The Wife Trap Page 3

  Suddenly the wheels moved, spinning in a wild circle that geysered mud in a high, arcing flume. The barouche rolled forward and out of the bog onto the safety of dry ground.

  Cheers and shouts erupted. Darragh grinned, joining the men as they slapped one another on the shoulders in pleased, prideful delight.

  A scream shattered the scene—high and shrill and female.

  Darragh spun at the sound and froze at the sight that greeted his eyes.

  Lady Jeannette stood, body quivering, her tiny hands clenched at her sides, her dress and face and figure completely splattered in mud.

  For an instant, Darragh couldn’t draw breath, the sight of her so utterly astonishing. She vaguely reminded him of a calico cat, her once immaculate orange gown bedecked with a patchwork of caramel-coloured spots. Not even her hat had been spared, the jaunty white ostrich feathers on top drooping downward like a bunch of wilted flowers.

  Clinging to the end of one of those feathers was a clump of mud that dangled precariously downward. Darragh watched in amazement as the bit of sodden earth suddenly went plop, landing right on the end of the nose Jeannette had so recently complained of sustaining injury. Her aqua eyes flew wide, her horrified expression nothing short of priceless.

  A bubble of laughter rose into his throat, burst from his lips. Another followed, until he was consumed, helpless to restrain his mirth.

  The servants, who up until this point had remained mute and stunned, suddenly followed suit. One of the footmen snorted loudly then bent over double with hilarity. In a matter of seconds they were all convulsed. Even Betsy covered a grin with one hand before rushing forward to help her lady.

  But plainly Jeanette was too angry to be helped, her face blistered with fury and embarrassment. To Darragh’s way of thinking, the Little Rosebush looked as if she might burst into flames right where she stood.

  He knew it was wrong of him to tease her when she’d been brought so low, but the imp inside him couldn’t be contained.

  “My lady,” he said, “would you like me to carry you to your coach? There must be a spot or two left on your gown that isn’t covered in mud.”

  If eyes were knives, the glare she shot him would have sliced him to ribbons. He saw her working up a retort but then she apparently thought better of the effort. Setting her chin at a regal tilt, she turned away from him.

  “Load the luggage immediately,” she ordered the servants. “I wish there to be no further delay.”

  As if she were taking a stroll in the park, she picked her way through the muck to the coach.

  He followed, waited until she and her maid had been assisted into the barouche and the coachman had closed the door.

  Darragh leaned forward and smiled at her through the window. “ ’Twas a pleasure making your acquaintance, Lady Jeannette Rose Brantford. Here’s hoping we meet again one of these days.”

  Her sultry lower lip quivered. “The next time a blizzard starts in Hades will be soon enough for me.” With a snap, she lowered the blind in front of his face.

  She fought off tears for the next ten miles, pride the only thing that kept them at bay.

  And anger.

  Without the anger, she knew she would have crumpled into a whimpering, blubbering ball.

  Ooh, that man, that Darragh O’Brien. She wanted to…well, she just wanted to punch him. In her whole life, she had never been subjected to such disrespectful treatment.

  Thought he was funny, did he? Well, he was the least amusing man she’d ever known.

  Her gaze landed on her skirt and one of the many encrusted patches of mud begriming the material. She sniffed, a fresh bout of tears threatening. Her beautiful, beautiful gown destroyed. Doubtless even the most skilled laundress would be unable to remove all the stains. Betsy wouldn’t want the garment, nor any of the servants, the dress so far past salvation that even the lowliest maid would refuse to wear it. She had adored this gown and now it was fit for nothing but the rag bag.

  With the exception of the day her parents had informed her she was being sent to live in this hinterland, today was undoubtedly the worst of her life.

  Long minutes later, they finally arrived at their destination. One of the footmen hurried to assist her from the coach, casting his eyes respectfully downward. And well he should, she thought, remembering the way he’d laughed along with the rest of them. Then again, she supposed it would be wrong to put the blame upon him or any of the others. They’d only reacted to the moment out of normal, human surprise.

