Alec Mackenzie's Art of Seduction (Mackenzies & McBrides #9)(66)
Alec’s eyes glimmered with mirth, he not the least ashamed that Mrs. Reynolds guessed he’d been fondling his bride.
Mrs. Reynolds said nothing until they’d wound their way through Cornhill and Leadenhall Street to Whitechapel, through that district to Mile End Road. At the turnpike gate, the coachman paid the toll, and they were through into open country.
Staying north of the river, the road took them through Middlesex toward Essex and the sea.
“Lady Flora was most astonished to receive your message,” Mrs. Reynolds said, fixing Alec with a sharp gaze once they were surrounded by farmland. “And a bit put out.”
“Livid, ye mean,” Alec said, unabashed. “She knew when she met me that I’d follow my own path.”
Mrs. Reynolds turned her sharp gaze to Celia. “You are well, my lady?”
“Of course,” Celia said. “Lord Alec has explained everything to me, including Lady Flora’s plan for him to put me into his power utterly.”
“Which he has done,” Mrs. Reynolds snapped. “Quite thoroughly, it seems.”
Alec said nothing, only gazed out the window, as though he saw no reason to justify himself.
“In a kinder way than Lady Flora had in mind,” Celia answered. “Why should Lady Flora want to see me ruined? Does she hate me so? I can’t imagine what I’ve done to earn her wrath.”
Mrs. Reynolds let out a sigh. “It’s nothing to do with you, Lady Celia. Flora—her ladyship—is distraught. I am afraid she saw you as a means to an end, that is all, and she thought that if Lord Alec made you afraid and dependent on his good will, you would be more biddable. I am sorry—truly. I tried to make her see reason, but …” She swallowed, the cool, poised woman shaken. “I am pleased Lord Alec has proved himself a gentleman.”
“I usually do,” Alec said, leaning back and closing his eyes. “I’m not the rogue Will is. To be fair, his ladies go to him most willingly—he’s a charmer, not a rake.”
Mrs. Reynolds continued to look distressed, and Celia patted her hand. She wasn’t certain what to say—how did she respond to an apology about a plan to have her seduced and abandoned? The fact that Lady Flora had nothing against Celia herself did nothing to mitigate Celia’s anger and bewilderment.
She thought of how Lady Flora had wept after the soldiers had searched her house, how pathetically she’d clung to Celia. Lady Flora had always been arrogant and haughty, and Sophia’s death and her grief had turned her ruthless and harder still. The sparkle that had drawn all society to her had become deadly lightning.
Celia wished she could explain to all of them that she wasn’t the giddy halfwit they imagined her. She’d known quite well her risk when she’d asked for Alec’s help, but she’d known her trust in him hadn’t been misplaced.
She’d grown up watching calculating men and women thrust and parry in order to rise in power or help their sons, daughters, and friends do so. There were people in her mother’s circle who—like Lady Flora—would stop at nothing to further their ambitions, no matter who they hurt in the process. Others were equally as determined but held themselves to principles that they would not compromise. Those men and women had honor, and were recognized as such.
Alec was in the second category. Celia had seen this from his affection for his daughter, his true interest in Celia’s art skills, his rage at the guests at the salon, his impatience with Lady Flora’s high-handedness, his gentleness with Celia, and his protectiveness toward her against Lady Flora and her mother.
Celia had not refused Lord Harrenton solely from a maiden’s disappointment that she’d marry an aging man. She’d seen his shallowness, his lechery, his greed—he’d even asked her father, in Celia’s hearing, whether her legacy would be turned over to him. If Lord Harrenton had been a kind and caring man, Celia might have accepted. Lord James, her mother’s next choice, had the same shallowness and lack of integrity.
Celia wanted the duchess and Lady Flora to understand that she made choices for reasons and not whims, but she supposed they never would. To them, Celia had been vulnerable and pliable, but that was over now. She was wife to a man she’d pledged her loyalty to, a man who’d earned her respect.
The road led off into farmland, and after that, marshes that ran along the river. The stink of the city fell behind, though the marshes weren’t much better—foulness from the dockyards flowed downstream to the sea.
When it grew dark, the coachman clattered into the yard of an inn, one of the coaching houses along the turnpike. Traveling at night brought many dangers, and Alec, it turned out, had already arranged accommodation along their route.
Celia shared a tiny bedchamber with him, most of it taken up by a large bed.
“A gentleman, ye ladies decided I was?” Alec asked as he skimmed out of his clothes and slid bare under the covers with her. “Ye flatter me.”
“You are.” Celia’s heart beat faster, her body moving against his of its own accord. “Whether you like it or not.”
“What I like is you, my wife,” Alec whispered, and then he loved her as the candles burned and sputtered out with the acrid odor of tallow.
In the morning, they went on, after a hearty breakfast brought up by the innkeeper’s wife. The food was plain but good, and the innkeeper’s wife flushed when Celia praised it.