Annette Blair - Scandalous Brides

Then he heard that she was about to remarry.

That she loved someone else was all the more reason to let her go, though he could not allow her to commit bigamy. And so he had gone to stop her wedding.

Now, for the sake of his nieces, he must take up his responsibilities as planned and proceed as if his marriage to Alex would continue. This would give Claudia and Beatrix a chance to get used to having him back. He would encourage them to depend more upon him and less upon Alex.

When the paperwork reinstating him as the Duke of Hawksworth bore fruit, and what was left of his wealth, title and estates reverted to him, he would move his family from Huntington Lodge, Alex’s family home, back to Hawksridge, his own estate. By then, his nieces would perhaps be dependent upon him again and less destroyed by Alexandra’s departure from the bosom of their family.

Also, by then, Chesterfield might have married another.

More than anything in this world, Hawk wanted to keep Alexandra for himself. Second to that, he would keep her for his family. But with no choice but to give her up, he must at least keep her safe in their marriage, until Judson Broderick, Viscount bloody Chesterfield was absolutely out of the running for her hand.

No matter her seeming indifference to his scars, Hawk would not sit back and let Alexandra’s apathy, in the face of his appearance, turn to valor, which would most assuredly fester into disgust, and destroy the entire family.

Alexandra stared at the burgundy brocade bed canopy above her while the scent of the snuffed beeswax candle remained a lingering reminder of one man’s penchant—her husband’s—for walking away without looking back.

The bridegroom she had thought sacrificed to the wages of war, relinquished to the vaporous vagaries of perpetual rest, had been, quite impossibly, returned to her. A literal miracle, she had discovered upon hearing Reed Gilbride’s story. And yet, despite the wonder, Bryceson Wakefield had, once again, deserted her. He had left her alone in the center of his bed, steeped in hurt, shock and disappointment.

All the time he undressed her, she had anticipated undressing him the same way. She anticipated more kisses like the one they shared in the carriage. She expected the leisure and the right to kiss her husband whenever and wherever she chose. She ached to kiss the scars on his face, to press her lips to all his scars, to all of him, and she wanted the same intimate attention from him.

After nearly two years of marriage, she was long past due his husbandly ministrations. As his wife, she had fulfilled every single requirement, save one, the marriage bed, that lack not having been her choice. She deserved a marriage, signed, sealed, and consummated.

She wanted to go and shake him, scream, and rant but Alex bit her lip and tightened her fists, aware that she must conquer her tendency to be precipitate; else she would rush from the room with admonishment in mind and end up ravishing her husband as he slept.

’Twould not do to let him see how much she wanted and needed him. If she had learned one thing about the male of the species, young or old, it was that if a female’s attention was difficult to secure, then a male continued tenaciously in her wake, attempting to secure it, or her. By the same token, she had observed that while males could be encouraged by any sign of interest, however slight or fleeting, they soon lost enthusiasm for the chase, if the female appeared easy or eager to be caught.

Well Bryceson Wakefield, Duke of Hawksworth—her husband, by God—would not be losing interest in her any day soon; she would see to that. She was due a wedding night, Alex mused, and she would have one… despite her bridegroom’s detestable reason for marrying her.

When she had learned the truth of it, she had nearly expired, herself, of sorrow. ’Twas not said to her face, of course, but behind her back, by some of his friends, after Bryce had first left for the war.

She could have stepped away when she heard her name, of course, as she might have done downstairs when she heard Hawk’s, but she had not. That first time she eavesdropped, she learned that Bryce married her so she would care for his family while he went to war. One of his cronies said she would do anything for her husband’s pat on the head, “which is all poor old ‘Bry’ could bear to give her.” They said, “It was too bad he had not lived long enough ‘to bed the beauty’ she had become.”

To the devil with beauty. What did looks have to say to anything? ’Twas Hawk’s love she wanted, plain and simple.

Unlike the scores of women who had always flocked to the proud, handsome-as-sin Bryceson Wakefield, Alex had loved him despite his magnificence. All the while he had been trying to prove his worth to his father, and to himself, if he but knew it, Alex had loved the kind and gentle soul who dwelt inside the quintessential rogue.

Was she the only one who glimpsed that gentle man? Or had she been as blind to his faults as others were blinded by his beauty?

She wished she knew.

She was sorry, for Hawk’s sake, that his legendary good looks had been marred, but she hoped that without the outer trappings of perfection, he would discover and come to appreciate the good and gentle man he was.

That man, she yearned for—body, heart, and soul.

That man, she loved.

Though her concern over Chesterfield’s reaction to their cancelled nuptials, and her anger at her husband, went a long way toward dampening Alex’s inclination toward celebration, she still wanted, more than her next breath, to walk into the sitting room, slip into his embrace, and weep with unmitigated joy at his return.

But she could not, she thought, swallow her gathering tears. Not yet.

~ ~ ~

Hawk found himself standing outside a ruin of a manse, a dreamlike fog shrouding the night in ashen vapor, a ponderous regret cutting deep in his belly, for he bore the horrific sense that he had arrived too late.

At the sound of carriage wheels on cobbles, he turned to see Alexandra and Chesterfield driving away.

“No,” Hawk shouted. “No.” He could not allow them to live in sin together. Alex belonged to him, not to Chesterfield.

Hawk mounted his horse—miracle of miracles, he could do so without pain—and he chased the carriage for hours, it seemed, catching up only when the vehicle stopped at a lavish estate in the heart of the mist.

“Alex,” Hawk called. “Alex, I am here. No need to do this. Come, love. Come home with me.”

But she continued walking away, as Chesterfield stepped forward to block his path and keep him from following. “You gave her up,” the knave said. “Your marriage was annulled, at your behest, and now Alexandra is my wife. Mine.”

The blackguard laughed. He laughed until Alex called to him from an upper window, in that white diaphanous gown, her nutmeg hair flowing free and barely covering her sweet, lush breasts.

Alex, calling Chesterfield to her bed.

As if clamped in irons Hawksworth stood and struggled, unable to escape his invisible fetters, while Chesterfield entered the stately structure on his way to—

“No!” Despite his struggle, Hawk could not free himself from immobility. Neither could he reach Alex.

Soon it would be too late. “No!”

As if doom had risen from the depths of hell, his father began to laugh.

Alex awoke to a mournful cry and bolted from the bed. Bryceson was sitting up, trembling, elbows on knees, scrubbing his face with the flat of his hands, his shirt and trousers, even his bedding, drenched with perspiration.

She knelt before him and tried to take his icy hands to warm them between her own, but he grasped hers, instead, and brought them to his brow, as if none but her touch could soothe him.