Two Wrongs Make a Marriage. Christine Merrill
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‘I imagine it is. Would you share it with me?’ Your wife. Who would not have been such had she heard any of this a scant day ago. She glared at him.
Her anger had no more effect than her near nudity was having, for he was lost in drink and the story he told. ‘While it might be possible to dodge a London tailor, some of the more provincial innkeepers are less forgiving. When I elected to leave an establishment suddenly, by a window at the first light of dawn, the ostler caught me and had me up on charges of theft. When Stayne found me with his interesting proposition, I was on my way to the gallows.’
‘As well you should have been. You were stealing from the innkeeper.’
‘As was he from me. I should think the stirring performance of Shakespeare’s better soliloquies was worth the price of a room and a dinner. He hinted at such before I began. But when I had finished, he claimed he did not care for tragedy and presented me with the bill.’
‘A bastard, a thief and an actor!’ The last was the worst news of all. She grabbed for the pillow and swung it at his head, and kept swinging until the leading edge was trailing feathers.
He dodged the final blow with a bow worthy of Covent Garden, then straightened, seized the pillow and thrust it back into her arms. ‘At your service, miss. Or shall I say madam. You are a married lady now, after all.’
‘I am most certainly not. I cannot be held to a marriage entered into under such fraudulent circumstances.’
‘Fraud?’ He pointed an accusing finger at her. ‘You dress in silk and have not a feather to fly with.’
‘That is merely money,’ she said waving a dismissive hand.
‘The words of someone who is used to having it,’ he countered.
‘It is nothing, compared to the lies you told. I thought, when I agreed to marry you, that I knew who your family was. Now it appears that you do not know them either. There must be a law that covers this.’
‘You have but to make this disgrace public and find out,’ he offered with an expansive gesture towards the door. ‘Perhaps you can tell the next fellow you trap that this marriage does not matter. Here, take the licence with you.’ He tossed a mud-spattered scrap of paper at her. Their signatures were still legible through the many bootprints that marked it. ‘But I doubt another man will be as stupid as I was, once the story of this mistake gets around.’
It was a horrible truth and one she had not yet considered. Once the truth was known, she would have no choice but to take de Warde’s despicable offer that she repair her father’s fortune with her virtue. ‘You’ve ruined me!’ she shouted, throwing the pillow back at his head.
He caught it easily. ‘You’ve ruined yourself, darling. Do not expect me to feel sorry for you. Spayne hired me to do a spot of play-acting. I was to find a rich wife, bring her and her fortune back to Essex. My very life depended on success. What is to become of me now?’
‘If he does not hang you, then I will. I will be a widow,’ she said with narrowed eyes. ‘That suits me well.’
‘I was planning to give you just such a wedding gift before we discovered the truth about each other.’ He gazed off at an imaginary and happier horizon. ‘When all the settlements were made and your non-existent fortune was in the earl’s bank, I was to meet with a tragic accident. Punting, perhaps. Although the water is too shallow to do the job right.’ He framed the scene with his hands. ‘Sailing. My boat would be found, dashed against the rocks. But alas, no body would be recovered. My father? Heartbroken. And you, the beautiful, young, rich widow, would weep openly over the empty coffin.’
‘That will never happen,’ she said, mouth set in a grim line.
‘After how I meant to treat you in the months before the tragedy, I dare say you would have.’ He gave her a long hot look that said she’d have been on her back by now and he seemed to think she’d have enjoyed the process. ‘You would wear black for a year.’
‘Six months at most.’
‘Followed by half-mourning,’ he insisted. ‘I see you in lavender, wan, fragile and appealing.
‘I see myself in red, dancing on your grave,’ she said. ‘You meant to bed me, cheat me and leave me a bigamist.’
‘Spayne would have taken care of you. For all his idiosyncrasies, the man is a gallant gentleman at heart. He’d have seen to it that you were re-launched, remarried and none the worse for the experience.’
‘But that happy future will not come to pass until you have the courtesy to die,’ she said. ‘I suggest you get about it.’
‘Without your fortune, the earl has nothing to offer you. Adding two ciphers does not make an appreciable sum. If I were to die now, you would be a poor widow on the morrow.’ He held his hands out again and pulled a frown. ‘I see you in shabby black, tinged with the green of hard wearing. Perhaps you will take in sewing and live on the charity of the church.’
‘I will not!’ she shouted back at him. ‘I could not make nearly enough by sewing,’ she added softly, resigned. Then a thought occurred to her. ‘I don’t suppose there is a real Lord Kenton somewhere. Perhaps I am not married to you at all.’
Jack shook his head. ‘Died as a child along with his mother on a trip abroad. Spayne kept the illusion alive because he did not want to be troubled by his family to produce an heir. But the foolish deception has gone on too long and, of late, his brother was clamouring to see the prodigal son.’
‘Henry de Warde,’ Thea announced bitterly.
‘You know of him?’
‘Only because he is the reason for my family’s poverty. He sold my father a certain …’ What would be an appropriate description? ‘A fraudulent artefact,’ she decided.
‘That your father was willing to spend the whole of the family fortune to gain?’ Her faux husband was eyeing her with suspicion, waiting for the rest of a story she had no intention of telling.
She ignored the unstated request for detail. ‘It was no more unwise then Spayne’s mythical son.’
‘Probably true,’ Jack admitted.
‘I spoke to de Warde about it. I pleaded with him for mercy.’
‘And he suggested that you work off the debt on your back.’
It had been the single most revolting moment of her life. But now that she had destroyed herself, it was likely to be the first of many. ‘How did you know?’
Jack was staring at her with something almost like sympathy. ‘Because it’s what any sane man would have done.’
Now he seemed to be assessing her value and she wondered if he would have behaved the same, had he been de Warde. A glance at her reflection in a nearby cheval glass told her that it was too late to protect her modesty from him. A single pillow could not have hidden enough. ‘I refused him. But now …’ she looked at the man in front of her and resorted to complete honesty, which her teacher, Miss Pennyworth, had assured her was the shield and bulwark of any virtuous young girl ‘… I don’t know what I shall do.’
He continued to stare. ‘Suppose I were to suggest another way.’
‘Anything.’ She’d spoken too quickly. This was a man willing to steal from innkeepers, trick her into wedding him and fake his own death. He had made no mention of seeking a marriage in name only, at any time in his plans. There was no telling what scheme he intended now. ‘Anything within reason,’ she amended.
‘I do not know how reasonable my plans are,’ he admitted. ‘But recent actions proved that we are both willing to consider unreasonable options to gain success. The kidnapping was an admirable twist,’ he added, nodding with approval.
‘Thank you.’ She frowned. ‘I did not think it would work.’