  No, there was only one man responsible and the devil’s name was O’Brien.

  The shame of her humiliation welled afresh, raw and painful as a handful of blazing cinders. The feeling only increased when a tiny white-haired woman in a rather old-fashioned mobcap and gown emerged from the house, her placid gray eyes widening to their utmost proportions as they encountered Jeannette.

  The little woman paused in the driveway, a delicate hand lifting to cover the rounded O of her mouth. She blinked twice, then seemed to recover herself, rushing forward.

  “Cousin Jeannette, is it you? Oh, my poor child, whatever has befallen you? Bertie and I were beginning to wonder if you would arrive today as expected since evening is nearly upon us, but never mind that now. I’m your cousin Wilda. Wilda Merriweather. Welcome to Brambleberry Hall.”

  The woman’s kind greeting proved Jeannette’s undoing, a tear running over her mud-smudged cheek.

  Earlier inside the carriage, Betsy had done her best to clean her up, but without water the effort had been hopeless at best. Jeannette’s face felt tight and dry, as if her skin might crack from its coating of grime. And here she had wanted to make an elegant first impression, only to arrive looking a complete wreck. Being red-nosed and puffy-eyed would have been preferable to this. Now she was red-nosed, puffy-eyed and splattered in mud!

  “Was there a mishap, dear?” Wilda extended a sympathetic hand. “Come and tell me all about it.”

  More tears wet Jeannette’s cheeks as she went childlike into the older woman’s embrace. “It…it was terrible,” she wailed as Wilda wrapped a comforting arm around her waist.

  “The coach…stuck…” she said, trying to talk around her tears, “…man came…made me get out…sun burned…mud, mud, mud everywhere…beast laughed. Oh, my dress…and my pretty boots.” Then, to her complete mortification, she burst into a fit of messy sobs.

  “There, there, child,” the older woman hushed. “Everything will be set right, you’ll see. Come inside and we’ll get you straight up to your room for a hot bath and a lie down. You must be exhausted, simply exhausted after such a long trip. Why, the occasional journey to Waterford quite wears me through to the bone, right to the bone, so I can only imagine how fatigued you must be. You cry all you want, dearie, all you want.”

  Jeannette gave in to her misery, weeping copiously into her handkerchief as she let her cousin lead her into the house and up the stairs.

  She’d barely gazed around the cheerful, yellow bedchamber that, she supposed, was to be hers, when Betsy came forward to divest her of her ruined attire. A large tub was carried into an adjoining dressing room, steaming water poured into the bath by the bucketful. The room grew quiet as everyone left except her maid.

  Sniffing, eyes swollen and undoubtedly as red-rimmed as she’d feared, Jeannette slid into the lovely warmth. Betsy soaped and rinsed her long hair, then left her alone to relax. Five minutes later, her head resting on the copper rim of the tub, she fell asleep.

  Betsy awakened her with a gentle touch, wrapping her in a large fluffy towel the instant she climbed dripping from the tub. Sleepy and depressed, Jeannette sat in front of the fire, bundled into her warmest nightgown and robe. She sipped a comforting cup of hot tea, nibbled on the delicious buttered biscuits and cold sliced chicken that had been sent up to her, while her maid combed dry her waist-length hair.

  Then it was to bed, the sheets crisp and cool and smelling sweetly of starch and lavender. She buried her face into
one plump feather pillow and shed a few more tears.

  She missed home. And England.

  She missed her parents and sister.

  She even missed her brother, Darrin, who seemed to do nothing these days but make a profligate young fool of himself.

  Right now, she would trade anything to have them all back, to be at home in her own bed with things as they used to be. But nothing would ever again be the way it used to be, those days were now long gone.

  She couldn’t fathom why she felt homesick. Silly really, since she’d spent several months living in Italy with her great-aunt Agatha before her return to England a few weeks ago. She hadn’t been homesick then. The trip part of the adventurous lark she’d enjoyed after trading places with her twin, when on the morning of her own wedding she’d refused to marry the duke to whom she’d been engaged. Violet had married him instead—pretending to be Jeannette. She supposed the deception had been very wrong of them both, but as it turned out, all had come right in the end. At least it had for Violet and Adrian, who were nauseatingly besotted with each other and expecting their first child later this year.

