He answered her honestly. “Yes. Probably the day after the wedding.”
Stella almost jigged for joy. “What an adventure for you, Tess. Imagine, the wilds of Wales. She’s rarely been out of London,” she confided to Brenn. “The change of scenery will be good for her. For all of us.”
The woman Brenn had met last night on the terrace would have challenged Stella for making such a slur, but now, Tess murmured distractedly, “Yes, it will.”
She took a small restless step and then, as if just remembering the flowers in her hand, said, “I should have these put in water.” She would have made a quick exit except Neil stopped her.
“Not yet, Tess. We must toast your happiness. Give the flowers to the servants to arrange.”
“Yes, a toast!” Stella echoed happily.
For the space of a heartbeat, Tess appeared ready to toss the insipid bouquet in the air, lift her skirts, and run. But she didn’t. Instead, she handed the flowers to one of the ever-present footmen with the same resolve Brenn had used himself to confront French cannons.
Her brother pushed a glass of wine in her hand.
“To your happiness,” he said.
“Hear, hear,” Stella acknowledged, lifting her own glass.
Brenn sipped, all too aware that his intended had not moved since her brother had forced her to take the glass. Instead, she ran her thumb back and forth along the glass’s crystal rim.
“Another drink!” Hamlin ordered, having downed his own. He crossed to the wine cabinet to refill it.
“We must celebrate your future. By the way, Merton, I will have my man of business in on the morrow, say two o’clock? We’ll discuss the wedding contract at that time.”
The wedding contract. Fifty thousand pounds. Swallow your pride. Brenn glanced at Tess standing rigid and silent, her reluctance a dart aimed at his deepest doubts. Would fifty thousand be enough?
“I’d like a moment alone with your sister.” The words were out of Brenn’s mouth before he’d even realized his intent.
The request caught Hamlin off guard. Brother and sister exchanged quick glances.
“A moment only,” Brenn pressed, a hint of steel in his voice.
“Of course you can,” Stella said cheerily. “After all, I have a wedding to plan. Imagine, it must be all done by next Wednesday! Neil, darling, can we not hold it here instead of the church?”
“The church,” he insisted curtly, still frowning at Brenn. He forced a smile. “But the wedding breakfast will be here.” He paused. “I will not be far,” he told his sister. With a stiff bow, he left the room, Stella traipsing at his heels and prattling on about wedding arrangements.
Tess looked as if she might follow them. Brenn dissuaded her by walking to the door and shutting it.
She flinched at the sound of the lock clicking in place. Her gaze flew up to meet his. There was definitely panic in her expressive eyes. She looked away, moving across the room to the front window overlooking the street.
“You don’t want this marriage,” he said without preamble. “Why?”
She turned, facing him, and he saw a flash of the spirit he’d seen in her last night. “My lord, I don’t understand your question. Are you attempting to cry off?”
Brenn wasn’t about to walk away from her now. He had given her his word. He crossed the carpet to her, stopping when they were less than a hand’s distance apart. She observed his approach with the watchful caution of someone being stalked by a wolf.
He spoke. “We each have our own reasons for wanting this match. Let us clear the air and go on about it.” Even as he said this, he wondered how much he was willing to reveal about his financial affairs. He didn’t want her to bolt.
She started to speak. “I—” But then she stopped. Her chin came up to a stubborn angle and she glared at him almost defiantly. In a low, flat voice, she said, “I have nothing to confide. You are saving me from last night’s scandal and I thank you.”
Brenn felt the swift rise of anger. Why was she being so bloody difficult?
Why was he pressing the issue?
After all, what did it matter if she had been with another man or not? He was marrying her for her fortune. Then why did her refusal to be honest make him a little crazed?
Because it did, with a primitive anger at her stubbornness. And because it mattered, he resolved the issue with the same audacity he’d demonstrated on the battlefield.
He took her by both arms and kissed her.
At first she opposed him. She attempted to turn her head away, placing her hands on his chest. But something deep and primal that had been lurking within him from the moment she’d first walked into the room now urged him to press forward, to make her respond and bend to him.
It wasn’t only lust. He liked the taste of her. Very much. More than he’d anticipated.
