Never Surrender to a Scoundrel

by Lily Dalton

  “My secret.” She nodded, knowing she more than deserved the harsh words. “Yes, you’ve been very kind. Kinder than I ever expected. Kinder than I deserve. That’s why I owe you my thanks, and a way out of this entanglement. Last night it was wrong of me to agree to this marriage, to allow my feelings for my grandfather and my family to keep me from telling everyone the truth.”

  “You’ve come to this decision now?” he growled, his eyes widening.

  She nodded. “I won’t distress them further by revealing Quinn’s part in all this.” She shrugged ruefully. “He has married another, and nothing can be done. But I’ll make certain they understand you have nothing at all to do with my predicament.”

  How she hated that word. Predicament. It sounded so feckless.

  “What do you suppose the truth will accomplish now?” he scoffed.

  She raised her hands, exasperated, not understanding why he did not rejoice at her offer to make things right. “Your freedom?”

  If at all possible, his gaze grew harder and colder.

  “Too late,” he seethed.

  “It can’t be,” she exclaimed. “Not for you.”

  “Well, it is,” he responded, between clenched teeth, his eyes flashing fire like the Devil’s. “You’ve already bloody well ruined my life, and by God, now you’re going to marry me so I can have the pleasure of ruining yours.”

  “Oh!” she cried, dismayed not only by his vulgar language but his threat.

  Without another word, he turned from her and wrenched the door open. With mock graciousness, he tilted his head and crooked his arm in gentlemanly invitation, his features still sharp with anger.

  Everyone stood in a cluster, watching from the corridor.

  “But—” she said, afraid to take even a single step toward the door, because once she did, she wouldn’t turn back.

  “Now,” he growled.

  Sophia’s mouth fell open. “What manner of gentleman behaves so to his bride-to-be on their wedding day?”

  Daphne cried, “No true gentleman would.”

  They all saw him as a villain, but he wasn’t. They didn’t know what she’d done to make him behave so. He still wanted to marry her, even after she’d given him the opportunity to escape. Yes, he was angry, but she didn’t for one second believe his words about ruining her life. Of course, she still felt a mixture of relief and dread about what they were about to do, but her decision was made and she would not shrink back from it again.

  Crossing the carpet, she tucked her gloved hand to his arm.

  “We’re ready!” she announced to her family, offering them her best smile.

  No one in the waiting wedding party appeared convinced, and a sideways glance proved her groom made no effort whatsoever to feign the slightest modicum of joy.

  Side by side they followed her mother and the reverend, with her sisters and their husbands following along behind, in utter silence up the stairs, like a procession to the guillotine.

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  Dominick—his mind a maelstrom of conflicted emotions—stood hand in hand with Clarissa beside the bed, along with the clergyman. The curtains remained drawn, and shadows filled the room. Wolverton lay propped on a high embankment of pillows, watching through glazed, half-open eyes.

  How different from his first wedding day, which had taken place in sunshine and light with much laughter and optimism for the future. Tryphena had loved him then, in the beginning, of that he had no doubt.

  Lady Harwick, at the last moment, came forward to drape what appeared to be an heirloom veil of lace over her daughter’s hair and pressed a kiss on her cheek, before returning to Mr. Birch’s side.

  “Mother,” exclaimed Daphne, reaching to take hold of Her Ladyship’s hand.

  Clarissa stared at the floor, clearly struggling to hold back tears.

  Dominick had nothing to do with any of this, so pardon him if he didn’t join the funeral. He stood taller and straightened his shoulders, an intentional show of pride.

  Mr. Woodcombe peered over the top edge of his prayer book and said, “If you will, my good Mr. Kincraig, repeat after me. I—”

  “I,” he repeated clearly.

  The priest tilted his head and lifted his hand in encouragement. “Say your name, please. Your forename and surname and all illustrious names between.”

  Mr. Woodcombe chuckled and smiled, as if they were all having a splendid time.

  Dominick’s young bride already looked half near fainting. Pale and tense, she stared at his chest and gripped both of his hands as if fearful she might at any moment be swept over an imaginary ship’s railing into a ravenous and punishing sea.

