How to Lose a Bride in One Night (Forgotten Princesses #3)(3)

She faced forward and tried to calm the hammering of her pulse. Even worse than the hammering pulse at her neck was the trembling that coursed through her. Wedding night nerves. Perfectly normal, according to her sisters.

Only this trembling was the result of something else. Her stomach tightened and knotted.

In her mind, she saw it again—the look of contempt that had crossed her husband’s face when she stumbled. For a fraction of a moment the scornful expression was there. Just a flash, but she saw it nonetheless. The expression was not new. Others had looked at her with disgust in her life.

Just never him.





Chapter Two





The barge rolled slightly beneath her as she sat at the small dressing table and stared upon her reflection in the gilded mirror. Her large brown eyes gazed back at her—too big, in her opinion. They were certainly nothing like Lady Joanna’s stormy blue ones. She immediately reprimanded herself for the comparison. Bloodsworth had not chosen Lady Joanna. He had picked her, Annalise, for his bride.

They had cast off some time ago and Bloodsworth left her so she could prepare herself. Prepare herself. For some reason the words made her feel like a goose before Christmas dinner. She shook the thought aside and considered herself critically, hoping Bloodsworth—Richard—would approve.

Sighing, she fussed with one of the ribbons at her throat. She supposed the nightgown was satisfactory. By no means seductive, it was still the prettiest thing she had ever worn to bed. The fabric was the finest lawn—virginal white with several delicate, pale blue ribbons braided through the neckline and tied off in a bow at the center of her chest.

She glanced to the cabin door, wondering where her husband had disappeared to. There couldn’t be too many places to hide on the barge. That look on his face rose up in her mind, and she gnawed at the corner of her lip. She closed her eyes in a tight blink and told herself to think no more of it. She had likely imagined it—projected it upon him because of her own embarrassment for losing her footing.

Rising, she moved to the window and gazed out at the river. A soft current rippled the black surface. The moon gleamed down, leaving a ribbon of glowing white on the undulating water.

The door opened behind her, and she turned, the hem of her nightgown whispering at her ankles as her bare feet rotated on the floorboards. Bloodsworth—Richard—stood there, leaning one shoulder into the doorjamb, a glass of port in his hand. He gazed at her thoughtfully, wearing that boyish smile she adored.

She tried not to fidget beneath his perusal.

“Frightened?” he queried, taking a sip.

She shook her head. Perhaps too quickly. “A bit,” she allowed, returning his smile with a tremulous one of her own.

He pushed off the door and closed it after him with a soft and final click.

Suddenly she was aware of how alone they were. Her throat thickened and she fought to swallow. She had never been alone with a man before. The air throbbed with a strained silence around them—as though they were sealed inside a tomb, secreted away from the world.

She knew there were two members of his staff on board. His valet, to see to their needs and someone steering the vessel abovedeck, but it felt as though they were utterly alone, cast adrift in a vast sea. When he first suggested the wedding be held at his family estate followed by a night aboard their very own wedding barge, she had thought the idea romantic and thoughtful. It had only confirmed her belief that she was the luckiest of girls.

Only now, on this barge, in this cabin, floating down a dark river, she wished they had married in St. James with all the pomp and ceremony of any peer’s wedding. She longed to hear the steady pulse of Town bustling outside her window. She missed the gentle cacophony lulling her to sleep. Somehow there was comfort . . . safety in the busy clatter.

He advanced on her. She held her breath, releasing it in a soft whoosh when he stepped past her to gaze out at the river.

“Beautiful night.”

She turned to follow his gaze out the window. “Yes. It’s been an altogether lovely day. A lovely wedding.”

She felt his gaze return to her face. She held her poise, her hands clasped together before her.

“It was, was it not?” he mused. “A memory to keep. Something to . . . cherish.”

If his comment struck her as strange, she didn’t reveal it. If an even odder sense of disquiet grew in her belly, she did not reveal that, either.

“Tired?” he asked.

She nodded, and then stopped, having no wish for him to think her too wearied and resistant to the notion of sharing a bed with him.

Her gaze skimmed over him. She knew the sight of him well by now—had memorized his tall slimness, his slightly sloping shoulders, the narrow waist. For nigh on a year he had been the embodiment of all her dreams.

He set his glass down and motioned to the bed with an elegant sweep of his hand. “Shall we?”

Her pulse leapt against her throat. She nodded perhaps too briskly. With her heart beating like a drum in her chest, she moved to the bed and sat upon its edge, folding her hands in her lap. At sight of her rough, chapped fingers, she winced, wishing she could hide them within gloves. Perhaps they would soften with time and be the sort of hands more fitting of a duchess.

He approached the bed. She stared steadfastly at his legs, too nervous to look up and meet his gaze.

With one finger he lifted her chin. His gaze held hers, and he was looking at her in that considering way he sometimes did. It wasn’t unkind or disapproving. It was speculative. As though she was something alien, something not quite decipherable. Not unusual, she supposed. He probably never imagined himself marrying the likes of her.