Not Quite Married (33 page)

“One step ahead of the revolution. Not an especially comfortable way to travel.”

She looked up, sensing pain behind his words. “Has it been horrible for you?”

“Horrible. And worse.” He glanced down. “And now I am forced to impose upon your good graces to help me find some acceptance in my new home.”

She winced, feeling a reluctant tug of sympathy for him. Spying a group of young men gathered in the dining room, she decided to solve the problem of what to do with him and satisfy her guilty desire to help him with the same course of action. “Then come . .

. let me introduce you to some new friends.”

As the night progressed, the merriment took on an increasingly frantic quality. The laughter was too raucous, the lights were too garish, and everything seemed to be happening too fast. Suddenly everyone seemed to be half-drunk but Brien.

When Louis appeared at her side at the end of a set in the ballroom, she was grateful to escape the increasingly crass and clumsy attentions of her dancing partners. She accepted three dances in a row with him. The third time, as she and Louis swept gracefully around the dance floor, it cleared. The buzzing in her head, caused by fatigue and the incessant noise, blotted out all but the simple and reassuring movement of the dance. She didn’t see the marquis mount the small stage where the orchestra sat.

The volume of the music lowered, but the strains continued—as did their dancing.

Then, suddenly, they were swept up in a rush of well-wishers.

Bewildered, she was sure they had mistaken her for someone else

. . . until . . . she caught the word “engaged” being tossed about.

What were they saying? Who was engaged?

Dread punctured her isolating barrier and began to peel away the fog of her exhaustion. Grabbing Louis’s arm, she yelled to make herself heard above the noise. “What’s happening?”

His wine-reddened face leered back at her. “I think I may be drunk.”

“Well, I’m not, and I don’t want to stay here any longer.” People were pointing at them, at her, at the way she clung to him.

Without knowing quite why, she pushed away from him. “I have to find the duke and duchess. I need to go home.” With a frisson of panic, she struggled on alone through the increasingly raucous crowd toward the great hall. “Have you see the Hargraves? The duke and duchess?” she asked individual faces in the press of the crowd. “Have you seen them?”

“Have you seen the leather in my new coach?” one drunken lout responded, leering. “Come on, girlie, I’ll show you!”

“I saw ’em out in th’ rear of the garden,” another declared, shoving a flask in her face. “’Ave a nip an’ we’ll join ’em!”

Maniacs! If she couldn’t find the duke and duchess, she would find somebody else to escort her home!

Louis caught up with her as she reached the doors, seeming suddenly more sober and insisting on escorting her home. He called for the marquis’s carriage and she was in no condition to object. Once she was outside in the cool air, a pounding headache had set in and she felt like she was going to be sick. Something had just happened. Something bad.

Now both sick and frantic, she turned on Louis and clutched the front of his coat.

“They were staring and leering at us. Why?” Her stomach began to roil in earnest.

“My dear Brien,” Louis said thickly, “I believe my father had just announced our engagement.”

That news sluiced through her overheated body like icy water.

“Engagement?” The full meaning refused to settle and sink into her mind. A wave of nausea struck and she clenched her fists, willing it away. “Are you sure?”

Louis nodded miserably and Brien realized he knew—he had known all along!

Louis’s “rescue” from her disagreeable partners in the dancing, the loud comments that prevented her from hearing what was said . . . then the ribald comments from their fellow revelers as they left the ballroom.

“This can’t be happening.” Anger magnified the quaking of her body. “How dare he? And you—you were a party to it? You knew he was going to do it, didn’t you?” When he didn’t respond, she cried, “You did, didn’t you?”

“Yes,” he blurted out. “I knew.” His hands came up to cover his drink-reddened eyes and he drew a long, shuddering breath. “I’m sorry, Brien. I knew what he intended.”

She drew back in revulsion, seeing him in an entirely different light.

“I told myself you were different from Raoul . . .”

“Don’t you see, we have to go along with it. The marquis will have us married. It is inevitable.”

“Is it? We’ll see about that. Engagements easily made can be just as easily broken. Rest assured, this one will be broken first thing tomorrow.”

“Brien, you do not understand. My father is a powerful man. He gets what he wants. And he wants this marriage. We have no choice.”

