Letty and Gillian arrived on Bond Street just as the shops opened. They needed to get what Gillian deemed the necessities for her meager trousseau, and after a spot of lunch that wasn’t nearly long enough, they were whisked back home to finalize their packing.
Before Letty could catch her breath, Mina was helping her into her carriage dress, and she was boarding the coach for a two-hour ride to Chilgrave Castle—a place she’d never been before but, by the next night, would be the mistress of.
Was it all real? Was she to see her future home tonight, or was this some fantastical dream? There had been no amorous glances across a roomful of chaperones or flowers delivered to her door; all the things she knew and had come to expect of such moments were absent. She’d longed for a proper courtship. Romantic interludes of the sort her mother had told Letty about when she was just a young child. Most young ladies began their courtship dance at balls or card parties in the assembly rooms. She had begun hers at knifepoint.
Letty’s parents’ marriage had been a love match, which was not as rare a thing as some made it out, but for her parents it had been unexpected. Because theirs had been a love match, they’d spent their entire marriage sharing a suite of rooms and the same bed. They shared their lives with each other, and rarely had they ever spent time apart. Letty had learned later on as she grew up how rare that was, even for couples who married for love.
As the buildings of London gave way to green fields and trees and idyllic villages, Letty found herself ever more silent as Gillian and James spoke with her. She answered in monosyllables as her mind churned with thoughts of her uncertain future as the Countess of Morrey.
As they reached Chilgrave Castle, she saw it at first from a distance, a square fortress with circular towers at each of the four corners. The design was simple, but the strategy behind it was clever. A wide moat separated the castle from the land surrounding it. A long stone bridge stretched across the water to the castle, which loomed eerily in the fading sunlight. It reminded her of the sort of castle a child might try to build in the sand on Brighton Beach, but this castle could not be washed away by any wave. If any part of the structure were to crumble in some distant future, it would only be because of the long march of time.
“What do you think, Letty?” Gillian asked. “I’ve been here a few times. It seems quite austere outside, but inside, it is a proper home.”
Letty kept her gaze upon the structure. “It is certainly daunting.” The coach drove over the narrow bridge to pass into the courtyard. Castles like this had been built during the time of Edward III, the royal age of castles. But that era of time, like many others, had faded.
“You’ll find it’s quite nice,” Gillian said again. “Most medieval castles were built strictly for military fortification. When the ancient Morreys had this castle built, however, they sought to reconcile the military purpose with the prospect of a lord and lady living comfortably within. The courtyard is not made of stone, but rather full of lush gardens and a fountain. I hope you’ll find it as beautiful as I do.”
Letty was used to a sprawling estate that ambled over rolling hills, a place where she felt able to run free. Despite Gillian’s assurances, Chilgrave felt closed off, a stone cage. She shivered at the thought.
The coach rolled to a stop, and a fleet of footmen met them as the three of them exited the coach. Their valises and trunks were removed and carried inside after them. Letty watched as her two dark-blue painted trunks were hoisted up between a pair of servants and hauled out of sight.
My entire life, packed away into two trunks. My silk gowns carefully folded, my jewels blanketed in velvet pouches. My favorite books wrapped in cloth and stacked neatly to one side. Will my small life have a place here in this vast gray structure?
“Welcome!” Caroline Beaumont came down a narrow stairwell to greet them. “I trust the ride wasn’t too unpleasant?” Caroline rushed to her half sister first. “Gillian!” And the two embraced each other.
Gillian smiled. “Caro, it’s so lovely to see you!”
“How’s my little nephew?”
“Fine, fine. Gabriel is with his nurse while we stay for the wedding. You must come back to London and see him soon.”
“I shall. He’s such a little dear. So beautiful.” Caroline sighed dreamily. Then she turned to Letty, her joy still evident. “Oh, Letty, I’m so happy to see you again!” She hugged Letty with the same enthusiasm.
“You look quite worn out. I imagine today was hectic. Why don’t you come in and freshen up for dinner. Then you can go straight to bed and rest.”
“Thank you, Caroline, we would like that. Letty and Gillian have barely had time to eat all day.” James chuckled. “All that shopping and making preparations.”
“I can imagine.” Caroline squeezed Letty’s hands and gestured toward the stairs. “Follow me.”
Caroline tucked her arm in Letty’s, the warmth of the gesture waking Letty from her maudlin thoughts.
“We have a lovely room all prepared for you,” Caroline said.
Letty walked through the gatehouse that formed the front door for the main part of the castle and up the winding staircase Caroline had come down. Rich tapestries hung from stone walls, making the medieval castle feel warmer and more welcoming.
“Where is Lord Morrey?” she asked Caroline.
“Adam will be here shortly. He was in his bedchamber, seeing to a few things. He and the housekeeper got a bit dusty when they were up in the attics earlier this afternoon.”
