by Cheryl Holt
"Indubitably. Why would they be gone?" He downed a swig of his libation. "How about Stevens? Was he lurking about?"
"No, he wasn't there, either."
"Do you suppose they went off together?" Disturbed by the possibility, he stared into the fire, then slammed his fist on the arm of the chair. "Blast! I need to discuss this with her before Stevens does."
"What's to discuss?" She snuggled her bottom in the manner he enjoyed, but he was too distracted to notice. Though imbibing heavily, he certainly didn't seem to be jubilant. Suddenly worried, she prudently queried, "Everything proceeded as planned, didn't it?"
"The blackguard refused to sign the contract I'd drafted."
"How could he?"
"He laughed in my face!"
Instantaneously, her euphoria evaporated. Would her scheming be for naught? "He'll marry her, though, won't he?"
"He said he'll need to contemplate whether his sense of duty and honor would require it."
"But what about the marriage settlement you demanded?"
"He wouldn't agree!"
Not recalling that she was perched on his thighs, he jumped to his feet and sent her sprawling, and she scrambled to latch onto a bedpost so she wouldn't land on the floor. "So ... we're to get... nothing?"
"He swore he'd see me dead and buried before I received one farthing of his blessed fortune."
How dare Mr. Stevens spoil her hard-earned victory! Utterly flabbergasted by this unseen turn of events, she sank
272 Cheryl Holt
down onto the mattress, thinking she might be ill.
Pacing back and forth, clutching his accursed bottle of spirits as if it was a magic talisman, Hugh ranted and raved about Michael Stevens and his tyrannical procedures.
"What about Sarah?" she injected into his diatribe. "Could she convince him?"
"That's what I'm hoping. She absolutely must consent to speak with him."
"And if she won't?"
Hugh didn't reply or perhaps, in his overwrought condition, he simply wasn't paying attention. He resumed his march across the rug, while she pondered how quickly her dreams had dwindled to ashes.
She'd plotted down to the smallest detail: Whichever fellow eventually ended up compromising Sarah, he would be a gentleman who recognized Hugh's status and rank, and he'd feel obligated to rectify the slight he'd committed against Hugh's family. The unlucky bridegroom would apologize in the only mode that mattered—by tendering money. Lots and lots of money.
Who would have thought that her strategy would be subverted by the likes of Michael Stevens? The man didn't comprehend the rules of civilized behavior! He was so far below Sarah's exalted station; it was a privilege for him to have been granted the opportunity to wed her! Didn't he grasp that his actions constrained him to make amends?
Rebecca brooded, heartsick and distressed, listening to Hugh rail against fate, watching him stagger and fume.
She remembered Sarah, and the expression of joy she'd exhibited that odd afternoon on the lawn when she'd been in Michael Stevens's presence, and one truth became abundantly clear: Sarah would never solicit Mr. Stevens on Hugh's behalf. Never in a thousand years.
Their conspiracy had been to no avail, though Hugh didn't know it yet. He never could face the consequences of his acts, but then, for much of his life, he'd had his father to hide behind, then Sarah, then herself. Despite their divergent interests, she and Sarah had shielded him from him-
Total Surrender 273
self, but this decisive fiasco had proved too great a folly. She wanted to weep for what was forfeit.
The town house, with its pretty furnishings and lovely view of the park, was gone. As was the jaunty carriage, with its high-stepping chestnuts, that Hugh drove when he was squiring her about town. So too her closets of fancy clothes and baubles.
Most painful to consider was her loss of Scarborough. What a charming vision she'd painted, and what a fool she'd been to assume that it might come to pass. For just a moment, she closed her eyes and pictured herself floating down the grand corridor on the main floor of the mansion, her skirts brushing the tiles, as she waltzed to the parlor and greeted a new group of guests who had stopped for a visit.
The illusion faded, and she focused on Hugh, once more. Much like a petulant child who'd been denied a treat, his tantrum was terminated, and he was reclined again by the hearth.
"We won't be able to marry, will we?" She knew the answer, but she had to hear it from his lips.
