Her Enemy At The Altar

The man was as mad as he was insufferable. In a strange way Connie was grateful that he was here. She could take out all of her hurt and anger on him. At least then she would not feel so utterly despondent and powerless. ‘Do not flatter yourself, Mr Wincanton. You fire my temper, not my passions.’

‘How many times must I ask you to call me Aaron? After all the jolly conversations we have shared these last two months, surely it is time that we dropped the formalities, Connie?’

He knew perfectly well that her name was always Constance—her father disliked informality of any sort—and that she would never, ever give him permission to use it. He was also the only person in the universe who ever shortened her name to Connie. She despised his familiarity even though she quite liked the name. ‘In case it has escaped your notice, Mr Wincanton, we are mortal enemies. Have you forgotten the fact that the Stuarts and the Wincantons have been at loggerheads for nigh on three hundred years?’

‘We have? I confess I have forgotten what all of the fuss is about now. Why should we care about an argument that happened almost three hundred years ago? I would prefer to hold out an olive branch and declare a truce.’

‘Indeed. And I suppose we should simply brush under the carpet the despicable behaviour of your father, only a few years back, where he swindled mine out of land that should rightfully have been his?’

He merely brushed that away with his hand. ‘A misunderstanding, Connie. Nothing more.’

At times his irreverence did amuse her, not that she would ever let him see that. Nobody ever spoke to her like Aaron Wincanton did. No one else dared. ‘Then there is the unfortunate incident that occurred between our grandfathers. What did your foul grandfather do to mine again?’ She tapped her chin as if in deep thought. ‘Ah, yes! Now I remember. He shot him dead in a duel on Hampstead Heath.’

‘To be fair, my grandfather only did that after your grandfather seduced his wife. And it was a proper duel with rules and seconds. It is hardly my fault that your grandfather did not have the good sense to try to dodge the bullet.’

Connie waved away his warped logic. ‘Such things cannot be overlooked. If my father caught me talking to you, he would disown me. Yet here you are again, Mr Wincanton. Bothering me.’

It had been like this for the entire Season. Ever since he had returned from Waterloo, in a blaze of glory, he had sought her out. Despite the bitter and long-running feud between their two families, the Stuarts and the Wincantons had managed to co-exist in society very well by pretending that the other side simply did not exist—despite the fact that their ancestral estates were right next door to each other. They were always invited to the same functions and happily imagined the other to be invisible when in a social setting. Society understood this perfectly. Thus, there were never any public scenes and there was certainly never any attempts at conversation. It was a system that worked very well because it had been that way for centuries. Until now.

Unfortunately, Aaron Wincanton, heir to the house of Ardleigh and all-round blackguard, had no respect for tradition. It had been two months ago when he had first started to speak to her—and to her alone. It was never done openly, of course, or in front of any member of her family or his. But at every function he managed to catch her by herself at some point, no matter how much she tried to avoid it, and each time he did he would flirt a little and try and make her smile. Sometimes he would be loitering near the retiring room just as she came out, other times he would find her in an alcove or he would appear behind a potted palm or at her elbow at the refreshment table. And now he was here, in this remote library where she had sought sanctuary, and he had almost seen her cry. That was a situation Connie found the most intolerable.

Yet he merely shrugged in response, as if all of that bad blood did not matter, and then fixed her with his unusual and intense gaze. Unusual because only when you were up close could you see that his eyes were almost russet brown surrounded by a ring of dark, melted chocolate. Those eyes could be very unsettling at times, as if they saw too much. ‘Has it occurred to you, Connie, that our situation might be similar to that of the Montagues and Capulets? History might dictate that we be enemies, but apparently fate wants us to be friends—or perhaps more than friends?’

‘You are aware, Mr Wincanton, that Romeo and Juliet are fictitious and therefore not really pertinent to our situation? But as I recall, things ended very badly for both Romeo and Juliet because they did not listen to their fathers, so perhaps they should have ignored the will of fate, as you put it. The ending might have turned out very different if they had simply let things be. However, you do seem to be missing the point. Juliet welcomed Romeo’s attentions. I do not welcome yours. And in case it has escaped your notice, Mr Wincanton, I am engaged to be married and happy to be so.’

‘How can you be happy to be marrying a man who has shown more attention to Penelope Rothman this evening than he has to you?’ As soon as the words came out of his mouth Aaron regretted them. He felt even worse when he saw her frown turn into an expression of raw pain before she attempted to cover it. ‘I am sorry, Connie. That was uncalled for. I apologise unreservedly.’

