by Kate Bateman
“Oh, go to the devil,” Benedict said crossly. “It’s only temporary. As soon as she gets here tomorrow, I’ll find out what she’s up to and put an end to this farce.”
Alex raised his brows. A wicked glint appeared in his eyes. “She’s coming here?”
“Your presence will not be required,” Benedict said firmly. The last thing he needed was Alex and Seb’s interference. He knocked back the remainder of his brandy and savored the warm burn down his throat.
“What are you going to do with her?” Alex swirled the amber liquid in his glass.
“Damned if I know. We can’t stay married, that’s for certain. Thankfully, I doubt she’ll want to, now she knows who I really am. The woman wanted someone who was about to be transported or hanged. She should be more than willing to rectify the mistake.”
“It’s not that easy, getting rid of a wife, you know,” Seb said. “They’re like those prickly burs that stick to your clothes. Once they get their hooks into you, they’re the very devil to shake off. Ask anyone.”
Ben scowled at him. “You have plenty of experience with clinging wives, do you?”
“Hardly. I avoid them like the plague. Why bother with another man’s wife when there are so many enthusiastic widows and single women out there?”
“I’m sure there are ways to get rid of a wife,” Alex said. “Annulment. Divorce.”
“Paying a highwayman to dispatch her,” Seb joked. “Tying weights to her feet and dumping her into the Thames. Shipping her off—”
Alex ignored him. “I doubt she’ll want her name dragged through the mud by a divorce, though. The Caversteeds might not be old money, but their standing in society is good.”
“You could always leave the country,” Seb said cheerfully, clearly relishing his role as devil’s advocate. “Go on a nice extended tour of Europe. A few nights with those delightfully inventive ladies in Paris and you’ll forget you even have a wife.”
“I’m not going anywhere.” Ben scowled. “We only just got back from Europe, remember? I’ve seen more than enough of France and Spain to last me a lifetime.” He turned to Alex, determined to steer the conversation away from the vexing Miss Caversteed. “How’s your investigation going?”
Alex had been asked by Conant to look into the suspicious death of an Italian diplomat.
“Slowly,” Alex sighed. “It looks like he was killed by his own servant, who then fled the country, but the motive is still unclear.” He glanced over at Seb. “Maybe the servant finally snapped after the count ruined his eighth cravat trying to create the perfect waterfall?”
Ben snorted. Seb’s pride in his sartorial style was a running joke between them. “You know what those volatile Italians are like. Always so passionate, so hot headed.”
Alex shot Seb a taunting smile, and Benedict tried unsuccessfully to suppress a grin at the way Seb simply raised his eyebrows and refused to rise to the bait. Seb was half-Italian and Alex delighted in teasing him about the “foreign” half of his nature—mainly because Seb was the complete opposite of a quick-tempered Italian. Despite his Mediterranean good looks, he had the coolest head of anyone Ben had ever met. There was nobody better to have at your side in a crisis. Even if he did spend twenty minutes perfecting his cufflinks.
He sent Alex a sympathetic glance. “You’ll make a breakthrough soon, I’m sure.”
Alex discarded his empty glass and rose. “Think I’ll go and take a last look at the pit.”
He was referring to the main room of the club, where the vast majority of gambling took place. A small balcony, shielded by a wooden fretwork screen, rather like a minstrel’s gallery, was positioned high above one end of the gaming room. Accessed by a small staircase, it allowed the three owners to look out over the floor and watch the games in progress below—and keep an eye on the club’s patrons. As former snipers, all three of them enjoyed the elevated position.
Ben got to his feet too. “I’m going to get some sleep.”
Seb chuckled and drained the last of his brandy. “Sounds like you’re going to need all your wits about you tomorrow, dealing with that wife of yours. Think she’s ever seen the inside of a gaming club before? Maybe you should bring her downstairs and teach her how to play roulette. I’d be more than happy to—”
“She’s not going anywhere near the public side,” Ben said firmly. “And you’re not going to be teaching her anything.”
