His friend crossed his legs at the ankles. “And that is what I am doing.”
“You did it with too much…too much…”
Mallen’s brows lowered. “Too much?”
“Seriousness!” The word exploded from Christopher’s chest. He spun on his heel and began to pace the floor. “Sophie is too impressionable. If you insist on reading poetry and bringing flowers,” he shook his head, “well, there is no saying the damaging effects it could have.” He spun back around to face his friend.
Mallen said nothing for a long while. Then, he shoved himself from the desk and walked over to the decanters of spirits in the corner of the room. He poured himself a glass of brandy, took a long swallow, and cradled the glass in his hand. “Do you want to wed the lady?” he asked bluntly.
Christopher stumbled to a halt. “God no.”
“Your ultimate goal is thwarting your father’s plans for you and Miss Winters, correct?”
Yes, that was the case. His head throbbed. Or, Christopher thought it had been…until today. Today, he’d detected the infatuated gleam in Sophie’s eyes, her unspoken yearning for a real courtship, and the tendrils of guilt in his belly had fanned out and filled him.
There had also been a niggling of something deep and dark that he didn’t recognize. Something green and ugly that had festered inside him the moment Sophie’s bow-shaped lips had tipped up in a smile for Mallen. An emotion that felt like…jealousy.
Christopher shook his head. Foolish thoughts.
“Waxham?”
“I’m fine,” Christopher said.
“That’s not what I asked.”
It wasn’t?
“Oh.” He blinked. “What then?”
“I had asked whether your goal was to thwart your father’s plans for you and Miss Winters.”
“Yes.”
“Then, a thank you shall suffice.” Mallen took another sip and then set his glass down. “Trust I know what I’m doing.”
Christopher had been forced to defer to his father’s judgment and decisions since he was a young boy. He’d not cede control over to Mallen. There was a difference in enlisting the duke’s support and quite another to turn the scheme blindly over to him.
He pointed a finger in Mallen’s direction. “I think this would be a good time for us to discuss in more detail the plans for Miss Winters.”
A vein pulsed in Mallen’s neck, the only outward indication of his annoyance with Christopher’s high-handedness. “Out with it, Waxham,” he said in clipped tones.
Christopher nodded and proceeded to tick his orders off upon his fingers. “There is to be no flowers. No poems. No clandestine meetings.”
“Clandestine meetings?”
Christopher continued as though Mallen hadn’t spoken. “No making the lady laugh. No…reading to her.” He stumbled over that part.
“Have you finished?”
Christopher went through the list he’d compiled throughout the day in his mind. He frowned. It had seemed far more comprehensive several hours ago. He blamed alcohol for his muddled thoughts. “No pastries or treats.” Sophie loved pastries. If Mallen courted her with confectionaries, well her heart would probably forever belong to the other man.
“I suppose escorting the young lady to Sunday sermons would be acceptable?” Mallen drawled.
“Lovely idea.” Christopher agreed with an empathic nod.
Mallen’s gaze narrowed. “I was being sarcastic.”
“Oh.”
“Now have you finished?” Mallen settled his palms upon his desk. “Do you know what I think, Waxham?”
“No.” Nor did Christopher care.
“I believe you crafted this scheme to maintain your freedom but are now questioning your way in going about it. I believe you care a good deal about Miss Winters,” he held up a hand when Christopher opened his mouth to speak, “whether you’ll admit it to yourself or not. After all, you’ve known the young lady since she was practically in the nursery.”
Actually, she had been in the nursery. He’d been quite put out at having to pay the Viscount Redbrooke’s newborn daughter a visit and still remembered studying the plump, red-faced baby held in her mother’s arms. She’d had the most god-awful caterwaul of a cry which oddly had stopped when her glassy, baby-gaze had landed upon him.
Mallen continued, not detecting the path Christopher’s thoughts had wandered down. “You feel protective of her, Waxham. It is clear you have a sense of obligation toward her. So my suggestion to you is end this mad scheme, do your familial duty by the girl and wed her…and for the love of God, leave me out of any foolish plot where you and Miss Winters are concerned.”
