The Bartered Bridegroom

by Teresa DesJardien

  Benjamin stared, and Sir Albert lifted his chin.

  “I know that your intent is the very opposite ... now,” Sir Albert went on. “But these things tend to alter with time. And she is a lively sort, with some charm I tell you, even if you’ve yet to see it in her! So, my lord, I would have your promise.”

  “And if I would not give it?”

  Sir Albert’s jaw tightened. “The two of you would be chaperoned at all times, in all ways, by no less than her three brothers and myself. Day, night, and every second in between.” His gaze narrowed. “And I would learn that you lack honor, just as the gossips say—something I had hoped was not so.”

  The two men stood silent for a long moment, tension palpable between them.

  Benjamin broke the moment’s mood by allowing a slow smile to form, careful it not appear mocking, but, really, this was too pitiably amusing. He hung his head, then spread his hands in a gesture of capitulation. “I fully expected such chaperoneage in any case,” he said, his mouth twisting with humor despite himself.

  Sir Albert’s shoulders relaxed, but he still gazed at Benjamin, awaiting an answer.

  “Sir,” Benjamin said, “you have my promise. Beyond what small performances Miss Oakes and I must affect to convince others there is a betrothal between us, I will do nothing to woo or win your daughter.”

  Sir Albert nodded, slowly at first, but then with growing satisfaction. “See that you do not, Lord Benjamin.” He tried to sound gruff, but his relief was obvious. “Do well by my Katie, and I will call you friend for life. That is all I can offer in return for this favor you have sworn to grant me and my daughter.”

  Benjamin inclined his head, his humor softening, becoming less bitter. “All, sir? Is not friendship a pearl beyond price?” Again, he was careful not to sound mocking—for the words were true enough, were indeed an axiom in which Benjamin believed. He could count on one hand the few friends who had stood by him in his recent difficulty—he would ever remember who had proved themselves the true friend, and who had not.

  “By God. I could like you, my lord!” Sir Albert said, giving a brisk nod of his head.

  “Could?” Benjamin grinned openly.

  “You know how to convince another to put their trust in you. I pray I am not misled,” Sir Albert said.

  “As to the matter of your daughter, you may put your mind at rest and fear not.”

  “That I cannot do, Lord Benjamin. Only a fool fears not. I may be many things, but 1 am not a fool.”

  Benjamin cocked his head, silently acknowledging that the other man’s caution was not misplaced—Benjamin would not trust fully either, were the roles reversed. “You know what is said of me, and yet you have taken my word. Others would not, and think themselves prudent,” he pointed out.

  “My Katherine came by her willful ways honestly, you see, for we Oakeses are a stubborn lot who prefer to decide things for ourselves.” Sir Albert grinned as well, even as he shrugged. “Of course, sometimes we decide wrong.”

  “What is the punishment for disappointing a member of the Oakes clan?” Benjamin asked, meeting the man’s gaze.

  “Death by the Cut Direct.”

  “Ouch!” Benjamin pretended to wince. “But I should warn you that the Whitburys have survived the Cut Direct for decades now. We have grown inured to it.”

  “Perhaps in Somerset, sir, but I have to wonder about your stamina in Town.”

  Benjamin gave a crooked smile, and acknowledged the thrust with a bow of his head. “Only time will settle the matter.” “It will.”

  Benjamin offered a shallow bow, preparatory of leaving. “Since I have sworn not to woo your daughter, I could, if you like,” he said as he lifted his head once more, “give your daughter a disgust of me, sir. She already half hates me. It would take but an unfortunate scratch of my backside here, a ribald joke there..

  The older man ran his tongue between his upper lip and teeth, not quite masking a responding smile. “Thank you, Lord Benjamin, but that will not be necessary.”

  Benjamin gave an elegant shrug. “As you please.”

  Sir Albert’s expression sobered. “Thank you, my lord.” The bow he offered in return to Benjamin was deeper and longer and said much.

  Benjamin began to turn to leave, but then he hesitated. “You are welcome, sir. I would ask one last question, however.”

