Cheryl Holt (36 page)

After all, he could hardly argue that he wasn’t culpable.
Yes, Lady Sarah had begged for the affair, and yes, she’d placed herself in his way at every turn, but he was a mature, experienced man, who should have withstood her campaign.

He was
not
his father, and he wouldn’t shirk his responsibilities, but that didn’t mean he would play Scarborough’s game, either. Scarborough had hit him up for money—big money—as Michael had predicted he would. Yet, as Lady Sarah and her conniving brother were about to discover, Michael’s sense of accountableness only extended so far.

For his crime of ruining Lady Sarah, he was constrained to wed her. Regretfully, he would impart to her the respectability that came with being a married woman, but that was all. He would never offer them a single penny in reparation.

Hugh and Sarah Compton could choke on their poverty.

The country chapel, with its pews, dark walls, and stained glass, smelled of wax and polish, of travail and prayers, and it occurred to him that he hadn’t set foot in a church in years. He was surprised that he hadn’t been struck by lightning when he’d stepped through the doors. Bearing in mind the plight of his immortal soul, a fiery, celestial thunderbolt wouldn’t have been unexpected.

“Are we finished?” he irritably inquired. The sooner this travesty was concluded, the better off they’d all be.

“Ah . . . yes . . .” The vicar was still flustered by Michael’s unwillingness to kiss the bride, but he pulled himself together, adjusting his spectacles on his nose and leading them to a table at the rear. “We just need your endorsement on the registry. And the license.”

The vicar’s wife, an older, crafty-looking sort, was the only witness to the sorry business. She kept sizing him up, readily distinguishing him as a sinner. Michael signed his life away while she held a lamp, and she regarded him with such disdain that he was positive she would comment on his insufferable deportment. He stared her down, daring her to utter a word, and she ultimately glanced away as Sarah
too inscribed her name on the appropriate lines.

She’s left-handed
, Michael absurdly noted, as she shakily gripped the pen, and the cheap gold band that he’d slipped on her finger was highly visible in the dim light, a jarring reminder of how she’d abused his trust and shattered his illusions.

The ring wasn’t even authentic. There was no jeweler in the area, and he hadn’t had time to have a genuine one delivered. Not that he would have. He’d purchased it from a serving girl in the taproom at the inn, and he almost wished he’d be around to observe when the Comptons tried to pawn it and found out it was worthless.

Sarah stood, the signatures completed. She clasped a meager bridal bouquet, a bundle plucked from a vase near the altar after the vicar’s wife had ascertained that Sarah had no flowers. Slightly wilted, petals drooping, she clutched them to her chest as though they were the finest hothouse roses.

“You’ve been very kind,” she murmured to the older woman, brimming with transparent bliss as she hugged her tightly, mangling the blossoms in between their bodies.

“You’re welcome,” the woman asserted, and she added a phrase that he couldn’t decipher, but it sounded like “Be strong, dear.”

They parted, and the vicar’s wife cast him a scathing look, and he blanched under her irascible examination. Obviously, she’d bonded with Sarah in some incomprehensible, feminine show of support, and she erroneously conjectured that Sarah was a put-upon, downtrodden bride who needed a champion. If he’d cared in the least—which he didn’t—he might have taken a second to set the woman straight.

No doubt, she and her husband were dying of curiosity. After all, it wasn’t every day that a country vicar was presented with a Special License and asked to immediately marry two strangers who were so aggravated with each other that they weren’t conversing. It was extremely apparent that they were involved in a serious, odious dilemma,
yet Sarah managed to seem innocent and vulnerable.

What would the other woman think if he apprised her of Sarah’s capacity for deceit and artifice?

Michael furnished the vicar with a heavy bag of coins, an amount sufficient to quell speculation or gossip. Without contributing any further remarks, he exited the chapel, the noonday sun temporarily blinding. By the time he’d regained his equilibrium, Sarah had joined him and, as he advanced down the narrow path, she matched his strides.