Christopher raked a hand through his hair. “No.”
Mallen sighed. “I suspected you would say that. Very well, then I’ll continue to court Miss Winters as I deem appropriate. Now if you’ll excuse me. It is late and I am taking Miss Winters for a walk in Hyde Park later this morning.”
A haze of red blinded Christopher. His nostrils flared. Then, the knowing grin on Mallen’s face registered. Well, bugger him. His friend merely sought to get a rise out of him.
Christopher forced a smile. “Splendid.” After all, a walk in Hyde Park had not been on Christopher’s list of outings Mallen was to avoid with Sophie. Yet, it didn’t feel like any kind of victory. Quite the opposite. “Good evening, Mallen.”
“Good evening, Waxham.”
With a bow, Christopher beat a hasty retreat. He started on his way home, choosing to walk the short remaining distance to his townhouse. It allowed him to consider the somber, brooding thoughts that thrummed a dark chord inside him.
Unlike Mallen who possessed a loving, supportive family, Christopher had lived a remarkably solitary life. There’d been no proud father, or loving mother. There’d been no younger siblings to care for, or older siblings to torment.
His gaze locked on the sliver of moon that hung in the sky. Mallen was the closest thing to family Christopher had. That friendship had been one of the forces that compelled him to court Emmaline.
Lady Emmaline with her sharp wit and overall good heart represented a connection to everything he longed for—a family.
Christopher strongly suspected that if he asked Mallen to delve into the fiery depths of hell for him, Mallen in his loyalty would inquire how far he needed to dive.
Except, at this moment, the last thing he felt toward Mallen was anything remotely friendly. The logical part of Christopher recognized that Mallen’s visit with Sophie had merely been to demonstrate the flaws in Christopher’s plan.
But then, ugly, insidious thoughts filtered through Christopher’s mind. Mallen kissing Sophie. Mallen exploring each generous curve of her sweetly rounded figure. Mallen parting her creamy, white thighs and… All logical thought escaped him, replaced by a black, icy rage that clouded Christopher’s vision.
God, how he resented Mallen for having snared Sophie’s interest, and for being correct. No young lady deserved to be the recipient of a false courtship.
Yet, as reprehensible as his actions were, Christopher was still protecting Sophie from his father’s grasping attempt at her dowry.
Christopher swiped a hand over his eyes. Even if his duplicitous actions benefited both him and the young lady, it did not assuage his sense of guilt.
At last he arrived home.
He needed to sleep. He was certain that come morning, all this nonsensical drivel distracting him would be sorted out.
Yes, come tomorrow he wouldn’t care quite so much about Mallen’s pretend courtship of Sophie or the captivated way in which she’d gazed at the duke or the fact that Mallen had winked at her in that intimate way two times or…
Christopher groaned. It was going to be a long, long night.
Lady Ackerly’s Tattle Sheet
Miss S.W. was observed entering the Egyptian Hall in Piccadilly to view Mr. Bullock’s Great Serpent exhibit.
~11~
The door bounced open, and slammed ha
rd against the plaster wall of the breakfast room. Christopher looked up, bored by his father’s constant temper.
Christopher picked up his fork and knife and began to slice the ham on his plate.
“What is the meaning of this?” his father bellowed.
A newspaper landed on top of Christopher’s plate of ham and bread. He glanced at his father, whose hawk-like nose flared. Fire glinted in the marquess’s icy blue eyes.
Christopher looked back down at the paper in front of him and swallowed around the last bite he’d taken. The ham threatened to come back up. “Father,” he greeted, and removed the newspaper from his plate. He made to hand it back to his father.
Father swatted at Christopher’s fingers. “Go on, read it.”
