Rebel Dreams

by Patricia Rice

  Alex didn’t miss the sarcasm. “You will see her in a few minutes. I’ll not influence your opinion. Come, they’re ready to lower the plank.”

  ***

  When Alex arrived with an earl in tow, Evelyn could have kicked him thrice over for not sending a warning. Rebelling against his peremptory orders, she had not changed into a dinner gown. She merely wore a modest high-necked indigo day gown, so as not to appear too ostentatious to sailors long from home.

  Fortunately, she had warned the maid to use the best plate and silver so Alex would not be shamed by their hospitality, but even their best wasn’t enough for an earl. They should have sent to Uncle George’s for his silver service and porcelain.

  Evelyn glared at Alex as the earl bent over her mother’s hand. Cranville’s weathered face showed lines about his eyes, and his hair was more silver than gold, but he was a young-looking man still, slender and graceful. Evelyn wanted to like him, but this man had the power to hurt her and her family.

  Dinner conversation leaned toward discussion of all that was new in London and comparing family and acquaintance. The earl believed he might have been in school with Mrs. Wellington’s elder brother, and of course he knew her brother-in-law, Adrian Wellington, who held a very prominent position in the Commons now.

  Amanda knew little of the earl’s world, but she believed her grandmother was related to his mother’s sister through marriage, although she was unclear as to the ties. They had such a merry time comparing anecdotes that they failed to notice the general silence at the other end of the table where Evelyn did her best to pretend Alex didn’t exist.

  After dinner, the men lingered over their port while the ladies helped clear the dishes. Jacob disappeared about his own business, leaving Alex to hold his own against the earl.

  “She seems a quiet, modest sort, not at all your type, I must say,” Cranville mused once the women had retired to the kitchen.

  Alex made an inelegant sound and sipped his drink. “You have not met the real Evelyn. I don’t think she was even with us tonight. I suspect she was plotting some hair-raising plan to indict the entire Admiralty Court and me with it on charges ranging from abduction to . . .” He pondered a moment. “What crime begins with Z? Surely there must be one. Whatever it is, she’ll think of it. She is my counterpart in everything, and therein lies the rub.”

  “By Jove, the thought curdles the mind.” The earl shuddered. “You need a steadying influence, someone who can keep the title from total disgrace. A woman who has already been found guilty of smuggling and is evidently involved in worse is not the choice I would make. Perhaps I should speak to the young lady alone. I have some experience in these matters.”

  Alex leaned over the table and pierced his relative with a fierce gaze. “You do not understand, Everett. I want to marry her. I’m not leaving here without her.”

  Cranville merely touched his napkin to his lips. “I would speak with her just the same. I believe I saw a study down the hall. Send her to me there.”

  Alex cursed, threw down his napkin, and glared at the earl’s back as he departed. He liked and admired the older man, but at times Everett could be damned arrogant and opinionated.

  Evelyn entered the small, stuffy room with trepidation. Her father had never got around to building enough shelves for his rampant collection. Pamphlets and newspapers spilled from every available surface, held only by the teetering mountains of books stacked on top of them. Many of the volumes were still open to the pages he had last read, and Evelyn herself was guilty of leaving several of them about. She had always meant to return the room to order, but she hadn’t been able to part with these reminders quite yet. She reverently brushed a volume of Shakespeare of which her father had been particularly fond. She drew strength from feeling her father’s closeness as she faced the most honorable Earl of Cranville.

  The earl turned from unabashedly perusing an old copy of the Boston Gazette. He indicated the editor’s rather vehement diatribe against Parliament as he gestured for Evelyn to take a chair. “Are all your newspapers over here quite so openly seditious?”

  Evelyn removed a precious copy of Johnson’s Dictionary, two old ledgers, and a pamphlet by James Otis and stacked them on the floor before sitting down. Twining her fingers together, she tried to reply sensibly, although her knees quaked. “Sedition incites the overthrow of government. Ben Edes asks that our government’s constitution be upheld instead of ignored. Can that be a crime?”

