by Ingrid Hahn
Threats? The writer must have been feeling the helplessness of her situation. It was almost enough to make him feel sorry for her. Whoever she was.
He rose and, without drying himself off, walked fully nude across the room to pen his reply.
But that business about doing something worse than his uncle made his teeth set.
Name yourself at once.
He handed the sealed paper to his waiting butler.
“Have the messenger followed, will you?” Because he didn’t expect the writer to admit her identity. “I want to discover who she’s working for, once and for all.”
The answer wasn’t long in returning. When it came he was freshly bathed, in his banyan, settled in a chair by the fire with a book.
“The messenger returned to Lady Rushworth’s home, my lord.”
Ah. So the notes must be coming from his future bride. Of course. The simplest answer was usually correct. He should have guessed sooner.
As it happened, after gaining the intelligence, another note didn’t take long to appear. True to his assumption—which he might have admired under different circumstances—she didn’t reveal her name.
Your heart and conscience.
Was her assurance little more than bluster and bravado? Did she feel safe in believing herself anonymous? Or was she really so spirited?
When the note arrived about her heart belonging to another, he’d pictured a woman collapsed in a heap of tears. But going back over what she’d written—including the one he’d crumpled, having been rescued from the unused fireplace before a servant might be overcome with curiosity—there didn’t appear to be any tearstains on the paper.
Late into the night, one line in particular continued to bother Jeremy. It wasn’t that business about hearts and consciences. It was the line about knowing his family as she did.
Which brought him to his cousin’s house at breakfast time the next day.
Grace—Lady Corbeau as of the first of the new year—rose to greet him when he arrived. But her wide smile faded when he couldn’t return the warmth. She was alone in the small room, the walls of which were the color of robin’s eggs.
“Is something wrong? Here. Sit.” She gestured to a seat. “I’ll fix you a plate and have some coffee made.”
“Thank you, cousin.”
It wasn’t until smelling the foods laden on the side table did he realize that he had taken nothing this morning. Against all odds, his appetite hadn’t faltered, his stomach growling to remind its owner that Jeremy lived to serve it—not the other way around.
She put a full plate in front of him. Hardly seeing what he consumed, he dived in.
“Something is the matter, isn’t it?” Grace was the eldest of the four daughters of the old earl. Her next sister, Isabel, was Jeremy’s mother’s companion—among other things he didn’t presently care to contemplate—while Jane was off he wasn’t certain where, and Phoebe had recently married, making a rather surprising choice for her husband.
“Haven’t you heard?” He washed down a bite with a swallow of perfectly brewed coffee. It was rich and smooth and strong. “I’m to be married.”
Her eyes went wide. So she hadn’t heard. Interesting.
“Married? To whom? I didn’t know you had anyone in mind who you thought might suit you. When did this happen?”
Jeremy and Grace were becoming reacquainted—and only just—but there’d been a quick rapport between them. No sooner had he returned to London than she’d made an overture of friendship to end the estrangement between the two branches of the family.
It was the last thing he himself had considered doing, connecting with his family—other than his mother and brother, of course—but Grace hadn’t had to persist long.
She possessed all the exact qualities he most valued in a friend. She was an easy person with whom to talk, forthright and frank without being harsh or off-putting. She gave him the sense that she never judged others but instead tried to understand their point of view—without excusing bad behavior.
If he’d known that he would like her so very much, he’d have sought a reconciliation himself, and much sooner than she had.
“The day before yesterday. And I didn’t have anyone in mind. The whole thing was thrust upon me, most unwillingly.”
Grace raised her brows. “When it comes to marriage, cousin, few people can be truly forced. And even then, the circumstances have to be fairly extreme, and they still have to say yes. Is this a matter of honor or urgency?”
“No. Nothing like that.”
“I thought not.”
“It’s the debt—the one I told you about.”
“Oh, the last debt. The one Lady Rushworth is refusing to accept.” Grace’s mouth pursed as she considered. “But how does the debt figure into marriage?”
“I foolishly told her I’d do anything. She held me at my word.”
His cousin grimaced. “I don’t think I understand. You can’t mean you’re marrying Lady Rushworth.”
“Good God, no.” Jeremy downed the rest of his coffee in one swallow as if it were tonic against the horrifying notion. “Nothing like that. She’s decided that in order to consider the debt cleared, I must marry her ward.”
Grace’s jaw went slack. “Lady Rushworth’s niece? You can’t be serious.”
“I wish I weren’t.”
“I’ve never heard of such a thing.”
“She’s manipulating me.”
Grace’s color rose. She went indignant. “What does the poor girl who’s being made to marry you—what does she have to say about this…this absurdity?”
Jeremy couldn’t reveal their correspondence. Doing so would have felt like betraying a confidence. Unrelated men and women were not supposed to exchange letters. He didn’t care for lying, either, but it was the lesser of two sins. “I don’t know.”
“You don’t know? Oughtn’t you to find out?”
“I have a runner friend in Bow Street. I sent a message this morning asking him to find out what he can for me about Lady Rushworth’s ward.”
“That’s not what I mean, and you know it. You can’t possibly go through with this. It’s not right.”
