The Counterfeit Gentleman

by Charlotte Louise Dolan

  “Which is precisely the point I was trying to make,” Digory retorted. “We need no longer concern ourselves with him after the wedding. And until the ceremony, which is but a few short hours away, Miss Pepperell is being quite safely looked after by Big Davey and Little Davey Veryan.”

  “A truly formidable pair if I remember correctly,” Cavenaugh said. “But just what is to prevent Mr. Harcourt from thinking a bit more? What makes you sure he will ignore what must be obvious?”

  “Obvious?”

  “But of course. Once Miss Pepperell is married, then his only remaining chance to get his hands on her grandfather’s money is to have her marriage declared invalid.”

  Digory started out to explain the steps he had undertaken to ensure that the marriage would be legally binding, but then he cursed under his breath. Whether the marriage was legal or not was immaterial. Even though any effort to have the marriage set aside would ultimately fail, the attempt itself would be sufficient to expose his true identity.

  And her villainous cousin, having shown himself capable of cold-blooded murder, would not hesitate to crucify Bethia in the court of public opinion. Indeed, merely the whiff of a scandal would be enough to make the ton ostracize Bethia.

  “In other words, I need not fear accidentally encountering someone who might recognize me, because the Harcourt brothers will spare no expense to discover precisely who I am and where I came from,” Digory said.

  “Unfortunately,” his lordship continued, “we cannot simply assume that whichever cousin protests your marriage is the villain, because all three will have ample reason to rant and rave and cry foul. And since the murderer was resourceful enough to find and hire two assassins—and I must point out that such scoundrels do not normally advertise their services with the employment agencies—we can therefore assume that he will also be resourceful enough to hire someone to go to Cornwall and investigate your background. And that means we have very little time to act.”

  “Act? Have you thought of some way to prevent this? A practical plan, not another flight of imagination like the ones Fitzhugh and his cohorts were offering? For I must admit I can see no solution to the problem of keeping my identity secret.”

  “The simplest thing is usually also the best,” Cavenaugh said mildly. “Which in this case means we need merely eliminate all three of the cousins. From what little gossip I have heard about the Harcourt men, I doubt any of them are of particular value to society.”

  With effort Digory managed to keep his tone civil. “There is another alternative that you have apparently not considered.”

  “Something that I, in my infinite wisdom, have overlooked? How extraordinary.”

  “We would have no problems with any of the cousins if you were the one to marry Miss Pepperell tomorrow.” Cavenaugh stopped dead in his tracks and regarded Digory with open amazement, then he burst out laughing. “I would be on the next boat to Calais if I thought you were serious. No, no, you are the one the fates have chosen to be the sacrificial lamb—the one who must give up his freedom in this noble cause.”

  Digory was not amused. How could he joke about receiving Miss Pepperell’s hand in marriage when he knew himself to be unworthy of receiving even one of her smiles?

  Shortly thereafter he parted company with Cavenaugh and continued on alone the short distance to Lady Letitia’s house. He assumed his elderly friend would have long since gone to bed, but instead he found her still awake and comfortably ensconced in front of the fire in the drawing room, a glass of sherry in her hand.

  Sitting down beside her, Digory briefly related the high points of the meeting with the former spies, concluding with his fears that the situation was getting desperately out of hand.

  “But my dear boy,” she said with a wicked smile, “what makes you think you have ever been in control of anything? You should know by now that I am the master puppeteer in London. Mine is the hand that jerks the strings and makes the marionettes perform on cue.”

  “Then discover a way I can prevent my eager companions from destroying Miss Pepperell’s reputation by unmasking the villain, or what is worse, killing two innocent men just to eliminate one murderer.”

  “Certainly,” she said. “I shall be happy to oblige, just as soon as you convince me that the villainous cousin is no longer dangerous. If I remember correctly, that was one of the first rules you taught me in Marseilles, namely never to turn my back on a known enemy. And that is precisely what you are now intending to do, figuratively speaking.”

