Her pistol, the last valuable item she owned in the world, had been used to murder Brinsley and was now in possession of the Home Office as evidence. She had no money and no means of getting it until she married Vane. Then she’d have every material thing she could possibly desire, and more.
But how could she use her new husband’s money to support her dead husband’s love child? What a ridiculous proposition! How could she possibly approach the issue? What might she say?
With a flourish, the light cascade of notes ceased. The earl looked up, his eyes distant.
Sarah swallowed and bent her gaze to her hands. She’d dreaded this moment, the disgust he must feel when she told him all that had occurred. Best to get it over with, before she turned tail and ran. She cleared her throat, and the earl’s head jerked toward her.
The old tenderness broke over his face but a deep sorrow clung to its edges. He rose from the pianoforte and held out his hand.
She moved forward and he took both her hands in his. “Ah, Sarah, my dear. Come. Sit down.”
He drew her to sit beside him on a comfortable sofa. In the morning light he seemed a great deal older than when she’d seen him last. The character lines in his aristocratic face were more pronounced, his hair almost uniformly grey. His eyes seemed as weary and cynical as time. “A bad business, this.”
“Yes, sir.” Sarah perched on the edge of the sofa. “I would have given much to have spared you this unpleasantness.” She bit her lip, then blurted, “I don’t know what you must think—”
“Never mind that now,” said the earl, patting her hand. “You have had a terrible, anxious time. I’m so sorry.”
A hard lump formed in her throat. She willed herself not to burst into tears of self-pity. His understanding and kindness were so much more difficult to bear than her mother’s brisk support.
He paused. “I am told the authorities are calling your husband’s death an accident.”
So, Faulkner had been as good as his word. Relief spread through her, softening her limbs, releasing tension she hadn’t realized was there. “I don’t know what to think about that,” she said. “I am relieved, of course, that I’m not a suspect in Brinsley’s murder, but if it means the authorities are not looking for the real killer—”
The earl raised his brows. “Do you know for a certainty that your husband didn’t shoot himself?”
Sarah shook her head. “No, but it seems unlikely that he—”
“Then I suggest we voice no more doubts on the subject,” he finished smoothly.
He studied their joined hands for a few moments. “Sarah, I believe—” A sound made him look up, and Sarah turned her head to see the butler at the door. “Yes?”
“The Marquis of Vane to see you, my lord.”
Sarah’s stomach somersaulted. Heat flamed in her cheeks. There could be one reason for Vane to call on her father—to ask permission to pay his addresses. He’d come to claim her and she wasn’t ready—not remotely ready—to face this next step.
Vane stood on the threshold, his gaze fixed on her. His dark eyes held a gleam of anticipation. If his mission hadn’t been so obvious, his startling elegance would have confirmed it. He wore a severe black coat, exquisitely cut to mould his shoulders, a pearl waistcoat, and grey pantaloons. His shirt-points and neckcloth were so dazzlingly white, it made his skin look slightly tanned.
Sarah stood and curtseyed, a little overwhelmed by this display. She wondered why he’d bothered. Surely, this marriage was a foregone conclusion.
“Ah, Vane.” The earl rose and moved forward to shake hands. “Thank you for coming.”
“Sir.” Vane bowed to Sarah and held the door open. “Will you excuse us, my lady?”
Sarah narrowed her eyes at his polite command. She didn’t like this autocratic means of getting rid of her. She had half a mind to tell him so, to insist on remaining, to have a say in her future. But a glance at the earl told her he’d order her to go if she demurred, and that would be mortifying.
One side of Vane’s mouth twitched, as if he sensed her frustration and found it amusing.
She shot a dagger-glance at him and swept from the room.
AS the butler had directed, Vane found Sarah in the stillroom, of all places, wrapping twine around bunches of some leafy twigs or other—herbs, from the smell of them—and hanging them up to dry. A sprigged dimity apron covered her gown, a pale splash of color over her somber widow’s weeds.
