Continuing his forward velocity, Gervase rolled off the bed and onto his feet, glad that he hadn’t removed his drawers. He was at enough of a disadvantage without being stark naked as well. The pistol was an expensive weapon, elegant and deadly, the sort carried by a gentleman in London’s meaner streets. An odd choice for a Hebridean madman. Gervase hurled it across the bedchamber to a corner where it would threaten no more.
Hamilton had lost none of his self-possession, even disarmed and with his victim upright and able to look him in the eye. In his harsh, panting voice he said, “Ye’ll not get away from me that easily. You’ve compromised my daughter and there are witnesses to prove it. She’s yours.”
Gervase would have given half his inheritance to have a clear head. Glancing at the landlord in the doorway, he said tightly, “For God’s sake, get this madman away from me. I don’t know what kind of rig he’s running, but I’ll have none of it.”
Hamilton said with mad cheer, “Aye, Hayes, come in. You and your wife can be witnesses to the marriage.”
The landlord and his wife had been out in the hall, but they stepped in now, their faces stiff and wretched over the disaster befalling their inn. More figures hovered back in the passage, prudently keeping their distance.
Gervase drew a deep breath, then said in his most aristocratic voice, “We can talk about this in the morning. I can’t marry the girl in the middle of the night.”
“Oh, no, my pretty lad, it will be now.” The wild eyes were implacable, and carried a mesmerizing air of conviction. Money may have been the motive behind this charade, but the cleric had convinced himself of the virtue of his cause. Perhaps he thought persecuting the ungodly was his duty, or that this was a profitable way to dispose of a daughter he clearly despised.
“If it’s money you want for the injury to your darling daughter’s nerves, I’ll pay it,” Gervase snapped. Much as he loathed being compelled, giving in to blackmail might be the better part of wisdom.
“Keep your filthy money.” Hamilton sneered. “Nothing less than your name will redeem your wickedness.” The gaunt face grimaced with vicious satisfaction. “Ye couldn’t marry her so soon in England, where the established church is just another name for the Whore of Rome, but this is Scotland. No banns, no archbishop’s license required. These God-fearing people know me, and they’ll stand witness. They know how hard I’ve tried to keep her pure. They know it’s not my fault I’ve failed.”
The nightmare was worsening. The ease of getting married in Scotland had made Gretna Green, the southernmost corner of the country, the destination of eloping couples for years. By ancient tradition, a man and woman could wed with a simple declaration in the presence of witnesses, so a ceremony performed by a legitimate clergyman would surely be valid.
But beyond the legal questions was a devastating realization that tightened the sick knot in Gervase’s stomach. A clergyman was by definition a gentleman, and the nubile daughters of the upper classes were sacrosanct. No matter that it was entrapment, Gervase had been caught in bed with the girl, and by the code of his class, there could be only one honorable solution.
In the struggle between confusion, fury, and his own inflexible sense of duty, duty won.
The details of the ceremony were never clear in Gervase’s mind. Holding a candle, Hamilton recited the words of the marriage rite from memory, pausing only long enough to ascertain the groom’s name before beginning. The bride stayed in the bed, held fast by modesty or hysteria, while Gervase stood a dozen feet away, taut and bare-chested, his back to the wall.
Mary Hamilton mumbled the responses in a halting, almost inaudible voice. The landlord and his wife shifted uneasily in the background, wanting the sordid business done and forgotten before it ruined the good name of their house.
After the ceremony Hamilton produced pen, ink, and wedding lines so speedily that it confirmed Gervase’s furious conviction that he had been entrapped, a rich pigeon for the plucking. As he withdrew, the vicar’s eyes glittered with triumph. “I wish you joy of the slut, Brandelin.” He licked his lips with his pointed tongue; then, with a last satisfied chuckle, he was gone.
Before the door closed, Gervase snapped to Hayes, “Get my man up and tell him to prepare the horses and baggage. We’re leaving within the hour.”