  Sir Albert spread his hands. “Yes?”

  “If you do not care overmuch for Mr. Cullman’s company, how is it he was a guest at your card parties?”

  Sir Albert pulled a face. “He is the son of a friend. A good man, is Mr. Henry Cullman of the Home Office, formerly a squire of Bexley. We have been friends for many years. He asked me to receive his son, give him a leg up in our little bit of society in the country, y’know. It was only recently that I realized the son does not follow in the father’s footsteps.” Sir Albert shrugged, not responsible for a friend’s less-than-shining offspring.

  “Still, Cullman the Younger is where he belongs now, a dandy among the highest-flying of the fribbles. London is the place for him. I cannot regret that he has turned away from my Katie, even if I regret how he went about it. Even though it seems the man has a purse to support this high life he’s chosen, I am glad he will not be the one to support my girl's comfort and well-being into her old age. For all I know, perhaps he is deep in dun territory, telling his creditors to wait forever as fashionable fools seem to do these days. At any rate, Katherine is well rid of him, I think. And her heart will mend.” The last he said with less certainty.

  “It is the way of young girls,” Benjamin asserted.

  Sir Albert grunted. “Young girls? I don’t think my Katherine’s ever been a ‘young girl,’ not as you mean, my lord. You’d do well to think of her as a woman grown, with a mind that rivals any of her brothers’. A mind that makes itself up and damn the consequences.”

  Despite the girl’s reputation, Benjamin felt himself staring, for he’d never heard a father so describe his own daughter— take that as a warning and learn from it, Benjamin noted to himself. People called her a hoyden and a hellion, and her own papa said she’d “damn the consequences.” The woman had named herself a bluestocking, in this case the more generous of epithets that could be tossed about—and he’d be wise to remember both her words and her father’s.

  Yes, Benjamin decided, he would do well to remember not to treat Miss Oakes like any other woman he’d ever met—but only for one month. Thankfully, after that, she would not be his concern.

  Chapter 9

  “I am Mrs. Cyril Cullman.” Katherine tested the name while she gazed into her looking glass. “Why yes, I am the wife of Cyril Cullman,” she tried. Her reflection appeared pleased.

  Also reflected was the clock on the mantelpiece, showing it was twenty minutes to four, the hour Lord Benjamin had said he would return to take Katherine walking in the park.

  “Katherine Cullman,” she tried one last phrase, following it with a coy smile, only to see her reflection devolve into a scowl. Scowling was not an expression that afforded her well in the arena of good looks, but it was better than “coy.” She did not do “coy” at all well.

  “How do you wish your hair dressed, miss?” the maid inquired, already moving to pick up a yellow ribbon to match Katherine’s yellow sprigged muslin gown, from the top of the chest of drawers. She paused. “Your hair has grown longer than usual, miss, since we come to London. Do you wish me to trim it first?” Katherine glanced back at her looking glass, seeing that her hair was longer than it had been in many a year. Not for the first time, she wondered if she ought to grow it out—most women had long hair. Almost every woman back home in Bexley eschewed this fashion of short hair, taking pride in their long locks. Katherine had often been asked if she ever meant to let hers grow.

  She thought of the many times she’d had to comb it back like a lad—and it occurred to her that she probably could let it grow now, if she wished, since she had sworn never to don lad’s clothing
again, at least while in London. The risks of exposure were too high here. But she did not wish to grow out her hair, not really ... not yet. She wanted to reserve the ability to slip into her old disguise, just in case—she might want to visit Fallen Angel again, she thought with a flicker of defiance.

  Only to sigh. The horse was the one creature on all the earth she could not visit, for its owner would not welcome this particular visitor, in women’s clothing nor men’s. For that matter, Katherine had no notion where Lord Benjamin had decided to board her—no, his horse.

  She shook her head. “No trim today,” she told the maid. “Can you do something stylish with it as it is?”

  “Oh yes, miss,” the maid assured her at once. “A ribbon woven through finger curls will do very nicely.”

