“Nothing but my anxiety to be away from here,” she replied, willing steadiness to her seditious racing heart. “Have you come to take me now?”
“Yes. A packet awaits us in Gravesend. If Providence and the wind are both in our favor we’ll sail out with the morning tide.”
“Then let us not tarry.”
“Bring nothing with you,” Hadley said. “It will throw them off, at least for a short while.”
“I’m taking Jenny,” she said.
“No. You may send for her later.”
Mary set her jaw. “I refuse to go without her.”
“We haven’t time to argue about this, Mary.”
“There is no argument. Jenny comes with me.”
He scraped a hand through his hair with a groan she recognized as capitulation. “You may have your way now, but henceforth, you will do precisely as I say until we are safe across the channel.” He grasped her shoulders and Mary felt the nervous tension straining his body and saw it lining his face. “Do you understand me?” She wondered briefly if he would punctuate the question with a shake.
“Yes, Hadley,” she replied calmly.
“Good then. A carriage awaits us in the mews. Now let us go.”
Traffic was unusually light, and the horses were fresh, allowing them to set a breakneck pace that took them rapidly out of the city. Mary would have feigned sleep but the jarring and jolting of the coach over the ill-maintained post roads made the effort futile. Luckily, Jenny’s presence limited Mary and Hadley’s verbal exchange. Although she kept distance between them and avoided his eye, she thought he would likely attribute her stiffness and reserve to the anxiety of their flight.
After three and a half hours in the coach, they halted at a small inn at Swanscombe where Hadley bespoke a bedchamber and private parlor. “We are less than three miles from Gravesend,” he said. “I will leave you both to rest here for the nonce, and urge you to take advantage of the respite. The channel can be very rough and perilous at this time of year and our passage could take as little as a day or as many as three, depending on winds and current.”
“You do not stay with us?” Mary asked.
“No. James and I will go ahead to ensure the ship is indeed prepared to set sail as planned, but I will return within two hours. I advise you to stay within your chambers in case Sir Richard is looking for you.” He bent his head to kiss her mouth but Mary gave him her cheek.
“I’m sorry, my dear wife, but that will not do at all. I don’t care that your maid is present.” Before Mary could form a protest, he pulled her into his arms for a searing kiss and released her with a roguish grin. “Savor it my love, for that may be all you get for several days.” He swept out, leaving her whirling, and robbed of both breath and senses.
…
“What now, miss?” Jenny asked.
“I will inquire about hiring a coach to Leicestershire,” Mary said, but despite her best efforts, there was no vehicle to be had in such a lonely place at such a late hour. “I suppose we have no choice but to wait until morning, but if necessary we will walk to Gravesend to hire a conveyance.”
“But what will you do when Lord Hadley returns?”
“I don’t know, Jenny, but I refuse to go any further with this charade.”
When Hadley returned less than two hours later, as promised, his entry was barred by a chair lodged under the doorknob. “Mary, it’s only me. Open the door,” he demanded in a loud whisper.
“No. You are not welcome.”
“What the devil do you mean I’m not welcome?” he hissed through the crack of the jammed portal.
“Please Hadley, leave me be. I want none of you.”
“Mary, what the devil’s gotten into you?”
“You!” she cried. “The only devil is you!”
Several muffled curses followed. “I don’t understand what this is about, but don’t test me any further. Open the door now, before I kick the bloody thing in!”
Jenny’s fearful glaze flitted between Mary and the door. “Remove the chair, Jenny,” Mary ordered. “I believe he would do it.”
No sooner had the chair scraped across the floor than the door burst open to a blazing-eyed Hadley. “Leave us!” He commanded Jenny who had retreated to her mistress’ side.
“Jenny will stay.”
“The hell she will!” He glared at the maid. “Jenny will go to James. Now!”
“But—” Jenny’s panicked gaze darted between Hadley and her mistress.
“It’s alright, Jenny.” Mary reluctantly inclined her head toward the door. “You may go. He shan’t harm me for I am not worth a ha’penny to him…not yet anyway.”
“Out!” He demanded again, sending Jenny scurrying like a frightened mouse. Hadley took several paces to loom over Mary with a look of pained outrage. “What the bloody hell has transpired in two hours to make you believe I intend you harm?”
Although her stomach clenched with the effort, Mary steeled herself to confront him. “The truth is what transpired,” she bit back.
“The truth,” he repeated woodenly. “What truth would that be, Mary?”
“Your relationship with the countess, to begin with.” She noted the look of alarm that flashed in his eyes, the pallor that came over his face. “How did your father really die, Hadley?” She already knew the answer, yet dreaded to hear it from his lips.
“Listen to me. Please. There is no time for this now. We must depart. There is a packet waiting. It will sail on the next tide—with or without us.”
“No. Not us. You will sail. I’m not going anywhere with you.”
“I’m asking for your trust, Mary. I promise to explain everything.”
She laughed bitterly. “You ask for my trust and offer promises when everything I believed about you is nothing but deception!”
“I have never lied to you.”
“How can you look me in the eye and say that? You lie even now!”
