The Bride Trilogy

“Yes, of course.” His gaze ran over her. In the yellow glow of the lamp on the table, he saw that in the past three years her features had softened, the sharp angles smoothed into feminine lines and curves. Her cheeks were as pale as cream and heightened by a touch of rose. A full bosom swelled above her tiny waist, her neck was slender and as graceful as her hands. Her lips were fuller than he recalled, beautifully curved and a lush shade of pink.

No longer the boyish young girl she had been at sixteen, Violet had matured into a woman. She was everything her father had predicted and more, the sort of female any red-blooded male would want in his bed.

And she was his wife.

A trickle of desire filtered through him, tightening his groin. He cleared his throat, ignored the thickening in his loins. It was merely that the hour was late and he hadn’t had a woman in weeks.

“My condolences on the loss of your father. He was a very great man.”

“Thank you.”

“I am truly sorry I wasn’t here when you arrived. If only you had sent word ahead—”

“My decision was made somewhat quickly. Any letter would have arrived at the same time I did.” She gave him a sharp-edged smile. “Besides, I thought it would be nice to surprise you.”

His return smile was weak. “Well, you certainly accomplished that.” He should have left for Boston months ago. He hadn’t considered it a breach of his word until that very moment. The notion did not sit well.

Violet lifted her chin. “I shall see you in the morning, then.”

Rule nodded. “I’ll have Hat rouse one of the chambermaids and send her in to help you undress.”

“Hat, I presume, is your butler?”

“It’s Hatfield, actually. I’ve always called him Hat.”

“Of course.”

Rule stood by as she collected her skirts and swept gracefully from the drawing room. As she disappeared through the door, a rush of air escaped his lungs.

God’s blood, his wife had come to London! He still couldn’t believe it. He would have to tell his family, try to explain why he had kept his marriage a secret.

Rule thought of facing his two brothers and their wives—worse yet, his aunt Agatha, the matriarch of the family—and inwardly he groaned.

Violet pushed through the door of her bedroom to find Caroline still fully dressed and asleep on top of the bed. Her cousin jerked awake as Violet stepped into the room and quietly closed the door.

Caroline blinked owlishly then grinned. “Tell me what happened. I won’t be able to sleep a wink until I know.”

Violet released a weary breath. She had only slept in fits and starts on the sofa and jousting with Rule had left her edgy and drained.

“He was quite the gentleman. But then he always was.”

Rule had accepted her arrival more graciously than she had expected. Oh, he had been surprised to see her—wildly so. But he had recovered his composure quickly and played the willing host.

Which perhaps she should have expected. His smooth, sophisticated manner had been one of the things her father had admired.

“What does he look like? Is he still so very handsome?”

Handsome was a very pale word to describe a man who looked like Rule. “He is handsome. Beyond handsome, to be truthful. He is even taller than I remember.”

“With those lovely blue eyes and those wonderful dimples?”

“That would be him—though I didn’t see the dimples tonight. I don’t think he found anything the least bit humorous about my unexpected arrival.”

Caroline grinned. “Well, then, if you are still set on tossing him over, maybe you should give him to me.”

Violet laughed. “Once I am rid of him, I don’t care what he does.”

Caroline arched a golden eyebrow. “On second thought, I don’t want your leftovers. I think I shall find a man of my own.”

Violet bit back a smile. “Good idea.” Their tastes in men had always been different and even though Rule was quite a beautiful specimen, he was merely a man. Violet had learned the hard way there was more to a relationship than physical beauty.

“Did you tell him?” Caroline asked, sliding over to sit on the edge of the bed. “Did you say you wanted an annulment?” Both of them were still fully dressed. And both were exhausted.

“I would rather have a good night’s sleep and face him in the morning.”

“Yes, I see what you mean.”

A soft knock sounded at the door.

“That will be the chambermaid, here to help me undress. I didn’t know you were still awake.”

“I’m glad someone is here. She can help us both.”

And so a full-figured, brown-haired woman in her late twenties walked into the bedroom, hiding a yawn behind her hand.

