by Cheryl Holt
Why would she be delighted to see him? What was wrong with her?
“Why are you here, Lord Benton?” she fumed. “Evan is correct. You weren’t invited, and you’re not welcome.”
He didn’t respond to her question, saying instead, “I have to tell you, Jo, I’m surprised to stumble on you in the middle of your wedding.”
“Why would you be? When you visited Evan the other day, he was very clear about our plans.”
“No, he wasn’t clear. In fact, he told me a bald-faced lie.”
“What lie?”
“He told me you were already married.”
Jo scowled. “What?”
“I had been hunting for you everywhere, and I had no idea you were staying with him. Once I realized you were there, I intended to march in, offer my apologies, then take you home with me.”
“You were not,” she scoffed.
“He forestalled me by claiming you were his wife, and he wouldn’t allow me to talk to you. I insisted you’d want to, but he declared—since he was your husband—it was his decision and not yours.”
Jo turned to Evan. “Is that true, Evan?”
Evan dithered and seethed, then admitted, “Yes. I couldn’t bear to have him upset you. Hasn’t he done enough?”
Lord Benton’s gaze dipped to her bulging tummy that was bigger and harder to hide. “I agree, Evan. I’ve done plenty.”
“Yes, you have.” Evan’s tone was lethal. “I’m remedying the damage you inflicted. After how you hurt her, you don’t get to interfere in this.”
“I’m sorry,” Lord Benton said, “but I’m afraid I have to interfere.”
“Why would you?” Evan snorted with disgust. “You don’t care about her. If you’re interested in this at all, it’s because someone else might wind up with her and your ego can’t stand it.”
“You’re right. My ego definitely can’t stand it.”
“So get out—before I throw you out.”
“I can’t oblige you.” Lord Benton spun to the guests and brazenly announced, “She’s in the family way, and she’s having my child.”
There were many gasps, and Mrs. Boyle sighed and plopped down in the front pew. Amelia scooted next to her, looking as if she’d like to become invisible.
“Lord Benton!” Jo scolded. “Honestly! Be silent!”
Daisy chirped up with, “Are you having a baby, Aunt Jo? That’s the greatest news ever!”
“Hush!” Jo warned. “We’ll discuss it later.”
“So you see, ladies and gentlemen”—Lord Benton was still addressing the guests—“I can’t let her marry Evan.”
“Lord Benton!” Jo was begging. “Please! You’re embarrassing me.”
“I won’t deny my perfidy, Jo.” He glanced up at the vicar. “Have you arrived at the part in the vows that asks if anyone objects to the match?”
“No.”
“Then you don’t have to continue reading because I object.”
The vicar frowned, gaped, glared, then muttered, “This is highly unusual.”
Evan butted in. “Keep going, sir. He can’t be permitted to meddle, and I’d like to finish this.”
The vicar shook his head. “When there’s been an objection, Mr. Boyle, I can’t keep going.” He started flipping through his prayer book as if seeking instructions.
“Oh, for pity’s sake,” Evan grumbled, then he glowered at Lord Benton and demanded, “How did you find out about this?”
“Does it matter?”
“Yes, it matters.” Evan pondered the situation, struggling to deduce who might have tattled, then he peered over at Amelia. “You told him! It was you, wasn’t it?”
“Ah…maybe.”
“Is that where you went the other day?” Evan furiously inquired. “You traveled to Benton specifically to ruin this for me? Why would you?”
Amelia was never one to be cowed or chastised, and she rose to her feet. “It was wrong for you to tell that lie. I decided he should know.”
“What about me, Amelia?” Jo asked. “Did you think I deserved to know it?”
Amelia shrugged. “I couldn’t figure out what was best, so I notified Peyton and left it up to him.”
“And I’m glad of it,” Lord Benton said, “for I’m informing all of you that the wedding of Josephine Bates to Evan Boyle will happen over my dead body.”
“Lord Benton!” Jo scolded again. “You’re not helping.”
“I’m not here to help.”
“Then why are you here?”
“Can’t you guess?”
“I have no idea.”
Jo was flummoxed by his arrival. Evan appeared stricken and Amelia incensed. They were two of the closest, most devoted siblings in the world, and Jo had brought discord and dissension into their home. She felt horrid, and she gazed up at the vicar.
“Vicar, is there a place where Lord Benton and I could speak privately?”
“Yes, yes, that’s a good plan,” the vicar said. “There’s obviously a problem, and you should resolve it—if you can.”
He gestured to a door off the side of the altar, and Jo turned to Lord Benton. “Come with me.”
“I’d be delighted.”
He was smug and annoying, and Evan pleaded with Jo. “Don’t go off with him, Jo. You’re aware of how cunning he can be. He’ll confuse and confound you with his nonsense.”
“He can’t confuse me,” Jo said. “My thought processes are very, very clear.”
Evan clasped hold of her hands, and his expression was beseeching. “Don’t trust him, Jo. Don’t believe a word he utters.”
“It will be all right, Evan. Don’t worry.”
She drew away, and she motioned for Lord Benton to follow her, then she huffed off. She didn’t have to peek back to see if he’d tagged along. She perceived his presence like a large, hungry predator intent on devouring her.
