The Vengeful Bridegroom Read online

  “I also know it was the count who stabbed you that night, not I. And I plan to tell Mrs. Westcott today of this aberrant lie. Because of your deceit and untrustworthiness to me, and in particular, to your sister, I want you to leave in the morning. I would prefer you have no further involvement in your sister’s life, but that is her decision to make and not my own. Are we in agreement?”

  Colgate glanced around the room as if the answers could be found in the corners. He sighed. “Yes. I’ll leave in the morning. Would you permit me to say my farewells to my sister?”

  Gabriel eyed him curiously, for this seemed an abrupt change of heart. It could only indicate trouble brewing; like the witches of Macbeth, what did he plot? He would speak with Windthorp and Graham and ask them to watch Colgate closely, until he finally left their home and Shropshire.

  He gave a curt nod. “Be prepared to depart at seven o’clock.” Gabriel turned to leave when he heard his brother-in-law speak.

  “Westcott, I, I’ve made a muck of things, but could we have peace between us, for Madelene’s sake?”

  He almost sounded contrite, Gabriel thought. “A discussion to have at a later time. Until tomorrow.”

  His unpleasant business behind him, Gabriel ran up the stairs two at a time, anxious to speak with Madelene and see her beautiful smile. He hoped she had arrived at agreeable terms for their marriage.

  He found clean water in his bedchamber and washed the travel dust from his body. Somewhat sore from the long and hasty trip, Gabriel wanted nothing more than to lie beside Madelene. He left Falstaff sleeping under his bed, a favorite place of late.

  At her bedchamber door, he hesitated, then knocked softly.

  No answer. The hour still early, she probably slept. He quietly pushed the door open and discovered, indeed his wife asleep, lying on her side. Locating a chair near the poster bed, he sat down across from her. He wanted to gaze at this woman.

  This woman who had mysteriously breathed life back to his heart, desolated after the loss of his sister. He would never allow anyone—friend, family, acquaintance—to know him in an intimate manner of the heart, but his sister. Although there had been other women, none could light his days and his nights.

  Until now. Until Madelene.

  Somehow, she had to forgive him for the terrible beginning of their marriage. They would start all over again. Perhaps, back in London—

  “Gabriel,” he heard her say sleepily. “I’m terribly glad you’re home.” She smiled with her eyes closed, looking as content as, hmmm, as a woman well loved. And she was indeed. She must know that.

  Rounding the bed, he joined her and gathered her in his arms, breathing in her lavender-scented hair. His hand almost shook as he stroked her long, dark hair. His woman, his wife, awed him. He kissed her forehead in the softest of caresses.

  She pressed her face close to his lawn shirt and clutched him around the waist. “I’ve missed you. Has it only been a week?” she whispered into his chest.

  He tipped her head up to meet his kiss. What began as a gentle kiss of sweet restraint blossomed into something more desperate than he could have imagined. Their lips met again and again, and it wasn’t enough. He had to have all of her, all at once.

  He wanted to take it slow and mark her as his only. A morning she would always remember. A new beginning. He would show her how much he loved her by paying homage to her sky blue eyes, and her pink cheeks, and her soft dark hair, and that was only the beginning.

  But his wife surprised him, more awake than he realized. His Venus came to life. She unbuttoned his shirt and slid her hands around his hard waist, playfully biting his nipples.

  His plans were for naught, because she wanted him as much as he wanted her. He only wanted to please her and allow him to show her what she needed. He could believe this was their very first kiss and thought her most beautiful in the morning.

  In no time, he pulled off her night rail and rolled her on top of him. Only his pantaloons remained between them. He knew the sweetest ache as he pressed his hardened manhood between her legs and cupped her bottom. When she teased him with her hair, dragging the dark tresses over his chest, then with her wet tongue, and finally with her breasts, he became undone.

  The taut peaks of her breasts within his dreams and reach, he grasped them, molded them, fondled them, until she moaned for more. When she leaned down to lick his lips, her quickly learned skill of blazing mouth and hot tongue surprised and delighted him. He thought this lady was no lady. Not here, not now. Where had she learned such pleasurable skills? Innate and intuitiveness were his only conclusions, but it didn’t matter.

