Cullman nodded, a dark amusement making his brown eyes dance. “Naturally.”
Benjamin saw the man’s mouth twitch, just holding back a laugh. He watched several moments more, aware that Cullman still stood, poised to leave but not leaving. No doubt he hoped that Benjamin would accept his terms, erasing the need to cozen someone else into the same predicament.
Everything boiled down to one inescapable reality: Miss Oakes was the one who stood to be the most injured in this sorry little affair.
While she had clearly found wanting the idea that he might understand, let alone hold any gentlemanly standards, the fact was Benjamin had only told the truth when he’d said his problems all came from being a gentleman. She had no way to know that he’d accepted disgrace rather than watch a friend’s life disintegrate, that he let everyone believe the fault was his, because to do anything else was to nullify the sacrifice he’d been positioned to make.
He’d saved a friend’s family, and he would not undo that, not even to clear his own name. Especially this name, already long tarnished by the time of his birth. Perhaps, after all, no effort in his lifetime could ever wipe the tarnish clear. It must be simple vanity—a legacy from Papa?—that kept alive Benjamin’s hope this long that one day the Whitbury name would be said with
warmth and approval rather than the suspicion it now occasioned.
Just as he could do nothing about the family he’d been born to, now he would hardly blame Miss Oakes if she doubted his behavior stemmed from any notions of nobility. After all, he had demanded a kiss from her in return for his silence—hardly proof of his usual ethics. He did have standards however. Praise God, Gideon had defied their father, the son becoming the worthy man the father had been incapable of being. Gideon had taught his brothers to look beyond narrow views and snobbish constructs, to see where privilege ended and obligation began.
Miss Oakes might doubt it, but Benjamin knew one of the obligations of his birth was to—where he could—help protect the innocent.
A shudder coursed through him—not for his own sake, but for the true innocent in this affair, the woman in his thoughts: Miss Oakes. Truth was, Cullman was doing her a favor by breaking their secret betrothal, albeit a cold-blooded favor.
“Do you play and keep what reputation you yet retain, or do I find another pigeon to pluck?” Cullman demanded.
Benjamin gave him a steady look, one he hoped did not show the anger and spill of resistance that spread through him. He detested being manipulated like this. Worse, he felt trapped. But what choice did he have?
Go home. But he couldn’t. He wouldn’t. His brother had too recently conquered his demons. Benjamin could not be the one who disturbed Gideon’s newfound happiness with his bride, the woman, Elizabeth, who had freed Gideon’s trapped soul. He could not bring yet another round of cares home to Gideon, could not be yet another problem his brother must solve.
If not home—then what?
He must accept the wager.
And how to do that with any shred of honor or dignity? He’d have to find a way to make it right with Miss Oakes. . . . Could he pay her to cry off? No, no, she probably had more as pin money than he had total in his purse this night. It seemed evident that her father, Sir Albert, was flush with the ready. Money would not move her; it was never the way to make things right with her.
Perhaps, if she’d have him, he should go ahead and marry her? Even though she was the exact opposite of what Benjamin would choose in a wife?
He nearly offered an oath aloud, but his eternal pride kept him silent before Cullman’s obvious amusement.
“Come, come, it’s not so bad as all that grinding of teeth would suggest!” Cullman chided. “All I want is that, should you lose to me, you become publicly betrothed to the chit,” he reminded Benjamin, one finger pushing the top card slightly right and left, the motion faintly taunting. “Recall I do not care how you break away from the harridan, so long as it has nothing to do with me.”
Benjamin sat forward, shaking his head. “There is an immense problem with your plan, Cullman. Miss Oakes will not have me,” he stated. “Why should she?”
“Give her no choice! Announce your betrothal publicly tonight. Compromise her. Or take her to Gretna Green. There are a dozen ways to get a lady to accept the protection to be had in a betrothal.” Cullman clucked his tongue, chiding. “You merely stall now, my lord.”
The words were true enough; there was nothing else to be said. There were only two choices: accept the wager or not.
Benjamin reached for his cards with fingers that felt numb, as if they belonged on the hands of another man.
