Never Marry a Stranger (20 page)

“I wasn’t sure talking was all you wanted from me,” she said. So he
was
the one who’d chased her.

His expression changed and he glared down at her. “I’ll do anything I want to you. And you will take it. It wasn’t I who created this mess you’re in, but why shouldn’t I take advantage of it? What ar
rangements have you made to get your pretty hands on a substantial amount of money?”

“I already told you that I have no access to money,” she said coldly. “I have been given no jewels or precious gifts, not even a wedding band. This plan of yours will not work!”

“Find a way.”

“I cannot. Matthew has confronted me. He knows I’m not his wife. Why would he give me money when he’s searching for the best way to rid himself of me?”

“Even if you’re telling the truth about his knowledge of your lies, I don’t believe he wants you gone, or he would have sent you away immediately. No, my dear Emily, he is obviously enamored of you. Have you been granting him your favors, the ones you wouldn’t give me?”

She didn’t know what answer would pacify him.

“Well?” he demanded, his voice louder.

“Be quiet!” She looked frantically around her. “It won’t help you to be caught.”

“Thank you for pretending to think of me, Emily, but I know it is only selfish concern on your part. If I’m caught, you’ll have to explain your association with me. You’ll have to tell him what you did for me. And then your lies—and your security—will be over. You can’t want that. No, it is clear to me that Leland continues to want you, at least in his bed. And he’ll pay. You have to find a way to make it
happen. I will contact you again in four days, not a moment longer. I want ten thousand pounds.”

She gasped. “But his father is a professor! They don’t have such money.”

He grinned. “How will you know until you ask? Find it, steal it, I don’t care. If the duchess has jewels, help yourself to those. Surely she won’t miss a few.” Straightening up, he touched his cap once again. “Good day, Miss Grey. It has been a pleasure.”

T
hat night, Matthew led Lady Rosa, his sisters, and Emily into the lecture hall at Christ’s College to hear his father speak on the uses of the newly redesigned microscope to the anatomist. They sat in the back, for women weren’t usually admitted, regardless of the public nature of the speech. But they stood out anyway, because there were less than a couple dozen people in attendance—including them.

Matthew leaned over to whisper in Lady Rosa’s ear. “It’s a shame they didn’t publicize the event better.” He’d been hoping she would see how well-respected the professor’s work was.

She shook her head. “Sadly, the only university programs that seem valuable are mathematics and the classics. People don’t realize the importance of the sciences in this modern world of ours. It is a good thing your father has his important research,
for he only has six or seven students studying beneath him right now.”

Matthew simply blinked at her, too surprised to speak.

She cleared her throat and lifted her chin. “I am not ignorant on the subject of my husband’s work. Now be quiet, so that I can listen.”

Matthew sat back and saw Emily watching him, wearing a little smile.

The professor spoke on subject matter that often sounded like another language to Matthew, but his obvious enthusiasm made him a good speaker. Several students asked questions, and the discussion went on for quite some time.

Matthew glanced past Emily to his sisters, wondering at their reactions. Susanna, of course, was an unofficial scholar herself, but Rebecca might very well be yawning.

He frowned. Rebecca wasn’t yawning at all. Her face was pale, her eyes red-rimmed. She was trying to watch their father, but her head would droop forward until she straightened herself.

He put his hand on his mother’s arm, and when she looked at him, he inclined his head toward Rebecca. Lady Rosa’s eyes widened in alarm.

“I thought she was seldom ill anymore,” Matthew said softly.

“She has had nothing more serious than a cold
in many years,” his mother said grimly. “You and Susanna stay here and wait for your father. I will take Emily home to help me with Rebecca.”

Not Susanna? Matthew thought in surprise. But then Susanna was the one who would appreciate the lecture most, and perhaps Emily was the better nurse. Emily was already holding Rebecca’s arm, whispering gently to her. Rebecca nodded, cast a wan smile at Matthew, and allowed the two women to assist her from the hall.

Susanna slid closer to Matthew. “I didn’t even realize she was ill,” she said, watching the door close behind them.

“I, too, noticed nothing. I’m certain she’ll be fine,” he said in a reassuring voice. “Father will be done soon, and we can return with him.”

The professor’s gaze was focused on the door his daughter had just been helped through. If he was distracted as he continued to answer questions, he did a decent job trying to pretend otherwise. A half hour later he called an end to the evening, gathered his books and papers, and walked quickly, his academic gown fluttering behind him, to meet Matthew and Susanna in the back.

