by Regina Darcy
“I am not a man given to jesting when the integrity of the woman I intend to marry has been slighted,” James replied.
He and the Duke were not far apart in height, and their faces were so close together that the Duke could not pretend to be unaware of the insult that he had delivered.
“She is a trollop,” the Duke spat through gritted teeth. “She is here, unescorted, unchaperoned, in a gentlemen’s club. How far fallen is the vicar’s daughter—”
His words broke off, for James had taken his arm and twisted it in a grip that did more than hurt; it strained ligaments as well. It was apparent that the Duke, who had believed himself a man of some defensive skill, was outclassed by the strength of the younger man.
“You owe Miss Bennet an apology,” James told him in a low voice. “Apologise.”
“I do not beg pardon of my inferiors—”
“Apologise, Ogden, or by God, I’ll break your arm!”
The Duke perceived that his adversary was entirely serious in his threat. “I apologise,” he said stiffly. “Now, release me.”
“Gladly,” James said, relinquishing the arm that he had wounded.
“I still intend to let your father know what has transpired,” the Duke said, straightening his coat as if by doing so he could restore the loss of dignity that he had endured.
“Then, you shall also tell him that I will be presenting myself to him shortly,” James said, “to ask for his daughter’s hand in marriage.”
“I shall tell him that you are a wastrel and that you have turned her into a wanton,” hissed the Duke.
“Have a care, Ogden, or I’ll follow through on my promise.” He waited until the Duke, his features tight with anger and impotence, fell silent. “Of course,” James said with irrepressible cheer, “should you indeed indicate that Miss Bennet is ruined, no doubt her father will be relieved that I am going to marry her and deliver her to a state of married virtue. Good evening, Ogden; Heaton will show you to the door.”
Heaton bowed and ushered the Duke out of the room. When James turned around again, he saw that Miss Bennet had collapsed upon the chaise longue, her beautiful visage staring at him incredulously.
FOURTEEN
James rushed to her side. “Miss Bennet!” he exclaimed, opening the front of her coat so that she could breathe more easily. “Are you unwell?”
She had not fainted; her eyes were open and she was alert. She seemed, after all her bravery in standing up to the Duke’s tyranny, to have been overcome by the effort.
“I am well,” she insisted, struggling to sit up. “I felt faint for a moment, only a moment. He is a frightening man.”
“He is a bully, that is all. Pay him no mind.”
“But he threatened to ruin you,” she said, anxiety colouring her voice. “He said dreadful things.”
James shrugged. “True but you need not fret over what he said.”
“But James, if he goes to my father and says that I am a—a—”
James took her hands in his. “He will not,” he told her. “For one thing, your father knows you better than that. He would not give credence to the sniping of a discouraged admirer. For another… Ogden is a man of enormous pride. He will not allow himself to be supplanted by one such as I.”
“What do you mean, one such as you?” she demanded indignantly.
James smiled at how quickly she rallied to his defence. It was a new experience to have such a determined advocate pleading his case.
“Ogden is very proud of his birth. If you had chosen to marry him, which you wisely have not, he would have always reminded you that you were a duchess by marriage, not birth.”
“As if I should care about such a thing.”
“No, but he would,” James said. Rising, he went to the decanter and poured her a glass of brandy. “Here, have a sip; it’s good for stiffening the spine, and after such a time as this, you’ve earned a dose of liquid courage.”
She took a sip then made a face. “It’s foul!”
“My very best brandy!” he retorted in mock outrage. “I’ll never make a tippler of you, that I can see.”
“James…”
“Hm?’
“I suppose I rather forced your hand tonight. I declared myself before you even had a chance of refusing.”
“Why should I refuse?” he asked, sitting down beside her. She was lovely, he realised; there was a beauty within, which shone outwardly so that her perfect features were illuminated by her goodness. “You made it all quite easy for me. I’m a lucky fellow. I never had to beg for your attention, or present myself to your father, or endure any of the ballroom guile which is the stock in trade of the debutantes. I’ve gotten off quite easily, I think. I don’t know of another gentleman who has been wooed and won in quite so accommodating a manner.”
“You are teasing me,” she said with a shy smile.
“A bit. You were quite the avenging angel, you know. I thought it best not to get in the way lest I find myself singed by your halo.”
“You really don’t believe that he will go to my father and accuse me of impropriety?” she said, although his comment regarding a halo did leave a lingering smile on her face.
“He will go to your father and tell him that he has reconsidered his affections and that he no longer intends to marry you. However, he is not aware that you have already communicated with your family through your letter to your maid, in which you made it quite clear that you are renouncing any marital aspirations toward the Duke and you do not wish to become the Duchess of Cantenberg. I think your father will have the wit to put the events in sequence.”
“Father is not worldly,” she said; it was not intended as a criticism.
“He does not need to be worldly to understand that Ogden is protecting his own arrogance. Your father is a vicar; I should not expect him to be worldly, any more than I expect his daughter to be. But there is a great charm in honesty. You spoke of it most persuasively when you espoused the hypothetical marriage of a daughter to an honest farmer. I own that I was quite convinced that an earnest young man driving a team of oxen must have ridden up to the front door of your family’s residence to propose.”
