The Accidental Abduction (21 page)

“Might this imprudent move be your elopement with Miss Morehouse?” murmured Valloy. “It is being rather talked about.”

Anthony nodded his head, indicating the truth of this. Valloy waited for him to offer excuses, but he did not. Excuses would only make him look weak.

“If Mrs. Wakefield could be shown that her marriage would bring further disadvantage to her family, I believe she could be convinced to give the thing up. There would of course still be a scandal if she dropped the marriage so soon after it was solemnized,” Dickenson went on. “To keep it from erupting uncontrollably, Mrs. Wakefield would have to marry yet again, and quickly. This new marriage would have to be to a man with the sensibility and resources to get her away from London, and keep her away.”

Valloy ran one finger thoughtfully across his upper lip and lapsed into another of his long silences. For a moment, Dickenson feared he had gone too far. Planning to marry an ungovernable widow was one thing. Actually marrying her while her bed was still warm from the body of another man was quite another.

Valloy shuddered once, in anger or disgust, Dickenson could not be sure. Other than that, he remained completely composed. Dickenson saw Valloy was a man who had perfected the art of the facade. His cool demeanor was a mask he could don at a moment's notice, no matter what thoughts or emotions might be seething underneath. He could respect such a man. More, he could work with such a man.

“It is clear, Mr. Dickenson, you do not think much of Mrs. Wakefield. So, tell me, why should I simply not cry off? If what you say is true, she is now married to another man. If I pursue the subject, I will be involving myself in a most unseemly scandal. Should I still require a wife, there are others who may be had with less cost and trouble, and who have infinitely preferable connections.”

“The Great Devon Road,” replied Dickenson evenly.

“I beg your pardon?”

“The Great Devon Road, the one that is even now being planned in the bowels of the ministry. The route has not been finalized, as I am sure you are aware.”

“Your point, Mr. Dickenson?”

“I am in a position to make sure that when the route is fixed, it will be fixed in a way that is advantageous to whomever holds the Wakefield lands.” The lands that had been left in trust to Jeremy Morehouse, the lands that, according to Dickenson's informants, Valloy was willing to marry Mrs. Wakefield in order to control.

It would cost him thousands of pounds to make sure of the planning commission, and require that he turn over a few letters his family had been saving for just such an event, but if it secured Genevieve to him, the cost would be more than worth it.

Valloy's eyes flickered back and forth. He was thinking, and thinking quickly.

“Very well,” he said at last. “On two conditions.”

“Which are?”

“First, you will leave the matter of dissolving the marriage with me. I have made it my business to become fully informed regarding Octavian Morehouse's character. I believe I know how I may work on him to obtain a result that would be desirable for us both.”

“And the second?”

Valloy's voice dropped to a bare whisper. “You will write out a letter guaranteeing the outcome you have just promised me regarding the Great Devon Road, and you will sign it.”

Now it was Dickenson's turn to fall silent. This was dangerous in the extreme. If anything went wrong, he would be handing Valloy the means to ruin not just him, but his entire family.

But it was the only way for him to have Genevieve, to have her and hold her and keep her beauty away from all others for as long as they both lived.

Dickenson raised his hand to summon the waiter and give the order for quill, paper, and ink. When the man left, Valloy reached across the table and picked up the decanter.

“Will you change your mind about a glass, Dickenson? I can see we have a great deal to discuss.”

H
arry's arrival at his parents' house in St. James Square was quiet, but only for as long as it took to hand his borrowed hat and overcoat to the footman.

“Harry!” cried Fiona. “At last! We were beginning to think you'd enlisted or some such thing.”

Harry had just enough time to turn and stare, before his sister marched up to him and planted her hands on her hips. Harry felt his cheeks go pale, and he knew she saw it, but he had no chance to compose himself.

“Good morning to you as well, Fi,” said Harry as coolly as he could manage.
She can't have heard yet.
“I'm glad to see you, too. You are looking well.” Actually, she looked angry. Her face was roughly the same shade of rose as her walking dress. Harry's heart plummeted and he glanced at the case clock in the corner of the broad foyer. It hadn't even reached noon yet. He remembered his confident words to Leannah when he said his female relations did not go visiting until one o'clock. What if he'd been wrong?

Fiona ignored this bland greeting. “You must come in here at once. Mother's in a state! You have to contradict this viciousness immediately!”

Harry crossed the floor in a state that managed to combine the sensation of floating with the sensation that he could well sink through the marble floor at any moment. The footman, he noted, had very sensibly taken himself elsewhere.

The day had turned quite fine, and bright sunlight filled the morning room where their mother sat on a small beige velveteen sofa. As usual, Fiona exaggerated. His sister might be flushed with pique, but Mother appeared utterly calm. The only sign of agitation could be seen in the way she held her hands clasped tightly together in her lap.

