Marriage of Lies

by Cooper-Posey, Tracy

  Will was saying something. Cian ignored him, as the sudden and powerful urge to act gripped him. He leapt down the steps, weaving between people, making hoops sway and gentlemen to exclaim.

  He reached the carriage just as the driver tried to close the door. “I’ll do that,” Cian told him, shouldering him out of the way. He leapt into the carriage and shut the door, just as she was settling herself on the forward-facing seat. It was a big coach, with lots of room.

  Cian should properly sit on the opposite seat. Instead, he sat next to her.

  Eleanore showed no surprise or uneasiness. She drew in a breath and let it out. Her eyes were the same dark, rich brown as her hair and big enough for a man to drown in them. Thick lashes fringed them. The determined brows were a perfect frame.

  “My brother will be here in only a moment.” Her tone said she was warning him, although not to prevent inappropriate behavior.

  “You know who I am.” Even if she had not learned his name that night at the opera, she must surely have found out by now.

  Eleanore didn’t smile. She didn’t nod or confirm his guess. “Nothing can ever come of this. I have been promised to another since I was a child.”

  Cian couldn’t help himself. He must touch her or die. He reached out to cup her face. He just wanted to hold it. To taste her skin with his fingers.

  Warm softness.

  His trembling increased. “Promises are broken every day.” His voice was just as low as hers. They both understood the risks they were taking in this moment.

  Eleanore glanced through the carriage window, behind Cian’s shoulder, for he was sitting turned on the seat, his back to the door. “James comes.” Her tone was urgent. “You cannot be seen here.”

  As the seconds ran out, Cian kissed her. The touch of her against his fingers and the knowledge that time was short drove him to it. He was half-braced for her to protest or pull away. Any other lady would scream in protest.

  Eleanore leaned into him, her mouth opening like a budding rose beneath his lips. Her breath came quickly.

  The driver called out something. A man answered. Upper class voice.

  Eleanore’s brother.

  Cian tore his mouth from hers. “Say my name.”

  “Cian Williams,” she breathed. She spoke his name properly, with no stumbling over the pronunciation, as many people new to it did.

  Time had run out. He surged across the carriage, shoved the other door aside and slid out.

  Eleanore latched the door behind him. Her gaze met his through the window, as the coach lurched from the weight of her brother climbing into it.

  Cian moved along the carriages and slid between the next two, back onto the pavement. He watched the Gainford coach ease out into the traffic on Garrick Street and disappear.

  Will came up to him. “What on earth, Cian? Who was that?”

  “No one,” Cian lied. “No one at all.”

  Chapter Eleven

  As soon as Professor Ignatius left in his hired hack, Wakefield declared he had business to attend to. He went to his library and shut himself in, leaving Sharla in the drawing room with Melody for company. Even Mayerick and his footmen were momentarily absent, as they tended to the remains of afternoon tea.

  Melody barely waited for the heavy library door to close. The moment it clicked shut she got to her feet. “Your behavior today was utterly disgusting.”

  Sharla’s heart jumped. Her pulse, too. “I have done nothing untoward. I would thank you to keep your voice down. There is no need to alarm the servants.”

  Melody’s hand shot out in a lightning fast movement. Her fingers gripped Sharla’s wrist in an iron-hard grip. “You are quite right. A closed door would suit me better.” She hauled Sharla to her feet and pulled her across the drawing room and into the hall. Then into the morning room.

  Melody shut the door behind them with a satisfied expression and shook Sharla’s arm. “I saw you talking to that commoner.”

  “Ben?” Sharla clarified. “Ben is part of my family.”

  “You were standing far too close to him. You shamed my family and embarrassed my son.”

  Sharla’s jaw slackened. Her lips parted. “I did no such thing,” she said, as alarm chilled her insides. Had she been standing too close? Had she let her gaze linger on his face for too long? Had she been inappropriate?

  “And now you dispute me!” Melody said, her voice rising.

