Nor, she reminded herself with a slow smile, did she need to fret about owing a debt to Jocelyn Simpson. Marcus’s particular had done nothing to help save him. That thought gave her the strength to search her mind for an idea that would free them. Mayhap there was a chance for both their escape and their marriage.
“And it is also true,” he went on, “that Fisher and his fellows are looking for you. Are we at Sheldon’s house?”
“In a small building in the back.” She shuddered. “I do not believe we are the first to enjoy his hospitality, nor are we meant to be the last. How did you know to come here?”
He touched the back of his head and winced. “Sheldon was the obvious choice when he vanished at the same time you were abducted.”
“I own that I did not suspect him, especially since he wrote to Papa about his concerns for me.”
“Which persuaded your father to arrange for you to leave Algiers, so Sheldon could get you into his diabolical control.” He frowned, then cursed under his breath. “Who would have guessed that Sheldon is responsible for our marriage?” His hands fisted at his side. “Where is the bastard? He owes me for too much now.”
Regina looked away, not wanting him to see her despair. Would she ever lose her foolish dreams that Marcus might love her as she loved him? Now he could blame Benjamin as well as her for fouling his life with too many complications.
“Be brave, sweetheart,” he said and brushed her hair back from her face. “If we are near Sheldon’s house, then Fisher will find us … eventually.”
Regina grasped his arm as the three men’s voices drifted toward them. “We may not have that time.”
“Why?”
“They do not need two hostages,” she whispered. “Lie back down. Drop down, as if you have lost consciousness again.”
“Why?”
“Please. I think I have an idea that might work.”
His brows lowered. “What is it?”
Putting her hands on his arms, she pleaded, “Marcus, you must trust me. I know the Algerians. You don’t. Let me do what I can.”
Marcus hesitated, and she knew what he was thinking as clearly as if he had spoken. It galled him to be dependent—even in this most dire situation—on his wife. His wife should be, as he had made obvious, a good hostess, a competent mother, and a receptive lover. She should not be willing to negotiate with kidnappers.
“Please, Marcus,” she whispered.
He nodded. She bit her lip when he collapsed back to the floor with just enough noise to sound convincing.
The tall man, who had spoken to her by the brook, stood and came over to where they were chained. He wore the free-flowing robes of Algiers, but seemed as ill at ease as he had while dressed in English clothes when he rode through the creek by Attleby Court. He reached down to grasp the chain on her leg.
“Are you unhooking us, Abdullah?” she asked in Arabic.
“We have spoken long of this,” he said, “and it is not right that a woman should watch her husband die when she is innocent.”
She drew her leg back under her and shook her head. “First you must tell me why my husband should die. My husband is not your enemy.”
“All Englishmen will soon be our enemies.” He squatted to bring his gaze even with hers.
She shook her head. “The English government and the Dey’s government are allies. By the time you get me back to Algiers, the Dey and the Regent are sure to have signed another treaty.”
“We will give away no more of our privileges to the British.”
She risked a glance at Marcus, but he was playing his rôle well. For the first time, he was actually trusting her. He was recognizing the fact that, at least for now, he needed a wife with her skills. She hoped they would prove the match for this perilous situation.
“Abdullah,” she said quietly, “you know I speak honestly.”
“The British embassy shall be more willing to negotiate with that same honesty if they fear for your life.”
“That is not true. My father, like you, holds honor more important than anything else.” She hesitated, then plunged ahead, knowing she had little to lose now. “Would you betray those to whom you have sworn loyalty simply to protect a loved one? Doesn’t loyalty demand sacrifice?”
“I think you should say no more.”
“Why?” she pressed, sensing his growing uncertainty. “Why cannot you answer that question? It is not so difficult. Loyalty demands sacrifice, does it not?”
“This conversation is a waste of breath. Sit and be silent, or you shall watch me slit your husband’s throat.” He withdrew his curved knife from his belt.
She leaned back against the wall but asked, “Why do you fear to speak the truth? The truth is never an enemy, for it lights the mind like the sun upon the sea at dawn. Can you not speak the truth?”
“Regina—” came a low whisper.
Putting her hand on Marcus’s arm as she continued to gaze at Abdullah, she squeezed gently. Marcus must remain silent. The wrong word now might mean his death.
“The truth does not frighten me,” Abdullah said.
“Then why do you pledge your loyalty to a man who has already proven that he holds no vow sacred?”
“I would spit on such a man.”
“Would you? Benjamin Sheldon has betrayed his government.”
Abdullah smiled. “He has seen the truth. Like a child, he has made mistakes but now understands. We do not punish a child for a child’s mistakes.”
“Do you punish a woman for a woman’s mistakes?”
“Of what do you speak?”
She took a deep breath, then said, “Adultery is a serious crime.”
“The most serious. You know that an adulterous woman may be tied in a bag with a heavy stone and tossed into the sea.”
“Then you should be forewarned that that is what shall happen to me the moment I set foot in Algiers.”
