The Best Man's Bridesmaid Read online

  “Well,” she began. Her palms were damp; the next few minutes were so important. “It’s a long story. Will you listen and hear me out? Before dinner. Because I am too nervous to eat until you have heard and commented on what I will say.” She gestured to a selection of cold food on the table next to him. “If you cannot wait until dinner,” she began, but he interrupted her.

  “I can wait for food, but am impatient for you. And I would prefer you sitting here next to me, as you tell me whatever you need to say. So, please talk, fast, before I disgrace myself.”

  She looked at his obvious arousal. She did that to him? It gave her courage.

  “First, I must go back several years. To when, as a schoolgirl, I first saw a blond Adonis escorting a lady through the park. I was with my governess. She stopped to talk to a friend, and I wandered off to try and see where the couple had gone. As it turned out, ‘twas not very far. Out of general sight, but where a twelve-year-old innocent could come across them and see just where his hands were.” She laughed. “Not anywhere I thought a gentleman could put his hands, but as the lady seemed to enjoy it, I thought it must be acceptable. Until the gentleman caught sight of me and gave me a rather large piece of his mind. A wonder I wasn’t put off beautiful blond men for life. Though it seems I wasn’t.”

  “Lucinda Hermiston,” Charlie murmured. “I remember. A scrubby little schoolgirl saw us. I had one hand up Lucinda’s skirt and one inside her bodice. That was you?”

  She nodded. “That was the first time I saw you. The next time was when I was almost due to come out. You were egging on one of your friend in a race against, I think, a goose at Lady Elms’s summer house party. I was friends with Clara Elms. I was warned against you and ‘types like him, if you want to keep your good name and reputation.’” Her voice was so like her mama’s that Charlie laughed.

  “I’m glad you didn’t take need of her warning.”

  “Oh, but I did, to all intents and purposes. When, eventually, I was allowed my season, I was the most flowerlike of all the wallflowers. Then I was instructed to accept your request for a dance. Well, two dances, one per ball if, I remember correctly. I was in heaven, although I did wonder why my mama’s attitude towards you changed. From being the one I was warned against you were now the one to be encouraged. Not that I questioned the diktat. To dance with Lord Charlie Lampson, I was enthralled. Did that mean he had a tendre for me? But then you bowed with meticulous precision and thanked me for my time, before you left me and squired one of the beauties for the waltz and supper. I immediately retired to the ‘untaken’ end of the ballroom and watched with envious eyes. When you asked me to take a drive in the park with you, I was overjoyed. So naive, for why would a regular nonesuch as you be interested in a nothing such as me?” She shook her head at her innocence. “You drove once up the row and back, addressed the merest banalities toward me, ogled the Franklin chit, and took me home.”

  Charlie stirred in his seat; he looked uneasy and somewhat ashamed. As she saw the remorse on his face, Caroline moved swiftly to sit next to him, forgetting her resolve to stay apart.

  “Charlie, do not look like that,” she implored him. “It is the way of that world. Of the ton. You were behaving as was expected of you. Even in asking for my hand. I heard them afterward. Our parents,” she elaborated. “They were congratulating themselves on having tamed you. You had left the capital to hunt and drink with your cronies. I was so confused. I knew both sets of parents were together, and I went to find them, to ask how I could be a good fiancé to you. How to get to know and understand you. For I was overjoyed that, from all the eligible young ladies available, you had chosen me. As I went to knock on the drawing room door, I overheard them talking about why you had been informed you would ask me to marry you. I believe, unless my ears deceived me, it was something to do with a married lady—or two, a jealous husband, and maybe a cuckolded one? And why I would say yes.”

  There was silence. She looked at the fire, the wall, anywhere but at him.

  “I never cuckolded anyone,” Charlie said with indignance, “or gave a slip… not to my knowledge. I was always care… Well, you know what I mean—or do you?”

  She nodded, took pity on him. “To continue, if you wish me to?” He squeezed her hand and put his arm around her. A sense of well being crept over her and she leaned into him as he nodded and kissed the tip of her nose.

