Tempting the Bride

chapter 1



Six months later

A traffic logjam had convened on Fleet Street, and Hastings’s brougham was caught in the midst. The assembly of vehicles advanced at a ponderous pace that would not have won races against his daughter’s pet tortoise. Enterprising men and boys went from carriage to carriage, hawking ginger beer and hot buns to a captive crowd.

Had the logjam happened on a different street, Hastings would have alighted and walked. But he’d chosen this particular route for a reason: a window that differed little from the two dozen others that looked out from the same building. His eyes, however, were always unerringly drawn to those particular panes of glass—their luster quite dulled this hour by the shadows of an approaching storm.

If he could rise some fifteen, twenty feet in the air, he’d be able to see Helena Fitzhugh, sitting with her back to the window. She would be wearing a white blouse tucked into a dark skirt, her flaming hair caught up in an elegant chignon at her nape. A pot of tea was likely to be found on her desk, brought in by her conscientious secretary in the morning, and largely ignored the rest of the day.

Much could happen in six months—and much had. Hastings had done what he’d promised to do, keeping Andrew Martin’s name out of any discussions. But he had not kept her actions a secret. In fact, the morning after their confrontation, he’d left at first light, traveled to her brother’s estate, and informed her family that she’d been out and about at night when she ought not to be.

Her family had immediately understood the implications. She was half coaxed, half ordered across the ocean to America, under the pretext of an article that needed writing concerning the ladies of Radcliffe College, a women’s college associated with Harvard University.

The events that took place on the campus of Harvard University had led to one of the more intriguing scandals of the current London Season, a scandal that involved Miss Fitzhugh’s elder sister and the Duke of Lexington, resulting in an unexpected wedding.

On the heels of that, her twin brother, Fitz, at last realized that he was—and had been for years—in love with his heiress wife, a woman he’d married under the most trying of circumstances and never believed could become the love of his life.

For Hastings, however, little had changed, other than that his beloved disfavored him more than ever. Their lives went on, occasionally intersecting in a burst of sparks. But like images produced by a magic lantern, the drama and movement were but illusions going round and round. Nothing of substance happened. They’d dealt with each other thus since they were children, and he was no closer to her heart than that pot of tea at her elbow, a fixture in her life yet utterly inconsequential.

And so he stared at her window in the light of the day, as he’d stared at her door in the dark of the night.

The window opened. She stood before it, looking out.

He knew she could not see him—could not, thanks to the carriage immediately adjacent, even make out the crest on his carriage. All the same his breath quickened, his heart constricting.

Then, after the quake of nerves, a familiar dejection. She did not even look down, but only gazed distantly toward the direction of Andrew Martin’s town residence.

Despite Hastings’s keeping to the letter—if not the spirit—of his promise, members of her family discovered on their own the identity of Miss Fitzhugh’s partner in crime. Hastings subsequently received a perhaps well-deserved punch to the face from Fitz for not having told the whole truth. Andrew Martin did not receive a just-as-well-deserved (if not more so) punch to the face, but Fitz made it clear that Martin was never to contact Miss Fitzhugh again.

She missed him. Hastings was but a shadow in the crowd, but Martin was her air, her sky.

He watched her until she closed the window and disappeared from sight. Then he got out of the brougham, instructed his coachman to head home as the logjam allowed, and walked away.

The window must not have latched properly, for Helena could once again hear the din of the impasse below.

She pressed a palm to the side of her head, the fingers of her other hand tapping restlessly against Andrew’s last letter to her. She’d gone over it countless times, but, inveterate reader that she was, she could not help scanning the words that had been set down before her.

My Dearest,



I am relieved to learn that you have returned safe and sound from America. I have missed you desperately during the long weeks of your absence. I need not tell you how delighted I am to receive your note requesting a meeting, and I need not tell you how dearly I’d like to see you.



But I’ve been giving the matter much thought. As wondrously euphoric as I’ve been of late, and as honored as I am by the bestowal of your affections, I cannot forget that every moment of our stolen joy comes at terrifying peril to you.



It is my fault, of course. I should never have allowed myself to be swayed by the idea of my own happiness. It was the utmost selfishness on my part to not understand sooner that I am keeping you from pursuing your own life, a life that can be lived in the open, that need never cower for fear of discovery.



