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Authors: Jo Beverley

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BOOK: The Demon's Bride
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She waited anxiously for her father to return home so that they could discuss the matter, but his first words drove it out of her mind.
“The earl has invited himself to dine with us, Rachel. I met him in the village.”
“No!” Rachel wailed.
“My dear, why not?”
“He was here earlier and offended me grievously.”
“What did he do?”
“He offered me marriage.” At her father’s raised brows she added, “He made it perfectly clear that the offer was only made because I’m the means to keep him out of the Fleet.”
“Tut, tut. Foolish man. Peers cannot be imprisoned for debt. But I have agreed that he shall dine, and you must act the hostess with dignity. It is the only way to handle such matters.”
The Reverend Proudfoot rarely directed Rachel’s behavior, but when he did it was wisest to obey. Rachel refused to dress in something fine, however. She greeted their unwelcome guest in the same workaday high-necked gown of blue-striped jaconet that she had worn all morning.
He showed no trace of his earlier anger, and bowed with courtly elegance. “You look so charming when you glower, my intriguing Puritan. I still want you to marry me.”
“And I still refuse.”
“That seems clear enough,” said Rachel’s father, “so we have no further need to discuss the matter just now.”
“On the contrary,” Morden said, and already the anger was bubbling to the surface. “I was hoping you would make your daughter see sense.”
“Rachel has an abundance of good sense, my lord, especially in matters of right and wrong. She does not wish to marry against her inclinations. As she is too prudent to run into debt, there is no reason she should.”
The earl stared at the vicar as if he’d grown horns. “I could have you thrown out of this living for that.”
Rachel was shivering in her shoes, for she had not thought that her affairs could ruin her father.
“Perhaps so,” said Rachel’s father calmly, “but I would be a poor sort of fellow to allow you to bully my daughter for such a reason, wouldn’t I?”
Morden turned to impale Rachel with cold eyes. “You hold yourself damnably high.”
“Are you saying you hold me low?”
“Believe it as you may, Miss aptly-named Proudfoot, but there are a great many ladies in this land who would jump at the chance that you toss back in my face.”
“More fools they!”
“I will not grovel to you.” It was almost a snarl.
“I expect no man to grovel to me. Pray tell me, sir, what do you have with which to tempt me? I don’t care a snap for title and riches.”
He didn’t allow her father’s presence to deter him. “Rapture of the senses,” he said.
“That’s no reason to marry,” Rachel protested, face burning.
“It’s an excellent one. Isn’t it, vicar?”
“It’s an important part of marriage, yes,” said Rachel’s father.
Rachel stared at him. “Father! But, still ... there has to be more.”
“Assuredly.”
Rachel turned back to her arrogant suitor. “What more can you offer, my lord?”
“Oh, be damned to you for a prude and a stiff-rumped idiot! I’ll not ask you again.” He stalked out of the room.
 
 
“Good!”
Rachel shrieked after him, then sat down and burst into tears.
Her father patted her back and offered her a dry handkerchief. “It really is better this way,” he said, when her tears had subsided to sniffles.
“I know. Such a marriage would never work.”
“That is not certain.”
“He’s an unrepentant rake.”
“He is certainly reluctant to change his ways.”
“He makes me so
angry
!”
“He certainly does. See, dinner’s ready. As there is enough for three, we must address it heartily.”
“I’m not hungry.”
“You need to keep up your strength for future developments.”
“What developments? He said he’d never ask me again.”
Her father urged her into the dining room. “That doesn’t mean that he’ll give up.”
He seemed in an oddly good mood.
He was correct, though. The very next day as Rachel was returning from a visit to the new Dilbury baby, she encountered the earl on foot. She was taking a shortcut by the river, and the location was alarmingly isolated.
“Are you afraid of me at last?” he asked with an unpleasant smile.
“Why should I fear you?” But she did.
“I could deprive your father of his living.”
“That would be below contempt, my lord.”
She tried to walk past him, but he seized her arm. “Perhaps you could reform me. . . .”
