Sweet Enemy

by Heather Snow

  But beside her Geoffrey sat stiffly, a cool smile riding his face. Her chest swelled with a heavy sadness.

  Love isn’t necessary.

  If marrying Geoffrey was a victory, it was hollow and dead, like a once majestic oak felled and left to rot in the bog.

  “Smile, Liliana,” Geoffrey murmured, not looking at her, “lest people think this is not a happy occasion.”

  She complied, but the expression felt dusty and brittle on her face.

  She supposed occasion was one word to describe this mess. The day had been a whirlwind, and Geoffrey a force of nature who had allowed nothing to alter his course. Upon their return from the folly this morning, he’d wasted no time in announcing his intentions, not giving Liliana a chance to protest.

  First he’d told his mother—whose howls of dissent were said to have been heard clear down to the servants’ quarters. Then he’d paid a visit to Aunt Eliza, who’d had the opposite reaction, of course. She’d been only too happy to halt the packing of their belongings for tomorrow’s departure and instead make arrangements to stay for the three weeks until the wedding. Oh, Aunt had fussed a bit about the rushed nuptials, but then wisely ceased her complaining, murmuring something about not looking a gift horse in the mouth.

  Geoffrey had then closeted himself in the billiards room with the other gentlemen, ostensibly to talk politics, giving Liliana no opportunity to speak her mind.

  She pushed her plate away and looked around the table. A room full of people was not the ideal place for the discussion she planned to have, but he’d left her no choice. This was the last night of the house party, and he’d already told her the Town gentlemen planned to wrap up their political discussions over cards late into the evening. Yet she couldn’t go to sleep with her feelings so unresolved.

  “And you would say a loveless marriage is cause for happiness, my lord?” Liliana asked, keeping her voice low.

  Geoffrey did turn to her then, and a shimmer of emotion rippled over his face before it smoothed back into coolness. “Of course, when it’s between two people who complement each other as we do.”

  Liliana’s breath caught. He masked it well, but she’d seen something in his expression, some feeling. If only she knew what it was and if it could ever go back to how he’d felt about her yesterday, before her awful revelations. She decided to probe for more. She needed to know what drove him to insist upon a wedding to someone he didn’t trust or love. Perhaps there was something there she could cling to, something with the potential to grow. “While I agree that in many ways we’d be a good match, I, as I said from the moment we met, haven’t the need for a husband.”

  Fire flashed in his eyes, yet his voice remained cold and detached. “Don’t be a fool. You’ve been compromised, albeit at your own instigation.” A tic appeared in his jaw. “We’ll get on well, and we’ll accomplish great things between us. I will require some conventionality of you as my wife, but you needn’t fear I will curb your work overmuch. I doubt many husbands would offer the same concession.”

  “I daresay you are right on that count,” she ceded, but her hopes died. “However, that’s not a basis for marriage.”

  Beneath the table, his hand slid up her thigh. Heat radiated from his palm through the satin of her skirts, strangling the breath from her chest as he leaned close. His scent overwhelmed her, and like a flash fire she boiled over with desire.

  “Perhaps not.” His hand rose higher, fingers skimming over her through the layer of fabric. “But this is.”

  Liliana looked away, trying not to betray herself. His touch still aroused, still burned with passion, but beneath it lay a leashed anger, so different from the tenderness with which he’d caressed her just last night. If only she could be certain that warmth and affection toward her would return, maybe she’d have the courage to go through with a marriage.

  But how could she take the chance that it would not? How could she live with Geoffrey, loving him so, knowing he might never love her?

  His hand slid away, and he turned to converse with a gentleman on his left who’d asked him a question. Liliana returned her gaze to Geoffrey, envisioning life between them. Polite. Perhaps passionate at first, but growing apart as the novelty wore off. Long, distant years, her heart breaking a little more each day.

  No.

  She’d come to Somerton Park with a purpose. Romance had been the furthest thing from her mind, not part of her formula at all. In fact, she’d never thought herself capable of love. But now, having tasted it, the idea of being in a marriage without love seemed as sour as the acetic acid that made vinegar so pungent.

  The only thing keeping her here was the unknown still surrounding her father’s death. But didn’t she know enough? Her father had willingly involved himself in dangerous activities, albeit to help a friend—the best of intentions. She’d been relieved to discover nothing nefarious on her father’s part, yet he’d been an adult who’d made the choices that led to his death.

  And even if she could prove that Geoffrey’s father had dealt the killing blows himself, which she doubted given the suspicious nature of the man’s own death, she would never breathe a word of it to anyone. She couldn’t destroy what Geoffrey was working so hard for. She couldn’t do anything to harm him.

  Liliana twisted her napkin in her lap, coiling it ever tighter. Who was she kidding? She’d already hurt him, badly. Whether she’d intended to or not, she’d pursued this delicate situation as a scientist, not as a woman. Not as a person with feelings who cared for other people’s feelings, too. As a scientist, she always sought the truth with precision, pursuing theories to the end regardless of what was upset in the process, like a horse with blinders seeking only the finish line.