“Me name’s Mary. Mr. ’Atfield, sent me ta ’elp ye.”

“Thank you, Mary.” Violet turned, presenting her back so that Mary could unfasten the buttons. In minutes, she was rid of her clothes, dressed in a long white nightgown and neatly tucked beneath the covers. Caroline waved farewell as she departed the room, and Mary followed her down the hall to help her undress and get settled for the remainder of the night.

The door softly closed and Violet stared up at the blue silk canopy above the bed, certain she wouldn’t be able to sleep. Instead, exhausted from the tension of the day, in minutes she drifted into a deep, all-consuming slumber.

Rule lay awake, staring into the darkness. His wife was there—Violet was in London.

Now that he was over the shock, and the notion had begun to settle in, he felt an odd sort of relief. His decision was made. He could start living up to the promise he had made to Howard Griffin.

And Griffin had certainly lived up to his.

Violet was as beautiful as her father had envisioned, though not in the typical sense. She was petite, but not slim, her green eyes a little too large for her lovely heart-shaped face. Her flame-colored hair was amazing, but not in the current vogue, and there was a confidence about her that hadn’t been there when she was sixteen.

It shone in the way she moved, the firm set of her chin, the way her eyes flashed, revealing a hint of stubbornness she couldn’t quite hide. And there was something more, a sensuality that hid beneath the surface, a deeply rooted passion, he suspected. He was drawn to it, intrigued by the thought of exploring it.

He couldn’t remember the last time a woman had piqued his interest as Violet had, or stirred his lust in quite the same manner.

Perhaps it was the fact that she was his wife, the woman who would bear his sons and comfort him in his December years. Perhaps it was that he had married her, but never tasted the fruits of that marriage. She’d been a child back then. She wasn’t a child anymore.

Her image returned, Violet elegantly gowned in pale blue silk and charmingly asleep on his sofa. As he lay awake in the darkness, he imagined carrying her upstairs and undressing her, discovering, inch by inch, the treasure hidden beneath her clothes.

His body clenched and blood began to pool in his groin. He wanted her, this woman he had married.

He wasn’t ready to look beyond that. He was still trying to grasp the fact that he was a husband and in time might even become a father.

First things first, he thought, and found himself smiling. Violet was there and she was his wife. He had been searching for a woman and one had magically appeared on his doorstep.

Rule smiled into the darkness. It was only a matter of time before he could claim his husbandly rights.

Three

Violet came awake slowly and sat up rubbing her eyes. She glanced at the canopy above her head, at the robin’segg-blue walls, and tried to remember where she was.

Then it all came thundering back. London. A bedroom in Rule Dewar’s town house. Their conversation last night.

She spotted Caroline standing at the foot of the bed and jerked her gaze to the clock on the wall. “Oh, my goodness. I hadn’t intended sleeping so late.”

“You were exhausted. The trip was long and so was the evening, waiting for your husband to arrive.”

Violet made a sound of irritation in her throat. “I hate it when you call him that.”

Caroline laughed. “Well, he is—at least for the moment. Up with you, now. Mary will be here any moment to help you dress—and you had better do it swiftly. There is an army of servants waiting downstairs to greet the new Lady Rule.”

“Lady Rule? You’re jesting. That is who I am?”

“Apparently so.”

“That sounds ridiculous.”

Caroline grinned. “It does, rather. But still…”

For the next half hour, Caroline and Mary helped Violet prepare to greet her husband and his staff. After that, she planned to deliver the news she had traveled so far to give him.

She and Caroline left the bedroom arm in arm, heading for the stairs.

“I have already seen him,” Caroline admitted. “I spoke to him this morning. I awakened earlier than you. I was hungry so I went downstairs. I passed him on the way to the breakfast room. I introduced myself and I think he actually remembered who I was.”

“You’re a woman. A man who looks like that must be used to having dozens of women fawning over him. He probably remembers every one.”

“I was only a girl when we met. At any rate, he was very polite.”

“He would be. It was another of the things my father liked about him.”

“Your father liked him a very good deal.”

“Yes, and look where that got me.”

