Marianne breathed a very small sigh of relief, but Tibby’s expression quelled any further good feelings.
“If anyone can make a positive out of this dismal thing, it is I,” Tibby continued, one hand still on Marianne’s arm, squeezing too tightly. “The idea of Marianne being abducted and not an accomplice is good, I applaud whoever thought up that one.”
Marianne reared back a little in shock. She hadn’t heard that, but she would most certainly let it continue on without issue.
“All we have left to do is to show the world we are not ashamed of this union,” Tibby was saying, looking at Kit with a knowing expression. “The murky details shall be bandied about for a while, and we will never discuss it, but so long as you idiots keep your chin up, and save your spite for the privacy of home alone, things shall quiet down soon.” She shook her head, as if she could not believe she was going along with this. “I have only just arrived and am really quite fatigued, but thanks to you two, I now have a party to plan. We must keep to expectation, and had my niece married under normal circumstances,” here she paused to glare at Marianne, “I would certainly have thrown an elaborate celebration.”
“There is no need…” Kit tried, but Tibby silenced him again with another slap, nearly as fierce as the first.
“There most certainly is,” she barked, scolding him with another finger in his face. “Therefore, Friday you will come and we will celebrate this ridiculous scheme.” She looked at them both disapprovingly. “You dear children, I adore you, but do not test me. I may still cast you off. And for pity’s sake, Marianne, wear something elegant. Not that lawn ornamentation you currently have on.” She shook her head once more and swept past them both, calling for Mrs. Wilton loudly.
They stood there for a moment, staring where Tibby had been, and tried to catch their breath.
Tibby had slapped Kit. Twice! Marianne felt as though she should apologize for her aunt, if she could only manage to turn and face him.
Kit suddenly exhaled heavily. “That was actually not as bad I expected it would be,” he said, rubbing at his jaw.
Marianne couldn’t help it; she burst out laughing, wrapping an arm around her midsection and another at her mouth as she did so.
Kit smiled at her briefly, then craned his neck. “Well, I had better go and save Mrs. Wilton. Lord knows what your aunt is raving about now.”
“Block your face next time,” Marianne gasped, still laughing breathlessly. “She would never forgive you if you went to her party with bruises on your face.”
Kit shuddered a little, and disappeared.
Marianne fell into a chair near her and sighed. Her aunt was a wild woman of high status, and a party for them with her as hostess would go a long way.
But more than that, she had faced the dragon and come out relatively unharmed.
Perhaps things would be well after all.
“Madam, you have additional visitors,” Caldwell intoned from behind her.
Marianne frowned a little, turning to him. “Who is it?”
He handed her a tray with cards on it, and she took them, her fingers trembling slightly. After Tibby, she wasn’t entirely certain anyone else could be endured without disaster.
Marianne swallowed as she read the cards. It was unfathomable, these two women had never spoken more than five words to her at most, and yet they had come together to call upon her. There was no reason for them to do any such thing, particularly when she had only avoided being cast out of London for scandal by clever thinking and stratagem.
She would never have refused them, but neither would she have necessarily sought them out.
And yet…
“Miss Gemma Templeton and Miss Lily Arden,” Marianne read faintly, looking down at the cards with wide eyes. “I barely know them.”
“Would you like me to send them away, madam?” Caldwell asked, eager to please.
Marianne shook her head before she could dwell on it too much. “No, Caldwell. I will see them. Thank you.”
Caldwell nodded and led her to receiving room, where the two girls waited, looking pretty and innocent, and very young. She knew they were not too far off of her own age, but at this moment, she felt positively ancient by comparison.
“Miss Templeton, Miss Arden,” she said with a broad smile as she entered.
The two turned and gave her respectful curtseys. “Mrs. Gerrard,” they murmured in unison.
Marianne gestured for them to sit, and they did so. “I was surprised to get your cards,” she told them without any sort of preface.
Miss Templeton grinned, while Miss Arden merely curved the corners of her mouth. “We thought you might be,” Miss Templeton said, untying her bonnet ribbons. “We hardly know each other, and have never done anything like this before, have we?”
“No, we haven’t,” Marianne replied, still smiling, but now curious.
“Gemma and I do not know each other all that well either,” Miss Arden spoke up in her soft, demure voice, “but we have become more acquainted this winter, and are now friends. And we thought, after what happened… well…” She trailed off and looked embarrassedly at Miss Templeton.
She smiled at her friend and took her hand, then looked directly at Marianne. “We thought you could use some friends, Mrs. Gerrard, and we wanted to be them. So, here we are.”
Chapter Nine
As the entire world would have expected, Tibby’s party was the height of spectacle, in the most elegant, fashionable, and envious of ways.
Kit had tried to prepare himself for what this event would be like, knowing Tibby’s tastes were far more extravagant than his, but also knowing there was no stopping her.
After her visit the other day, he had not been sure what sort of reception he would receive on subsequent visits from Tibby, but the moment she had seen him this evening, she had clasped his hand, touched his face, and given him the most pitying of looks.