Mrs. Nicholas Rayburn, née Louisa Amesworth, had been a beauty in her day. Time and a happy marriage had transformed her into a comfortable matron. Her thick fair hair was streaked with gray that she never troubled to dye. Gray hair, she said, was her badge of honor for having survived her youth, and her children. If she was plumper than fashionable, she was also more shrewd and more steady than the world tended to give her credit for. She had seen a great deal with her mild blue eyes, and those eyes looked straight through Harry now.

She knew.
They
knew.

The disembodied sensation that had carried Harry this far dissolved and he felt as if he were dropped, hard. Hard enough, in fact, to crush him down to a boy again, with Mother about to unwrap a handkerchief filled with fragments of the heirloom vase he had attempted to repair.

“Please sit down, Harold,” said his mother.

Harry did. His first impulse was to choose the cane-backed chair, which happened to be the farthest away from her. But he rallied and instead chose the tapestry chair beside the sofa. Fi stationed herself behind mother like a guard of honor, her eyes blazing.

“There is a most unfortunate rumor abroad,” Mother began.

“That odious Dorothea Plaice!” cried Fiona. “She positively barged into Lady Penelope's breakfast room . . .”

“I thought no one was at home before one!” Harry's words came out far closer to a yelp than they should have.

“It's the second Friday, silly,” said Fi. “Lady Penelope always has a breakfast on second Fridays during the season and we were invited to—” Mother turned her face up to give her daughter a Significant Look. “But that's neither here nor there.” Fi waved her own words away. “The point is that Dorothea Plaice waltzed right up to mother, and wished her joy on the marriage of her son! ‘I can't believe you've kept it such a secret!' she says, right in front of Mrs. Candle and Lady Denmark and all the world!”

It must be a very large breakfast room.
Harry decided against voicing this thought.

“Well, of course, Mother doesn't know what she's talking about and she says Miss Plaice must be mistaken. This is when Miss Plaice gets the slyest smile on her face”—Fi drew her own mouth up on a tight, simpering grin. Mother looked pained, but Harry couldn't tell if it was at the memory, or Fi's energetic recreation of the conversation—“and she says ‘Oh! I'm sorry! Have I trod all over the surprise! I was only in such a hurry to congratulate you. Why I met Mrs. Wakefield . . . I should say the new Mrs. Rayburn, who is an acquaintance of mine—with
dear
Harry just last evening. They together confirmed everything, so naturally I assumed
some
sort of announcement had been made!'”

Leannah had warned him this would happen, and he hadn't believed her, not really. He'd have to arrange to kick himself later. Probably after he apologized and promised never to doubt her again.

“Now!” How Fi could imbue one word with so much menace was beyond him. “You must tell Mother that Miss Plaice got it all wrong. You have not married Leannah Morehouse Wakefield.”

She crossed her arms, very obviously waiting for him to obey her instructions.

“Well, Harry,” asked Mother, much more softly, “is it true?”

“It is not true!” declared Fiona, but Mother didn't look at her. Her gaze remained fixed on Harry. Fiona might be attempting to put on a brave show of denial, but Mother already had all the confirmation she needed. She'd seen it in his face the moment he'd entered the room. She was just waiting to see if he'd own up.

“I've sent for your father,” Mother told him. “He should be here shortly.”

“He's here now.” The morning room door opened and Harry started reflexively to his feet.

Nicholas Rayburn was a large man with a ruddy complexion and a long, lined face. Like his wife, he had settled comfortably into his age and prosperity, as could be seen in his stout midriff and blossoming double chin. Despite this, the senior Mr. Rayburn still carried the hallmarks of an active life, for he was weathered, calloused, and tended to speak a little too loudly for any room he was in.

“Harry!” Father clasped Harry's hand in both of his. “Thank goodness! We've all been worried about you, you know.”

“Yes, I do know, and I'm sorry.”

“Something's happened, I take it? Louisa?” Father sank onto the sofa next to his wife.

“I am not quite clear as to just what's happened.” She shook her head. “Harry was about to give us a fuller explanation of the circumstances.” Mother continued to speak calmly, but it was clear that she held herself very tightly in check. “Harry, Fiona told us that Miss Featherington turned down your proposal, and that you left home understandably disheartened.”

This was probably only distantly related to what his sister had actually said. Their mother, however, had ample experience with translating from the Fiona.

“Yes, that's all true. What happened afterward is a long story,” Harry paused. “You may as well sit down Fi. You can glower at me just as effectively from the armchair.”

Fi looked like she wanted to rebel, but a glance from Mother sent her flouncing to the cane-backed chair, just to prove that she was not following anyone's orders.

They all looked at him: the three people closest to him; the ones who trusted him to do as he should, to help support the family, to be a fitting son to his father and reliable heir to his business. He was not the one who created trouble, not here at home at any rate.

