Jon hissed in a breath as the pain in his limb renewed itself. Had he thought her defeated? She’d merely been recovering her impudent manner. Teeth clenched against the throbbing in his foot, he followed his unwilling bride toward the church.
A young lady met them at the door, one hand adjusting the dark curls that had been haphazardly piled beneath a straw hat. “Vicar Hamilton says you must hurry. ‘Tis almost noon.” She lifted her face with a smile and gasped. Her smile evaporated. “Lady Annabella!” Her jaw worked as though she wanted to say more but couldn’t force the words free.
Jon knew exactly how the poor lady felt.
Annabella stopped short and he bumped into her. If she noticed, she gave no indication. But she did raise her chin. When she spoke, her voice chilled the immediate surroundings. “Miss Mayfair. What a… surprise to find you here. Hovering near Vicar Hamilton.” Her tone suggested she was anything but surprised. Nor was she at all pleased.
Tossing her hair, Annabella sidestepped with the obvious intent of walking around the other woman.
Miss Mayfair fluttered her hands near her throat and moved to block the church door. “When Vicar Hamilton informed me of an unfortunate couple who required an… expedient marriage, I had no idea he referred to you.” She squinted one eye and subjected Annabella to speculative scrutiny. Her eyes lingered on Annabella’s middle and a knowing smile played at the corners of her mouth.
Instant shame drove replenished heat into Jon’s face. He should never have hinted at the possibility of a child. Especially when there was none.
Annabella tensed. Her fingers curled into fists. Something in her demeanor warned Jon that if he put a stop to the lie at this juncture she’d hate him even more.
“I’ll thank you to mind your tongue and your own concerns, Miss Mayfair,” said Annabella, striking a haughty tone.
The other girl drew her lips back into a sneer. “How fitting that you should show your true colors now… with your poor mother having gone to Bath for her health.” She clicked her tongue. “How such a dear sweet woman as her grace ever had such a Jezebel for a daughter—”
Annabella placed her hands on her hips and tossed her head. Golden curls flew out and back, away from her face. She was no longer a victim. In fact, Jon had the distinct feeling she was about to launch an attack. He tensed. Would he need to restrain his bride before they were even wed?
“Better a Jezebel than to be someone’s unwanted Princess Caroline.” She gazed askance at Jon, imparting some unspoken message beseeching him to keep his silence. “At least I know my intended wants me. He wants me at least as much as the good vicar does.”
“Oh!” Miss Mayfair clutched her chest and reeled backward. “You are truly evil.”
Annabella smiled, cold and deadly. “I’m in good company. Besides, Gertrude, you should be happy about my marriage. Does that not leave the door wide open for you and Vicar Hamilton?” She dropped her arms, shaking her head. “What a shame ‘twill be should you discover it was not, after all, my existence that kept his affections from you.”
While Gertrude Mayfair stood by breathing heavily, Annabella stepped around her and reached for the door latch.
“Wait! You can’t go in there like… like — that.” Apparently, Gertrude wasn’t quite ready to stop presenting difficulties. “Why, you haven’t even a proper head cover!”
Eyes wide, Annabella lifted a hand to her head. A smug smile spread across her face, and a gleam of triumph entered her eyes. “So I do not. Thank you, Gertrude, for so kindly bringing that to my attention.”
Jon knew when to admit defeat. And he wasn’t ready to do so. Grinning, more because he knew very well it would aggravate Annabella than anything else, Jon removed the pin from his cravat and slipped the tie from around his neck. “I believe this will qualify as a head covering.” He draped the strip of linen over her head with a wink.
Gaping at him, Annabella fingered one end of the cravat. He’d wager his dry boot she was wishing she’d grabbed the blasted thing and pitched it in the pool with the rest of his clothing.
“There you are.” Hamilton appeared in the doorway, red-faced and somewhat out of breath. “Come, come. We must hurry. My father is waiting. He’s preparing the license and he will perform your ceremony. I shall be your second witness, along with Miss Mayfair.” Astonishing how easily enthusiasm over the wedding had replaced the vicar’s earlier forceful objections. And all it had taken was the promise of extra payment for his trouble. Rather like he’d just sold one of his parishioners, wasn’t it?