  Her voice was light, and a smile lurked around her eyes, but Digory was not deceived into thinking she was joking. And if she was likewise determined to unmask the murderer, then he might as well stop struggling against the inevitable. Instead he should do his best to minimize the damage to Miss Pepperell’s reputation.

  Unfortunately, his own past was more dangerous than anything the other agents might contrive. All it would take to undo everything they had accomplished so far was for one person to point a finger at him and say, “That man is no gentleman; that man is the bastard son of the Earl of Blackstone and a notorious smuggler to boot.”

  Staring into the fire, Digory could see no possible way to prevent such an eventuality, and he wondered how he could ever have been so naive as to think their only problem was simply the matter of gaining Lady Clovyle’s permission to marry.

  “Come, come, my dear boy,” Lady Letitia interrupted his thoughts. “You must not look so glum the night before you are to be married, else someone might think you were not happy to be acquiring a beautiful, intelligent—to say nothing of rich—wife.”

  It was not the port he had drunk that made him answer her more frankly than was his wont. In the past, no matter how unsure of himself he had been, he had carefully hidden his doubts and anxieties from everyone else. And by careful observation coupled with a logical mind, he had always managed to figure out the best thing to do.

  But now, for the first time in his life, he feared he might find himself unequal to the task he had undertaken, and he wanted the advice of someone older and more experienced than he was.

  “Ours will not be a real marriage,” he said. “Once Bethia is of age, I will arrange for an annulment.”

  “What is this—am I becoming senile in my old age? I cannot believe that I was so totally mistaken about the child. However could I have missed seeing that she is self-centered, greedy, grasping, thoughtless, and unkind?” Lady Letitia said, her indignation fierce and immediate. “My dear boy, if I had but known that she was planning to use you and then discard you, I would never have assisted her in deceiving her aunt.”

  She paused, as if she had just realized something, then said in a much calmer voice, “And I cannot believe that she duped you also, so you will please explain why you have agreed to play a leading role in such a foolish venture.”

  “You mistake the matter entirely,” Digory said softly. “Miss Pepperell knows nothing of any annulment. She is exactly as sweet and kind and good-hearted as you thought her to be when you met her, although I cannot claim that she is always even-tempered and obedient. In truth, I foresee a rather vigorous campaign on her part to dissuade me from this course.”

  There was no immediate answer from his companion. Turning his head, he looked in her eyes and saw pain there equal to his own.

  Lady Letitia was wise enough not to badger him with questions, nor did she instantly inundate him with well-meant but ill-thought-out advice. “Surely you cannot doubt but that Bethia loves you—it positively radiates from her eyes,” was all she said in the end.

  “My mother loved my father desperately, and yet by his selfish actions, he destroyed her life,” Digory replied. “If I consider nothing but my own desires, then I am as loathsome as he was. While it was doubtless amusing to invent a preposterous pedigree for me, I have learned by experience just how small-minded people can be. How can I pretend that Bethia will not suffer because I was born out of wedlock? And suppose we were to have a child? T
here is no way I could prevent the other children from teasing my son or daughter unmercifully for having a father who is a bastard.”

  “Your sister is married to Richard Hawke, a most estimable man, but one who does not even know who his parents were, much less whether or not they were married. And yet she is the happiest of women.”

  At the mention of Cassie, Digory attempted to smile, but his voice was bitter when he spoke. “Richard Hawke has no cause to fear his past. He was but a young lad when he left England, and he was gone so many years that no one, no matter how diligently he might search, would ever be able to connect the child he was with the man he has become. And in a way Richard is doubly lucky, for he did not have to watch his mother suffer—to see her die a little more every day, all the while knowing there was nothing he could do to alleviate her pain.”

  “You were but a child. No one can blame you for what you were too young to prevent.”