  “Wilkes went to the Tower for it. This constitution he rants about is a rather nebulous document, is it not?”

  “We have centuries of law to support the rights of British citizens. Was the Magna Carta nebulous?”

  “Seditious, certainly, but not nebulous. I have not come to argue politics or law. I only wish to know you better. Apparently much has happened since those first letters I received from Alex. They were sufficient to drag me from my home to save his thick hide from whatever trouble he had invoked now, but it seems you are the one in trouble, not he. I believe your uncle accused my heir of smuggling contraband. What has happened to those charges?”

  Evelyn spread her hands in a gesture of appeal. “My uncle was satisfied once Alex declared his intentions toward me. He would never have actually charged him with anything. He just has a bad temper and speaks out of turn. There was no need for Alex to offer for me.” She hesitated, gauging the earl’s reaction before saying more. He seemed a reasonable man, and he would not have come all this way if he were not concerned for Alex. Gambling on this little bit of knowledge, she continued, “I would ask your aid in this matter, if I could.”

  The earl looked up with interest. He had settled himself in the desk chair and now drew the remains of an old quill between his fingers. He nodded. “I am at your service, Miss Wellington.”

  His quiet confidence restored hers, and she formed her words with care. “I would like you to tell Alex you would have to disinherit him if he insists on marrying me. He places much store in you and in his work and is not likely to give them up just to satisfy his sense of honor. You must see that this marriage is unsuitable for both of us, and it could only do him harm to persist in it.”

  Cranville smoothed the feather between his fingers. “You would cry off because you feel your reputation would harm his?” he asked.

  She heard his disbelief and gave him a wry look. “I am not so besotted as to think Alex possesses a sterling reputation with his peers or that it is his sense of honor entirely that compels him to marry me. I just know that I cannot be the lady he deserves, and in time he will learn to resent me for holding him back. I am accustomed to life here and cannot change my ways to suit London. The only harm done will be to Alex’s pride, and that will not be so damaging as a lifetime of marriage with a woman he feels obligated to wed.”

  Raising his eyebrows, Cranville answered cautiously. “You are aware that Alex expected to inherit my father’s title and wealth upon his death five years ago? My untimely return from Barbados cost him a great deal. To deny him his expectations again is a cruel thing to do.”

  Evelyn had known nothing of the sort, but the knowledge only reinforced her beliefs. Alex would not sacrifice fortune and title for lust and honor. “I have no desire to deny him his expectations. I wish Alex’s happiness as much as you do. Forcing him to make this choice will make it clear to him that I am just a passing fancy. You need not fear you will lose your heir.”

  “I can’t wait to hear Alex’s opinion,” the earl said with a chuckle. “But if that is the way you feel, Miss Wellington, I shall give it a try. I only wish Alex happiness, as you say. If you think he will truly be unhappy with this marriage, then I shall do what I can to prevent it.”

  Feeling her heart turn to lead as she sealed her fate, Evelyn nodded her gratitude and prepared to rise. To her surprise, the earl waved her back to her seat.

  “I would have this done at once. I’ll call Alex in here now.”

  Evelyn kept her head bowed when Alex
entered. She could not meet his eyes. She loved him too much to wish to see him harmed. What they were about to do would cause him anguish, but not as much as a lifetime of misery. The passion they shared would not weigh heavily enough against their irreconcilable differences.

  “Why do I get the feeling you are not about to give me your blessing?” Alex demanded.

  Cranville twisted the feather as he leaned back in his chair. “Probably because you are already aware that I am right. This marriage is not suitable for a future Earl of Cranville. If you persist in it, then I have the power to disinherit you of all but the title and the estate in Cornwall. You already know how worthless an empty title can be. I could have the family tree searched to see if there is not another cousin equally deserving of even that. I’m sorry, but since Miss Wellington agrees with me, I feel no harm will be done if the betrothal is broken now.”

