“Are you well?” Colin asked in a surprisingly calm tone.
Marianne swallowed and bit her lip. She sensed he was not asking after her health. “I am w-whole,” she answered carefully.
The immediate release of tension in Colin showed her she was right.
“And are you hurt?” he asked, seeming slightly more concerned than he had been previously.
Her eyes flashed to Kit briefly, who had not relaxed in the slightest, then returned to Colin. They had seen her get off of the bed; she could not hide her pain, nor the bruises on her face, nor the tattered, tangled mess of her hair. She could not lie, but neither could she tell them all.
Colin, she knew, could raise a temper when he was of a mind to, and whatever she said would be reported back to her brother, who did have a temper, and took very little provocation to rise to violence.
“Only a little,” she whispered, the words hitching on her breath.
Colin looked to Kit, who nodded once and left the room. Then Colin turned back at her, and said with a severe look, “I left my very tired and expectant wife to find you. If she has suffered any upset because of this, it will be your head she wants, not mine.”
Knowing what she did of Susannah Gerrard, that was undoubtedly true. Marianne nodded and looked down, tears burning at her eyes.
Colin sighed and opened his arms. With a soft cry, she ran to him, burying her face against his shoulder.
“There, there,” he soothed, holding her in a surprisingly tight grip and running a hand over her hair. “It’s all right, minnow, I’ll take you home.”
A soft kiss on top of her head brought a small smile to her face. Colin had always been the most demonstrative of her brother’s friends, and the only one she would ever let call her by Duncan’s pet name, though he had not done so in years.
“How did you find me?” she hiccupped.
“Oh, we rallied forces and raced off in various directions,” Colin said dismissively, rubbing soothing circles on her back. “Half of the men are headed towards France, the rest towards Scotland. Kit and I followed a lead we had that said you might take the more direct path through Leeds, and here we are. Your Mrs. Gordon is not as dumb as you think, despite evidence to the contrary.”
Marianne sagged against him. “I’ve never been so glad to be wrong,” she murmured.
“Nor I, minnow.”
After waiting a few long moments for her tremors to settle, she sniffed again and pulled back, rubbing at her eyes. “Where did Kit go?”
Colin’s face wrinkled a little and he wrapped an arm around her shoulder. “He is taking care of something… unpleasant.” He patted her shoulder once and gave her a small smile. “Come on, let’s get you out of here. Duncan is heading down from Scotland, he should cross paths with us in the morning if not sooner.”
Colin picked up her bag with his free hand and nudged his head for her to start out of the door.
“How much trouble am I in, Colin?” she asked in a very small voice, reaching for her shawl and wrapping it tightly around her.
He gave her a very shrewd look that held no encouragement. “Not sure, pet. Quite a lot, I would think.”
Marianne nodded once with a hard swallow, a small shiver running down her spine.
Two agonizing days after they had discovered Marianne and dealt with Mr. Marksby… well, when he had dealt with the blackguard… the men gathered at Lord Loughton’s rarely used Yorkshire estate, and Christopher Gerrard was not any less furious than he had been before.
He’d given Marksby the best thrashing he had ever given another living soul, and ironically, his first outside of a boxing ring, and still he burned with the desire to hit something.
The moment Colin had called upon him at his house in St. James and told him of the situation, Kit had been wild and disorganized and utterly unhinged. All within the confines of his mind, of course. He would never have been so far gone as to publicly display anything so uncontrolled, not even to his twin. He’d known full well that Colin was to be Marianne’s warden if things got out of hand while Duncan was away, but he’d made it a point to stay as far out of the way of Marianne Bray’s destructive path as he could. It did not work all of the time, as he was still inexplicably drawn to her, no matter how disgusted it made him.
He was only grateful he had never as yet been physically drawn to her side. His connection to her was entirely internal, and thus remained his secret, as it should be.
But hearing that she had run off with Marksby had released something within him that had long been dammed up. He had been as driven and relentless as any of the men who had rallied to the rescue, though how most of them had managed to be in or around London at such an unpopular time was miraculous.
The exception had been the Earl of Beverton and his family, but their estate in Hampshire was not too far off for him to be called upon.
Duncan and his wife had been with relations in Scotland, and so he had played no part at all in the hunt for his sister, for which he was furious and deeply embarrassed, despite the assurances from the rest of them, and any consolation they attempted was waved off. Kit could understand that. If one of his sisters had fallen into such a way, he would have felt guilt beyond anything else.
He had no idea what sort of conversation had occurred between Marianne and her brother, and he did not care to. He had his own opinions on how Marianne had been raised, which would be of no use to anyone at this point. All that mattered was that she should understand what the consequences of her actions would be.
And as they all sat together in the study, the situation unfolded as being very bleak.
Kit knew it would be. He knew something of being a topic of rumor and having a standard reputation among Society’s circles, however unfounded his was. Marianne had gleefully earned her place, and everything she did, from a new gown to a harsh word, was instantly known and flittered about London as if on a breeze. She was quite proud of it.
Her reputation would likely never recover from this idiocy.
