Standing outside the attorneys’ office, Chase said, “Since we can’t reach Jace and Max, who are on assignment, maybe we should talk to the Baron. He’s involved in investigative-type work and might be able to help unravel what’s going on here.” He hailed a passing hackney. “I’m starting to have a bad feeling about all of this.”
Chapter Twenty-Five
The next morning, Tally, Mr. Mason and Joseph were out bright and early.
They said they were going to the lending library. Again! Reed watched the three of them depart from his bedroom window. He didn’t believe them. His Tally couldn’t lie convincingly to save her life.
No doubt this was her way of avoiding him, knowing he’d want an explanation for her shocking accusations yesterday! He’d wanted to talk to her last night, but Foster said she was feeling under the weather and brought up her evening meal to her room and when he checked on her after, he claimed she had gone to bed early.
Reed wished he could say the same. He hadn’t slept a wink all night brooding over her parting words. What did she mean about him climbing in the window? And did she actually believe he could plot to kill her! He’d planned on confronting her first thing this morning but, he’d finally succumbed into the arms of Morpheus just as daylight crept across the night sky and awoke late as they were preparing to leave the house.
At least Mason was going with her so she'd be safe. He had half a mind to follow them, but this morning he had important matters he needed to settle. He wasn’t sure how, but he had to resolve this quandary he was in. To start with, he decided as he left his room to head downstairs for breakfast, now was the perfect opportunity to have a man-to-man talk with Foster, if he could find him! The butler seemed to know when a serious talk he wished to avoid was imminent and made himself scarce.
Next, it was time to go pay a visit to the Earl of Merkvale. If he was the heir, why had no one from his family come to see him? Was he on the outs with them? He couldn’t go on like this. He had to know.
On second thought, perhaps going to see the Earl wasn’t such a good idea. What if someone in his own family had shot him? Might that person not try again, perhaps so the next son could inherit?
Lord, he hated all this indecision!
When he reached the bottom of the stairs, he noticed a letter on the front table and had the sudden realization that this was the first mail he’d ever noticed. Was it just that he was never around when it was delivered? Surely he must have received some post since his fall. Had they been keeping it from him?
Hot anger raced up the back of his neck into his head causing his first headache in two days. He’d thought he’d left them behind, but this one was sudden and fierce. He told himself to calm down. She was just trying to alleviate his confusion because he wouldn’t remember who the sender was or what the letter was about?
But it might have helped! Might even have jarred his memory loose!
That thought prompted him to go see to whom the envelope was addressed. Picking it up he turned it over and saw it was to Mrs. Leighton, with a law firm’s seal on it.
He paused a second. Should he take it? It wasn’t addressed to him. Stifling his qualms about reading another’s letter, he picked it up and put it in his inside breast pocket. He had to read it! It might have something to do with him and he was through being shielded like a sick child.
Foregoing his morning meal, he went back upstairs to his room. He ripped the seal open, not caring if Tally knew he’d read her mail. He was convinced it pertained to him! He felt justified in opening it. It was time he got answers!
Unfolding the letter inside, he began to read: We are writing this to inform you ... A quick perusal led to more questions than answers. In official legal language, it informed Mrs. Leighton she was living in this house illegally and, given that the owner was expected any day now, she must depart the premises forthwith. It went on to enumerate the penalties she would incur should she not vacate the property. The lawyer, Hornings, said he would be presenting himself the very next day to ensure that she was gone.
By tomorrow! What kind of man put a woman out on the street, in the middle of London, without proper notice? Where did the cold-hearted fiend expect her to go?
More puzzling, though, was why they thought that Tally was living, illegally, in this house. She’d said they had rented it. He scanned down to read the signature at the bottom of the letter, expecting to see a lawyer’s signature. Suddenly, his breathing stopped, his hand began to shake and his eyes froze on the signature line. The letter was signed on behalf of G. Marvin.
So ordinary a moment to cause so momentous a discovery!
A sudden sharp pain in his temples increased his headache and lodged in his right eye, causing an agonizing throb to pound mercilessly there. Like when, as a boy, he and his brothers, who haunted the Windhaven stables, used to snap off the longest icicles from the old shed’s roof to suck on them. The cold would sometimes freeze their brains.
Today, the pain appeared to be reviving his memories. He peered down at the name that riveted his attention.
That was the name he’d been using to invest his money before he left England! He was Reed Gordon Eames! That really was his name! The name he’d been wondering about for several days. Emotion welled up. A lump lodged in his throat.
Memories came swirling back in a torrent. Dazed, he sat on the edge of his bed. Waves of recollection washed over him. Overwhelmed by the onslaught of information flooding his brain, he lay back on the bed and held his head in his hands.
He was Reed Gordon Eames, Viscount Selwich, eldest son of George Eames, the Earl of Merkvale! His conclusions were right. Except that he hadn’t been banished! And he wasn’t on the outs with his family. Well, not with most of them.