  How utterly opposite she was from Tryphena, who had been radiant on their wedding day and had claimed him like a prize she had won, with smiles and kisses and whispered promises of what she intended to do to him as soon as they returned to their lodgings. Like him, Tryphena had been an agent in the secret service. An equal, she had matched him both in passion and in professional ambition. Clarissa, on the other hand, was just a girl.

  Ah, but his name. His real name. Dominick shifted stance. A glance to Wolverton revealed him to be staring steadily back, watching the proceedings in silence. For a brief moment their eyes met.

  The earl winked.

  Winked, at him? No, that had to be wrong. He’d merely observed a tremor, an involuntary consequence of an old man’s failing health. Whatever the case, there could be no more delaying the inevitable. Now he would set them all back on their heels, and with pleasure.

  “I…Dominick Arden Blackmer—”

  Clarissa’s head snapped up. Behind them, the sniffles and sobs went silent.

  Oh, he couldn’t help it. A satisfied smile curled the corner of his lips.

  Mr. Woodcombe’s brows gathered in puzzlement, and he referred to the slip of paper tucked into the back of his book, yet after a moment he cleared his throat and continued on. “Take thee…”

  “—take thee—” Dominick stopped there, realizing he could proceed no further. To Clarissa, he said, “I’m sorry, my dearest darling—” Sarcastic emphasis on the “darling.” “—but I’ve realized I don’t know your full name.”

  “Clarissa Anne Georgina Bevington,” she answered in a quiet voice, her blue eyes brightly illuminated with temper, something that heartened him because he supposed he’d prefer angry over hopeless any day. “And what did you just say your name was?”

  He chuckled, enjoying the thrill of satisfaction he felt at her confusion, but purposefully did not answer her.

  “I take thee, Clarissa Anne Georgina Beving—”

  “Pardon me,” interrupted a man’s imperious voice from behind, one belonging to the Duke of Claxton.

  The same one that had made his life hell all morning long, with its lectures and cutting remarks and outright snide aspersions as to his character. Footsteps sounded on the carpet.

  “I too would ask that the gentleman repeat his name.”

  Dominick didn’t move. He only looked into Clarissa’s eyes, fighting the urge to laugh outright because the idea of shocking his new family had suddenly became utterly satisfying.

  Clarissa answered in a clear voice, “I believe he said…Dominick Arden Blackmer…Kincraig?”

  She scrutinized his face.

  “Hmmmm, no,” he answered coolly.

  “No?” Her eyebrows went up. “As to the Kincraig?”

  He smiled graciously. “That is correct.”

  Clarissa’s lashes—much darker than her hair—fluttered against her pale cheekbones and she bristled, her gaze brightening and her shoulders going very straight. “Interesting.”

  Now it was he who gripped her hands, refusing to allow her to snatch them away.

  “Is there some problem?” inquired Mr. Woodcombe.

  The ladies whispered.

  “Did you hear what he said?”

  “If he isn’t Mr. Kincraig, then, who is he?”

  “Isn’t that fraud?”

/>   “Can’t we do something?”

  Yes, God, yes, he prayed one of them or all of them would “do something” and stop this farce of a wedding. Chase him from the house. Throw candlesticks and books at him, insisting that he never show his face in their presence again. Procure a constable to escort him to the edge of town. Anything.

  A low growl came from Wolverton in the bed, faint yet imperious. “Proceed.”

  “But—” started the duke.

  “Stand…down, Claxton,” insisted the earl, the words ragged and labored.

  For a moment Claxton fumed, motionless. He pivoted on his heel and strode, with his hand over his mouth, toward Sophia, who reached out to him with a consoling hand.

  Dominick bit down a curse, his scant hope at freedom dashed. For a moment they all looked at one another in silence.

  Red-faced, the priest hooked a finger into his cravat and tugged, exhaling loudly. He nodded and looked down into his book again. “As His Lordship desires.”

  Standing before Dominick, Clarissa exhaled and frowned. With a shake of her head, she closed her eyes, and reopened them to sullenly stare down at his boots. Her hands lay completely limp within his.