His eyes widened as he scowled. “You are an English lady. Your husband would not allow—”
“You need only ask Benjamin Sheldon how he convinced my husband to challenge him to a duel. You should ask before you find yourself with no way to negotiate.” Lacing her fingers together in her lap, she said, “You might wish to let my husband live.”
When Abdullah jumped to his feet and went back to his companions, she sagged against the wall. She was not sure what her words had gained her, other than death. She started when a hand settled on hers, then smiled weakly at Marcus.
“What did you say to him?” he whispered.
“Something that might put an end to this.”
“How?”
“Do not ask.”
“Tell me!”
“Please, Marcus, this is the one thing I can do for you. Just be silent, and let me save your life.”
“My life?” he demanded, pouncing on her words. “Not our lives?”
“Please, Marcus—”
He seized her arms as he sat. “I will not let you forfeit your life for me!”
“Marcus, I—”
Jumping to his feet, he shouted, “I do not know what she told you, but none of it is true.”
“Marcus,” she cried, “stop before they slay you!”
He ignored her. “Is that your way? Do you murder innocent women? No wonder the British have been able to stuff every treaty down your cowardly throats. You are afraid to fight a single Englishman.”
Regina looked from the three men to her husband. Abdullah’s companions’ faces twisted with fury as he translated Marcus’s words. When she called out that they should not listen to him, that he was out of his mind with his aching head, Abdullah drew out his knife again.
Suddenly the door crashed open. A flood of men flowed into the room. Regina gasped as Marcus pressed her back against the wall. A single gun fired above the cacophony of voices shouting in two languages. Dirt and wood rained on her.
“Are you unhurt?”
In shock, she looked up at Mr. Fisher. He held out his h
and to her as Marcus stood. With a smile, she put her hand in Marcus’s hand instead. The Bow Street Runner grinned before turning back to collecting his prey.
“Well?” Marcus asked. “Are you unhurt?”
She started to answer, then threw her arms around him. She clung to him, sobbing.
Nineteen
“Forgive me,” Regina said. “I have not cried in many years.”
Marcus smiled, knowing he looked a bit rakish with a white bandage against his black hair. “Sweetheart, you have said that at least a dozen times.” Raising his voice, he called, “Andrews, get Lady Daniston another handkerchief.”
“You should remain quiet,” she said through a hiccup of sobs. Putting her hands on his chest, she gently pushed him back in the chair in the middle of the sitting room. “That wound on your head is not a slight one.”
“This is a fine woman!” His father slapped him on the shoulder. “Best thing you’ve ever done, son, was to agree to marry her.”
Marcus was startled. He could not remember the last time his father had complimented him, even so off-handedly. “Thank you, sir.”
“I know you thought I was choosing a wife for you out of hand, but what Morrissey wrote to me of his daughter told me she was the perfect wife for you.”
“Perfect,” chimed in the dowager duchess, who could not bear to be left out of any conversation. “Didn’t I tell you that this would be the most wondrous marriage ever?”
He let the voices swirl around him as his gaze followed Regina as she went to the door to collect the meal Cook had sent up to him. No doubt, he thought grumpily, it would be thin soup and dry bread. His captors might have fed him better … before they killed him.
But Regina had been determined to ensure that he lived. That much Fisher had told him before the Algerians had been taken away. He wished he knew how he felt about her near sacrifice. It irritated him that she had assumed control of the situation, but it warmed him to think of what she was willing to surrender for him. If only she could be an ordinary wife …
You could well be dead, his conscious reminded him. He tried to ignore it. He did not want to own that he had been completely wrong.
“… deported,” his father was saying when his attention came back to the conversation. “Liverpool sent a message on that.”
“And Benjamin?” asked Regina as she set the tray next to him.
“That will be a bit more complicated. I suspect he will be in prison for many years unless he manages a way to slip out of the country.” His father smiled. “Any prison can be escaped with a little ingenuity and a lot of blunt. Sheldon has both.”
Marcus frowned when she replied, “I am glad to hear that.”
Dash it! His wife should not care about the future of a man who had tried to kill them.
“Do eat up,” Regina said as she smiled at him.
“I shall eat when I am hungry!”
“Marcus!” scolded his grandmother. “That is no way to speak to your wife, especially a wife who helped save your life.”
Regina said, “Do not reprimand him, Your Grace. He must feel quite discomposed in the wake of what has happened today. Mayhap it would be best if we leave him to Andrews’s care.”
His father stood and put his arm around her shoulders. “What a compassionate young woman you are! And you would be wise to seek your own bed. You have had an unsettling day, too.” He pointed toward the door. “Mother?”
The dowager duchess set herself on her feet, kissed her grandson firmly on the cheek, and ignored his grimace of discomfort. “Do you think Elayne is over her swoons? I want to talk to her about the table arrangements for the wedding breakfast.”
“Regina?”
At the sound of her name, she turned to look back at Marcus. An odd shade of gray tinted his normally healthy skin.
“You should rest,” she said.
“A moment with you first.”
She glanced at the duke, and he nodded. Wishing him a good night, she went back to sit next to her husband. She said nothing when he gestured Andrews out of the room.