  “I should not dispute a false accusation?” Sharla cried, although her stomach roiled, for she wasn’t certain the accusation was completely false. Only, the truth could not be revealed. It must never be revealed, which meant she must protest her innocence, instead.

  Melody’s eyes narrowed and glittered with anger. “You are impudent.”

  Sharla stared at her, at a loss to know what to say. The last time she had been accused of being impudent, she had been eleven years old.

  Melody’s gaze shifted to the wide mantle over the fire. Triumph gleamed in her eyes. With three quick steps, she reached for the mantle and picked up a riding crop that was lying there. It had to be Wakefield’s, for Melody refused to ride.

  Melody whipped it through the air, making it whistle.

  Sharla stared at it, her heart thundering. Surely…it wasn’t possible… “What do you intend to do with that?” The words were ill-formed, because her lips would not work properly.

  “I will not tolerate impropriety in my house,” Melody said, drawing closer.

  Sharla stepped back. Melody followed her.

  “This is not your house,” Sharla said desperately.

  “This is my son’s house and you, his pathetic excuse for a wife, are not serving it as you should. You are a barren, fallen woman.”

  Sharla wanted to shout the truth at the woman, only a self-preserving instinct made her hold the words inside her. Such a truth would unsettle Melody even more.

  The whip cracked. The reinforced leather snapped across Sharla’s arm. Even through the gabardine of her suit, it hurt.

  Sharla cried out and backed away, almost tripping over her hem. “What are you doing?”

  “Your behavior needs adjustment.”

  The whip snapped again. This time, it caught Sharla’s elbow. Her forearm and elbow turned numb. Melody’s strength was stunning. She was a slight woman and looked barely strong enough to carry the weight of her hoops.

  Sharla spun away, protecting her arm. It was a mistake. The crop whistled and the leather whipped her back, up high between her shoulder blades, where her corset could not protect her.

  Sharla cried out again. She stumbled forward, trying to get away from the woman, Melody followed her yet again. “You are a wicked woman,” Melody said. “You will heed my lessons. I will make you a proper wife.”

  The crop stung again and again, with each phrase Melody spoke. It numbed Sharla’s arms and her back. The back of her neck.

  Sharla was trapped between a chair and the fireplace. She crouched, her arms over her head, protecting her face.

  The crop attacked her legs, instead, biting through the fabric of her dress. Sharla curled up, trying to protect every vulnerable angle. She could not hide completely. The whip snapped and scored, over and over, as Sharla hid her face and smothered her cries.

  Until, at last, she lay on the floor, defeated. Tears dripped from her cheeks. Her body throbbed and ached.

  Melody dropped the crop on the rug next to Sharla’s face, making her flinch.

  The woman panted as she stood over Sharla. Sharla dared look up at her, peering from under her arm. Melody nodded. “I pray this is the last time I must correct your behavior. Bide my words, for I will be watching.”

  Sharla held her breath until the door shut once more. Then she let the trembling take her completely. She did not move or try to get up. She didn’t call for help. She didn’t think she should.

  As shocking as Melody’s attack had been, a voice in Sharla’s mind whispered that she deserved it. She was guilty of everything of
which Melody accused her. A good wife would have found a way to coax Wakefield into her bed. A good and proper wife would never have glanced aside. A better wife than Sharla would not look at Ben and wished she was free to be with him.

  Another woman would not love Ben the way Sharla did.

  She deserved everything Melody had done to her.

  * * * * *

  Ben stared at Easton Wash’s smooth features, astonishment fighting with good sense. “How much did you say?” he asked, his heart slamming.

  Easton Wash gave him an oily smile. “Two hundred pounds.”

  Two hundred pounds. It was a staggering sum of money. It was more than a year’s earnings as a solicitor and barrister.

  Ben glanced over his shoulder and around the room. The Carlton Club was a far cry from Israel Smith’s rough working men’s bar in the east end, yet Easton Wash looked comfortable in the elegant surroundings. He was apparently a member, too, for there was no one accompanying him everywhere the way visitors were required to be chaperoned inside the club.

