First Comes Marriage

9

ELLIOTT had made a firm decision.

He was going to marry Miss Huxtable. If she would have him, that was, but he really could not see any reason why she would not.

It made a great deal of sense that they marry each other. And his mother approved of her. She had liked all the Huxtables, in fact. She had found them amiable and unaffected. "One thing I am sure you could count on if you were to marry Miss Huxtable, Elliott," she had said, "is her loyalty and devotion. And those two qualities almost invariably deepen into affection and love. I see nothing but a bright future for you." She had looked hopefully at him. She had meant, of course, that his wife's loyalty and devotion would provoke affection and love in /him/. "I am in total agreement with you, Mama," he had said.

But love? He had never been in love - whatever that term meant. He was not /in love /with Miss Huxtable. Or with Anna, for that matter, or any of the mistresses who had preceded her or any of the ladies who had occasionally taken his fancy. At least, he did not /think /he had been.

If he sometimes dreamed of finding that elusive magic /something /that might after all make marriage appealing to him, he did not expect it. It was never going to happen. But of course there had never been any question of his /not /marrying when the time came. It was one of his primary duties to do so.

The time had come, that was all.

And he would do his duty. And he would be sensible at the same time.

He rode again to Warren Hall the day after his mother's visit there, but this time he went to pay his addresses to Miss Huxtable. He was feeling damnably depressed, if the truth were known. Really, he scarcely knew her, did he? What if…?

But he had never been one to indulge in what-ifs. He could only deal with present reality.

His decision had been made, so here he was.

By the time he rode into the stable yard and turned over his horse to a groom's care, he was feeling decidedly grim, which was not the way one would wish to feel when about to make a marriage offer. He turned his steps resolutely in the direction of the house. He was not going to allow himself to get cold feet at this late stage of the game.

He rounded the corner of the yard and ran almost headlong into Mrs.

Dew - of all people to meet when he was feeling irritable. They both stopped abruptly, and he took a step back so that there might be more than three inches of space separating them. "Oh!" she said. "I do beg your pardon, ma'am." They spoke simultaneously. "I saw you riding up the driveway," she said. "I came to meet you." He raised his eyebrows. "I am flattered," he said. "Or am I? Has something happened? You look agitated." "Not at all." She smiled - and looked even more so. "I was wondering if I might have a private word with you." To deliver another scold? To enumerate more of his shortcomings? To ruffle more of his feathers? To worsen his mood even further? "Of course." He cupped her elbow in one hand and drew her away from the stables and the house. They began to walk across the wide lawn that led to the lake. "Thank you," she said.

She was wearing a pale blue dress with a matching cloak, he noticed. Her bonnet was a darker blue. It was the first time he had seen her out of mourning. She looked marginally more attractive than usual. "How may I be of service to you, ma'am?" he asked curtly when they were out of earshot of anyone at the stables. "Well," she said after drawing an audible breath, "I was wondering if you would be willing to marry me." He had already released his hold on her elbow - which was probably a good thing. He might have broken a few bones there when his hands clenched involuntarily into fists. But - could he have heard her correctly? "Marry you?" he asked in what sounded shockingly like his normal voice. "Yes," she said. She sounded breathless - as if she had just run five miles without stopping. "If you would not mind terribly, that is. I believe your primary concern is to marry someone eligible, and I do qualify on that count. I am an earl's sister and the widow of a baronet's son. And I think your secondary concern is to marry one of /us /so that you may more easily deal with the problem of bringing us out into society. I know you think you would prefer Meg. I know you do not even like me because I have quarreled with you on more than one occasion. But really I am not quarrelsome by nature. Quite the contrary - I am usually the one who makes people cheerful. And I do not mind…" Her speech, hastily delivered with hardly a pause for breath, trailed off and there was a moment of silence.

No, he had not misheard. Or misunderstood.

He had stopped walking abruptly and turned to face her. She stopped too and looked up at him, directly into his eyes, her own wide. Her face was flushed.

As well it might be.

