat ought to be sufficient to warm that room, too.
"The bed is ready," she said from behind him.
He added a log to the fire, then rose and turned.
Christ.
Mary stood before him wearing a sheer, lacy, snow-white negligee.
He couldn't speak. The cat had got not only his tongue, but every other part of his body that wasn't his eyes, heart, blood, or stiffening cock.
Eleven years, four thousand days. And on how many of those four thousand nights had he imagined her naked? More than he'd ever admit. And here she was, standing before him, wearing the silk equivalent of a branch and a fig leaf.
More beautiful than in his wildest imaginings.
She'd unpinned and brushed out her hair, and the glossy auburn locks tumbled about her shoulders in waves. The wine had stained her lips claret red.
And her nipples were a blushing, rosy pink. He'd always dreamed they'd be pink. He'd also always dreamed they would taste like custard tarts, which now struck him as oddly specific.
"What," he finally scraped out, "is that?"
"It's...a nightgown."
"It's a cobweb. There are more holes than thread. You're shivering already." Not to mention, your rosy nipples are hard as darts. "Don't you have something more drab and sensible?"
She wrapped her arms about herself. "They're all like this."
Of course they were all like that. She'd packed for a honeymoon. A honeymoon with someone else.
He was a monster. She had to be cold, exhausted, and awash with conflicted emotions. Even if her heart wasn't broken, it must have been bruised. From the looks of that negligee, she might have even been looking forward to her wedding night with Perry. Instead, she was here in an infested, rotting hellhole. With him.
And he was berating her about her choice of sleeping apparel.
Well done, Sebastian. Well done, indeed.
She crossed the room to him. "Come, then. Off with your clothes." She yanked the hem of his shirt from his trousers.
"Mary." He took a step in retreat. "I'm not... We're not... Not tonight."
She tipped her head to the side and regarded him. "You are soaked to the skin and spattered with mud. I'm not being a brazen hussy, I'm protecting my embroidery. I worked hard on those bed linens, you know. So take off your things and leave them to dry by the fire."
He shook his head. "I'll sleep on the floor."
"Don't be absurd. I won't let you sleep on the floor."
"It's nothing. I slept in much rougher conditions while on campaign."
"This isn't the army, Sebastian. There's a perfectly good bed."
"Exactly. Bed, singular. Not beds."
"We are man and wife," she teased. "The priest said so."
Wife.
She was his wife.
"I know you mean to take care of me," she said. "But now that we're married, I get to take care of you, too. You're not sleeping on the floor." She touched his wrist. "Besides, it's cold. I don't want to be alone."
Very well. She had him there.
And in that negligee, she had him hard as granite.
This would be a very long night.
"You go ahead and get in the bed," he said. "Take the side nearest the kitchen. It will be warmest. I'll join you in a minute."
He waited until he heard her slip beneath the quilt before disrobing hastily and draping his wet clothing over two chairs near the fire. As he crept into th
e bedchamber, he tried to stay in the shadows. Not out of modesty, but so she wouldn't be alarmed. He was a rather hulking fellow, big in all sorts of ways. Experienced women seemed to like his body just fine, but he wasn't certain how a virgin would react.
He stretched out beside her on the bed, crossed his arms over his chest, and closed his eyes.
She nestled up against him.
He wriggled a few inches away.
She snuggled close again. "Hold me. You're so warm. And I can't stop shivering."
With a heavy sigh, he draped one arm around her shoulders, still careful to keep their bodies apart from the navel down. "I don't want to crush you."
"How could you crush me? You're next to me, not atop me."
He groaned. Don't give me ideas.
"You're inching away again," she accused. "Am I so objectionable?"
"The furthest thing from it."
"Then what's the matter?"
Fine. Don't say you didn't ask for it.
He rolled onto his side to face her, pulled her close, and thrust his rampant arousal against her belly. "There. I hope that answers your question."
She swallowed hard. "Oh. Were you wanting to--"
"Engage in politely phrased activities? No." He released her. "Not at all."
"You don't have to be so vehement about it."
"A man's body has a mind of its own. Especially when the man in question is naked and in bed with a beautiful woman. One clad in nothing but a wisp of lace, who keeps wriggling her body against his." He exhaled heavily. "But I don't want you to be anxious. We'll wait until you're ready. Whether that means weeks, months, even years. I won't rush you."
She was silent for a moment. And then she started to laugh.
"What?"
"You won't rush me?" The bed quaked with her laughter. "This from the man who kidnapped me in the morning, married me in the afternoon, and installed me in his remote seaside cottage by evening. But you won't rush me. Oh, Sebastian. That is too much."
He didn't know what to say.
"Look at that furrow in your brow." She rubbed the space between his eyebrows, as though attempting to iron it flat. "Don't look so stern. I'm only teasing you. But perhaps you're not ready to be teased. I won't rush you, either."
Without thinking, he reached out to stroke her hair.
She laid her head on his chest. "I've worried about you in the past year. You're too stubborn to let on, but I know you've been hurting. Whether it's Henry or the war, or something I can't even comprehend. Even when we're in the same room, you've seemed so far away."