  He tugged her several inches closer and insisted in a low murmur, “I would have you look at me while we speak the vows.”

  Color rose to her cheeks. Yet after an extended moment, she did look up, her eyes snapping with a blaze of fire.

  “Look at you? I don’t even know who you are,” she hissed.

  All her girlishness fell away, leaving him hand in hand with a different person than he’d known her to be before. A woman, wide-eyed and lush, and obviously furious at him.

  Deep in his chest, a sleeping dragon roused…raised its head and growled out a low, drowsy stream of smoke and cinders.

  Dominick exhaled through his teeth, unsettled.

  He’d never felt that sort of reaction to her before, no sudden appreciation of her as a sensual creature capable of passion. He’d found her lovely, of course, much like one would admire a pretty flower, in a garden full of many other pretty flowers. Never once before had he felt the startling snap-quick drag of flint against steel, deep in his chest, that indicated a deeper awareness of her womanhood.

  That he should feel it now, in this most unlikely, most miserable of moments—

  Well…he felt tricked. Bamboozled. And he instantly snuffed the fledgling flame.

  He didn’t want to feel anything for her. Not affection, or attraction, and certainly not need. Especially for a woman who very likely, at this moment, still loved another man.

  “Ahem,” said Mr. Woodcombe. “Do you need me to repeat the words?”

  No. No he didn’t.

  “I take thee, Clarissa Anne Georgina Bevington,” he uttered in a low voice, “to be my wedded wife—”

  He had never thought he would say these words to another woman, ever again.

  “—to have and to hold from this day forward, for better, for worse, for richer, for poorer, in sickness and in health—”

  Clarissa’s blue eyes sparkled, full of accusation and mistrust, a delicate, oblivious little creature who didn’t understand at all what she was getting herself into, or the sort of damaged man she married.

  “—to love and to cherish, till death us do part—”

  The first time he’d married, the concept of death hadn’t seemed real. Like a fool, he’d believed in forever, in the immortality of his and Tryphena’s youth and the sanctity of their love, and yet here he stood not four years later, promising to cherish and protect another woman. Bloody hell, barely a woman. A pretty chit he hardly knew and most certainly did not love.

  Nonetheless, he had said his vows. Now she must do the same.

  She cleared her throat.

  “I, Clarissa Anne Georgina Bevington, take thee—” She paused and swallowed before proceeding. “Dominick…Arden…Blackmer—”

  Mr. Woodcombe droned on and on and on saying words he did not hear. At the clergyman’s urging, Dominick and Clarissa knelt and joined hands, hers very small and delicate and cool within his. A stranger’s hand.

  “—and husbands, love your wives, and be not bitter against them.”

  The words cut through the curtain of Dominick’s thoughts and memories. His vision returned to clear. Beside him, Clarissa stared up at him.

  He’d lost everything. Everything but her.

  Him, bitter? In that moment, he couldn’t contain himself. A most inappropriate welling of mirth barreled up from inside him.

  He laughed.

  “Where has Mr. Kincraig gone?” whispered Daphne, inching closer to Sophia on the striped settee. “I mean Mr. Blackmer—if that is indeed his name.”

  “Of course that is his name,” the Duchess of Claxton responded in a low voice. “A person must speak the truth when taking a vow of matrimony.”

  “Says who?” hissed the middle sister, with a deep sigh. “What if our sister has been swept up into some outlandish fraud or scheme, just as we suspected all along—”

  “Would you please stop saying such things?” Clarissa interrupted—in the most discreet voice possible—from the chair she occupied. “I’m sitting right here. Mr. Blackmer is with Claxton and Wolverton. They remained behind and shut the door.”

  She plucked at the lace on her skirts, fuming, wondering what the gentlemen were talking about. After all, this was her life. It was she who had just married Mr. Blackmer, whoever Mr. Blackmer really was. Shouldn’t she be there to hear any explanations as well? For them to have closed-door discussions while she was relegated to the drawing room with the ladies, set her blood to boiling.

