The Claiming of the Shrew
What happens when a marriage of convenience isn’t so convenient?
Lieutenant Colonel Benedict Draven has retired from the army and spends most of his days either consulting for the Foreign Office or whiling away the hours at his club with his former comrades-in-arms. He rarely thinks about the fiery Portuguese woman he saved from an abusive marriage by wedding her himself. It was supposed to be a marriage in name only, but even five years later and a world away, he can’t seem to forget her.
Catarina Neves never forgot what it felt like to be scared, desperate, and subject to the whims of her cruel father. Thanks to a marriage of convenience and her incredible skill as a lacemaker, she’s become an independent and wealthy woman. But when she’s once again thrust into a dangerous situation, she finds herself in London and knocking on the door of the husband she hasn’t seen since those war-torn years in Portugal. Catarina tells Benedict she wants an annulment, but when he argues against it, can she trust him enough to ask for what she really needs?
Excerpt
Catarina didn’t trust the soldier
in front of her. By the same token, she had little choice but to trust him. Her
time was up. Little as she liked it, this man was her only hope.
“I beg your
pardon, miss,” he said, one eyebrow arching upward. “I don’t think I heard you
correctly.”
She jerked her
chin up. “You heard me.”
“You need a
husband,” he said slowly. He was more handsome in close proximity than he’d
appeared on horseback and from a distance. She’d chosen him not for good looks
but because he was in command. He was large and strong—a man who could stand up
to her father.
But now she saw he
was not quite so large as he’d seemed when mounted. He was probably not even
six feet. But she had not been wrong about his commanding presence. Even sitting
and at the other end of the barrel of her pistol, he appeared calm and in
control. His blue eyes, eyes that had crinkled slightly with confusion, met
hers levelly and without any concern or anger. Only his red hair seemed immune
to regulation. It jutted about his head in wild swirls and spikes. Catarina had
the urge to tamp it down with her fingers.
“I see.” He began
to stand, but she shook her head and raised the pistol higher. The soldier
lowered himself again. Slowly. “Miss—?”
When she didn’t
give her name, his expression turned exasperated, but only for a moment. “Miss,
must we have this conversation with a pistol between us?”
“Yes,” she said.
“I’d rather—”
She waved the
pistol. “I have no time to argue. I need
a husband. Please.”
“Yes, as you said.
Help me to understand. Do you mean…ah”—he ran a hand through that wild hair,
and she understood why it stuck up—“marido?”
His Portuguese accent was horrendous but she was not one to judge. She doubted
her English was much better.
“Husband. That is
what I said.”
“Did one of my
men—” He seemed to reconsider. “Has one of my men been too familiar?”
“Familiar?” She
knew the word. Unlike the rest of the people in the provincial town she’d had
the misfortune to be born into, Catarina read. She read in four languages,
including English. Familiar meant
something or someone one saw every day, such as the path to the market. These
English had only come to the area recently. They had come to fight the French,
who were now in retreat. They were not familiar. “How do you mean?” she asked.
He looked a bit
sheepish, which rather intrigued her. “Perhaps I did not make myself clear. Has
one of my men…ah…caused you trouble?”
She frowned. She’d
had to skirt his men in order to gain entry to the camp, but that had not been
much trouble. “No.”
“Has one accosted
you?”
She considered.
“Attacked?” he
said, clarifying.
“Oh! No.”
“Then perhaps one
of them visited you in the village and did not pay for—er, services rendered.”
She narrowed her
eyes. Not paid? Her father was the mayor of the village, not a merchant. And
then it struck her what the soldier meant, and she straightened indignantly.
She must have swung the pistol about as well because the man flinched and
jerked to one side.
“I am not a
prostitute.”
He held both of
his hands up. “I did not mean to imply that you were.”
“My English is not
so perfect when I talk, but I understand. You did more than imply, senhor.”