“Oh, come now, Mr. Lovelace, I am no Clarissa to be taken in by that ploy.”
He flinched. “You are infuriating.”
“Only to a spoiled child who must have his way. Release me!”
“No. I must have my way.”
Rachel didn’t even resist when he drew her to him. She’d been aware from the first moment of seeing him that he would kiss her, and her blood had been singing with the wanting. If he hadn’t kissed her, she suspected that she would have dragged him in for a kiss herself.
His lips were clever, but now his hands, too, showed their skill, first at her throat, but then sliding down to her breasts. She wore only soft stays with this gown and the merest brush of his fingers seemed to start a fire of longing.
She cried out against his hot mouth and knew she was mad. Mad to surrender, mad to deny them both. . . .
Something alerted her. She opened her eyes and glimpse the three young Fletcher lads standing on the path, grinning.
She struggled free, hearing Morden hiss with anger and fearing for them, but he released her and made space for the lads to pass. Giggling, they ran on, but stopped a little way along the bank to inspect the water for fish.
Morden muttered something and moved to draw Rachel away to a more private place.
“No,” she said shakily. “I admit your power over me, but I won’t go willingly to ruin.”
“Plague take it, I want to marry you!”
“But only for money. It will not do.”
He looked at her darkly, and she sucked in a breath. “You were going to seduce me, weren’t you? Here, on the path! I suppose you think that once you’ve had your way I’d be bound to marry you.”
He maintained a bold stance, but she could see that her words had hit home. “It seems a reasonable assumption.”
“I’d rather
die
! If I think it wrong to marry you, my lord, then nothing will persuade me to. Neither threats, nor seduction!”
“Now you’re sounding just like that damned Clarissa! I suppose you would pine away from the shame of your fate.”
“Not before I’d killed you, sir!”
He suddenly laughed. “Gads, but you
are
magnificent! Are you really going to force me to make do with some simpering London miss?”
It was the hardest thing she had ever done in her life, but Rachel said, “Yes.”
And walked away.
The next she heard he had gone back to London. She knew he was off to find some other woman to marry him so he could get his hands on his inheritance. A handsome earl would have no trouble at that, so she braced herself to hear the news.
Over the next little while, Rachel wept many a bitter tear and berated herself for being a fool, but she knew that given the time over again—and the remnants of her virtue and sanity—she would have done the same. Still and all, she could hardly bear the thought of the earl’s return to the Abbey with a bride, and plotted ways to persuade her father to move on to a distant area.
 
 
On the night before Easter, Mrs. Hatcher said, “I wonder what house will have the egg this year.”
“To pick Dym’s Bride?” said Rachel, who couldn’t even summon much interest in that matter any more. “How is it done?”
“Someone has the job of choosing, but none knows who.”
“No one knows? But I suppose if it were known, there would be pressure. It must be an honor, being Dym’s Bride.”
“That it is, miss. Something to be right proud of.”
The next morning, Mrs. Hatcher came to Rachel as soon as she came downstairs. “Miss Proudfoot! You’ll never guess. The egg were on this very doorstep!” She proffered a small blue robin’s egg.
It took a moment for Rachel to understand. “Dym’s Egg? Here? But . . .”
“Yes. You’ve been chosen to be Dym’s Bride!”
Rachel felt a shock of icy horror. “No! I mean, it’s impossible. I’m not even from these parts. . . .”
“That don’t matter, miss.”
“But what if I refuse?” Images of Meggie Brewstock in the flames were dancing before Rachel, and Mrs. Hatcher appeared ghoulish.
“Nay, miss, you couldn’t spoil a tradition that’s gone on for centuries.”
The Reverend Proudfoot came in at that moment, and when he heard the news he looked very thoughtful. “But is not the Bride generally young? Rachel is twenty-four years old.”
“Nay, sir, just unmarried.”
“Perhaps we could have breakfast now, Mrs. Hatcher,” said the vicar calmly, and the housekeeper had to leave.
Rachel stared at her father. “A virgin, she means. I’m to be a sacrificial virgin! Though I fear I am not supposed to end the night that way!”
