by Ingrid Hahn
Up close he was…arresting. She took the measure of the man she was going to trick into marriage. He had distinctive features cut of hard angles—terribly handsome and brutally masculine. But it was the brilliant aquamarine irises that all but did her in. The strength of his gaze nearly suspended the frantic beating of her heart. Lord save her. What would he do when he discovered he’d married Lady Rushworth’s daughter instead of her ward?
It wasn’t right, what Eliza was doing. But at least she was going into the union willingly.
She was so close, but everything could still go horribly wrong.
By her side, Christiana cowered, looking as if she were trying to make herself small and insignificant. Her face paled to an unnatural color, and she kept her head bowed, even as Eliza presented her to the earl.
“Lady Rushworth”—Eliza had to be extremely careful not to call the woman her mother as she sidestepped the question of their early arrival—“chose not to come.”
“You’re in luck. The good reverend came sooner than expected, too. I suppose we might as well get this thing done with.”
She prickled. Get it done with, indeed. “Is the eradication of the debt so important that you’re going to insist upon going through with this absurd scheme?”
The man’s mouth flattened into a critical line. “Forgive me for being unable to give you the answer you want. But you have never been in debt. You don’t know what it’s like to be shadowed by the sins of another.”
Eliza couldn’t answer, but not for the reason the earl might suppose. No, she’d not been shadowed by the sins of another. She’d been shadowed by sins of her own—sins far more dire than debt.
Was there any way she might escape her new husband finding out about what she’d done? He expected a virgin, no doubt. As had Captain Pearson. Unlike the captain, the earl wouldn’t be able to toss her aside and end the engagement. No, they’d be married.
She wouldn’t let her mind wander through that territory—not now. There were too many things to think about, too many implications of her deception to struggle against. What did they matter? She was doing this to save Christiana.
While the earl directed the servants to begin loading their trunks onto his coach, Eliza slipped her hand into her cousin’s and squeezed. It was as much for Christiana as to give herself courage. It was happening. She was about to fool a man into marrying her. And she would forever be in a kind of debt of her own for the consequences of her actions.
Chapter Four
Jeremy prided himself on control. On keeping a cool, level head, no matter what life might throw at him.
He couldn’t stop glancing at the figure who stood beside him as they spoke their marriage vows in his parlor. Women had taken his breath away before. But the first glance at the woman who was to be his wife had made his jaw slacken and his mouth go dry. She utterly redefined his notions of beauty.
She was fixed with the refined elegance of complicated details that worked together to form a pleasingly simple whole. Her face was more square than oval, but the deviation from fashion heightened her allure rather than detracted from it. Because he was so close, he could see minute details—the wide hazel eyes were golden brown around the pupil and moved to blue green at the edge of her iris.
And that dark hair…oh, that dark hair. If she knew what it inspired in him, she might not appear so outwardly calm.
Jeremy’s mind wandered back to the notes they’d exchanged, which drew his gaze back to her yet again. There was fire under that elegant exterior, which intensified his curiosity to unwrap the pretty package.
In more ways than one.
There was the business of heirs to be seen to, and why not beget children with a woman who stirred his blood? This was not the time or the place, however, to be thinking about that. Hell, it wasn’t even an appropriate time to be having the revelation.
He’d had little more than a handful of days to become accustomed to the idea that the choice of wife had been stolen from him. Lady Rushworth was the last person he would have wanted to force a bride upon him.
He’d struggled with himself since that fateful meeting. Was he going to allow her to manipulate him? Apparently so, because just then, as he refocused his attention on the business at hand, the clergyman pronounced them man and wife.
It was done. The final debt was paid, now and forever.
They’d met for the first time not a quarter of an hour ago. They were strangers to one another. And they were bound together for the rest of their lives.
His new wife had turned ashen. The cousin she’d brought with her stood behind them looking shocked. They glanced at one another in silent communication. Saying what, though, he couldn’t have guessed. It was as if they couldn’t believe what had happened.
Jeremy’s brother, Arthur, appeared perfectly disinterested as he went to the sideboard and poured himself a drink. Their mother was in Bath but hadn’t been able to make the trip quickly enough, and so had to forgo the attempt.
So he’d had to make do with Arthur as a witness. Whatever Arthur’s motive for coming, it almost assuredly did not include familial duty. He turned up exclusively when he needed money—money he believed he could wheedle from Jeremy. Unfortunately for him, Jeremy wasn’t about to hand over so much as a ha’penny. If he had, it would be lost over cards before nightfall.
Arthur came to stand by Jeremy’s side, watching Eliza from a distance with an unblinking stare. “I’d wager a good deal of money that nobody in London has seen a bride less pleased than yours is now.”
Jeremy’s teeth clenched at the word “wager.”
“There are few things I despise more than gambling.”
Scandal, maybe, but so long as Arthur stayed clear of childish antics, there was nothing in Jeremy’s life that would drag him into public humiliation.
“And few things I love more.” The focus of Arthur’s attention hadn’t moved. “I must say, she’s far more becoming than I expected her to be.”