"What?" He glared at her as if she was mad.
"You promised that we'd marry once Sarah was established, but we can't now. Not without any blunt coming in."
"Honestly, Rebecca." As he stared her down, he didn't seem quite so handsome; just inebriated and obnoxious. "You actually expected that we would marry?"
"But you said ..."
"Bah. . ." He gestured obscenely, dismissing her—and her hopes—with a single motion. "I could never marry you. The notion is ludicrous."
Frightened, she swallowed down a panicked breath. "The very first occasion when you coaxed me to your bed, you vowed that we would."
"How could I?" Heedlessly, he trembled with mirth. "God, you're my cousin! And you're a commoner. Are you
274 Cheryl Holt
that naive? I'm a man; I was just trying to lift your skirts. Surely you realized that?"
"No, I didn't," she mouthed.
"It worked, too!" Guffawing, he slapped his leg as though he'd just pronounced a hilarious joke at her expense, and she sincerely felt her heart might quit beating.
"I believed everything you said."
She thought of his disgusting habits and temper, of his grumbling and fussing, his lewd bedroom antics. Because she so fiercely craved the future he could have rendered, she'd braved all.
"Gads, just last week, I offered for Tilsbury's daughter"—he was babbling, having forgotten she was there— "but he insisted that I reverse some of my debt predicament before he'd reflect upon it." He shook his head and studied the flames. "That deal's shot to hell."
The embers glowed, and his morose meditation continued while she meticulously evaluated him, an unvoiced rage at his betrayals brewing dramatically. Gradually, his eyelids fluttered shut, and he began to snore. The decanter fell and clanked on the floor, but the noise failed to stir him.
Quiet as a mouse, she rose and sneaked away, even as she was deliberating on how she would retaliate for everything he'd done.
******************
"I now pronounce you man and wife," the vicar intoned. "You may kiss the bride."
A lengthy, uncomfortable silence ensued, and Michael gawked at him as though the man had snakes in his hair.
Taken aback by the virulent appraisal, the minister gulped then muttered something that sounded like "... or not..." and snapped his prayer book closed.
At the intentional slight of his new bride, Sarah stiffened and shifted away, unable to tolerate his boorish company.
Good, Michael mused. Let her be wary.
When he'd arrived at the inn to retrieve her shortly be-
Total Surrender 275
fore eleven, she'd been eagerly awaiting him in one of the private parlors. Perplexingly, she'd primped and preened in preparation, as if the farce was a real ceremony. Wearing a simple gown, but with her hair curled and swept up on her head, she'd appeared cheerful and beautiful.
Any man in the kingdom would have deemed himself fortunate to wed her. Not Michael, for he knew that looks could be deceiving. Underneath that pale elegance and allure beat a black heart.
He was a cautious individual who'd been whisked up in a disaster. This was the type of wretched debacle more suited to James than himself, and if anyone had suggested that he might one day find himself repeating his vows as reparation for a moronic carnal misstep, he'd have laughed aloud. He'd always presumed that he was too astute, too smart, too calculating, to end up on the wrong side of a marital calamity.
Once he'd learned that she was Hugh Compton's sister,
he should have resisted his attraction instead of being beguiled by a virtuous flare and a pair of emerald eyes. How they'd sparkled when she'd beseeched him to engage in an abbreviated tryst! How they'd glistened when she'd shed enchanting tears! How they'd intensified when she'd called his name and cried out in sexual ecstasy!
What had possessed him to be so reckless, so negligent? He took pride in his self-control and discipline, and he couldn't accept the depth of his idiocy where she was concerned.
Well, he had no one to blame but himself for this catastrophe. While he wanted to chastise Lady Sarah and her brother, they couldn't have succeeded if Michael hadn't been so atrociously gullible.
On principle, he should have declined to marry her, but he wasn't that kind of person. Even before he'd gone down to the library the previous night, he'd been aware that Scarborough would insist on matrimony, just as he'd acknowledged that he would acquiesce.
After all, he could hardly argue that he wasn't culpable.
