The Lion's Daughter (Scoundrels 1)

“I can hear you thinking,” he said grimly. “It’s bound to lead to trouble.”

“Varian—”

“Try thinking about this. “ He tilted her face back and brought his mouth to within an inch of hers.

Automatically, her head snaked round his neck to bring him to her.

“No,” he said. “If you won’t marry me, I shall never kiss you again.”

His breath was warm on her face, his body strong and sheltering. His hands were so gentle, tenderly stroking her jaw. Her pulse was racing.

“This is not fair, Varian,” she said shakily.

“I don’t play fair. Yes or no?”

And so he won.

She was doomed, Varian told himself an hour later, as he pressed a kiss to her neck. She’d been doomed from the moment she met him. Not content with killing her father, Fate had sent Varian St. George along to kill her future.

All the same, he’d found it difficult to feel guilty while this beautiful, wayward creature lay in his arms, begging to be loved. Heaven knew she needn’t beg. He’d wanted to make love to her from the instant he’d awakened. He’d just done so, and wanted to again.

But he couldn’t spend the entire day in bed with her.

Percival and Qeriba were downstairs, waiting to be assured Esme would not create difficulties about getting married. More disturbing was the thought of Ismal, who could be waiting as well…anywhere.

This latter anxiety drove Varian from the bed to gather up his clothes.

“I’ll send your grandmother up with some garments for you,” he said as he thrust himself into his trousers. “She’s already seen to the packing.”

Esme burrowed under the bedclothes. “Aye, she’s eager for me to be wed. This is all her doing, isn’t it?”

“It’s all my doing.” Varian pulled on his shirt. “Qeriba simply cooperated. Whether I’d found her and Percival downstairs this morning or not, the result would have been the same. Do not begin imagining anyone has forced me to marry you, or that I’m acting out of some absurd notion of nobility.”

He moved back to the bed and gazed sternly down at her. “I am not noble. I have wanted to make you mine practically from the start. Since you neglected to forestall me, you shall be. It’s quite simple, Esme. Don’t make it complicated.”

Reproachful green eyes peered up at him. “I see how it is. You make me drunk with lovemaking, so I cannot think, and so I will say, ‘Yes, Varian. No, Varian. As you wish, oh great light of the heavens.’”

He smiled in spite of himself. “Just so.”

“Just wait,” she warned, “until I become more accustomed to your tricks.”

“Then it will be too late, because we’ll be wed.” Varian shrugged into his coat, avoiding her gaze as he continued, “There’ll be no more tumbling about together until then. We leave for Corfu in a few hours. Once there, you’ll be chaperoned.”

That shot her up from the blankets. “Chaperoned? You cannot be serious!”

“You ought to know that Percival had prepared himself for a duel this morning, to avenge your honor. You cannot wish to shock his youthful sensibilities further by living in sin with your betrothed.”

Varian headed for the door, then paused. “You won’t be entirely among strangers. Qeriba has agreed to come as chaperon, and I am given to understand Donika’s family will provide a suitable Albanian celebration before we’re properly wed in a proper Anglican ceremony by a proper Anglican minister.” He threw her a guilty glance. “You needn’t fear you’ll be without friends on your wedding day.”

He didn’t wait for an answer and was already through the door when Esme called him back. He stood just at the threshold, bracing himself for the outburst.

“Thank you, Varian,” she said softly.

He relaxed and smiled. “S’ka gje.”

Chapter Twenty-One

Sir Gerald glared at the letter he’d only just received, though Lord Edenmont had written it more than a fortnight ago. The delay was Percival’s doing, no doubt, as was everything else. The wedding was only two days away. With cooperative winds, one might reach Corfu in a day—but to do what?

Sir Gerald raised his scowl from the letter and directed it across the Bay of Otranto. What in blazes was going on over there?

Jason had gone and got himself killed, heaven be praised, but heaven granted precious small favors. The curst fool had left a byblow behind, and Edenmont claimed he meant to wed her.