  He had settled on the other side of the chess board twenty minutes ago, with a smile for Ben as he rested his cane against the chair.

  Ben had been trying to solve a chess problem as a way of keeping his mind off Sharla. She had not appeared in public for over two weeks, not at a single function anywhere in the city.

  Wakefield had attended a few dinners and the opera. His appearance told Ben the family was receiving invitations. Even Wakefield’s fragile mother had attended the dinners, although Wakefield had sat alone in his family box at Covent Garden, paying close attention to the singing. Clearly, the family had not been the victim of an isolating rumor that had cut off invitations.

  Where was Sharla?

  As the days slipped by without sight of her, Ben’s worry turned to a deep concern. It wasn’t possible for him to arrive at the house and demand entrance. He had no right to do that. He wasn’t a member of Sharla’s family in any formal sense. Wakefield would have him tossed from the doorstep if he tried.

  Nor could Ben make open enquiries about Sharla with mutual friends.

  The one friend he could ask was the opera understudy in whose company both Wakefield and Sharla had been seen. Vivian-something. Ben had cornered her at the opera and asked the blunt question.

  The woman shook her head. “Sharla says in her letters she is ill.”

  “For weeks at a time?” Ben demanded of her.

  Vivian’s smile was knowing. She was laughing at him and his ignorance. “The type of illness that seizes a woman of her circumstances for months at a time.”

  Horror spilling through him, Ben let Vivian’s arm go. He stared at her, the noise of the crowd about them wavering soft, then loud, then soft again in his ears. “I don’t believe it,” he whispered. His throat closed down, barely letting the words out.

  Vivian’s smile was gay. Knowing. “Neither did I,” she told him. “Sharla is a beautiful woman, though. Passionate. Warm. With a woman like that, anything is possible.”

  Ben turned away, unable to stand still a moment longer. He’d left the opera house.

  That had been two nights ago.

  Tonight, he should be at Lady Elisabeth’s supper dance. The idea of polite conversation and dancing made him feel ill. Instead he had come here to the club, to find distraction. The brandy here was always good.

  Instead of distraction, he’d got Easton Wash, a most unexpected arrival. Ben had always kept the fights, the prizes and the life of boxing separate from his life in St. James. Easton Wash was the only man who had stepped across that divide.

  No one was paying any attention to them. Business discussions happened all the time in these halls.

  Wash’s smile didn’t slip in reaction to Ben’s astonishment over the amount he had just named. “That is the last time we need to speak of hard numbers, don’t you agree?”

  “I don’t agree to any of it,” Ben told him. “Yet.”

  The qualification made Wash’s smile grow wider. “You have no reason to object.”

  “To deliberately losing a fight for you?” Ben shot back, in a furious murmur. “I have no reason to object to cheating?”

  “For a moment, I thought you might say you objected to the dishonor, which would force me to name you a hypocrite.”

  Ben flinched. He breathed through his mouth, holding back his reaction. Anger stirred, down deep. “You speak plainly, for a man who seeks to obfuscate a simple boxing match.”

  “I have no illusions about what I do, which allows me to speak plainly,” Wash replied. “You would find life less tiresome if you did the same.”

  “I sleep well, thank you,” Ben lied. To be compared to this man rankled.

  “I have been watching you, Hedley,” Wash said. “You don’t fight for the honor of winning. You like winning well enough, yet it is the money that gives you a measure of your worth. I wonder…did you learn, somehow, that you can’t win?”

  Ben didn’t answer. The tightness in his chest increased.

  Wash dismissed the question with a shake of his head. “No matter. You are the ideal man for this project of mine. You care about the money and if this is done correctly, then there will be a great deal of money to come out of it. Your share is only a tiny fraction, of course. I’m sure you’ve worked that out for yourself.”

  “I know how prize money is divided,” Ben said heavily. The winning fighter’s purse was only a portion of the promoter’s earnings. The earnings were the sum of coins paid to see the fight itself, from bar earnings afterwards, in Israel’s case, and from winning bets made before the match.