“My poor boy,” she’d whimpered a little, patting his cheek. Then she’d snapped back into her tart character and ordered him to stand in this exact spot until she advised him otherwise. She’d positioned a rather flustered Marianne next to him and then began ordering the rest of their friends about.
Marianne was positively radiant, and it irritated him. She had chosen the palest possible shade of pink muslin adorned with delicate rosettes along the comparatively modest neckline, with more rosettes in her nearly ebony hair. With Tibby wearing a brilliant burgundy, Marianne looked like a fairer, nymph-like echo of her aunt, and her complexion glowed with it. Her dress was a little too close cut to her figure, but it only heightened her innate loveliness, and her eyes sparkled in the splendor of the candles abundantly scattered throughout the room. She was far simpler adorned than usual, which somehow made her more beautiful than ever.
She looked far too much like the girl he had proposed to six years ago, down to the shade of her dress and the curl of her hair, and the echo of the laughter of that day, mocking and hysterical, resounded in his ears when he looked at her now.
Well, her idea of a joke was now the reality for them both. What a lark.
He could not keep from scowling, and no doubt those who greeted them wondered at his displeasure. But as most of them wished to speak with his wife instead, he could not bring himself to care enough to adjust it.
Some of their friends required introduction to one or the other, though the names of each were familiar, and Marianne had far more than he did.
All told, he only had to officially introduce the Viscount Blackmoor, who had silently communicated to Kit that they would speak later, and Lord Marlowe, whose presence was causing a bit of a stir, but he would soon be forgotten, as he always was.
“Lord Blackmoor didn’t really kill his wife, did he?” Marianne whispered through a false smile as more people approached.
Kit stiffened. “We are not discussing it,” he hissed back. Really, were people still under that impression? Blackmoor had suffered enough in the last few years bec
ause of that woman, he hardly needed that accusation to still be hanging over his head as well.
“He certainly is mysterious enough to have done it,” Marianne continued, “and he is always so cross.”
“He is not cross,” Kit insisted with little patience. “He is reserved and reticent. As am I.”
“Case in point.” She sniffed and flipped open her fan. “Who was the other man you know?”
“Lord Marlowe,” he reminded her for at least the third time. Poor Rafe, to be always so easily forgotten. It suited his purposes, though, so it might have been his greatest asset.
“He is shockingly handsome,” she said as she looked at him from across the room again. “Yet no one speaks with him, and I cannot recall ever seeing him at anything. Is he foreign?”
“No.”
“Odd…”
Kit looked over at Tibby with the sort of longsuffering look that begs saving, and she ignored him for the moment.
The room began to fill with more and more people, some of whom swirled about them, and seemed to forget they were standing there.
“Gerrard finally got what he wanted,” someone said with a hint of surprise. “Looks like the second time was the charm.”
Kit’s spine stiffened of its own accord as one of his hands formed a fist by his side. He forced his face to remain composed, eyes scanning the room as if looking for a familiar face.
A lady nearby tsked. “I thought she had better taste.”
“He has a fortune,” some man pointed out.
“And the looks,” a female sighed.
Marianne shifted slightly beside him, and he slid his eyes to her, finding her perfectly poised, smile fixed, but obviously attentive to them.
“He’s wanted her for years.”
All seemed to still behind them, and Marianne with them. Kit nearly groaned. Not here, not now…
“You’re lying,” someone laughed.
“No, really, he proposed six years ago and was refused.”
Kit saw Marianne’s mouth tighten into a thin line, and his jaw echoed that same tightness.
“Can’t say that I blame her,” another said with a snort.
“Well, he’s managed it now. He is the luckiest man in England.”
“Or the most foolish.”
“Either way, he has what he wanted.”
“The Gerrards always get what they want.”
Just as Kit had been about to snap, the group began to disperse, now speaking of some other idle reports, and he fought to find rational thought again.
How could they have been so unlucky to stand by the one group of people who still talked of that rumor?
He’d heard bits and pieces like that before, but never all put together, and never with Marianne near him. Not when he’d been married to her.
He exhaled slowly, his breath halting with every pounding beat of his infuriated heart.
“What were they talking about, Kit?” Marianne whispered sharply, her fan flicking in agitation.
“Nothing,” he said in a firm tone. “Gossip.”
“Gossip has its roots in truth,” she pointed out, smiling with a delicate flutter of her lashes and resting a gloved hand on his arm, putting on a show for public eyes.
He wrenched away as discreetly as he could. “Leave it, Marianne,” he snapped, giving her a small nod, his eyes pointedly averted, and then marched away. Tibby looked at him at last, her expression fraught with unspoken tension, and he raised a taunting brow at her, daring her to command him to remain.
She did not.
He walked passed his brother and his friends, who all looked the tiniest bit unsettled by his expression, and only Colin followed him.
“Aren’t you going to dance with her?” Colin asked quietly, seeming surprised.
“No.”
“She is your wife.”
“And I don’t dance. There will be a line soon enough, and you are more than welcome to stand in it, if you think it so important.”
Colin stopped tailing him, and Kit was grateful for that. He needed space from everyone who connected him with her, for at the present his mind swirled with memories, and he could not bear it.