The subject of his new wife’s beauty wasn’t a topic he’d discuss with his brother. From a sidelong glance, Jeremy caught his bride holding out her hand to study the ring on her finger. She wasn’t admiring it. It appeared more like she was puzzling over it.
The scene—and his having surreptitiously caught sight of it—pulled on his insides in an odd way he couldn’t name.
“I was surprised when I heard you’d be married secretly.” Arthur sipped the wine, seeming not to notice Jeremy’s reticence. Or, equally likely, not caring. “It’s terribly out of character for you. As close to scandal as you’ll ever come, I daresay. But then I thought, it’s about time you did something to upset the order you so love and live up to the Landon name.”
Inwardly, Jeremy bridled at the suggestion he might do anything scandalous. With his family’s history, he could afford no mistakes. “It wasn’t secret. I told Mother. And you.”
Telling his brother might have been the result of fanciful thinking. They weren’t close. He knew Arthur’s ways. It had seemed necessary for a family member to be present at the occasion. In retrospect, he should have given the impulse more thought.
“Ah, that might have been what you did, but that won’t be the perception. And perception”—he gave Jeremy a sly glance—“is everything.”
“That’s true only if one believes it to be true. And I, for one, don’t believe that for a second.”
Arthur burst into laughter. “You care more about perception than anybody I’ve ever known.”
His brother was baiting him, and he would not rise to the call. Neither, however, could he allow the comment to go unremarked. “I know exactly on which point you’re confused. What you’re mistaking for my caring about perception is actually my caring for the history and legacy of our family, for the people who rely on Idlewood for their livelihood, and for a basic level of integrity and morality—”
“Do you bluster on so in Parliament, too, brother? I daresay I should have you in my bedchamber to blath
er on in just such a manner on nights I can’t sleep.”
Determined not to let Arthur have the better of him, Jeremy left his brother and went to take his new wife’s arm. At her nearness, his blood warmed. She smelled ever so faintly of roses. The light fragrance made him want to step closer. To bend his head and trace the line of her neck as he inhaled the scent of her skin.
He fought against the sensation. It did not bode well to be so easily provoked. Then again, maybe it did. Was pleasure in the company of a beautiful woman a thing to scorn? So long as he could maintain control of himself—and he always did, so he had no reason to worry—he would be safe enough.
“May I call you Elizabeth?” he asked gently.
Her color heightened. Perhaps their closeness did to her what it also did to him? “Nobody calls me Elizabeth. I prefer Eliza.”
Eliza. Simple, yet elegant. Like her.
“It’s perfect.” The words came out lower than he’d anticipated, and much more velvety. Almost as though he was keen to seduce her.
Hell, he might be.
He’d given up quite a lot when he’d become the Earl of Bennington. Like music. Once he’d played the violin. But he was unlikely to ever pick one up again, even if every time it crossed his mind, his fingers flexed and curled to feel the instrument again.
“We’ll be getting an early start. I don’t care for London much, I’m afraid, and I plan to spend little time here.” He’d already seen his man of business. He paid well to see all his affairs were handled so he could avoid town entirely. “We might as well take advantage of the extra time and leave as soon as possible. We have a long day of travel ahead of us. You’re not hungry, are you?”
“No, my lord.”
His mind returned to the notes they’d exchanged. She’d said her heart belonged to another. When he’d read her admission, he hadn’t much cared. The note from his friend the runner who’d looked into Lady Rushworth’s ward had mentioned a soldier she loved. Jeremy had shrugged.
He was sorry to cause anyone pain, yes, but love matches were absurd. There was no guarantee of happiness. His parents had been in love when they’d married. Look what had happened to them. So much anger. So many tears. So many nights he’d found his mother hunched over her dressing table weeping. His mother’s heartbreak. His father’s cold bitterness.
Or worse—his uncle and aunt. His aunt claimed she’d loved the reckless debtor to the end. But the man’s vice had ruined his family. He had ruined all of them, including his daughters, and that was a sin Jeremy could not forgive. Women depended on men, and it was the duty of the stronger sex to protect and care for the weaker.
Love was nothing but a dangerous delusion.
Now that he himself was married, he would fulfill his duties to his wife. No matter how they’d come together, the fact of the matter was, they were linked, perhaps for the remainder of eternity.
Why had Lady Rushworth been so insistent that he marry this woman? She had her own reasons, no doubt. Nefarious and vile. He might never know. It was probably better that way.
A horrible possibility struck him. What if she and the man she’d loved had found a way to be together and she was with child?
How did a man ask such a thing of his new wife? My dear, you don’t happen to be carrying your lover’s child, do you? And what was she supposed to do if she were? Admit the truth?
“We’ll spend most of the day on the road, I’m afraid, but we’ll reach Idlewood by about midday tomorrow.” He cast a glance at Eliza’s cousin, who was still so pale and silent. The girl wouldn’t look at him. Did he frighten her? She was dressed for travel as well. “Am I to understand your cousin will be accompanying us?”
“Indeed, my lord.”
“Very good.” At the back of his mind lingered the knowledge that someone else might be accompanying them as well—the man whose name and memory his wife carried in her heart. Jeremy didn’t care. He wouldn’t care. “I’m pleased you’ll have a companion.”