To his satisfaction, ever so slowly, she relented. He deepened the kiss. She responded, tentative at first and then with growing passion.
His tongue touched hers. She started to draw back but he wouldn’t let her. His hand followed the curve of her spine, keeping her close to him.
Her nipples hardened. He could feel them even through the layers of clothes between them and he knew he could have her. Boldly, he pressed himself against her, wanting her to feel his desire.
She caught her breath, making a small sound of surprise. Brenn looped her arm over his shoulder while his other hand held her captive. Slowly, deliberately, he began making love to her with his tongue. He knew how to pleasure a woman. He’d learned the art of making love in eight countries.
And one of the things he’d learned was that not every partner sparked this sudden wild desire in him or responded with such innocent inhibition. Her body fit his. He rolled his hips against hers, aping the movements of his tongue. She moaned, both arms now around his neck, and he cupped her buttocks and lifted her slightly, the better to position himself close to her.
He grabbed hold of the material of her skirt, wanting to feel her, to see if she was hot, ready. He wanted the barriers removed between them—
A knock on the door was their only warning. They broke apart immediately and managed to place a small sofa between them just as Hamlin entered the room.
The smile on his face did little to mask the anxiousness in his eyes. “So, I hope the two of you have had a moment to get to know each other,” he said with a false heartiness that made Brenn wonder what he had feared would happen when they were alone.
Her color high, Tess reassured him with a small laugh. “Lord Merton was telling me about Wales.”
Brenn didn’t like how easily the small falsehood had come to her lips. No, she was no virginal miss. No woman could respond with such wanton abandonment and still be untouched. Whether she carried another man’s brat or not, he wanted her with a force that was startling. He wanted his seed inside her, to mark her and bind her to him.
“I am anxious to show Miss Hamlin Wales.” He glanced at her lips. They were still rosy red and slightly swollen from their kiss. “Spring is always such a fertile time.”
Her hand came up and she covered her mouth. Their gazes met, and she quickly glanced away. Brenn couldn’t resist a grim smile of satisfaction. She’d known the direction of his thoughts.
He and Tess Hamlin would suit very well…and in spite of Sir Charles’s warnings, and his own guarded instincts, he had to have her.
“I’ll take you driving in the park this afternoon, Miss Hamlin,” he said. “Sir Charles assures me that such an act is tantamount to an announcement in the papers.”
“Quite right!” her brother cut in. “Although I will have the announcement posted in the morning papers. I want everything proper,” he added with false cheeriness.
“Then if you will excuse me, I will return at five.” Brenn crossed the room to her. “Miss Hamlin.” He held out his hand.
Her reluctance was clear as she placed her fingers in his. What did she think he was going to do? Gobble her up?
The idea had merit.
Gallantly, he lifted her hand to his lips and kissed her fingertips. “Until five.”
She nodded. He would have paid every coin in his pocket to know her thoughts.
“By the by,” Hamlin said, oblivious to the tension in the room, “Stella tells me we are attending Lord and Lady Ottley’s musicale this evening. It’s an Italian soprano, nothing special. We wish you to join our party.”
“Lord Ottley? Is he not the sponsor of that agricultural bill in Parliament?”
“I suppose so. I really don’t know,” Hamlin said. “I don’t pay attention to politics myself.”
Brenn thought a man who didn’t pay attention to politics and the governing of his country was an idiot, but he kept that opinion to himself. “I would be honored to be your guest.”
“Good. Come here at nine. We’ll have a quiet supper and then go to the musicale together.”
As Brenn took his leave he couldn’t resist one backward glance at his bride-to-be. She stood perfectly still, her gaze fixated on a point outside the window.
He wondered again who the father of her baby was.
Leaving the house, he decided that always doing the honorable thing was damn hard business.
“It was…” Tess paused, at a loss for words. “It was animal!”
She and Anne sat in the privacy of Anne’s small bedroom under the eaves of her aunt’s house. It was a safe, familiar place. Tess had hurried there as soon as the door had closed behind Lord Merton.
“Animal?” Anne repeated. “A kiss?”
“Yes,” Tess said desperately. “Worse, I can’t believe I behaved so brazenly.”