Seb gave a chuckle. “Spoil sport. In that case, I’ll wish you good night. And good luck.”
Chapter 10.
The Tricorn Club in St. James’s was a newly established gentlemen’s club, but in the few months it had been open, it had, according to Pieter, gained a reputation for deep card play and extravagance in both food and “gentlemanly entertainment,” which Georgie took to be a euphemism for “attractive, available women.”
At ten o’clock in the morning, however, this enclave of elegant depravity was remarkably quiet. Pieter turned the carriage into the stable mews behind the imposing stone-clad building.
“Georgiana Caversteed, this is a—”
“—terrible idea,” Georgie finished with a grimace. “Yes. I know. I know.”
She’d told Pieter of Wylde’s reappearance, of course. The Dutchman had simply raised his bushy brows and said he’d warned her against her foolish scheme at the outset. He opened his mouth to say more now, but Georgie was in no mood for a lecture. She raised the hem of her cloak, stepped down onto the cobbles, and tried to ignore the butterflies churning in her stomach.
She’d barely slept a wink last night, turning over all the possible outcomes of this meeting in her mind. What did Wylde want? A monthly allowance? A lump sum? How much would this debacle cost her?
“Please wait for me here. I shouldn’t be long.”
The back door of the club swung open to reveal a mountain of a man dressed in black-and-gold livery. His size was such that Georgie wouldn’t have been surprised to learn he was a former boxer or wrestler. Certainly, his crooked nose and cauliflower ear spoke of an interesting life.
Pieter stepped forward protectively, but Wylde appeared behind the behemoth and shot her a welcoming smile.
“Stand down, Mickey, the lady’s here to see me.”
The mountain nodded respectfully and stepped aside to let her pass.
“Good morning, Miss Caversteed,” Wylde said, and for one moment Georgie imagined herself poised at the door of some sinister castle—like the one in Mrs. Radcliffe’s Mysteries of Udolpho—a foolish, unsuspecting traveler about to discover something very unpleasant inside. She gave herself a mental shake. She had to stop sneak-reading Juliet’s gothic tales. She was getting overly fanciful.
“I’ll be right here,” Pieter said gruffly. “If you’re not out in half an hour, I’m coming in to get you.”
Georgie nodded. She mounted the stairs, stepped over the threshold, and entered the lion’s den. She followed Wylde’s broad shoulders along a marble-tiled hallway, up a set of curving stairs, and into a surprisingly light and airy sitting room. Despite having always wondered what the inside of a gentleman’s lodgings might look like, she wasted no time examining the furnishings. She sank into the seat he indicated and arranged her hands primly in her lap. “I’ll come straight to the point, Mr. Wylde. What game are you playing?”
The corners of his lips twitched. “Not one to mince words, are you?” He crossed to an elegant French fauteuil and sat, one ankle resting on the opposite knee, the epitome of relaxed masculinity. “No game, Miss Caversteed. You found me at Newgate. Our meeting was purely accidental.”
She raised her brows, inviting him to explain what he’d been doing there.
He tilted his head and fixed her with an accusatory look. “I, for one, had no plans to marry when I entered the building.”
Guilty heat warmed her cheeks.
“I applaud your ingenuity,” he said dryly. “There was no chance your suitor would escape, that’s for sure.”
She shifted
uncomfortably in the chair. He deserved an explanation. “It was an unusual course of action, I know—”
He raised his brows, silently mocking the understatement, and she looked at her hands. “Until a few weeks ago I had no desire to marry anyone. Ever. I do not, after all, need the money. And I have no desperate hankering for a title.”
“You might be the first woman of my acquaintance to say that and actually mean it,” he replied amiably. “Few would deny the desire to be one day addressed as ‘my lady,’ or ‘Your Grace.’”
“Not me.”
His gaze flicked to her stomach. “So, why the sudden need for a husband? Are you anticipating a happy event in around nine months’ time? Seeking a name for another man’s brat?”