“And you, miss,
have more than tried my patience.” He stood, and even when she waved the pistol
at him, he did not take his seat again. “Go ahead and shoot me. Put me out of
my misery, I beg you, for I fail to see how any of this relates to me.” He came
around the table and stalked toward her. Had she thought he was short? He
seemed a giant in that moment as the space between them rapidly diminished. She
could not back away. If she did, he would have the upper hand. And she did have
the pistol, after all.
“Stop!” she said,
brandishing her weapon. To her surprise, he halted. “Do not come any closer.”
“Is that pistol
even loaded?” he asked.
“Yes.” But she’d
hesitated, and he’d seen it. His brows lifted with skepticism.
“Very well then,
shoot me.”
“I would rather
not, senhor. You are more valuable to
me alive.”
“You think to take
me as your prisoner? Whom do you work for? The French?” He moved closer. “I
assure you, I will never be taken alive.”
“I do not work for
anyone—French or English. And I do not wish to kill you. I need you alive so
you can marry me.”
He was close
enough to touch the pistol now, but her words had stopped him in his tracks.
“Say again?”
“Do you not
understand English? You will come with me now and be my husband.”
He stared at her
as though understanding for the first time. “You want me to marry you?”
She cursed in her
native Portuguese. Perhaps she had made the wrong choice after all. The man was
not nearly as clever as she had thought him. She closed her eyes in
frustration, and that was her mistake. The next thing she knew she was flat on
her back, her wrist imprisoned in one his hands, rendering the pistol unusable.
The soldier
straddled her, his face dark and dangerous in the shadows. She bucked and
struggled, but he simply grasped her other hand and held her in place easily.
His broad shoulders were obviously not the result of a padded uniform but
actual muscles.
“Let me go!”
“Not likely. I
think we shall begin our conversation again. This time on my terms and with
civility.”
“I was civil. I
said please.”
His mouth turned
up at one corner, and in that moment, she almost forgot she wanted him to get
off her. She would have rather he kissed her. A strange thought to enter her
mind since he was at least a dozen years older than she. But he did not seem
such an old man at the moment. He seemed strong and virile—too strong, she
thought as she tried, again and in vain, to push him off.
“Yes, you did. But
perhaps we might begin with introductions. Lieutenant Colonel Draven of the 16th
Light Dragoons. And you are?”
She did not see
the harm in telling him. She would have had to give her name during the
wedding. “Catarina Ana Marciá Neves.”
“And is that your
real name?”
“Yes.”
“Who sent you?”
He still thought
her a spy for the French. “No one. I came on my own. I told you, I need a
husband.”
His grip on her
wrist loosened. “Are you with child?”
Her instinct was
to immediately deny it, but the release of pressure from her wrists gave her
another idea. She raised her hands, ramming them into his chest. If he hadn’t
been balancing precariously above her, the push would have been completely
ineffective. Instead, it left him off balance and while he struggled to keep
from toppling back she slithered from between his legs, crawled to her knees,
and pushed off for flight.
She was back on
the floor in only one step. He’d caught her ankle and dragged her back. She
tried to kick him. He swore and grasped her about the waist, locking her arms
beneath his grip. Still kicking and fighting, he carried her across the tent
and set her down, none too gently in a chair. She tried to jump up again, but
he pinned her arms to the armrests.
“Miss Neves, what
did I say about civility?”
“Let me go!”
“Oh, no. You came into my tent. You threatened me with a pistol. Now it
is my turn for some answers.”
He dragged her,
still trapped in the chair, toward a trunk, which he then flung open. He
reached in and yanked out what appeared to be tack for a horse and used it to
bind her wrists to the chair’s arms. When he attempted to secure her ankles to
the legs of the chair, she almost landed a kick to his nose. He managed to
dodge it and grasped her leg in a firm grip. “That was unwise.”
She gasped as his
hand slid under her skirt to caress the bare flesh of her calf beneath her
dress. “Do not touch me.”
He raised a brow.