  But what she’d done to Geoffrey was wrong. She couldn’t take it back, but she could put an end to it before any more damage was done. He, and how the truth would affect him and his work, was more important than the truth.

  An uncommon peace stole over her at a startling revelation. For once in her life, she was okay with leaving things unknown. She had enough to satisfy and she was going to move on.

  But to what?

  She cast one final glance at Geoffrey, the ache of tears lodged in her throat. Not to a life as Lady Stratford. That was certain.

  She’d return to Chelmsford and resume her work. It would be a lonely existence, even more lonely now that she knew what she’d been missing. And yet, no matter how miserable that prospect seemed, it had to be better than a life where she’d be forced to face the love she could have had but didn’t, every day across the breakfast table.

  She let her eyes linger on Geoffrey’s noble chin, his bold features, the lips that had brought her such pleasure and joy and pain.

  Good-bye, sweet love.

  She’d leave first thing in the morning.

  “Well done, Stratford!” Geoffrey’s partner chortled as he raked in yet another purse of winnings. Geoffrey nodded absently. The smile he’d held all night with some effort now seemed frozen on his face as the fingers of dawn approached.

  He should be quite satisfied. It had been a fruitful night all around. He’d sent the countess into a fit of vapors with his choice of bride, his negotiations with several prominent gentlemen had gone better than he’d hoped and he had verbal agreements from four of them to fund various industrial projects, and he’d made peace with the Earl of Northumb. The older man had slapped him on the back, admonishing Geoffrey for keeping his “romance” with Liliana a secret and insisting he would have never pressured him into marrying his daughter had he known Geoffrey’s heart was already engaged. He also pledged his support for the Poor Employment Act, which all but guaranteed it would pass later this summer.

  All of that, along with the realization that in three short weeks he’d have Liliana in his bed every night, should have made him a happy man. Yet he couldn’t shake the stricken look upon her face at dinner.

  Well, she’d adjust. He’d had time to cool throughout the day, thou
gh he knew his anger was merely banked beneath the surface. But perhaps eventually it would fade entirely. After a few months together, he hoped they might fall into a comfortable partnership. And if he ever sensed further manipulations on her part, he would set her straight immediately about the kind of man she married.

  “I must say, I was sure when I drew you as partner that we would lose our shirts.” Lord Goddard, the neighbor Geoffrey would forever think of as a wizened old turtle after seeing him in armor on the tournament field, raised his glass. “But you’re a sight better card player than I expected. I’ll take you as partner anytime.”

  “Many a night was passed playing one game or another with my fellow soldiers,” Geoffrey said, “but why would you think I’d be so awful?”

  Goddard shrugged, counting his winnings. “Just figured you took after some of the other men in your family when it came to luck. Or skill.”

  Geoffrey huffed. What a strange old buzzard. “I don’t recall cards ever interesting my father, and you’re certainly too young to have been at the tables when my great-grandfather haunted them. Did you play with my brother, then? I hear he took some heavy losses in his day.”

  Lord Goddard guffawed. “No, no. That young buck ran with a different crowd than I. I meant your uncle.”

  “Joss?” Geoffrey glanced around at the other players, but as usual, his uncle wasn’t amongst them. “I’ve never seen him so much as look at a deck of playing cards,” Geoffrey said, thinking perhaps Lord Goddard had had one too many sips of the cognac.

  “Well, he probably hasn’t in your lifetime. At least not in polite circles, but when we were young men, he took after old William Wentworth. You couldn’t drag him away from the tables.” The older man’s eyes clouded with a faraway look. “Was a terrible player, most times. Got into trouble more than once. But then his luck changed…at least until he was caught cheating.”

  Geoffrey frowned. He’d never heard anything of the sort. “Cheating?”

  Lord Goddard’s gaze cleared and snapped back to Geoffrey. “Well, not exactly cheating. Worse, in my opinion. Your uncle had a habit of picking on men who were well into their cups.”

  That sounded nothing like the Uncle Joss he knew. The man he knew lived a benign existence. Nice enough, but without ambition or real backbone, easily led by forces like the countess. And yet, as he thought about it, Geoffrey wondered if that wasn’t the kind of personality that could easily be lured into addictions as well. Still…“While that’s not exactly honorable, men shouldn’t play if their faculties are impaired.”

  Lord Goddard’s wrinkled face drooped into a scowl. “Oh, he didn’t take their money on the table. He waited until they were so foregone they wouldn’t remember their own mothers, then forged notes claiming winnings due. He was deuced good at it, too. Men couldn’t tell his forgeries from their own handwriting to save their lives. He’d wait a few days to call in the notes and the poor sots would hand over the blunt, figuring they’d just played too long into their cups. No telling how many men he fleeced before he was finally caught.”

  Hackles rose on Geoffrey’s neck. Forged notes? He leaned toward Goddard. “How can that be? Why wouldn’t he have been run out of town if that were true?”