He clenched his hand into a fist for the thousandth time this morning as his mind flashed back to seeing her in that inn. He’d feared the worst when he’d seen the state of the place, and not knowing if she had been willful or ignorant had eaten away at him. The information they had received about Marksby had terrified him, and he knew Marianne could not have been aware of the whole truth.
But would she have cared?
Her state and distress had haunted him for days, and her soft admission that she was whole had gone a long way to smooth things over. But just because she was whole did not mean she was well, and he might never know the entire story of what she had been subjected to.
Therein lay his horrors.
The woman he loved, no matter how he hated himself for it, had been grossly abused, and he could do nothing about it. He certainly had taken care of the man at whose hand she had suffered, but as far as soothing her, nursing her back to herself, ensuring she need never feel so victimized again… None of those things were in his power.
Granted, he did not think he could have held her or soothed her if he had the power to do so. Perhaps he could have at first, when she was so distressed, but he could not do so for long. He rather was more inclined to give her a few solid swats on the backside for her stupidity, but he would never raise a hand to a woman, not ever, not even if it was deserved. She had behaved foolishly, recklessly, like a rebellious child, and her punishment should be treated as such.
But as he listened to what the room as a whole was thinking, there would be nothing of the sort. She would be protected as she always was, and she would never know just how bad things were.
She never had.
“So I think,” Geoffrey Harris was saying now as he sat back in a chair and rubbed at his eyes, “that really, the only solution to her problem is to get her a husband. Quickly.”
The entire room seemed to groan and Kit looked around with a bit of interest at the sound.
“Why do
es it always involve finding someone a husband?” Derek, the Marquess of Whitlock, grumbled as leaned forward and put his head into his hands.
“It does not,” Nathan, the Earl of Beverton, scoffed with a crossing of his ankles.
Derek gave him a rather direct look. “Doesn’t it? We needed Susannah to marry Colin. We needed Annalise to marry someone, preferably Duncan. We needed Mary to get married and save Geoff the trouble of murdering someone. You took Moira to Preston so she could get married.”
“And what about Kate?” Colin asked, folding his arms and looking intrigued.
Derek grinned unabashedly. “Well, we needed to find her a husband worth having, didn’t we?”
That earned a round of good-natured chuckling.
Kit had heard some of the stories these men had with finding, or keeping, their wives, but he’d not been close enough to hear them directly. Oh, he’d been friendly enough with them over the years, and he certainly had the highest respect and opinions of them, and of their wives. But they had been Colin’s friends, not his. He had grown closer to them in the last year and a half, with Colin’s marriage and the sudden appearance of their three half-sisters, but there was still distance between them.
“Do you really think we need to proceed with marriage?” Nathan asked with a look at Geoff. “It seems a bit drastic.”
The fair-colored man raised a brow and snorted softly. “Do you really think she would ever be admitted into Society again when word gets out that she ran off on an elopement that was foiled? And I do mean when, for it will come out.”
Derek made a face. “It will be brutal. They aren’t kind about her anyway, behind her back. Now it will confront her head on, and we haven’t exactly let her in on that secret.”
Kit grunted softly, but only Colin marked him, and gave him a warning look.
She ought to have been told ages ago that she wasn’t popular for the admirable reasons she thought. If she knew the stories that swirled about her… If she had any idea what they actually thought…
He’d never taken any pains to inform her of them. It was not his place to do so, and he didn’t care.
Unless there was a direct attack. Then he cared quite a lot.
Secretly, of course.
“Do we really have to find her a husband?” Derek asked, whining a bit, which made the others smile. “They don’t exactly line up for this sort of thing.”
“Marriage is the only option,” Geoff answered back, shaking his head.
Kit stole a glance at Duncan, who looked impossibly larger than he was as he sat in his chair. His eyes were unfocused and he seemed miles away. The worries and stress on his mind at this time had to be extensive and consuming. Whatever Kit believed about how Marianne had been brought up, there was absolutely no denying that Duncan Bray was a caring brother who loved his sister very much, despite her obvious faults and failings, and had only wanted to do right by her.
There was nothing to find fault with in that.
“You say that as if it were like buying a pony, Geoff,” Colin said with a snort of derision. Then he perked up suddenly, “Oh, could we do that instead? Nathan, can we buy a pony from your stables?”
Someone threw a pillow at Colin, which he caught easily with a smile.
“Duncan, what do you think?” Nathan asked quietly, watching his friend with concern. “You have been very quiet.”
Duncan sighed, and the house nearly shook with the weight of it. “I don’t know what to do. She has ruined herself, there is no doubt about that, but she is also a victim. Of her own making, it is true, but had she known what sort of man she had trusted…” He shook his head and pinched the bridge of his nose. “No one will be as forgiving or understanding as the people in this room.”
That was a sobering thought for Kit. As much as he felt, as angry as he was, it was true. He wanted what the rest of them wanted: what was best for Marianne.
“What is her fortune these days?” Geoff asked Duncan, suddenly all business.
“Somewhere around forty thousand,” Duncan replied modestly, looking a bit sheepish when someone whistled, “and that doesn’t consider what Tibby might give her. If she forgives her this.”