And what does that make you, since you made the purchase?
Jon slanted a look at Annabella. Had that always been the way of it for her? A bought and sold life?
“Do you have a ring?” Hamilton paused with one hand on the heavy wooden door. “A ring is quite necessary, you know. For a bit of compensation, I can provide you with the brass ring from one of the window sashes in my home.”
Jon’s skin crawled at the thought of anything from the good vicar accompanying Annabella into their marriage. “That won’t be necessary,” he said quickly, and slipped his gold signet from the last finger of his left hand.
“Excellent,” murmured the vicar as he held open the door.
Annabella curled her fingers against her palm. “It’s too big.”
Hamilton cleared his throat. “Er… sometimes a lady will wear the ring on a ribbon around her neck, Lady Annabella. To keep it safe and… near her… heart.”
Annabella slumped. “Perfect. That’s…” She sighed. “Just perfect.”
****
Frozen in the doorway, Annabella squinted into the dim church. Diffuse daylight seeped through the stained glass windows and fell in muted colors over the seats in the pew boxes.
Even the light is melancholy.
She lifted her foot to step forward but it wouldn’t go over the threshold. Her muscles cramped as she tried to force herself to move.
“What is it now?” asked Seabrook in her ear. “Is the church not to your liking?”
I can’t move. I can’t let this happen. I-I’m afraid. The words flashed through her mind but seemed to get lost on the way to her tongue. She shook her head and reached out with a trembling hand to clutch the doorframe.
Seabrook sighed and placed his hand at the small of her back, applying gentle but inexorable pressure. “Come now. We’ll get this over with and you can plot the many ways you plan to torment me for the rest of our lives.”
The rest of our lives. The rest. Of. Our. Lives. Her breath caught but she found herself moving forward one small agonizing step at a time. She might well have been walking to the gallows. She barely felt her feet striking the plank floor as she followed Gertrude and Vicar Hamilton up the aisle. For all his wide girth — and there was a lot of it — the vicar seemed to float on air, so graceful was his gait. And next to him, whispering and tittering, marched the ridiculous Miss Mayfair, wearing a bulky tweed traveling gown and a silly straw hat that had been adorned by grouse feathers. Many, many grouse feathers. The woman looked like she’d plucked half the wild birds in Haselmere and affixed their plumage to her hat.
Annabella glanced up at the altar where the Right Reverend Seymour Hamilton waited to shackle her to the man who had ruined her.
It was the robe that did it. The round little toad standing at the front of the sanctuary wore a brown vestment that reached the floor and was tied in what she supposed was roughly the middle with a pale braided cord.
A giggle freed itself and she clapped her palm across her lips. Seabrook tightened his hold on her waist. Was he afraid she would bolt? Where on the good green earth would she bolt to? She’d managed to trap herself well and good.
They came to a stop in front of Reverend Hamilton, who smiled a knowing and indulgent smile even as his gaze slid briefly toward her middle. Annabella blinked back tears.
“Please face one another and hold hands,” instructed the bishop.
Well, Mother, it really is a p
ity you are not here to see your only child wed. Not to the man of her dreams, but perhaps to one you might find suitable.
Annabella glanced down. Her gray dress, now mostly in tatters and still damp had at least been made respectable by the addition of Seabrook’s wet coat. And in such wedding finery, too.
Annabella heard Reverend Hamilton’s voice croaking out the ceremony but paid no mind to what he said. If she kept her gaze on the floor, perhaps it would all go away. When the reverend stopped speaking, she glanced up to find three pairs of eyes on her, obviously expecting her to say something. Seabrook squeezed her hands lightly as if to prod her on.
“Yes,” she forced out, praying she’d given the correct response.
“You two are now wed,” intoned Reverend Hamilton, beaming at them. “What God hath joined together, let no man put asunder.”