‘Pay it no mind,’ she said with a shrug of bravado that did not ring quite true. ‘The Marquis of Deal has had a little too much to drink this evening and Penelope Rothman is trying to incite my jealousy, and failing. It must be quite galling for her to lose her most favoured suitor to the Ginger Amazonian.’

She looked him dead in the eye as she said this and saw him wince. He still felt guilty about calling her that, more so that the nickname had stuck. But he had been young and foolish back then and she had dented his pride. He had never meant for her to ever hear it. Or for her father to respond with such malice. It had come as quite a shock to come back from years of fighting Napoleon to see how dire the situation between their two families had become. His own father had become so obsessed with the feud that he had almost bled the estate dry in his attempts to get revenge on Connie’s father.

‘For what it is worth, I am sorry that I called you that, too.’

She gave him a regal and cold smile that did not touch her eyes and stood slowly. At her full height her face was almost level with his. The woman must be close to six feet in height, he mused, as she loomed in front of him, perhaps a little more. ‘I can assure you, Mr Wincanton, that I have never really given it a passing thought.’

Then, to the apparent and total horror of both of them, she promptly burst into tears right there in front of him.

Aaron felt like a total cad. At a loss as to what else to do with a crying woman who was evidently not usually prone to crying, he rushed towards her and pulled her into his arms. ‘There, there, Connie,’ he murmured ineffectively as she buried her face into his neck and wept noisily, ‘I genuinely am sorry for calling you an Amazonian. It was most ungentlemanly of me.’

‘I am not crying because of that, you idiot!’ Her brief flash of anger was still peppered with tears, but it did make him feel better. At least this rare and noisy display of emotion was not specifically directed at him. The poor girl was clearly upset at Deal’s callous behaviour.

‘I am sure Deal’s flirting means nothing,’ he said, not believing his own words. Deal was a shameless philanderer and one who liked to brag about his many conquests.

‘Hardly nothing. It means that he prefers her charms to mine,’ she sobbed. ‘And who can blame him? Penelope is so beautiful. Everyone says so. And I am pale and plain in comparison, with hideous freckles and my figure is as flat as a washboard. And I have all of this ghastly carrot-coloured hair.’

Clearly, he had inadvertently kicked a hornet’s nest. Aaron could feel her slim shoulders shaking as she wept and felt the most peculiar urge to hunt the Marquis of Deal down and give him a well-deserved punch on the nose. ‘For a start your hair is glorious. Your skin is not pale, as such. Think of it more as alabaster. The freckles on your nose are quite delightful. Really they are. I have never understood why freckles are considered unbecoming. And you are not as flat as a washboard. You have a lovely figure.’ He could feel the gentle flare of her hips beneath his hands and there was definitely something interesting pressed against his chest that his body was responding to—against his better judgement and his black mood. What on earth was the matter with him? This was Constance Stuart. Constance Stuart.

Connie lifted her face from his shoulder and looked at him through puffy eyes, her expression the very picture of anguish. ‘If I am so lovely, then why has he not even tried to kiss me? Answer me that. We are engaged after all.’ She looked positively distraught. ‘The man finds me repulsive. He has as good as said so.’

Further proof that Deal was a blasted idiot, Aaron realised. She felt splendid in his arms. It was nice to be able to look a woman in the eye, for once, rather than have to look down at her. Connie was a pleasant armful of woman who apparently fitted against his big body perfectly. And she had a brain. Nobody could ever claim that Constance Stuart was a dullard. Sparring with her was always one of the highlights of any ball. The sultry smell of roses tantalised his nostrils and overwhelmed his senses, giving him ideas that he had not had in a very long time. How on earth did Deal resist her? Her full mouth was all red and swollen and positively ripe for kissing. If she were his fiancée he would not be able to stop himself... Before he could think about it, Aaron dipped his head and did just that.

The moment his lips touched hers he quite forgot everything else. She sucked in a breath of surprise at his impertinence, but did not push him away, so he brushed his lips over hers again. And again. His arms wrapped around her possessively and he pulled her closer still. Initially, she stood stock still, then he felt her breath catch. But then her lips opened slightly and she sighed. When she pressed her mouth tentatively against his, Aaron lost all sense of reason and kissed her like a starving man.

