‘Why?’
A fair question and one he really did not know the true answer to beyond the overwhelming compulsion to save her.
‘I see a business opportunity.’
Owen had to fight the urge to stand up and pace again or even run a frustrated hand through his hair at the lie because he would never admit to the jealousy, confusion and sense of responsibility which was eating him from the inside.
‘You are an earl’s daughter. A well-connected earl’s daughter with a great many society friends and acquaintances. You would give me the veneer of respectability I would never be able to achieve on my own. That opens doors… Brings in new clients… More money.’
‘You expect me to believe this is about money now and not revenge?’ She shook her head and laughed without any trace of humour.
‘Everything is about money.’
He almost added money equalled power and power equalled control—but stopped himself just in time. It gave her too much of an insight into the insecurities he would likely never be able to shake and did not want anyone to be able to exploit ever again. ‘But perhaps there is a little bit of revenge in the mix, too. Hardly a surprise all things considered—and I am only human.’
Except he hadn’t particularly enjoyed wielding that mortgage deed this morning and informing the pompous Earl of Fulbrook that he could evict him from the house whenever he saw fit if he didn’t give Lydia the opportunity to consider his proposal. He had been too concerned with her welfare to savour the irony of the moment.
‘Your father is keen to keep on the right side of your current fiancé, especially as the settlements have been signed, therefore we will have to elope before your engagement to Kelvedon makes the newspapers. If you are agreeable, tonight makes the most sense, I suppose.’ Events were rapidly spiralling out of his control and he hoped at least managing that detail would make him feel less…adrift. ‘It will cause a bit of a scandal, I’m afraid, but in many ways that works in my favour.’
‘It also works in my father’s.’ The disappointment at her sire was unmistakable in her tone. ‘He can entirely blame me for causing it and publicly lament my usual wilfulness while appearing completely blameless in front of his precious Marquess. Before he shamelessly pockets your money, of course, and slaps himself on the back for making such a favourable deal. I assume he gets that money as soon as the unpleasant deed is done—not before.’
Owen nodded. ‘Call me sentimental—but I really do not trust your father as far as I can throw him.’
‘And we are supposed to forget the past and simply spend eternity together? Blithely build a home and family on non-existent foundations?’
The pang of something dangerously resembling longing caught him off guard before he ruthlessly dismissed it. She still hated him. The thought of his touch still made her sick to her stomach.
‘If you think I am offering you a proper marriage, in every sense of the word, Lydia, think again. I want neither of those things.’ Not any more at any rate.
‘Then what are you proposing?’
If only he knew! He barely recognised himself right now and had no clue where this was going. ‘A business transaction. Nothing more, nothing less. Your connections in society, your expertise in navigating it and your public support and endorsement in exchange for my thirteen thousand pounds.’
‘My public support?’
‘Balls, entertainments, invitations. Beyond these four walls we behave as though we are a doting couple.’
‘And within them?’
The sticky bit. The bit he was least convinced by and most at odds with. ‘I propose we stay well away from one another.’
At this, she seemed to relax, which shouldn’t hurt but did. Much more than Owen bargained for.
‘Beyond that, will I be granted any freedoms or are these four walls all I can expect?’
What a ridiculous question! Unless she really did think him a monster? Really did hate him to her core?
‘You are not a prisoner, Lydia. As long as you stick to the terms of our arrangement, I have no interest in where you go, what you do, or who you do it with.’
Owen regretted the last assertion as soon as it left his mouth. Certain things would bother him. A few would send him insane. He knew that with the same certainty as he knew he was currently, and apparently wilfully, walking blindly into perhaps the biggest catastrophe of his life.
Out of his control.
Likely uncontrollable, too.
Both things scared the hell out of him. Thanks to blasted Randolph and his own nagging conscience, he was in the middle of the Pacific again, only this time, in a rickety, leaking old rowboat in the midst of a roaring tempest. Madness. Total, utter, preventable madness. In fact, he should abandon the idea immediately.
‘That is my offer. Take it or leave it.’
And because his stupid heart was racing at his own inability to stop himself from walking headlong into disaster and all the potentially disastrous ramifications if she miraculously agreed, it was his turn to tap his foot. ‘You have five minutes. Not a second…’
‘Yes.’
The floor shifted beneath his feet.
‘Are you sure?’ Owen felt sick as fear warred with incredulity. Relief with panic. ‘You do not need proper time to think about it?’
Because he did. He suddenly needed to think of a damn good way to untangle himself from this mess before the relentless quicksand sucked him under.
The far door suddenly flew open accompanied by the ominous rattle of cups and an innocently grinning Randolph. It didn’t take a genius to work out the menace had been listening at the keyhole at the same time as he’d been picking the blasted lock.
‘Who fancies some tea?’
CHAPTER SIX
It had been way past midnight when the carriage finally trundled into the inn at Gretna Green. In view of the lateness of the hour, the exhaustion of the travellers after nearly four whole days on the road and the lack of any genuine haste or fear of any family members chasing them as was the tradition with most usual elopements, Owen had decided against rousing the local smithy from his slumber and had taken rooms instead so the pair of them could rest.