  Alex’s strode across the room to Evelyn, gripping her shoulder in a gesture of protection. “I am sorry you feel that way, sir, but you make my decision easier,” he answered without hesitation. “I have known that Evelyn is reluctant to leave home and family for a strange land and new life. Now I do not have to ask that of her. You can have your title and estate. I will stay here.”

  Evelyn’s head shot up with amazement, dismay, and relief. Alex studied her expression before tilting her chin and sealing his promise with a kiss.

  His announcement left Evelyn too breathless to object. Despite his cynical attitude, she knew that Alex enjoyed the challenge of his position and power. She also knew his talents would be wasted in so small a world as this. As much as she longed for his vision of the future, she could not let him ruin his life for her. She shook her head free from his caress.

  “You can’t do that, Alex. I won’t let you. How do you think I’d feel knowing I’d robbed you of your life?”

  Alex’s dark gaze continued to rest on her, and his hand refused to surrender possession of her shoulder. Before he could reply, his cousin intruded.

  “If he is willing to sacrifice his life for you, Miss Wellington, perhaps you could see your way clear to do the same. I’m not comfortable with sacrifices of any sort, but I’m willing to rescind my decree if you are willing to bend a little in yours.”

  Alex sent the earl an enigmatic glance but his attention on her was unrelenting. “You can fling all the obstacles you can find in my way, but I won’t change my mind, Evelyn. If your objection is to England, then we’ll stay here. If your objection is to London, we’ll stay in Cornwall. If your objection is to titles, you have little to worry about. Everett’s good for another hundred years, as you can easily see. Name me some others, tyrant.”

  Alex hovered so close that she could not think. She tore from his grip to stand by the mantel and stare at the miniatures of her family in the frame resting there. Joy warred with disbelief at his words. He had said he would never marry. He had sworn never to curtail his freedom for wife and children. Yet here he was offering to give up everything for her.

  Why? Why would Alex do that? She could not believe he felt honor-bound to keep his promises in the face of everything that had been thrown at him this day. He was a man of enough experience to find other outlets for his lust. So why did he insist on going through with this marriage?

  “You leave me little choice,” she murmured to the mantel. “I cannot ask you to leave your family in England when I know my own will eagerly accompany me. I cannot ask you to give up all you possess for what little I will have left. I’d be a fool to refuse you, and I am no fool. I just cannot believe this is what you want or what is right for you.”

  “Dammit, Evelyn! Let me decide what I want! Don’t you think I have the wit to know what is right for me?”

  His anger she understood better than his earlier acquiescence. She spun around to face him. “You are the one who swore not two months ago that you would never wed! How am I to know if you will not change your mind again two months hence?”

  “Two months ago I was trying to keep you at your damn distance! I failed at that but I will not fail at this. Did you think I would blithely sail away and never worry whether you paid your fine or went to prison or carried my child? The choice was made long since.”

  “Alex!” Evelyn glared at him in horror at the lengths to which his anger carried him. She could not look at the earl as he rose from the desk.

  “Child? If there is any question of a child, then this argument is ended right now. Set the date and settle your differences later.” The earl’s tone was harsh as he, too, glared at Alex.

  “One week from today,” Alex announced firmly, not turning from Evelyn.

  His jaw was set with grim purpose, and Evelyn felt a tremor of real fear, fear of her own raw emotions. She really was marrying him. She couldn’t quite believe it, but looking at Alex with his jaw muscles pulled taut and his dark eyes glaring arrows, she knew she could not say him nay. She had thought he would be more relieved than hurt when offered an excuse to cry off. She had been wrong.

  Still, she wouldn’t let him order her about as if he owned her. She might as well make that clear right now. “You will have to bind me hand and foot and drag me screaming down the aisle,” she warned.

  A gleam leapt to Alex’s eyes. “I believe last week it also required a branding iron. Perhaps by next week you will be so submissive I need only drag you by the hair.”

  “You will be lucky if you have any hair left should you try such a thing! If we are to marry, you might as well learn that I am not accustomed to being given orders.”