He groaned. “There are a number of things I have not told you because I saw no need to dig up the sordid past, but I have never set out to deceive you. Even when you asked me if I sought your hand for your fortune, did I lie then?”
“But you also said you cared for me, Hadley.”
“I do,” he replied softly. “More than I’ve ever cared for anyone.” He tried to stroke her cheek but she jerked her head away.
“Don’t touch me Hadley. Ever again.”
“Please,” he begged. “There is so much you don’t understand.”
She stared into his blue-black gaze with a pain in her chest as real as if he’d stabbed her through the heart. She forced her gaze away. “I already understand more than enough—You told me that Barbara called you back from Italy.”
“Yes, she wrote me, but I came for my own reasons. I’ve already shared those with you.”
“You also told me that it was her idea for you to seduce me to obtain my fortune. At first I believed that she only wanted to help you recover your estates and titles, but that was not all, was it, Hadley? How would she stand to benefit? She had to have had a far more personal reason. One that would explain her jealousy, the veiled cruelty.” Mary clutched the back of the chair to fortify herself as the last pieces came together with dizzying rapidity. “My God! She is still your lover!”
“No!” he cried. “I know how it looks, but you have it all wrong!”
“What kind of fool do you think I am?” she cried. “Do you really expect me to blindly follow you when you and Barbara have designs on my life?”
“You can’t really believe that! You think me so vile and low to plot such a thing?”
“I think a man who would commit incest and drive his own father to self-murder is capable of just about anything!”
Hadley froze, except for a muscle working in his jaw. “Who told you such a thing? Who is spreading such filthy slander?”
“Does it matter who?” she asked. “I note that you fail to deny it.”
He clawed a hand t
hrough his hair with a wild look and a ragged curse. “Damn it all to bloody hell!”
“It is true. It’s all true, isn’t it!” she cried. “And to think I was already prepared to give you the benefit of doubt!” Mary emitted a hysterical laugh. It was too much—more than she could bear. “I’ve wed you! My God! What have I done?”
He grabbed her shoulders, his fingers digging into her flesh. “There are two sides to every story, Mary. You must hear me out on this! Barbara intended to use me for her purposes, just as Sir Richard intended to use you to achieve his political ends. In a sense, we are both pawns, but by leaving together we would flout them both.”
“Leave? I will not go anywhere with you. Ever! There is nothing you can ever say or do to make this right. I can never trust you again! Don’t you understand that?”
“God help me! How can I make you understand how it was? This maggot has been eating away at me for seven years. You must let me speak my piece, Mary.”
“Must I? I think not! The only thing I must do is get away from you!” She jerked out of his grip and crossed the room, giving him her back. “Please go. I need time to sort out this horrific mistake I have made.”
“Will you please only hear me out before you pass judgment?”
“It won’t make any difference, don’t you see that? You’ve betrayed my faith. You’ve sundered my heart, Hadley.” She stifled a sob. “It’s over.”
“I can’t believe that,” he said fiercely. “I refuse to let you go. I will carry you to France over my shoulder if I have to.”
“Don’t even think to try, for at the first opportunity I would escape you, or send word to Sir Richard. You cannot hope to keep me against my will, and you need my will to gain my fortune.”
“Damn the money to hell, Mary! This is no longer about your money. This is only about you and me.”
“And Barbara,” she said.
“Yes,” he audibly ground his teeth. “And Barbara. Will you please listen?”
“If I do, will you leave?”
He raised his palms in defeat. “You give me no choice.”
“Very well then. I will listen to what you have to say, and then you will leave and never beleaguer me again.”
…
Hadley’s heart pounded a desperate tattoo. How could this be happening? For almost ten years, guilt and bitterness had driven him to an endless pursuit of every excess and dissipation. With his sense of honor and self-worth destroyed, he had given up hope of anything good, but now that he had actually begun to hope for a new start, his sins had returned like some ravenous monster to devour it…to devour him.
“I must make you see how it was, Mary. Nothing is as black and white as it appears. Some of what you’ve heard is true, but I ask that you put aside prejudicial thinking to consider the man before you now. To base your decision on who I am at this very moment, not who I was.”
Mary sat in one of the pair of wooden chairs with her back ramrod straight, and her hands clasped in her lap, staring across the room. “Alright, Hadley. What do I have wrong?”
“To begin with, you don’t understand the circumstances. It was almost nine years ago. I was not the man I am now. I had yet seen nothing of the world, and unlike my peers who amused themselves with drink and debauchery, I cared for little beyond my studies.”
Hadley began pacing the room in erratic fits and starts. “I was only nineteen when my father sent for me from Oxford, insistent that I come to meet his new bride. It was shocking news, as I had not known that he had planned to wed, let alone take a wife only a few years my senior. Nevertheless, as a dutiful son, I came home to pay my respects, but arrived to the most disconcerting reception. At the places I was accustomed to habit, conversation would suddenly lull when I’d enter a room. Even more disconcerting were the sly looks that accompanied every wish of felicitations on my father’s union. It didn’t take long for me to realize that my new stepmother’s name was being bandied about in the grossest terms of innuendo. I would have drawn my sword for family honor, but there appeared to be no single culprit.”
