“How far are you headed?” Alasdair called toward the front of the vehicle. The man shrugged.
“Far enough.”
“It sounds as though you and he are related; neither one of you wishes to share information,” Mary said in a low voice.
“We understand each other,” Alasdair replied in a lofty tone.
What did that mean? Men. Mary shook her head.
Alasdair flung his right arm over her shoulders and pulled her close in to him. “We should be in London tomorrow, if we can catch another ride when this gentleman here lets us out.”
London. Where she and Alasdair would have the resources to confront Hugh. Where she might decide she could trust her husband. Or not.
The sharp heartache that came with that thought reminded her of her father. Was it really such a short while ago that she’d lost him?
“Did you remember to pack my book?” she asked as panic washed over her.
What if it was lost? What if she had nothing to remember him by?
Alasdair dug into the bag, his hair flopping into his eyes as his head leaned forward. “Here you are,” he said, holding it out to her.
As she took it, their fingers brushed—his, still elegantly long and aristocratic, hers still bearing the calluses of the work she’d done at her father’s house. The contrast was a stark reminder of the differences between them.
If they had met on equal terms, would he have ever spoken to her? Much less married her?
She pushed the thoughts from her head and opened the book, keenly aware of Alasdair’s heavy silence beside her. She ran her palm over the worn cover, thumbing through the pages with her other hand.
She felt a bump on the inside back of the book. What was that? She slipped her left index finger into a tiny slit she’d never noticed before, and withdrew a small slip of paper. She balanced the book on her lap and unfolded it.
It was obviously very old, and covered with crabbed, faded handwriting. This certifies that Mr. Charles Smith and Miss Mary Baynter were married on this day, February 27, 1788.
Married. Her father had married her mother just a few days before she was born.
Her sudden stillness must have alerted Alasdair that something was wrong. “What is it?” he asked in an urgent tone. She handed the paper to him without replying.
He read quickly, then turned his sharp gaze to her. “When is your birthday?” he asked.
“March 5, 1788.”
“So you’re not illegitimate after all.” He stared down at the paper again. “Baynter. I know that name.”
He frowned as he thought.
Mary’s heart raced. Not illegitimate. Images of what her life could have been like if her mother and father had lived together at the vicarage flashed through her mind, racing too fast for her to hold on to with anything but regret.
And no Matthias. Her father wouldn’t have married her stepmother. Her brother wouldn’t have been able to run through her father’s money, nor sold her at auction.
Which meant she never would have met Alasdair.
He snapped his fingers. “Baynter, of course. Your mother is now Lady Stainton. Her husband is George Aylesbury, Earl of Stainton. Your stepfather. Last I heard of him, he was very active in the Foreign Office.”
“Have you met her?” The reality of her mother being a real, living, breathing person hadn’t struck Mary with so much force until now.
He frowned in thought. “No. I might have seen her once, but I couldn’t say for sure.”
He spoke again in a matter-of-fact tone, as if he knew expressing any emotion would cause more havoc for her. “Having proof of your mother’s marriage will make it impossible for her to deny you. Of course, it means her marriage to Lord Aylesbury is invalid.”
Mary’s already racing heart sped up even faster. Just what she’d feared all along. What if her mother didn’t want to see her?
“Once she understands you are married to me, however, there shouldn’t be any problem. We can deal with it. It just might take a plan.” He winked at her.
She tried to summon up a smile, however weak.
“Now look, love, don’t look so woebegone.” He squeezed her shoulder. “This is good news, isn’t it?”
“I didn’t plan for this.” She spoke in a dry whisper.
Alasdair leaned his head closer to her. “Pardon?”
Mary turned and looked at him. She was so close she could have counted his eyelashes if she’d wanted to. “I didn’t plan for this,” she repeated. “I don’t know what to do. What to think.”
Alasdair pulled her tight into the circle of his arms and held her.
She felt the rush of tears close her throat and prickle her eyes.
“Go ahead, love,” he said. “It will be all right.”
She sobbed into his coat, drawing strength from his embrace.
Merry Mary had finally encountered something even she couldn’t overcome.
***
“Shh, love.” Alasdair knew he hadn’t lost his heart completely, because it was aching in sympathy for Mary. His Mary.
Now he could admit he was addicted to something far more intoxicating than opium: her.
He held her close, waiting for her shuddering sobs to subside. “I’m sorry,” she said after a few minutes. “I don’t know wh—”
“Sssh, it’s fine,” he replied. He lowered his mouth and kissed the top of her head. One of her curls tickled his nose. He blew it away from his face. “You are so strong, Mary. You can—we can—handle this.”
She raised her face to his. Her face was wet, and tears sparkled in her eyelashes. Her reddened eyelids made her blue eyes stand out even more vividly. “Her name is Mary. Does she know about me? Did she think I died? Did she know her husband—her real husband—was alive all this time?” Her voice had an edge of hysteria to it.
Exactly the sort of questions that were racing through his mind, only it wouldn’t do her any good to worry about anything until they got to London.