His carriage awaited, as well as a horse he’d borrowed from Pamela that was tethered to the boot. Beyond, a trio of people gathered under a shade tree. His driver and a coachman, who were also bodyguards, were huddled with a widow he’d employed as Sarah’s companion for the next week. As he and Sarah approached, the group leapt to attention, but he waved them off so that he and the lady could have a private good-bye. The servants could ruminate forever about what was transpiring, but they’d get no confirmation from Michael.

He reached for the door, while she hovered, pressing her tiresome bouquet to her nose.

“That wasn’t so bad, was it?” She smiled gaily, her evident rapture setting him on edge.

“Get in.” He lowered the step, but she didn’t move.

“Don’t be such a grouch,” she chided. “You look as if you’ve just been to the blacksmith and had a tooth pulled.” Embarrassingly, she captured his hands and whirled herself around in a circle, swaying with gladness over what they’d just accomplished. “What a gorgeous day! The sun is bright, the sky is blue, and I am so happy! Thank you!”

He hadn’t the faintest inkling why she would be grateful, but then, he’d secreted her away before she could talk with her brother, so she wasn’t cognizant that their contrivance had been foiled. She was laboring under the mistaken impression that there were grounds to rejoice.

“You sourpuss!” she was saying merrily when he displayed
no reaction.“I won’t allow your bad temper to spoil my celebration.”

Ere he could stop her, she rose up on tiptoe and stole a kiss. As he inhaled her familiar, beloved scent, his hands inched to her waist, and he just desisted before he perpetrated a reprehensible gaffe.

He
did
take hold of her, but only long enough to set her away.

“Come on, Michael. Cheer up!” She laughed and danced a little jig. “This is our wedding day; not the end of the world. How long do you intend to be angry?”

As long as it takes
. He eyed her dispassionately, wondering how she could be so bloody ecstatic, how she could prance about, reveling in her purported good fortune while throwing her cunning in his face.

Had she no shame? No remorse? No conscience? Did she care—even the tiniest bit—that she had devastated him?

“Get in,” he repeated and, with his sharp tone, she finally heeded his irate condition. She ceased her bobbling and prattling.

“Oh, all right, you sorehead.” Stabilizing herself, she placed her foot on the step. “Where are we off to? Have you selected some totally decadent spot in which to spend our wedding night? I’ll have you know that I prefer chocolates and champagne!”

What was causing her to suffer these outrageous flights of fancy? Why pretend this was anything other than a sham? “
We
aren’t going anywhere.
You
are going home.”

The abrupt news stunned her. Her eyes widened with astonishment and hurt, and he steeled himself against all the ways in which she was still capable of provoking a response in him.

“To Yorkshire?”

“Yes.”

“But I thought . . .”

“Thought what, Lady Sarah?”

“Well . . . that we would . . . travel to London.” She
scrutinized him fervently, carefully choosing her words, beginning to appreciate that no matter the comment, it would be inappropriate. “I’d hoped we’d visit your family.”

“I have no desire for you to meet my family. Not now. Not ever.”

“You don’t mean that.”

“Oh, but I do.”

She paused, searching his eyes, dissecting his demeanor. Something tripped and cracked—perhaps it was the final piece of his heart fracturing—and he forced himself to remain unmoved as perception dawned on her.

“You don’t consider this a real marriage, do you?”

“Hardly.”

He might as well have slapped her. As though her bones had transformed to mush, she sank down, the carriage stair impeding her progress, and she balanced against it.

“But . . . but why? You care for me. We could make this work. We could turn it into something wonderful.”

“Why would I want to?”

With each harsh utterance, she deflated a tad more, and he felt he’d evolved into someone else entirely, that he’d been inhabited by an alien being who was bent on tormenting her until she crumpled into a heap.

What a
fine
man he’d grown to be, the son Angela Ford had raised to be such a chivalrous fellow. Michael Stevens—the eminent despoiler and defiler of women! If his mother could witness him now, in all his wretched, miserable, scurrilous glory, she’d never forgive him.

How had he fallen to such a contemptible state that he would behave so despicably? The only plausible explanation was that his feelings for her had been so pure and sincere—as close to love as he might ever come—and he simply couldn’t countenance how grievously she’d wounded him. He could only react by striking out. By keeping on and on—until she went away, as agonized as he.

