“You’ll remarry,” she said. “After I die. And that woman will give you an heir.”
“Er—precisely,” he said, not desiring to meet her eyes.
“In that case, I accept,” she said.
“Good,” he said, conscious of a strange relief flooding his body. It was easy for him to find anyone to marry, much more someone inappropriate. But marrying someone other than her felt wrong.
Besides, forever wouldn’t be very long. If they despised each other, and he didn’t think they would, it wouldn’t matter. In the meantime, he could do his best to make her last months as pleasant as possible. He would make sure she was cared for. He would be a dutiful husband.
“I’ll call on you tomorrow,” he said.
“Oh?”
“I believe it’s appropriate,” he said. “Now that you will be my bride. I’ve heard a June wedding is considered ideal.”
“Then June it is,” she said softly, and he beamed.
Happiness flitted through him, and he told himself it was just because he had gotten his way, and he liked getting his way. He strolled back to Hades’ Lair.
If Wolfe hadn’t left to travel, he would shock him now. Now surprising him when he returned would have to suffice. He had the odd impression that he would not mind calling on her.
Chapter Twelve
Rain pattered against the window panel of Callum’s breakfast room, and the net curtains on the windows did not disguise the gloomy gun-metal sky. Rain had fallen incessantly over the past few weeks, not ceasing when St. George’s was booked, the banns were posted, or when a new suit was ordered from the tailor. Hyde Park emptied, as the unremitting rain halted even the most consistent visitors from making their daily strolls.
Footsteps sounded, and his brother appeared. Callum forced himself to smile, wishing the poor weather had hindered Hamish’s arrival last night from Scotland. Any hope his brother was a mirage Callum had conjured in a nightmare vanished. No mirage could glower with such force.
Hamish wasn’t supposed to be here. Callum hadn’t invited him.
The fewer people who knew about the wedding in advance, the fewer chances someone would convince Callum not to go through with it. Thankfully, Wolfe had remained away, and Lady Isla had left London. The people he did tell were sufficiently shocked. Charlotte had been scarcely groomed to be the wife of a baronet’s son, much less a duchess.
Unfortunately, Mrs. Butterworth, in her enthusiasm, had invited him, and Hamish’s sudden presence was unmistakable. The mirrors in the foyer reflected Hamish’s never ceasing glower.
“You shouldn’t marry that chit,” Hamish growled. “You’re betrothed to someone else. Have you forgotten?”
“Naturally not,” Callum said. “But I desire to marry Miss Butterworth.”
Hamish gave him a hard stare. Sometimes Callum wondered if Hamish had always looked at him with such open abhorrence, or if it had started after they’d moved into Lord McIntyre’s home. The old earl had always been quick to criticize Callum.
“I hope you do not intend to stop the wedding,” Callum said.
Hamish didn’t respond. Blast it, Hamish should respond. Ice swept over Callum, as if he were tumbling down some Swiss mountain in the midst of winter.
“Lord McIntyre took us in,” Hamish said. “How could you break his heart?”
“Our late guardian no longer has a heart to break.”
Hamish winced, and Callum instantly felt guilty. Any urge to tell Hamish more lessened. Hamish had adored the late earl. Could he tarnish their former guardian’s reputation?
At least Callum had the benefit of spending time with Mr. and Mrs. Butterworth. Hamish, on the other hand, only had memories of their late guardian and his wife, and his brother seemed determined to forever color his mind with the most enthusiastic version of the events. Callum supposed that the old earl had been fond of Hamish, and had helped him develop an interest in Scottish architecture.
“And what are Miss Butterworth’s motivations in desiring to marry you?” Hamish continued, moving to a new attack.
“Besides my general attractive appearance?” Callum joked.
Hamish scowled, and Callum bit back his grin. Callum shouldn’t jest. His brother apparently never jested.
“You’re a duke,” Hamish said. “You should be careful. You can tell me, if you’ve been placed in a compromising situation. Is she blackmailing you?”