His father, he wasn’t so sure. He’d had a serious disagreement with him six years ago about refusing to become engaged to his father’s best friend, the Duke of Archstone’s devilish daughter. She’d been only thirteen, at the time, far too young and already a spoiled little shrew, who would have made his life a misery! He’d packed his bags and left. Of his own volition! He’d booked passage on a ship for British India to set his father on the wrong path, should he have decided to find his recalcitrant son. Instead, that son had boarded another ship, under an assumed name, and sailed for Egypt.
He’d thought to continue on to another country, further from detection, until he stepped ashore in Alexandria and immediately fell under the spell of the port city teeming with ships of all types from countries around the globe. He was fascinated by the exotic scents and different sounds permeating the atmosphere of the open markets, with their exciting and colorful wares, so foreign to his more conventional British upbringing.
He adopted a pseudonym and set up his own export business of coffee, spices, and textiles. Life became an adventure. He realized he’d been dreadfully jaded by his life in England. In Egypt, the sun’s brightness and the vibrancy of life there inspired him to paint every free moment he could find. And he had no sire to loom over his shoulder with disapproval. His business flourished and he amassed a huge fortune. Now, he, or rather his alter ego, was considered a prosperous nabob.
Unbeknownst to his father, he’d invited his brothers and sisters to become partners in his company and now they were well on their way to becoming independently wealthy men and women in their own right. The aim was to never be at the mercy of their controlling parent ever again.
He had developed a new view on how he wanted his life to be lived. Aside from providing him with a very good living, he found he enjoyed the cut and thrust of earning his own way. He acquired more self-respect than he’d ever had as heir to his father. Knowing he survived as a result of his own efforts and had done it well, with no help from anyone else, changed him. He felt fully a man, confident he could meet and triumph over all of life’s trials and vicissitudes.
He sat up. But how had he ended up back in his own home in London?
The Vanisher! The mission. Sudde
nly, it came to him. The reason he’d returned now. That dream of him skulking around in the souk in Egypt had been all too real.
Wait! He had arrived home... to his house! (No wonder it felt so familiar!)… in the middle of the night. He hadn’t been able to get in. The lock had been changed. So he’d climbed the wall to his bedroom.
Ah... Tally was right, he had climbed in the window! Yes, but what had…?
A vivid memory saw him clambering backwards into his bedroom.
He looked around. This wasn’t his bedroom! This was a guest room at the front of the house.
Now he remembered! A voice had warned him not to move but, startled by the unexpected, he’d disobeyed that injunction and turned, only to hear the click of a gun. He’d reacted instinctively and dived to avoid being hit and… nothing… until now.
That voice had been female.
Tally’s? Had she…?
She’d shot him! His own…
No! No! She wasn’t his wife! He wasn’t married!
Why had she said they were? And why didn’t she tell him she was the one who shot him?
Their talk yesterday... Just before she’d run from the room. She said she’d thought he’d come to kill her.
But the question was — why had she been in his house in the first place?
* * *
“But sir, surely you jest. We’ve only just become acquainted.” Tally was horrified and terribly embarrassed. She’d agreed to meet Mr. Dubuc in the lending library this morning because he said he had something important to tell her. She’d hoped it meant news of his uncle. Now he’d pulled her into a small alcove and was down on his knee proposing marriage to her!
“Oh no! Don’t do that! Please, stand up!” Must she always attract the Spence’s of the world? He’d seemed so different, so sophisticated.
“I insist you listen to me pledge my troth.”
Stubborn and truculent were not endearing qualities in anyone, much less a husband, she reflected, lamenting his sulky attitude. If this... dolt! ...thought this was the way to win a woman’s heart, he was sorely mistaken.
“If you must. However, before you do, please know that I have no intention of marrying. Ever. To anyone.”
“But why not?”
“Because I want to retain my freedom. The right to do whatever I choose.”
“You may rest assured I will allow you full freedom to do as you please,” he avowed in an earnest manner.
She sniffed in disdain. “You see, sir, it’s that little phrase ‘allow you’ that is the crux of my problem. Why should you or any man have the right to allow me, tell me, what I may or may not do?”
“But surely you can’t expect…” Indignant, he leapt to his feet. “Women cannot...” Noting her frown, he stopped in full flow.
Pleased that he seemed to finally understand that she fully did expect to make her own decisions about how she lived her life. “Indeed, I do.”
“That is most unusual.” He paced away, then back. “But that needn’t prevent us from marrying.”
“I’m afraid so.” She gave him a sympathetic smile. “Marriage gives a man full legal rights over me and my assets. I could never accept that.”
“You can trust me to honor my word that I will never oblige you to do or not do anything.”
“It is more than just being allowed or not allowed to act a certain way. Marriage means you would own me, every part of me and all of my worldly belongings.”
Was that an avaricious glint she’d glimpsed in his eye? It disappeared so quickly, she might have been mistaken. Not that it mattered, for she had no intention of making him or anyone her ‘lord and master’. “The very idea… of anyone having that much power over me and my life....” She shuddered and didn’t finish her sentence.
Uncertain of his reaction, she watched him carefully while he absorbed her words. Was he going to be reasonable? She hoped so. She had no time, or patience, to deal with yet another persistent suitor.
“Well... I suppose I can understand your position.” Giving a crooked smile with palms out, he shrugged. “I had to try. Please don’t hold it against me. If that is what you believe, then I accept your view.” He turned his most potent weapon on her, his angelic smile. “I hope we can remain friends?”