  Before he realized what she had planned, she had already reached between them, undone his buttons, and found his hard need. Her hand nearly set him off before he was ready. Both eager to be joined together, Gabriel slid his hand down her soft, undulating body until he found her wet folds.

  As soon as he touched her, she jumped and muffled a squeal in his shoulder.

  Madelene loved the hardness of him. He was hard wherever she was soft, and their bodies fit so well together. She began moving against his hand, pleasure racking her body, all thought retreated. Sensation after sensation flowed through her. She wanted more. She needed more.

  When she almost reached the mind-numbing precipice, he pushed himself inside her welcoming wetness. As she moved her hips to match his strokes, he teased her nipples, sending frissons of delight throughout her body. Every part of her quivered and glowed with his possession, a satisfying custody of her body and soul.

  It wasn’t enough. He had to have more of her. Now. He grabbed her shoulders and pulled her over and under him, never losing a stroke, and continued pushing into her wet center again and again, as if it was their first and last time together. He could see the desire building in her lovely blue eyes, widening with every deepening thrust.

  When he reached between them to add his caress to the top of her heat, he watched her body quiver and her eyes become a deeper blue. Together, lost in the heated throbbing moment and each other, he pulsed into her with all his strength, and she clung to him, pleasure shooting through her as their bodies and lips pressed together, in a final surrender.

  Exhausted, their hearts slowed. They fell asleep in each other’s arms.

  “I have been unable to have coherent thoughts when you are near me. When you went away, I had time to reflect upon everything. I knew you couldn’t have hurt my brother. Matthew finally confessed to me last night you didn’t try to kill him.” She looked up at him as he stared down at her, Gabriel leaning on his elbow next to her.

  Awake after a deep sleep, Gabriel knew the time had come to talk of many things and give Madelene answers to her questions, answers he had wanted to give her long ago. It finally felt like the proper time. Before he began, he held her close against him, reveling in the feel of her and knowing she was his.

  “I saw Matthew this morning, and we discussed that night.” He hesitated and ran his hand through his hair. “Madelene, I have asked your brother to return to Town.” He waited with bated breath for her response.

  She nodded. “I think it best.” The look in her eyes took her many miles away, and he wondered where she was and how to bring her back to him.

  “Madelene, are you sure? I don’t want this situation with your brother to affect our life together.” He couldn’t find the words to tell her how much her happiness and contentment meant to him.

  She returned his gaze. “But there are the diamonds. He needs them and has asked me to obtain the diamonds from you. I told him—”

  Gabriel pulled her closer, their bodies entwined like rose vines, yet thorns remained. “We had a chat about the diamonds as well. I told him the diamonds didn’t belong to the count but rather a countess from Italy. I have to give the diamonds to the magistrate in London, who will see they are returned to Italy and their rightful owner.”

  She raised herself supported on her elbows, fear reflected in her eyes. “But what about the co
unt? Matthew told me he feared for his life if he didn’t hand over the diamonds to him.”

  “I’ve spoken to a good friend of mine on my recent trip to London. He planned to look into the affair and have a word with the count. After Count Taglioni learns he won’t be receiving the jewels, and the magistrate wants to speak with him, we believe he’ll make urgent plans to return to Italy.”

  He felt the relief fall from her shoulders as she returned and melted into his side. “Thank you for interceding on my brother’s behalf. I worry so about him. You see, he can’t take care of himself. My father always looked after Matthew, but with Father gone—”

  “Perhaps your father didn’t allow your brother to stand on his own often enough. He appears to be struggling to become a man, a long overdue change.”

  “That is so.”

  Enough talk of her brother. The situation would soon resolve itself once Colgate had left Westcott Close and returned to his own home.

  Their reunion had consumed much of his thought on the journey to and from Town. He wanted her to know something very important, and he had to find the words to tell her.

  Reaching for her hand, he said quietly, “Madelene, I must tell you something. I have wanted to tell you for a long while.”