“What on earth would she have to blackmail me about?”
“You run a gaming hell. Perhaps you’ve done something to warrant blackmailing.”
Callum sighed. The gaming hell had been a method to get revenge on the old earl. When the war was happening, Callum had been occupied with defending Britain, but its completion signified he’d return to defend his family’s honor.
Wolfe was happy to have Callum’s name to attach to the gaming hell, and Callum was happy to have access to Wolfe’s vast collection of papers. Now that Charlotte had given her theory after examining the late earl’s ledgers, Callum only had to prove it.
“You are humiliating Lady Isla,” Hamish said sternly.
“Do you think so?” Callum remembered her behavior to Charlotte at Sir Seymour’s ball and he feared his lips might be ascending upward despite his best efforts.
Hamish fixed a level gaze on him. “You’ve been irresponsible.”
Callum stiffened. His brother had it all wrong.
Blackmail.
As if Charlotte were capable of such a thing.
As if Charlotte would have the least idea what to blackmail him about.
Callum’s indiscretions did not extend to blackmailable offenses, and if they did, nice daughters of vicars would not be the ones to carry it out.
In truth, Callum should have asked her to dance immediately, when he’d first seen her at a ball, no matter the supposed state of his engagement to Lady Isla.
Perhaps he should tell Hamish more after all.
Would he believe me?
Callum’s stomach hurt. Some questions might have unpleasant answers.
Before Callum could decide whether or not to confide in him, the butler announced the carriage was prepared, and they exited the breakfast room.
“You don’t have to come with me to visit the Butterworth family,” Callum told his brother.
“I wouldn’t want to miss meeting your betrothed.” Hamish climbed into the carriage. “I—er—wonder what she looks like.”
“Then you’ll find out,” Callum said.
“Are we going to Kensington?” Hamish pondered. “I wonder where she lives.”
“The edge of Mayfair,” Callum said.
“I’m learning so much,” Hamish said.
Something was off in the man’s naivety. Hamish liked to pride himself on knowing things, even when he didn’t at all, but in this respect, he seemed to differ.
How odd.
Callum resisted the temptation to dwell on the whims of his brother’s arrogance.
Finally, the carriage pulled up at the Butterworth’s London townhome.
Hamish scrutinized the narrow building. “It’s quite small.”
“She only has a sister.”
“Family size has nothing to do with it,” Hamish said.
Callum agreed, silently.
Most people in the ton seemed quite happy to put their family in grand townhomes that stretched over multiple floors whether or not they had the children to fill the rooms.
Callum and Hamish disembarked from the carriage and stepped into the small house. The maid, Flora, flushed when she saw them and hurried them into the drawing room. Mrs. Butterworth had transformed the family’s drawing room. Flowers and herbs lay on every surface, and nobody seemed to mind the competing scents that wafted through the room.
“What horror is this?” Hamish glanced warily about the room.
“No horror,” Callum said, “and remarkably close to happiness.”
Chapter Thirteen
The wedding had arrive
d, and butterflies had taken residence in Charlotte’s diaphragm. They fluttered up and down, sending tremors through the rest of her body.
Marrying a duke. Marrying anyone.
It was the sort of thing any other debutante would have declared an impossibility. And yet, the day was here. Charlotte was in her finest dress even though it was only the morning.
She’d never considered herself sentimental and she was hardly going to begin now. She did her best to ignore the manner in which light shimmered over the columns of St. George’s. Georgiana’s alternating sparkling eyes and worried eyes.
“You don’t have to marry him,” Georgiana whispered. “If you don’t care for him...”
Charlotte smiled. Georgiana was romantic.
Whatever the duke’s faults, and proposing to her in front of her family was one of them, he was a good man. He’d treated her kindly, almost tenderly, calling on her every day before the wedding. The only problem with the wedding was that she might forget this was a transaction. He needed an unsuitable bride, and she was one.