Caroline said no more and as they reached the bottom of the stairs, Rule walked out of the hallway. He smiled, perfectly groomed head to foot, even after his late-night carousing.

“Good morning, ladies. I hope you slept well.”

“Well enough,” Violet said.

Servants began arriving, surrounding them where they stood at the bottom of the sweeping staircase. Awaiting Rule’s return last evening, Violet had acquainted herself a bit with the residence, noting that the interior was done with exquisite taste. Each of several drawing rooms and all of the guest rooms were elegantly furnished, as was the dining room. She’d had an odd sense that each piece had been personally selected to fit its surroundings.

The number of servants swelled by two more and Rule turned to face them. “Now that all of you are here, I would like to introduce you to my wife. I hope you will serve her as well as you have always served me.”

The servants all clapped and smiled. “Welcome, my lady,” said the housekeeper—Mrs. Digby, Violet recalled—speaking for the group. “Please let us know if there is anything you need.”

“Thank you, Mrs. Digby, I shall.”

“This is Miss Lockhart,” Rule said, “my wife’s cousin. Please make her comfortable during her visit.”

“Of course, my lord.” The housekeeper smiled broadly, clearly pleased her employer had taken a wife.

Violet ignored a twinge of guilt. She wished she could have avoided any pretense they were actually married, but after her arrival yesterday, there was simply no way around it.

“I believe Miss Lockhart has already eaten,” Rule said to Violet. “Perhaps you would allow me to join you in the breakfast room.”

She managed to smile. “Of course.”

“I noticed you’ve quite a collection of books,” Caroline said. “If you wouldn’t mind, I would love to find myself something to read.”

“Please do. Books are meant to be enjoyed. Most of my collection is in the study.You’ll find other volumes scattered here and there. Feel free to borrow anything you wish.”

“Thank you.” Caroline floated off down the hall and Rule presented his arm.

“Shall we?”

Violet tried not to notice that he looked even better this morning than he had last night, his eyes no longer sleepy, but an alert, brilliant blue. His cravat was perfectly tied, his navy-blue tailcoat tailored to fit his very wide shoulders. The faint shadow of beard was gone, which had given him an attractive roguish look, and she rather missed the sight of his suntanned throat above the open V of his shirt.

“My lady?”

It took her a moment to realize he was waiting for her to accept his escort down the hall to the breakfast room. From the corner of her eye, she caught Caroline’s grin the instant before she disappeared into the study.

She returned her attention to Rule. “I would rather you call me Violet. I am not used to your English forms of address.”

He gave a brief nod of his head. His wavy black hair was a little longer than she remembered and she had the oddest urge to run her fingers through it.

Rule smiled. “Then Violet it shall be—as long as you call me Rule.”

She wasn’t about to address him as his lordship, so conceding was easy. “All right.” She took the arm he offered and let him guide her along the hallway to a sunny room at the rear of the house that overlooked the garden. It was done in shades of moss-green accented with rose.

Rule seated her at an ornate rosewood table, then went over to the sideboard and filled two porcelain plates from a row of steaming silver chafing dishes.

Awaiting his return, she draped her linen napkin over the skirt of her peach silk gown, then watched as he set the plates down on the table. The aroma of eggs and sausage drifted up from where they nestled next to several pieces of buttered toast.

She glanced at the servant hovering at her shoulder holding two silver pots, one of tea, the other of coffee.

“I prefer coffee,” she said, and the man poured each of them a cup. “Thank you.” Violet added sugar and cream and carefully stirred them into the strong, aromatic blend.

“While I was in Boston, I came to prefer coffee myself,” Rule said, taking a sip from his own porcelain cup.

“My father taught me to enjoy the taste.”

He set his cup back down in its saucer. “I’m sure you miss him.”

Violet felt a familiar stab of loss. “More than you could ever know.”

Rule’s thick black eyelashes swept down, hiding whatever he was thinking. He launched into his meal and they ate in silence for a while. It occurred to her that she hadn’t had supper last night and she was ravenously hungry.