  “Well, as you may imagine, all my dreams disintegrated. I saw what had happened, and I was in despair. I was a pawn, being used to safeguard your reputation and at the same time relieve my parents of one less child to marry off. No one had thought about me and my wants and desires. My feelings counted for nothing. All that was important was to remove me from the marriage mart. My sister did not take.”

  “No wonder,” Charlie remarked. “Crab faced and crotchety. Like your mother.” He realized just to whom he was talking. “Sorry”

  “No need to be sorry, ‘tis a harsh but true fact. And her temper is one to be pleased never to experience.” She kissed him in return and nuzzled his neck. “I was distraught, but then my savior, in the shape of Great-Aunt Maud’s will appeared. And something else.”

  “Peggy.” It was a statement. “And Lady Mystery.”

  Caroline looked at him. Saw the love reflected in his eyes, and at last she began to think they might just achieve all that she was striving for.

  “Mm, Peggy, and as you say, Lady Mystery. As she I was invited to be a member of La Bella Isabella and her Dancing Girls. A select few of the debutants would enjoy themselves before they settled down. I was amazed when I told you about that, I had vowed to keep it secret. But on each of our meetings, I told you more, about her. Only her,” she said and stopped speaking. “How much do you know about Amanda?” she asked as she remembered an earlier conversation.

  “Well, I was there, as you know, when she first met Harry, but very little else. He told me she picked him up after he left me, but neither you or he has ever explained why you were with Amanda or why she addressed you as Peggy.” He stopped and groaned. “Holy Hell, Peggy, my Lady Mystery, I have been so blind. Amanda—Isabella, she is La Bella Isabella. Why did I not realize earlier?”

  “You saw and heard what you wanted, no more.”

  He nodded. “So, Mystery—Peggy? Just a dancing girl? Or more? Why Peggy, when you have such a beautiful name? Do you trust me not to divulge your secrets?”

  She nodded. “With my life, my lord, or I would not have told you all I have. Peggy? We all took stage names, and Margaret is my middle name, as Isabella is Amanda’s. Why the act? Think for a moment. All girls, or young ladies of the ton. All bored. Betrothed and ignored, or on the shelf and ignored. How else were we to extend our education? And Amanda’s situation was worse than most. She knew she was to be betrothed, but not until she was five-and-twenty. Until a short time ago, she was not even aware of to whom she had been promised. So she was marking time, knowing she could not live her life to the full. I was loving my life at Chattels but supposedly affianced, albeit to a very absent fiancé. The others? Not my story to tell. I have had Amanda’s permission to divulge her part in this if I needed to.” She stood, moved to the table, and handed him the champagne to open. “All this talk has made my mouth very dry.”

  “A kiss may help.” With a dexterity born of familiarity, he deftly twisted the cork. Then, with a flourish, he filled two glasses, took a sip, and kissed her, allowing the foamy drink to spill from his mouth to hers. “Better?”

  She swallowed even as she wished it was some other liquid filling her mouth. “For now, yes,” she agreed. “Where was I? Ah, yes. So I was living here but taking part in La Bella Isabella’s entertainments. Innocent innuendo, to titillate and intrigue jaded palates. We had fun, the men had erections. I believe several mistresses and wives gave thanks to the foreplay provided by La Bella Isabella and Her Dancing Girls. As Peggy, I had enjoyed our brief interlude when you and Harry helped Amanda but knew I could not appear to you as her and
keep our secrets. After that chance meeting…” She stopped at the look of mischief on his face and felt her pulse race. “No accident?”

  Charlie shook his head. “I stopped so many coaches it was a wonder I was not taken for a highwayman.” He laughed, and Caroline giggled.

  “Oh dear, ah well, shall I say when a certain man stopped my coach, looked inside, uttered the word ‘Peggy,’ and on my denial for a moment seemed unhappy, I was determined to get to know your likes and tastes. I felt so wanton as I offered myself to you in Peggy’s stead. After that night, there was no turning back. I confess from then on I made sure I was, shall we say, available to a specific man, who I am sure lay in wait for a dark coach and enticed the occupant to enjoy games and dalliances at his accommodation. And I so enjoyed such games and dalliances, I wept for the romance and marriage I knew I would not have.”

