Page 7 of The Earl and the Wedding Crasher
As the servants left, Louisa screwed up her nerves as hard as she could as she could see her husband readying himself to leave the room. "Lord St Vincent, please wait a moment."
Oh dear. Now he was waiting. And looked at her expectantly. Why did she want him to do that? Her knees quivered and she could feel her heart pounding under her uncomfortable gown as she forced herself to straighten her spine and meet his gaze head on. "Why?"
She could see that she had taken him aback. "Why? Why what?"
"Why did you marry me?" now it was said, there were a hundred more questions tumbling from her lips and she couldn't stop them. "I understand that I - ruined myself - but you didn't have to marry me because of it! I would have managed but instead you went through with it and you seem to care so little about having changed one bride for another! Don't you care about Lady Bettie? Or about the fact that I have separated you from her forever?"
She had more questions, so many from 'do you even want to be married to me' to 'was that really the same wedding cake' but she was stopped in her tracks by Cedric laughing.
Oh it was not a humorous laugh. It was dark and cold and dry. She stared at him in horror, nothing that they had been speaking about was even slightly a laughing matter, surely!
"Ah, Louisa," he said softly, stepping towards her, so close that she could feel the warmth of his body heat against her. One of his hands brushed close, so close to her cheek and then caught a curl that had escaped the hairstyle that Evelina had tamed her hair into and tucked it behind her ear. "You are still so naive. Did you think I was in love with Lady Bettie? That it was a romance between us? No. Nothing has changed for me here." He let his hand drop, his blue eyes boring into her own. "All I wanted was a bride of convenience and you were just as convenient as she was."
For a long moment Louisa said nothing, looking back at him, her lips pursed a little in thought. So this was how it would be. No rushing romance, and well maybe she had never particularly expected one, but the hope had always been there until now. No love or fondness. Nothing real.
Years of dreaming of a life that was more like one of her books where she could be daring and seen and beloved and this was what she was to be trapped in?
A marriage of convenience to a man who wanted a filler for a position with no emotion, no passion, no interest even. Shecould be exchanged tomorrow for another complete stranger and he would not care.
"Are you disappointed?" Cedric asked, tilting his head with one eyebrow raising in that charming but infuriating way that it had before his first wedding when he had refused to really listen to her. "Did you expect more from this union?"
Oh what an arrogant man her husband was. Louisa wished she had a pin to prick him with so she could see him deflate of all his puffed up self-satisfaction. What was he, irresistible?
"No," she scoffed, tilting her head back daringly. "I have never cared for romance. Marriage is a partnership, much more like a business arrangement than anything else. That is the best way for it to work." How dare he act as though he could demand her affection or her admiration when he would never offer her anything of the same back? Was this who Cedric Pembroke truly was? A man of ego and confidence who expected every young lady to fall at his feet but saw them as nothing but props to move about his life as he saw fit?
Well. She would not let him see her pain. He would never know from her how much she had wanted more. She would not allow him that satisfaction.
"Ah!" he was surprised, but he smiled a little as though this pleased him as well. "Well, that is good. I am glad we will be able to work together."
"Wait, why did you need a bride of convenience?" Louisa blurted. If he needed a woman to run all of this then she would not be particularly helpful to him.
Cedric frowned a little. "My niece and nephew have come to live with me. I need someone to assist with raising them as I have no experience with children. I intend them to have the best of everything, including a countess of the estate."
"Oh that is simple!" Louisa exclaimed, a little relieved. She had always known she would be a good mother, and she had plenty of experience helping Evelina and Margaret with the children. At least it was not mathematics, she detested mathematics with her whole soul. "Well then, my lord. I will take my leave of you."
She was already turning, desperate to escape him and all the tender, half-formed dreams he had murdered when a hand closed around her arm and she was turned around to find herself nearly in the arms of her new husband.
"I never thanked you," he said very lowly. "For helping me."
A blush raced up her cheeks, the heat in her face familiar now. "It was the right thing to do," she murmured.
Her gaze had dropped to the floor and she gasped a little when Cedric took her chin with one finger and raised her eyes to match his own. It felt like a moment of electricity moved between them, something as charged as the air before a rainstorm.
"I will not forget it," he said. "You are my Countess and I will provide you with anything you should want or need. Do you understand me?"
Louisa could hardly breathe. The silence felt suffocating but how was she meant to speak? Cedric kept looking at her, searching her eyes.
"Do you?" he said again.
She nodded jerkily, mouth dry and he smiled a little. Before she knew it, he was leaving the room and she was searching for a chair to collapse onto. He made her feel so many strange things!
CHAPTER FOUR
"Are we meeting in the nursery?"
"My lady, no," Mrs. Brooks already had the tone of voice that at least three governesses had developed in the past when trying to instruct Louisa, a sort of 'if I talk at this poor creature long enough and firmly enough eventually I willmoldher' attitude that Louisa had always rather resented. "You will be introduced to the young master and mistress in the drawing room, as is proper. I have ensured that they are dressed for the occasion."
Louisa had no doubt about that. Mrs. Brooks was clearly a very competent housekeeper, and one who had very firm views of what was proper.
