Kleypas Lisa - Capitol Theatre 2 - Because You're Mine, Kleypas Lisa
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LISA KLEYPAS
B
ECAUSE
Y
OU'RE
M
INE
Prologue
London, 1833
Autumn
“
I can't
marry him. I just can't.” Madeline's stomach churned with revulsion as she
watched Lord Clifton stroll the outside grounds with her father. She didn't realize she
had spoken aloud until her mother, Lady Matthews, replied.
“You will learn to care for Lord Clifton,” she said crisply. As always, her narrow
face wore a dour, disapproving expression. Having led her life with an attitude of self-
sacrifice that approached martyrdom, she made it clear that she expected the same of
her three daughters. She stared at Madeline with cool brown eyes, her features elegant
and pale. All the Matthews women shared the same colorless complexion except for
Madeline, who tended to blush easily.
“I expect that someday, when you have matured,” Agnes continued, “you will be
grateful that such an excellent match was arranged for you.”
Madeline nearly choked on her resentment. She felt traitorous color climbing up
her cheeks, turning them bright pink. For years she had tried to be everything her
parents required—docile, quiet, obedient—but she could no longer contain her feelings.
“Grateful!” she exclaimed bitterly. “Marrying a man older than my father—”
“Only by a year or two,” Agnes interrupted.
“—who shares none of my interests and thinks of me only as a broodmare—”
“Madeline!” Agnes exclaimed. “Such a vulgar choice of words is beneath you.”
“But it's true,” Madeline said, striving to keep her voice calm. “Lord Clifton has
two daughters from his first marriage. Everyone knows he wants sons, and I'll be
expected to produce them. I'll be buried in the country for the rest of my life, or at least
until he dies, and then I'll be too old to enjoy my freedom.”
“That is enough,” her mother said tautly. “Apparently you must be reminded of a
few facts, Madeline. It is a wife's place to share her husband's interests, not the other
way around. Certainly Lord Clifton is not to blame if he doesn't happen to enjoy
frivolous pursuits such as novel-reading or music. He is a serious man with great
political influence, and I expect you to address him with the respect he deserves. As for
his age, you will come to value his wisdom and seek his guidance in all things. That is a
woman's only course to happiness.”
Madeline twisted her fingers together and stared unhappily out the window at
Lord Clifton's bulky figure. “Perhaps it would be easier for me to accept the betrothal if
you had allowed me to have at least one season. I've never danced at a ball, or attended
a dinner party or soirée. Instead, I've had to stay at school while all my friends have
come out. Even my own sisters were presented at court—”
“They were not so fortunate as you,” Agnes replied, her back as straight as a
fireplace poker. “You will be spared all the anxiety and inconvenience of the season, as
you have already been betrothed to the most eligible and admirable man in England.”
“Those are your words for him,” Madeline said under her breath, tensing as her
father and Lord Clifton entered the room. “Not mine.”
Like any other girl of eighteen, she had fantasized about marrying a handsome,
dashing man who would fall madly in love with her. Lord Clifton was as far from those
fantasies as it was possible to get. He was a man of fifty, with a stocky build and
flapping jowls. With his deeply furrowed face, balding head, and moist, heavy lips, he
reminded Madeline of a frog.
If only Clifton had a sense of humor, a kind nature—anything that she could find
remotely endearing…but he was pompous and unimaginative. Rituals guided his life:
the entertainments of the hunt and the racetrack, the concerns of estate management, the
occasional speech at the House of Lords. Worse still, he had an unabashed disdain for
music, art, and literature, all the things that Madeline hungered for.
Seeing her from across the room, Clifton approached her with a thick-lipped
smile. The corners of his mouth gleamed with moisture. Madeline hated the way he
looked at her, as if she were a thing to be possessed. Inexperienced she might be, but
she knew he wanted her because she was young, healthy, and presumably fertile. As his
wife, she would exist in a more or less constant state of pregnancy until Clifton was
satisfied with the number of boys she had produced. He wanted nothing of her heart,
mind, or soul.
“My dear Miss Matthews,” he said in a deep, croaking voice, “you grow lovelier
every time I see you.”
He even sounded like a frog, Madeline thought, struggling to contain a slightly
hysterical laugh. His clammy hand enclosed hers, and he raised it to his lips. She closed
her eyes and steeled herself against a shiver of disgust as she felt his bloated lips brush
the back of her wrist. Mistaking her reaction as one of maidenly modesty—perhaps
even excitement—Clifton regarded her with a deepening smile.
He asked her to walk outside with him, and her objections were swiftly overcome
by her parents' enthusiastic agreement. They were determined to have a man of Clifton's
means and influence in the family. Whatever Lord Clifton wanted, he could have.
Reluctantly taking her fiancé's arm, Madeline strolled through the garden, a
formal, precise arrangement of Maythorn hedgerows, tidily sanded paths, and boxed-in
flower beds. “Enjoying your holiday from school?” Lord Clifton asked, his small but
heavy feet crunching on the gray-white path.
Madeline kept her gaze on the ground before them. “Yes, thank you, my lord.”