  Goddard didn’t draw back an inch. “You don’t remember your grandfather, o’ course, but the man carried a lot of weight here and in Town. He made recompense to every man known to have been taken by your uncle, and probably some who weren’t. Then he used his influence to quash any rumors. Your uncle disappeared for a time, and ’tweren’t long before other scandals churned the gossip mill a new direction. He only returned after your father had become the earl.” The old man finished the amber liquid in his snifter with a smacking sound that could be made only by missing teeth. “But some of us haven’t forgotten.”

  Geoffrey shot to his feet, impossible notions ricocheting through him. What if Liliana had been right and the final note to her father had been forged?

  More disturbing was that if his uncle had known enough to forge a letter to Charles Claremont, then Joss had been involved from the beginning. Uncle Joss had been his father’s confidant, which was why Geoffrey had trusted him with the sensitive information about the Poor Employment Act, which Joss had run and told the countess.

  What if his father had confided his dealings with Charles Claremont to Joss? If Joss had been in trouble at the tables, would he have tried to appropriate either the treasure or the money for himself?

  He was the only man left alive. Could he have killed both Liliana’s father and Geoffrey’s own for the corselet?

  Geoffrey clamped a hand over his mouth to stifle the bile rising in his throat.

  “Is everything all right, Stratford?” Lord Goddard’s face turned up, his tortoiselike eyes blinking.

  Geoffrey swallowed. “Of course,” he answered. “I just realized it’s time I found my bed.”

  And my duplicitous uncle.

  Chapter Twenty-seven

  “C

  ould you please personally make certain the mare is returned to the Earl of Stratford’s stables?” Liliana pressed a coin into the young groom’s hand. “But not until late this afternoon. Be sure to tell Mr. Richards you were promised another coin when the horse arrives safely.” She’d lowered her voice and pulled her hat down to obscure her face. She was fairly certain no one at the coaching inn was wise to the fact that she was female. The boy nodded his agreement and dashed off to fetch the horse she’d rented to carry her to the next stopping point.

  Liliana hadn’t intended to take Amira, but when she’d arrived at the stables, Richards had been mucking out the stalls and assumed Liliana was going out for her customary morning ride. He’d saddled Amira for her and she’d reluctantly ridden off on the prize mare. To refuse would have raised too many questions. She’d also been forced to stash her bag with food and a change of clothes behind the stable.

  Liliana stroked Amira’s long nose. “Farewell, Princess. I’m certain the boy will take good care of you.” Promising him double pay should ensure Amira was well treated, even though it was coin Liliana could scarcely spare.

  The boy returned, leading a tired-looking bonesetter in his wake. Liliana accepted the horse and watched as Amira was led across the yard. She turned away, tears clogging her throat. Not over saying good-bye to the horse, but because Amira was the last tie she had to Geoffrey.

  Her hand dove into her pocket. Not the last tie, precisely. Amongst precious few coins and her decorative tinderbox, Liliana closed her fingers around an old metal key. Though she’d left his betrothal ring behind, she hadn’t been able to part with the key to the folly. That was how she’d choose to remember Geoffrey, as a creative and thoughtful lover who’d once wanted her enough to offer her his most special place.

  But there would be no more tenderness. No more races through the morning dew or exhilarating conversations with a man who truly listened to her ideas and didn’t dismiss them as less simply because they came from a woman. No more stolen kisses or moments of bliss in Geoffrey’s arms.

  Liliana led the nag to the mounting block, determined not to wallow or second-guess. There was no guarantee there’d ever be any of those things again if she’d stayed, either. When he’d insisted they still marry, she’d been shocked, but a part of her had rejoiced. She’d agreed, if only because she so desperately loved him. She’d thought maybe, given time, they’d be able to put the past behind them and start anew.

  But Geoffrey had turned cold, angry, and she didn’t blame him. As he saw it, her actions had been a deliberate breach of trust…one he had no intention of forgiving. When she looked into his eyes, she saw no love, only distrust. And that was her fault.

  Her heart tripped when she considered how he’d react when he realized she’d gone. Would his feelings of betrayal deepen and his anger toward her grow even more entrenched?

  Liliana wiped a tear from her cheek, ducking her face. She had to quit sniffling like a ninny lest she give her disguise awa
y.

  It hardly mattered how he’d react. She couldn’t live like this. And neither should he. In the long run, no matter how much it tore her soul, leaving was for the best. She wouldn’t allow him to throw away his chance to find someone he could trust, and therefore love, for a sham marriage to assuage his misplaced sense of honor. When she was certain she was not carrying his child, she would send him a note to ease his mind. And if she was? Well, she’d deal with that wh—

  “Miss Claremont?”

  Liliana whirled at the sound of Geoffrey’s voice, missing her step and nearly stumbling as her foot slipped off of the block in her surprise.

  The bright sun filtering around him made her squint, and Liliana saw the figure before her only as a silhouette against the light. Her chest constricted for the briefest of moments. Hope, love and joy sprang up inside of her before her mind could quash it. The illusion faded as the man broke through the blinding light and drew nearer.