The Bartered Bridegroom

by Teresa DesJardien

  Benjamin’s face had been again wiped clean of all expression, only the slap mark revealing anything of what had just happened.

  Katherine felt another sob rise in her throat, and savagely drove it down. Even if there had been anything left to say, she could not have spoken. She turned to walk away from Benjamin, embraced within Cyril’s arms.

  Chapter 18

  The next evening, a quick glance out the window revealed dusk had arrived. It was nearly seven o’clock, nearly time to call on Katherine for the last time.

  Today had been grueling. Benjamin had gone to his first day working for Sir Uriah’s shipping concerns, baffled and battered by the list of things he was expected to learn over the next few weeks. Still, by the workday’s end, he’d begun to make a kind of sense out of the place and the position, because he knew much of the sea and something of shipping. Society might look askance at his open engagement in commerce, a task beneath his birth—so it was just as well his entrance into Society had been a means to an end, rather than the conclusion itself.

  Like Katherine, Benjamin had done what he must to arrive where he wished to be. He had entered London’s exclusive Society in order to earn his daily bread, to find himself, to gain a place of purpose in this world. Katherine had endured a stay in London—and a false betrothal to Benjamin—in order to have her cottage, her horses, and her dream. Once not so long ago, he would have said they had nothing in common, but now he saw commonalities that had unexpectedly led to friendship.

  A friendship gone, now. Last night had killed the budding affinity between them.

  He had spent the past two hours doing everything he could to make all London believe there was no hint of lingering friendship between him and Katherine—not because he wanted to but because he had said he would. A man was only so good as his word, so Benjamin had made a point all day long of being seen at any club or society that would admit him. He had moped, he had pouted, he had made it abundantly clear that “Miss Oakes has cried off.” He had told Katherine he would do this service

  for her, would complete what they had started with a slap last night, so he had done it, albeit with lead weighting his tongue and an ache in his chest.

  Benjamin glanced at the clock on his mantel again, and then checked his appearance for the tenth time in his looking glass, dissatisfied with what he saw. Would his buff breeches and blue coat give him a harmless air? He did not want to seem threatening, or prideful, or capable of cruelties. Katherine had cried real tears last night, so he knew he had to have embarrassed her with his kiss. He’d have to keep his features carefully schooled when he was in her presence tonight; he did not want to embarrass her further by any untoward gesture or expression.

  At least he had not told her the truth about Cyril Cullman. Last night, as he had stared down into Katherine’s face and listened to her asking how they were to enact a quarrel, it had struck him like a stone between the eyes that he could not tell her that she’d been traded away by Cullman. He could not let her know the man had abandoned her with all the “care” the cad would have used to trade away a dented watch fob. Benjamin could not be the instrument that made her feel that used, that neglected, that unloved. No! the word had raged through his mind, there had to be another way to skin the cat. If he could not tell her—could he not somehow warn Cullman away from Katherine, for good, forever?

  And Benjamin had found that other way. Small things had all fallen together, in that sudden clarity that desperation sometimes brings. Not a half hour since, he had called upon his old friend, Stephen Dahl. Together they had gone to view a painting, a very specific painting that had been commissioned not long ago and that hung in a prominent place in the Royal Academy of Arts. The painting prompted talk of old times, and of the day Benjamin had accepted the blame of theft that ought to have been accepted by Dahl. The painting had Benjamin thinking to himself that he’d been so right to make Katherine promise to see him one last time.

  After seeing Katherine tonight, Benjamin would indeed keep his appointment to see Cullman, to see ended Cullman’s pursuit of a woman far, far above his worth.

  Benjamin scowled at his image, and tugged at his waistcoat and his cravat, trying to correct there what he could not correct

  for real. And if 1 could correct things? came the whisper in his brain. If l could undo all the half-truths? If I could really try to woo her...

  He was probably a bigger fool than Cullman, for thinking Katherine would want anything of him, the man who meant to deny Cullman a chance to seduce her, let alone marry her.

  He slumped into his bedchamber chair, ignoring his own attempts at sartorial splendor, and determined that there was one thing he could do for Katherine. He could hang a new epithet on her, could see that the title of “hoyden” was changed to ... “original.” Yes, that would suit. The dark humor in all this being that his name was not so tainted today as it had been yesterday—he might actually soon possess enough social pull to do Katherine that little bit of good. Sir Uriah had told him the Admiralty would be printing tomorrow the public apology in the three largest news sheets in London. “The least they can do, given the black mark to your name, you know,” Sir Uriah had said gruffly, obviously embarrassed for the navy’s sake.

  Not that Katherine had waited upon Mr. Dahl’s word or even the Admiralty’s to form her own opinion and extend friendship, Benjamin thought. She was an amazing woman. If only he had known it sooner.

  Truth was, she must hate him. She had certainly hated his kiss last night—she’d slapped him for it.

  But... no. That was not quite true. He would swear she had not detested the kiss. In fact, she had kissed him back, had clung to him—at least until he’d told her she must slap him. Only then had she turned stiff in his arms and cried for him to let her go.

  Had she perhaps remembered her one-time vow? When first he had kissed her, in the stable a seeming lifetime ago, she had vowed he would not kiss her again until she was “cold, dead, and in a casket.”