Annabella glanced up at Seabrook. His face had gone pale, his arrogant smile had been replaced by a grim line. Was he regretting their marriage so soon?
Well, you’ve given him no reason to think ‘twill be pleasurable. Perhaps it wasn’t too late, perhaps they could call it off. Annabella drew a breath.
His mouth tilted upward into a lopsided smile. “What, no kiss to seal the marriage?”
The air left Annabella’s lungs in a whoosh of surprise. Fury rose up to replace her disquiet. She leaned forward as though to honor his request, stopping within an arm’s reach. “I’d sooner kiss Judas!” she hissed.
Gertrude gasped. Neither Hamilton showed any indication of having heard her. Annabella yanked on her hands but Seabrook held tight. Before she knew what he was up to, he dipped and pressed his lips to hers. It was over nearly before it started, the touch so brief she might have imagined it except for the lingering heat he left behind when he straightened and dropped her hands.
Seabrook turned to Vicar Hamilton. “I wonder if I might trouble you to borrow your carriage. I’ll have a man deliver it back to you later today.”
“Oh, er…” Hamilton hesitated. But after sharing a long look with his father, he sighed and nodded. “Of course, Lord Seabrook.”
Chapter Eleven
Seabrook drove the Tilbury back to Wyndham Green at a more sedate pace than the vicar had used to carry them to the church. They might have been out for a Sunday afternoon carriage ride. Except it wasn’t Sunday. It was… Annabella frowned. It was… Heaven’s breath, she didn’t even know what day it was. Nor exactly how long she’d been hiding in the cottage. For all the good hiding had done, since she’d ended up in exactly the position her mother had wanted her in all along.
Married. Shackled to a man she scarcely knew.
As they drove through the countryside, she hardly saw anything they passed. It all seemed to go by in a blur of green and brown. The rush of emotions slamming into Annabella had her reeling. Married. She was married. No matter how many times she pushed the thought aside, it surfaced. Mocked her. Would Seabrook take her away from Wyndham Green? Surely he must have his own home.
“Devil’s fire,” she muttered under her breath.
“I’m sorry? Did you say something, Jezebella?” Seabrook shifted, and his arm brushed against hers creating instant awareness.
As if she wasn’t already aware enough of the man, with his woodsy scent twining about her and his body’s warmth staving the chill from hers. She gritted her teeth. “Annabella.” Her toes started twitching, desperate to kick him in the shin if she could but reach it in the cramped space of the vicar’s Tilbury. “My name is Annabella, as you very well know.”
“Are you certain? I’m quite sure Annabella is having a splendid time being the toast of London. Lovely young lady. Spent an evening in her company at Wyndham’s townhouse whe—”
Her already fuming rage turned to a burning inferno at the reminder that Juliet was apparently having a wonderful time, whilst she had lived in misery and then been forced to act the maid for the obstinate man who was now her husband. Husband! “That’s quite enough,” she ground out, stomping her foot.
The horse tossed his head but kept a steady pace. Seabrook merely lifted one dark eyebrow.
“You know good and well who I am, thanks to that lackwit Hamilton.”
Seabrook made a noise that might have been a cough… or a laugh. “Why, my dear, the good Vicar Hamilton has done you a great service. He has secured you a marriage to the most eligible bachelor in all of England.”
“The most eligible—” Annabella twisted fully around to meet his challenging gaze. And that grin, that gruesome, horrid, wretched grin. Her fingers curled into fists, but she forced them to relax. This was not a man to be bested by physical strength. “You know, Seabrook, I do believe you should consider moving to a much warmer climate, one with less rain and a milder winter…”
His grin slipped a bit as confusion clouded his eyes. “I beg your pardon?”
She tapped her index finger to her cheek as she considered the lout who was now her husband. “Yes, that’s the only way to make it easier on you.”
“Forgive me, but make what easier on me?”
“Why, for when you take your place sitting beside the devil, of course.”
He let out a hoot of laughter that rattled her ears.
Insufferable Seaside.
“So do you want to tell me why someone is at your brother’s townhouse masquerading as you?”