“Now, now, don’t fly into alt over this, my dear. Of course everyone assumes that you’re a maid, being the vicar’s daughter. This development is most intriguing.”
“Intriguing? It’s terrifying!”
“Come, come, Rachel. You cannot really suppose the people here would intend harm to you.”
“I don’t know what to think anymore. But it’s a Dym’s Night. . . .”
“We’re agreed that there’s nothing evil about this Dym’s Night, Rachel. Of course, you don’t have to take this role if you don’t want to, but I will be in attendance at the rites to make certain that no harm comes to you. It would be a priceless opportunity to obtain a completely accurate record of the event.”
Rachel recognized how much her father wanted that, and his calm good sense was melting her alarm.
But then her father said, “As a further safeguard, we’ll send the record of our research thus far to the bishop, and make sure that everyone here knows that we’ve done so.”
“You think they might act to keep their secrets?”
“No, no. Merely a precaution. But see, my dear, I’ll ask Sir George to attend this year. Mr. Home-Nowlan, too. They will be additional observers and representatives of reason.” He considered her anxiously. “I truly believe there’s no cause for concern, but if you think it wrong. . . .”
Rachel couldn’t resist the unspoken plea.
She put on a cheerful tone. “It will be rather exciting, Father, and after all, they say Dym’s Bride always marries within the year. I’m something of an old maid. I can’t afford to turn up my nose at that.”
But then she was assailed by the image of the only man ever to propose marriage to her, the only man to tempt her beyond reason. If she would not marry him, where would she ever find a man to her taste?
After the Easter service, Rachel found herself the center of attention. Everyone knew she’d been chosen to be Dym’s Bride, and everyone congratulated her. She thought it odd, however, that no one seemed surprised by the choice of a maiden of advanced years.
“What’s more,” she said to her father later as they assembled the records of their research to send to the bishop, “none of the other eligible women seemed jealous.”
“However the choice is made, my dear, I assume they accept it.”
Rachel tucked some sheets of paper into one of the books. “There’s something else.”
“Yes, dear?” Her father looked up from his letter to the bishop.
Rachel licked her lips. “The earl has kissed me.”
“I’m not surprised.”
“The last two times, he was stopped. . . . No, we were stopped by local people interrupting. The children might have been chance, but Mistress Hatcher . . . if we’d not been stopped. . . .”
Her father’s brows rose. “You think that perhaps the people here have been preserving your, let us say, eligibility.”
Rachel’s face was burning. “Yes.”
“While Lord Morden was trying to remove it in order to force you to the altar. What a great deal goes on in a simple country village, to be sure. Perhaps I will write a paper on the subject. But perhaps the Bride is chosen, however that is done, long before Easter.”
“I suspect
I
was, Father. I do wonder why.”
At least the days between Easter and Ascension passed quickly, for Rachel was harried with preparations for her role. There were a number of chants to learn, ones that she would have picked up naturally if she had lived here all her life, but which she had to learn by rote. This was particularly difficult as many of them were gibberish.
“Miggeth, hibby, degeth ru,” she repeated to Mrs. Hatcher one day as the housekeeper helped her cut out the bright green fabric for her Dym’s Bride robe.
“Degeleth ru,” the woman corrected.
“But what does it
mean
?” Rachel demanded.
“No one knows, miss.”
“Then what does it matter?” Rachel complained, her patience very thin.
“Maybe it don’t.”
Rachel looked at the woman across the big kitchen table and asked the question she’d avoided. “Do you think this is to be a real Dym’s Night? Given the change in the calendar?”
The woman looked up with an anxious crease above her eyes. “None knows, miss, and that’s the truth. But we must be prepared.”
“And if it is, what will happen?”
“Things’ll be better.”
“What will happen to
me
?”
“To you, miss?” The housekeeper tried to sound puzzled, but her eyes had shifted. When she said, “No doubt you’ll wed within the year,” Rachel tried to take that to mean that at least she wouldn’t end up in the bonfire.
BOOK: The Demon's Bride
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