She laughed, as James had hoped she would. He wanted her to be able to relegate the Duke to an insignificant place in her life, where Ogden belonged. There was far too much to do without being dragged down by the actions of the rejected suitor.
“Answer me this.”
James took Cassandra into his arms. She accepted his embrace willingly, leaning her head against his chest. The top of her head brushed against his cravat; it would be ruined, he realised calmly and Heaton, who also functioned as his valet when he had need of one, would sigh in resignation. But it was well worth the loss, James felt.
“Yes?”
“You meant what you said, I presume?”
“Of course! Although it was forward of me and not ladylike at all to put myself forth in so unfeminine a manner… I meant every word.”
“Good. Because I intend to hold you to every word. And that means that there is much to do. I must visit your parents in order to declare my intentions and seek their blessing. The announcement must be published. We must set a date for the wedding.”
“If you are going to meet my family,” she said gently, looking up at him with so trusting a countenance that he felt as if his heart would flip over inside his chest, “then ought I not meet yours?”
She did not look away from his gaze, even though he gave her a challenging glance.
“You are indeed forward, Miss Bennet,” he said. “You have invaded the domain of a bachelor as if we are already wed and you are deciding our itinerary.”
“I am doing no such thing,” she protested. “I merely feel that if we are to marry, our families have a right to meet us and judge for themselves whether we are suited.”
“Would it matter if they thought us unsuited for one another?”
“Oh, but how could they?” she asked. “They will kno
w immediately that we are destined to be together. Especially when they learn that we have risked everything so that we can be married.”
It occurred to James that, when he’d hit upon the notion of opening a gentlemen’s club, he had not predicted that there would come a time when he himself would become a gambler, not for cards or gaming, but for love. How very unexpected life could be, he thought. To gamble at love, and win. Risking it all.
“Yes,” he agreed. “I believe that they may see it as you have presented it to me. But in the meantime, the hour is late and you must return to the inn. Heaton will take you; he is a very reliable escort and he is also a man of some renown at Gentleman Jackson’s Boxing Salon.”
“James,” she said as she stood up and straightened her attire, which was somewhat rumpled by embracing her betrothed. “How do you suppose that the Duke came to know that I was here?’
It was a question which was bedevilling James as well. He had been discreet, he knew, in his visits to the inn, and he knew that the innkeepers were reliable in their confidence. The access from the inn to the club was not widely known and a casual passer-by would not have detected the fact that the hedge was both a boundary and an entrance.
He thought back to the afternoon at the toyshop. Numerous times during the episode, Miss Bennet had lifted her veil in order to behold one of the toys.
The shop had been busy, as one would expect considering the season. It was quite possible that someone who had seen Miss Bennet at one of the social events which she had attended in the Duke’s company had recognised her, or perhaps heard her voice, seen her with a man other than the Duke, and out of malice, decided to inform Ogden of the fact.
There were, he had no doubt, a number of ladies with pleasing features and vicious hearts who would gladly cast aspersions upon the blameless Miss Bennet in order to advance their own matrimonial aspirations. These damsels would not have understood that Miss Bennet would far rather be the milkmaid that Ogden had called her than the Duchess that he had intended her to be. No, the ladies of the ton could not possibly understand such a stance.
“Perhaps it was intended that he should come to find out,” he responded, evading her question because he did not want her to be distressed at the thought that someone might have seen her with him and come to the most vulgar of conclusions. “After all, do we not owe circumstance a debt? If Ogden had not charged in, and if you had not come here, you and I would not have reached the very interesting development in which we now find ourselves.”
***
Later that night, after she returned to the inn and was comfortably in bed, lying upon sheets warmed by the hot brick that Mrs Anthrop had brought up, contentedly reviewing the unexpected incidents of the day which had resulted in an engagement which, unlike her proposed marriage to Ogden, filled her with a rich sense of giddy anticipation and calm resolution, she considered James’s remarks.
Fate had intervened. She was not a runaway bride hiding in an inn. She was a woman in love, set to marry a man who held her in high regard. They had entered this understanding entirely on their own, with no coy exchanges at balls or flirtatious encounters at suppers.
Such boldness was exhilarating but also cause for anxiety. For on the morrow, she would return to her parents’ rented house in London. She and James had discussed their plans. He would follow in his carriage. Together, they would go into the house, and there, James would seek her father’s permission to marry her.
Father, having no warning of this change in events, would be puzzled. He would perhaps remonstrate with them over the haste. But with the Christmas holiday coming on, James did not want to dally and neither did she. He would, he had told her, be quite satisfied if her father merely gave consent for him to court her, so long as he did not require them to be constrained by a prolonged engagement.
She knew that her sisters would be charmed by James. They had not been charmed at all by the Duke, but then, one could not describe the Duke as a charming man. But James, with his striking good looks and congenial manner and quick wit, was much more attractive as a brother-in-law. Father might look askance at James’s occupation owning a gentlemen’s club, but she thought that he would be impressed by James’s financial acumen and willingness to earn his own way. Father disapproved of idleness, and James certainly was not idle. She was not even sure when he found the time to sleep, so busy were his days and nights!
