The Reluctant Bride Read Online Free PDF Page B

been to see her niece respectably married?
    The major carried himself ramrod straight, his eyes the only hint that he felt any emotion at all. When Emily ventured a glance beneath lowered lashes she saw they burned with some indefinable fervour she was too afraid to wonder at. His tall, well-built frame and broad shoulders made him a commanding presence. It was not a complimentary thought. Not when Emily had envisaged a domestic future with loving, easy-natured Jack by her side and a brood of lively children.
    In a toneless voice she repeated the vows that stripped her of any rights as an individual and made her the property of her husband. That she would be a conscientious wife was not in dispute. Only a fool with no mind for her future comfort and safety would offer intransigence as her part of the bargain. If her husband beat her or otherwise abused her she would have no recourse. He would be legally entitled to the fruits of their marriage – including the child she was to bear.
    Major McCartney had said he was ready to take a wife. It would seem a well-connected, financially endowed wife was, under normal circumstances, beyond his means. No wonder he considered her a bargain.
    The intoning stopped and Emily realised with mild shock she was married. She raised her face to look at him and saw his diffidence as their eyes met. Of course he should kiss her, and she would expect no less, although it would mean nothing. But the poor man looked both reluctant and quite unsure of himself. She caught a glimpse of Aunt Gemma; she who was always one for observing the niceties. And so, with a small, resigned smile, Emily raised herself on tiptoe, stiffening at the fleeting brush of the major’s lips.
    Fear of what the next few hours would bring made the hairs prickle on the surface of her skin. Here, Major McCartney was on public view. But what of the privacy of the bedroom?
    The bedroom of the Four Leaved Clover where he’d bespoken a room for the night.
    They barely talked during the slow, uncomfortable journey to the inn. Angus suspected Emily used the pretence of sleep to avoid any exchange.
    Miserably, he reflected on his failure to offer his wife the comfort she needed, even if she would let him. The carriage was a hired post-chaise with poor springs and the inn was recommended by little other than its position as a halfway point to his lodgings in Maidstone which, God forbid, were as unsuited to housing a woman like Emily as he could imagine.
    During their one brief meeting before the wedding Angus had tentatively sought his future wife’s thoughts on what she required in a dwelling. It was perhaps just as well her reaction had been lukewarm. Until he sold his commission he hadn’t the funds to lease something more commodious, and even then he’d still be pinched in the pocket.
    The carriage jolted over ruts and bumps while concerns as to what would be required in the privacy of the bedroom nagged at him. He was still discomposed by the unfamiliar stirrings of his body in response to the touch of her lips.
    The uncertainty and resignation in Emily’s wide-eyed look at the altar had affected him curiously. He’d needed every bit of willpower not to cup her cheek or reassuringly stroke the inside hollow of her bare arm. It was the fear she would misinterpret his actions that stopped him. Indeed, perhaps she had good reason to misinterpret them, he amended, feeling again the unfamiliar heat in his loins as he drank in her pure, unspoiled beauty.
    Only briefly, and then it was accidental, did his eyes drop to her swollen belly. She had been ill-used by Captain Noble.
    Well, Miss Micklen need not fear
his
brutishness. Or his feelings towards the child she had misbegotten. He was glad for it. Likely as not he would never have married had it been left to him to follow through with the niceties: a proper courtship, then a proposal. What did a scarred, taciturn soldier with no ready funds have to offer