Margaret Moore - The Welshman's Bride

“I didn’t—”

The baron nodded patiently. “I believe you. But he may not. He hardly knows you.”

“He seems to know of me, or at least my family,” Dylan replied dourly.

“Your grandfather was well-known, and your father had a certain...”

“Infamy,” Dylan provided.

“Yes. So you see, he knows no good of your family. When he saw her in that bed, the poor fellow must have nearly died of shock. God’s wounds, I almost did myself when I got here.”

“How did he come to find us together?” Dylan asked suspiciously. “Who told him Genevieve was with me?”

“I don’t think anybody did. It was rather obvious last night that she could hardly keep her eyes off you.”

“I gave her no encouragement last night. I didn’t dance with her, or even say a word.”

“Perhaps not, but if a man finds a girl missing, and that girl is clearly attracted to a personable young man, his thoughts might tend to certain conclusions.”

Dylan sighed heavily as he ran his hand through his thick hair. “That’s why I tried to ignore her last night.”

“Regrettably, your actions did not have the effect you intended.”

The baron leaned toward him. “What happened between you before last night, Dylan? It’s clear she thought if the betrothal was broken, you would wed her. Did you give her cause to think you wanted to marry her if she was free?”

Dylan smote his forehead. “God’s holy heart, that’s why she did it—to break the betrothal!”

“Obviously. Did you tell her that?”

“Anwyl, no! I said I would be sorry to see her leave or some such thing.”

“What else?”

“Nothing else!”

“What else did you do?”

“I...there may have been some kissing,” he muttered, looking at his feet.

“Kissing?”

“Passionate kissing,” he confessed.

“Just kissing?”

“A little more.”

“What ‘little more’?”

Frustrated, Dylan raised his eyes and regarded the baron resolutely. “You’re a man. You can guess. But I never made love to her, or even got close to it.”

“Dylan,” the baron began not unkindly, “do you never stop to think? Lady Genevieve has been with Lady Katherine DuMonde the past eight years. I doubt she’s even talked to many men that whole time. Now she’s traveling to be married to a man she’s never seen, and who she knows is not young. They stop here, and who does she meet but you?

“I won’t be telling you anything you don’t already know when I say you’re as handsome a young man as she’s ever likely to meet, and—” he grinned for an instant “—you’ve got a merry devilry that reminds me of myself at your age, so I know how attractive that quality can be.

“I do not doubt that you’ve grievously underestimated the effect you had on her,” he continued, serious again. “She thought you liked her more than you intended, and saw a way to get out of a marriage she didn’t want.”

“I suppose I should have listened to Griffydd,” Dylan muttered.

“What does Griffydd have to do with this?”

Dylan shrugged. “He tried to warn me, but I...”

“Yes, you should have paid attention,” the baron replied. “But that is past. The question before us now is, what can we say to assuage her uncle?”

“I won’t be forced to marry her just to save her honor, which she compromised,” Dylan warned.

“You know I am not a proponent of forced marriages, for any reason,” the baron replied. “We must think of a way to let the marriage to Lord Kirkheathe proceed as planned.”

As the baron regarded the silent young man he had known from his birth, his brow furrowed with concern. “You do want the marriage to Kirkheathe to proceed?”

Dylan shrugged again. “Naturally. But after all the racket Lord Perronet made, her reputation may already be too seriously ruined. Kirkheathe might spurn her.”

“That is true.” The baron sighed.

“Unless I can convince Lord Perronet that I did not make love to his niece and so there is no reason she cannot marry Kirkheathe.”

“You will convince him?”

Feeling a certain amount of guilt over what he had done with Genevieve, he nodded. “I will try.”

“So there is no reason at all she cannot marry Kirkheathe?”

Dylan rose and faced his foster father. “If there is, it is only in her own mind.”

“Or heart, perhaps.”

“Perhaps,” he agreed after a short silence.

“Well, then,” the baron said, rising. “I suggest you waste no time. The longer Lord Perronet is on the rampage, the worse the damage to Lady Genevieve’s reputation will be.”

Dylan nodded and turned to go.

Before he could leave, the baron reached out and laid a hand on his shoulder. “She seems a sweet girl, if misguided. Do not fault her too much for her foolishness.”

Dylan smiled his irrepressible smile. “Because she claims to be in love with me, I will be chivalry itself when I talk to her.”

Then a scowl replaced the smile as he strode from the room.

“As for her uncle, I can make no such promises.”

Having hastily dressed in a gown of what she considered a most appropriate black, Genevieve sat staring at her hands folded on her lap. Her uncle was going to be here at any moment, and she was doing her best to compose herself.

It was not easy. Indeed, if someone were to offer her a means of being spirited out of Craig Fawr to the farthest reaches of Europe, she would consider herself the most fortunate of beings.

Sadly, no such miraculous event was in the offing.

And yet it was not shame and sorrow that filled her heart at the moment. It was a fierce and righteous anger, because she had been tricked by a clever rogue bent only on his own amusement

She never should have trusted Dylan DeLanyea’s kisses and his smiles and his sorrowful words. She should have remembered Lady Katherine’s admonitions that most young men were scheming, lustful rascals best avoided.

To think she had believed that he loved her! That his passionate kisses meant that he cared. Instead, as she had discovered to her horror and her shame, he had only been toying with her and amusing himself at her expense.

She should have been a dutiful niece and gladly gone to her marriage instead of climbing into a bed beside a naked and softly snoring Welshman who had promised her... nothing.

And she never should have cut her own finger to make it look as if she had bled. That was something one of the other girls at Lady Katherine’s claimed would happen the first time she lay with a man. That girl had lost her virginity some time before to a soldier in her father’s employ.

How she had looked down on Cecily Debarry after she had heard that, Genevieve thought, disgusted with herself as she remembered. That was how people would think of her now, as a sinful, immoral creature—and it was Dylan DeLanyea’s fault!

“Are you dressed?” her uncle demanded from the other side of the door.

“Yes,” she answered, rising and steeling herself for his anger. She would try to tell him the truth—that she was a virgin still—and her reasons for the deception, but she had little hope that he would listen.

What hope she had was squelched the moment her uncle marched into the chamber. He was still so angry, his hawklike face seemed filled with fury and his brown eyes fairly snapped with wrath as he slammed the heavy door shut.

Explanations would be useless. How could she save herself from his ire?

Quickly she knelt before him in an attitude of humble contrition, her anger masked, her head lowered, pressing her palms together as if she were praying—and she was, silently begging God to help her from this morass she had created.

“Uncle, I beg your forgiveness for my shameful conduct,” she murmured contritely. “I am very sorry.”