She expelled a relieved breath. Grazie al cielo! He was going to be nice about this. “Yes, of course.”
“Come then, let us enjoy the rest of this beautiful afternoon. We can walk in the park next to here.”
“I’m afraid I can’t.” She offered a hasty apology. “I came because it sounded urgent. You might have had news from your uncle.” She shook her head. “But I have several important matters to attend to this afternoon.”
That wasn’t strictly true. She had only one important matter to attend to. She had to pack up their things and move out of Reed’s townhouse.
She’d just come from his attorneys, where she’d learned that they had indeed been living in the wrong house. She was feeling rather shaken and would never have come to meet Mr. Dubuc, if she’d known he had nothing new to report about Monsieur.
She had no idea how she was going to explain this move to Reed. Of course, after yesterday’s quarrel, he might not be so shocked.
She knew what she had to do. Tell him the whole truth. Surely then, he’d insist on remaining in his own house while they moved next door. If he didn’t insist on dragging her off to jail.
“But you cannot walk about alone.”
“No, of course not. Mr. Mason, my brothers’ friend, has kindly accompanied me, ably aided by Joseph. They’re waiting for me on that bench by the door.” She gestured in their direction.
He grimaced and looked unhappy to see them.
“I see. Come, I will escort you to them.” He was all that was agreeable now. Yet she couldn’t shake the feeling that underneath his affable demeanor, he was seething.
The minute he took his leave, she asked Mr. Mason, “Did you find a suitable book for Mr. Leighton?”
Reed had given her a cynical look when she told him where they were going this morning. He probably thought she wished to avoid him after yesterday’s argument (and he was right!) but she didn’t want him to think she had lied about their destination. After his reaction to her going for a drive with Mr. Dubuc the other day, she hadn’t wanted to say she was meeting him again. And she most certainly hadn’t told him she was going to his own attorneys to find out if she was living in the wrong house!
At the investigators nod, she said, “Good. Then, let’s go home. I have a lot of packing to do.”
* * *
What the hell? Reed hopped up from the bed and stalked over to the window and back again. So his suspicions were true. They weren’t married. Tally wasn’t his wife. In fact, she was a complete stranger! His memory had returned in time to prevent him from making a serious mistake. Prior to last night, he’d been pushing her to resume their marital relations.
Resume? Hah!
He stopped. Why, if she believed he’d been coming in to kill her, was she pretending to be his wife?
She said the doctor told her to tell him nothing, but that defied common sense! What woman would take care of a man who she thought had come in to kill her?
The only motive he kept returning to was that she probably thought he’d feel obliged to marry her once they were thoroughly compromised. She must be craving a title like her sister, the Countess.
She had a lot of cheek. She’d even moved into his house!
She painted. Perhaps she was low on funds and heard he had a studio, so she might have thought that while no one was there it wouldn’t hurt anyone if she made use of it.
Look at him! Here he was, so besotted he was making excuses for her! It made more sense that she had connived to be there when he arrived. So she must have known he was coming.
Ah, no! Was this another of his father’s schemes? He’d been certain his father didn’t know about the townhouses, but the old man might have found out. But why set
him up to be caught in a marriage trap with her? She was no Duke’s determined daughter! He had to be missing something.
He’d known their marriage was not a normal one from the beginning, but he’d attributed it to his lack of memory and the fact that he might have done something bad that had put her in danger. How dare she delay his recovery by pretending they were a couple! If he hadn’t been confused by conflicting thoughts, he might have recovered his memory sooner.
He returned to the window. Well, if this was a trap, she and his father could think again! He’d escaped the parson’s trap before and he would again.
He spun around and stomped back to the bed. Damn it! Why should he feel any guilt? He’d done nothing wrong. He was the one who had been hoodwinked.
He rubbed his forehead. Not that she’d taken advantage of their situation, he begrudgingly allowed. He’d have long since had her in his bed had she been willing.
He groaned. His head was sore from the bombardment of memories all trying to crowd into his mind at once. It was made worse by the rage he felt at being betrayed by his imposter of a wife.
He tried to remember how she’d told him they were married the first time but couldn’t. The doctor had called him ‘Mr. Leighton’ that first night. He remembered now. She’d looked shocked. Had it been a spur-of-the-moment plan?
She had refused to answer all his questions or provide him with information. She’d claimed it was the doctor who had ordered her not to do so, but it was clear the reason was because she didn’t know the answers! His fury — mingled, he had to own, with abject disappointment — wouldn’t allow him to give her credit for not feeding him a false life.
She was going to pay for the time she’d made him waste! For the hopes she’d made him yearn for.
He suddenly stopped his angry pacing. Why had he climbed the wall? Why had he been so determined to enter his home in the middle of the night? It would have been easier to go to his club.
Christ! His heart sank into his boots! The documents!
He rushed to the dressing room and grabbed his greatcoat. He felt the material inside the lining at the back. Thank God! He felt almost shaky with relief and decided to leave them in their hiding place. Now what should he do?
The Viscount's Counterfeit Wife Page 35