He could not think of anyone else who had such power to render him speechless. "Please /say /something," she said when he had not responded within ten seconds or so. "I know this must be a shock to you. You could not have expected it. But /think /about it. You cannot really /love /Meg, can you? You scarcely know her. You have chosen her because she is the eldest - and because she is beautiful. You do not know me either, of course, though you may /think /you do. But really it cannot make much difference to you which of us you marry, can it?" /I know this must be a shock to you. /Had there ever been more of an understatement? Marry /her/? /Mrs. Dew? /Was the woman quite, quite mad?

She bit her lip, and her eyes seemed to grow even larger as she waited for him to speak. "Let me get one thing straight, Mrs. Dew," he said, frowning. "Do I interpret your flattering proposal correctly? Are you by any chance offering yourself as the sacrificial lamb?" "Oh, dear." She looked away from him for a moment. "No, not really. It would be no sacrifice. I believe I would like to be married again, and I might as well marry for convenience, as you would be doing. It really /would /be convenient if we were to marry each other, would it not? It would make things far easier for Meg and Kate - and for Stephen too. And maybe your mother will not mind /too /too much if it is not Meg, though of course I am not as beautiful as she - or beautiful at all, in fact. But I should do my best to see that she approved of me once she had accustomed herself to the idea." "My mother?" he asked faintly. "She clearly indicated yesterday," Mrs. Dew said, "that she approved of Meg as a potential daughter-in-law. She did not say so openly, of course, because that was for you to do. But we understood her nevertheless." /Damnation!/ "Mrs. Dew." He clasped his hands behind him and leaned a little closer to her. "Is this by any chance how you came to marry Dew?" He had the sensation for a moment that he was falling into her eyes. And then she lowered her lids over them, shutting her soul from his sight.

He frowned at the top of her bonnet. "Oh," she said. "Yes, as a matter of fact it was. He was dying, you see.

But he was very young and there was so much he had wanted to do with his life - including marrying me. He loved me. He wanted me. I knew that. And so I insisted that he marry me though he was not willing to trap me, as he put it." Her eyelids came up again, and her eyes looked back into his own. "I made his last year a very, very happy one. I do not deceive myself about that. I know how to make a man happy." Good Lord! Was this a frisson of sexual awareness he was feeling?

Impossible! Except that he did not know what else it could be.

He shook his head slightly and turned away from her to stride onward in the direction of the lake. She fell into step beside him. "I am sorry." She sounded dejected. "I have made a mess of this, have I not? Or perhaps there /was /no other way I might have approached you or explained myself." "Am I to understand," he said testily, "that Miss Huxtable will not be disappointed if she discovers that you have stolen me from under her nose?" "Oh, no, not at all," she assured him. "Meg does not want to marry you, but I am afraid she will if you ask because she has a fearful sense of duty and she /will /insist upon doing what she thinks is right for the rest of us even though there is no real need for her to do so any longer." "I see," he said, quelling the urge to bellow with rage - or perhaps with laughter. "And she does not wish to marry me because…?" He slowed his steps and turned his head to look down at her again. He began to wonder if he would perhaps wake up at any moment now to find that he had dreamed this whole bizarre encounter. It surely could /not /be real. "Because she is dreadfully in love with Crispin," she said. "Crispin?" He believed he had heard the name before. "Crispin Dew," she told him. "Hedley's elder brother. She would have married him four years ago when he purchased a commission and joined his regiment, but she would not leave us. They had an understanding, though." "If they are betrothed," he said, "why would you fear that she might accept an offer from me?" "But they are not," she said, "and he has not been home or sent any message to Meg in almost four years." "Is there something I am not grasping here?" he asked after a few moments of silence. They had arrived at the bank of the lake and stopped walking again. The sun was shining. Its rays were sparkling on the water. "Yes," she said. "The female heart. Meg's is bruised, perhaps even broken. She knows he will never come back to her, but while she is single there is always hope. Hope is all she has left. I would /really /rather you did not make her an offer. She would probably accept, and she would make you a good and dutiful wife for the rest of both your lives. But there would never be a spark of anything else between you." He leaned a little toward her again. "And there /would /be between you and me?" he asked her. He was still not sure if it was anger or a bizarre sort of hilarity he felt at this whole ridiculous conversation. But he suspected that one or the other was about to erupt at any moment.

She flushed a rosy red again as she stared back into his eyes. "I know how to please a man," she said almost in a whisper and sank her teeth into her lower lip.

