A Bride For Windridge Hall Read online

  “All this grandness you see, which, apparently, impress you so much, would naturally become mine at my father’s death, or one would think so. However, that is not the case, Miss Thornton. My father was determined that I should marry, and eventually bring forth an heir.”

  Roderick paused to see how she was responding to his statement, then rushed on, before he lost his nerve.

  “He even forced me into a disastrous marriage when I was nineteen, which did not last long.”

  “You mean to say you are divorced? Is that your black side?”

  Emily was feeling even more hesitant at his statement.

  “No,” he said flatly. “She died, not too long after we were married.”

  “Oh…I am sorry for your loss.”

  He smiled briefly at her concern but did not tell her what he thought about Abigail’s death.

  “Anyway, after that experience, I refused to marry again. My father was so insistent, that he made it a condition of his will that I marry within six months of his death or I will not inherit. A month has gone by already. I cannot wait around for the right woman to come along because I don’t believe that there is a woman who could love a man such as myself.”

  He did not tell her he felt he could never love a woman, regardless, which he felt she was to blame.

  “Therefore, I have no other choice but to find a woman who will marry me for convenience sake alone.”

  “Are you trying to tell me that you do not feel worthy of a woman’s love?” she asked innocently.

  “It is too complicated to go into at present. Suffice it to say, the few women I have known since my unfortunate marriage, were not impressed with me as husband material. I don’t want to frighten you, Miss Thornton, it is not because I am a cruel person. I am just a person who needs my solitude. I do not have the time to be bothered with the delicacies of pleasing a wife. If you marry me, you would only have to pretend at being my wife on special occasions, where protocol demands it. Otherwise, you would be free to do as you please.”

  “Surely, any woman would be willing to marry you, for your wealth alone,” she responded.

  “If you believe that, Miss Thornton, then you would also be willing to marry me, especially since your need is so great at this time. I will make no major demands on you. I just need a wife in order to inherit.”

  “Why would your father insist on you marrying, unless he was hoping that you would also furnish the next heir?” She reasoned. “You mentioned it yourself. If you make no demands on me, how do you suppose that will happen?”

  “You are too smart, Miss Thornton. You are right, but there is plenty of time for that. I have two years to produce an heir and if we do not suit, we can always get the marriage annulled before the six-month deadline has expired. Until you feel perfectly comfortable with me, it will be a marriage in name only. If after, say, three months you cannot bring yourself to share my bed, then I shall give you an allowance for life, release you from the marriage, and look for another woman to marry me with what time is left, not that it will be easy to do.”

  He lowered his eyes.

  Emily shook her head.

  “No, no…it is out of the question. I could not possibly marry someone I scarcely know, even in name only! You are wasting what time you have left, by even approaching me.”

  Roderick’s heart started to fall. She was rejecting him yet again, and now it suddenly meant even more to him that he should persuade her to become his wife.

  “Please take pity on me, Miss Thornton. My future lies in your hands, and your future could lie in mine.”

  He winced when he said the words, thinking if she complied he would not try to destroy her, after all, as he had planned. She was his only redemption. He should reward her if she accepted his proposal.

  “Don’t be so hasty. At least think about it, before you reject the idea,” he gave one last try.

  Emily looked deeply into his eyes and she saw a hidden need there. Whether it was for her, or for what she could do for him, she wasn’t sure. He impulsively reached for her hand and her heart took a leap as his fingers grasped hers. For a brief, unsettling moment, she thought she recognized him as though she had met him before. She shook her head. If she had met him before, she couldn’t recall when.

  “Don’t turn me away, Miss Thornton,” Roderick begged as he leaned closer to her. “You have to admit that you are in more need of my wealth than anyone I can think of. Having a kindhearted father, as you claim you had, I hope you take after him by doing this favor for me. It would serve both of our purposes and I openly admit that I am quite desperate. If I do not find someone to marry me before the deadline my father set, I will lose my inheritance to my cousin. You see, Miss Thornton, I am in great need of comforting in the loss of my father, perhaps even more than you are. If you, or someone else, does not marry me, I will be left penniless and put in your position, I am afraid. You, of all people, should be able to sympathize with that.”

  “You are so desperate that you would marry anyone you chance across?”

  “I have little time to pick and choose, Miss Thornton. I have been looking for several weeks now,” he lied, “and am at my wits end! Had I been wiser, I would have prepared for this because my father did warn me of his plans to cut me out, if I did not marry. My stubborn pride kept me from bowing to his wishes as he and I were always at loggerheads, you understand. Now I am pressed and am at your mercy! It would be no different than if your father had arranged a marriage for you,” he tried to convince her. “I know you come from a respectable family. I did look into your suitability of becoming my wife, before approaching you, and felt that since you had as great a need as I have, it would sway you to consent.”

  Emily closed her eyes. This was all so unacceptable to her. She had envisioned herself falling in love and getting married. It was the reason she was almost beyond her prime for marriage. Only she had to admit, she was a little like him, not being in a position of attracting someone to ask for her hand. There were so many eligible young women who had a rich dowry to offer, unlike herself, and that narrowed the marriage market for her as well. But this…

  “You ask the impossible, Lord Winlock,” she whispered, her eyes still remaining closed. “If my father had arranged a marriage for me, I would at least be able to meet the man, long before I ever agreed to marry him.”

