Chapter Fourteen

A s Bernadette ventured off into the perplexing crowd of ladies – who Alden was increasingly certain were questioning their mothers' wisdom in accepting an invitation to vie for the hand of a zookeeper – Alden took the fire skink into the terrarium to prepare for the lecture.

Part of him found Bernadette's plan of educating the fear of reptiles out of the young ladies to be brilliant. Understanding often alleviated fear, and he was certain that if he adjusted the intended topics of the tour so that he could impress upon his guests how harmless and fascinating the majority of his specimens were, the small outbursts of panic that had marred his party so far would end.

The other part of him simply had a headache.

Alden had never minded large groups of people. Indeed, he had enjoyed parties and festivities of all sorts, from elaborate London balls to tribal celebrations in the Amazon. But having his home invaded by dozens of ladies who would never have come anywhere near Lyndhurst Grove without the promise of marriage to a wealthy man to goad them was more of a trial than a delight.

His only consolation was that, just as he reached for the handle of the door that would let him into the terrarium, he spotted Lady Gladys on the other side of the garden, searching the area with a frown of irritation. She was searching for him, he was certain, which made slipping discreetly into the terrarium a sort of victory.

That feeling as if he'd gotten away with something was snapped when Waldorf's voice demanded, "Why are you sneaking about your own estate?"

Alden jumped and turned to his cousin. As soon as he realized he was not about to be accosted by a matchmaking mama, or hounded by someone demanding he explain why he was tormenting half the ton with snakes, he relaxed. "Why are you lurking in my terrarium when you should be outside, helping me organize my guests?" he asked in return.

Waldorf smirked. "Is that not why you hired the beguiling Lady Bernadette?"

Just the mention of Bernadette tugged at Alden's insides with equal parts excitement and frustration. He delayed answering by crossing to a low-hanging branch of one of the terrarium's trees and depositing the skink where it could run off and find a place to nap.

"I hired Bernadette to make my life easier," he told Waldorf. "She has done that to the full extent of her capability, but as you well know, she cannot complete the job the way both of us would have her do."

Waldorf huffed and shook his head with a smirk. "That is more of an answer than I was searching for, but since it is apparent you can think of nothing else but the one woman you cannot have while bobbing around a sea of ladies who would gladly accept your offer of marriage, I'll accept it."

Alden frowned at his cousin. "Is there another reason you're here, or have you just come to poke fun at my misery."

Waldorf waved his hand and closed the distance between the two of them. "I have every confidence that you and your sweet assistant will discover a way to have what you want. I am here to support you in whatever course of action you choose to pursue in order to achieve that."

He paused when he reached Alden and brushed a hand over his ridiculous whiskers. "I am also here on crown business."

"On crown business?" Alden arched one eyebrow suspiciously.

"Why have you abandoned your guests at such an early hour?" Waldorf asked, as if their exchange about Waldorf's reasons for being there had never been mentioned.

Alden eyed his cousin for a long moment before giving up any hope of discovering the first thing about what Waldorf was up to. "Bernadette has suggested I lead an informational tour of the terrarium. She feels that by educating the young ladies as to the inhabitants of my collection, they will no longer be wary of them."

Waldorf snorted. "And do you think that will actually transpire?"

"No," Alden admitted with a helpless gesture. "But what other course of action do I have? I need to marry to avert the curse."

Waldorf snorted. "You see? That is your problem. Yours and Cedric's. You believe in that ridiculous curse."

Alden's brow flew up. "You do not?"

"No," Waldorf said, as if the idea were ridiculous. "It is a farcical concoction, made up by Father to force those of us who have no wish to engage in the institution into marriage."

"I have every wish to marry," Alden said, his voice still filled with astonishment that his cousin didn't believe in the curse. "But I want to marry the woman I want to marry."

"Then call this travesty of a ball off," Waldorf said, gesturing through the glass side of the terrarium to where Alden's guests could be seen as watery blobs of color through the condensation that had gathered. "Take time to investigate Lady Bernadette's prior marriage and to find a way to undo it. Do not waste your time on silly girls who carry cats around in baskets."

Alden arched one eyebrow at the oddly specific statement. He did not have time to ask Waldorf just how acquainted he was with Bernadette's friend, Lady Katherine, however. The colorful blobs had gathered near one of the terrarium's doors, and moments later, Bernadette opened the door, letting a cluster of terrified, shivering young ladies in.

"Do not be afraid," Bernadette said as she shepherded the potential brides into the humid room. It was somewhat noisy at the moment as well, as the parrots and other birds that made the room their home, along with the snakes, frogs, lizards, and crocodiles, were awake and showing off. "I can assure you that nearly everything in the terrarium is entirely harmless."

" Nearly everything?" a small but buxom woman with mousey brown hair asked in a squeak.

Bernadette must have pretended not to hear the woman, lest she be forced to give an honest answer. She met Alden's eyes across the room and smiled with unchecked affection.