The landlord stared as if the order confirmed that Gervase was the madman, but nodded obediently before he scuttled away. Then the door closed and Gervase was alone with his bride.
With angry deliberation he turned the key in the lock, as he should have done when he first came in. If he’d had enough sense to do that, perhaps this whole bloody-minded farce could have been avoided. The only light was from the lamp he had brought up earlier, the guttering flame testifying that it was almost out of oil.
He stood over his bride and studied her with cold-blooded contempt. The nondescript figure was turned away, the blanket pulled armor-tight against her. Grabbing her shoulder, he pulled the girl around to face him, exposing a pinched face swollen and blotched with tears. Hardly surprising that her father had married her off the way he had; no one else would ever want her. Only a man as obsessed with sex and sin as Hamilton could imagine that this unappealing waif would attract men’s admiration.
Gervase had been played for a fool, and this little bitch had been a party to it or she wouldn’t have been in his room. How many other beds had she slithered into during her career in extortion? How many times had she screamed with outraged virtue? Her act was well polished, and her father’s was downright inspired.
Gervase was doubtless the richest prey to come their way, so he had been awarded the dubious honor of marrying her. Unless this scene had been played identically, before, and little Mary Hamilton was a bigamist?
The line between anger and passion can be very thin. As he gazed at the girl, Gervase’s fury rekindled the appetite that had been suppressed during the bizarre wedding. The whiskey he’d drunk blurred any inconsistencies in his logic while it hardened his desire. He said harshly, “Well, Mary Hamilton, you wanted a rich husband and you’ve got one. Unless you’re a bigamist, someday you’ll be the Viscountess St. Aubyn. Was it worth this sordid little game? Or were you just doing your father’s bidding?”
The dark eyes watched him warily from behind the veiled hair but she said nothing. Her silence infuriated him as much as anything else this ghastly night, and Gervase ripped the blanket away, exposing the thin, shift-clad body. She gasped and reached vainly for the bedclothes, and he grabbed her wrist, feeling his wife’s sparrow-delicate bones under his fingers.
It was hard to believe that a girl so young could behave with such duplicity, but she made no attempt to deny the charges, and the flickering light revealed a smirk behind her tangled hair. Her smugness fanned his outrage and contempt, and in a soft menacing voice he said, “Oh, no, my lady, it’s too late to play the innocent. You have what you wanted, and a good deal more. You already know how to be a whore. Now I’ll show you what it means to be a wife.”
The girl shrank back, her eyes wide and dark, but made no real effort to escape as he joined her on the high bed. Releasing her wrist, Gervase rolled over and covered her slight body with his own hard, muscular frame, pinning her against the mattress while he pulled up her shift.
Her figure was scarcely more than a child’s, quite unlike the lushly feminine type he preferred, but in his present mood of mindless fury Gervase didn’t care. She was female, and he was in the mood to take the traditional revenge for a woman’s treachery. The bitch would pay for what she and her father had done. She was, after all, his wife, and just this once he would claim a husband’s rights.
At first she was passive, her legs separating easily, the thin body shifting beneath him as she gasped words too muffled for him to understand. Perhaps she was excited. Gervase neither knew nor cared; he had never had less interest in pleasing a partner. All his anger was concentrated into vengeful lust, and with one hard thrust he forced his way inside her.
Her dry, tight passage resisted, and penetration hurt him, but his pain was minor compared to hers. Mary Hamilton jerked violently and screamed, her shrill anguish assaulting his ears from mere inches away.
He clamped one hand over her mouth to stop the outcry, his rage pierced by a horrified realization of what was happening. Her teeth tore at his hand, but it was too late to cease what he had begun. His body was out of control and in a dozen furious strokes he finished.
As his seed spilled into her, his anger splintered and dissolved. Gervase had never before had sex with a virgin, but he knew enough to recognize what he had done. There was blood on him as he withdrew, and he was sickened by the knowledge that whatever Mary Hamilton’s other crimes might be, she had never before lain with a man.