“I can’t believe he just reached out and grabbed you!”
“Oh, he did,” Tess swore fervently. “He acted like he was angry about something.” For a moment, she was tempted to divulge her guilty secret concerning her loss of fortune, but then she thought differently.
She couldn’t stand the thought of anyone pitying her, even Anne.
Instead, she rolled off the bed and acted out the chain of events. “He took my arms with both hands and then, before I realized what was happening, he kissed me.”
“Oh, dear,” Anne said breathlessly.
“Yes,” Tess agreed. “At first, I fought him. I thought I was going to be ravished, right there in my own home with my brother close at hand.”
“And were you?”
“No.” She dropped her arms to her side. “Instead, I kissed him back.”
“You?”
Tess nodded.
“But you don’t like to kiss.”
That was true. “I’ve found it sloppy and degrading…but,” she added in a whisper, “it wasn’t disgusting when he kissed me.”
“What was it like?” Anne asked, wide-eyed.
Tess searched her mind for the right word and settled on “Possessive.”
“What did you do after that?”
“Nothing,” Tess admitted helplessly. “My mind was so jumbled, I could barely string two thoughts together. And he kept watching me…”
She sat back on the bed, crushing a feather pillow tightly against her stomach. She was losing control.
Whether she wished it or not, she was going to marry a man who had the power to make her feel excited and frightened and giddy all at one time. “Anne, what happens between a man and a woman once they marry?”
“What do you mean?”
“You know.” Tess waved her hand in the air anxiously. “What happens on the wedding night.”
Anne sank down on the bed. “I thought you knew.”
“Knew what?”
Shaking her head, Anne confessed, “I don’t know. Tess, living with my aunt, I might as well be in a nunnery. Whenever I’ve dared to ask a question, she’s gotten all prune-faced and told me not to worry my head about that.” She dropped her voice. “Once I even went to the lending library to search for a book that might tell me.”
Tess sat bolt upright. “I did too. Did you find one?”
“No.”
She shrank back down. “I didn’t either. But I found some very interesting allusions in poetry. The poets make it sound like something earthy and enjoyable.”
Anne leaned forward. “Why don’t you ask Stella?”
“I can’t do that! We detest each other.” For a moment, Tess curled her tongue, remembering those motions that the earl had made with his hips and how she’d felt them, deep down in a place below her stomach. She hadn’t known she could feel anything down there. Just remembering that kiss seemed to churn a host of confused, dizzying emotions she’d never known before.
“I know who we could ask,” Anne said, “but I don’t know how you feel about her.”
“Who?”
“Leah Carrollton. I saw her today when I was at Parisham’s with my aunt. She told me to thank you for taking the blame last night. She truly appreciates it. I’ve heard her mother is very strict about public behavior.” She paused a moment and added, “I appreciate it too. I had to listen to my aunt lecture me about your outrageous behavior but at least she didn’t imprison me up here on bread and water, her favorite punishment. Was it too bad for you?”
“No, apparently all is forgiven provided I marry and leave London. Stella says that even Lady Garland is willing to forgive the whole incident.”
“Leave London? Tess, you didn’t tell me that!”
“No,” she admitted in a small voice. “My earl is a Welshman and he wants to return home.”
“Tell him you won’t go. I can’t imagine being here without you.”
“I don’t have a choice, Anne.” Tess set the pillow aside and rose from the bed. She paced the length of the room before saying, “Do you really think Leah would know?”
“Leah’s mother is strict in some matters but not so much in others. I overheard my aunt gossiping that Leah’s mother encourages her to throw herself at every titled peer who has a bit of cash to his name. I’ve heard whispers of her kissing in the garden.” She lowered her voice. “Captain Draycutt was at Parisham’
s. My aunt was skeptical of his motives for lurking among the dry goods especially after Leah arrived. Of course, the two of them acted surprised to see each other. My aunt says that if Leah isn’t careful, a man like Draycutt will have her ruined in no time. And I think Leah wants that to happen.”
“But Draycutt has such a terrible reputation.”
“She had stars in her eyes, Tess.”
Leah. “Do you really think she would know?”
“We can find out. We should see her tonight at Lady Ottley’s musicale.”