And all the more pleased he had an excuse to ride alongside the carriage instead of inside with her. With that in mind, he ordered a horse be saddled. When it was ready, the three descended from the house into the street. He helped his wife’s companion into the carriage first and was about to help Eliza.
When she took his hand, she glanced at him as if she hadn’t anticipated his touch. Their eyes met, and they lingered together a moment in the late morning light. An awareness rushed through his blood, warm and strangely—for all his previous dalliances—unfamiliar. Neither spoke.
Did she feel the current? Was it running between them? Or did it affect only him…perhaps it was his lascivious side rearing its ugly head in an inappropriate time and place.
Her gaze dropped, and her cheeks bloomed a rosy pink. Her reaction sent a surge of satisfaction through him. Oh, yes. She felt it, too.
When her mouth opened as if she sought something to say, he couldn’t help himself. He bent. He brushed his lips against hers. They barely touched, but the heat that seared his skin could have made him forget they were in the street where anyone could see them. A jeering tradesman passing with his mule and cart broke the spell.
Eliza started, looking away. Jeremy cleared his throat and helped her the rest of the way into the carriage. When he latched the door shut, his mood soured. By her own account, she’d given her heart to another. He’d told himself he didn’t care. That it didn’t matter because love in marriage was fit only for poets and fools. But he had to admit that being near her and thinking about her loving someone else stirred jealousy he’d believed himself incapable of feeling. He didn’t want to ponder the fact that she loved a man not himself.
And in light of this uncomfortable knowledge, riding horseback to Idlewood was all the more welcome. It was best to put distance between himself and his beautiful new bride.
…
“Are you still awake?” Christiana whispered in the small room at the inn where she and Eliza shared the single narrow bed.
Margaret slept on a pallet and snored softly. The earl had taken his own room.
“Yes.” Eliza was staring at the ceiling. Sleep would be difficult to come by tonight. She was married. There was a gold band on her finger to prove as much. It felt heavy—almost a burden on her conscience, knowing the earl had put the ring on the wrong woman.
Christiana pulled the blanket higher. “What are you going to do when he finds out?”
They’d spent all day in the carriage together, neither of them daring to speak of Eliza’s deception. It didn’t seem real.
Maybe some things were easier to acknowledge in the dark.
“I don’t know.” If only Eliza had a ready answer. What would she do? “Except he can’t find out, can he? Not from another person. I must tell him myself.”
For all Christiana knew, they were talking about the marriage. Nothing else. Eliza, however, was also talking about her greatest sin: she’d lain with a man not her husband.
She and her cousin were wrapped in blackness, but still Eliza had to squeeze her eyes shut as she struggled against an onslaught of painful memories. If she could but speak to her younger self—explain everything to her. Tell her what choice would cost her. Marriage to the captain. Happiness.
And now she’d tricked an earl into marrying her. An earl who believed her to be a virgin and Lady Rushworth’s ward. Her mistake was going to cost her. Again. It was worse than having married the wrong woman. He’d married a ruined woman.
Yet, she closed her eyes and feathered the tips of her fingers over her lips. The kiss they’d shared outside the carriage hadn’t been much of anything. She’d gotten and received more affection from cats.
The earl, however, was a far cry from a cat. The nearness of him had made her shiver. And when his skin had brushed against hers, she’d gone warm in thoroughly indecent places. It would have been welcome were there not these secrets between them.
“Do you think…” Christiana’s voice wavered. “Do you think I s
hould have given up Tom and married Lord Bennington myself?”
“What?” Eliza grabbed her cousin’s hand, squeezing it reassuringly. “No. I do not think that. Not at all.”
“It seems so unspeakably selfish. What you did—”
“I did it because I wanted to do it. I wanted to preserve your chance at happiness.”
“But what about yours? Now you’ll never be able to find love.”
Eliza was silent. “Love isn’t what everyone wants in a marriage.” Once it had been what Eliza wanted. Not anymore.
“I’m willing to believe that.” Christiana’s voice went to a low whisper. “But what you did—”
“Shh. It’s done. There is no use thinking about what else we might have attempted.”
“I can never repay you.”
Eliza started. “Repay me? Banish the thought from your mind this instant. I expect only one thing in return—that you choose your own husband wisely.”
“There will never be anybody for me but Tom.”
After losing Captain Pearson, Eliza had worked for years to accept that she wasn’t destined for love. Not a romantic love, the kind her friend Grace had found, or the kind to which Christiana clung.
At last she knew why. Fate had saved her to be able to help Christiana instead. It was a different kind of love. Her role was as an instrument. Not as a vessel.
But that was one more secret to keep. One more item in her collection she tended alone, protecting those she loved from awful truths.
She’d thought she’d long put away those childish sentiments. Marrying the earl today had brought old heartaches to the surface.
“Then in all the ways that matter, I did the right thing.”
She prayed she’d remain so certain of her convictions when the time came to confess to her husband.
Chapter Five
By rights, Jeremy’s new wife should have been with him. Not next door with her companion and maid. It would be damned hard to wait—a point on which the erection straining at his falls agreed—but Jeremy was determined not to take her to bed until they reached Idlewood. An inn was no place for a wedding night.