“Bloody blackguard,” Sir Gerald muttered. “Probably thinks I’ll buy him off. Hah! Let him have Jason’s bastard—and the plaguey one my false bitch of a wife saddled me with as well. Ten years to conceive a child,” he grumbled as he began to pace the terrace. “‘A miracle,’ Diana called it. As if I couldn’t count.”

He’d counted. Nine months before Percival’s birth, Sir Gerald had been abroad. Not for a moment had he believed that Percival had arrived prematurely.

The old outrage hadn’t cooled with time. The mere sight of the boy was enough to set it ablaze. Now there was another of Jason’s bastards to deal with.

The baronet stormed back into the house and on to his study, composing along the way a scathing reply to his lordship. As Sir Gerald took up his pen, however, his eye fell upon the chess set, minus a queen. He ground his teeth.

The Queen of Midnight, he’d learned, had been seized by British authorities days before it reached Prevesa. Shortly thereafter, two more ships had been intercepted, and word had spread quickly. Several customers had shied off, and it was very likely the rest would soon do the same. He’d put a great deal of money out; at present, he’d no hope of any coming in.

He might very well have to apply to his mother for funds, a ghastly prospect. The old witch was sure to cross-examine him. Though his records were creative enough to protect his secret, the process would be humiliating all the same. The dowager would find fault with him, because she always did. It was Jason, the prodigal son, she’d always doted on, though she feigned otherwise. Even now, were Jason alive, the senile old harridan would give him…whatever he wanted. As she’d always done, except that last time. Now there was this girl Edenmont claimed was Jason’s.

Putting his pen aside, Sir Gerald took up the letter once more. The girl had written a note, but there was nothing in that. The baronet flung down the sheet covered with her illegible scrawl and re-examined Edenmont’s.

“Hopes for my blessing...no, here. Aye, plain enough now. Take her to England, will you, and Percival too, if I like?”

That was what it was all about. Edenmont meant to take the girl to her witless old grandmama and use Percival, too, if he could, to soften the old hag’s heart and brain.

“Oh, no, you don’t,” Sir Gerald growled. “Not my inheritance. Not one groat, Edenmont. The crone may be in her dotage, but I’m not.”

***

The weeks before the wedding passed like a long, bewildering dream, filled with strange faces and strange voices with their clipped English accents. Though in the center of it, Esme felt she was looking in from another world, watching herself do as the dream required of her.

Varian had lodged her and Qeriba with the clergyman, Mr. Enquith, and his wife. They were both kindly people, but strangers. Varian and Percival’s visits were so rare that they seemed strangers as well. While they bustled about Corfu, arranging the proper English wedding Varian was so determined to have, Esme undertook the more daunting task of making herself into a proper English bride.

Her regrets and anxieties she banished to the depths of her heart. Her father’s murder remained unavenged, her homeland on the brink of disaster, but it was too late for her to act heroically. Her betrothed was a foreigner, a lord, a penniless debaucher, but it was too late for her to act wisely. Esme had given her heart as well as her virtue and could call neither back.

She would be his baroness, which meant she must at least appear a lady. Upon this, consequently, she fixed her mind. She made herself take interest in the fashion bo

oks Mrs. Enquith displayed and dutifully helped the two older women translate patterns into frocks. Esme took her lessons in English manners with the same singleminded concentration. It had to be done, she told herself. There was no choice.

A few days before the wedding, Donika—along with most of her relations—arrived, and Esme entered the prenuptial celebrations with the same resolve to do what must be done. She feared for the future, but it was merely heartbreak she feared, she told herself. That was just unhappiness, and life was unhappy for most human beings. What she felt inside, therefore, she kept locked within, showing others nothing but confidence and smiles.

In this way the strange dreamtime came to her wedding day, which dawned warm and bright.

Standing in the morning sunlight, Esme patiently endured her friend’s fussing with her hair and frock. At last Donika stepped away. As she scrutinized the sea green gown, her anxious frown smoothed into a smile.