By the time they arrived at Madingley Court, the physician had already been sent for, and Rebecca lay in bed with her eyes closed, her face damp with perspiration. Her chest shuddered with an occasional deep cough.

Matthew stood near the door while Professor Leland rushed to the bedside. Emily came to stand beside Matthew, and the touch of her arm against his was somehow reassuring.

“How is she?” he whispered.

She shrugged and spoke softly. “Feverish, but not terribly. She is quite lucid, thank God, and she says her body aches. Apparently she awoke this morning feeling unwell but hoped it would go away. She hated being so weak when she was young.”

“This is only one illness. Surely it does not constitute a return to her childhood infirmities.”

“I hope not,” Emily said solemnly. “I’ll go see if Lady Rosa needs fresh water.”

Matthew helplessly watched Emily as she moved with competence about the room, assisting in any way she could. Susanna seemed nervous, as if hiding her fear, but Emily had a soothing way about her that inspired peace of mind.

When the physician had come and gone, claiming that there was little to do but wait for the fever to break, Matthew persuaded Lady Rosa to sit with him in the corner and eat from the tray of food brought by a maid. Emily took a distraught Susanna out of the room for a while.

Together, Matthew and his mother ate in silence, watching the professor calmly talk to the unconscious Rebecca, while wiping her face and arms with a wet cloth.

Lady Rosa began to talk. “Your father has always cared so much for you children.”

“I know,” Matthew said softly.

“What other man would be here, so involved in his sick daughter’s care? And I have been making him suffer all these years.”

“Mother—”

“No, there is nothing you need to say. The past has been dead for many years in everyone’s eyes but my own. No more.”

He ate in silence then, watching his parents cast uncertain but longing glances at each other. If it wasn’t for the fact that his sister was ill, he would have felt relieved by the change that had blossomed between them while he was gone. Through much struggle, they’d gone beyond a painful marriage to something that strengthened each of them.

It was a long night, and everyone took their turn keeping Rebecca company, talking to her when she awoke, giving her sips of water and spoonfuls of broth. Matthew made sure he was there when Emily was, because he enjoyed watching her with his sister, her serenity, her firm belief that Rebecca would be well.

And she was right. By morning the fever had broken. He and Emily were with her, and they sent for his parents. Matthew helped Rebecca sit up a little higher in bed, and she crossly slapped his hands away.

“I am not an invalid,” she said in a weak voice, then coughed.

Lady Rosa and Professor Leland hurried into the room, and when they saw her, their faces burst with smiles. Matthew hid his own when Rebecca groaned as if in disgust.

“You didn’t need to act like I was going to die,” she said, arms folded beneath her breasts.

Matthew suspected it was to hide the trembling of her hands.

“It was just a little fever!” she continued. “Everyone gets them now and then. Part of a simple cold. You all overreacted.”

And perhaps she was right, Matthew thought, but how could she blame them after her history? But he kept that thought to himself so she wouldn’t turn on him.

Lady Rosa kissed her on the brow, then took a deep breath. “It seems we are not needed here, Randolph,” she said with equanimity to her husband. “If anyone does need us, we will be at the cottage with much to discuss.”

And then they left the room, leaving behind a surprised silence.

Susanna rushed through the door. “What did I miss? Mama and Papa were walking arm in arm!”

Matthew put his arm around Emily. “I’m not quite sure what happened, but I do believe they want to be alone together at the cottage where they
fell in love. To talk,” he added, for the benefit of innocent ears.

Rebecca and Susanna looked at one another and gave identical snorts.

As Susanna went to Rebecca’s bedside, Matthew looked down at Emily, who wore a pleasantly serene expression.

He said, “You look rather proud of yourself.”

“I knew with some effort their relationship could be repaired,” she said, lips twitching against a broader smile.

“And it’s that easy to repair relationships?” he asked softly.

Her smile faded away, and he regretted his words.

Emily excused herself and returned to her bedroom. It had been a long night, and she knew she should sleep. But now that her worries about Rebecca had abated, her thoughts kept roiling in her mind, tormenting her with memories of Stanwood and his threats and his unknown spy.

She was no closer now to solving her problem. She couldn’t imagine going to the duchess’s private bedchamber and ransacking it to steal something valuable. It made her ill to even think about it.

The only thing of value that she owned was in a little box on her dressing table. She sat down before the mirror and opened it to stare at the beautiful necklace given to her by the Lelands at Christmas
the previous year. It was made of tiny pearls, so she was certain it had some value, but hardly ten thousand pounds’ worth.