It had taken her ages to gradually convince Andrew that her desires were worth something. That if she wished to lie with him in a state of near intimacy, she was old enough to make that choice with full understanding of the possible consequences.

But with one quick reminder from Fitz, Andrew’s thinking had tipped back the other way. He’d dutifully stopped seeing her, even in her capacity as his publisher. And his letters, too, had ceased altogether. Except for one chance encounter at a rail station some time ago, she had not seen him since before she left for America in January.

Such useless conventions society clung to, valuing a marriage that was essentially a transaction of property above the truths of the heart, and judging her on her possession of a hymen rather than her actions and character. Even her own family—her brother and sister, who’d let her make her own choices most of her life—had proved unyielding on this particular point.

But it is still not too late for you. You are kind, charming, and beautiful. I wish you all the blessings my heart can carry, and I shall remain



Your faithful and devoted friend



It was too late for her; couldn’t he see? It had been too late since the very first. And it wasn’t as if she hadn’t taken a good, hard look at the gentlemen available to her. But she’d yet to meet one with whom the thought of spending the rest of her life was remotely tolerable.

She would not accept that this was the end. Taking advantage of a moment of privacy—even if they were standing on a rail platform full of travelers—she’d made an im-passioned plea that reputation was not the only thing that mattered. That her happiness, too, counted for something. And that he, of all people, ought to have a care for her happiness.

His resolution had seemed to waver at the end of her entreaty. It was possible that ever since then he’d been reconsidering his decision. If only she could know the thoughts that coursed through his mind this very moment.

A stiff breeze blew and nearly made off with Andrew’s letter. She caught it, stowed it in the locked drawer where she kept all his letters, tossed out the pot of tea Miss Boyle insisted on making for her every day, and went to the window. The crowd below still hadn’t eased, hundreds of carriages crawling along like a parade of snails. The sky had become even darker. The coachmen were shrugging into their mackintoshes; the pedestrians, heads bowed, picked up their pace.

One particular pedestrian caught her eye. The angle of his hat, the width of his shoulders, the cadence of his gait…She must be imagining things. Hastings would not walk about Fleet Street at this hour of the day; he was far more likely to be mid-tryst with his lady du jour.

An all too vivid image came to mind: Hastings pressing an anonymous woman against a wall, one hand on her hip, the other at her nape, kissing her—no, devouring her with his lips and tongue. The woman was no less indecent in her lust, her fingers clutching his hair, her body writhing, whimpers and moans of all descriptions escaping her throat.

Helena slammed the window shut, jarring her arms.

Though he was her brother’s best friend, Helena had paid him little mind: Hastings was the wasp at a picnic, or the occasional fly that fell into one’s soup—irksome when he was around, but hardly a preoccupation when he wasn’t.

Until, that was, six months ago, when he’d demanded the kiss in exchange for his fraudulent silence. She still managed to mostly not think of him, but when she did, her thoughts flew in unruly directions.

She returned to her desk and opened the bottom drawer again, intending to read a few more of Andrew’s old letters to drown out the part of her mind that persisted in imagining Hastings at his illicit rendezvous. Instead, from the same drawer she pulled out quite something else: a manuscript that Hastings had sent her not long ago.

An erotic manuscript titled The Bride of Larkspear, in which the titular bride existed in a state of literal bondage, trussed to her husband’s bed.

The raspberries have been picked only hours earlier. They are tiny yet plump, a lovely deep red. I rub one against her lips.



“What is this?”



“Something delicious and succulent.” I speak easier when I do not need to look into her eyes, when the blindfold replaces the scorn in them with a strip of black silk. “Like you.”



She opens her mouth and takes the raspberry. I watch her as she chews, then swallows. A tiny smear of raspberry juice remains on her lower lip. I lick it, tasting the tart sweetness.



“Would you like another?”



“Why such tenderness?” she demands archly. “I am already naked, fettered, and blindfolded. Go ahead. Have your way with me.”



How I would love to descend upon her like a pack of wolves. My body is certainly primed, my cock hot and hard, my muscles straining against my own urges.



“No,” I reply. “I am going to play with you a little longer.”