“May I come too, Aunt Jo?” Daisy asked.
“No. You stay where you are.”
Jo stomped into a room that must have been where the vicar donned his robes. It was small and packed with cupboards and dressers. Lord Benton blustered in behind her, and instantly, he took up all the space. He took up all the air in the sky too, so she could barely breathe.
He pulled the door shut, and he leaned against a cupboard. He looked handsome and magnificent and very, very confident.
“Since the moment I met you,” she said, “I have suffered naught but catastrophe, and you have an enormous amount of gall to slink in and wreck this for me.”
“It needed to be wrecked.”
“Evidently, you have an issue to raise, but I have a few comments to offer too. You begin, then I shall reply, then I demand that you walk out of this church and out of my life and leave me alone.”
“You don’t mean that,” he scoffed.
“I absolutely do. Now start talking. I’ll give you about five minutes, then I will be done listening.”
He grinned. “You grow more beautiful by the day.”
“Don’t flatter me. It won’t work.”
“You seem a tad angry, Josephine.”
“There is no term in the English language that can describe how furious I am.”
“Why are you so upset?”
“Why!” She feared the top of her head might blow off. “During our abbreviated relationship, I explained my past to you. I explained about my prior trip to the altar. You knew how much it would hurt me if you failed to arrive for our wedding, yet you failed anyway.”
“Haven’t you been curious as to why I didn’t show up?”
“No. When you initially proposed, I insisted you’d have regrets in the future, but instead, you had them immediately. You simply didn’t bother to share any of them with me. Then your hideous in-laws kidnapped my niece and tossed me out on the streets.”
“Yes, Evan told me about it, and I was livid.”
“Really? They told me that you
didn’t mind me being evicted. They said you had flitted off to the navy, and you’d furnished them with total authority to behave however they liked.”
“I never said anything of the sort.” He gestured to his person. “You know me, Jo. Can you truly tell me that you assumed—deep down—that I would treat you that way?”
“I don’t know you, Lord Benton. That’s the problem. I thought I did, but circumstances have forced me to admit that I was completely deluded.”
He smirked. “I got even with Barbara and Richard for you.”
“Short of cold-blooded murder, there’s no act you could have implemented that would have delivered a sufficient penalty.”
“Well, I threw them out of Benton—with no notice and just the clothes on their backs.”
“You…what?”
“I deemed it a fitting punishment. They’d done pretty much the same to you, so I did it to them.”
His remarks stopped her in her tracks. On occasion, he could be so exasperatingly wonderful. His bursts of generous conduct made it difficult to hate him, and she warned herself to buck up, to not be drawn in.
“Thank you. I appreciate it.” She didn’t sound grateful though. She sounded surly, but she couldn’t help it. “And you found Daisy. Where had they sent her?”
“To a workhouse!”
“No.” Jo’s knees gave out, and she had to balance herself on a cupboard.
“She’s fine though, Jo. Don’t fret about it. She’s tough and resilient, and she’s home with me. She’s very friendly with Neville’s daughter, Alice, and she and Alice are together at Benton. They’re thick as thieves and very happy.”
“Good,” Jo murmured, “I’m glad to hear it.”
“Why don’t you ask me why I missed our wedding?”
She wanted to be apprised, and at the same time, she didn’t. He had the canniest knack for wearing her down, for convincing her to forget herself. Evan had advised her to be careful with Lord Benton, and he’d been right to worry. In her dealings with him, she’d always been an idiot. He could dangle any lie, and she’d swallow it whole.
He was determined to explain what had happened, and she doubted he’d desist until he got it off his chest. So it was probably best for him to spit it out, then she could hurl some furious invectives of her own.
“Tell me your story, Lord Benton. Let’s see how much of it you can persuade me to believe.”
“I’m betting you’ll believe all of it.”
“If I were a betting man, I’d take you up on it, but since I’m not, I will listen with a jaundiced ear.”
“How about this? The day before the ceremony, I traveled to Benton.”
“Yes, I remember.”
“On the trip back to London, I was so excited to be marrying you that I was distracted. When I was crossing a bridge, my horse startled, and we fell off.”
She scowled. “Fell off…what? The bridge?”
“Yes, it’s why I’m limping. For hours, I was injured down below in the streambed, until a teamster passed by and noted the broken railing.”
“Why didn’t you send me a message?”
“I was in and out of consciousness for most of a week. The minute I was coherent enough to write, I penned a letter. In fact, I wrote numerous times.”
Jo shook her head. “I didn’t receive any letters from you.”
“Not one?”
“No.”
He pondered, then a fierce heat flashed in his eyes. “It’s just occurred to me that I have yet another reason to loathe Barbara.”
“What do you mean?”
“It’s highly likely that none of my letters were ever sent.”
“Oh.”
“My niece, Alice, carted them downstairs and put them in the mail for me, but I never investigated whether they actually made it into the post. This provides additional grounds to extract some retribution from Barbara.”
“I’d like to pretend I’m a Christian woman who abhors vengeance, but I guess I’m not that noble.”
“Barbara deserves whatever justice I can mete out.”