  Last night she had been anything but cold, at first. At first he would have sworn she hated their parting, too—at least before her wrenching tears had made him begin to wonder if it was just him she hated.

  He did not know, it was so confusing, his thoughts spilled and jumbled over one another, filled with conflicting impressions.

  The only thing he was sure of was that he had made Katherine cry and that she would not thank him for it.

  He gazed wearily at the clock on the wall, and saw it was time to leave. Time to call on Katherine. The last time. His heart felt out of place, as if the anguish in him had physically weighted the organ, as if it might as well fall into disuse since it would not need to beat properly ever again.

  Benjamin tucked the birthday gifts he had for Katherine under his arm, taking up his gloves and hat. What is painful is best done quickly, he told himself, but he knew better. He knew this pain would be a long time hurting, if not forever.

  Chapter 19

  "You are not happy,” Papa said to Katherine, spreading his hands wide in exasperation where he stood before her.

  She made no response, merely watching as he sighed at the silent stare she gave back to him.

  She glanced at the clock again. It was almost seven.

  “This is what you wanted,” he continued, now letting his hands drop in exasperation to his sides. “So why are you not happy? We have agreed it is best if we put this Season behind you now instead of later. And in a few days you can remove to your cottage in Bexley! Which, I say to you again, is a terrible idea.” He shook his finger at her. “I mean to say, moving to Bexley, where you have so little chance of meeting a suitable beau!”

  “You never used to worry I would meet a suitable beau,” Katherine pointed out quietly.

  “Because I—” His face purpled. “I neglected you! I kept hoping you would not grow up. There, now I have said it, and it is true. But I will never neglect you again.”

  “By seeing to it that I am married.” />
  “Yes!” Papa cried in vexation.

  “After my birthday, you will have no say if I marry or not.”

  “I know!” he all but howled.

  “Papa, you are going to have a fit of apoplexy. Please calm yourself. Would it help if I said I will probably marry Mr. Cullman?”

  Papa glowered, and threw his length down in a chair, to sulk openly. “No! I do not know! Seems to me the man owes you marriage, after all you have gone through with him and Lord Benjamin. But, I tell you straight Katherine, I cannot like the man. It was he—” Papa stopped speaking abruptly.

  “He who started the whole false betrothal to Benjamin?” Katherine asked calmly.

  Papa’s glower deepened. “I never said that. Lord Benjamin would not have said it to you either.”

  She shook her head, a small smile forming on her lips for just a moment. “No, he did not. But, Papa, I am hardly stupid. Slow to see at times, but not stupid.”

  “But that is exactly your problem,” Papa agreed. ‘Too clever by half! You almost killed off old Vicar Harntuttle a half dozen times with your piercing questions.” Papa shook his head. “I should have had someone like Miss Irving tending to you much sooner, certainly someone with a firmer hand and a stronger heart than Harntuttle’s anyway. Might have curbed that tongue of yours a bit to have a sharp-eyed female watching you all along. And now here’s a thought, Katie. Miss Irving might be willing to come back from her mama’s and be your companion in that cottage in Bexley, you know. I would be willing to pay her wages—”

  Katherine shook her head, and Papa changed topics with the resignation of a sailor changing tack in order to catch the wind. “I would not let you go to that cottage at all, except you promised to dine weekly with your Aunt Jane.”

  Katherine did not deign to reply, because his threat was hollow and they both knew it. Short of locking her in her room, he could not prevent her removal to Bexley after her twenty-first birthday, in just two days.

  Still, to appease him, she had agreed to go to her Aunt Jane on Sundays. Papa’s only sister had nine children, seven of whom were female, and of those, four were of a marriageable age. Aunt Jane hosted and attended many parties, well ensconced in the busy rituals of seeking mates for her daughters. It was Papa’s transparent hope that at these gatherings a mate might be found for his daughter as well. He knew Katherine would never agree to return to London for another Season, so he’d had to settle for Katherine’s lukewarm agreement to take Sunday luncheon with her aunt, who lived two miles outside Bexley.

  For herself, Katherine did not anticipate much in the way of matchmaking attempts, for Aunt Jane had never before had five minutes to give to Katherine, who had committed the great

  crime of being born with straighter teeth than any of Jane’s daughters.

  “So, I say to you again, Katie, you are not happy. I would know why, since you have got all you wanted,” Papa demanded, springing up from the chair to pace before the fire, which had been lit on the grate a little earlier, now that the rare, warm June sun had nearly set for the day.

  “I am happy, Papa,” Katherine said, just stifling a sigh. She put aside the book she'd been holding, so distracted by her thoughts that she’d read the same paragraph over and over, all evening.

  “I know you think me half mad, but truly, I am very happy to be going back to Bexley. Mr. Partridge, my steward, writes that he has already found a second horse owner who wishes to board his gelding with us the first of next month. Not a racing horse, mind you. A hunter, but a hunter pays as well for a stall as does a racehorse, and I must build my trade by degrees.”

  “Trade!” Papa echoed in dismay. “You will make an old maid of yourself with your eccentric ways.”