“Marriages have begun on less provocation than the payment of a debt.”
“Is that supposed to excuse your behavior?”
“No, I suppose not.”
She gave a nod. “You can’t possibly expect happiness from this arrangement.”
“I don’t expect happiness in marriage one way or the other. That’s not the point, is it?”
Grace took a long breath and scowled into her tea, brow furrowed as she remained lost in thought for a terse moment.
Finally, she spoke again. “But Lady Rushworth despises the Landons. She can’t possibly want her niece to marry one of us. It’s hard enough on the poor woman that I married her godson.”
“Yes, well, the poor woman, as you say, threatened to sue me over the debt if I didn’t go along with her scheme.”
“How can she sue you? You’re making reparations.”
“But the original debt wasn’t money. Her husband loaned your father a jewel. You don’t happen to know anything about that, do you?”
“A jewel? No, I’ve never heard of anything like it. It sounds a bit odd, to say the truth.” She sighed, head tilting a bit to the side. “But I’m afraid I know little about anything my father did, other than what people care to tell me—and I take pleasure in knowing that while what they say might contain a grain of fact, it’s most likely fabricated.”
“Unless I can produce the jewel, she says I must marry her ward. I’ve been searching for it for years. It’s long gone.”
That damn jewel. Jeremy had hired runners to track it down, but it had vanished without a trace. It didn’t help that nobody knew what sort of jewel for which they were supposed to have been looking. He’d gone back to those scraps of paper he’d pieced together again and again to see if he’d imagined it. The handwriting wasn’t clear, but
it was the only thing he’d been able to make of it. The late Lord Rushworth had loaned Jeremy’s uncle a jewel. Lady Rushworth hadn’t denied it.
“What could she possibly gain from a suit? You can’t conjure the jewel from nothing, and you’ve proven that you’re more than willing to make reparations.”
“She wants to stir up old scandals, don’t you see?”
“Well, you’re not going along with such nonsense, are you?”
“What other choice do I have?”
“Every choice in the world. Say no. Don’t let the old harridan bully you into something so utterly absurd. I happen to know Lady Rushworth’s daughter quite well, and I’ve come to know the ward a little as well. You and she wouldn’t suit.”
“It’s a marriage. All I require is an upstanding, reasonably highborn woman completely free of scandal to see my duty to the line complete.”
“Heirs, you mean.”
“Yes.”
Grace tsked and shook her head, raising her gaze to the ceiling. “Listen to yourself.”
Chapter Three
Normally, today would have been Lady Rushworth’s day out. And of course, because it wasn’t the day she was at home to accept calls, nobody paid any.
The hours of the day hung all but stagnant. The three of them sat together in the drawing room. Alone. In stifling silence.
Except for the pounding of Eliza’s heart. Really, that the pace and force of the beats hadn’t caught her mother’s attention yet could be nothing but a small miracle.
Christiana was pale, with hollow eyes, her head bowed to a meek angle. Lady Rushworth—well, she was as she always was.
Eliza attempted to work on her embroidery. Her hands trembled so hard, she kept having to pick out stitches.
“Oh!” She brought her finger, sharp with bright pain, to her mouth, but not before smearing the white field of her fabric canvas with bright blood.
Christiana started and peered over anxiously, her spectacles sliding down her nose. “What happened?”
“I pricked myself.”
Lady Rushworth’s brows sank, and she shook her head. “Have care, Eliza.”
The metallic bite of blood filled Eliza’s mouth. The frustration of the pain caused by her own carelessness made her bold. “Mother, you can’t make Christiana marry Lord Bennington.”
Both of them looked at her in surprise, the resulting silence seeming to conspire against her with malicious intent. Christiana blanched while Lady Rushworth’s countenance reddened.
“She will marry him. There is nothing more to discuss. The day after tomorrow, at precisely eleven o’clock, she will become Lady Bennington.”
Eliza’s insides burned with rage. She’d spent years enduring her mother’s selfish whims and her contempt for others. When Eliza’s father was alive, they’d had one another. Then, without warning, he’d died. Until the morning they’d found him cold and gray, he’d been in the best of health.
If her mother pushed her cousin into this absurd marriage, Christiana would be lonely and forlorn. Having spent so many years alone after her father’s death, Eliza knew all too well what it was to be imprisoned in isolation. She wouldn’t wish that on anybody. Least of all, Christiana.
Eliza glanced to her cousin, willing all the strength and determination now surging through her veins to take root in Christiana as well. But Christiana hung her head, hiding her trembling lip, no doubt. All her vibrancy had been sapped away by Lady Rushworth’s machinations.
“You can’t make her say yes, Mother.” Eliza would be strong for them both. She threw her shoulders back. “All she has to do is say no loudly and clearly.”
Lady Rushworth’s features went cold. She spoke with the certainty of one used to holding power over the weak. “She will say yes.”
Awash in helpless frustration, Eliza gnashed her teeth. There was going to be a way out of this. And it would not involve running away to the next ship leaving Newport for America or India or some other horribly distant place.
Even if they had the means, fleeing would be allowing her mother to win, in a sense, by forcing them from their homes and lives. They shouldn’t have to forfeit so much simply to escape a bad marriage.