  Roderick looked at her lovely face as she struggled with her own thoughts. He realized the enormity of the position he would be putting her in and the look on her face tugged at his heartstrings. He suddenly wished he had time to court her, to allow her to discover the kind of person he could be. Maybe then she would not reject him and gladly accept his proposal. Maybe then he could forget about his vow to hurt her in the same way she had hurt him all those years ago. Could he forgive her of that treatment, he wondered? If she agreed to marry him, he felt he could. She looked so sweet and innocent at the moment.

  “Give me a chance to prove myself,” he whispered, and without thinking, he knelt before her and placed his lips on her cheek.

  Emily’s eyes shot open, but before she could react to this sudden change of events, she felt Lord Winlock taking her small hand in one of his strong ones. His eyes pleaded in a way that strangely touched her, somehow. The very feel of his lips on her cheek had taken her by surprise, yet seemed pleasant. She put her hand out to steady herself, intending to push him from her, but instead, she found it resting on his shoulder. Roderick placed his free arm around her waist and pulled her closer to him. Her hand naturally found its way around his neck, as he penetrated her eyes with his.

  Feeling Emily’s delicate gloved hand clinging to his neck, was almost as much of a shock to Roderick, as it was to Emily. He was sure she would have pulled her hand from his and then slapped him over the kiss. Instead, she was clinging to him for dear life and he was pulling her closer, as he knelt in front of her, causing her to slip down from the chair onto his lap.

  “Mercy!” Emily, exclaimed as her
skirts billowed around the two of them. “This is highly improper,” she insisted, struggling to get to her feet, in her embarrassment.

  Roderick could tell she was starting to weaken.

  “Certainly, not for a man who has just proposed to a woman,” he smiled, not allowing her to escape. He heard a small whimper when she realized he had her captive in his arms. Roderick chuckled softly at the flush that raced to her cheeks and felt perhaps it was now going to easy to convince her to accept his proposal. A spark of hope rose in his breast, but amid that hope, she suddenly pulled away and drew in her breath.

  “My Lord,” she breathed. “I should not be allowing this! I hardly know you!”

  “You will get to know me, Miss Thornton. I hope there will be some pleasantries we may see eye to eye on. Don’t disappoint me, Miss Thornton.”

  He placed his mouth on her cheek again.

  “Please,” she begged, pulling away.

  “Please what? Please more of this? Please stop?”

  She didn’t answer, and he pulled her even tighter into his arms daring to touch her mouth with a new kiss. He had wanted to do this from the first moment he had seen her on her 16th birthday. The sudden thought stalled him and he was the one who pulled away.

  “You must agree to marry me now,” he almost growled as he kissed her neck, running his hand down the other side of it. “If anyone entered this room, they would consider you compromised.”

  Emily’s eyes widened, and he could feel her stiffen in his arms. Her hand came solidly against his cheek in a resounding smack.

  “Certainly sir, I find this whole incident deplorable!” she gasped. “You must unhand me at once!”

  “But you have to admit that we rather suit each other, both in need and…perhaps both with a hidden deeper need,” he said honestly.

  “You know what I meant. You are taking advantage of me Lord Winlock.”

  “How much better for you to take advantage of me, and accept my offer of marriage?”

  Emily was silent. She looked up into Roderick’s dark pleading eyes. There was something familiar about him, even though she did not know him. She could not understand what had come over her to allow him to kiss her as he did. And here she was, still sprawled in Lord Winlock’s lap, clinging to his neck with one hand as his head bent down over hers.

  “You put me in a singularly impossible position. You are right. You have practically compromised me, and therefore could probably force my hand in marriage, if you wished. Only if that were the case, it would make me appear as a loose woman. Even to have allowed you to kiss me such, would support that appearance.”

  Roderick smiled.

  “You do have a point there, but no one knows of this compromise. It would merely be my word against yours,” he pointed out. “Rest assured, I would not put you in that position.”

  Just as he said the words, there was a tap on the door and then it opened. Dobbs, the butler stood staring at them. A look of surprise showed on his face and then it straightened as though nothing out of the ordinary was happening.

  “Begging your pardon sir, but your cousin…”

  He didn’t finish the sentence.

  “Well, Roderick, old man, what have we here?”

  Willard was standing in the doorway, eyebrows raised, and a pleased grin across his face.

  “Meet my intended,” Roderick shot at him. “And what the bloody hell are you doing barging in on me like this?”

  “That was fast work,” Willard commented and then his mouth fell open. “My word! If it is not the little snooty birthday girl,” he exclaimed. “I suppose this is how you intend to get even with her?”

  Emily hastily jumped out of Roderick’s lap and sat back down on the chair, her eyes wide, as she started to remember. She looked from the blond man to the dark one and then it all came flooding back to her!

  “You…you are the cousins! The ones who came to my birthday dance!”