Letty wrinkled her nose in confusion. “The attics?”
“Yes. I believe he was looking for the Morrey coronet. It was our great-grandmother’s. We put it away when she died. It’s perfectly splendid, and you may wish to wear it for tomorrow’s ceremony.”
Letty liked to think that she was above being excited over jewels, but the thought of a coronet did give her a girlish flash of excitement that made her feel extremely foolish. She had graver concerns than pretty diamond coronets. Like the fact that a French spy was likely looking for her.
They entered a wide hall. The stone walls had been covered with wood and papered over with an expensive and lovely emerald wallpaper. Crown moldings painted with gold decorated the ceiling, bordered by Grecian scenes that would have rivaled any Wedgewood china. Between portraits of past Morrey ladies dressed in flowing gowns and dashing men in their bright, brilliant doublets, there were tall mirrors lined with vines covered in gold plating. It was not at all like the outside of the castle. The interior had a gilded, glorious atmosphere, each room exuding a warm decadence. Gillian was right—it was rather lovely.
“James, Gillian, you have the bedchamber here.” Caroline opened a door and showed them into a beautiful bedroom with a dark-red coverlet and red brocade hangings. “I’ll have a footman meet you here in half an hour to escort you to dinner.”
“Thank you,” Gillian said.
“Letty, your room is at the end of the corridor. It’s in the west tower. It has a lovely view. One of the best rooms, in fact.”
The room Letty was to sleep in had painted walls the color of a winter sky. Opposite the bed in the circular room was a bookcase built into the wood-paneled walls. The natural white posts of the bed gleamed in the firelight. It was large for a tower room. The four-poster bed was made from white birch tree wood, roughly hewn. The black knots in the wood were like a dozen eyes staring at her from the pale faces of the posts, but even that was strangely beautiful. The coverlet on the bed and the bed hangings were a shimmering frosty-green color.
“Well? What do you think? Adam thought you might like this room. It will be your own personal room, even after you’re married.”
At this, Letty faced Caroline. “I’m not to share my husband’s room?”
A deep voice came from the doorway. “You certainly may . . .”
Letty and Caroline turned to see Lord Morrey, standing tall and handsome in buff trousers and a burgundy waistcoat. The firelight played with him the way a lover might, caressing his features and illuminating his silver-and-gray eyes.
“Oh, Adam, why don’t you say hello to Letty? I need to run down to the kitchens.” Caroline flashed Letty a knowing smile before hastily leaving the bedroom.
For a second, Letty wavered as she faced the man who had, less than twenty-four hours ago, held a knife to her throat, kissed her, and become engaged to her. The whirlwind that was Adam Beaumont was making her dizzy. She straightened her shoulders, rallied her remaining strength after the trying day she’d had, and met his gaze.
“Good evening, Lord Morrey,” Letty breathed. She still felt nervous around him, especially thinking of that moment in the library and how fear and excitement had mingled together in his presence.
“Adam, please. I cannot have you calling me ‘Lord Morrey,’ even though tomorrow I will become your lord and master.” There was a sensual teasing to his words that dashed the rebellious retort that flew to her lips.
“Adam,” she said softly, and Adam came deeper into the room.
“Yes?” He reached her, their bodies only a few feet apart now.
“I do like this room. However, my understanding of marital relationships was that we would share a room. My parents shared a bedchamber, as do James and Gillian, and that was my expectation. I acknowledge I do not have a large amount of experience to draw on, and we will be married to each other rather quickly. What do you think our arrangement ought to be?”
“What do you wish our arrangement to be?” he countered with a hint of playfulness.
Letty bit her bottom lip. “I want to . . .” She fisted her hands in her skirts as she studied him, and he leaned casually against the doorjamb, blocking her escape. Not that she was sure she wanted to escape.
“Say it. Say what you desire. You need never fear telling me what you need. Do you understand?” The playfulness in his tone was gone, and that brooding intensity of his that left her breathless had returned. His stare ensnared her, rooting her in place.
She sensed he was telling her something deeper, something more profoundly intimate, but she didn’t yet quite understand.
“I would like to share a bedchamber with my husband—with you.”
“I sense some hesitation,” Adam said as he continued to stare into her eyes. He reminded her of a cat her mother once had, a Russian blue beauty with green eyes that could peer into one’s soul. The cat would stare at her, unblinking, and she had been convinced the feline could read her every thought. Adam shared that same trait.
“Are you surprised? You frighten me a little. The way you held that knife, the way you look at me . . . You must know I’ve never been with a man in any intimate way. I have no experience with this. That is why I hesitate.” She lowered her voice when she spoke of intimacy, not that anyone could hear her. They were quite alone for the moment.