He hadn’t even invited any guests. His brother was here, but that was on her mother’s invitation, and he’d been horrified at his brother’s sudden appearance. It seemed evident that she was doing her part at being an inappropriate bride; he didn’t even want anyone to see them marry. Oh, well. He’d be able to shock the ton when it was over. Despite their mother’s habit of telling everyone about the wedding, Charlotte was under the impression that most people did not believe her. A woman like Charlotte was not supposed to marry a duke.
When she approached St. George’s, the door to the church was locked. Georgiana attempted to open it, but no one was inside. Charlotte shifted her slippered feet under the portico, conscious of the befuddled passers-by who were unaccustomed to seeing people in bridal attire stand in front of church doors.
Her chest tightened. Surely, the duke hadn’t meant this to be a jest? She shook her head. He was too kind. She couldn’t believe it of him. But perhaps his brother had somehow convinced him not to marry her? Flora had packed her trousseau. She was expecting to move into his townhome this afternoon. She was not expecting to go back to her family in disgrace. That was certainly not how she desired to spend the last months of her life.
Papa approached her. “I’m afraid no one is inside. It seems the wedding is off.”
“My poor child,” Mama wailed and put her hand on her chest in a melodramatic gesture. “Woe is me.”
The normally jovial faces of her parents lacked any joviality. In fact, their countenances seemed most distressed. They stood stiffly in their formal attire.
Wheels ground over the cobblestones, and she recognized the duke’s carriage.
He’ll know what to do.
BLAST.
The church was shut, and the Butterworth family was distraught.
Callum glanced at Hamish. His brother wasn’t precisely smiling, but his lips were contorting into an odd position as if he were struggling to control them. A dull red blush spread upward from his neck when he saw Miss Georgiana Butterworth. At another time, Callum might have thought his brother was taken by her, but no doubt guilt was the impetus for Hamish’s uncharacteristic unease.
“How dreadful that the minister has vanished,” Hamish said to the Butterworth family, but his brother was no good actor. Callum could tell the man was pleased. “I’ll try to help you find the minister.”
Mr. Butterworth nodded. “I would be most grateful.”
The two left in Mr. Butterworth’s carriage, but Callum held no hopes that they would be successful. If he knew his brother, Hamish had bribed the minister and had ensured no one else would marry them, most likely dropping the names Lord McIntyre and Lady Isla to convince them of a moral onus. The clergy seemed most susceptible to entreaties to righteousness.
Miss Butterworth’s sister approached Callum as soon as her father and his brother rounded the corner. “I must speak with you.”
“Very well.”
“I fear your brother is intent on stopping the wedding. H-he believed me to be your betrothed and climbed into my room with a large bribe.”
Callum’s eyebrows jolted up. “Indeed?”
Was Hamish bribing everyone?
“I-I said no of course,” Miss Georgiana Butterworth assured him. “I would not like to come between my sister and the man she loves.”
Loves.
Charlotte’s family was under the impression that he was madly in love with Charlotte and she with him. Charlotte and he could hardly tell them that they were marrying because he found her family inappropriate. What would it be like, though, if he was marrying someone who truly adored him?
He forced himself not to contemplate that, instead considering his brother’s interference.
Callum had failed Charlotte.
It had been Callum’s idea for them to marry, but he hadn’t even managed to secure the ceremony. He’d allowed Charlotte’s mother to spend her time creating elaborate floral and herb arrangements for the wedding, and yet no wedding had taken place.
This was a disaster.
Fury at his brother coursed through him. His brother was supposed to be defending him, and not the offspring of their former guardian. Hamish seemed determined to stop the wedding, spurred by a false sense of heroism no doubt derived from reading too much Walter Scott. People in Scotland seemed to have developed the belief they were more heroic than others, simply for what their ancestors might or might not have experienced in past centuries.
His heart raced, and his formal attire felt too stiff against his skin. “I am sorry my brother behaved so abominably.”