No. “Markwythe is not my brother. He’s a reprobate, just like you, and I—”
“You continue to wound me, madam. After I’ve made an honest woman of you to save your reputation, your opinion of me is still one of such low regard.” He shook his head and let out a long sigh. “Mayhap I should have let you marry the good vicar instead.”
“Why, you insufferable—”
“And Grey would be devastated to learn his beloved sister for whom he’s cared all these years finds him so objectionable that she cannot bring herself to call him by his given name, nor even afford him the respect of his station.”
“Cared for me! He hates me. I’m not his sister. I’m nothing more than an interloper, a child brought into his precious home.” Temper near to boiling, she crossed her arms over her bosom and blew out a puff of exasperation, aiming a glare in Seabrook’s direction for good measure. “Cares for me? You must be jesting.”
“Nay, madam. I’m quite serious.” He locked eyes with her. “Why else would he have sent me to inquire as to your safety?”
Her hands dropped into her lap of their own accord. “H-he did?” Thinking became impossible over the roar of blood in her ears.
Seabrook shrugged and turned his gaze forward again. When he spoke again, his voice held a slight chill. “Yes, he did. Even though he suspected you were duping him in some way, because he was quite certain the lady in his home was not, in fact, his sister.” He reined in the horse as they approached the lane that would bypass the stables and carry them directly to Rose Cottage. “And after meeting a certain member of the staff at Wyndham Green, I’m convinced the beautiful miss in London is the daughter of a maid.” He raised an eyebrow. “Someone you know, perhaps?”
Panic gripped Annabella’s chest like a vise. Juliet had been found out. Heart’s fire. She struggled to draw her next breath. “He… he knows?”
Seabrook didn’t answer until they had completed the turn onto the lane. “That she is not you? Yes.” He shook his head. “Exactly who is taking your place? No.” Then he angled his head and subjected her to a long stare with his glittering black eyes. “Nor why you would take such measures.”
She was helpless beneath that penetrating gaze. “What — what has he done to her?”
“Done to her?” Again he shook his head, and a chuckle shook his body. “You believe Wyndham to be such a monster?”
With exceptional effort, Annabella turned her head, freeing herself from his pinning regard. Of course she considered Markwythe a monster. “After the way he’s treated my mother by showing her the cut? What else am I supposed to believe?”
“Is
that why you sent the imposter?” Seabrook’s voice was oddly gentle. “You feel he’s mistreated you and your mother?”
“Why did he send you here to find me? Why did he not come himself? After all, if he was so concerned about me…” She lifted one shoulder.
Seabrook’s expression became guarded. “Sending me was the… advantageous choice at the time. And completely my suggestion.”
Annabella gave an unladylike snort that would have made her mother cringe. “And look how well that worked out for us all.”
Rose Cottage loomed on the right. Annabella barely waited for the carriage to come to a halt before she scrambled over the edge. Seabrook called out in surprise but she ignored him, fleeing to the sanctuary inside.
As she burst through the front door, the remains of the broken chair greeted her. Balanced on the three unbroken legs, the seat rose from the floor at a steep angle. The shattered leg lay in three pieces side by side, split like so much kindling. Dim memories surfaced. She’d been on the floor. The ruddy leg of the chair had cracked and she’d ended up on her back. Seabrook’s face hovering above hers, Seabrook reaching out with his hand, touching her on the arm, lifting her… his touch tender, his voice soft. One chill chased another along her spine.
Annabella’s heart stammered in her chest and her breathing hitched. Her sanctuary was no more. She lowered her gaze, noting Juliet’s dress, little more than a tattered rag after the past couple of days. She had to get to London, had to rescue Juliet from whatever loathsome punishment Markwythe would mete out.
The banknotes. She’d carry them to her stepbrother and secure his promise not to harm Juliet before she’d turn them over to him. With a plan of her own solidified in her mind, Annabella slipped into the kitchen and out the rear of the cottage. She could only hope one more trip through the thick woods wouldn’t reduce her dress to mere threads. And then she’d clean herself up.
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