  He felt her stiffen, not knowing, obviously, if he carried good news or bad, and held her even tighter.

  “I have to tell you about George.”

  “I don’t want to know. Please, I don’t want, I can’t. I love the little fellow, and I—” Her voice shook with tears.

  Whoever said there was a fine line between tears and laughter must have known his wife. He placed a finger under her chin and raised her eyes to look at him. “Madelene, there is no reason to be in such a state. He is your nephew.”

  If possible, her blue eyes became bluer and bigger. She sat up abruptly and stared at him, as if she could measure the truth in his eyes.

  Gabriel nodded and smiled. “Little George is our nephew.”

  Tears surfaced in her hopeful eyes, her face still pale. “But how? I—” She frowned, carefully assembling the news. “Little George is my brother and your sister’s child?” She could barely speak the words and shook her head. The information must have been too much for her to absorb.

  She wrapped her arms around her legs, needing time to sort the implications and presenting him with a lovely view of her satiny back, which he had to touch, more than once, and which, to his slight annoyance, she ignored.

  After moments passed, she focused again on Gabriel. “The news that George is my nephew is joyous indeed, but Matthew…he doesn’t know he has a son?”

  The truth and his decision rested uneasily with him, but she needed to know his plans—plans and promises he had made eight months ago to his sister. “No, I haven’t told him, and I don’t intend to. It was my sister’s wish. You know he cared little for my sister. He wanted nothing to do with her. Even told her he had but a few months to live, in hopes she wouldn’t want to marry him.”

  His anger grew at the remembrance of her suffering to bring a man’s child into the world who had not given her more than a night of bedding and thought, and who had nothing more to give to his beloved sister. “Colgate doesn’t want a son, and when my sister knew she wouldn’t survive, she made me promise to raise him as my own. Somehow, in the brief two hours she lived and held George in her arms, she managed to give him all the mother’s love she had to serve him for a lifetime.”

  He willed his wife to understand. “I must ask you. Your brother can never know.”

  Madelene, a rapt listener to the story, shook her head, her mouth turned down. “His shocking behavior has grieved me in the past. I fail to understand his behavior, but never more so than at this moment. I ache at the pain he caused your sister.” She held his hand tightly. “I wish I had known, but he flippantly informed me it was none of my affair.”

  She paused and pressed him. “He must know,” she whispered, and Gabriel’s heart echoed her pain at the thought of losing George.

  “I am not willing to discuss this at the moment. I need more time to think on the situation and what is best for George. You must consider your brother is barely able to care for himself, never mind another living creature. I fear what might have become of you if I hadn’t learned of the wager.”

  “Not that I can condone any of my brother’s actions, but the marriage was to be only temporary and solve our financial straits.”

  He stared into her pained eyes and knew she would have a difficult time forgetting her brother’s actions, and the right and wrong of it. “My dear, it would have been very difficult to obtain an annulment, no matter what your brother might have told you.”

  Madelene lay back in bed and pulled the white linen to cover herself, although the room was warm. “Perhaps someone gave him erroneous information. Do you truly believe my own brother would wish me ill?”

  Reclining on his back, Gabriel sighed. “I can answer your question with my own instincts. He probably didn’t give the whole arrangement much thought. Your brother tends to display an appalling lack of farsightedness.”

  They lay quietly together until Madelene put a hand to her forehead. “My goodness. What must the time be? We have guests arriving tonight, and I must dress and talk to Mrs. Lavishtock.” She shoved her husband’s arm. “Go, go. We cannot dawdle any more in bed.”

  “How easily my wife turns from lover to shrew,” he told her with a smile, but he did rise to pull on his clothes, telling himself this conversation was far from over.

  “Mr. Westcott, you will please leave my room. And I wouldn’t bandy the word ‘shrew’ about, because you might just deserve one.”

  He saluted her on his way to the door. “Touché. But as long as she was the beautiful Madelene, I would have her any way that I could.” He jiggled his eyebrows lasciviously.

  “Go, you hedonistic heathen!” she mocked him and threw a pillow in his direction.