276 Cheryl Holt
Yes, Lady Sarah had begged for the affair, and yes, she'd placed herself in his way at every turn, but he was a mature, experienced man, who should have withstood her campaign.
He was not his father, and he wouldn't shirk his responsibilities, but that didn't mean he would play Scarborough's game, either. Scarborough had hit him up for money—big money—as Michael had predicted he would. Yet, as Lady Sarah and her conniving brother were about to discover, Michael's sense of accountableness only extended so far.
For his crime of ruining Lady Sarah, he was constrained to wed her. Regretfully, he would impart to her the respectability that came with being a married woman, but that was all. He would never offer them a single penny in reparation.
Hugh and Sarah Compton could choke on their poverty.
The country chapel, with its pews, dark walls, and stained glass, smelled of wax and polish, of travail and prayers, and it occurred to him mat he hadn't set foot in a church in years. He was surprised that he hadn't been struck by lightning when he'd stepped through the doors. Bearing in mind the plight of his immortal soul, a fiery, celestial thunderbolt wouldn't have been unexpected.
"Are we finished?" he irritably inquired. The sooner this travesty was concluded, the better off they'd all be.
"Ah . . . yes . . ." The vicar was still flustered by Michael's unwillingness to kiss the bride, but he pulled himself together, adjusting his spectacles on his nose and leading them to a table at the rear. "We just need your endorsement on the registry. And the license."
The vicar's wife, an older, crafty-looking sort, was the only witness to the sorry business. She kept sizing him up, readily distinguishing him as a sinner. Michael signed his life away while she held a lamp, and she regarded him with such disdain that he was positive she would comment on his insufferable deportment. He stared her down, daring her to utter a word, and she ultimately glanced away as Sarah
Total Surrender 277
too inscribed her name on the appropriate lines.
She's left-handed, Michael absurdly noted, as she shakily gripped the pen, and the cheap gold band that he'd slipped on her finger was highly visible in the dim light, a jarring reminder of how she'd abused his trust and shattered his illusions.
The ring wasn't even authentic. There was no jeweler in the area, and he hadn't had time to have a genuine one delivered. Not that he would have. He'd purchased it from a serving girl in the taproom at the inn, and he almost wished he'd be around to observe when the Comptons tried to pawn it and found out it was worthless.
Sarah stood, the signatures completed. She clasped a meager bridal bouquet, a bundle plucked from a vase near the altar after the vicar's wife had ascertained that Sarah had no flowers. Slightly wilted, petals drooping, she clutched them to her chest as though they were the finest hothouse roses.
"You've been very kind," she murmured to the older woman, brimming with transparent bliss as she hugged her tightly, mangling the blossoms in between their bodies.
"You're welcome," the woman asserted, and she added a phrase that he couldn't decipher, but it sounded like "Be strong, dear."
They parted, and the vicar's wife cast him a scathing look, and he blanched under her irascible examination. Obviously, she'd bonded with Sarah in some incomprehensible, feminine show of support, and she erroneously conjectured that Sarah was a put-upon, downtrodden bride who needed a champion. If he'd cared in the least—which he didn't—he might have taken a second to set the woman straight.
No doubt, she and her husband were dying of curiosity. After all, it wasn't every day that a country vicar was presented with a Special License and asked to immediately marry two strangers who were so aggravated with each other that they weren't conversing. It was extremely apparent that they were involved in a serious, odious di-
278 Cheryl Holt
lemma, yet Sarah managed to seem innocent and vulnerable.
What would the other woman think if he apprised her of Sarah's capacity for deceit and artifice?
Michael furnished the vicar with a heavy bag of coins, an amount sufficient to quell speculation or gossip. Without contributing any further remarks, he exited the chapel, the noonday sun temporarily blinding. By the time he'd regained his equilibrium, Sarah had joined him and, as he advanced down the narrow path, she matched his strides.