He found an empty hallway just off of the ballroom that was partially obscured from view and leaned against the wall, filling his lungs with the cooler air and closing his eyes.
He would never know how word had gotten out about that day. He did not think Marianne had told anyone, and he had certainly never let anyone know his feelings about her. Yet the truth was out there, swirling amidst rumors and lies and speculation, and seemed so far-fetched to everyone that it was ruled as the same. It had risen up once more when he had returned to England three years ago, and followed him everywhere he went.
If Marianne attended the same events as he, the stories resurfaced.
She had to have heard something about them before. Yet she seemed completely uninformed. Either she was ignorant or she simply sought the confirmation of whatever truth existed.
He could not give it.
He would not.
Did she remember that day? Did she have any idea what she had set in motion?
It had been a miserable day, long before he’d spoken a word to her. Hot and damp with no breeze to lighten it, and Marianne had been trapped in Tibby’s poorly ventilated drawing room, receiving caller after caller. Kit had been growing more and more agitated as the days had gone on that summer, his feelings growing wild and straining against his control.
He could not go away that Season, could not bear to be parted from her. Day after day, week after week, he would play his same part of being her friend and confidante, able to stay close to her, closer than any other soul, for their past relationship. He could make her laugh with a single look, could read her as easily as she might a novel, and could make her see what a frivolous thing the parade of preening fools was. He knew she had begun encouraging men simply to see what he would say about them, and he ever delivered, knowing she would never seriously consider anyone that did not perfectly suit.
That day, just another in the endless streams of blissfully tormented days, he had broken form.
“Marry me,” he’d said without any elegance or ceremony, bearing his heart without any preparation.
Looking back on it now, he could see the insolence of such a presentation.
But it was no excuse for the response.
“What?” Marianne had cried with a hint of a smile, her color still rosy from the last embarrassment of a suitor, about whom they had laughed heartily.
He had stepped forward, closer to her than he’d dared go in weeks, and simply said again, “Marry me, Marianne.”
“That is it?” she’d said, laughter flittering through the simple words. “Nothing else? Oh, Kit, now you are being dreadful! No one would ever say it like that and be accepted!”
And then she had dissolved into laughter, peals and peals of it, falling against the sofa in her mirth.
He ought to have stayed, to profess it more and assure her of his affections, but her laughter at his expense had been too much for his fragile pride. He’d stormed from the room, hearing her call after him laughingly, still thinking it all a joke.
He had left London that night without even a feasible excuse for his twin. Shortly after that, he had left England altogether, and did not return for two full years, when he knew he was immune to her.
Mere weeks after his return, he’d been faced with seeing her once more, and the same adoration, love, and passion had burned within him just as fiercely as it had before he’d left.
More for the long absence.
And he had hated himself, and her, just as much. He’d been able to maintain his cool demeanor, cut her with biting words, and she’d not approached him since.
And he had married that woman? Oh, he was a fool, and worse than that, a glutton for punishment. Would he always wait for a look or a smile or a kind word, despite his desire to offend and insult?
Would he al
ways want and hate his bride as he did now?
And what of their children? Their children. It drew a chilling shudder of apprehension from him. He’d always thought of fatherhood as a prime objective in his life, but now a life of celibacy was far more appealing to him.
Perhaps not appealing, but certainly the safest, most reasonable alternative.
“Gerrard,” a low, familiar voice rumbled nearby.
He opened his eyes and saw Lord Blackmoor coming towards him, and he straightened.
“Blackmoor.”
Blackmoor raised a dark brow and waved him back. “Please, you were comfortable, and this is no ceremony.”
Kit did as he was bid and leaned back once more.
“Under the circumstances, I think I had better ask you if you need a drink,” Blackmoor said with a marked casual air.
Kit exhaled a soft laugh. “If I started, I might never finish.”
“I know how that is,” his friend sighed, matching Kit’s pose against the opposite wall, then drawing one leg up against it for support.
Kit watched his friend for a moment, having not seen him so relaxed in years, and certainly never since his marriage. Or what had transpired after. “Were you sent to fetch me?” Kit asked after a pause.
Blackmoor curved his bare smile, pale eyes unreadable. “No, not even Lady Raeburn dares to order me about, and your brother knows me only well enough to acknowledge me. Beverton I know a little, our country estates are neighboring, but he was dancing with his wife at the moment.”
“So why seek me out?”
There was a faint look of surprise. “You seemed distressed, which is not like you. I thought it my duty to see to your aid.”
“Most men would rather see to my wife,” Kit muttered, glancing back out at the ballroom.
“If I cared for your wife, no doubt I would,” Blackmoor replied without concern.
Kit turned his head to look back at him. “Why should you dislike her so? What harm as she done you?”
Blackmoor shrugged one broad shoulder, nonchalance not entirely suiting his athletic frame. “Nothing at all. I do not like her, I do not dislike her. Despite her popularity, I have never seen any reason to think well of her. Now that we have been introduced, I shall acknowledge her as I would any acquaintance of value. More than that is unnecessary at this point.”
A Bride Worth Taking (Arrangements, Book 6) Page 10