Cullman smiled. “I see you are going to be reasonable. I would wish you good luck, but the truth is I hope you lose.”
As Benjamin lifted the cards to read them, he frantically thought how he could sell Fallen Angel, retrieve his money there. He could leave now, before playing out the cards in his hand. He’d have enough money to go home to Somerset, to Severn’s Well, to . . . what? Buy an apprenticeship? At the age of three-and-twenty? To be beholden to another until the age of thirty? And as what? Who would want such an aged apprentice? Anyway, who was there to become apprenticed to in the small village of Severn’s Well? Or even in nearby Bristol? There was no one, no task to fulfill . . . except being the marquess’s brother. There was no shame in being Gideon’s brother—but there was shame in being his useless brother.
Worse yet, Benjamin would not be alone in his shame. Miss Oakes would be shamed, too. Today, tomorrow, or whenever Cullman cornered someone else to fall into this scheme, when the cards played out badly—her shame was unavoidable so long as Cullman was connected with her.
She was not Benjamin’s problem....
Benjamin lifted his hand once more and reevaluated the cards he’d been dealt, his blood chilling as he read there his future. No matter. He had to play the cards out, had to accept that he was not going to turn his back on Miss Oakes’s abandonment by this cur.
He lost the play. Cullman laid the final card with only the smallest of smiles, displaying the savoir faire that most men who aspired to dandyism would sacrifice a year’s income to be able to emulate. Benjamin stared at the played cards on the tabletop and although he was not surprised, felt the numb sensation spread up from his fingers toward his brain. Cullman reached over, emptied Benjamin’s purse on the table, and counted out five hundred pounds. The cards had been played, the wager decided.
When Cullman had satisfied the monetary part of the wager, three pounds, one shilling, and tuppence remained for Benjamin to pick up with a hand he forced to remain steady. That was all he had left in this world: three pounds, one shilling, and tuppence. Oh, and a horse—which must be somehow fed and stabled.
Cullman stood, stuffing the banknotes into his coat pocket. “My condolences,” he said over a yawn. “You should compromise her, or however you plan to get her agreement, as soon as possible. No later than Wednesday. I will give you two days.” He consulted his pocketwatch. “Lud, it is nearly half of five. Perhaps I should go straight to my club for breakfast.”
Benjamin stared at the tabletop. God save him, what had he done? Had he really just “won” a fiancйe? How could he ever tell her ... or, worse yet, her father?
Cullman yawned again, and patted Benjamin on the shoulder in seeming fellowship. “I know you will keep your end of the bargain, Lord Benjamin, being a military man.”
“I am military no longer,” Benjamin said flatly.
“Some things get into your blood.” Cullman dismissed his protest. “Notions such as honor, and all. Besides, if the deed is not done, and publicly so, by Wednesday, I shall simply then withdraw my sponsorship and proceed to destroy you. And, by association. Miss Oakes’s reputation, such as it has become, as well. What honor will not propel you to, I think that knowledge will.”
Benjamin looked up then, his defeated air evaporating under a kind of awe at the man’s audacity and that damnable calm. Another man might have been
tempted to strike out with a fist or a cutting word, but another man would not have known what Benjamin knew. The knowledge of it filled him, kept his fist at his side. Cullman would never know, never understand—but it was something Benjamin would have to be sure to convince Sir Albert Oakes was true.
He watched as Cullman walked away humming contentedly to himself, and then Benjamin stood slowly to his own feet.
He had bluffed the man. Cullman had thought he could control Benjamin through fear and intimidation, but Benjamin had dealt with bigger scoundrels than Cullman, and had—after a sense—conquered after all. His own father had been a bully, an immutable threat to the peace of any given day. So Benjamin knew when a bully was too powerful to be attacked, too unkind to be ignored, and too stupid to see that triumph could be had in more than one way.
Cullman thought he had caught Benjamin with threats—but it was the thought of seeing despair in a pair of pretty brown eyes that had made Benjamin pick up those cards, had made him play them out below his actual ability, made him assure it was himself who lost that hand of cards.
