LITMIR.BIZ

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the summer touring Germany and Austria, taking the waters in various fashionable resorts. For Sophie, he’d brave the crossing. The agent promised as-smooth-as-glass sailing at this time of the year. They could return in the autumn, in time for Hannah’s wedding. It would give his mother enough time to realise Sophie was his wife, rather than a woman who could be snubbed.

      ‘I agree, Mother. I will tell Sophie everything eventually … when the time is right, but she will dance at my sister’s wedding.’ He glared at his mother. ‘It will mean you and Hannah will not be able to come to my wedding.’

      Tears glimmered in his mother’s eyes. ‘I knew I could count on you to understand, Richard. It means I fulfil my final promise to my beloved and see our daughter properly settled. It has been a worry and a bother for many years. Hannah’s future must come first. You will explain that to this bride of yours. You have a title and an inheritance. Dear Grayson’s daughter has nothing but her beauty and sweet nature. She must make this match.’

      Richard nodded, knowing his mother had made a choice, the same choice she had made years ago when she had chosen bringing up Hannah over maintaining any contact with him. Her excuse was that he was his father’s heir and his father would never have allowed him to go. His mother could never understand why he kept in contact with his father after knowing the truth about how she was treated. But his father was his father and he loved him for his eccentricities and for the way he had been there when Richard needed him as a boy.

      ‘Happy to oblige.’

      Sophie stood next to Richard before the high altar in St Nicholas’s church, waiting for the ceremony to begin. She grasped the tiny nosegay of baby’s breath and rosebuds, which her stepmother had managed to procure in time from the florist, tightly to her bosom and drew a quick breath. Yesterday at this time, she had just agreed to play in the cricket match, and today she was a properly attired bride.

      Everything seemed to happen at such a speed, once she received Richard’s note that the wedding was set for eleven this morning because of the Bishop’s commitments.

      Jane, her lady’s maid, had been up until the early hours making sure the ball dress was properly altered and the veil securely attached to her newest straw bonnet. When she looked at herself in the full-length mirror just before going downstairs, she had to agree with Jane’s assessment that she was fashion-plate perfect. It might be a rushed wedding, but the bride would not disappoint the crowd.

      Sophie wrinkled her nose. Not that there were many gathered when she arrived in her stepmother’s carriage.

      The large Gothic interior of St Nicholas’s church loomed around her. Cold and silent. Her footsteps had echoed when she walked to the altar. Besides her stepmother, Jane and Richard’s valet, the church was empty of witnesses.

      ‘Are you all right?’ Richard asked in an undertone. ‘You appear pale.’

      ‘I think my corset is one notch too tight, but I won’t lock my knees and faint. I’ve no desire to collapse at my wedding like my friend Judith did.’

      ‘I will catch you if you faint.’

      ‘I believe you would.’ Sophie pasted a smile on her face. Richard was here and that was all that mattered.

      The Bishop began to intone the words of the service and Sophie turned to look at her bridegroom and make a memory.

      Richard stood upright with a very serious expression on his face. He answered the Bishop in a loud ringing voice, whereas Sophie found it difficult to utter the words above a whisper.

      ‘Those whom God hath joined together let no man put asunder.’

      The Bishop’s words as he concluded the ceremony sent a shiver down Sophie’s back. And the enormity of what she had just done hit her. For better or for worse, she had married Richard Crawford and was now Lady Bingfield.

      Until a few weeks ago, they had been strangers. Not like Henri, who had known Robert for years before they married, or even Cynthia, who had known her new husband for a year before they eloped. All she knew was that she had to do it or face ruin. She couldn’t bear the thought of not seeing Richard again and she couldn’t trust herself to stop the next time. She was so glad that Richard had given her a choice.

      She would make it for better, she decided. She would be a good wife.

      Richard raised her veil and placed a chaste kiss on her lips. The gentle touch did much to settle her nerves. He did want her as his wife.

      ‘It is done,’ she said, looking into his burning-gold eyes.

      ‘Let no man put asunder,’ Richard replied with a determined set of his jaw. ‘We are properly married, Sophie. No one can remark now. Shall we go and have the wedding breakfast your stepmother prepared, even though I’d prefer to get straight to the wedding night?’

      Sophie’s cheeks heated as his warm voice did things to her insides. ‘You mustn’t say such things, even in jest.’

      He lowered his voice as his hand squeezed her waist. ‘But I am thinking them. Know that I am counting the minutes until I get you alone and in my bed.’

      ‘Hush! My stepmother will hear and she was up nearly all night making the wedding breakfast. She even made her famous seed cake.’

      ‘I am honoured. I will eat a slice and then we shall make our excuses. Your stepmother will understand.’ He started to escort her down the aisle. ‘Neither of us is hungry for food.’

      ‘What is going on here?’ a loud overbearing masculine voice thundered at the back of the church. ‘Richard, I went to your rooms and they said you were at church. Is this harum-scarum affair your wedding? And this woman—is she the common chit your aunt wrote me about?’

      Sophie halted. She looked up at Richard, whose face had gone thunderous before becoming a mask of urbanity.

      ‘The Bishop finished not a moment too soon,’ Richard murmured. His hand tightened on Sophie’s elbow. ‘My father has arrived and is his usual charming self. Shall we go and greet him before he bellows the church down?’

      ‘Did you know he was coming to Newcastle?’ Sophie whispered, an uneasy feeling creeping up the back of her neck. Richard had known his father wouldn’t approve of the match.

      ‘I knew he had plans to travel to Newcastle. I didn’t know when he’d arrive.’

      Sophie stared at her new husband. He had deliberately kept his father’s imminent arrival from her. What else had he hidden from her? ‘You should have said.’

      ‘What, and risk giving you or your stepmother a chance to delay the proceedings?’ He gave a short laugh. ‘Not likely. You are hard won, Sophie. I want my prize. I want you in my bed and this is the only way I could get you there.’

      Hard won. Her heart did a little leap, but a niggling doubt filled her. Did he think his father would object to her, was that why he’d rushed the marriage? He had given her a choice, hadn’t he? ‘But your father …’

      He pulled her closer and whispered in her ear, ‘Remember you are my wife, Sophie. There is nothing my father or anyone else can do about it. You are Lady Bingfield now. You are my chosen bride. It matters not a jot what my aunt or indeed my father thinks of you. It only matters what I think.’

      Sophie bit her lip. Richard made it sound as though she was somehow likely to be found wanting by Lord Hallington. Her pedigree might not be top drawer, but she was hardly a pauper. Her father had wanted her to marry into the aristocracy. She had had the right sort of education. She wasn’t some governess or vicar’s daughter, but … All the memories of feeling inadequate and that people were whispering behind their hands at her during her first Season came flooding back.

      She regarded the red-faced Lord Hallington. Despite his high colour, she could see the family resemblance. She would have known that he was Richard’s father anywhere. They shared the same facial structure and their eyes were the same colour. She tried to breathe. This was not how she had envisioned spending

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