Lydia, however, had got precious little sleep. It was hard to drift off when you were stood on the edge of a metaphorical cliff and about to leap headfirst into the unknown. For the last few days she had been focused solely on the chore of getting through the wedding, when the wedding was the least of her problems now that her for ever was about to begin.
Her life, as she had always known it, was likely never to be quite the same again. While she wouldn’t grieve leaving the soulless, gilded prison of her father’s house, the place where she had always been largely invisible and barely tolerated, she was entering into a union with a man she did not know, had probably never known in truth, nor ever hope to understand.
The old open, optimistic, impetuous, fiery and charming Owen of her youth was gone. He was still thoroughly charming. At least he had been right up until he had proposed marriage to her and clearly still impetuous if their unexpected and hasty elopement was any gauge. But the optimism and openness were no more, all the fire had been dampened, instead replaced by the cynical, emotionless businessman who played his cards close to his chest and refused to allow her to see what he was thinking.
Despite spending all of four days together, they had barely exchanged more than two dozen words because he never shared the fast coach he had provided for her lacklustre escape, preferring to ride alongside on his own.
Even when they stopped at the frequent staging inns to change the horses or when they set up camp in one overnight, he kept himself to himself, honouring his promise of them staying well away from one another. Lydia rode alone, ate alone and took herself to each strange bed alone, depressed he knew her situation was so desperate he did not even bother having a
man stand guard overnight because he was supremely confident she would still be where he had left her in the morning.
Such were the terms of their peculiar arrangement, she supposed, and her particular and slightly uncomfortable bed to lie in.
All alone.
Although whether or not that was part of their arrangement to avoid one another she was yet to discover. The marriage bed, like so many other things, had not been discussed at all. Perhaps they would be discussed today, once the deed was done and it was too late to turn back? He might have said he was not offering a proper marriage in every sense of the word, but he had not really clarified what that meant. Men were a slave to their urges—or so her mother had said one day when Lydia had discovered her father kept a mistress—and if that was the case, then surely he would expect the conjugal rights the law made explicit for husbands?
She wasn’t entirely sure what she thought about that. Awkward, definitely. Nervous, understandably, yet unbelievably curious. She and Owen had done things all those years ago—some quite scandalous things, truth be told—but not that thing. And as much as she had claimed a desire to erase all those illicit kisses and inappropriate caresses from her mind, to herself at least she would be honest about those memories. His touch had been divine.
Perhaps a little too divine because she had been only too happy to allow him to be a little bolder each time he had crept into her bedchamber. Enough that she would have been thoroughly ruined if anyone had ever found out. Owen had been her delicious secret and within the hour he would be her husband and everyone would know about them.
Lydia stared at her reflection in the mirror for a final time, sighed at the sensible woollen travelling dress and decided she would have to do. It was not at all the wedding dress she had always envisaged for herself, but then again neither was the wedding, so what difference did it make? Within minutes she would be married by a blacksmith in front of two complete strangers and within hours she would be headed back on the interminable road to London.
Putting on the pretty frock she had packed on a silly whim for the occasion seemed both foolish and inappropriate. It was not as if her groom would care. He hadn’t even bothered to check on her this morning, preferring to ferry messages backward and forward via the innkeeper’s wife. The last had stated he was waiting downstairs. Lydia had made him wait a full fifteen minutes despite being dressed and ready out of sheer stubbornness.
A tiny, pointless and pathetic act of rebellion which she sincerely doubted he had even noticed.
With a sigh, she opened the door and descended the narrow stairs to the taproom below.
‘What kept you?’ Clearly he had noticed and had been pacing while he waited, which gave her some comfort. She could tell by the slightly dishevelled state of his hair he wasn’t quite as in control of his emotions as he wanted her to believe. Hair he still ran his hands through when he was impatient or irritated. The only two emotions she seemed to have no trouble eliciting from him nowadays when all he cared about was getting his own way. ‘I only paid the witnesses for the hour.’
‘As I doubt it will be a long service, you are likely guaranteed to get your money’s worth.’
His tawny eyebrows drew together momentarily before she watched him consciously smooth them out. The action made her wonder if he was not as cool, calm and confident about what they were doing as he tried to convey. It did not make her feel any better knowing he had grave doubts, too. Surely he could see this was doomed to end badly. ‘I suppose we’d better get it over with.’
‘Yes. I suppose we should.’ She expected he would offer his arm and found herself frowning at his back when he didn’t. He hadn’t touched her once since the meeting in his office. Not even to assist her into the carriage. Starting as he meant to carry on? Who knew? Lydia certainly didn’t.
He paused in the courtyard, waiting for her to catch up, and walked alongside her, leaving a telling gap of at least three feet between them as they went in painful silence towards the austere-looking blacksmith’s shop in the centre of a crossroads. The crossroads somehow more symbolic this morning than the prospect of smithy because the ceremony was no longer what worried her. It was everything else.
Owen opened the narrow black door and waited for her to pass through it without meeting her eyes.