He would have thought them the words and gesture of a practiced coquette if it had not been for her blush and her wide eyes. Good God, she was probably as innocent as a babe despite her short-lived marriage to a dying man. Did she really know what she was saying? Did she know she was playing with fire? "In bed?" he asked her very deliberately.

She licked her lips, another provocative gesture that he guessed was unconscious. "Yes," she said. "I am not a virgin, if that is what you were wondering.

Hedley was capable - Well, never mind. Yes, I would know how to please you in bed. And out of it too. I know how to make people cheerful. I know how to make them laugh." "And I need to be cheered up and to laugh?" he said, narrowing his eyes on her. "And you can make it happen even though I have no sense of humor?" "Oh, /that/." She looked away from him to gaze out at the lake. "I hurt you, did I not? Somehow that seems to be the worst insult one can cast upon anyone. People will admit to all sorts of vices and shortcomings except a lack of humor. And I did not actually /say /that you had none, did I? I merely said that you never smile. I meant that you take life too seriously." "Life /is /serious," he said. "No, it is not." She looked back at him. "Not always or even frequently.

There is always something to marvel over. There is always joy to be found. There is always the possibility of laughter in almost any situation." "And yet," he said, "you lost a husband in a particularly cruel manner.

Was not /that /serious?" "Not a day passed," she told him, her eyes suddenly bright, "in which we did not marvel at the wonder of our world and our life together. There was not a day without laughter. Except the last. But even then he smiled. It was the last expression on his face as he died." Lord! He did not need this. He waited with some impatience to wake up and find it still early morning with himself still safely in his own bed - preparing to pay his addresses to Miss Huxtable. "But we have strayed from the point," she said. "/Will /you marry /me /instead of Meg?" "Why either of you?" he asked her. "Would you not prefer your freedom if I assure you that I will not then pay my addresses to your sister?" She stared at him again. "Oh," she said, "you really do not want me, do you?" /Of course /he did not want her. Good lord! She was surely the last woman on earth he could possibly ever want. She had nothing - /nothing!/ - to commend her.

He opened his mouth to confirm her suspicion.

Except one thing - she had /one /thing to commend her. How had his mother phrased it yesterday? /Loyalty and devotion. /That was two things. But she had them both - directed not toward him, but toward her family.

She had realized yesterday from something his mother had said that he was considering offering marriage to her elder sister - and Miss Huxtable had realized it too. Mrs. Dew knew that her sister would accept his offer even though doing so would shatter her already bruised heart. So she had thought desperately of how she might prevent such a disaster.

And she had concocted her scheme - instead of taking the easy and obvious course of coming to him today and simply explaining the situation to him. Perhaps she had thought him too much of a monster - or too arrogant! - to listen to reason. However it was, she had decided to offer herself as the family sacrificial lamb. And she had done so even though she had never made a secret of the fact that she disliked and disapproved of him.

And now he was about to humiliate her in perhaps the worst way imaginable. She had offered herself and he was about to spurn the gift - eloquently and brutally.

And serve her right too, he thought nastily, frowning at her.

But he closed his mouth. "I am not even pretty, am I?" she said. "And I have been married before.

It was terribly foolish of me to think that my plan might work and you would be willing to take me. /Will /you promise not to offer for Meg, though? Or Kate either. She needs someone different from you." "Someone more /human/?" he asked. His eyes narrowed again.

She closed her eyes briefly. "I did not mean that the way it sounded," she said. "I merely meant that she needs someone younger and… and…" "With a sense of humor?" he suggested.

She looked at him and smiled unexpectedly - a smile full of laughter and mischief. "Do you keep hoping you will wake up and find it is still last night?" she asked him. "/I /do. I have never in my life made such an idiot of myself. And I cannot even ask you to forget this ever happened. It would be impossible to forget." Yes, it would. He was suddenly angry again.

He leaned forward and set his lips to hers.

She jerked her head back like a frightened rabbit and he raised his eyebrows. "It is just that I would like a little proof," he said, "that your twice-made boast was not entirely idle." She looked at him in incomprehension for a moment. "That I know how to please a man?" Her eyes were huge again, her cheeks aflame. "Yes," he said softly. "/That /boast." "It was not a boast." When he did not move, she lifted her gloved hands to frame his face, raised her puckered lips to his, and kissed him very softly and gently on the lips.