When she looked up from the bite she had taken, Rule was watching her and smiling. He had the whitest teeth and there was a sensual curve to his mouth Violet hadn’t understood at sixteen. She felt the impact of that smile and for an instant, her breathing stalled.

Rule didn’t seem to notice. “I’m delighted to see that, unlike most Englishwomen, you actually eat as if you enjoy it.”

Her fork remained poised in the air. She forced herself to spear a bite of sausage. “Everything is quite delicious. The meals aboard ship were mostly just filling.”

She took another sip of her coffee as silence descended again. She finished the last of her breakfast, wiped her mouth and set the linen napkin aside. Rule was already finished, which meant the time had come to divulge the reason for her journey.

“Now that we’re done and I am feeling human again, I would like to discuss the reason I am here.”

He frowned. “The reason you are here? I assumed the reason you were here was to begin the marriage we started three years ago.”

This was it. The moment she had been looking forward to, the reason she had traveled thousands of miles.

To confront a husband who had married her for his own selfish purposes and had no interest in keeping the promise he had made to her father. She thought of Jeffrey and the plans they had made, straightened in her seat and looked at him squarely.

“Actually, the reason I am here is to end our farce of a marriage and obtain an annulment.”

The stricken look on Rule Dewar’s too-handsome face was worth every torturous mile.

For a moment, Rule just sat there. “Excuse me? I must have heard you wrong. What did you just say?”

“You heard me quite clearly. I came here to get our marriage annulled.”

Silence descended. He finally found his voice. “That is absurd.”

“It seems quite reasonable to me. We’ve spent only a few days in each other’s company. You never returned to Boston. Clearly, you weren’t expecting to see me here. It is time we ended the charade before it goes any further. Then both of us can get on with our lives.”

Rule forced himself to stay calm. His wife had finally arrived and now that she was here, she wanted nothing more than to be rid of him. “Aren’t you forgetting something?”

She gave him a sugary smile. “I don’t think so, no.”

“What you are forgetting, Violet, is the reason your father wanted you to marry me in the first place. He was looking out for your future—your personal welfare as well as that of the company.”

“The future of the company is another matter entirely. At the moment, what I wish to discuss is this ridiculous marriage we’ve entered into. Be honest, wouldn’t you prefer to continue living your life as you have been? Staying out till all hours of the night, gambling, spending time with any number of women—doing anything you please?”

Rule couldn’t seem to make his voice work. He straightened in his chair. “I told you, I rarely gamble. As for women—I remind you, Violet, thus far we are married in name only. There is a difference, I assure you—which I am very much looking forward to showing you.”

She blushed. Which told him she remained as innocent as she was the day he had married her. He felt an unexpected stirring at that.

“You don’t want to be married,” she argued, surprising him with her stubbornness. She had acquiesced so easily before. But then, he reminded himself, this woman was not the sweet little girl he had left in Boston. “If you had wanted a wife,” she went on, “you would have come to retrieve the one you married.”

“I planned to come.” Eventually. “I wanted to give you time to prepare yourself to become my wife. Your father insisted on that, if you recall.”

“He didn’t expect you to ignore me forever.”

It was true, and guilt assailed him. “Perhaps I should have come sooner. The fact is, you are here now and clearly you are a woman instead of a girl.” His gaze ran over her, settled on the swell of her breasts, and the blood pooled low in his groin. “You have reached your nineteenth year. It is time you had a husband and as I have already acquired that role, we shall proceed just as your father wished.”

Violet shoved back her chair and stood up. “You do not seem to understand. I am not asking—I am demanding. I won’t be your wife so you might as well resign yourself.”

Standing there in the sunlight streaming in through the window, head held high, small hands propped on her tiny waist, fiery hair gleaming against the perfection of her heart-shaped face, she was magnificent.

He had been searching for a mistress. No woman in London had caught his interest as she had, nor physically attracted him so greatly. His shaft began to harden. Violet was his wife and he wanted her in his bed.

He gentled his tone, suddenly determined to convince her. “Please…will you not at least hear me out? This is an extremely important decision for both of us.”

For several seconds she made no move.

Giving up a sigh, she eased back down in her chair.