Bernadette's smile made Alden feel as though he could do anything, even endure an afternoon entertaining women he was supposed to marry instead of her. But as he took a step toward her, eager to begin the tour, if only for her sake, Waldorf reached out a hand to stop him.

"Whatever you do," Waldorf said in a low voice, his thick whiskers making his frown seem severe, "do not make any hasty decisions. Father isn't shuffling off his mortal coil anytime soon. You may still have a chance to win the woman you want."

Alden wanted that to be true more than anything. Perhaps it was. But his grand scheme for a ball to choose a bride was already underway, and he had guests to entertain. He nodded to Waldorf, then set off across the terrarium to greet Bernadette and the tightly packed cluster of eight young, eligible ladies.

"I am so glad that you all chose to join me here in the heart of my home," he told the ladies, clasping his hands together in front of him.

"Mama forced me to come," Lady Wendine murmured from near the back of the pack.

Alden forced his smile to stay in place and pretended not to hear the comment. From the look of things, he was reasonably certain every one of the young ladies' mamas had forced her to come. The only woman who looked glad to be there was Bernadette.

"I am glad that you are here regardless," Alden said. "There are so many wonderful creatures in the world, but so many of them are grievously misunderstood. Take the common iguana, like Egbert here."

Egbert had graciously come forward, skittering up the table near where the party stood and flicking his tongue at Bernadette, as if telling her he'd like to be picked up, thank you very much.

"Yes, Egbert," Bernadette said, assisting him in the best way she could. She crossed to the table and reached for Egbert, letting him climb quickly up her arm to nestle on her shoulder, against her neck. "He's really quite friendly, just like a housecat."

The young ladies squealed and grimaced.

"Egbert is a knight anole from the region of the Caribbean," Alden explained. "He enjoys sunning himself on branches and blending in with native flora, as well as eating insects. As you can see, his coloring is quite striking. We do not have creatures of that shade of green here in Britannia, I can assure you."

The young ladies didn't look at all impressed, but they held their ground as Bernadette reassured them, "He's really entirely harmless. So are many of his cousins."

Alden smiled at her attempted reassurance and went straight into, "Yes. For example, over here we have a delightful black and white Argentinian tegu, which is among the largest lizard species of its genus."

Slowly, reluctantly, the timid pack of young ladies followed Alden onto the path that wound through the terrarium as he began his lecture. He was delighted that all but one of the young ladies came close enough to have a look at the tegu. One, however, almost came close enough before losing her nerve and turning to run for the door.

He lost two more of the young ladies in the middle of his explanation of non-venomous snakes when he found a two-meter-long black-tailed cribo sunning itself farther down the path and picked it up in the middle of his explanation of their natural habitat. The moment he'd held the snake out, offering to let the ladies touch it so that they might see snakes were not slimy, as they were so often portrayed to be, the two ladies bolted.

"Not everything in the wilds of the Amazon or the central regions of the Americas are slithery and terrifying," he explained as they moved even farther down the path. "Take Nimrod here. Nimrod is a chaco tortoise from Argentina. He is also known as a Patagonian tortoise or a southern wood tortoise, he eats a diet of vegetation, and may have a lifespan of twenty years. Many tortoise species live far longer than that, up to two hundred years or more."

That seemed to pique the interest of a few of the remaining ladies. Lady Wendine, for example, was willing to stoop so that she might pet Nimrod. But when one of the other ladies came close, Nimrod slowly opened his mouth, then snapped at her, and she backed away, squealing, then turned to run.

"He's quite sweet," Bernadette said, stepping forward to caress Nimrod's shell, as if to encourage the other ladies. "Aren't you, Nimrod?"

Nimrod turned his head to her, and Alden could have sworn the tortoise smiled.

"Oh! And over here, we have a cousin of Nimrod's," Alden went on, jumping to the side of the stream flowing through the room. "This lovely lady is Nancy, a Dunn's mud turtle, from the family Kinosternidae ."

As he leaned over to fetch Nancy from the muddy bank of the stream, Bernadette left Nimrod to have a look. "What vibrant coloring," she said, allowing Alden to slip the small turtle into her hands.

Lady Wendine cleared her throat and asked in a faltering voice, "What is the difference between a tortoise and a turtle?"

"Turtles are designed to swim," Alden said, glancing to Lady Wendine for a moment – and spotting two more of the ladies sneaking away toward the door to the garden – then directing most of his explanation to Bernadette. "Tortoises have more domed shells and are predominantly found on land. And terrapins, of which I have no species in my collection, are semi-aquatic, freshwater varieties of turtles. All tortoises are turtles, but not all turtles are tortoises."

"I did not know that," Bernadette said, glancing from Nancy, who appeared to have taken a liking to her, to Alden.

Alden smiled back at her. "Come over here. I have the most beautiful green turtle named Boris who I do not believe you've met yet."

As Alden stood, Bernadette cooed to Nancy, then set her back into the mud at the side of the stream. She washed her hands briefly in the water, then stood and followed Alden. Together they made their way to the far corner of the terrarium, searching for green turtles.