  No, she was the one who’d suffered. She was the one who’d been sent away in disgrace and misery, and all for the sake of love.

  Ah, Toddy, she sighed, why did you have to play me false?

  What a naive dupe she’d been to let an experienced cad like Theodore Markham toy with her affections. When she’d tossed Adrian over, she’d done so believing Toddy to be her one, true love. He’d whispered such pretty words to her, words of undying adoration and everlasting devotion, and like an idiot she had believed them. He’d flattered her, telling her how beautiful she was, all the while showering her with the kind of gallant, dutiful attention she had craved but rarely received from her own fiancé—Adrian, who was too busy with his duties and his friends and his own pursuits to see to her needs.

  But Toddy had wanted her. Loved her. Or so she had thought until Italy, where he had learned there would be no fat dowry if he wed her. After that, he’d cast her aside like so much rubbish. Off, as she’d soon discovered, to hunt and seduce other, wealthier feminine prey.

  She squeezed her eyes closed, fought as she had for so many long weeks to banish him from her mind. She no longer loved him; she was well and truly done with any tender feelings in that regard. But she had to admit he’d wounded something vital within her. Love, she now knew, could be unutterably cruel. Better not to love at all than to suffer such pangs and sorrows. Better to find solace in the things that counted for something in this world—wealth, position and dignity.

  She would marry a title as she’d planned to do from the first. No charming cads this time to steer her from her course. Some rich old man perhaps who, if she was lucky, would die shortly after their nuptials and leave her a wealthy, young widow, free to live her life any way she chose. And once she returned to civilization she would set about finding him.

  She’d ensnared one duke, she could surely catch another.

  Sighing again, she snuggled beneath the bedclothes and forced herself to relax, forced herself at last to sleep. But her slumber was rife with dreams…

  She sat alone in the stationary barouche, the wheels sunk deep into the mud. Without warning the carriage door was thrust open, a man’s solid form blocking the sunlight that poured inside on a heated stream. Her breath caught on a sharp gasp as he took a bold step forward and leapt inside, and another as he slid up next to her on the seat. He stretched out a long, muscled arm and locked his hand around the frame of the opposite window. She burrowed backward into the corner as he crowded her close, blocking any faint chance of escape she might have had.

  Meeting his intrepid blue eyes, she shivered, her blood humming with a mixture of fear and excitement, and yes, attraction. “What do you want?” she demanded. “My money? My jewels?”

  She knew how his voice would sound even before he spoke, deep and musical, filled with the wild rhythm of the Irish hills. She waited for it and trembled in anticipation.

  “Nay,” he whispered, the word washing over her like a sleek, silken caress. “I’ve no use for such paltry trifles when there’s far greater treasures to be had. So, what will it be, my lady, your virtue or your life?”

  Her lips parted, her breath faint. “What choice do you leave me, sir? Pray do your worst.”

  The next instant his lips took hers, plundering her mouth with a primitive sweetness that made her senses swim, her limbs turn hot and malleable as wax. He thrust his tongue beyond her teeth and let her taste him, let her very pores fill with the intoxicating scent of his skin and hair until she could no longer distinguish her flesh from his own.

  “Kiss me back, lass,” he commanded.

  And she did, losing herself in a forbidden desire that she should not want but nonetheless did. Fingers aching to touch, she threaded them into his thick brown hair and pulled him closer, urged him on to take greater liberties, this thief of the heart.

  He palmed a breast, her nipple peaking in immediate response as he stroked her with a knowing thumb. She sighed and quivered as he dropped a string of kisses along the column of her neck. Nipping her earlobe, he laved the spot with his tongue.

  “Now, do you know what I want, lass?” he asked, his breath warm and husky in her ear.

  She gently shook her head and waited, legs shifting restlessly against the aching want she needed him to assuage.

  Abruptly, he set her from him. “You, hauling your fine backside out of this coach. Here, let me help.”