  “You miss the point. I do not blame myself; I blame my father. And that is precisely why I cannot allow myself to follow in his footsteps. No matter how many excuses and rationalizations I come up with, I cannot ignore the truth: If I consummate this marriage with Bethia, then I am no better than my father, for in the end I will surely destroy the happiness of the woman I love.”

  There, he had finally admitted the truth he had been trying not to face. However impossible, however hopeless, however futile it might be, he loved Bethia more than he had thought it possible for a man to love a woman. But confession, while it might be good for the soul, did not bring him any measure of relief; it merely served to focus his grief.

  Up until the moment that Digory said he loved his betrothed, Lady Letitia had been considering whether or not she should explain to him that contrary to popular opinion, not consummating a marriage was insufficient grounds for an annulment. But Lady Letitia was too much a matchmaker to interfere once Digory admitted his feelings for the woman he had rescued from the sea for if he knew the truth, he would no doubt attempt to cry off.

  Moreover, the chance of his discovering that she had withheld the pertinent information about annulments was slim.

  He was in all ways too much a man to remain celibate for months with such a lovely—and even more important, such a loving—wife as Miss Pepperell. Days, perhaps, and possibly even a week or two. But over four months? It would never happen.

  The night had been unbearably long, but Bethia could not blame her sleeplessness on any nightmares. Rather it was anticipation of her coming wedding that had kept her from finding release in the arms of Morpheus.

  At the first hint of morning—the first subtle lightening of the sky—she climbed out of bed and pulled on her robe, then went to the window and sank down on the window seat.

  Only a single star was still visible, and even while she watched, it slowly faded away. By the time its light could again be seen, she would be a married woman, and she would never again have to face the darkness without Digory there beside her—truly beside her in the bed, not sleeping uncomfortably on a chair positioned close by.

  Watching the sky change from deepest blue to palest rose, she could not keep from smiling and hugging herself. She had always thought marriage was a serious, even solemn occasion—a step into the unknown, from which there was no retreat. Each time she had watched other girls go to the altar, she had wondered how they could be certain they were doing the right thing.

  To give a man total control over your life, your fortune, your heart—how was it possible to be sure?

  But today was her wedding day, and she was not marrying some virtual stranger—someone she had danced with a few times at Almack’s, someone who had paid a dozen proper morning calls, someone who had taken her up on occasion for a turn around the park.

  She was marrying Digory Rendel, an uncommon man with an uncommon background. He was nothing like the many men who had courted her—men whose faces she could no longer remember in any detail—men whose effusive compliments and practiced smiles and fatuous remarks all blurred together in her mind.

  “Digory Rendel.” Just whispering his name to herself made her heart sing, and she could not keep her thoughts from flitting off in first one direction and then another.

  How strong he was to have pulled her from the sea. Yet how gentle he had been, brushing the tangles from her hair.

  How near he was tonight, just a few streets away. Yet how agonizingly distant he seemed—beyond the reach of her hand, beyond the sound of her voice.

  How short a time yet to be gotten through—how unbearably long the hours until she would see him again—be with him again, forever.

  It was unfortunate that her aunt was the one to find her sound asleep on the window seat with the curtains drawn. Shaking Bethia awake she fussed, “Anyone passing by—the butcher’s brat or a chimney sweep—might have looked up and seen you sleeping here like a ... a...” Words failed her at that point, or at least words that were proper for a lady to say.

  Much invigorated by her short nap, Bethia smiled, yawned, stood up, stretched, and then began to dance around the room, humming softly to herself.

  Her aunt made a noise remarkably like a snort—only ladies, of course, never snort. “I cannot think what is keeping that wretched Mrs. Drake,” she muttered, or it would have been a mutter, if ’twere not for the fact that ladies always enunciate clearly whatever it is they wish to say.

  Crossing to the bellpull, she jerked on it several times, so vigorously that Bethia would not have been surprised if the whole thing had come off in her aunt’s hand.