There would be much to plan. They were very different in their backgrounds, as Mother was sure to point out. Cassandra’s roots were in the country; James was at his ease in the bustling, crowded city of London. She cherished the broad green landscapes of her village; James relished the sophisticated entertainments of England’s capital. There would be much for them to consider, and there would be compromises that would need to be made on both their parts.
But it would be worth the effort, she was sure. James was not a slave to fashion or wealth or status. He had become his own man through the caprices of his life which had pummelled him but not defeated him. She must help him to find his own place at Dennington, the home that he had forsaken, where the family that he had abandoned, however different the circumstances from his mother’s abandonment, were waiting to welcome him into the fold.
FIFTEEN
It was James’s idea that they should not travel together to her parents’ rented home in London, but instead should journey separately. He was leery of any perception that Miss Bennet’s virtue was compromised, and so, he sent a carriage to take her to her parents while he travelled close behind in another vehicle.
She alighted from the carriage and waited for him in front of the house. People were bustling by, but she was relieved that no one paid her particular notice, intent instead on their own errands at this busy time of the year, when everyone had tasks to accomplish and diminishing time in which to do them. James was not far behind her, and he got out of the carriage with alacrity.
“It is a pleasant way to begin the day,” he said, “by seeing you.”
She took the arm he offered, and together, they walked up the stairs, and she knocked on the door. Sarah answered.
“Why, Miss Cassandra,” she said in surprise, “I’d not have expected you to knock on the door when you live here.”
“Sarah, who—Is that Cassandra?” Cassandra heard her mother’s voice, and then suddenly, Mrs Bennet was in the opening of the doorway, her arms outstretched to enfold her daughter. “My dearest girl, wherever have you been? We’ve been so worried about you. We thought the most dreadful things until Sarah brought us your letter. This is all very mysterious—oh—sir?”
Mrs Bennet noticed James, politely standing behind Cassandra, not involving himself in the reunion.
He took off his hat and bowed. “James Dalton, ma’am, at your service.”
“Oh. I—very good, that is—” Mrs Bennet looked at Cassandra in confusion. “Is Mr Dalton a friend of yours, dear?”
The words were ordinary, but the intonation hinted at worry, in case the presence of an unknown gentleman was perhaps a signal to a more complicated problem than the one the family already thought it was facing. Cassandra smiled.
“Yes, Mother,” she said. She didn’t need to say more; her glowing features and shining eyes were more introductions than any discerning mother would have required.
“I see… Mr Dalton, will you come in out of the cold? I am not at all sure what this is all about, but I am sure that you know more than Mr Bennet and I do, and for that reason, we are eager to meet you.”
“You must not blame James, Mother,” Cassandra said as she walked into the drawing-room with her mother, who had not let her go since she had greeted her at the door.
“I am not proposing to blame anybody, dearest, but your father and I are woefully uninformed, and you can understand that, under such circumstances, we hardly know what to think. Sarah, will you let the girls know that Cassandra has returned? And that she has brought a guest. And, Sarah, will you fetch Mr Bennet from his study?
Thank you, Sarah; please, you will join us after we are all gathered. Sarah has been a great comfort to us, Cassandra,” Mrs Bennet said meaningfully, “after she shared your letter with us.”
“I’m very sorry, Mother, to have vanished without a word, but—”
Mrs Bennet held up a commanding hand. “We will wait until your father and sisters are all here,” she said as she sat down on one of the chairs. “Mr Dalton, please sit down.”
“I will wait until the Misses Bennet arrive and are seated,” he said, “rather than bobbing up and down like a hooked fish.”
He smiled at Mrs Bennet, his expression showing that he understood that he was under investigation by a woman of sharp intelligence who was neither as sheltered as her daughters nor as trusting as her husband. Cassandra hoped that Mother would give James a chance to show his true nature; he was the man she was going to marry, and she did not want her parents to oppose the match.
The girls burst into the room with their questions preceding them. They flung themselves upon Cassandra with enthusiasm, demanding to know what she had been thinking of to remove herself in so inexplicable a fashion. But each girl was aware that there was a stranger in the room; it did not censor their questions, but it did broaden their focus. Finally, Mr Bennet entered the room, followed by Sarah. He blinked in confusion as he saw his eldest daughter, and without further ado, he went to her.
Cassandra stood up and was taken into his arms.
“Cassandra,” he said, gently reproving, “you have had us all in a state. Whatever made you run off?”
“Mr James Dalton has accompanied Cassandra home,” Mrs Bennet said, bringing the stranger into the circle and allowing her family to make their own decisions as to his right to be there.
James bowed formally, and then, after the ladies were all seated, he took a chair as well, his gaze focused on Mr Bennet, the head of the household.
Mr Bennet watched the young man, who had chosen a seat removed from Cassandra so that her family need not feel that he had commandeered her. But he gave her a quick smile before he looked away.