“Regina, there is much to be said between us,” he murmured.
“Most of which can wait until you have recovered from that blow to your skull.”
“Damn my head!” He erupted from his chair. “I wish to speak with you.”
“Marcus, you seem unlike yourself.”
“I am exactly like myself.”
As a renewed wave of tears filled her eyes, she silently agreed. He was acting like the man she first had met, for he barely let her say a word without exploding, and he belittled any of her opinions. She wondered if he could ever again be the gentle lover who had been so wonderfully considerate while they were at the cottage.
“Mayhap that is so,” she said softly, “but I have no interest in sitting here and being harangued about my stupidity for chasing after you this morning.”
“That was stupid.”
“Was it?” she shot back with the same heat. “Benjamin would have killed you if you had arrived first, then taken me.”
“He told you that?”
She almost laughed at his amazement. “Diplomacy is not a game for the weak at heart, Marcus.”
“Nor is being married to you.” Taking her hands, he drew her to her feet. “That is why there must be an understanding between us before we repeat our vows in front of all of Grandmother’s friends.”
She pulled away and shook her head. “I must live my life as I see fit.”
Marcus swallowed the curse battering at his tongue. Why didn’t she let him finish a single thought before she leapt in? “Regina, listen before you say anything.”
“No!” She did not wipe away the tears that overflowed from her eyes. “I have listened to you quietly for too long! I would have gladly loved you, Marcus Aurelius Octavius Whyte, but you don’t want my love. You want a perfectly trained wife who will leave you free to enjoy the life you have had.” She touched the center of her chest. “Even though I have given you my heart, I can still feel it ache when I think of you going to call on Mrs. Simpson.”
“Regina—”
“No! I shall not be hurt again!” she cried. Whirling away, she ran out the door, slamming it behind her.
Marcus released the curse as he touched his aching head. What an air-dreamer he had been to think he could mold Regina into the wife he wanted! Dropping back into the chair, he stared out the window at the street. He should have known it would come to this impasse. Mayhap he had, but at the outset he could not have guessed how miserable he would feel about it … nor how miserable he would be at the thought that he had lost her love before realizing how much he wanted it.
He wished he had some idea how to salvage something from this complete muddle of a marriage.
Jocelyn Simpson heard the door to the street open but did not get out of bed. Checking her appearance in a silver hand mirror she kept on her bedside table, she smiled. Her hair was in dark curls around her face, and the cosmetics gave her a fresh look that suggested she was several years younger than the truth. She rearranged the wide sleeves of her white silk wrapper. The ruffles at the cuffs were nearly two inches deep.
She tapped her fingers impatiently against her lap desk as she heard the familiar voice in the foyer. Marcus! Once he had been such a fervent lover, eager to give her anything she asked for, and she had asked for much. He had not come to her without a gift. She looked about her boudoir. Bonnets, gloves, shawls—her favorite, the paisley one of Indian cotton—even baubles of jewelry were set on the tables. Each had been a gift from Marcus to her.
But twice now he had come to call without even a hint of a gift. If this was the third time that he forgot how much delight gifts brought her, she must reconsider Major Cook’s offer that she become his particular. The major was plump in the pockets. With his wife safely ensconced in distant Yorkshire, he had plenty of time to devote himself to a mistress. She was becoming more and more exasperated with the idea that Marcus had not sent
his pretty wife off to grassville. Not only had he gone away with her for more than a month, but he had allowed her to invade Jocelyn’s home only two days ago. He needed to rid himself of a wife with such uncommon ideas.
The thought made her smile as the door opened, and her footman bowed Marcus into her bedchamber. When she saw he held his hands behind his back, her smile widened. Mayhap he had seen the error of his ways. She did have affection for Marcus, possibly because he knew exactly what he wanted and would not be halted from having things just that way.
She held up her face, and he kissed her cheek. “How good to see you, Marcus! I hope you plan to stay longer than your last visit.”
When his lips tightened, she hid her smile. Her point had struck home, exactly as she wished. Next time, he would not scurry away with his wife as if he was embarrassed to be seen in his mistress’s company.
“Do sit and tell me what is abuzz among the ton,” she said, patting the bed.
When he pulled up a chair and sat facing her, she could not keep from frowning. She did not see any gift in his hand. Mayhap it was beneath his russet coat.
“I had hoped that you could tell me,” he said as he crossed a foot over the opposite knee. “I understand you have been entertaining much here in my absence.”
“Oh, pooh!” she chided. “Do not be jealous, Marcus! It looks ill on you.”
“I am not jealous. Only curious.”
Again she hid her feelings. She had wanted him to be jealous. Blast this man! He was totally inept at seducing her since he had leg-shackled himself to a wife.
Giving him one of her favorite smiles, she began to prattle about the latest word among the Polite World. She did not tell him that Major Cook had been very good about bringing her every bit of poker-talk.
She finished the tale of a spinster who was hoping for a match with a viscount who was full of juice and began a second story. “Mrs. Reilly was certain that Lady—”
“Enough!”
“Enough?”
An Undomesticated Wife Page 20