Vane suppressed an oath of frustration. She must have surmised the purpose of his visit to her parents’ house, yet she hadn’t awaited him in the drawing room as almost any other lady might await a suitor she intended to accept. Nor had she troubled to make herself presentable. It was a clear message she didn’t care the snap of her fingers for him or his proposal.
Even when she must have sensed he stood on the threshold, she didn’t interrupt her work. The maid, who had been busy laying out tea things on a tray—presumably in honor of his visit—took one look at him, bobbed a curtsey, and scampered from the room.
Sarah barely paused in her task, her slender fingers working nimbly with twigs and twine. If he hadn’t known better, he might have thought she wanted to show her contempt for his offer. Yet, only days earlier, she’d expressed her sense of obligation to him.
He should have guessed that even his proposal, which he’d assumed was a mere formality at this stage, would be anything but plain sailing. She made him fight her every step of the way.
A sense of injustice formed a hard, burning knot in his chest. The last thing he expected or wanted was her gratitude. But would willingness be too much to ask? Common courtesy, even?
She continued to snip and bundle that damned greenery while he stood there, silently watching, and all the fury and frustration of the past days seemed to build and build within him, until he wanted nothing so much as to turn her over his knee and give her a damned good spanking.
The idea made his groin tighten.
Hell and the Devil confound it! Couldn’t he be in a room with her without his cock taking over from his brain?
She glanced at him. “Did you wish to speak with me now? Are you quite finished discussing my future?”
He ignored the petty jibe. “The wedding is set for Thursday next.”
Her gaze flew to his, her fingers moving to touch her throat in a defensive gesture. “So soon? But . . . it’s indecent! Why, Brinsley’s funeral is on Tuesday. I-I could not possibly—”
The stark horror in her eyes made him ill-inclined to placate her. “Nevertheless, we will marry on Thursday.” He paused. “There’s been a development.”
Apprehension marred her features. “Oh, no.”
Grimly, he nodded. “Rockfort has seen your father. Traveled all the way to Hertfordshire to see him, in fact.”
“Rockfort? Brinsley’s friend?” Sarah’s brow furrowed. “What can he have to say to anything?”
“It turns out that Rockfort recognized my horses that night. He was the one who alerted Peter Cole to my connection to this whole business of Brinsley’s death. He’s guessed about us, Sarah. Tried to make your father pay him to keep quiet.”
Her eyes flashed. “I hope Papa sent him straight to the Devil.”
“He didn’t. The earl stalled him, playing for time. He sent for me.”
Sarah hissed a breath through her teeth. “So, now—”
“Now, it becomes imperative that we marry as soon as possible. Your father commands it, and I can only applaud his good sense. He will keep Rockfort dangling, waiting for an answer, until the knot is tied.”
Why hadn’t Papa told her? Sarah’s hands twisted together. “Oh, but it’s so soon! You know people will talk if I marry bare days after Brinsley’s death.”
“There will be talk, yes. We can’t avoid it. But we have a few advantages on our side. Brinsley was almost universally despised. Most will say you’re well rid of him.” In fact, they were already saying it, but he wouldn’t tell Sarah that. “They’ll
hardly expect you to remain constant to that scoundrel’s memory. Besides, our families are well-respected. Your mother and mine have more combined social influence than just about anyone in England. With their help, we’ll brush through.”
She pressed her fingertips to her temples. “I don’t know. I don’t know what’s best to be done.”
“Sarah, there’s no choice. If we don’t nip this in the bud, the scandal of that night we spent together will break and there’ll be hell to pay. A little talk about your hasty remarriage would be nothing to the furor that would cause. Once we’re wed, you’ll be safe. Rockfort values his skin far too much to make any nasty insinuations once you’re my wife.”
When she didn’t speak he added, “You know as well as I do we can’t wait. After the wedding, we’ll live quietly for a few months to throw a sop to the conventions, if that’s what you wish.”
“But—”
“Did you ever consider you might be with child?” he said harshly, making her flinch. Her reaction showed how little she wished for the circumstance.