  She gave him a smile full of sadness. So much so that Charlie could not help but hold her tighter, kiss her, play with her hair. His hands moved lower. She eyed them, and then her mood changed. Mischievously, she swatted them away. “No wandering hands,” she remarked provocatively and wriggled closer to him as she did so. “Or wandering any other part of you.” His penis began to swell against her thigh. “I discovered how to pleasure a man without taking him inside me,” she continued. “How to kiss and caress his body. How to hold him and rub him until he spilled his seed. But never did I take that final step. I swore to my gentle partner that the only man I would ever let penetrate me would be the one I loved. I did not think that my fiancé was he.”

  “But you knew I was your partner?” Charlie asked as he held her close.

  “At first no, for it was dark when we met. When I realized, well.” She shrugged. “How better get to know you. And in some ways know you I did. You did not recognize me. All you saw was someone to dally with. Why should you see anything more? My hair was bright, my complexion improved, my figure had lost its girlish roundness. You gave me so much, but also so little. In all those months, you still did not try to meet me, Caroline, your betrothed. I felt betrayed, betrayed by myself.” She shuddered. “For I heard the tittle-tattle about you and the beautiful Lady Bathurst and knew while you buried yourself in her, I would not allow you to bury yourself in me.”

  “Oh, my love, can you forgive me? She is now history.”

  Caroline nodded. “I hope you tell the good lady that, Charlie, and soon. Because to forgive you, I need to forgive myself also. I let this thing between us happen. So when Amanda decided it was time to stop, I stopped also. Plotted how I would meet you, get to know you better, and decide whether we would wed or I would stand firm and say no.”

  “The lady knows it was over once I met you again. And?” He looked at her; his anxiety showed in his clouded eyes. “I could show you, with my hands and body, how much I worship you, desire you. But that, I realize is not enough. I could come inside you, make you cry out for me, make you beg for release, but I accept that also is not enough. I could merely tell you how I feel, let you notice how my body aches for your touch. I could go further and say how I want to experience my penis filling you, stretching you, until I come inside you. See your body rounded with our child. See that child suckle at your breast as I long to suckle. But would that be enough?”

  She muttered under her breath.

  “Your pardon, I did not catch what you said.”

  “I said,” she repeated loudly, profoundly affected by his words, “that it is a good start.”

  He laughed. “But there is more, before I suit my actions to my words. I could, and do, say I love you. More than anything or anybody in the world. Except perhaps a long-haired witch called Peggy who stole my heart and kept it safe.”

  “That’ll do,” said Caroline with scant regards to grammar. “Now suit your actions to your words.”

  He did.

  Other Books by Raven McAllan

  Available from Breathless Press

  Almost Entente Cordiale

  The Baronet’s Blackout Bombshell

  The Price to Pay

  Riding Ryder

  Teaching Teacher - Coming December 2012

  Two Titles in the Freaky Flashes Anthology

  “Spin the Bottle”

  “That Special Feeling”

  The Ladies of London Series

  La Bella Isabella

  The Perfect Gift - Coming December 2012

  The Wilder Wood Series

  To Catch a Fox

  The Rogue Scandals Series

  Wallflowers Don’t Wilt

  To Please a Lady

  A Most Unusual Mistress

  In The Protectors: The Blood Bar Chronicles anthology

  To Stop a War

  Available as a Free Story:

  Ana Do You Hear Me

  BIOGRAPHY

  Raven lives in Scotland, along with her husband and their two cats—their children having flown the nest—surrounded by beautiful scenery, which inspires a lot of the settings in her books.

  She is used to sharing her life with the occasional deer, red squirrel, and lost tourist, to say nothing of the scourge of Scotland—the midge.

  Her very understanding, and long-suffering DH, is used to his questions unanswered, the dust bunnies greeting him as he walks through the door, and rescuing burned offerings from the Aga. (And passing her a glass of wine as she types furiously.)