“It sickened me but when I tried to broach the subject with my father, he would hear nothing against her, which only caused a greater divide in a relationship that was never warm to begin with. Finally, in a passion of righteous fury, I confronted Barbara herself, accusing her of being the veritable whore of Babylon. She laughed in my face. That same night I awoke from the most vivid and erotic dream…only to find that it wasn’t a dream at all.”
He paused to let her process what he had left unsaid.
“Your stepmother came to your bed?”
“Engaging in acts beyond my wildest imaginings. She bewitched me, Mary, just as she had my father.”
“But that is incest!”
“Yes,” he confessed. “By English law it is.”
“Why did you not turn her away?”
“Why? Because I was too weak-willed, too smitten to resist her. Men and women are vastly different, for a man is easily controlled by his baser passions. A woman who understands this can wield an all-consuming power with sex, especially over a man who lacks any prior experience. I was a virgin, Mary, and I lost my head.” He faced her with a plaintive look. “Can you not understand that?”
She understood far better than she would ever admit. Had she not also become bewitched? Had she not lost her head? She had married him, after all. But she had acted out of misplaced trust, and had harmed no one but herself. “We all err, Hadley, yet you persisted in what you knew was an iniquitous, incestuous, and adulterous relationship.”
“Yes, we persisted. My father knew by then that she had a lover, but turned a blind eye, so we grew careless. And then one night…” He looked away with a shudder. “You know that part.”
“You speak so coldly, Hadley. Have you no remorse at all?” she asked.
“Bloody hell! How can you ask that? Not a day has passed that I have not suffered guilt and remorse. It has eaten at me incessantly! I began by drinking heavily. I abandoned my studies only months from graduating, and eventually left the country to roam the continent like a gypsy, only to immerse myself in a cesspool of debauchery. I sunk so very low. I don’t know how I didn’t perish.”
“Barbara went with you?”
“God no! I broke relations with her immediately, yet I was still financially dependent on her. When my money ran out after two years, she came to me in Italy with a proposition for my maintenance.”
“What kind of proposition?”
He hesitated. “You have suspected me of keeping secrets from you. You have accused me of being two men. In truth, Mary, I am half a dozen different men.”
“I don’t understand,” she said.
“I am a spy, Mary, I have spent the last five years living a life of petty intrigues, betrayal, and lies, and Sir Richard, the very man who ruined my life, controls me. It has become a detestable existence, one from which I cannot seem to extricate myself. I was young, reckless, and desperate for money when I accepted the commission to go to Rome. It seemed easy enough at the time. At first, I was only to ingratiate myself into the Pretender’s circle and report on Jacobite doings, but eventually I was taken in to James’ confidence and began carrying his private letters between Rome and Versailles, but first copying them for Sir Richard.
At the time, it seemed little more than an amusing game of intrigue. I never considered the repercussions of revealing names and exposing the plans of those who had grown to trust me as a friend. I betrayed them, Mary. Men died horrible deaths for my perfidy.”
“Were they not traitors to the king?” she asked.
“Were they?” he asked. “They never acknowledged, or swore allegiance to King George, and their allegiance never wavered from the one they believed was their true king. So I ask you—were they truly traitors?”
“Are you a Jacobite, Hadley?”
“Perhaps I have been converted,” he gave a cynical laugh. “In my experience, the one they call the Pretender is a f
ar more worthy man than the king who presently commands the English throne, and it sickens me to continue in this role of deceit. I want out now. I want my damned life back and Sir Richard won’t allow it! I admit that I first saw you only as a means to an end—to reap vengeance on Sir Richard and to recover what I had lost, but then you became so much more. Can you understand that?”
Everything had changed. He had changed. God, how he wanted to make her understand that, yet it was even beyond his own comprehension. He only knew that he had claimed her as his own and was not about to let her go. Hadley desperately resolved to make her relent, to accept him even as flawed as he was. “You wanted truth, Mary? As unpalatable as it is, I have bared all to you.”
…
Mary searched his face, recognizing the pain it had caused him to re-open the old wounds. He had indeed laid himself bare, but how could she ever trust a man who had done what he had done? His entire life was built on lies and deceit, from fornicating with his own stepmother to betraying those who most trusted him. Perhaps his contrition was genuine, but for Mary it was still too little, too late.
She broke away from his gaze on a strangled sob, “I can’t. I can’t go with you, Hadley.”
“Damn it, Mary!” Anguish dulled his eyes. “What do you want from me? Tell me.”
Her eyes burned and her throat felt like sandpaper. “Nothing beyond the use of your name.” She barely voiced the lie over the lump in her throat. She wanted more, so very much more, but the chasm was too deep.
“You will not be safe from them. I can protect you.”
“Your name alone will protect me, for now they cannot wed me to another.”
“Sir Richard will contest the marriage in the courts,” Hadley argued.
“As you said, that will take time,” she countered. “I only need a good attorney to stall the proceedings. In the interim, my status as a married woman will allow me to return to Welham Grove.”
“And the marriage?” he asked.
“The marriage will stand in name only until I come into my majority. At that time I will compensate you for the use of your name, and then I will move for divorce.”
“On what grounds?” he asked.
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