Stonily, she replied, “I told you: I am barren.” Her restless hands moved among small pots ranged along the wooden table, all neatly labeled. “Vane, I trust you are not harboring ill-founded hopes in that regard.” She glanced at him, then lowered her lashes, veiling those green eyes. “In fact, I . . . I ought to make it plain that I wish there to be no physical relations between us at all.”
Was she out of her mind? “You can’t be serious.”
“I cannot have children, so there is really no point—”
“No point? No point?” He swung away from her, running a hand through his hair. A chaste marriage with Lady Sarah Cole? That was just about his idea of hell on earth. Worse than not having her at all.
He breathed out heavily through his nostrils. She had to be doing this out of some twisted need to torture him, surely. Though he’d no idea what unforgivable crimes he’d committed to deserve such treatment.
That cool voice with its clipped diction continued. “I wanted to tell you now, before you commit yourself. Of course, I would have no objection if you wish to have”—she took a breath—“liaisons outside marriage. That would only be fair.”
He snorted. “Magnanimous of you.”
“As long as you’re discreet, of course.”
“Oh, of course.” He turned quickly and caught her staring at him with such desolation in her eyes, he wanted to shake her and kiss her and claim her then and there.
But he held himself in check. Oh, she was frightened, all right. She was terrified he’d accept her offer and betray her with other women the way Cole had.
He moved closer and heard her breath catch. His voice came out a little hoarse. “There is only one problem.”
“Yes?”
“You are the only woman I want. I don’t plan to have affairs. And I’ll be damned if I’ll live like a monk for the rest of my days, either.”
She faced him. “Then don’t marry me.”
“And where would either of us be if I didn’t?” A pulse beat in his temple. He sensed the fear beneath her bravado, yet he couldn’t possibly enter this marriage on the understanding that it would be a chaste one. He couldn’t begin to imagine such an existence. He’d go mad.
And what about Sarah? How could she spend the rest of her life without passion? Despite that cool as ice exterior, she’d flamed with wildness and desire all through that memorable night. Did she mean to shut herself off from those emotions forever?
The notion that she might also wish for liaisons outside of marriage tugged at him. He was almost sure she didn’t have the taste for such things, but perhaps that one night of illicit passion had opened the door. . . . God, he couldn’t think about that now.
There was only one promise he could sensibly make. “I don’t force women,” he said at last. “I won’t bed you unless you wish it.” He’d make damned sure she pleaded for his touch before their wedding night was over.
She looked up at him, full of doubt and suspicion. Was she lying to herself as well as to him? Did she really think the only way he could have her was by force? Or was she well aware of how brittle her resolve was and counting on him being kind enough not to push her?
Kind? He’d need to be a saint to follow that course.
He took her hand, stained green and pungent with the scent of herbs. He turned it over, examining the delicate bones of her wrist, the soft skin her manual labor had not altered, the faint blue lines underneath. He raised her hand and pressed a kiss where her pulse beat strongly, then looked up, directly into her eyes.
“Lady Sarah, will you marry me?”
She remained silent for a long, troubled moment. Then she gave a helpless, fatalistic shrug, as if to say she’d done all she could to prevent this catastrophe.
“Yes, my lord. I will marry you.”
Eleven
TIME slowed as Vane watched his gloved fist connect with the bruiser’s unguarded temple, sending his head ricocheting back, sweat spraying off his shining skin as he crashed to the floor.
Victory surged in Vane’s blood. The pain in his knuckles, the burn in his muscles, the sharp ache in his side—all forgotten. He glared around the club. “Who’s next?”
The room was silent but for a faint groan from the pugilist at his feet.
A small, wiry man with a face like a monkey and a cauliflower ear swarmed over to him, brandishing a towel. “Fink that’s enough now, sir, don’t you? You’ll ’ave all me best boys laid up for weeks if you keep mowing ’em down like that.”
Vane sent his trainer a searing glare. “Don’t handle me, Finch. I’m not finished.” The fighting fury was upon him, sinking its demonic claws into his gut. He wouldn’t stop until he’d exorcised it. If he stopped, he’d start to think, and thinking brought fresh memories of that last conversation with Sarah, the nightmare prospect of a chaste marriage looming before him.