Just like that; with those four jeering words, Christopher was transported back to his childhood when his sire’s approval had meant so much, to a time when he’d cared what Father thought about his only son and heir. Then, Christopher had poured every last bit of his energy into excelling at his studies.
Christopher balled his hands in his lap. He was no longer a child. He met his father’s hard stare. “Why don’t you tell me what it says, Father?”
The marquess guffawed. “Ahh, that’s right. Why don’t you give it a try, Christopher? Read it.”
Christopher’s eyes fixed on the page in front of him. The words shifted in and out of focus. He squinted and tried to make them clearer.
Miss S.W. …
And…
A dull throbbing pressure built behind Christopher’s eyes. For all the tutors he’d had, for all the personal instruction, Christopher had never overcome his difficulties reading. Taxing situations had always made it that much more challenging. He shoved the paper aside. “Go to hell.”
His father’s thin lips flattened into a hard line and a vein throbbed in the corner of the older man’s eye, indicating that Christopher’s response grated on the older man whose rank and status had protected him from any outward shows of insolence. “I’ll tell you what it says! It says the Duke of Mallen is courting Miss Sophie Winters. That’s what it says.”
Not for the first time in Christopher’s miserable life, he cursed his inability to make clear sense of the written word. The desire to know what the newspaper said about Sophie, and not have to hear it from the lips of salacious gossips, nearly consumed him. He picked up the paper and attempted to read Ackerly’s reporting on Sophie and Mallen.
Father ripped it from his hands. “Do you take me for a fool, Christopher?” He tossed the paper to the floor.
“Never a fool, Father.” A cold-hearted, ruthless bastard, yes. A fool, no. That moniker had been reserved for Christopher.
His father slammed his fists down upon the table, rattling the plates. Liquid sloshed over the rim of Christopher’s coffee cup. “This is all your doing. I know it.”
He never ceased to be amazed by his father’s devious, but precise thinking. Christopher should have known he couldn’t outwit his sire.
Christopher met and held his father’s hard stare. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
“Bahh, come now. Would you have me believe that of a sudden the Duke of Mallen decides to court that spinsterish cow?”
Christopher rose so quickly, his knees knocked the back of the chair and sent the piece of furniture tumbling backward. “Watch your tongue,” he snapped, gripping the edges of the table. For all the cruelties he’d suffered at his father’s hands over the years, none of them had roused this icy-rage the way it did hearing the marquess disparage Sophie.
Perhaps it was that of late he’d come to appreciate her as more than the hoyden of his past. With her penchant for finding out trouble and the endearing way she spoke to herself when she thought no one was listening, she became more than the amorphous figure of his youth. She was a young woman, who no more wanted to be controlled by Society’s expectations than he did.
The marquess folded his arms across his chest and studied Christopher before speaking. “I expect you to make this right or else her dowry will slip through your fingers into Mallen’s already plentiful coffers.”
Christopher’s gut clenched. That is what his father would make him—a fortune-hunter. “I don’t want to court the lady for her fortune.”
His father snorted. “So now you’ve developed a set of principles? Where was all that moral integrity when you cheated your way through Eton and Oxford?” He closed the distance between them until he stood toe to toe with Christopher. Though several inches shorter than his son, the marquess managed to somehow peer down his hawk-like nose at Christopher. “If you don’t secure her fortune, we are ruined. We’ll have nothing. But I, I’ll have my reputation. You, however, well, it is only a matter of time before the world learns the truth about you.”
Christopher sat back in his chair and folded his arms across his chest. “That threat is growing tedious, Father.”
“It is no longer a threat.” The marquess meandered over to the sideboard; the stiff set to his shoulders belied the casualness of his actions. He piled kidneys, bacon, and sardines with mustard sauce upon a plate and then carried it over to his seat at the head of the table.
A servant rushed over to pull out his seat. The marquess slid into it. “Leave us,” he ordered the servant.
With downcast eyes, the young man bowed, and rushed from the room. The door closed behind him with an ominous click.