  The sum of money that changed hands on the outcome of a fight would make bankers gasp if they knew. Ben had figured out long ago that the deals made in the dark alleys of east London were of a scale that made his own winning purses look feeble.

  Easton Wash was planning on wagering heavily, against dozens, possibly hundreds of people. If he could afford to pay Ben two hundred pounds to lose the match, then he expected to earn much more from the rigged outcome.

  “Everyone who knows the English fighters knows you are impossible to beat,” Easton continued. “You play with your opponents. You dangle the outcome like bait and reel in the audience, yet the outcome has never been in doubt, in a single match you have fought. I know that. Israel Smith knows. So do all the gamblers who regularly lay down their money. That is why they will take my bet. They will believe I am a dilettante. A lord who looks for something to occupy his time.” Wash shrugged.

  “You’re no lord,” Ben replied.

  “For all your vaunted family connections, you are less of a lord than I appear to be, to the men in Whitechapel,” Wash replied. “Take the money, Hedley. You have no reason to care about losing.” He reached into his jacket and withdrew a soft leather wallet that he placed on the table next to the chess board and got to his feet.

  Ben stared at the wallet. He could see the edges of many folded Sterling notes, beneath the covers. His head pounded. “You lay it out here, like this, in the open?”

  “Don’t be foolish,” Wash replied. “To anyone else, it appears to be a simple portfolio and that we are discussing business. Which we are. Accept the fight with Monty Blackwood that Israel Smith will be offered. After that, all you have to do is lose.”

  Ben couldn’t pull his gaze away from the fat wallet.

  “Of course, you can’t tell anyone about our arrangement,” Wash added. “Not even Israel Smith. If Israel failed to bet on you, it would be noticed.”

  Ben looked up. “He’ll lose money, if I don’t.”

  “That is a risk one takes, when one wagers real money.”

  “Unless one cheats,” Ben said viciously.

  Wash just smiled. He pushed at the black queen, moving her three spaces. “Check, I believe.”

  Chapter Twelve

  Seventeen days after Melody Wakefield’s beating, Sharla had the courage to move outside the house once more. The welts and swelling had subsided. A
ll that was left was bruising, which only bothered her if she moved too fast, or twisted her torso.

  She tested her resolve with a simple outing to the park in the morning, as hundreds of women did. A trip to the park had the advantage of not forcing her to leave the carriage if her courage failed.

  As the carriage rolled down Park Lane toward the beginning of Rotten Row, Sharla shivered. She was hot and cold at the same time.

  Wakefield had not come to her room to check on her during her recovery. Neither had his mother, of course. That meant Sharla had been alone the entire time, except for Smither’s occasional appearance before Sharla sent her away. This morning, when she donned a morning dress instead of the wrapper she had worn for two weeks, Sharla slid behind the modesty panels to don her underclothes, where Smithers could not see her back.

  She still could not rest her back against any chair or support. It forced Sharla to sit with the upright posture her old governess—the one before Lilly had come to the Wardell house—had tried to instill in her. She clutched the support strap at the side of the carriage instead, as the conveyance swayed and bounced, gritting her teeth.

  She felt ill. Could she go through with this? Could she step out in public and be seen by people? Nothing showed under her sensible morning dress. Only, if Melody had noticed her improper behavior, who else had seen? Were people laughing at her behind her back?

  The carriage halted at the top of Rotten Row as she had requested. Horses, other carriages, most of them with their tops down in this glorious early June weather, and rather more pedestrians, were all perambulating down the Row. The women walked with elbows together, or even linked. It was congenial and close-knit.

  Sharla shivered again and clutched at her stomach.

  “Your Grace?” the driver asked, peering up at her from just outside the door. He unlatched the door and held it open. “Can I help you out?”

  Sharla made herself move. She put her hand on the open window, for support, and took the driver’s hand, to ease herself to the ground. Her back twinged. Her stomach roiled.