“I'm sorry you had to find out about this from Miss Plaice. I truly did mean for you to hear it from me first. It is, however, true—Mrs. Wakefield, Leannah, and I were, in fact, married yesterday morning by special license at the Three Swans.”

Normally, Harry would have enjoyed seeing Fiona so completely dumbfounded. But any momentary satisfaction he might have gained was erased when his mother lifted her hand to cover his, and he saw how she trembled.

“Was this a long-standing acquaintance, Harry?” Mother breathed. “Why did you not tell us about her?”

“Did Miss Featherington find out?” boomed Father. “That's why she wouldn't have you? Knew there had to be a reason.”

Harry shook his head. “No, and no. I met Leannah entirely by accident, after Miss Featherington turned down my proposal.”

Guilt threatened as he met his family's anxious eyes, but Harry shoved it to one side. He would not feel guilty about Leannah. He had done the right thing by her and by himself. There was no other way for them to be together in the way they wished without sneaking about, or damaging her reputation past hope of repair. He would not present the news of her existence to his family with any taint of shame hanging about his words.

Instead, he took a deep breath, and he told them straight out. He gave a sketch of his disappointing encounter with Miss Featherington, and how he met Nathaniel at the club afterward, and how he decided to take a walk after that to clear his head. He told them about the “runaway” carriage, and how he'd tried to help; how Gossip had thrown her shoe and he realized he couldn't leave Mrs. Wakefield alone on the road. He told them about taking her to the Three Swans and about meeting Genevieve Morehouse and Anthony Dickenson there. He did not mention the very short and one-sided brawl. He did speak about the fear of scandal, and arrival of the Rev. Clarence Morehouse, and the plan—his plan—to deflect scandal from Leannah and her sister, and to allow he and Leannah to be together.

“I know it sounds mad,” he said finally. “I don't know how to explain falling into a state of such deep feeling with someone within the space of a few hours. Before this I wouldn't have believed it possible. But it is what happened, to both of us.”

Silence descended. It was not at all the sort of silence Harry was used to when seated comfortably with his family. This was hard and thick, and try as he might, he could sense no easy way to break it.

It was Fi, as usual, who found her voice first.

“Well, I suppose I should thank you, Harry. You've found an adventure that makes my exploits absolutely pale by comparison.”

Harry ignored her and looked instead to his parents. Mother knotted her hands even more tightly together. Father got to his feet. Where Mother had gone dead white, Father flushed red. He paced across the room, turning a tight circle in front of the hearth. He smoothed his sparse hair back across his permanently wind-burned scalp. He glanced at Harry, and smoothed his hair back again.

“Where is the woman now?” he barked.

“My wife,” said Harry, “has gone to give her own family the news of our marriage.”

Father faced the hearth and gripped the edge of the mantelpiece. Harry had seen his father heave fifty-pound sacks of spices and help sailors haul up great swaths of canvas without a second thought. For a moment, he wondered if the mantel could stand the strain.

“Have you given her any money?” Father asked.

The question came like a blow from nowhere, and left Harry just as stunned. “I beg your pardon?”

“I think the question is clear enough,” said Father to the hearth. “Have you given her any money?”

“Not yet.” The amount he'd given her for incidental expenses could not be considered real money. “But I will arrange a settlement shortly.”

“Of course, of course.” Father hung his head. “Because it's all above board—sudden, inexplicable, and romantic—but perfectly honest.”

“I'm not sure what you're driving at, sir.” Harry's gaze travelled uneasily from Father, standing at the hearth, to Mother, sitting grave and silent on the sofa.

Fi, naturally, took it upon herself to be direct. “Oh, come off it, Harry! You've been hoodwinked!”

“No. I know it looks odd, but . . .”

Fiona was in no mood to let him finish. “A damsel in distress, a sob story of her sister's elopement, and their uncle the clergyman just happening to show up at the inn? Harry! You've been played for a complete flat!”

“Fiona,” said Mother sternly, “this is not helping.”

“But it is the truth.”

He was not hearing this. His family was not responding to news of his marriage by accusing him of having fallen for some elaborate trick. Not even Fi would do that. He'd expected shock, certainly. He'd expected questions, and lots of them. Perhaps there would even be tears, and some shouting. But to accuse Leannah of such an infamous scheme without even having met her . . .

Harry's hands shook. He couldn't even look at his sister. Not until he had control of himself. “Is this what you think?” he asked his father. “That I'm a dupe?”

Father lifted his hands away from the mantel, and turned. The look of disappointment in his eyes sent the blood rushing from Harry's heart.

“I think it's likely. Marriage traps are as old as, well, marriage itself.”

No.
Harry shook his head, hard, as if he needed to clear it. They didn't understand. He must make them understand. “How could it be a trap? We met entirely by accident.”

“Yes, that is a point in favor, but these sharpers can be very clever. Some play a very long game, or it may just have been you were in the right place at the right time when they were setting out to catch their mark. You of all men should know how such gangs work.”