Her Wicked Proposal

Chapter 3-1-1

Chapter 3

Anne Chessley stood in the entryway of her townhouse on Regent Street. Her back and neck were tense as she fought to remain poised and cool, hoping to hide her racing heart and the creeping flush in her cheeks. Had it only been yesterday that she foolishly sought out Viscount Sheridan and convinced him to propose to her?

God, please don’t let this be a mistake. What if he didn’t come? What if he changed his mind and didn’t go through with the wedding? Anne shoved the thoughts aside, though not easily.

How much difference one day can make, she thought. Since her father had passed the week before, sleep had eluded her, but last night…she’d drifted to sleep with thoughts of Cedric and that wicked kiss he’d given her. No, not given, shared. As much as it embarrassed her to admit it, she’d kissed him back.

Anne smoothed her black crepe gown over her hips and sighed. The ripples of the stiff fabric were an uncomfortable reminder of her mourning and her grief. Her father, Archibald Chessley, was dead, and she was alone in the world.

She was too logical not to be aware that part of her still denied he was dead. She had witnessed his lifeless body when she’d found him in his chair in the library, cold as marble, after a chambermaid had rushed to her bedroom to tell her he was gone.

The emptiness of her home had cut her deeply and driven her to action. She couldn’t stand the silence anymore. A part of her still expected him to emerge from his study, cigar smoke wafting from him, or to have him join her outside and offer to go riding together in Hyde Park. It had just been the two of them since she was four when her mother, Julia, had died from pneumonia.

And mere days after his death, she’d been forced to endure suitor after suitor leaving their cards on silver trays, hoping she’d give them a chance to court her. All for her blasted inheritance. If they acted this way while she was still in mourning, the fortune hunters would become more determined to compromise her, even at the risk of scandal, in order to coerce her into marriage. Such a marriage was an unimaginable fate that she needed to avoid at all costs. She could only think of one person who wouldn’t care about her money and whom she could stand to marry. Viscount Sheridan.

She smiled faintly. He was a tall, handsome gentleman with brown hair and warm brown eyes. A stubborn jaw and aquiline nose gave him a rebellious and imperious look, but his full, sensual lips revealed his humorous streak. She loved to watch him grin. His smiles always sent her pulse dancing and erased her rational thoughts.

She’d gone to him because she knew she could be honest with him, let him know the truth about why she needed to marry with haste. What she hadn’t realized until last night, when she’d returned to an empty house, was how desperate and lonely she was. No more late-night conversations by the fire with her father, no morning breakfast chatter. Just deafening silence.

She assumed that a man like Cedric would not understand her wish to marry out of loneliness and it might not engender his sympathy. Yet he was the only man she could stand the thought of marrying. They shared a surprising number of interests, and could likely make a go of it, if he went through with it.

It was why rushing to him had seemed so natural. He always had something of interest to say, even when he wasn’t trying to shock or seduce her. Being around him, she’d never felt alone.

But seeing him yesterday had been unexpectedly painful. He’d been sitting by the fountain, hands cut and bleeding, trousers and shirt dirty all along the front. It had been obvious he’d fallen shortly before she’d arrived. Seeing the blood on his hands and the almost casual way he’d forgotten about it jolted her heart. It seemed he’d grown used to falling, to getting hurt. No one should be in such constant pain that they grew accustomed to it like that.

Anne had wanted to wrap her arms about the wounded viscount’s neck and comfort him, but she resisted. They knew so little of each other, and he didn’t know her well enough to see the difference between pity and compassion. He would despise her if he thought she pitied him. She only desired to comfort a man who had been deeply hurt. She couldn’t begin to imagine what he might have endured since he’d lost his sight.

It had been ages since she’d seen him. All the balls she attended, the dinner parties, were empty without him there. He’d closeted himself up in his house and no longer participated in life. It was as though he’d given up, and something about that made her chest tighten. A man like him should be experiencing life, not closeted at home. Perhaps if they married he could find some peace and she would ease the sting of her lonely heart by keeping him company, perhaps even easing him into some activities again.

Yes, I’ll convince him to live again. Why that mattered so much, she didn’t want to consider too deeply.

So here she stood, waiting for him to arrive so they could discuss the details of their new life together. But try as she might to focus on the future, her mind kept reliving their kiss from yesterday. In all of his seductions last spring he’d never kissed her. He’d teased and hinted about it, but she’d politely rebuffed him each time. Then yesterday he’d taken control and changed her life with one fiery meeting of their mouths. After that Anne knew she would marry him. The hunger tinged with desperation in his kiss sent her spiraling with mirrored longing. It was as though something ancient and soul deep had stirred to life, and she couldn’t deny the urge to satisfy that hunger any longer.

It hadn’t been her first kiss. Her first had been taken—stolen—by a man she despised. A man who still frightened her. And he’d stolen more than just a kiss. He’d taken something that she could never reclaim. At only eighteen years old, she’d lost any right to a marriage like her friends. Any potential bridegroom would have realized she was no longer a virgin, and the scandal it created would be unbearable.