“
You
may have no choice. But
I
have one. Tomorrow, all London will know of the loathsome tactics he employs to acquire good English land and wealth.” She glared at Louis, who was pressed miserably back into the seat, and felt only contempt for him. She had thought him soulful and gentle, when in fact he was just weak.

“You disgust me.” A wave of familiar nausea surged in her, reminding her that she now carried the fate of two souls in her hands . . . making it all the more important for her to repudiate the marquis’s claims on her. She spoke not another word until she climbed down from the carriage in front of Harcourt. Her voice was low, but distinct, as she gave the driver orders.

“Dispose of this baggage as you will.”

Twenty-Three

THE LADY’S SECRET
SAILED up the Thames, completing the final leg of her maiden voyage, and docked to an eager crowd of seafarers and shore ravens. Aaron left the registration of the manifest with the harbor master to Hicks’s capable hands and escaped as quickly as possible through the throng meeting his ship.

He stalked through the streets of the waterfront district, stopping shopkeepers and passersby, asking the whereabouts of a little brick church. Soon he stood in front of the Church of St. Agrippa of the Apostles, comparing the dingy brick structure with the one in his memory and feeling tension wrenching its way up his spine.

It was the place, all right, and it looked deserted.

He almost walked away, but something made him try the door.

When it swung open unexpectedly, he nearly fell over the doorsill and caught himself. Stepping inside, he paused to let his eyes adjust and was drawn into a stream of time-faded memories.

He called out. There was no answer, but he noticed a few penny candles burning at a side altar and took that as confirmation that the church was at least in occasional use. He strode down the center aisle and paused for a moment at the spot where he and Brien had exchanged vows, feeling his heart begin to pound.

Growing more determined, he exited through a chancel door that he knew to lead to the little vicarage.

Hearing a noise behind a door, he burst through it into a kitchen and startled a short, paunchy fellow in a half-assembled cassock, so that he almost dropped an earthen dish he was holding.

“Hullo . . .” The fellow stared at him in dismay, then set the pot of oniony bubble-and-squeak down on the small brazier, and frantically yanked his cassock back up his arms and tucked it beneath a rumpled split collar. “The civil thing is to knock, you know.”

“Sorry, Vicar. I didn’t think anyone was here.”

“Thus the urgency to invade. I see.” The vicar quickly buttoned his garment. “If you’re here to steal, I’m afraid you’re a bit late.

The church and residence were picked clean some time ago. Still, if you’re in dire need of a well-thumbed missal or a dog-eared bit of hymnody . . .”

“I only want information, Vicar. You’re new here, I take it.”

“New enough to still have some hope for this sad little island of ecclesiastica,” the vicar said, coming to stand before Aaron with his hands planted high on his sides.

“Did you know the vicar who was here before you? A fellow named Stephenson.”

The vicar scratched his head. “Doesn’t ring a bell. There was a fellow here for a while a year or two ago. Just back from some mission post. Took ill for a while.”

“Yes, yes! He was ill. Wretched sick. Burning up with fever!”

Aaron grabbed the bewildered cleric by the shoulders. “Where is he now? I’ve got to find him.”

“I have no idea. I should imagine the bishop would have a record of him. Bishops do that. Keep records. What is it you need?

Perhaps I could assist you instead.”

“Sorry, Father, I have to find this Stephenson fellow. He presided at my nuptials two years ago and apparently forgot to record the vows. I’m having a devil of a time proving to my bride that we’re legally bound.”

“Oooh. That is a bit of a muddle.” The vicar thought for a moment. “You know, when I took over here, things were a disaster. Thieves had gone through the desk and scattered papers everywhere. Never been one for the clerk work myself, so I didn’t pay it much notice. But perhaps . . .” Scowling, he pushed past Aaron into the threadbare parlor and went to a wooden box filled with paper sitting beside the cold hearth . . . beneath bundles of kindling and several hunks of coal. He cleared away the coal and carried the box to the table near the window.

“You’re using the parish records to light kindling?” Aaron shook his head.

“Well, it
seemed
like refuse.” The new vicar looked suitably chagrined. “Fortunately, I arrived in summer and haven’t yet needed a fire.”