At a nod from Finch, the rest of the inhabitants left the training saloon. “You can’t go on like this, sir.”
“You are mistaken. This is my club, damn it. If I want to spar till Doomsday, I’ll do it.”
“No, sir.” The pugnacious face turned up to him, uncompromising. “I’m not saying this as your employee but as your trainer, my lord. You’re lashing out wild. Your form’s off-kilter and your technique is worse. You’ll do yourself an injury.” Impatiently, Vane shook his head, but Finch stuck to his guns. “You’ve already upset the regime we put in place. Months of work, that was, and now we’re back to square one.”
Vane hissed out a breath. Much as he hated to admit it, the little trainer was right. This reckless afternoon had disrupted his carefully planned schedule. Aye, it was his club, and a damned poor example he’d set his bruisers today.
He was proud of this place. He looked around him, at the rows of boxing gloves hanging by their strings, rack upon rack of swords, foils, and rapiers. Sporting prints and fencing diagrams covered the walls. The man-sized scale in the corner where the boxers weighed in, the black counterweights piled high on the other side. The small table in the corner that held the betting book and another businesslike ledger to record members’ vital statistics.
He’d founded the club ostensibly as an academy for professional pugilists, but his personal involvement meant that many of the ton followed his lead. Not the showy nobs who sparred for exercise at Jackson’s Boxing Saloon, but serious athletes, men who wanted to hone their bodies and pursue the classical ideal of manly grace to its zenith.
He owned this place. But while he trained with Finch, this low-born Cockney owned the marquis, body and soul.
Finch dictated his diet, his exercise regime, the sweats and purges and putrid elixirs he poured down his throat. Vane’s body was a finely tuned instrument thanks to Finch’s meticulous prescription. And he owed it to the man as well as to himself not to tear down what they’d so painstakingly built.
Finch must have taken his relaxed pose as assent, for he clapped Vane
on the shoulder. “C’mon, sir. You need a goodly rubdown or you’ll take a chill. Strip and I’ll be with you in a trice.”
Vane rolled his shoulders as he moved into a small adjoining room, where a long, uncomfortable wooden bench awaited. Shelves with various unguents and remedies lined one wall and a large, high window let sunlight stream in, warming the floorboards beneath his feet.
He stripped and sat while Finch toweled the sweat off his body, then Vane lay on his stomach on the hard wooden planks, his head turned to the side. As Finch rubbed liniment into Vane’s sore muscles and worked and pummeled his flesh, Vane watched the dancing dust motes caught in a shaft of sunlight.
And tried not to think about her.
Small, strong hands dug into the tendons around his neck. “Tight as a fish’s bum you are, sir, even after that warm-up.”
Vane grunted. He didn’t doubt it. He hadn’t felt so tense, so lacking in control over himself since . . . well, since his father died, he supposed. This tangle with Sarah was slowly driving him mad.
Every encounter with her felt like the next round in a years-long prizefight. He sparred like a raw schoolboy against a professional heavyweight. She kept him perpetually off balance; he hadn’t finished reeling from one blow when she followed it up with another lightning strike.
But he would have her. Inside that fortress of steel and ice dwelled a passionate woman who yearned to break free. He’d glimpsed that woman on occasion, most compellingly on the evening she’d come to his bedchamber. His mind slid toward fantasy, remembering that night. He wrenched it back into focus.
For seven years, he’d tried to breach her defenses by stealth, by charm, by strategy. Come their wedding night, he would storm her walls and sweep that imprisoned damsel away. The slow hum of arousal ever-present in his blood since that fateful night swelled powerfully at the prospect.
“You’re tensing up again, sir.”
“Hmph. Sorry.”
“Try to think calm thoughts.”
Vane’s mouth twisted in a wry grimace. Impossible. With Sarah as his wife, he doubted he’d ever reach an acceptable level of calm again.
Wicked Little Game Page 14