He pulled her close and relaxed only when he heard her breathing slow, felt her body settle against him again. “Rest. If our farmer here goes as far as I think he is going, we’ll only have another few miles to London.”
“I don’t know,” she replied in a querulous voice, “how you know that.”
“Do not question me, woman,” he said, mocking her.
“Hmph.” She reached her right hand up and clasped the hand that was dangling over her shoulder. She kissed it, then snuggled in closer.
It was the kind of gesture a comfortable lover would make; it was Alasdair’s first moment of real tenderness.
Realizing that made his bitter rage, never too far from the surface, roil inside.
Yes, he was lucky right now with Mary, but what would happen once they arrived in London? What would happen when she was given the opportunity to be in Society as she should have been all along, when she met men, kind men who never argued with a female, who never allowed themselves to show weakness?
And what would happen the first time he encountered temptation again? Would he be strong enough to resist his addiction, given funds, and time, and no one—except her and his own conscience—to tell him no?
He clutched her tighter. He had to stay strong.
Chapter 23
“This is as far south as I go. Not goin’ into that hellhole,” the farmer said. He nodded toward the buildings in the distance, shrouded by a thick layer of fog. “Mebbe too early to catch another ride, but it can’t be more’n a few miles.” His tone made it clear he didn’t think too highly of anyone who would want to venture into the city.
Mary blinked, righting herself from within the circle of Alasdair’s arms. Her husband’s arms. She looked where the farmer had gestured, and saw more buildings than she could have possibly imagined.
London. Where she would have to convince a group of aristocrats that it was entirely possible and natural that this man, this marquess, should have chosen her. Indeed, that he was entirely sane
for having done so. In spite of what his cousin might say to the contrary.
Suddenly, she wished she were back in her father’s house instructing the local village girls on proper grammar. There she had been in control. Here she would be lying—which she did badly, she knew—with everything depending on it.
“Well?” He’d already lifted himself out of the back of the cart and stood in front of her, an impatient look on his face. She scrambled out, making sure she had her book, clutching her cloak tightly around her in the chill of the morning.
It was just barely light out, and the city already looked intimidatingly large.
“Thank you, sir,” Alasdair said to the farmer, giving him a brief nod. The man just nodded in return and leapt up to the seat, clucking to the horses and setting off before Mary could add her thanks.
“Well?” he said again, holding his arm out for her as though they were at a ball, and not on a dirt road at dawn. She took it and they began to walk.
He cleared his throat. “I realize this will be difficult for you.”
“Why, because I have no conception of how to behave in polite society? Because I have never seen, much less met, more than fifty people? Because your cousin will be trying to convince everyone who matters that you are—”
“Addled?” he supplied, an amused tone to his voice.
“Precisely. Addled.” She would not be charmed by him, not now, when she was so agitated. “You might not have a care for yourself, but …” She stopped before she told him the truth. Even though she’d promised him she would.
“I didn’t care,” he said, holding her arm closer. “I didn’t when we met, that should have been clear. But now …” He paused in the road and turned to her, putting his fingers on her chin and tilting her face up. “Now I find I do care about myself again. And for you.”
The depth of emotion in his eyes nearly undid her. He lowered his face as though to kiss her, but stopped just inches from her mouth. “I had been planning to rescue you, ensure your safety, and then succumb again to the drug, until it all reached its inevitable conclusion.”
It took her a moment to comprehend what he was saying, especially since he was so close, and she was longing for his touch again. When she did, a horrified feeling crept over her, making her spine tingle. “But—but that’s a sin!” she blurted out, stepping away from him.
His lips twisted into a wry smile. “Hardly the first I’ve committed. Although it would likely be the last.”
She ignored his attempt at humor. “You meant to, to let yourself die? To kill yourself?” How could he be so cavalier as to mention it? As though it were just a passing notion he’d dismissed?
He shrugged and took her arm again. “It’s not as though I am still planning to do that.” Now he sounded like the high-handed lord she remembered from their first encounters. When Matthias and his collaborator had sold her to him. Not the man who’d held her because he needed to, nor the one who’d held her when she’d been hurting, both physically and emotionally.
She forced herself to speak calmly. “What are you planning, then?” Perhaps he had plans for her, as well.
He uttered a derisive snort. “As you know, I am not in the planning line. That is your area of expertise.” He paused, and when the silence grew almost too much for her to bear, he spoke again, this time in a softer tone. “I need you, Mary. I am not sure I can withstand the addiction without you. But your touch, you, your very presence—it makes me able to ignore the siren call of the drug.”
She bit her lip so she wouldn’t say what she was thinking, that he’d merely replaced one addiction with another. That he didn’t care for her, not as a person, but only as a way to assuage the pain. Perhaps any softhearted woman would do. Preferably one who planned less and agreed more.
It was definitely a lowering thought.
How could she live with him, knowing that?
The Mary he’d met, the one who’d been sold at auction, might have accepted the situation. But the Mary she’d become, the one who’d chosen to love him, would not be with him if it meant she would always know she was merely a panacea. She could not choose that for herself.