  The maid set about her task, and Katherine let her mind linger, not on missing her horse, but on the rest of the day ahead.

  She would walk in Green Park at four, as she'd agreed to do, and attend the Bellord ball tonight at eight. Beyond today, she would follow Lord Benjamin’s list of places to go and things to attend, and she would accept best wishes for her supposed pending marriage. All the while she would somehow keep from screaming that it was a complete deceit.

  She must remember to picture herself, in four weeks, sitting before the fire in her very own cottage near Meyerley Creek. Or. perhaps, sitting on the lap of Mr. Cyril Cullman before the fire in her cottage.

  Cyril. As her husband. Katherine drew in a sharp breath and let it out slowly, and then had to assure the maid that. no. the girl had done nothing to cause Katherine discomfort. But... marriage. She’d planned to marry Cyril, for many weeks now. She had run many scenarios through her mind, from going to chapel together to lying together in bed. She’d lived too long in the country, in the company of men and horses, to be ignorant of the physical nature of taking a mate. She knew the pleasures of kissing—and hoped bedding would be all that and more.

  It was not those intimacies that disturbed her composure so much as it was the idea of sharing most, if not all. of her waking hours with a man. A strange man. Papa and her brothers were known and familiar, and caring of the female among them. The idea of sharing hour upon hour, day upon day, with a man so unbeknownst and unaccustomed to her, and she to him—now that was daunting.

  “Just as well we will be at Meyerley Creek,” she told herself. Then she frowned, for Meyerley Creek was hers, but it was not home, no matter that it would soon be her new residence.

  She had wanted freedom—and marriage was yet another way of getting it; it would be, inarguably, freedom from the familiar. But somehow in her mind “freedom” had meant she would be free to choose what to do, when to do it. or how to do it. She would make the decisions that needed making. But surely a husband would expect some say-so in her life, her decisions? Of course he would—just as she would hope he’d include her in deciding important matters.

  Katherine frowned, and the maid gave her mistress a helpless look. “’Tis not you, Ginny, ’tis my own poor mood,” Katherine assured her.

  But, she thought the moment her contemplation turned back to marriage, in her concern she was forgetting something, something very important: Cyril was different. He liked Katherine. He encouraged her, and laughed wholeheartedly when she amused him, and never bid her change a thing about herself. He would be largely a stranger if. . . when they wed, but so would any man she had not lived with all her life. At least this “stranger” could be counted upon to take enjoyment from their alliance, to want to marry her. And, if she were right, Cyril had swallowed a great deal of pride in order to help her papa. He had taken a step back, had agreed she must be publicly betrothed to another, had not insisted on his prior claim—and the only reason to do so had to be that he worked to protect her papa. Surely that said much of the nature of Cyril Cullman.

  If she were right. But she had to be—the explanation was the only one she’d been able to form that made sense, for Papa had refused to give her any other when she’d gone to him not an hour since.

  “I cannot tell you why I agreed to Lord Benjamin’s proposal, Katie,” he had said, his expression so terse it bordered on misery. “You must accept that is all I can say on the matter.”

  His anguish, more than his words, had made her leave him be, made her not press for answers as it was surely her right to do. Whatever had happened, she guessed she ought to be grateful this mock betrothal would put it right.

  “Do you like it, miss?” the maid asked, bringing Katherine back to the moment.

  “Why, it is charming, Ginny!” Yellow ribbon peeked out between a riot of curls, a flattering look that even the ladies in Bexley could not find wanting.

  Ginny nodded with satisfaction. “’Tis all in how you pin it, miss.”

  The maid helped her mistress don the rest of the late afternoon’s ensemble. Katherine turned back to her looking glass to be sure all was in order, from her half boots for walking, up to her lace gloves and the shawl draped over her shoulders. Fashion decreed she ought to wear a bonnet, but Katherine was in no mood to accede to yet another dictate. The ribbon would serve as decoration enough for her hair on this day blessed with fine weather. Why work to keep her face from the sun when it already had too much color in it anyway to be considered fashionable?