On his way to breakfast—which took priority over sleep—Matthew stopped in the entrance hall to go through the mail. There were several letters for him, most with flowery writing signifying another invitation to celebrate his return.

But one letter seemed different than the others, his name crudely spelled out, and with only one
t
in
Matthew.
He opened it up and read:

There was no signature. For a long minute Matthew gaped at the letter, rereading it twice, as if the words would miraculously change. Even after everything he and Emily had shared with each other, her lies had continued, and she was involved in a blackmail plot against his family. His head reeled at the very thought, while fury twisted his gut.

How many more times would his intuition prove false?

Breathing heavily, he walked into the great hall and sank into a chair beneath a display of centuries’ worth of swords. They glinted in the sunlight above his head, and he wanted to rip one off the wall, find this bastard and—

And what? He didn’t even know the man’s name!

But Emily did.

Dazed, he thought of her so sweetly tending to his sister, all the while planning to…blackmail him for money? He blinked, his head beginning to clear. It didn’t make sense.

And suddenly he couldn’t believe it of her, not after everything he’d learned, everything they’d shared. His assessment of her was
not
wrong. She was a woman thrust unprepared into tragedy, who’d done what she had to do in order to survive. And if this unknown man was telling the truth, then he had been putting even more pressure on her to blackmail Matthew. And Emily hadn’t succumbed, hadn’t come begging for money.

She hadn’t begged for his trust or his help, either, and that frustrated and saddened him.

But he hadn’t proved worthy of her trust, he realized with deep regret. He hadn’t tried to solve the problem of their supposed marriage, only used it for his own pleasure. Was that how his first wife had
felt, that she couldn’t come to him with the truth, couldn’t ask for his help?

When Emily heard the door open behind her, she quickly closed the jewelry box and rose to her feet. Matthew walked around the bed and stopped to look at her.

She couldn’t read his expression at all, and that panicked her. “Is it Rebecca?”

“No, as far as I know she’s feeling better.”

“Thank God.” She put a hand to her chest and closed her eyes. But when Matthew said nothing else, she at last looked at him. “What is it? Just tell me.”

“I will, but it is a shame that you just couldn’t tell
me.”

She stared at him with incomprehension. He held out a piece of paper, and she took it, bending her head to read.

The blood drained from her face so quickly she had to put a hand on the chair behind her to steady herself. Stanwood had gone behind her back, told Matthew everything, made it seem like she was involved. Her eyes hurt suppressing tears as she met Matthew’s questioning gaze.

“I would never help him plan to extort money from you and your family!”

“So you knew about it?” he asked.

She closed her eyes for a moment. “Yes. He came
to me with his threats several days ago, and I tried to find a way to outwit him. But there is nothing I can do, for he has the truth of my lies on his side. I wanted to protect you, had hoped—” She broke off. “You think the worst of me, don’t you? You think he’s telling the truth. I continued to lie to you, and that is unforgivable.”

When he caught her arm, she was ready for his condemnation. His family was all that was important to him, and she’d brought a murderer down on them.

But his touch gentled, and he took her other arm, giving her a little shake.

“Emily, look at me,” he said in a low, urgent voice.

After seeing passion and humor in his eyes, it would kill her to see it replaced by hatred. But she had no choice; she owed him her courage. She straightened and looked into his face.

When she saw tenderness in his gaze, her breath left her in a rush.

“I believe you,” he said softly, holding her arms so she couldn’t flee. “Do you hear me? Whoever this man is, he’s a scoundrel. I don’t believe you were helping him to blackmail me.”

Her breath returned in a rush. “You believe me?”

His eyes tinged with sadness, he murmured, “I just wish you could have trusted me with all of it. This man—Stanwood?—has been terrorizing you,
yet you kept it all to yourself. I would have helped you, Emily. I know in the beginning I only sought my own amusement, but I swear to you, when I took you to bed, I never thought it a lark. It was almost as if…we were married, in some strange way.”

“Matthew, all I wanted was a marriage to you, even if it wasn’t in truth. But I was wrong. Married people shouldn’t lie to each other like we did.”

He nodded. “And that’s my fault, that I made you feel like you had to keep this from me.”

She straightened and stepped away from him.

Matthew felt the rejection like a slap.

“Ever since my family died,” she said solemnly, “I’ve always had to handle everything myself. But I wasn’t brought up to be independent. I never had to make decisions for myself unless it involved what book to read, what gown to have made, or what party to attend. My father and brothers protected me from everything, but they couldn’t protect me from their own deaths.”