It was the saddest apology for a kiss he had ever been given by any woman who was not either his mother or one of his sisters.

But /that, /he thought as she released him and looked anxiously into his eyes, was /definitely /a frisson of sexual awareness he felt tightening his groin area. More than a frisson, in fact.

Good Lord! "Hats and gloves /are /an impediment, are they not?" he said, removing his own and dropping them to the grass, and then pulling free the ribbon beneath her chin and sending her bonnet to the ground behind her.

She slid off her gloves, biting her lip as she did so. "Now," he said, "you can make a less inhibited demonstration." She framed his face with her hands again - they were warm and soft - and gazed into his eyes until she kissed him.

Her mouth was still softly puckered, but this time she moved it over his lips, parting her own slightly so that he could feel the moist heat within. And her fingers crept up into his hair. She kissed his chin, his cheeks, his closed eyelids, his temples, very softly, very gently. And then his mouth again, touching the tip of her tongue to his lips, running it slowly along the seam.

No other part of her body touched him.

He stood very still, his arms at his sides, his fingers slowly curling into his palms.

And then she was done with her demonstration. She stepped back, and her hands fell to her sides. "You must understand," she said, "that Hedley had no experience at all before I married him. And I did not either, of course. And he was very, very ill through most of our marriage. I do not…I am sorry. It /was /a boast." He looked downward, stooped to pick up a flat pebble, and turned toward the lake to send it bouncing across the water, leaving tiny whirlpools in its wake.

He had suddenly realized something. It was too late simply to dismiss her preposterous suggestion with the contempt it deserved. He had invited her to kiss him, and she had done so. If he had not exactly compromised her, he had at least toyed with her sensibilities.

There was the small matter of honor to be addressed now. "Yes, it /was /a boast," he said, turning back to her, speaking almost viciously. "I /am /experienced, you see, Mrs. Dew, and I would make far more demands on a wife than a sick man ever did. I daresay you would retract your kind offer to marry me in a moment if /I /made /you /a demonstration." "I would /not,/" she said, her eyes flashing back at him. "I am not a child. And there is no cause for you to be angry. I have made a perfectly civil offer and you are quite at liberty to say no - though I do hope you would not then offer for Meg after all. /Make /your demonstration and I shall tell you if I wish to retract my offer." Her nostrils had flared. She was angry.

He reached out and unbuttoned her cloak at the neck. He opened back the garment and sent it to the grass to join her bonnet and gloves. "You will not be cold for long," he promised her angrily as he unbuttoned his greatcoat - though he did not take it off.

He set his arms about her - one about her shoulders, the other about her waist - and drew her against him. He wrapped his coat about her while lowering one hand to her buttocks and drawing her closer. "Oh," she said, looking up at him, her eyes wide and startled. "Oh, indeed," he agreed.

She was very slender. She had little shape - and yet strangely she felt very feminine.

He lowered his head to hers and kissed her. He encountered the soft pucker but would have none of it. He opened his mouth, pressed his tongue firmly against the seam of her lips, and invaded her mouth before she could think of clamping her teeth together.

She made a guttural sound in her throat.

But he was by no means finished with her. He explored the inside of her mouth, stroking against those parts that would inflame her, one hand spread over the back of her head so that she could not pull away.

With his free hand he opened the buttons down the back of her dress until he could nudge the fabric off her shoulders and run both hands along her back and then bring them forward to cup her small, firm breasts, pushed high by her stays. With a finger and thumb of each hand he rolled her nipples until they puckered and hardened.

He kissed her chin and her throat, moving his hands down her body to cradle her buttocks and hold her firm while he rubbed against her with his erection.

And he kissed her mouth again, simulating copulation with his tongue while he felt her fingers twine tightly in his hair.

It had been intended as a sort of lordly demonstration to an impertinent innocent who had played with fire. It had turned into something rather different. He had not expected to become sexually aroused. And if he did not soon put an end to what was happening, he would be laying her down on the grass, late February chill and dampness notwithstanding, and demonstrating something quite different again. /She /was doing nothing to stop it, dangerous innocent that she was.