His father picked up his stark white linen napkin and snapped it open. “When you were younger, Christopher, I believed your struggle to read stemmed from laziness. In time, it became very clear to me that there was…is…something very wrong with you.” He looked across the table at Christopher, and arched a brow. “What, nothing to say, now?”
The muscles in Christopher’s body went taut. “Say what it is you mean to say and be done with it.”
Father spread his hand out in front of him. “What other explanation could there be for your difficulties—other than madness.”
His father’s words came as if down a long hall. His fingers found the edge of the table as he sought to steady himself. “You would consign me to a life in Bedlam to right the wrongs you’ve done?”
Father continued. “If you will not do what needs to be done, well then I’m sure Marcus will be more amicable to the plans I’ve set out.”
Marcus. As in Christopher’s cousin, and after him and father, the next in line to the marquisate.
“How?” Christopher squeezed out past dry lips. “I’m your heir.”
“Yes. Yes. But it would be nothing to have you carted off for Bedlam. Polite Society would be none the wiser. The doctors would look the other way. And your cousin, Marcus, well, I imagine he would quite gladly marry Miss Winters in order to preserve the family holdings.”
Bile built in Christopher’s throat and it was all he could do to keep from casting up the contents of his stomach at his gloating father’s feet. Ultimately, the old bastard was correct. Christopher did care. He’d maintained a carefully crafted image for Society. His lies had sustained him all these years. The truth would destroy him.
Christopher’s mouth went dry, and he lied. “You’re wrong. I’ve not involved Mallen in anything.”
Father’s brows dipped. “But he’s courting the chit?”
Christopher’s gaze fell to the forgotten newspaper. “I…”
His father jabbed a finger at him. “The important thing is that you win the lady over. Charm her. Woo her. Ruin her. I don’t care what you do. But wed her.”
A chill snaked through Christopher. God help him. Could he sacrifice his honor to avoid the fate his father threatened him with? “You are making the assumption that Miss Winters would choose my suit over Mallen’s.”
A frown formed on his father’s lips. “Regardless of what I know to be the truth about you, Christopher, Society does not. You are quite favored by the ladies. If you use your charm, I’m sure even you can woo her away from the duke.”
His father
was wrong. Unbidden an image struck Christopher; Mallen on bent knee, reading a poem to a wide-eyed Sophie. The duke would never stumble through the written word. His eyes would never fail to make sense of letters that shifted in and out of focus.
By nature of Christopher’s flaws, he would never be able to elicit such a reaction from a young lady. As Sophie had pointed out, Mallen knew how to properly court a lady. Not like Christopher, who’d bumbled through his courtship of Lady Emmaline.
“I can’t do it.,” Christopher said at last.
“Oh, you’ll do it, Christopher. And do you know why I’m confident of that?” When Christopher failed to rise to the bait, the marquess raised a brow. “Very well, then. I’ll tell you. Because at the end of the day, you are not unlike me.”
A protestation sprung to Christopher’s lips. “The devil I am.” He’d spent the better part of his life trying to be different than the cruel, calculated marquess. Christopher tugged at the lapels of his jacket and made to leave.
“Where are you going?” His father shouted after him.
Christopher paused at the doorway. “I’m not like you.”
“You might protest, but ultimately you know I’m correct. Just like I know your survival means more to you than anything else. And that is how I know you’ll do your duty and wed the girl.”
His father’s malevolent laugh followed him as he left. Christopher paused outside the dining room, and breathed deep. The chill inside him had nothing to do with the dark, unlit hall and everything to do with his father’s evil.
Suddenly, he was filled with a desire to drive back this cold, to see Sophie. It was irrational. Defied logic. But he needed to see her. Mayhap he needed to punish himself with the reality of what his father intended for the young lady. Or mayhap it was to remind himself of the pain she’d caused him during his youth. Sophie hadn’t been unlike his father in that regard.
He rang for the butler.
“Yes, my lord?”
Never Courted, Suddenly Wed Page 11