“I agree.”
They stared, and Jo’s mind was racing. Had his vanishing been as simple and as devastating as that? Could all of her misery have been caused by miscommunication arranged by Barbara Prescott? Lord Benton had been hurt and unable to contact her. Then he’d written, but the letters hadn’t been mailed. If that was the truth, where did it leave her? Where did it leave them?
Evan was dawdling with their guests. Jo couldn’t hide in the small room forever, but suddenly, it seemed as if she and Lord Benton had a lifetime of issues to discuss.
“You visited Evan last week,” she said, “but you didn’t come inside. Why not? You didn’t even attempt to speak with me.”
“Haven’t you been paying attention, Jo? I didn’t come in because Evan told me you were his wife, and he wouldn’t let me talk to you. Since I believed him, what would have been the point?”
She nodded slowly, her confusion profound. What was she to think? How should she proceed?
He interrupted her tortured musings. “Now I get to ask a few questions of my own, and you’d better have some viable answers.”
“I’ll answer if I can,” she mulishly retorted.
“Why didn’t you try to find me? When I missed the wedding, why didn’t you travel to Benton? Why didn’t you write?”
“I wrote immediately, and the letter bounced back as undeliverable. A note had been jotted on it that you’d returned to the navy and had left the country.”
“I didn’t,” he huffed.
“I see that, but I went to naval headquarters to be sure. I met with an official who informed me that your ship had sailed on that Thursday night and—as far as he was aware—you were on it.”
“I can’t imagine why anyone would have claimed that.”
“It’s what he said!”
“You thought I’d fled England without a goodbye.”
“Yes, and then, the Countess and Mr. Slater showed up. I won’t bore you with the details of what happened to me after that, but it was scary and awful.”
“I’m sorry for what you endured, and as I mentioned, Barbara and Richard are paying dearly.”
A knock sounded on the door. It was the vicar. “Lord Benton, will you come out? Everyone is waiting, and Mr. Boyle is upset.”
“Go away, Vicar,” Lord Benton called.
“How much longer will you be? What should I tell the others?”
“We will stay in here until we’re finished.”
Jo assumed the preacher would spin the knob and enter, but he didn’t. He moved away, and it grew very quiet.
“Do you know what I think, Jo?” Lord Benton asked.
“What?”
“I think the stars have been aligned against us. Our relatives have been aligned against us. The whole world has been aligned against us.”
“I suppose you could view it that way.”
“But do you know what else?”
“What?”
“The entire universe can join forces, but we could never be kept apart.”
Before she had any notion of what he intended, he dropped to a knee and clasped hold of her hand.
She started to tremble. “What are you doing, Lord Benton? We’ve already been down this road. We shouldn’t walk it again.”
“Hush, Jo.”
“I can’t be silent. This ending was never our destiny.”
“Hush!” he repeated. “Listen to me.”
“I can’t. Not when you’re behaving like a lunatic.”
“You deem it crazy for me to want you, but you’re wrong.”
“Then talk fast. My patience is about exhausted.”
Out of the blue, he announced, “I love you, Josephine Bates.”
“No you don’t. You’re being ridiculous.”
“I’m not. I love you, and if you refuse to have me, my life wo
n’t have been worth living.”
“You’re not serious.”
“Oh, but I am, and I desperately, urgently need you to be mine.”
Her trembling increased. She’d spent months recovering from their failed amour. She’d tamped down her feelings, had adjusted her attitude. She’d allowed Evan to rescue her. She’d ordered herself to forget about Peyton Prescott. She’d ordered herself to look to the future, not the past.
And here he was again, on bended knee and begging her to wed. It was all too much.
“Please, Peyton. I can’t deal with this.”
“When can you deal with it, Jo? Will you stroll out into the church and marry Evan? Is that your choice? Don’t pretend it is, for I will never believe you.”
“He’s been very kind, and I’m grateful. I can’t spurn him. Not after how he’s helped me.”
“Do you love him, Jo?”
The query rattled her, for of course, she didn’t love Evan Boyle. In reality, she barely knew him. What she did know was grand and wonderful, but they hadn’t enjoyed an acquaintance sufficient for strong sentiment to develop.
An excruciating interval played out, and she couldn’t bear to reply. Nor could she bear to lie about Evan. She had only ever loved one man—and it wasn’t him.
“Tell me the truth, Jo,” he pressed. “Do you love Evan?”
She groaned with dismay. “No, I don’t.”
“You love me, Jo. It’s always been me. Just say so.”
“No, I can’t. I won’t.”
“Say you love me, Jo. Say you never stopped.”
“Get up, Peyton. Please!”
She grabbed his arm and tried to pull him to his feet, but he wouldn’t obey.
“Answer me, Jo.”
“Fine, Peyton! I love you, and I’ve never stopped.”
“That’s all I needed to hear,” he arrogantly stated.
The words had been ripped from her soul, and she staggered away, worried she might simply collapse to the floor. He’d received the admission he craved, and he finally stood.
“You’re having my child,” he reminded her. “Could you actually suppose I’d permit another man to raise it? Even one I like as much as Evan? You’d have to be mad to imagine I would.”