Cullman had been too thick or prideful or uncaring to realize he’d been gulled. And why should he care? He’d got what he wanted; he’d traded away a burdensome fiancйe.
Fiancйe. Benjamin must make an offer for Miss Oakes’s hand, even if it happened that they never married. Come, be my bride, and we shall live like kings on my three pounds, one shilling, and tuppence, he thought bitterly. That is, if your papa does not shoot me first.
Benjamin looked up, saw his host returning from the front hall where Sir Albert no doubt had bid good-bye to a leave- taking guest, and crossed to the man’s side. “Sir Albert, may I have a quiet moment of your time?” Benjamin asked, hearing the strain in his own voice.
Sir Albert looked him up and down, his own smile fading, presumably at the serious expression on Benjamin’s face as well as the tone he could not help but hear.
“I’m thinking you should,” Sir Albert said, and led the way into his bookroom, where he closed the door behind the two of them, not bothering to hide a worried frown.
Katherine spread her hands, her fingers tracing along her forehead as though to smooth away a headache, and slowly looked up from her seat at her father from between the arch formed by her hands. “I do not understand,” she said. “How can I be betrothed to Lord Benjamin?”
Her papa compressed his lips, a grim line in his full face, and she knew he was losing his patience. He had already twice stated his outlandish announcement.
He did not chide her though. Instead he said rather gruffly, “Lord Benjamin asked for your hand. I said yes. I have decided. That's that. That’s just the way things are going to be, Katherine.”
He spun to face Lord Benjamin, leaving Katherine to watch in a fascinated dismay as his shoulders worked under his coat. Papa was highly agitated, an emotion usually reserved for serious offenses Katherine’s brothers had offered to a schoolmaster or parson. Was he angry with her—at what offense?— or Lord Benjamin? But again, why?
“I shall place a notice in the news sheets as soon as may be tomorrow,” Papa told Lord Benjamin firmly. “Today, I mean.” he said, sounding weary. “The sun is up already.”
Lord Benjamin glanced toward the window as though to verify the dim light creeping in there, but Katherine just stared up from her chair at her father, trying to make sense of all that had happened since Papa had sent a maid to fetch her from her bed. She had been urged to dress quickly, and to come down to the bookroom “as quick as may be, miss.” When asked for details, the maid had shaken her head, as bemused as her mistress. Upon entering the bookroom, Katherine had been perplexed to find Lord Benjamin also waiting there in candlelight, his expression strangely blank. The grate had not been swept out since last night, and no new fire burned there, leaving the room cool in the predawn air. A shiver had run up Katherine’s spine, but she’d thought it might owe more to the somber faces staring at her than the room’s lack of comfort.
Papa had proceeded to announce with a deepening scowl that Lord Benjamin had asked for Katherine’s hand in marriage, and had received Papa’s blessing. Katherine had turned, startled, to stare at Lord Benjamin. Lord Benjamin had asked for her hand?
Under her astounded stare, his expression had not changed except for the small muscle that worked in his jaw. Muscle or no, smile or no, he had hardly radiated the aspect of a satisfied suitor.
Had Papa somehow misunderstood what the man had requested? No matter. A betrothal between her and Lord Benjamin was impossible.
“Papa,” she now proceeded to explain with a logic that largely sounded calm, “I cannot marry Lord Benjamin because I am already promised to Mr. Cullman.” She felt blood rising into her face, and cursed the coloring she’d been born with that so easily revealed when she was embarrassed or excited. “Secretly promised,” she added when she saw the dark wave of disapproval on Papa’s face.
Lord Benjamin must have told Papa much the same, must have guessed Mr. Cullman was the fiancй she’d claimed, for Papa did not appear wholly shocked. “Katherine!” His tone changed from angry to hurt. “I would have thought you’d come to me and tell of any such proposal. Not to mention the man himself! He should have come to me and—” Papa cut himself off with an impatient gesture. “No matter! Even if you had some manner of understanding with the man, that is at an end now,” he declared.