“What, no stockings?”
She tried to shake
his grip off. “And where would I acquire them? This town is still living in the
sixteenth century. I did not give you leave to touch me!”
He eyed her
warily. “Never let it be said I did not treat a woman with respect. I will
release you if you give me your word you will sit still and allow me to bind
you.”
She shook her
head. Her long, dark hair had fallen into her eyes. She must look as much a
peasant as she felt. “And when I am bound, how am I to fight you should you
take liberties?”
He nodded as
though considering the point. “Very well, I give you my word, as a gentleman, I
will not touch you.”
“You are a
gentleman?” she asked.
“I am not titled,
but my father owned land and can trace his ancestry back over four hundred
years. I am also an officer of His Majesty the King of England. I would not
behave dishonorably.”
She blew out a
breath. She knew enough of these English soldiers to know they often behaved
dishonorably. The rumor was that a girl in a village a day’s ride from here had
been accosted by a group of English soldiers, and now all the women in
Catarina’s village were to stay indoors and not go anywhere without a male
escort.
She’d disregarded
that rule entirely in coming here. And she reminded herself that she’d come
because she’d seen this officer and known instinctively that she could trust
him. It was too late to turn back. She had no choice but to trust her
instincts.
“Very well. I
agree.”
He released her
leg, and she found the removal of his touch and the warmth of his skin on hers
more of a loss than she’d expected. Perhaps her mother was right, and she was a
wanton woman who needed to marry sooner rather than later. While the soldier
tied her ankles, Catarina said a prayer to the Blessed Mother, asking for
forgiveness for enjoying the man’s touch.
When she was
bound, he stepped back, giving her space. She supposed the gesture was to make
her feel less threatened. It did not work. He was such a presence in the tent
that she could not help but feel overwhelmed by him. Even the tent, which was
larger than her little stone and tile-roofed cottage, seemed small when he
stood.
He drew the
pistol, her pistol, from his pocket
and studied it. Then he looked at her and back at the pistol. “If you have
actually fired this antique, you’re braver than I am. It must be sixty years old.”
“Eighty,” she
corrected. “It was my grandfather’s.”
“And you planned
to fire it and kill both of us?” He examined it closer then made a sound of
disgust. “No, of course you weren’t. It isn’t even loaded or primed.” He looked
up at her, his blue eyes narrowed in anger. “You’ve made quite the fool of me.”
“That was not my
intention. If I had come here with no weapon, you would not have listened.”
“Wouldn’t I? You
know me so well then?”
She only knew what
she had heard about the English soldiers. They were proud and haughty and took
what they wanted. She had seen him and thought he looked powerful enough to
serve her purposes but also fair and honest. She’d watched him for several days
and he always treated his men with dignity.
But she had never
considered asking him if he would marry her without the pistol pointed at him,.
Why would he, a powerful English soldier, want to marry her, a Portuguese
peasant? She wasn’t even beautiful—not like the pale, flaxen beauties who
resided in England. She was dark with coarse curly hair and what her mother
liked to call a strong personality.
She was not dainty or demure. She was not quiet or obedient. No wonder her
father wanted to be rid of her.
She lifted her
chin. “Very well, senhor. If I had
asked you to marry me, would you have said yes?”
“The name is
Draven. Lieutenant Colonel Draven.”
Draven. It sounded odd to her ears, but
she liked it nonetheless.
“And to answer
your question, Miss Neves, no. I am not looking for a wife at present.”
“And I am not
looking for a husband. I would not have asked you to remain my husband. I do
not even think the marriage would be considered legal in your country.”
“No doubt it
wouldn’t. You are a Catholic, I presume.”
“And you are a
heathen, but I do not hold that against you.”
To her surprise,
he laughed. His face looked younger when he laughed, even more handsome. His
cheeks reddened slightly and his eyes looked even bluer. “That is something
then. Tell me, Miss Neves, why are you in such desperate need of a husband?”
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