  As soon as Langley brought Lord Benjamin to the parlor door and announced his presence, Katherine felt a blush add to the color in her cheeks. At least Lord Benjamin could not know what it was that brought the blood rushing to her face. For when she saw him anew, it was not of the false betrothal she thought, nor the discredit surrounding his name, but of the way his finely shaped mouth had touched hers only yesterday morning. Not anger at his part in all this, not chagrin—but memories of his kiss.

  Her reaction was understandable. He was a fine-looking man, in his sober way, and when he smiled he was actually quite attractive. He smiled now, ever so slightly, in a general greeting sort of way, and it was hardly remarkable that his smile should draw her attention to his mouth. The memory of those lips on hers ... his had been a breath-stealing kiss, quite literally. At first she had responded only with the shock of being swept into his arms, but then the shock of the kiss itself had coursed through her.

  It was . . . style, or skill, or instinct. Something about the way he’d held her ... or the way he’d held his mouth—but his kiss had not been something merely to be endured. Katherine had, in fact, welcomed his mouth’s touch with a readiness as spontaneous as .. . well, as a laugh shared between friends. His kiss had been on the one hand as enticing as a candle’s glow inside a darkened room, and yet as comforting as pulling on a warm pair of gloves when one’s hands were tingly with cold.

  Comforting? A kiss with Lord Benjamin? Impossible! And yet. .. “comforting” was the only word that came close to describing why she’d not only lingered in his embrace, but so readily kissed him in return.

  Despite her warm thoughts, or because of them, she felt a tremor of discomfort at knowing she was going to be alone with this man—Miss Irving had a headache but had said a walk in the park without a chaperone was utterly innocent and perfectly acceptable, especially as Katherine and Lord Benjamin were betrothed. Katherine had not liked it, but she’d had no recourse but her brothers, and quickly dismissed the idea of their open- eared company.

  “Lord Benjamin,” she greeted him.

  “Miss Oakes,” he greeted her in return. Was that humor in his eyes? “Are you ready to endure a walk through the park?” he asked.

  His lightness of tone surprised her; she could almost appreciate his humor. A second glance into his face assured her that gone was the doleful Lord Benjamin who had attended her papa’s card party, or the snappish man who had asked for her hand; here again was the banterer who had discovered her in lad’s clothing and demanded a kiss in exchange for keeping her secret.

  What a changeable fellow! If any woman ever married him in truth, Katherine would feel sorry for the pell-mell life that woman would undoubt
edly lead. She would have to be a woman who liked change ... and kisses.

  Katherine looked down at her folded hands, thinking her cheeks must have reddened even further at the turn, yet again, of her thoughts to this man’s kiss. Did she possess no circumspection? Better to reflect on how the world called him “rogue.” Which thought reminded her that she wanted to ask him a question.

  “Before we go, Lord Benjamin, I feel I have a right to ask you to tell me something.”

  His gaze did not waver, even if his slight smile disappeared. “Ask, and I will decide if you have the right to an answer, Miss Oakes.”

  She nodded; it was a careful reply, such as she might have given were she in his place. “Since my name is to be attached to yours, however fleetingly, I feel I have the right to ask what compelled you to leave the navy?”

  Instead of looking annoyed or angry, Lord Benjamin smiled—albeit a wicked smile, full of teeth like a shark’s jaw that Katherine had seen at a scientific display.

  “Plain truth. Miss Oakes?” he asked, his eyes glinting, although not with humor despite his smile.

  “Indeed.”

  “I was forced to resign after I admitted to selling naval supplies to smugglers.”

  She gasped, even though she’d been told the same by Cyril. How could Lord Benjamin grin around the ignoble words he spoke?—although his smile reminded her of a stained-glass window she’d seen in which the artist gave the devil a brittle grin, as if the Fallen One knew tempting souls into the depths was but a false triumph.

  “How could you?” she asked, hearing the aversion in her voice. “How could you sell supplies meant for your shipmates, for men who were going off to battle—!”