Married in Haste by Cathy Maxwell Page A

remembering how they felt upon hers. And she couldn’t help but notice how his breeches outlined muscular thighs. Even watching him drive offered no peace. His light touch on the reins reminded her of the way he’d guided and pressed her to his will.
    As he turned the horses toward home, she felt a wild impulse to confess the truth. To let him know she wasn’t a grand heiress, that she was a fraud. Yet the words could not leave her throat because such a confession would destroy the brother she loved.
    At last, he escorted her to her doorstep. She faced him. “Thank you for the ride, my lord.”
    He pulled off one leather driving glove. “Do you not think it is time to call me by my given name?”

    “I—ah—”
    “Brenn.”
    “What?”
    He smiled, his teeth even and white. “Brenn. That’s my name.”
    She nodded, dutifully repeating, “Brenn.”
    He backed down the steps. “I’ll see you this evening. Lady Ottley sent me an invitation to her musicale.
    My social standing is rising.”
    “You may not thank me after you hear one of her sopranos.”
    He laughed, the sound easy, and she felt a bit more at ease. “I will see you later, Tess.”
    She liked the sound of her name on his lips. It almost sounded different than she’d ever heard it before.
    Behind her, Nestor held open the door, but she waited, watching Brenn’s tall figure walk toward his stamping horses. I’ll make a good wife to you, she promised him silently.
    As if he’d heard, he turned before climbing up into the carriage and saluted her with one finger to the brim of his hat. With a snap of the reins, he was off.
    Turning, Tess hurried inside, anxious to dress for the musicale. She had to talk to Leah.
    Chapter Five
    “Men have sticks,” Leah imported to them in a low voice that no one could have overheard above the warbling of Signora Luiguisi, Lady Ottley’s Italian soprano.
    The three young women sat on the far left side of the assembled guests, close to a bank of potted palm trees. Everyone else in the crowded room appeared entranced by the singer’s vocal gymnastics—and to the casual observer Tess and the others gave the impression of attentiveness. They had all perfected the art of appearing to listen without actually doing so.
    However, this piece of intelligence was too shocking.
    “Sticks?” Tess exclaimed, just as the signora paused for breath. In spite of her having whispered, the word seemed to reverberate with a life of its own.
    Heads turned in her direction. Lady Ottley half-stood, searching for the source of the interruption. Tess pretended to be looking for the nuisance too, although she did shoot a glance over her shoulder at Lord Merton—no, Brenn, she mentally corrected herself—to see if he had noticed.
    He stood in the back of the room and if he’d heard her interruption, he gave no indication but appeared to be listening intently to the aria.
    Anne jostled Tess with her elbow in a silent warning to keep her wits about her. Leah leaned closer.
    “Does it bother you that he is lame?”
    “I rarely notice,” Tess said from the side of her mouth, a fact which was startling, but true. The only time she’d been aware that he’d limped had been their initial meeting. On the terrace last night or even this afternoon, she hadn’t given it a thought.

    “It would bother me,” Leah said with a slight shiver. “I don’t know if I would want to see him with his clothes off.”
    Her words made Tess’s stomach do a little flip. Over dinner, with Brenn sitting across from her, she’d had just the opposite thought.
    Interesting that out of all the men of her acquaintance, he was the first one to make her wonder about taking off clothes. “Tell me more about the stick.”
    A young matron behind them rapped Tess’s shoulder with her fan and gave them a “shush.”
    “Afterward, in the retiring room,” Leah whispered.
    Anne gave Tess an impatient nudge. “What did she say?”
    “Later. In the retiring