“No doubt you have a desire to leave the academy, as your companions have
done,” Clifton remarked. “Your parents kept you there two years longer than the other
girls, at my request.”
“Your request?” Madeline repeated, startled that he had such influence over them.
“But why—”
“I felt it would be good for you, my dear,” he said with a self-important smile.
“You needed polish and discipline. A perfect fruit must be allowed to ripen. Now you
are not so impetuous as you were then, hmm? As I intended, you have learned
patience.”
Hardly
, Madeline wanted to snap at him, but somehow she kept her lips clamped
shut. Two extra years of the rigid confinement of Mrs. All-bright's Academy for Young
Ladies had nearly driven her mad. It had allowed her rebellious, overimaginative nature
the time to ferment into something wild and unmanageable. Two years ago, she had
been too timid and easily led to have objected if her parents married her to Clifton.
Now, however, the words “patience” and “obedience” didn't belong in her vocabulary.
“I have brought something for you,” Clifton remarked. “A gift you've been
anticipating, I am certain.” He drew her to a stone bench and sat with her, his soft body
pressing against her side. Madeline waited wordlessly, finally meeting his gaze with her
own. Clifton smiled like some indulgent uncle with a mischievous niece. “It's in my
pocket,” he murmured, indicating the right side of his brown wool coat. “Why don't you
fish it out, like the clever kitten you are?”
Clifton had never spoken to her that way before. They had been carefully
chaperoned on previous occasions. “I appreciate your kindness, but it isn't necessary for
you to give me anything, my lord,” Madeline said, her hands tightly folded, fingers
knitted together.
“I insist.” He waggled his coat pocket at her. “Fetch your present, Madeline.”
Stiffly she reached into the pocket, locating a tiny circlet. Her heart thudded in a
sickening rhythm as she withdrew the object and beheld it. A small gold ring fashioned
in a braided pattern, adorned with a tiny, dark sapphire. The symbol of her future
bondage as Clifton's wife.
“It has been in my family for generations,” Lord Clifton remarked. “My mother
wore it until the day she died. Does it please you?”
“It is attractive,” Madeline said dully, loathing the object.
Taking the ring from her, Clifton pushed it onto her finger. It was far too loose,
and she had to close her hand into a fist to keep it from slipping off. “Now you may
thank me for it, my pet.” His heavy arms snaked around her, and he pulled her hard
against his short, barrelled chest. He had a foul, stale smell, like game birds hung out to
ripen for too long. Obviously Lord Clifton believed frequent baths to be an unnecessary
indulgence.
Madeline drew in a breath of suffocated misery. “Why must you refer to me as a
‘pet’ or a ‘kitten’?” she asked in a voice that trembled with defiance. “I don't like to be
called such things. I'm a woman, a
person
.”
Lord Clifton laughed, revealing large yellow teeth, and she winced from the rush
of his foul breath against her face. He squeezed her tightly as he replied. “I knew that
sooner or later you would try to challenge me…but at my age, I know all the tricks.
Here is the reward for your impertinence, my spiteful little pet—”
His blubbery lips pressed over hers, smothering and grinding her mouth in the
first kiss she had ever been given. His arms were as tight as barrel stays. Madeline held
silent and still, quivering with revulsion…using all her strength to endure his touch
without screaming or crying.
“You will find that I am a very masculine sort,” Lord Clifton said, breathing
heavily, appearing satisfied with his conquest. “I don't spout poetry or pander to
women's ridiculous notions of what they want. I do as I please, and you will learn to like
it exceedingly.” His pudgy hand stroked the side of her pale, strained face. “Lovely,” he
murmured. “Lovely. I've never seen eyes the color of yours, like amber.” His fingers
twisted in a stray wisp of her golden-brown hair, rubbing the silken strands repeatedly.
“How I look forward to the day when you'll be mine!”
Madeline set her jaw hard to keep it from trembling. She wanted to scream at
him, to tell him that she would never belong to him, but the sense of duty and
responsibility that had been instilled in her from birth kept her silent.
Clifton must have noticed her involuntary shiver. “You're getting cold,” he said in
a tone he might have used with a very small child. “Come, let us go inside before you
catch a chill.”
Relieved, she rose with alacrity and stepped with him into the parlor.
As soon as Lord and Lady Matthews saw the ring on Madeline's finger, they
erupted in smiles and congratulations—they, who made a point of never showing
enthusiasm because they considered it unrefined.
“What a generous gift,” Agnes exclaimed, her normally sallow face glowing with
pleasure. “And such an exquisite ring, Lord Clifton.”
“I think so,” he said modestly, jowls flapping with gratification.
Madeline watched with a faint, frozen smile as her father ushered Lord Clifton to
the library for a celebratory drink. As soon as they were out of hearing, she tore the ring
from her hand and flung it to the carpet.
“Madeline,” Agnes exclaimed, “retrieve that at once! I will not abide such
childish tantrums. You will wear that ring from now on—and you will take pride in it!”
“It doesn't fit,” Madeline said stonily. Remembering the feel of Clifton's wet
mouth on hers, she scrubbed her sleeve across her face until her lips and chin were raw.
“I won't marry him, Mama. I'll kill myself first.”
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