Adam’s gray eyes studied her, unlocking something inside her, something that made her feel weak at the knees, yet she held her ground, even as his gaze seemed to burn her skin as it roved over her body. He reached up to catch a loose curl that fell against her throat. The whisper of his fingers against her skin sent her head spinning, her blood humming.
“I will endeavor to make us friends as well as lovers.” He leaned in just enough that she inhaled the scent of him, and her body hummed with a feminine awareness.
Friends and lovers, not merely husband and wife. A marriage, she knew, could have a profound meaning and connection between two people, or it could be a piece of paper and some muttered words that bound two unhappy souls together until one of them died.
“Are you afraid of me?” Adam asked as he lifted her face to his.
“No . . . Not exactly,” she said, surprised at the ease with which she could answer him when he spoke in that commanding voice. It was true. She didn’t fear him. She was nervous and more than a little anxious, but not afraid. She was worried about what being a wife to him would entail, especially in the bedroom. She had experienced a great range of emotions in the last day, and she’d accepted that the life she’d wanted, the life she’d planned for, was not going to happen. She had longed for marriage, but under such different circumstances.
Yet when she was alone with him, as she was now, he seemed to cloud her thoughts until all she could think was that she wanted him to keep touching her, how the danger and excitement of that touch sent wild thrills through her.
“My wild one,” Adam sighed as he cupped her cheek. “You deserve bouquets, boxes of sweets, presents as well as passion. I’ve given you none of these, but someday I will remedy that. You can have it all, the gentleman and the rogue at your beck and call.” He stroked his thumb over her bottom lip. She exhaled as she lost herself in gazing at this gorgeous man.
“The gentleman and the rogue?” she asked.
He smiled a wolfish smile. “A man who can give you sweetness when you want it.” He threaded his fingers into the hair at the nape of her neck, tugging just enough that she felt completely in his power. “And a rogue’s brazen roughness when you need it.”
Something sharpened inside her, like a sense she hadn’t known she’d possessed. It heightened everything about that moment until she felt something pulse hard between her thighs.
Adam was not a brute, but she could tell that every inch of him was full of power, radiating a raw, primal strength. His face, while almost predatory in his handsomeness, was not without gentleness. Gazing upon her wild lion she knew she could trust him to protect her rather than devour her. He continued to hold her gaze, neither of them speaking. Her thoughts spiraled with dark, carnal images, and she wondered if he was thinking the same, given the way he looked at her with such heat. Then he blinked, breaking the spell, and she drew in a shaky breath.
“We should go to dinner,” he said. “Unless you still need a moment?”
“I . . .” She pulled her thoughts away from him and nodded. “I’m ready to go down.”
He stepped back and offered her his arm. Letty walked with him into the corridor, running her fingertips over the wood panels on the walls.
Adam took her down a different set of stairs, this one made of wood, not stone. Crouching lions sat on the banister, silently roaring at passersby. They were fine heraldic beasts, their front paws clutching shields that bore a unicorn and a Scottish thistle. Evidence of the ancient line of Morreys was everywhere.
The dining room was far more intimate in size than Letty had expected. No grand medieval roughhewn table with a pack of wolfhounds lying by a roaring fire, waiting for meat off a trencher. No, this room was small but elegant.
“It isn’t what you expected, is it?” Adam teased.
“No—I mean, yes. I mean . . .” She ducked her head, too embarrassed to say what she had actually expected. She was still thinking of that moment when he’d grasped her hair and held her captive, and she thought of his promise—to give her the gentleman and the rogue, whenever she wished. Letty swallowed hard and did her best to focus on their conversation.
“Most of the older furniture has long since been removed and replaced with modern styles. We do our best, even out here in the country, to keep the castle updated.” His tone was still light, but she heard the pride in his words.
He had every right to be proud. The marble fireplace was vast and exquisitely carved, the table was made of a beautiful mahogany, and the walls were cream accented by gold wainscoting. Mahogany doors leading in and out of the room on both sides were a clear contrast to the pale cream walls. Green velvet backed the chairs surrounding the table, offered a comfortable place of repose, rather than the harsh high-back chairs with no cushions that she was accustomed to in typical dining rooms in London.
Gillian, James, and Caroline had already gathered around the fire and were in quiet conversation.
“Ah, there you are,” Caroline said as they entered. “We wondered if you had gotten lost.”
Letty smiled at Caroline, glad to see Adam’s sister truly was happy that she was here.
“Well, shall we eat before our cook becomes overanxious?” Caroline asked.
Adam chuckled as he seated Letty beside him. “Mrs. Oxley is most particular about her food not going cold.”
“Is she a very good cook?” Letty knew that some old country households with families who didn’t visit that often and did very little entertaining, had cooks who were perfunctory at best, as they often had other duties in addition to cooking fine meals.
“Quite good, actually, but she threatens to quit every Christmas, so be ready for that.”