Georgie couldn’t contain her gasp of shock. “What? No! Of course not! I’ve never … I mean…” She trailed off, utterly mortified at the suggestion, and took a deep, steadying breath. She should have anticipated such an assumption. “No. That’s not it at all. The problem was my cousin, Josiah.”
“Ah.”
His tone was neutral, and she tried to decide how best to phrase Josiah’s steady campaign of harassment. “Josiah has been trying to persuade me to marry him for years, but as I neared my majority, he became increasingly insistent—so much so that I feared he would engineer some compromising situation so we’d be forced to wed.”
She sneaked a glance at Wylde. A muscle ticked in his jaw.
“I could not face placing my future, or my business, in Josiah’s hands, but there was no one else in the ton I trusted enough to marry. I was desperate. And then I realized that if I married a condemned man, I could control my own fate. I could tell Josiah I was married and fail to mention I was also a widow.”
She made a wry face at her own naivety. “Unfortunately, there were no condemned men in Newgate. When you were offered as an alternative, I reasoned that a living, but absent, husband would do. Josiah thinks I fell in love with a midshipman on one of my own brigs, who’s currently away at sea.”
“Very romantic. Swept off your feet by a burly sailor. How did your cousin take the news? Not well, I’d imagine.”
“Pieter showed him the marriage license, but he still suspects a trick. He’s probably trying to find a way to disprove it even as we speak.”
Wylde tapped one long forefinger on the arm of the chair. “So, apart from your hulking manservant, the two witnesses at Newgate, and dear Josiah, who else knows we’ve wed?”
“Only my mother and my sister—and they only think I’ve married a convict. They do not know the convict is you.”
“And you’re in no hurry to tell them,” he said wryly. “Because I’m even worse than a convict. Who’d want to be tied to someone like me?” His eyes crinkled at the corners in self-mockery.
She shot him an accusing glare. “Can you blame me? You do have the blackest reputation.”
He inclined his head as if accepting a compliment, the perverse man. “Why thank you. One tries one’s best. And yet I’m still welcome in the most select drawing rooms. It’s most unfair. A man can behave atrociously and escape with an indulgent slap on the wrist, but the same behavior from a woman causes the ton to immediately close ranks and expel her.”
Georgie nodded. “Which is precisely why I need to sever our association. If the circumstances of our marriage ever got out, the scandal would ruin my sister’s chances of making a good match. She and my mother would be spurned and disgraced.”
“And yourself,” he added gently.
“Oh, well, yes. Of course.”
If Wylde was going to blackmail her, she’d just given him the perfect opening. She waited with a grim sense of inevitability for him to demand a princely sum to keep quiet about the whole affair.
“Hmm,” he mused. “I see your dilemma. So, what now?”
Georgie hid a frown of surprise. Was he truly not going to ask her for money? She was no stranger to tough negotiating, but he was almost impossible to read. Time to lay all her cards on the table. Honesty in business dealings, however painful, was vital.
She cleared her throat and assumed a brisk tone. “I was hoping we could deal with this like sensible adults. You cannot wish to be married to me. And I do not want to be married to you. An immediate annulment is therefore in both our interests.”
“On what grounds? We’re both of sound mind.”
Georgie resisted the urge to snort. She’d doubted her own sanity almost daily during the past few weeks. “Josiah threatened to have me declared mentally incapacitated when I told him I’d married a sailor,” she admitted wryly. “But that won’t work. I have plenty of professional acquaintances who can attest to the fact that I’m competent.”
She stole a glance at Wylde’s chiseled profile. He really did have an extraordinarily nice jawline, now that it wasn’t covered in bristles. Looking at his lips made her own tingle. A wave of disbelief washed over her. She, Georgiana Caversteed, was married to this Adonis! It was such an improbable pairing, like some Greek god come down from Mount Olympus to dally with an unsuspecting mortal. She took another wistful glance at his outrageously tempting mouth. Things rarely went well for the mortals in those stories, though. They all ended up being turned into rocks, or trees, or got ripped apart by hunting dogs.