The trouble was, at the moment, there were no other options on the table.
“This came for you, my lady.” Margaret plucked a small note from the side of the tray on which she carried a pot of chocolate. “I almost didn’t intercept it before Caruthers delivered it to your mother.”
Eliza sat up in bed, hands shaking so hard she almost couldn’t read the latest note from the earl.
I know you’re my intended, and I hope by now you’ve come to accept your fate, as I have. Send along your name so I might have it for the special license. We can be married as early as tomorrow and have this whole business over with once and for all. Don’t bother with fripperies. Dress for travel. I don’t care much for London. After the ceremony, we shall set out at once for Idlewood.
His intended?
Chocolate forgotten on the side table, Eliza wore nothing but a shift as she took her place at the writing desk she’d had brought up to her room and placed on the table by the window. The room was cool in the clean early-morning light.
Carefully, she dipped the pen, and drew a deep breath. The nib slid smoothly over the paper, leaving a shining black trail after it as she formed the stroke and curve of each letter.
Elizabeth Rosamund Burke
Her stomach sank into an abyss. She should burn the paper. Immediately. She couldn’t take Christiana’s place as Lord Bennington’s bride. What an absurd notion.
But another part of her wanted to do exactly that. It would serve the heartless louse right, wouldn’t it?
And once he married her, marrying Christiana would be quite impossible.
Eliza bit her lip. Could she marry a stranger? She knew nothing about the man. Nothing real, that was.
According to her mother, all Landons were cheats and liars, and Lady Rushworth held up Eliza’s friend Grace as the prime example. Grace had been forced into an engagement with Lord Corbeau, her mother’s beloved godson. Lady Rushworth had never believed that Grace hadn’t contrived to be caught in that storeroom with her now husband—her beloved husband, at that—and Eliza had eventually given up trying to convince her otherwise.
If Eliza herself married a Landon—became a Landon—her mother would never forgive her. But if her mother forced Christiana to marry Lord Bennington, Eliza would never forgive her mother.
Once, a very long time ago, Eliza had taken for granted that she would marry. It was what women of her class did. When she’d become engaged to Captain Pearson, her mother had been overjoyed.
What a dark day it had been when she’d had to break the news to Lady Rushworth that the engagement had been broken. After absorbing the shock, all her mother’s hopes for her had been lost.
Since then, Eliza had known she was fated for eternal spinsterhood. At first, she’d mourned what she’d lost. Eventually, she’d accepted it. In time, she’d come to like the idea of remaining single forever.
Or she thought she had. Unexpectedly, the idea of leaving her mother once and for all made her almost dizzy with longing. She had money. Lots of money. None of which she could touch. It was all for her dowry. There had never been any doubt in her late father’s mind that his beautiful and beloved daughter would marry and marry well. So, of course, there had been no need to make her independent.
Indeed, she had almost fulfilled all their assumptions. Captain Pearson had been the dashing naval hero with whom the whole of England had fallen in love. And he’d wanted her. Until the fateful night she’d told him the truth.
What would her father say if he knew what she was planning now?
“Margaret?” Eliza turned to where her maid was choosing her mistress’s morning gown.
“Yes, my lady?”
“We need all our things packed by tonight. Christiana’s, too. But you must do so in secret. It’s absolu
tely essential that nobody else in the house learn of what you’re doing. Is that understood?” Her pulse pounded with such bestial severity, she could hardly hear herself. Her voice sounded strange—and very far away. She couldn’t do this. She couldn’t. The plan would be found out immediately. It had to be. It was too absurd to possibly work.
“My lady, I…” Margaret’s mouth remained open as her words trailed away.
Eliza stood on shaky legs. “I have every faith that you can manage the task beautifully.”
Sometimes it was better to display more confidence than one actually felt. In the next thirty or so hours, she’d have to maintain the guise.
And if she were found out?
She’d deal with the aftermath when it became necessary. She’d never faced down her mother for a transgression of this magnitude before. Whether she was successful or whether she was not, one way or the other, she would be answering for her actions.
…
Eliza had endured a guilty conscience before. Losing her virginity at fourteen, then having nobody in whom to confide when the full magnitude of her horrendous mistake had come crashing down. Knowing she’d been completely at fault and having to live alone and isolated with her shame pressing down upon her.
Then, later, losing Captain Pearson.
At least he’d never betrayed her secret to Society at large. He could have taken vengeance upon her by exposing her for the ruined woman she was. His anger had frightened her, and she’d spent a year sick with worry that her world was on the verge of collapsing.
It was very much the same feeling now as a butler brought Eliza and her cousin into the earl’s foyer. Any moment, her mother would burst through the door, and there was going to be hell to pay.
“Miss Elizabeth Burke, I assume?” As she handed over her things to the butler, Eliza turned to the deep voice. She opened her mouth to answer, but the sight of the man—a stranger—made language shrivel up, lost and forgotten against the realization that she meant to deceive him at the altar. “You’re early. Where’s Lady Rushworth?”
From a distance, the earl had been perfectly admirable. Straight and tall, with the wide berth of his shoulders set off against the lean taper of his waist and long legs.