* * *

Kissing Aaron Wincanton was nothing like she expected kissing to be. Not only did she feel it on her lips, but she felt it in her legs as well. They were oddly unsteady. A million tiny goose bumps appeared all over her body and every nerve ending tingled involuntarily with awareness and need. Connie did not notice the passing of time or exactly when the kiss changed into something more visceral, but one moment she was stood in his arms upset and the next she was almost reclined on the sofa, her hands fisted in his dark hair and his large, warm palm sliding over the silk of her stockings until it rested scandalously on the bare skin above her garter. It felt glorious to be wanted this way and by a man who had no interest in her dowry or her prospects.

He was kissing her.

Connie.

And she could tell by the way his breathing was ragged and how his heart hammered against his ribs that he was as lost in the kiss as she was. The feelings and sensations created by this intense passion was so unexpected, so overwhelming, that she was transported by it all to a place that she had never been and never wanted to leave. Finally, she was attractive and desirable to someone. She felt beautiful and womanly and alive.

She had not heard the library door open nor had she heard several people pile in until it was too late.

‘What the hell is going on here?’

The angry voice of the Marquis of Deal had her sitting up and pushing Aaron unceremoniously to the floor while she did her best to put her skirts to rights. Her father stared at her coldly from her fiancé’s left and a very smug-looking Penelope Rothman stood at his right.

‘This is not what it looks like,’ Connie stuttered wide-eyed and frantically glanced at Aaron for support. His face was taut as he stood up, but he said nothing as he helped her to her feet.

‘Your daughter has been compromised.’ Deal turned to her father in disgust. ‘I will not have her now.’

Her father turned back to her with something akin to hatred burning in his usually cold eyes. ‘You have disgraced our family, Constance!’

Connie felt nauseous, dizzy, the floor having been completely ripped from beneath her feet, and totally stunned. How could this be happening to her? Several other guests began to spill into the room to watch the dreadful scene unfold and she could hear more outside, shouting for others to come, too. Among their number she recognised her younger brother, Henry, and her mother. Both of their faces were pale with shock. Her mother looked close to tears. Behind them came Aaron’s father, Viscount Ardleigh, the assembled crowd parting like the Red Sea as he entered the room.

No doubt he saw his son’s dishevelled hair and the undone buttons of his coat. Connie did not want to think about how she appeared to their audience—but if it was anything like Aaron then she suspected she looked completely wanton and guilty of acting upon those urges with unbridled enthusiasm. One heavy lock of her shocking red hair hung guiltily against her cheek where he had removed the pins that held it. All around her, women were whispering behind their fans with outraged glee.

The oldest Wincanton took in the scene slowly. After an age his eyes rested upon his eldest son. ‘Well played, Aaron,’ he said with a note of pride. ‘And I thought you did not have it in you.’ Then he threw back his head and began to laugh.

Chapter Three (#ulink_ead5129a-36ec-5739-b439-e6ab730bed01)

Connie had a vague recollection of being ushered out of the ballroom. She remembered the carriage ride home with perfect clarity, though. It had been terrible. Her mother had sat in brittle, terrified silence, her brother Henry had been pale and stunned. Her father had been incandescent with rage, spitting out profanity after profanity as he railed against her with more force than usual. In the end, his rantings all boiled down to one thing: he thought her a stupid, ungrateful whore and she was dead to him. She was to pack her bags and leave in the morning and never darken his door again. Even now, several hours later, Connie still felt numb. One ridiculous and ill-conceived moment of weakness and her life was in ruins and she had absolutely no idea what she was going to do or where she was going to go.

As soon as they had returned home, a maid had been sent up to her room to help pack her things and then left her to sleep. Two trunks and a bag were now stacked in the corner of her bedchamber, but Connie had not slept. She had spent most of the night relieving the awful events and could still not understand how it had all gone so horribly wrong. But she was very clear who was responsible.

Aaron Wincanton.

He had purposefully taken advantage of her when she had been vulnerable in some petty act of revenge. The man had clearly gone out of his way to ruin her.

A maid knocked on the door timidly. ‘You are required in his lordship’s study, my lady. I am told to tell you not to dally.’

It was barely past dawn and already her father wished her gone. With a heavy heart, Connie stood and made her way downstairs. The study door was closed so she tapped upon it before entering. Her father had never appreciated being interrupted at the best of times and now was definitely not that. His voice was curter and colder than usual. ‘Enter.’

‘You wished to see me, Father?’ Connie looked down at her hands rather than see the disappointment in his eyes. Even so, his next words were brutal.

‘Do not refer to me as that again. As far as I am concerned I have no daughter.’