There was an illustration of the naked bride at the bottom of the page. The view was from the side. Her face was obscured by one of the thick bedposts, but her breasts were taut, her legs endless. Helena’s gaze, however, was drawn to her feet, one arched and flexed, the toes of the other pressing hard into the sheets, as if in silent arousal.

Her own toes were digging into the soles of her boots. The moment she realized it, she picked up the manuscript, jammed it back into the drawer, and turned the key in the lock.

She really ought to burn it. Or, failing that, read the whole thing and send him a politely snide letter of rejection. But she could no more consign the pages to the fireplace than she could read more than a few paragraphs at a time.

That, perhaps, was the true reason she was angry at him: He’d broken through a formerly invisible barrier and forced this awareness upon her—this awareness of him as a man.

And she did not want it. She wanted him relegated back to the periphery of her existence, there to stay for the remainder of his natural life. To never again be a cause of irregular heartbeats and agitated breathing.

It was a while before she could resume working.

Hastings did not head home directly, but stopped by his club. The Season was drawing to a close, and the club was sparsely attended. Soon Society would repair to the seashore or to the country. He might see some more of Helena when Fitz and his wife held their annual shooting party in August. But after that, there was a long stretch until Christmas during which there would be no doors of hers for him to stare at.

“My lord, a telegram for you,” said one of the club’s footmen. “Your staff thought you’d like to have it.”

“Thank you,” he said, taking the cable.

It was from Millie, Fitz’s wife, informing him that she and her husband would be taking a short holiday in the Lake District. The news pleased Hastings: Fitz and Millie had had such a long road to happiness and deserved to wallow in their newfound joy.

He almost missed the postscript at the very bottom of the cable.

Upon reflection, dear Hastings, I realize I should have disclosed my true sentiments years ago. And, if I may be so forward, so should have you.



He should have, of course. A more rational, less proud man would consider the prize at the end, swallow his humiliation, and proceed apace to woo his beloved. Hastings was not that man. In every other regard he was quite reasonable, but when it came to Helena Fitzhugh, so futile was his approach he might as well have built a temple to the rain god in the middle of the Sahara Desert.

He certainly prayed a good deal for her to miraculously change her mind, to wake up one day, look at him with completely different eyes, and see him as he wished to be seen.

“Something the matter?”

He looked up. The speaker was Bernard Monteth, a thin man with prematurely grey hair. They’d belonged to the same clubs for years, but it was only in the past six months that Hastings had cultivated a greater acquaintance with Monteth: Monteth’s wife was Mrs. Andrew Martin’s sister.

Hastings raised a brow. “Speaking to me, good sir?”

“You seem to be brooding.”

“Brooding? Me? I was but imagining the pleasures that await me tonight. Must make hay while the sun yet shines, you see, before it is off to the country to rusticate.”

Monteth sighed. “You have my envy, Hastings—make hay while the sun yet shines indeed. Don’t marry too soon like the lot of us.”

“I’ll make sure not to mention our conversation to Mrs. Monteth,” Hastings said lightly. “How is the missus, by the way?”

“Always up to something, that woman,” grumbled Monteth.

“I hope she isn’t conspiring against you?”

“Not me, thankfully—not yet, at least. But the wife is always conspiring against somebody.”

It was not an exaggeration. Mrs. Monteth was not so much a gossip as a self-appointed guardian of virtue and righteousness. She spied on the servants, opened random doors at country house parties—for which reason she was seldom invited anywhere these days—and did just about everything in her power to expose and punish the private moral failings of those around her.

“So whom is the missus going after this week?”

“Don’t know,” grumbled Monteth. “But she’s been spending an awful lot of time with her sister.”

Hastings felt an odd tingle in his spine. “Could she have something on Mr. Martin?”

Monteth shook his head. “That man sits in a room with his books and his typewriter and never comes out. The missus wouldn’t waste her time on him.”

If Monteth only knew.

“No,” continued Monteth. “Martin doesn’t have the stones to overstep the bounds.”

Martin had done it once. He could most certainly do it again, his promise to Fitz notwithstanding.

“Well,” said Hastings. “Keep me abreast of the missus’s intrigues, will you? Nothing I love more than a good old-fashioned scandal.”