Without intending it to, the hunt turned into a delightful game. Alden took Bernadette's hand and led her off the flagstone path and into the slightly squishy undergrowth as they followed the stream around one of its bends.

"Mind your skirts," he said to her when he noticed mud beginning to mar the hem of Bernadette's gown.

"Turtle-hunting is far more worthy of my attention than skirts," Bernadette said, dodging around one of the larger iguanas who had come out to see what they were doing.

The iguana made a sudden movement, Bernadette nearly lost her balance, and Alden reacted swiftly to catch her. The moment left Bernadette laughing breathlessly and clinging to Alden as he helped her over a large rock that had been placed specifically for basking reptiles to a flat area beside the stream.

"Careful," Alden scolded her, though he did so with a smile on his face and his heart filled with excitement and affection.

"I thought I was being careful," Bernadette said, clinging to Alden's jacket as they attempted to share the small space in the middle of the faux jungle.

She glanced up at him, and a pained, emotional flush pinched her expression.

"I thought I was being so very careful," she said in a whisper. "I thought that if I never stayed in one place for very long, if I only kept company with my fellow sisters of the Oxford Society, that I would never find myself in a position to lose my heart when I knew it was not mine to lose."

Alden rebelled at her statement immediately. "Your heart is and always will be your own," he insisted. "No matter what other circumstances exist."

"I only wish that were true," Bernadette said, looking down.

Alden was suddenly very much aware that the remaining young ladies who had started out on the tour with them had abandoned the terrarium. He and Bernadette were entirely alone in the verdant wonderland he had created to house his passion. His other passion, his one, true love, was there in his arms, suffering for the actions of others long ago. He could not let that situation continue for a moment longer.

"Bernadette," he spoke her name softly, intimately.

When she glanced up, he stroked his fingers across the side of her face. Her hair was slightly damp from the humidity of the room, and a few tendrils stuck to her brow. Her skin was dewy, and the fabric of her bodice clung becomingly to her bosom. She had her lips parted, as if she knew his intentions and longed for a kiss.

How could he deny her? With the sounds of exotic birds above them and the burbling of the stream below them, Alden pulled Bernadette into his arms and slanted his mouth over hers in a kiss. Bernadette drew in a slight breath before giving in to the passion Alden knew she had tried so hard to keep coiled and in check inside her. She moaned as his tongue lapped at hers and gripped his jacket with both hands as he circled his arms tighter around her.

It was both heaven and hell; beautiful because of the intensity of the love between them and horrible because of everything that stood against them. It was more than enough to make Alden believe that the Curse of Godwin Castle was real. He'd been cursed to love what he could not have and to want more than he was allowed.

That did not stop him from kissing Bernadette with every bit of the emotion that swirled inside of him. He broke from her lips to kiss her cheeks, her nose, her chin, then trailed a kiss down the side of her neck, feeling her rapid pulse against his lips as he dipped lower.

"Alden," Bernadette sighed, like a wish and a prayer, and tipped her head back so that he could kiss and lick and nip her throat on his way to the exposed swells of her breasts as they strained above the fabric of her gown. He kissed her sweetly and softly, although he wanted to do much more. He wanted to tear both of their clothes off with wild abandon and take her to bed, as he had before, to share glorious, forbidden things with her.

He swept his hand up her waist to cradle one of her breasts and was just about to make the unthinkable suggestion that they abandon the party to retire to his room so that they might make love for the rest of the weekend when a shout of, "Lord Alden, are you in here?" sounded from the other end of the terrarium.

Both Alden and Bernadette gasped and jolted apart, both nearly falling into the mud and grass around them, at the sound of Lady Gladys's voice.

"Dammit," Alden hissed. "That woman."

"Perhaps the alligators will eliminate the problem," Bernadette said, breathless and flushed.

Alden laughed, but had to cut himself short, as Lady Gladys had started their way. They were concealed behind greenery to the point where she may or may not have seen their intimacy, but within seconds, she would be close enough to see all.

"I am so sorry for this," Alden said before taking a large step away from her.

He put as much distance between the two of them as he could, climbing over the sunning rock and most likely ruining his good boots as his feet sank into the soft mud beside the stream. At least he made it back to the path before Lady Gladys was anywhere near them.

"Lady Gladys," he said, striding to meet her as far away from Bernadette as he could. "So good of you to join the tour I was conducting."

"I see no tour," Lady Gladys said, her voice flat and sour as she glanced past him to Bernadette. "I only see you behaving inappropriately with a member of staff."

Alden pretended innocence and glanced back over his shoulder to Bernadette. "Lady Bernadette was searching for green turtles with me," he said. "But our activities are over. Perhaps you would help me organize afternoon tea for the guests?"

Lady Gladys did not look fooled in the least, but she took Alden's offered arm and allowed him to escort her across the terrarium and away from Bernadette, who was doing an admirable job of climbing back to the path on her own. Alden hated leaving her on her own, but with Lady Gladys on the prowl, Bernadette was more likely to save herself without his help.

He only hoped that he would be able to resume their intimacies at some later time … and save her from ruin with the ton if the affection between them became known.