  Only after his departure did she realize they still hadn’t discussed Alec. At least she was more than relieved to learn Alec was not George’s mother.

  “Oh, ma’am, if I must say so, you look lovely this evening. Mr. Westcott will be hard-pressed to take his eyes from you,” Fanny told Madelene breathlessly after putting the last of the baby’s breath in her hair.

  Madelene smiled at her reflection in the looking glass as she sat in front of her vanity. “If this is true, it is due to your fine work. Fanny, I am very delighted with this gown you made. I should have you make all my dresses, for your skill as a dressmaker is incomparable. You would put my former mantua-makers in Town to envy.”

  Blushing, Fanny replied, “For sure, ma’am, you are kindness itself. Not many such as yourself would trouble themselves with a beginner.”

  “You give yourself too little credit. I’m sure I will not know what to say should any of the ladies tonight inquire about my seamstress. I may have to create a fib. If Ludlow heard about your accomplishments, you might not wish to remain as my lady’s maid.”

  “Oh, Mrs. Westcott, I do not think of such things. I am fortunate to be in your employ.”

  Their eyes met in the looking glass. “I’d say we both had good fortune. I better hurry with these earrings or Mr. Westcott will wonder why I dally.”

  Fanny had prescient sight at Gabriel’s admiration of the picture Madelene made as she joined him in the rich burgundy drawing room.

  “You are a confection of brilliance, and I hunger for your sweetness,” he murmured in her ear, giving a care to the distance between them. It wouldn’t do to create talk as they waited to welcome their guests in the drawing room. Before he knew it, gossip would be stirred as the country folk spoke of Mr. Gabriel Westcott as quite besotted over his new wife. Even though, of course, he was.

  Before meeting Gabriel to receive their guests, Madelene had checked on dinner with Mrs. Lavishtock, made sure Falstaff had been fed, and looked in on her brother. She thought it strange Matthew was dressed for the soiree, al
though he had no intention of attending and had not been invited.

  “I’m leaving in the morning, Madelene. Your husband has kindly arranged for a coach to return us to Town. I don’t know when I shall see you again.” His face looked rather morose, alarming Madelene.

  Us? He couldn’t possibly mean the baby? “Who—”

  “Brelford has been waiting for me in Ludlow until I can return home. He has certainly been a steadfast friend, which I have sorely needed.”

  Madelene relaxed slightly. He didn’t refer to George. But…hoping her husband would understand and on the verge of telling Matthew, she heard Falstaff barking and excused herself to see about the commotion.

  In the kitchen, Madelene had found Alec standing next to the outside door, her clothes disheveled and dirty, Mrs. Lavishtock shushed Falstaff while inquiring where Alec had been.

  “Mr. Westcott asked me go to the village and collect a package for him.”

  “That surely does not explain your appearance. You’re as filthy as a chimney sweep,” the housekeeper told the young woman, who couldn’t have looked more disinterested in the berating.

  When Alec noticed Madelene in the kitchen, they stared at each other, distrust mirrored between them before Madelene turned to the housekeeper and smiled. “Mrs. Lavishtock, please see Mr. Westcott receives his package. Our guests will be here soon. Please see to Falstaff and anything else that comes through the servants’ entrance.” She left the kitchen, determined to discover where Alec had been this evening.

  Gabriel and Madelene stood together near the entrance to the drawing room while Hazelby held a tray of Madeira wine and Graham announced the guests as they arrived.

  “Mr. and Mrs. Tottencott,” Graham intoned, sounding far older than his youthful appearance allowed. Fanny told Madelene he had been practicing his introductions to have that certain quality of elegance in his voice, befitting his master and mistress.

  In a brief history of the county, Gabriel had informed Madelene earlier in the day that Mrs. Tottencott was related to Princess Caroline’s Lady-in-Waiting, the Countess Willins, by marriage, six or seven times removed, he could never quite remember. The countess at the time held court in London with her husband, the Earl of Fieldsforth. Since her sister could claim a royal connection by a whisper of threads, Mrs. Tottencott believed herself an important cog in the society circle of Ludlow.