  “Stop that infernal spinning around! You are giving me the headache,” Aunt Euphemia said crossly—except that a true lady never, ever is moody or crotchety or displays anything but an unflagging, unfailing, unwavering evenness of disposition. “There is so much to be done, and we will never be ready in time for the wedding if we do not make a start at once. You must have your bath, then Mrs. Drake must do your hair and help you dress.”

  It was a measure of how deeply distressed Aunt Euphemia was that she actually said the word bath, since she did not normally deem it a proper word for a lady to say. Morning ablutions was her preferred expression.

  “That is really very little to accomplish, considering that we have a full four hours,” Bethia said, dancing over to give her aunt a kiss on the cheek, which only halfway mollified her. “I am sure we will have ample time. Although actually it will not even matter if my hair is not properly curled or my dress ironed to perfection. After all, Mr. Rendel has seen me looking quite like a drowned duck.”

  Her aunt puckered up immediately, of course, but before she could begin a lecture on the proper behavior for a young lady of quality who has just been dragged from the sea, there was a light tapping on the door, and Mrs. Drake entered, carrying the pale gold walking dress, which Madame Arnault had altered beautifully.

  “The maid will be along directly with some hot chocolate, and I have instructed the footmen to bring the hot water up in half an hour. The day looks to be quite pleasant, and Mr. Rendel has sent round a posy for you to carry.” Which left Bethia’s aunt with really nothing more to worry about.

  So why was she still looking so agitated? Why had she now begun to pace back and forth, even going so far as to wring her hands, which was not at all her usual manner.

  Stopping abruptly a few feet away from Bethia, Lady Clovyle blurted out, “Have you been properly instructed as to a wife’s duty to her husband?”

  “To be sure, Aunt Euphemia. You yourself have given me a most thorough education in the proper way to direct servants and manage a household.”

  “No, no,” her aunt said impatiently, waving her hands in dismissal, then again clasping them together so tightly the knuckles were white. “What I mean is, has anyone ever told you precisely what is involved when a man and a woman ... when a husband and wife ... that is to say when they...”

  Her aunt abruptly resumed her pacing, then stopped again and asked, “Have you ever been on a farm and obse
rved—but no, you have not, I know that. Heaven knows, I have always done my best to persuade your grandfather that London was not a proper place to raise a child, especially a female with tender sensibilities, but he was the most stubborn and aggravating man it has ever been my misfortune to meet—quite unable to consider anyone’s wishes except his own.”

  Thoroughly intrigued, Bethia said, “Are you perhaps asking me if I know what happens when a man shares a woman’s bed—”

  “When a husband exercises his marital rights,” her aunt corrected. “Yes, precisely that.” Looking at Bethia out of the corner of her eye, she said, “Did perhaps your governess...?”

  Feeling a bit embarrassed herself, Bethia shook her head.

  “It is indeed most unfortunate that your mother died when you were so young,” Aunt Euphemia said with a heartfelt sigh.

  Bethia nodded her head.

  “Well.” Her aunt clasped her hands tightly together, looked directly into Bethia’s eyes, did her best to smile, and finally said firmly, “The most important thing you must know is that whatever your husband wishes to do in your bed, no matter how peculiar it may seem to you, no matter how ... how...”

  She faltered and her smile tightened into a grimace, but then she straightened her shoulders and tried a second time. This time her gaze fixed itself on the door, as if she were already eyeing her escape route, and her voice came out in a high squeak, the words tumbling out one on top of the other in an almost incoherent jumble.

  “If you will only keep reminding yourself that what he is doing will not last terribly long, and that every woman since Eve has had to endure what you are enduring—if you will remember that no matter how unpleasant it may be, it is your duty as his wife to allow him to do anything he wants to do, then I am sure you will not find it totally unbearable.”

  Taking a handkerchief from her sleeve, Aunt Euphemia mopped her forehead. “There, I have done my duty and explained it all to you.”