  After the ceremony, they’d gone to the Jade Room, a small parlor adjacent to the dining room, where they waited to be seated for a wedding breakfast that Cook had fussed and complained about having to so hastily prepare. Like all master cooks, he took special occasions most seriously and had almost made himself ill worrying that her special day be just as special as he’d always imagined it, with only a few hours’ notice.

  Only the day wasn’t all that special, when one had indeed married a scoundrel.

  Because Mr. Blackmer was a scoundrel, wasn’t he, if he’d been lying to them all this time about his name? To what degree she did not know, nor could she guess his motive, but his intentional misrepresentation, which had been put forth by him for nearly two years, deeply troubled her.

  What she couldn’t understand was why her grandfather had allowed them to be married.

  “Your sister is right,” said Lady Harwick, who stood at the center of the carpet. Lord Raikes, for his part, perused the small bookcase filled with books, very obviously trying to pretend he didn’t hear any of their conversation.

  “Which sister?” asked Daphne, eyebrows raised.

  “Your sister Clarissa,” the marchioness responded, eyes widening with rare temper. “Be careful of the words and accusations you speak, for you may well regret them later. I’m certain we shall have some answers explaining Mr. Blackmer’s use of a different name very soon.”

  Still, Her Ladyship appeared fretful, and glanced to the door as if waiting for the next scandal to arrive—or perhaps only the tall, dark-haired one that her youngest daughter had just married.

  Mr. Birch drew near to Lady Margaretta’s side and spoke in assuring tones.

  Her brother-in-law, the duke, entered the drawing room. His gaze met Sophia’s fleetingly before he nodded to Lady Margaretta and settled his attention with great solemnity on Clarissa. She couldn’t help but feel that a hammer was about to fall—right on the top of her head.

  “I have spoken with Wolverton and Mr. Blackmer,” he said.

  “Just say it. Get it over with.” She pressed a hand to the center of her abdomen, which hurt from hours of anxious churning. “Tell me who he is.”

  “Perhaps you’d like to hear this in private?” he said.

  “Why?” she said, dismayed. “It’s not as if everyone won’t find out two moments after. Te
ll us all.”

  “Very well,” he answered gravely. “But I warn you, what I’ve learned may shock you. What I tell you must never leave this room.”

  “Would you like me to go?” Mr. Birch asked Lady Margaretta.

  “No, please stay.” She reached for him, and he moved closer to her side.

  Clarissa nodded and swallowed hard, bracing herself for whatever dark revelations His Grace would share about her new husband. Her sisters closed in, each taking one of her arms as if to support her if she should pitch to the floor.

  She let them.

  She’d believed it punishment enough to be forced into marrying Mr. Kincraig as a price for her romantic foolishness. Apparently not. Mr. Kincraig didn’t even exist. What if she’d married a murderer? A villainous felon? A man who kept a harem of mistresses and boasted a score of children as well? She had to be prepared for the truth, no matter how unfortunate it might be.

  Claxton glanced over his shoulder toward the door. “Mr. Blackmer, it seems, is an agent of the Crown.”

  The words rang like a bell inside her head, not at all what she’d expected to hear.

  Clarissa’s heartbeat took on a different tempo, still wild but…a degree slower. Yes, slower. Mr. Blackmer, the stranger she had just married, wasn’t a murderer or a criminal then. She exhaled a shaky sigh of relief.

  The duke continued, “A domestic operative, if you will.”

  Silence held the room as everyone appeared to allow his revelation to sink in. At last Sophia spoke.

  “An agent of the Crown,” she repeated breathlessly.

  “That’s not so terrible,” murmured Daphne, squeezing Clarissa’s arm. “Indeed, it’s rather…exciting. He still acted abhorrently, in luring you into a romantic entanglement, but at least we know he is not a fraud.”

  “But an agent of the Crown? Why was he here?” Clarissa started, her thoughts and her memories now confused.

  They were just a family. She couldn’t think of a reason why their daily activities would interest anyone or require secret observation.

  Her mother looked to Claxton. “Why did he pretend to be Wolverton’s heir?”

  Sophia tilted her head and moved closer. “Were we all being watched?”