Love, she’d discovered, was anything but a soft, gentle, comforting feeling. It tore you apart, made your insides turn to jelly, made your heart ache.
“Mary? Have I shocked you?” His voice cut through her thoughts, forcing her to focus on the here, the now. She was with him, at least until he—not she—was safe.
Then she would have to muster the courage, the strength, the selfishness, to leave him. She shook her head. “No, I should be accustomed to your plans by now.” She spoke without rancor. Without a hint of all that was teeming in her brain.
She would truly be in hell if she left him. But at least the hell would be of her making, not his.
“You will have to instruct me on how to behave in aristocratic circles.” Perhaps if she concentrated on her immediate responsibilities, she wouldn’t have to think too hard about the future.
“You will be fine.” He was using that lordly tone of voice that set her teeth on edge, and it sounded like an order. Perhaps it wouldn’t be so difficult to leave after all.
They were closer to the city now, and Mary could see individual buildings in the distance. Smaller than the ones further away, but still larger and more plentiful than any she’d seen before. She couldn’t see any people yet, they were still too far away, but just the sight of the chimneys, and the smoke swirling in the sky above, made her stomach hurt.
“The first thing,” he said, “is always to behave as though you have every right to be where you are, doing precisely what you are doing.” It took a moment for her to realize he was answering her question.
“That explains you, then,” she muttered.
He chuckled. “The next thing it is essential to keep in mind is that everyone is just as anxious as you.”
“I very much doubt it,” she said, feeling her grip tighten on his arm. She needed to ensure he was out of danger from anyone who might harm him, or she would never be able to escape. That would be cause for anxiety, even if she knew precisely what to do and when to do it.
“And last is always to be properly clothed for the occasion, much as I prefer it when you are unclothed.” He glanced at her, a heated look in those green eyes.
The look kindled something else low and coiling in her belly. At least she would be with him while she was here—she could take advantage of him, of her husband, as often as she desired to.
“Excellent,” she replied sarcastically. “All I need is to believe I am superior to all others in my vicinity while wearing clothing I do not, in fact, own. This is your plan, my lord?”
“Yes.”
“Small wonder you were so successful as a lieutenant colonel in the army, then.”
“And as a husband, wife,” he rejoined, causing her to emit an unwilling chuckle.
***
They were at the outskirts of town now, encountering a few early risers on the road as they kept walking toward the city. By now, Alasdair could have found a way to send word to his town house and order one of his conveyances, but he wanted to keep her to himself for just a bit longer. Soon enough they’d be with people, and servants—whom Mary would remind him were people as well—and their time alone would be confined to when they went to bed.
Which, Alasdair reflected, was a very pleasant thought.
What would it be like to lie down with her at night, every night, and be able to enjoy their coupling without fear of discovery?
It had taken him until now to realize just how necessary she’d become to him. Her touch soothed him in a way the drug never could; her presence kept him from the darkest thoughts in his mind. He needed her. He wanted her.
And he could have her. For now, for always.
All he needed to do was convince the ton that his choice of her was entirely reasonable, so that Hugh would have no basis for continuing to insinuate that Alasdair was insane.
He glanced toward her. Her head was tilted up as she regarded the city ahead of them, her eyes wide, her lips parted. She was as lovely as anything he’d ever seen. How could the world not see her as he did?
Of course, if they did, he would find himself in the throes of jealous rage, so perhaps it was just as well that they did not.
He hoped the letter he’d sent so long ago, from the very first inn they’d stayed at together, had reached them. That would remove at least one of her worries, and it would be a pleasure to see her dressed as befit her.
How had she become so valuable, so precious to him in such a short amount of time? He’d been hoping for release from life as little as a week ago, and now he was determined to spend every minute with her.
She made him feel better than any opiate ever could. And he was addicted to her as surely as he had been to those little brown pills.
Chapter 24
“My lord, welcome home.” The butler who greeted them at the door was perfectly turned out, pressed and correct and regal, and completely intimidating.
“Thank you.” Alasdair tossed his travel-worn, grass-stained, wrinkled coat off his shoulders without looking. The butler caught it with an imperturbable expression. “Mary, this is Dawkins. Dawkins, this is my wife.”
“It is an honor to meet you,” Dawkins said, bowing. He showed no sign of surprise.
“Please have Cook make us something to be served in the dining room in an hour. And assemble the staff right away.”
“Of course, my lord.” Dawkins bowed and marched off without so much as another glance at Mary.
“You have excellent help,” Mary said.
“You sound surprised. What, you didn’t think an unscrupulous renegade like me would be able to keep good servants?” He put his hand on her arm and cocked his head. “Brace yourself. The staff will be joining us. Just follow my lead, and you’ll do fine.”
“You mean,” she murmured back, “look forbidding and dare anyone to ask a question of me? Maybe I should just sprout wings and fly around the room while I’m at it.”
Megan Frampton Page 20
