Annette Blair - Scandalous Brides

She tried to move from his lap then, but he held her in place, his hands at her hips. “No, stay. I am becoming fond of the ache; it is far better than feeling nothing, and I like you here.”

Her incredible blue-green eyes widened, swam, and Hawk scolded himself for the admission even as he agonized over what she must be thinking.

THREE

ALEXANDRA WAS IN A fair way to screaming as emotions bombarded her from every quarter.

Joy—for here, miraculously, sat her husband, back from the dead, the man she had been unable to forget, even during her wedding to another.

Sadness—for the time they had lost and the pain she had glimpsed, deep and abiding, behind his winking jest. Yes, his legendary perfection had been startlingly altered, but he had survived, for which she would remain forever grateful.

But fury hardened her heart as well. She had taken a great deal of satisfaction in pummeling the arrogant, marble-hearted rogue to pudding, though she had not expected to hurt him, which in turn hurt her.

So many people had mourned him, the very family he had all but deserted. Alex sighed. Yes, he had married her for mercenary reasons and left her at the church, yet her anguish was nothing to theirs.

But he was alive, after all, and perhaps the future could be set to rights, though a loveless marriage had never been her intent, not with Bryce at any rate. She had once naively thought that her love for him would be enough to carry them through life, but now, more than ever, she was uncertain. Despite the fact that he had kept his survival from her for far too long, she could think only that he was alive, against all hope.

To prove she was not dreaming, Alex placed her hand on the coarse fabric of his frockcoat to feel his warm, thickly muscled arm beneath, and her heart leapt as her spirit rejoiced. Alive. Her husband was alive and holding her in a way she had always imagined, in her deepest, most secret dreams, except…

Chesterfield would not take kindly to being set aside, especially after the bargain they had struck. This time, she had been willing to marry without love, in order to support the family she and Bryce had all but failed.

But Judson Broderick, Viscount Chesterfield, was a powerful and persuasive man. For agreeing to wed him, she had accepted a favor in advance, thereby granting him a hold over her, the stronger for her having cast him aside.

Bryce would not appreciate the irony. But there was nothing she could do, if he did not. She had thought he was dead, after all. Besides, he might never find out, if luck remained with her.

“Other than your justified anger at my, ah, tardiness, you have not said how you feel about this unexpected turn,” Bryce said, asking for what she dare not give—a glimpse into her heart. If he knew how she really felt, how much she loved him, had always loved him, he would flee in panic, bad leg or not. She knew him that well. “Despite my anger, I am glad you survived. Of course, I am.”

“Of course.” His scowl still had the power to set tinder to flame. “I suppose I do not blame you,” he said, “for preferring to be a new and beloved bride, rather than a reclaimed and convenient wife.”

Convenient. Ouch. So, it was laid bare. In the open. Irrefutable. Theirs had been a marriage of convenience. It hurt more to hear it from him than to suspect it, or hear secondhand.

Alexandra sat straighter, hurt overriding embarrassment, but before long, ire replaced pain, and she was grateful. “Do you think to take me for granted as you have done for the past year and a half, ever since we wed and you fled?” His turn to wince. Good. “As you tolerated me when we were growing up, while I trod in your wake, a devoted pup after its master? If such is the case, then you are right; I had rather be Chesterfield’s cherished bride.”

With as much dignity as she could muster, given the tardiness of her move, Alex shifted from her husband’s lap to the seat opposite, folding her arms before her and allowing several silent moments to pass, until she remembered that she should not show her hand.

She sighed and forced herself to relax. “We are married for good or ill,” she said, setting herself and her clothes to rights. “And neither of us has a choice in the matter. If we held sway over life, we would be God.” What a foolish statement, she thought. With Hawk’s return, God had granted her everything.

Nevertheless, she pinned her wayward husband with steely regard. “I will not be overlooked or under-appreciated. Not by you or anyone. Do so at your peril.”

“If I do, will you beat me?”

Behind the jest, Alex saw an easing of his anguish, though she dare not let down her guard. “If you force my hand, Bryceson Wakefield, I will… go and live in sin with Chesterfield.”

“The devil, you say!” The very demon flared of a sudden in the fire of Hawk’s eyes. Jealousy, she would name it, green and sizzling to a turn. “I see you have not changed your rule-breaking ways,” he said, as close to a sulk as one could imagine on a heartless rogue.

Alex shivered with the elation of success. “In case you have not noticed,” she said, adjusting the blonde lace on her low-cut, cream satin bodice, I am a big girl now. A woman. Chesterfield wants me.”

That devil in Hawk’s eyes leapt. “So you do love him?”

How dare he? Alex refused to cater to her husband’s fittingly overburdened conscience. She would not give him the satisfaction of revealing her true feelings. He did not deserve to know them. Not yet. Perhaps, not ever. “I said I was glad you lived.”

“Being glad I lived, and glad I took you away from the man you love, are not one and the same thing.”

“They are not, but Chesterfield is strong; he will recover.”

Hawk sighed, feeling the sharp bite of his wife’s pointed, though silent, censure. As she would not recover, she did not need to say… because she loved the man. Her omission spoke louder than her words ever could, and even Hawk could not utter them, for to do so would surely give them credence. “Chesterfield loves you, then?”

“He adores me.” Alex raised her chin. “It has been a delightful change.” She quirked a brow. “And an exhilarating experience.”

Hawksworth winced at the bald statement, remorse and possessiveness, both new and uncomfortable sensations for a rogue like him. Positively disconcerting for a man bound not to touch his wife.

“Poor Alexandra,” he said, running headlong into the subject with which he had been toying for weeks. “Would you rather we lived apart?” Even as the words left his lips, Hawk’s heart about stopped.

Alex paled to the color of flour paste. “That will not be possible.”

His heart caught the beats it missed and continued on its palpitating way, albeit a bit faster than normal, for he was as taken aback by her answer as he was relieved by it. Though he should not be, he reminded himself, for they must part in the not too distant future. “No?”

“Do not be foolish.”

“I am never foolish, Alexandra. I am occasionally blind, I have come to understand in hindsight, but never knowingly foolish. I should think that someone who cares naught for the rules and loves another might consider separation a solution.”

“Only an annulment would serve as a solution, as far as my alliance with Chesterfield is concerned, and well you know it. But the fact remains that neither an annulment nor a separation is possible, for your wards need no family skeletons further littering their rock-strewn paths in life.”

That she wanted an annulment at all, whether possible in her mind or not, damn near broke Hawk. And still, she had given no elaboration as to whether she did, or did not, love the man she had been about to marry.