  And before she could voice a protest, he yanked her up off the seat, and with a push tumbled her out of the coach into the mud. He laughed at her from where he stood inside the barouche, beating a hand against the side of the vehicle over and over and over again.

  The sound of his beating hand changed and grew louder, turning into a monotonous pounding that drew her up out of the dream.

  She groaned and squinted against the early-morning light, sleepy enough still to feel the wet mud, as well as the lingering desire, lying slick upon her skin.

  She cringed and wrinkled her face against her pillow in mortification. How could she have had such an intimate dream, and about Darragh O’Brien of all people! How could she want such a man? What trick of her mind had led her to fantasize about him when he was no more than a commoner and well beneath her notice no matter how ruggedly handsome he might be?

  Well, it was only a dream, she reasoned. Stupid and meaningless and utterly insignificant.

  The dreadful noise continued.

  For mercy sakes, what was that horrible racket? She leaned up on an elbow and peered across at the mantel clock above the fireplace.

  Seven-thirty, the hands read.

  Barbaric.

  Appalling.

  She never rose from her bed until ten, or sometimes even eleven if she’d had a particularly late evening the night before. Lord knows no sane, civilized human being would wish to wake any earlier. In her estimation people who purported to like rising with the sun needed a good physic, perhaps even a hearty bleeding to rid them of their bad humors and irrational behavior.

  Moaning in exhausted misery, she stuffed a pillow over her head and tried to block out the cacophonous thud, thud, thud that echoed in the air like the drums of the damned. For a few scant seconds, the noise ceased. Forgetting all about her ignominious dream, she dozed off with a happy grunt, only to startle awake again moments later as the vicious pounding commenced once more.

  She fought the battle of waking and sleeping for several more tortuous minutes before jerking upright on a snarled oath that would have made many a gentleman blush. Flinging back the covers, she hurried across to the windows.

  She saw nothing out of the ordinary. Grass, trees, flowers, a bird singing on one of the branches. Only she couldn’t hear his pretty warble, drowned out by the horrid, monotonous thumping.

  What was that noise? Where was that noise? It sounded like…hammering or chiseling perhaps as she caught the metallic
clang of metal striking metal.

  Adam’s apples, she inwardly cursed, have I taken up residence in a madhouse?

  She crossed to the bellpull, rang for Betsy. Obviously any further attempts to sleep would be futile.

  Her maid entered looking a bit tired herself. “Good morning, my lady. Are you awake?”

  “How could I be anything else with that infernal din going on outside? What in blazes is it, do you know?”

  “Builders, my lady. It’s my understanding that the west wing is being repaired.”

  “Repaired, you say? Hmm. You’d think they could show some courtesy and start a bit later. I shall have to speak with my cousins about this.” Jeannette sighed. “Well, since I’m up and not likely to return to sleep, I suppose you may as well help me dress.”

  “Very good, my lady,” Betsy said, dipping into a curtsey.

  Half an hour later, still weary but feeling more herself in an exquisite day dress of pale pink spotted muslin and a sweet pair of primrose-coloured slippers that she couldn’t help but admire as she walked, Jeannette made her way through the house in search of the morning room. Since this was her first day in residence and she was awake so early, she decided she would break her fast with her cousins, who she was informed dined nearly every morning around this hour.

  The house was large—though not as large as her father’s house in Surrey—and done in the Palladian style that had been all the rage during the previous century. For her part, she found the architecture rather austere, with far too many unforgiving lines. Walking past a pair of Doric columns placed for dramatic visual effect—faux painted to resemble marble, she discovered with a casual touch—she finally located the morning room.

  The infernal pounding eased slightly with the blessing of distance. Heavens, how long will it go on? she wondered.

  She found Wilda seated at a linen-draped dining table, the furniture comfortably arranged for intimate family occasions. Attired in yet another sadly unfashionable gown, her cousin resembled a quaint country matron. Her fringe of short, curly white tresses were tucked beneath a frilly mobcap and lent her a curiously poodle like appearance.