She would have to tell Cedric, but not yet. Not until after they were married. It felt wrong to conceal such an important truth from him, but she couldn’t risk losing his agreement to their union.

She’d learned firsthand that men had but one goal, to pleasure themselves, often at a woman’s expense. But Cedric’s kiss had promised something different. It had teased, then instructed and then encouraged her to seek her own pleasure from him. He’d then said that he would only marry her if she promised to respond to him like that. He wanted a willing bed partner, a willing lover.

To Anne that meant he wanted a woman who would seek her pleasure back and not expect the man to leave when he alone was satisfied. That kiss told her Cedric would be a generous lover, one who would care for her passion in return. As nervous as she was about her future wifely duties, somehow that kiss had rekindled a fire that had died when she was eighteen. That was why she had agreed to this.

Horse hooves pounded on the driveway and the clatter of carriage wheels jolted Anne out of her musings. Cedric was here. Her heart gave a traitorous flutter, and her hands trembled.

She hastened away from the door and ran up the stairs to the parlor, where she checked her appearance in the small framed looking glass. She studied her face with a frown. Her cheeks, too sallow from her grief in the past week, made her look exhausted to the point of ghoulish. With a muttered curse she pinched her cheeks, hoping to liven up her coloring. Then she smoothed her brown hair back, relieved to see the hints of gold still there when the sunlight hit it just right. Her hair made her passably pretty, as did her eyes, but she was nothing compared to the ladies she’d seen Cedric spend time with over the years. True beauties.

She sighed, her heart stinging. Then she froze.

What am I doing? He cannot even see me.

She could probably wear a cloth sack and he’d never know unless he touched her…

But he would touch her. The very thought of how he might do that made her body flush and suddenly she was a little dizzy. Taking a seat in a wingback chair in the parlor close to the front entrance, she waited. A minute or so later a footman announced Baron Lennox and Viscount Sheridan’s arrival. As she had been expecting him, she’d given the footman orders to bring them to the parlor directly.

Lord Ashton Lennox entered first, his left arm dropping from Cedric’s side as though neither man wanted her to see he’d been guiding Cedric like a child on leading strings. Anne rose at once and smiled at them as she approached. She took Cedric’s outstretched hand and without a word led him to a chair.

“I am glad to see you are in good health, Lord Lennox,” Anne remarked.

Ashton chuckled pleasantly. “Thank you. I ought to have made my apologies again for the nature of our last meeting.” Anne had to admit, Lennox was quite dashing when he wasn’t gazing at someone with that frightening intensity she so often saw him use. It was as though he was analyzing everyone and everything around him—for what purpose, she could only guess.

“I take it you have fully recovered?” Anne asked, thinking back to last December when she’d seen Ashton at Emily’s house, bleeding from a gunshot. He’d been wounded while he and Godric had been at a house of ill-repute. Given the time of day, and the happily married status of the Duke of Essex, Anne suspected there was something more behind why the men had gone to the Midnight Garden midmorning, and it had nothing to do with bedding women.

It was an awkward thing to see Lennox again after she’d seen him bare-chested. Under other circumstances that might have been considered compromising. Thankfully, they’d been at the Duke of Essex’s house and Emily wouldn’t have breathed a word to anyone about what happened. Still, Anne wasn’t going to forget seeing Ashton’s bare, muscled chest, wound or no. It made her wonder what Cedric’s bare chest would look like…

Heat crept into her cheeks. When Ashton raised a brow, she glanced away until he spoke.

“I have, thank you. May I offer my condolences on your father’s passing?” Ashton was ever the gentleman, and Anne smiled warmly at him.

“Thank you. He is greatly missed. And how are you, Lord Sheridan?” Anne turned to Cedric, who had been silently facing her. His once vibrant and warm brown eyes were blank, but the rest of his face held the nuances of his expressions. He looked intense and focused with his brows knit together. She couldn’t help but wonder what he was thinking about.

“I am well, and you?” he replied.

“Very well.” Damn, this was all too formal. But what had she expected? She had put so much effort into pushing him away the last few years that bridging that gap to form a friendship seemed almost impossible. She also feared that if she showed any warmth toward him he’d treat her motives with suspicion and not trust her when she asked for his help.

Cedric cleared his throat. “As my letter informed you, I have procured the special license and set a date at St. George’s five days hence. Is that amenable to you? I do not wish to rush you if you need time to have a gown made or…” His voice trailed off.

It was clear he had no knowledge of a woman’s requirements for a wedding. Fortunately for the both of them, she was going to wear a gown she already owned and did not desire any unnecessary amount of fanfare.

“A Saturday wedding will be lovely,” Anne assured him.

The subtle lines of tension about his mouth relaxed. “Good. That is good. Oh, I mustn’t forget. Godric has invited me to dine with him this evening, and I believe Emily will be sending you an invitation shortly. I hope you will consent to come.”