“Your father had faith in me,” Rule began. “He believed he was looking out for your future when he convinced you to marry me. Before my own father died, he asked something similar of me.”

Her expression subtly altered and he knew he’d caught her interest.

“My father believed the Dewar family’s destiny lay in building an alliance between England and America. When your father approached me, I saw a way to fulfill my own father’s greatest wish.”

“You are saying it wasn’t merely greed.”

He frowned. “I have money of my own, Violet. I admit I have made a great deal more due to my association with your father and the success of the company, but I wouldn’t have agreed if I hadn’t intended to uphold my part of the bargain.”

“I’ve seen the quarterly reports. You’ve done a very good job with Griffin.”

“Thank you. the thing of it is, we are married. We have spoken vows in front of God and made promises to our fathers. I meant to come for you sooner and I should have. I can see that now. But the point is, we owe our families and we owe each other the chance to see if this will work.”

And, of course, there was the provision in the wedding settlement that should the marriage not be consummated, he would lose his half of the business.

She was shaking her head, stirring fine tendrils of flame-colored hair against her cheeks. Desire slipped through him. He forced himself not to think of her in his bed.

“Give me a chance, Violet. Stay with me for the next thirty days and if, at the end of that time, you are still convinced it won’t work out between us, I’ll agree to the annulment.”

But in order for that to happen, she would have to remain a virgin, as he was certain she was now. Rule was determined that would not be the case. Violet was his wife and he meant to have her—soon and often.

He looked at her sitting there, her cheeks still a little flushed from his blatant perusal. Where women were concerned, he wasn’t a fool. He knew she felt at least some of the same attraction for him that he felt for her. He had a month to seduce her into accepting him.

Rule was sure a month would be more than enough.

“Will you do it? Will you stay long enough for us to get acquainted? I don’t think it’s too much to ask.”

She took a deep breath, making her breasts rise tantalizingly, and he realized how fiercely he was aroused.

“I have already given this a great deal of thought and my answer is no.”

A thread of irritation filtered through him. He wasn’t used to being nay-sayed by a woman, and to think that this little slip of a girl—He amended that. Violet was no longer a child. In fact, he saw a lot of Howard Griffin in the implacable way she held her ground.

It made him all the more determined. She was his, dammit. Whether she realized it or not.

“I won’t agree to an annulment, Violet. Not unless you meet my terms. That means you will have to hire a lawyer. It will take months to settle the matter in court—to say nothing of the scandal it will cause our families. It’s 1860, Violet. Boston and London aren’t nearly as far apart as they once were.”

Her pretty lips thinned. “You are that determined? How can that be when you had no intention of returning to Boston?”

“I told you I planned to come—” Inspiration struck and he shot to his feet. “Don’t move. I’ll be right back.”

Racing down the hall, he rushed into his study, drawing a swift look from Cousin Caroline, who sat reading in front of the fire. Searching through the top drawer of his desk, he drew out the ship’s passage to Boston he had purchased last week—though at the time, he wasn’t truly certain he would use it. Turning, he raced back to the breakfast room.

“I was coming,” he said, holding up the ticket. “I bought this five days ago. The date is printed on the top.”

He handed her the ticket and for the first time she looked uncertain. Clearly, she’d believed he’d never meant to live up to the bargain he had made.

There were times he wasn’t sure himself.

“Stay for the next four weeks,” he urged. “Give us a chance to get to know each other. If you won’t do it for me, do it for your father.” It was hitting below the belt, but for some strange reason he was growing desperate.

Violet stared down at the ticket, then looked up at him. Her chin tilted up. “All right, thirty days. Then I expect you to stand by your word.”

Rule grinned, gouging grooves into his cheeks, and Violet glanced shyly down at her lap. She wasn’t immune to him, he could tell, and he certainly wasn’t immune to her.

Thirty days, he told himself, praying he wouldn’t have to wait nearly that long to have her in his bed.

All of a sudden, being married didn’t seem like such a bad idea after all.

“Good heavens, what did he say?” Caroline shot through the door of Violet’s bedroom, where she had retreated to consider what she had just done.