Good Lord! This was /Mrs. Nessie Dew/! And it could not possibly be night and just a bizarre dream. It had gone on too long.

He moved both hands to her waist and lifted his head.

She gazed into his eyes, her own darker and deeper than usual. They were really quite blue, he decided. And by far her best feature. "Your face should always look like this," she said. "Like what?" He frowned. "Filled with passion," she said. "You have strong features. They were /meant /to be passionate, not proud and disdainful as they so often are." "Ah," he said, "we are back to /that, /are we?" "I /still /do not wish to retract my offer," she said. "You have not frightened me. You are but a man." She stooped to retrieve her garments and drew her cloak about her shoulders. She shivered, though he was not sure it was from the cold. "But I know /you /do not wish it," she said. "And it is hardly surprising. I ought to have looked at myself in a mirror when I first thought of it. It does not matter, though. I do not think you will now offer for Meg after all, and that is all that really matters." She pulled on her bonnet and tied the ribbons beneath her chin.

He turned to face the lake again. "I am going back to the house," she said. "I am sorry if I have offended you. It is not that Meg dislikes you. It is just that she loves Crispin.

I am sure you will have no trouble finding someone eager to marry you when you go to London for the Season." He raised his eyebrows and turned his head to look over his shoulder.

She was still standing there, pulling on her gloves, flushed and slightly disheveled from their embrace.

He wondered suddenly if she knew a pertinent point about him. "You had ambitions to be a duchess, did you?" he asked her.

She looked blankly at him. "Not really," she said. "Not at all actually.

Whatever would I do with a duke? Besides, I do not know any." "You know a duke's /heir,/" he said. "Do I?" He continued to look at her over his shoulder until he saw comprehension begin to dawn. "Mine is a courtesy title," he said. "It is my grandfather's junior title and was given first to my father and then to me on his death. If I survive my grandfather, I will be Duke of Moreland one day." "O." Her lips formed the letter though he heard no sound. She had turned suddenly pale.

No, she had not known. "/Now /have I frightened you?" he asked. "Of course not," she said after gazing at him in silence for a few moments. "You are still just a man. But I am going." She turned to walk away. "Wait!" he said. "If you are to marry twice in your lifetime, you really ought to have the memory of one proposal that was made by the man. And I am a proud man, Mrs. Dew, as you have observed. I cannot go through life with a wife who proposed to /me/." She turned again, an arrested look on her face.

And if it was to be done, it might as well be done properly, he supposed, though he would have done no such thing for Miss Huxtable. He went down on one knee before her and looked up into her eyes. "Mrs. Dew," he said, "would you do me the honor of marrying me?" She stared at him for a moment and then -

And then color, animation, and laughter rushed back into her face all at once so that for a startled moment he was dazzled. "Oh," she said. "Oh, how absolutely splendid of you! You look /very /romantic. But are you quite sure?" "If I were not," he said irritably, "would I be making such a thorough ass of myself? And would I not be in fear and trembling lest you say yes? Do I /look /as if I am trembling?" "No," she said, "but you look as if you may have a wet knee. There was rain last night. Do get up." "Not before I have my answer," he said. "Will you?" "But of course I will," she said. "Was not /I /the one to ask /you/? You will not be sorry. I promise you will not. I know how to - " "Make a man happy," he said, interrupting her as he stood again and looked down ruefully at the dark circle of wetness about his right knee. "And what of yourself, Mrs. Dew? Do you believe /I /can make /you /happy?" "I do not see why not," she said. "I am not difficult to please." She blushed rosily. "Very well, then." He bent to the grass to retrieve his discarded garments. "I suppose we ought to go up to the house and tell our news." "Yes." She smiled at him again. But just before she took his offered arm, her eyes flickered and looked away from his own. Not, however, before he read something in them that looked very like fear.

It could not be worse than what he was feeling. What the devil had he just done?

Whatever it was, it was irrevocable now.

He was affianced to Mrs. Nessie Dew, for the love of God.

Who irritated him almost beyond endurance almost every time he was in company with her.

Whose very name made him cringe.

Who disapproved of almost everything about him - not that he did not return the compliment.

It sounded like a match made in hell.

He strode off with her in the direction of the house.