“When will I see you again?”

“I have no idea.”

With the admission, sadness engulfed him, and he
shoved it away. If she had any concept of the profundity of his regret over their acrimonious split, she’d have incredible power over him, so he couldn’t let her deduce how much he’d miss her, or how long it would take him to inure himself to their horrid farewell.

“Where will you be?”

“I’m not sure.”

“What if I need to reach you?”

“I can’t fathom why you would.”

God, but he felt he was kicking a puppy. With each retort, she shrank back as if he was physically striking her. He couldn’t endure much more, nor could she, so he helped her to her feet and guided her into the coach. Thankfully, she didn’t resist or argue.

The driver and others neared, ready to discharge their duties, and she peered out the opening, her brilliant green eyes silently begging.

“It doesn’t have to be this way.”

“Doesn’t it?” he interrogated caustically. “Next time you talk with your brother, give him a message from me.”

“What?”

“Our marriage makes no difference. His debt stands. The inventory of the Scarborough property was effectuated while you were here in Bedford. My men will be around to collect my chattels on the appointed date. Unless, of course, he can locate the cash he owes me before then.”

For a lengthy interlude, she assessed him. Mute, confused, she seemed to have no clue as to what he referred. Was she daft? The purpose of her seduction had been a misguided attempt to coerce him into returning Hugh’s markers, so why was she so baffled? Scarborough’s gambling debt was the reason she’d started it all.

Wasn’t it?

Her revolting brother had contended as much during their contentious meeting in the library.

Unease swamped him. Doubts—vexatious, persistent, unavoidable—crept in, inducing him to hesitate and falter.

“You!” she howled, and she was horrified. “You’re the one!”

“Don’t act dumb, Sarah. It doesn’t become you.”

“You’re a gambler?” She articulated the term with such loathing that it sounded like the worst epithet.

“When the spirit moves me.”

“But you claimed you own a gentlemen’s club.”

“I do.” He frowned at her affront. “Wagering is our main source of income. It’s how
gentlemen
entertain themselves.”

“A gambler,” she wailed. “I’ve married a gambler! After everything I’ve been through!” She was teeming with righteous indignation. “Why Hugh?”

“Why not?”

“Why not! That’s all you have to say for yourself?” Her fury was growing with each exchange. “Tell me why!”

“Because he’s an ass. He deserved it.”

“Give it all back! The markers, the property! Whatever you won, I order you to refund it to him.”

“No.”

“I demand it of you!”

“No,” he reiterated. “Your brother wrought exactly what he deserved.”

“That may be true, but he gambled away
my
home and the clothes on
my
back.
My
retainers will have no food in their bellies or coal for their stoves this winter.”

“It’s Hugh’s doing,” he callously barked, “and none of my concern.”

“Why am I not surprised by your impervious attitude?” Scornfully, she shook her head. “While you were making love to me here in Bedford, you had men in my house, counting the silverware! What kind of pitiless monster are you?”

The damning question hung in the air, but there was no adequate answer he could supply. How had it happened that it suddenly seemed
he
was in the wrong?

Her traveling companion had been prowling on the fringes of their quarrel, pretending to ignore the heated
exchange, and Sarah beckoned her on and in, then pulled the door shut in his face. At the last, she leaned out the window, her shrewd gaze running up and down his broad frame, taking his measure and plainly finding him lacking.

“Don’t ever contact me again,” she declared.

The curtain fell back, and she impatiently rapped for the driver, signaling him to carry on. The man looked to Michael, seeking permission, and Michael untied his horse, then consented with a nod of his head.

He yearned to plead his case, to explain or justify the belligerent contest with Hugh, but he was caught off guard by how the tables of outrage had been so promptly turned, and he couldn’t defend himself.

As the carriage jingled to life and rolled off, her arm shot out the window, and for a brief instant, he sustained a foolish, thrilling rush as he presumed she was waving good-bye. Then, he saw that she was only flinging out her bridal bouquet, unable to bear having it in the coach with her. The pitiful arrangement rippled to the dirt, a morose, poignant statement of her abhorrence. The
faux
wedding band followed.