Seduced by a Scoundrel - By Barbara Dawson Smith Page 0,27
wife, you will renew your connections with the nobility and convince them to accept me. That will take time.”
Her stomach clenched. She had counted on having weeks to adjust her mind to the reality of this marriage. “The banns must be announced on three Sundays.”
“There will be no banns. I’ve obtained a special license from the archbishop.”
“How? You couldn’t have bribed the highest official in the church.”
“Rest assured, no money changed hands.” Those keen blue eyes twinkling, he added, “You see, I confessed to him I’d seduced you, and that you might be with child.”
A flush swept hotly from her bosom to her face. “You sullied my reputation? And to a holy man of God, no less.”
“Come now, don’t get your back up. I made it out to be entirely my fault.”
Probing her limited repertoire of curses, she muttered, “Es barbarus.”
He chuckled. “I am a barbarian. So fling your arrows as you like.”
The fact that he understood Latin only fired her resentment. “You can hardly expect society to embrace a woman whose good name has been dragged through the mud.”
“You can hardly expect the archbishop to gossip, either.”
“He won’t need to do so. The very act of marrying by special license will imply that we…” She paused, unwilling to finish the statement.
“Succumbed to carnal lust?” Wilder cocked an eyebrow. “Don’t tell me you’re afraid of what people might think. You’re made of sterner stuff than that.”
“You just won’t listen. You’re incorrigible.”
He sent her a lazy grin. “You’re irresistible.”
To her shock, she almost laughed, but caught herself in time. Any mirth she felt could be due only to hysteria. “There is nothing amusing about a scapegrace who makes light of his sins.”
“Nor a spinster who cannot speak a kind word to her betrothed.” His hand encircled her wrist and brought it to his lips, kissing the sensitive inner skin, his breath warm and tickling, enticing her. “Let’s be civil today, shall we?”
She tried—and failed—to tug herself free. “So long as you keep your distance, Mr. Wilder.”
“Call me Drake. All the other women do.”
“Mr. Wilder,” she said with deliberate politeness, “kindly release me.”
“Not until you say my name.”
She could see the steely resolve behind his jesting smile. And she could not bear his disturbing touch a moment longer. “Let me go … Drake.”
His grip remained firm. To her chagrin, he examined her fine-boned hand in the light from the coach window, gently rubbing the pad of his forefinger across the rough patches. She felt vulnerable without gloves, ashamed of her broken nails and sandpaper skin. After visiting his club, she’d been so angry that she’d yanked off her last pair, ruining the delicate kidskin.
He fixed her with an intense stare. “How does a lady come to have the hands of a laundress?”
She yanked again, and this time he let her go. “By doing the laundry.”
“Have you no other servants but the cook?”
“We also employed a maid-of-all-work and a footman, but I was forced to let them go.” Let him think she had done no hard labor before then, that his entrapment of Gerald had caused all her woes.
“One doesn’t develop calluses overnight.”
“How would you know?” She cast a disparaging glance at his perfectly groomed hands, the long fingers with their square-tipped nails. “All you ever do is deal cards and toss dice.”
“And caress women, my other favorite pastime.” With his mouth slanted in that infernal smile, he draped his arm across the back of the cushions, toying with the fine hairs at the nape of her neck.
Alicia stiffened to stop the pleasurable sensations that scampered down her spine. How many other women had he touched? How many had he seduced? And why was she even wondering?
He exuded a relaxed confidence, as if he enjoyed letting her provoke him. He seemed determined today to discomfit her; she was equally determined to ignore his efforts. “How you squander your time matters little to me,” she said.
“Yet you continue to harp on my faults.”
“Of course. Gamblers don’t make reliable husbands.”
His face sobered to a watchful expression. “Nor reliable fathers—at least not in your experience.”
His words struck the starch from her spirit. She felt defenseless, her painful past exposed to him. But surely he didn’t know the whole story. Few did. “Papa was a loving, caring man. I will not hear him criticized.”
“He left you and your family near destitute.”
“We had enough to live on. Until you took the rest.”
“Then you’ll appreciate having luxuries again,” he said without a hint of remorse. “In truth, you’d be