“She threatens to quit?”
“Yes, she thinks she will retire and go live with her son in London, but then she changes her mind in a matter of days, usually on Christmas Eve, and returns to the kitchens, bellowing out orders. It is rather amusing, once you become acquainted with her. She might seem prickly at first, but you never will find a better cook. I don’t care what our friends in London say about their fancy cooks from France. Mrs. Oxley has them all beat.”
Adam flashed her a smile, and Letty’s stomach flipped in excitement.
“So, shall we talk wedding plans?” Gillian asked the table at large.
“Oh, yes,” Caroline said. The two women began to discuss Letty’s wedding as though she wasn’t even in the room.
She listened to Caroline and Gillian plan her life. She could have interrupted them, demanded things to be done as she wished, but she was tired. The last few days had robbed her of her strength. Right now, she did not feel she could be even remotely active in the planning of her wedding.
“Letty, what do you think?” Adam asked, drawing her out of the thoughts circling in her head. She tried to focus on the soup in front of her, which had gone a bit cold.
“Whatever they decide is fine with me.”
“It is your day,” Adam reminded her. “You should make the most of it.”
He met her gaze and held it. She wished she knew what he was thinking behind those fathomless, mercurial eyes. Most of the young men of her acquaintance were so easy to read, easy to understand. They discussed their lands, their horses, their favorite sports or gambling, and occasionally—when they thought she couldn’t hear, of course—their mistresses.
But Morrey—Adam—was nothing like those men. Whatever thoughts ran in his mind would be serious, dangerous, and most likely fascinating. He had been right about her—she was drawn to him and excited by the sensual promises he made. The man was clearly knowledgeable about all manner of sins of the flesh, and she was going to be married to this prowling wolf who could likely devour any maiden he liked at his leisure. The thought didn’t frighten her, however. Quite the opposite, in fact, if she was the maiden to be devoured.
“Letty, I know you’ve thought about this.” James faced Morrey with a soft, brotherly smile. “She’s been planning this since she was a child. She used to marry off her dolls.”
“James!” Letty hissed in mortification, her smile wilting and her blood boiling.
“Well, it’s true—” James began, but he suddenly winced and glanced under the table. Gillian glared at him, and Letty suspected his wife had kicked him in the shin, though not hard enough, in her opinion.
Morrey caught Letty’s gaze again. As he lifted his goblet of wine to his lips, he smiled at her, but this smile was not a sweet expression. It was enticing, seductive, intimate, as though they were together in some private secret.
“James and Adam are right,” Gillian said. “Letty, you must tell us what you wish. Let us start with flowers. Chilgrave has a lovely hothouse.”
“Oh, well, I do like orchids,” she admitted, knowing that orchids were rare and also quite scandalous, given the way they resembled certain parts of a woman’s body, but she couldn’t deny that she liked them.
“Orchids . . . Well, that is a bit unorthodox,” Caroline said. “But we are having a small country wedding, so perhaps it’s all right to do as we wish.”
“If my bride desires orchids, then my bride will have them,” Morrey said, and she didn’t miss the possessive tone to the way he said “my bride.”
This truly was nothing like she’d imagined her wedding would be. As a girl, she’d envisioned a large crowd, hundreds of flowers by the altar, and a handsome young man with laughing eyes and a warm smile waiting for her to come to him. She had not imagined a dark-haired, serious, enigmatic man whose kisses could erase all rational thought.
“Orchids it shall be,” Caroline said. “I assume you brought your trousseau?”
“Yes,” Letty said. Her London modiste, Madame Ella, had worked a veritable miracle in just one day.
Letty relaxed a little more now that she felt she was to be included in the wedding planning. Yet she couldn’t get her mind off Morrey, or his seductive gaze. He watched her for the entire meal, and when it was over, he was there to escort her to her bedchamber. They soon stood alone in the corridor together, just outside her bedroom.
“Thank you, Lord Morrey.”
“You really must start calling me Adam. More importantly, you must learn to stand up for yourself.” He tilted her chin up to face him. “I know there is fire in you. I see it in those lovely, innocent eyes. You must let that fire burn. Do not let it go out. I have no desire for a meek, submissive wife. I want the woman I met at the Allerton ball. You faced danger without fear that night.” When she opened her mouth to protest, he continued. “You were my equal. Never cease to be that version of yourself.”
She looked to him, mystified. He wanted her to be . . . what? She wasn’t quite sure. She bit her lip and would’ve looked away if not for the spell of his gaze.
“Lord Mor—Adam, I’m afraid I don’t understand.”
“You will.” He traced the seam of her lips with his thumb and leaned in to whisper, “I shall dream of kissing you tonight.”
He stepped back and seemed to vanish in the shadowy corridor.
She would dream of him kissing her too, and it left her only that much more confused.