Still, maybe it was worth it. He really was mind numbingly handsome.
Georgie shook her head and forced herself to concentrate on the disaster at hand. “I had hoped our marriage could be terminated on the grounds of nonconsummation, but according to my research, that in itself is not sufficient for an annulment.” Heat rushed to her cheeks. “In fact, to gain an annulment the husband—ah, that is, you—would have to be declared impotent.”
A long, excruciating silence ensued. She didn’t dare look at Wylde’s face; she focused on the pale green swirls of the Aubusson rug instead. Was it possible for someone to burn up with mortification? She ignored the hellish flush creeping up her neck and stumbled on.
“In order for that to happen, the groom would have to share his wife’s bed for three years, prove she’s still a virgin at the end of it, and prove that he couldn’t get aroused by two other women, such as, ah, professional courtesans, before an annulment would be granted.”
She ran out of breath. When Wylde failed to answer, she glanced up to gauge his reaction. His heated gaze turned the tingle in her lips into a full-body flush. She curled her toes inside her shoes.
“Then it seems we have a problem, Miss Caversteed.”
His eyes held hers, and Georgie found she was breathing rather too fast.
“Even if we shared a bed for three years, and managed not to touch one another in all that time”—his intent expression seemed to indicate the unlikeliness of that eventuality—“I would still be found more than capable of consummating our marriage.” His brows rose in unmistakable challenge. “If you have any doubts, I am more than willing to prove my ability. Just say the word.”
Chapter 11.
Georgie experienced a mad, irrational urge to blurt out, Go on then, but bit her tongue instead.
Wylde let the silence play out for another long, uncomfortable moment, then said, “So, no. An annulment due to my impotence is out of the question.”
She dragged in a calming breath; she felt as if she’d survived a close encounter with a wild animal. “Well, the only other reason for an annulment would be on account of fraud. But you’ve already said that the name you signed on the register was enough to bind us legally, so I can’t see how we could argue that. And we’re both over the legal age of consent.”
The ticking of the porcelain clock on the mantel seemed unnaturally loud and condemning. Georgie worried her lower lip as waves of guilt and shame rolled over her. She’d ruined this man’s life—albeit unintentionally—by barging into Newgate and forcing him to marry her. An awful thought suddenly occurred to her. “Oh no! There wasn’t anyone else you wanted to marry, was there?”
His mouth curved faintly. “No. Although I’
m sure the ladies of the ton will go into mourning when they hear I’m off the market.” His tone carried a cynical edge.
“Have you never considered marriage?”
“Honestly? No. I thought I’d die in France or Spain before I ever had to make a decision.”
Her heart twisted at the blunt truth of his words. What horrors had he faced? She’d pored over Juliet’s scandal sheets last night, gleaning every scrap of gossip about him. He’d fought in the Peninsular War and at Waterloo. Three years in the Rifles under General Graham. It was disconcerting to realize the depths of his worldly experience so vastly outweighed her own. He would be a formidable opponent. Or ally.
“Why were you in Newgate?”
“I never was, officially. As far as the ton is concerned, I was languishing in the Fleet for a gambling debt.”
“So why—?”
“Since leaving the army, I’ve been working for Sir Nathaniel Conant, Chief Magistrate of Bow Street.”
Her surprise must have shown on her face because he smiled. “Bow Street usually deals with lower and middle-class criminals, so when a case comes up that involves the ton, none of the regular runners can get very far. That’s where I come in. I have access to all levels of society. I assist with any cases that require contact with the aristocracy.”
Georgie’s mind reeled. Why would a man like him choose to fight crime when he could be sunning himself like a gilded peacock on some country estate or living on credit and his aristocratic name and sponging off friends and relations, like half the ton?
“I’m trying to discover the connection between some wealthy nob, a bunch of Kent smugglers, and a plot to rescue Bonaparte from exile.”