His carriage awaited, as well as a horse he'd borrowed from Pamela that was tethered to the boot. Beyond, a trio of people gathered under a shade tree. His driver and a coachman, who were also bodyguards, were huddled with a widow he'd employed as Sarah's companion for the next week. As he and Sarah approached, the group leapt to attention, but he waved them off so that he and the lady could have a private good-bye. The servants could ruminate forever about what was transpiring, but they'd get no confirmation from Michael.
He reached for the door, while she hovered, pressing her tiresome bouquet to her nose.
"That wasn't so bad, was it?" She smiled gaily, her evident rapture setting him on edge.
"Get in." He lowered the step, but she didn't move.
"Don't be such a grouch," she chided. "You look as if you've just been to the blacksmith and had a tooth pulled." Embarrassingly, she captured his hands and whirled herself around in a circle, swaying with gladness over what they'd just accomplished. "What a gorgeous day! The sun is bright, the sky is blue, and I am so happy! Thank you!"
He hadn't the faintest inkling why she would be grateful, but then, he'd secreted her away before she could talk with her brother, so she wasn't cognizant that their contrivance had been foiled. She was laboring under the mistaken impression that there were grounds to rejoice.
"You sourpuss!" she was saying merrily when he dis-
Total Surrender 279
played no reaction. "I won't allow your bad temper to spoil my celebration."
Ere he could stop her, she rose up on tiptoe and stole a kiss. As he inhaled her familiar, beloved scent, his hands inched to her waist, and he just desisted before he perpetrated a reprehensible gaffe.
He did take hold of her, but only long enough to set her away.
"Come on, Michael. Cheer up!" She laughed and danced a little jig. "This is our wedding day; not the end of the world. How long do you intend to be angry?"
As long as it takes. He eyed her dispassionately, wondering how she could be so bloody ecstatic, how she could prance about, reveling in her purported good fortune while throwing her cunning in his face.
Had she no shame? No remorse? No conscience? Did she care—even the tiniest bit—that she had devastated him?
"Get in," he repeated and, with his sharp tone, she finally heeded his irate condition. She ceased her bobbling and prattling.
"Oh, all right, you sorehead." Stabilizing herself, she placed her foot on the step. "Where are we off to? Have you selected some totally decadent spot in which to spend our wedding night? I'll have you know that I prefer chocolates and champagne!"
What was causing her to suffer these outrag
eous flights of fancy? Why pretend this was anything other than a sham? "We aren't going anywhere. You are going home."
The abrupt news stunned her. Her eyes widened with astonishment and hurt, and he steeled himself against all the ways in which she was still capable of provoking a response in him.
"To Yorkshire?"
"Yes."
"But I thought..."
"Thought what, Lady Sarah?"
"Well.. . that we would ... travel to London." She
280 Cheryl Holt
scrutinized him fervently, carefully choosing her words, beginning to appreciate that no matter the comment, it would be inappropriate. "I'd hoped we'd visit your family."
"I have no desire for you to meet my family. Not now. Not ever."
"You don't mean that."
"Oh, but I do."
She paused, searching his eyes, dissecting his demeanor. Something tripped and cracked—perhaps it was the final piece of his heart fracturing—and he forced himself to remain unmoved as perception dawned on her.
"You don't consider mis a real marriage, do you?"
"Hardly."
He might as well have slapped her. As though her bones had transformed to mush, she sank down, the carriage stair impeding her progress, and she balanced against it.
"But... but why? You care for me. We could make this work. We could turn it into something wonderful."
"Why would I want to?"
With each harsh utterance, she deflated a tad more, and he felt he'd evolved into someone else entirely, that he'd been inhabited by an alien being who was bent on tormenting her until she crumpled into a heap.
What a fine man he'd grown to be, the son Angela Ford had raised to be such a chivalrous fellow. Michael Stevens—the eminent despoiler and defiler of women! If his mother could witness him now, in all his wretched, miserable, scurrilous glory, she'd never forgive him.
How had he fallen to such a contemptible state that he would behave so despicably? The only plausible explanation was that his feelings for her had been so pure and sincere—as close to love as he might ever come—and he simply couldn't countenance how grievously she'd wounded him. He could only react by striking out. By keeping on and on—until she went away, as agonized as he.