Back home, she had suspected Papa did not like Mr. Cullman, and his disapproval now glittered quite clearly from his gaze. In that light, the family’s sudden journey to London made sense, having little or nothing to do with a promise Papa had once made to Katherine’s mother.
But did it make any sense, was it at all like Papa, to suddenly betroth his daughter to some man unknown—except superficially—to them both?
“You do not care for Mr. Cullman, is that it?” Katherine asked Papa now, desperate to understand. “Is it so offensive to
you that his betrothal to me was in secret? Have you rejected him because of that?”
“I have rejected him because he is not the one here asking for your hand!” Papa growled, his neck remaining red above his cravat, making Katherine half afraid he would have an apoplectic fit. “Now, listen here, this is enough quibbling and spitting, my girl,” he said very gruffly, in the same tone in which he’d irrevocably declared she must sell the high-spirited mare, Fallen Angel. “Everything is settled. All is set. No arguments! You should go on back to your bed now, as it is so early. I would not have awakened you, except I felt you should know the news before you saw it in print in the afternoon papers.”
“The papers—!” But, Papa ... I mean, this is .. . this is simply mad!” Katherine declared, coming to her feet. She glanced at Lord Benjamin, as if he might take up her argument. Someone had to speak reason to Papa, whose expression and tone of voice boded ill against any pleas—however logical or reasonable—from his daughter.
“No offense to you, my lord,” Katherine said in a quick aside to Lord Benjamin, “but I say, this is ... is hasty and ill thought- out, and—! Papa, I will not marry Lord Benjamin!”
Both men stared at her, and alarm began to grow in her where a moment earlier only confusion had reigned. While this was mad, and growing madder by the moment, still she got the terrible, sinking feeling that rational protests would not stop events from closing around her with all the reality of a trap springing shut on an unwary fox.
“I mean”—she sank back down into her chair, pivoting toward Lord Benjamin—“I thank you, my lord, for your kind offer, truly I do. But I must inform you that my affections are engaged elsewhere—”
“Confound it, girl, this is not a matter of affections!” her papa cried, his hand to his forehead like an exasperated schoolmaster. “This is marriage! And I’ve done well by you, agreeing to this match. You’ll be the wife of a marquess’s son! Lady Benjamin Whitbury. That’s an end to it. The matter is not open to discussion. Now go up to your bed!”
Katherine lif
ted a hand to the ribbon tied around her throat, her fingers anxiously closing around the cameo that hung there, a small but lovely trinket Papa had given her for her last birthday. Where were his smile and his understanding now? She stared at her parent, unaccustomed to her father raising his voice like this. Yet it had happened several times of late. He had shouted four weeks ago that they were going to London and that was the final word; then last week he had demanded she not only stop trying to ride “that wild-eyed heathen of a horse,” but that she must sell the lovely and high-spirited Fallen Angel “before she breaks your stubborn, willful neck!” And here he was again, shouting down the roof—and, more importantly, avoiding his daughter’s gaze.
Something was wrong, terribly wrong.
“Do you owe Lord Benjamin a great deal of money, Papa?” she asked, her voice sounding hollow to her own ears. It was the only thing she could think of that made any sense of this affair.
Papa and Lord Benjamin exchanged glances, a gesture of shared guilt more telling than words. The hand at her throat began to shake, as if responding to the heart beating there with the steady rhythm of a death knell.
Papa froze for a moment, but then, slowly, he began to nod. “Yes,” he growled, his eyes dropping to the carpet, his posture the essence of guilt. “Yes, you have guessed what. . . that something provoked these circumstances, Katherine. I have premised you to Lord Benjamin in exchange for settling a debt. A very large debt.” Papa’s neck turned a deeper hue, looking very red in contrast to his white hair. She assumed this time his color had risen more from embarrassment than anger.
He looked up from under his brows at Lord Benjamin, whose expression had lost its neutrality and grown dark and forbidding—the man must not have wanted Papa to reveal the truth. Indeed, what man would want his potential wife to learn such a sordid reason for a betrothal?
The Bartered Bridegroom Page 6