“That should help matters,” Derek muttered as he sat back. “Fortune hunters are everywhere.”
A severe light entered Duncan’s eyes and he raised a finger. “I won’t sell her off like cattle just because we are desperate,” he told the group firmly. “He must be a good and decent man, a gentleman of quality. I do want her to have a husband she can tolerate, maybe even come to love, if she ever grows up. She should be happy, eventually.”
That earned a round of understanding nods, and Kit suddenly felt the slightest bit uncomfortable.
Colin sighed and rubbed at his forehead. “And how do you propose we do that, Duncan? We have not the time nor the resources to give her a real courting Season.”
“And who is desperate enough to take her as she is, even with her fortune?” Geoff murmured.
“Well, whom do we know that might be persuaded?” someone else said.
“Are we really going to make a list of eligible men?”
“I feel like my mother.”
“Don’t say that, I feel bad enough as it is.”
The voices faded into a buzzing as Kit sat there, outside of the group, yet suddenly inside of it. Was he really supposed to help them come up with a man who could marry the woman who haunted his thoughts whether waking or sleeping? He could not do it, not even pretend at it.
There was no solution here. There was no man in England that could marry Marianne Bray, as she was, as she had been, extensive fortune notwithstanding, and honestly have a chance at making her happy, let alone having her fall in love with the poor soul. Marianne was a prideful creature; she would never go quietly, not even with her reputation in tatters. She would never obey a husband, she would hardly even care for one. He would be used by her, for status or grandeur, as if it made her somehow more respectable.
No one should be subjected that fate. No one knew her well enough to be able to properly manage such a future.
The only thing to do was…
Was to…
“I have an idea,” he heard himself say.
The room was suddenly deathly still, all eyes on him, curious, as if they had forgotten he was there.
He was an idiot for what he was about to do.
There would be no going back.
“Well, go on, Kit,” Geoff said, looking interested, but encouraging. “Speak up.”
Kit barely spared a glance for his twin, who suddenly looked terrified, before leaning forward and meeting Duncan’s eyes calmly.
“I will marry Marianne.”
Chapter Two
“WHAT?” three voices cried out, with varying volumes.
“Are you mad?” asked Nathan from his left.
Duncan was gaping at him openly. “Kit, are you sure?” he managed, his voice noticeably lower than normal.
“Of course he’s not sure,” Geoff said with a hard laugh. “He couldn’t possibly…”
He trailed off when he saw Kit’s expression, which had stayed perfectly composed and calm, and now he only raised a brow at him.
Geoff gave a weak cough. “You are sure?”
Kit nodded once.
“We were not asking for volunteers,” Nathan said faintly.
“Kit…” Duncan tried again, still appearing to not understand.
Their reactions to such a statement ought to have given them a great deal of insight into the severity of the situation at hand. If he, who knew and understood both the circumstances and the woman they were attempting to marry off, had earned this much concern and protest, how could they expect any other man to take it on? They would have no idea what they would be agreeing to.
“I will marry her,” Kit said again, still calm and controlled, though something inside was beginning to burn.
Derek was shaking his head desperately. “Your reputatio
n…”
“…is already unclear,” Kit finished firmly, looking around at them all. “All that is known for certain is my association with you lot, which, granted, has declined in recent years, but it is still there.” He turned back to face Duncan directly. “Your sister knows me well. We were friends in her younger years, there is no reason either of us should be unhappy. And I have needed a wife for some time now. Marianne would suit my purposes well enough. No doubt better than I had expected from marriage at all. And I will treat her well and keep her protection my prime objective. So, yes, I am sure. I will marry her, if she will have me.”
“Oh, she’ll have you,” Duncan said without hesitation. He sat back in the large wingback chair he occupied, a smile touching the corner of his mouth. “I may not have expected you to volunteer yourself for the job, Kit, but now I consider it, I am not sure there is a better man suited for this.”
That was not exactly what Kit needed to hear at this moment. He hoped that Duncan did not have any notions of love or felicity in this union of theirs, for he could hardly promise that.
“This might be the best idea any of us have ever had,” Nathan laughed, clapping Kit on the back.
“Or the worst,” Geoff murmured, seeing Colin’s face.
Colin suddenly stood, his hands almost visibly shaking. “Kit, a word, if you please.” Without waiting for a response, he exited the drawing room and turned down the hall towards the study.
The room quieted, all of them watching Kit now.
Kit twisted his lips a little. “I suppose I should have spoken with Colin first,” he said slowly, rising to his feet, “though there was hardly opportunity.”
“Does he have the ability to change your mind?” Duncan asked him, not looking concerned or upset, merely interested.
Kit shook his head, exhaling softly. “No, and that might drive him mad.” He gave Duncan a wan smile. “We will be back momentarily, and then perhaps we can see to details.”
He followed Colin out of the room, determined to settle himself before he had to explain his actions to his brother. To be perfectly honest, he was not entirely sure he could explain it to himself. It was the right course, he had no doubt of that, but what had possessed him to do it?
A Bride Worth Taking (Arrangements, Book 6) Page 2