Not that it mattered. His brother might believe he’d stopped the wedding, but he’d only postponed it. Nothing was going to compel Callum to give up the wedding. He would not allow Charlotte to spend her last months as a woman whose engagement had fallen through. He needed to convince Hamish that he’d been persuaded not to marry Charlotte after all, and then Callum would marry her quickly.
He thanked Miss Georgiana Butterworth and pulled Charlotte aside. “I am afraid there will be no wedding today.”
“Oh.”
Callum didn’t need to excel at observation to note the wobble in her voice, and his heart tightened. Perhaps she was worried that the wedding wouldn’t take place after all. Increased fury pummeled his veins. “We will still marry, of course.”
“G-good. Shall we try again next week?”
Marrying another time would be logical.
“We probably wouldn’t be able to book St. George’s,” he said.
“That’s fine,” she said. “After all, this is a very small wedding.”
Her words made him cringe. He wished he’d done a larger wedding, one where it mattered more if something occurred to it. Charlotte shouldn’t feel her wedding was a minor event. No wedding should feel like that.
Mrs. Butterworth’s elaborate bouquets would wilt were they to postpone the wedding a few days, and he didn’t trust Hamish to not manage to stop the next wedding.
They had to convince Hamish the wedding was off...for good. And that did not involve rushing about London, booking another church and having Mrs. Butterworth commence the creation of new bouquets.
A thought occurred to him. Elopement.
Nothing was more romantic than an elopement. Elopement involved travel and inconvenience. No one would think a wedding small if it involved an elopement. No one would muse that he had allocated meager resources to a wedding if they’d eloped.
Perhaps Charlotte would scoff at the idea. There were hundreds of reasons why an elopement was unideal.
“What would you say to eloping?” he asked.
Charlotte’s eyes widened. “That would be most exciting.”
“In a good manner?” he asked tentatively. It was important it be in a good manner.
“I’ve never thought I would elope,” she said. “Vicars daughters tend to marry in churches.”
“We can still marry in a churc
h,” he said.
“Not a blacksmith’s shop?” Her eyes glimmered, and even though their wedding had been canceled, and even though he’d never been more upset at his brother than now, he found himself smiling back.
“Have you been to the Channel Islands?”
She blinked. “No. I haven’t been outside of Britain.”
“The Channel Islands are part of Britain.” Callum frowned. “Somewhat. Beautiful beaches, stunning sunsets, and more importantly, the—”
“—1754 Hardwicke Act doesn’t apply,” Charlotte said, and her voice was somewhat breathless.
He smiled. The woman had a habit of finishing his sentences, and he, of hers.
Perhaps it wasn’t a real marriage, with no expectation for lifetime companionship and children. Even the most unhappily men and women in the ton seemed to expect their spouses to make appearances at their side at balls, even if they stayed at opposite ends. Charlotte’s body would be under the ground by the end of the year, but something caused him to think perhaps their marriage could have been real.
“Consider it a sunnier Scotland.” He stepped closer to her. “Now, what do you say? Because it you desire it, we should leave soon. Before my brother returns.”
“I accept,” she said.
“Good.” He found himself beaming. He should be grateful at the opportunity to not marry at once. Didn’t men mourn their freedom after they married? “Let’s talk to your mother and sister.”
The conversation was quick. Charlotte’s older sister promised to do everything to keep Callum’s brother from following, and Callum told her to offer his brother the use of Callum’s carriage to return to Scotland. Then Callum led Charlotte down the steps of St. George’s, conscious of onlookers. They were used to scattering people at weddings with flower petals. Witnessing people in fine attire ascend the steps of the church and then make mournful exclamations, must be rather more novel.
“Follow me.” Callum flagged down a hack, and the driver pulled toward him abruptly.
“That won’t take us far.”
He smiled. “Perhaps not. But it will take us to Hades’ Lair where I will grab some funds, and from there we can go to the Thames and then to Guernsey.” Ideally, he would return to his townhome, but he did not want to meet Hamish. He thought Hamish would return to St. George’s, but he could not be certain. Fortunately, he always kept some things at Hades’ Lair.
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