They went through the papers one by one, and found a list of potential contributors, which the vicar pocketed, and drafts of several moribund sermons, which the vicar also pocketed. There were due bills and notes regarding parishioners. Near the bottom of the box, they discovered two crumpled papers that turned out to be baptismal records, a bit of correspondence regarding funeral services, and a fully executed marriage certificate . . . bearing the names Brien Elaine Weston and Aaron Thomas Durham.

“This is it!” Aaron engulfed the vicar in a ferocious hug and danced around, rattling the teeth in the poor man’s head. “We
were
truly married—I knew it! It was legal. It
is
legal. And binding.” Then he halted, looked down, and released the horrified cleric. “Where’s the parish register? I want to see this marriage recorded with my own two eyes.”

“Register?” The cleric winced. “That, I haven’t been able to locate as yet.”

“Well, there’s no better time to look than now.”

BRIEN SLEPT POORLY and rose early the morning after the Opera Ball, taking tea and scones in her room to steady her capricious stomach. She declined her usual toilette and asked Jeannie instead to prepare to take a letter to the overland courier’s office. Struggling to focus beyond her rebellious anatomy, she sat down at her writing table intending to pen an urgent message to her father and then compose a terse, carefully worded denial for the
Times.
Her hands grew icy and trembled as she explained to her father the devastating fraud perpetrated under the cloak of the night’s festivites: The marquis had announced her engagement at the ball in order to coerce her into a marriage he knew she would never willingly accept. She begged her father to return to London straightaway—

Jeannie burst into the bedroom at a run.

“A nobleman . . . down in the parlor . . . demanding to see you.”

The maid gripped her side and leaned on the vanity for support.

“The marquis.” Brien stood up too quickly and swayed. “Tell him I’m not—”

“Phillips already told him you weren’t receivin’ callers, but he shoved his way right past Phillips and demands that you come down straightaway.” She groaned. “If only Dyso were here. He took two of the horses to the smithy this morn—”

“No, it’s better that Dyso isn’t here.” Brien recalled the hatred in the big servant’s face when he encountered his former master.

She cradled her forehead in one hand, steadying herself and forcing herself to think. “I have to deal with the wretch myself.”

“What’s happened, my lady?” Jeannie paled and struggled to understand. “What’s going on?”

“The marquis has— He’s spread a rumor about me that is ugly and untrue. Here.” She sealed the letter to her father and handed it to the little maid. “Send young Harold with this to his lordship in Bristol. And tell him to hurry!
Go. Now!
”

Jeannie nodded and rushed immediately for the back stairs.

Brien’s head throbbed and her stomach churned again as it had on the
Morning Star.
She made herself breathe deeply and smoothed her simple skirts with her hands. Gathering all of her courage, she proceeded down the stairs to the parlor where her adversary waited.

The marquis was accompanied by a man Brien had never seen before, and as she entered, they both turned on her like hawks ready to strike.

“My daughter,” the marquis greeted her, “how lovely you—”

“How dare you push past my servants into this house?” Brien’s strategy was to get straight to the point and toss them out as quickly as possible. She saw the other man move to draw the parlor doors together and tried to intercept him. But he shook her off his arm and planted himself between her and the door handles.

“I must ask you both to leave.” She turned on the marquis.

“Immediately.”

“My dear—” the marquis began with a thinning veneer of geniality.

“I am not now, nor will I ever be, your ‘dear.’ Your appearance here this morning is an affront to decency. I will never marry that sniveling wretch you call a son. Furthermore, by week’s end all of London will know of your loathsome attempt to trap me into a marriage.” What had begun as sparks in her eyes now flared to full flame. From the surprise on his face, it was clear the marquis had not expected such resistance. But the hope his expression gave her was short-lived.

“I shall not leave until you have heard me out,” he declared, recovering quickly.

“You have nothing to say to me, except in apology. To insult my father’s hospitality and to plot against me, who was once married to your son—”

“And will be again.” He folded his arms across his chest and the gesture made him seem to swell before her eyes. “Despite your protests, you will marry Louis and once again ally the great houses of Southwold and Saunier.”