She sensed him behind her as she took in the scene, trying and failing not to feel overwhelmed by it all. The space was every inch a working blacksmith’s, with no flowers or pomp or ceremony. One of the four walls was dominated by the thick chimney breast and the huge bellows used to keep the fire roaring. The others held various tools hung haphazardly from ancient, bent and rusty nails. Then there was nothing else except the battered and aged tree stump in the centre of the room which held the anvil they would take their vows over, two scruffy locals who were being paid to be their guests and the blacksmith in his sooty leather apron. All three were smiling in a manner which implied they believed she and Owen were a pair of star-crossed lovers desperate to be together no matter what. Another miserable aspect of this whole sorry but calculated debacle.
‘Mr Wolfe—what a pretty bride ye have!’ The smithy nudged Owen playfully. ‘No wonder ye have brought her here in haste. I’d be keen, too, if I had such a bonny fiancée.’ Another nudge, this one accompanied by a wink. Then, to her utter mortification, he turned to her. ‘And ye, lassie, are lucky to have found such a handsome man. The pair of you are destined to make such beautiful bairns…’ He dropped his voice to a whisper and winked again. ‘Unless a bairn is the reason you are here?’
‘No…um…bairns.’ Another not-inconsequential detail they were still to discuss. ‘Yet.’ If ever. The prospect of never made her suddenly sad.
‘Or at least not that ye know of, eh?’ The blacksmith laughed at his own words, nudging Owen conspiratorially, and she felt her cheeks heat at the bawdy insinuation. ‘But better to be safe than sorry. That’s what I always say. Are ye both ready?’
‘Yes.’ They said it simultaneously and the three locals grinned again, assuming the emphatic response was down to excitement rather than sheer embarrassment.
‘Then let’s deal with the necessary legalities before we get to the vows, shall we?’ His grinning face bobbed between them. ‘I can see you are both beyond the age of consent so no need to ask you that. Is your name, sir, Mr Owen Wolfe and do you hail from Half Moon Street in London?’
‘That is correct.’
‘And you, missy? Are you Lydia Catherine Emily Olivia Jane Barton from Berkeley Square?’
‘I am.’ Although she was surprised Owen had known all her names so thoroughly to be able pass them on. There were so many of them she could barely keep track of them herself. They were all even spelled correctly on the certificate in front of the smithy, so clearly her husband-to-be wasn’t the illiterate stable boy any longer. Just as he wasn’t a lot of the things she remembered any longer.
She had started teaching him to read before his arrest at his insistence. He had always dreamed of bettering himself and saw learning to read as an essential step. He must have continued those studies somewhere, yet when one considered where he had been that feat could not have been easy, and she was strangely proud of him for doing it in spite of the difficulties. He also now had the business, the fortune and, in some quarters, the respect he had always wanted. With the added veneer of an earl’s daughter for a wife, she had no doubt the sky was the limit for him. Regardless of how he had achieved it all, his single-minded determination was impressive. Or calculated and ruthless, depending on your point of view. Lydia’s fell squarely in the latter.
‘Are you both unmarried and free to enter into this union?’
They both nodded and watched him scratch the details down with a tatty quill on the cheap paper. ‘And did ye both come here of your own free will and accord?’
Another nod. Duty and opportunity. Undoubtedly the two most depressing reasons to
marry. ‘Then let us proceed. Take your good lady’s hand, Mr Wolfe…’
Stiffly, she offered it and, just as awkwardly, he took it. However, the second he did Lydia instantly felt odd, only too aware of the comforting heat and size of his, although bizarrely better about what they were about to do.
‘Owen Wolfe, do you take this woman to be your lawful wedded wife, forsaking all others, keep to her as long as ye both shall live?’
‘I will.’
Was that a catch in his voice? Nerves? Emotion? Regret?
‘And do you, Lydia Catherine Emily Olivia Jane Barton, take this man to be your lawful wedded husband, forsaking all others, keep to him as long as you both shall live?’
As long as you both shall live…
Eternity!
Lydia found herself gripping Owen’s hand tighter. ‘I will.’
Then all of a sudden there was a ring. A simple, plain gold band which had the power to send her pulse rocketing and made the blood pound in her head so loudly the blacksmith’s next words seemed to come disjointed from afar.
She felt Owen’s hand slide the ring on her finger and heard his voice loud and sure. ‘With this ring I thee wed, with my body I thee worship…’
Lydia’s heart skipped a beat and the room instantly became very warm.
‘With all my worldly goods I thee endow, in the name of the Father, Son and Holy Ghost. Amen.’
Auctioned, bought and paid for.
No longer her father’s chattel, but her husband’s. No longer a Barton, but a Wolfe.
Lady Lydia Wolfe.
A name, she realised, which felt inevitable. One she had practised long ago with various-sized quills and ink in the privacy of her own bedchamber until she had perfected the signature. She remembered burning them, too, the same day he broke her heart, then mourning the loss of him keenly for months afterwards despite hating him for what he had done. Yet, with all that, she had never truly got over him—which was a sobering thought.
Harlequin Historical July 2020 - Box Set 1 of 2 Page 7