  “If we are to marry, you might as well learn that I am accustomed to beating disobedient little chits!”

  The earl watched with considerable bemusement as they ranted and railed, but only recently having married for the second time, he was no stranger to the undercurrent flowing beneath the words. The looks this pair sent each other would be sufficient to sizzle a man to bacon should he be foolhardy enough to come between them. Discreetly he inched his way from the room.

  In the hall he was met by Evelyn’s anxious mother, who twisted her hands nervously at the sound of upraised voices beyond the door. At her glance, Cranville shook his head.

  “How have you kept your sanity with the two of them about? I thought when I first met Alex that I had never met a more arrogant, opinionated ass in all my life. I fear he has met his match in your daughter’s stubbornness.”

  Hearing the voices on the other side of the door subside to giggles and chuckles, Amanda smiled. “As long as you do not oppose the match, they will take care of each other. Our only difficulty now will be keeping them apart until they are wedded.” She nodded toward the door, from which now came only an ominous silence.

  Cranville lifted his eyebrow as he recalled his heir’s words. He wouldn’t give a ha’pence for their chances of keeping those two apart. He smiled as he offered the widow his arm. “There are wedding plans to be made, madam, and I fear we are the only ones to make them. Shall we begin?”

  Chapter 19

  The night before the wedding, the small Wellington front parlor was filled to overflowing with females garbed in their best petticoats and ribbons, giggling and gossiping and lending their words of wisdom to the bride-to-be. The men had migrated to the newly cleaned study to sip their port and argue over politics, with an occasional spicy jest for the groom. For this last gathering before the nuptials, only the bride’s closest friends had been invited, and there was a surprising lack of powdered hair and wigs, perfumes, and silk.

  Alex leaned against the bookshelves and sipped his wine, but he kept his conversation to a minimum while listening to the ladies in the next room. This last week of tension had been pure hell. He was still uncertain that Evelyn meant to go through with the ceremony and not disappear in a puff of smoke or a rain of cannonballs.

  The tinkling notes of a spinet from the front room gave Alex his reason to leave. Several of the younger men followed him out. Music was made for dancing and there was a room full of attrac
tive ladies waiting to be chosen.

  Alex found his lady escaping into the kitchen. He caught her elbow, and Evelyn glanced up in surprise, but she didn’t seem displeased.

  She smiled and set aside her teacup. “I thought if I heard one more smirking reference to our wedding night, I would have to inform the company that I was already acquainted with my wifely duties and enjoyed them very well. I fear I have not been blushing properly.”

  Relief swept through Alex that she really meant to go through with the wedding. With a smile, he steered her toward the back door. “Shall I restore your blushes for you? I rather enjoy them, you know.”

  The late-October night was frosty, but they wore velvets and wools and carried the heat from the house with them. The spinet had been joined by a fiddle. Soon they would be missed, but not just yet. Alex swept Evelyn into his arms and carried her through the steps of a jig in sheer jubilation, swinging her until her laugh broke through the night air.

  This was their last day of freedom. Tomorrow they would be wedded for eternity. Their exhilaration was needed to keep fears at bay.

  She was soft and sweet in his arms, a swaying reed that filled Alex’s senses with seductive music. He gazed down into liquid violet eyes and drew his hand through the silkiness of disheveled chestnut tresses.

  It seemed incredible to believe that he could find a woman as lovely and intelligent as this one and that she would agree to marry him, even knowing of his dubious past. He didn’t deserve this reward for bad behavior, and he greatly feared losing her, but for now he would enjoy the promise while he could.

  When the reel ended, Alex pulled Evelyn into his arms to seek the kiss she had been avoiding all week. He knew Cranville’s aristocratic presence made her nervous, but he would no longer be denied. He growled in pleasure as she melted against him and returned his kiss with a matching passion.

  Her lips burned against his flesh. The honey of her breath engulfed him. He ached with need for the vulnerable slenderness cradled in his arms. Nipping kisses at the corners of her mouth, he retreated, still keeping her warm in his embrace.