  Katherine ignored the comment, since she found she really could not care, much, if she ended her days as an old maid. “And there is a three-year-old already scheduled to arrive the day after my birthday. And Mr. Partridge has hired three lads to do the mucking out and the heavy work and I will train them in how to put the horses through their paces. Did I tell you that I mean to have a racing oval in addition to the paddock—”

  “Yes, yes, I have heard all your many plans, my love,” Papa said morosely.

  The clock chimed seven. Katherine wished Benjamin had already come and gone, that the suspense of again seeing him would be over. She had grown a little numb since last night, probably from lack of sleep, but not numb enough that being in the same room with him would be painless.

  At least she would not be alone with Benjamin. Papa was here, and Cyril was supposed to call as well. Last night, confused and grieving at the loss of a friendship, she had confessed that she’d promised Benjamin could come to call tonight and bring her an early birthday gift.

  She did not want a gift from him; it was bound to be awkward, possibly hurtful. Anything he gave her would only serve

  to remind her of him, of an exceptional person who had slipped out of her life because she had let him.

  “What could that blackguard possibly call a gift? I must be there, Katherine, to be sure nothing inappropriate or offensive is offered to you,” Cyril had declared, and had insisted he be present.

  She had also said, more talking to herself than him, that it was difficult to imagine living in her cottage by herself. “I have always been surrounded by my brothers, and Papa, of course. It will seem too quiet, I think.”

  “Perhaps I could brighten your days by coming there to call upon you?” Cyril had suggested. “It is not so far from London. I could see you frequently. I could stay ... in Bexley.”

  There was another of his innuendoes, a little too warmly said to be ignored, a little too vague for her to take umbrage with him. Did he fish for an invitation to stay the night at her cottage—or was she a foul creature to even wonder it of him? Really, she must talk with him and let him know he had a certain indirectness that clouded her responses to him.

  “You did not like my property when you saw it before,” she had reminded him.

  “Well, my dove, it was undeveloped, and a swamp. I am sure it is more congenial now, with that you tell me of its improvements.”

  None done thanks to you, Katherine thought, feeling traitorous even as she thought it, for after all Benjamin had only worked to improve her property when she had forced it upon him as a condition of their agreement. She could hardly blame Cyril for not taking action when he’d never been asked to.

  “Besides”—Cyril stared ahead, but he let his eyes angle toward her, a look she would have called “coy” had a female done it—“who knows how long you will want to stay in Bexley? Perhaps there will be reason enough to return to London soon. There are things you will miss. The theater. The bon mots. Certain members of the male gender.”

  Benjamin’s eyebrows would have danced if he’d said as much, an acknowledgment that he flattered himself; Cyril’s face was unreadable except for a dark light in his eyes—and Katherine was unsure what to make of that.

  “Papa will remain in Town until the end of the Season,” she said, deliberately misconstruing his innuendo.

  “As will I,” he said, his voice a low caress.

  She’d been glad they had slopped then before her home, glad to leap from the carriage before he could move to assist her, or hold her hand, or kiss her. She was glad to scamper up her front steps without looking back to view his expression, and relieved to push away, at least for one night, these signs that he still wished to marry her.

  She still wished to marry him, did she not? He was not quite the man she had once thought him to be, but did that rule him out as a husband, without further consideration? She had always thought she was not a romantic, that she was prepared to marry for convenience and position and where good sense dictated. But even after a night’s sleep—well, a night’s tossing and turning—she was not sure if she still wished to marry Cyril Cullman.

  As if thoughts of him had drawn him near, Cyril was announced by Langley. Katherine felt the color leave her face, and
put the reaction down to not having heard his arrival because she was so deeply lost in her thoughts.

  Under Cyril’s arm was tucked a package wrapped in pretty paper, and with a sigh of dismay Katherine knew she would have to open yet another early birthday gift when she would as soon have opened none from either gentleman.

  Cyril offered Papa a small bow, but Papa returned only a nod, making Cyril’s brows rise in discernible surprise. He was not called the First Beau for nothing, though, for he turned with aplomb to Katherine. “My dove, how radiant you look today, like dew upon a rose.”

  Unlike other things Cyril had said in recent days, this compliment was easy to respond to. Katherine knew the pale blue of her gown achieved a good effect against her red hair. She had chosen the dress for tonight because it made her feel perhaps a little bit prettier, a bit bolder.

  “Thank you,” she said, but wondered why she felt Cyril’s compliment was too effusive ... perhaps even too calculated. No, she did not really wonder why—she knew she compared him again with Benjamin, who never made her wonder if he meant what he said.

  In her heart she knew she would be comparing all men against Benjamin for a long time to come.

  “Tell me, Cullman, where did you get yourself off to the other day?” Papa said, not challenging, but not in his usual gruffly friendly manner either. “My butler said you had called, and then you were not to be found.”

  Cyril went stiff, and blinked rapidly several times, perhaps trying to recall. “The other day, you say? Oh ... yes, I remember now. Not to carry tales out of school, Sir Albert, but your butler abandoned me in the front entry. I could hear that you had other callers, and clearly the household was busily occupied, so I left, thinking to call on a day more convenient for you.”