  No wonder he knew exactly how old she was!

  “Yes, and you are the mean little-spoiled-brat that put us down as though we were not worthy to wipe your feet on!” Willard reminded her.

  “Oh…oh no! I was so rude…”

  “Yes, you were,” Roderick agreed.

  “And of course, my dear cousin here vowed to get even with you,” Willard offered.

  “Willard, that is enough! Please leave and let me finish my visit with Miss Thornton.”

  He glared at Willard with such hatred that Willard shrugged and turned from the room, closing the door.

  Emily’s hand was in front of her mouth.

  “Oh, what you must have thought of me!”

  “You were young…” Roderick offered lamely.

  “And you knew it was me! You knew it was me when you asked me here! How… how were you planning on getting even?”

  “That was a statement made by a mere boy! I was put down by you. Of course, I was angry and wanted to get even, but I never saw you again.”

  “Until now…”

  “All right, I admit it. I was planning to make you fall madly in love with me and then rebuff you in the same way you rebuffed me,” he said it jokingly, as though he really didn’t mean it. “Does that make you feel better? Only that was before I was in desperate need of a wife.”

  “That was a horrible thing for me to do…you don’t know how much I…”

  “Forget it. It was nothing. I just got my nose put out of joint. What good would it do to follow through with such a stupid plan anyway? What I truly need right now is a wife. I elect you. After all my father did sell that birthday horse to your father and…”

  “I loved that horse…” Emily said softly.

  “What happened to it?”

  “I had to sell her, like all of our belongings, to pay off my father’s debts.”

  A tear ran down Emily’s cheek as she said the words.

  “Don’t cry, Miss Thornton. Marry me and I will buy you a hundred horses!”

  “How can I, after… after the way I treated you back then? I didn’t even give you a chance to become my friend.”

  Roderick realized that she was being sincere in her statement.

  “It doesn’t matter now anyway. You are already compromised. Both the butler and Willard are witnesses. You have to marry me now!”

  “You did this on purpose! You must have known your cousin was going to stop by! This is your revenge! You may not believe me but the only reason I was rude to you back then was because I had taken a wager. I was going to apologize to you but I never saw you again.”

  “Funny how life works out,” Roderick mused.

  “You can’t possibly want me to marry you now! You’ve had your revenge. You have spoiled me from marrying anyone else if you decide to spread rumors about me. Isn’t that what you planned in the first place? Now your cousin will go out and begin to spread those rumors, and you both will be satisfied!”

  “If I still wanted my revenge, maybe what you say would be true. Now you have no choice if Willard spreads word of me compromising you, just to get my goat. He and I have never been very close. He may do it to get back at you for your treatment of both of us on your birthday and to get at me for kicking him out of my house when my wife died. We are not the best of friends, you know. It would ruin you and me both if he spread nasty stories about us. I wouldn’t be able to find a wife once I am considered to be a womanizer, on top of everything else. To add to it, no one would ask for your hand if they thought you had been compromised. After all, you were sitting on my lap, not just merely kissing me! If I don’t get married, Willard will get everything that is mine. So he will try his damnedest to smear me, right along with you! Unless it backfires on him, and I force you to marry me because of the compromise.”

  “Oh!” Emily practically shrieked.

  “The kissing was nice, though, you have to admit…”

  At that statement, Emily slapped him again.

  “How dare you try to use me so!”

  “I su
ppose I deserved that! I wasn’t trying to use you, well not in the way you think anyway. But I do want you to marry me. Listen, Willard will never spread such a tale because it would force us to marry. The last thing Willard wants me to do is to get married. If I do, he loses the inheritance as well.

  “Why don’t we try becoming friends…something you refused me several years ago. I will accept your apology and as long as we are seeing each other, Willard will keep his mouth shut and try to figure out another way to separate us or keep me from marrying you. I will court you if that will make you feel better about it, and then once you learn to trust me, I will ask you again.”

  Roderick had suddenly decided it was not worth trying to get even with Emily for her rude treatment of him at her birthday party. Maybe she had been telling the truth and it had only been a wager that caused her to treat him rude. He now remembered how soft her lips felt against his and wondered if perhaps he had fallen in love with her, at-first-sight, all those years ago?

  “Just give it a chance to grow naturally, Miss Thornton. I still have five months to go before my deadline of finding a wife.”

  “But if I refuse you…”

  He put his finger over her mouth.

  “I’m hoping you will not refuse me,” he said softly, and he grasped her hands, pulling her forward, back into his arms, and planted his mouth on hers once again.

  For a moment they were both lost in the kiss. Something about him made Emily comply in a way she had not expected. He pulled his mouth away after he felt her complying willingly to his advances.

  “Let me call on you tonight, and we will discuss the details of our arrangement,” he pleaded.

  “It will be against my better judgment, Lord Winlock,” she whispered against his lips.

  “Call me Roderick,” he told her, as he consumed her mouth once again.

  “Roderick?” she asked beneath his kiss.

  “Yes?”

  “I think it is best if you return me home before I am compromised beyond redemption.”