Unmasked by the Marquess

by Cat Sebastian

  “Robin.” His expression was almost comically grim. Surely one day she would see the humor in having been proposed to in such a manner. He reached for her but she stepped away. “I’ve . . . we’ve been together twice. I can’t not offer for you.”

  Did he think that would help the matter? He was an idiot, then. She was in love with an absolute fool. “How dare you? How dare you fuck me against the wall and then treat me like a damsel in need of respectability?” She felt her anger gathering speed, like a cart rolling downhill. “Do you think I ought to be grateful that you condescended to offer for me at all? I’m not a lady. I’m not the sort of person who requires marriage after a tupping.”

  “What rot. Besides, I am the type who requires marriage.”

  “Oh, to hell with you and your requirements.” She tried to set her clothing right, tucking in her shirt and straightening her lapels, more to give her something to do with her hands than out of any concern for what she looked like at the moment. “Do you even realize how insulting that is? You don’t want to be like your father—who, by the way, doesn’t seem to have been half so bad a fellow as you think. But you need to keep your honor intact, so you throw around offers of marriage like you might toss coins to a harlot after having your way with her.”

  He crossed his arms in front of his chest. “I’ve never asked anyone to marry me before in my life, I’ll have you know.” Now he was angry too. Good. It was so unsatisfying to be the only one fixing for a fight.

  “Perhaps that’s because you generally prefer men.” A low blow, but so was a marriage proposal.

  “Unfair, Charity. I don’t have any preference on that score, and well you know it. And if you’re under the impression that I find lying with men to be less problematic than lying with women who are not my wife, then you’re even more confused about propriety than I thought.”

  Excellent. Now they were openly insulting one another and this was a proper fight. “Your offer presumes that you somehow damaged me and that I need marriage to undo the harm. That I’d be better off as your wife than I am on my own.”

  That must have hit home because his nostrils flared with anger. “I should very well think you’d be a good deal better off as Lady Pembroke than as. . . .” He gestured at her, evidently unable to explain in words who or what she was.

  “Have you given this any thought at all?” Oh, he was lost to all reason, the poor bastard. She tried to hide her mounting anger and frustration behind a facade of calm, and kept her voice steady, as if she were trying to persuade a frightened child to come down from a tree. “If you marry me—if you marry Charity Church, that is—then what happens to Robert Selby?”

  “It would have to be carefully managed, of course, but with a little money put into the right hands we could see our way through. I was thinking a boating accident, perhaps.”

  She felt sick. “You mean for Robert Selby to die.” It was no more or less than what she already knew had to happen, but hearing Alistair suggest it in his commanding, lordly manner made it so much worse. She felt that he was suggesting an act of violence, an actual murder or suicide, or as if he were asking her to cut off her own leg.

  “I gather that he must, in order to let the estate pass to the rightful heir.”

  “So Robert Selby dies,” she repeated, her mouth dry. “And what happens to me?”

  “You leave town for a time, then come back—properly attired, and so forth—as Charity Church. That is your legal name, is it not? Otherwise I’ll have my solicitors draw up a list of foundlings born in Northumberland and you can avail yourself of one of those names.”

  She would be completely erased. It was to be as if she had never been born, as if the last twenty-four years had never happened. She had hoped that even in killing off Robert Selby, she could still be herself, but Alistair wanted to take that from her.

  He didn’t understand any of that, though. He was rich, and a man, and an arrogant bastard, and he couldn’t possibly know what it was like to have nothing but a name, and a false one at that. She took a deep breath and forced her voice steady. “I have spent over five years as Robert Selby. I haven’t worn a gown since Robbie died and I don’t want to. I don’t know how to be a woman, let alone a lady, and certainly not a fucking marchioness. And Alistair, I don’t want to even try.” For Louisa, she would have killed off Robert Selby and suffered the cost of that sacrifice. But not under any circumstance would she live as a woman.

  He was silent for a moment. “Men have more freedom. I understand that. But I assure you that as Lady Pembroke you’d have as much freedom as any woman in the nation.”

  She shook her head. He still didn’t understand. “It’s not about freedom.” She didn’t think she could explain the utter impossibility of her living as a woman. She could hardly articulate it to herself. So she tried a different approach. “Besides, you’d be so ashamed of me. I’d be aware of that every day. You ought to have married someone a decade ago, Alistair. Someone perfect and pretty.”

  “I want to marry you. I want you.” He looked perfectly earnest. The insufferable shite didn’t hear an insult when it came from his own mouth. She would have laughed if she didn’t want to throw a chair at him.

  “How long would it take for your first flush of righteous satisfaction to pass? How long before you realized you had contracted a marriage that had made you a laughingstock? And I assure you, you would be. I have no idea how to behave as a lady and no intention of acquiring that knowledge.” No matter how much she loved him, there were limits to what she would do for him, and she was only now realizing what they were. “You’d be ashamed. Here me now, Alistair, I do not want anything to do with your shame.” Goddammit, she had enough of her own problems without borrowing anyone else’s.

  He turned away from her to face the room’s single window. He smoothed his hair as if he could see his reflection. “I don’t want this to end,” he said without turning around.

  “I don’t want it to end either.” Certainly not like this, she didn’t.

  But what they wanted didn’t matter.

  Chapter Thirteen

  What did other men do after suffering such a setback? What was the received course of action after being dealt such a crushing blow? Alistair was fairly certain most men found their solace at the bottom of a bottle. Ordinarily he sneered at drunkenness, but today he didn’t feel equal to questioning the wisdom of the ages.

  At White’s he set to work at draining an entire bottle of brandy. When the bottle was three quarters empty—he had no idea how many hours had passed, and didn’t care in the slightest, because if time could be measured in brandy bottles then so be it—Hugh Furnival lowered himself into a nearby chair.

  “Ah, I fear it didn’t go as you planned, did it, Pembroke?”

  Now, what could Furnival know of the matter? More importantly, why was the man pouring himself a glass of Alistair’s brandy? Alistair snatched the bottle away. “No, it most certainly did not.” The words were hard to form, his tongue curiously heavy. But his mind, ah, his mind was light.

  “It makes no sense, I tell you. When I saw you leave that house, I said, poor Pembroke, pity the blighter. If he can’t make it work, who can?” Furnival shook his head sympathetically. “You’d think a girl would be glad to marry a marquess.”

  Yes! That was precisely it. Why wasn’t she glad? Not only to be married to a marquess—which objectively was a fine thing, Alistair was quite certain—but to be married to him in particular. They got along famously, did they not? That alone was more than most marriages had at the beginning. “I will never understand women.”

  Furnival made a sound that Alistair interpreted as full-throated agreement. “I dare say Selby is as upset as you are, though.”

  This was a level of insight Alistair hadn’t expected to find in Furnival. “Quite right. Selby’s furious with me.”

  “With you? I dare say you did as best as you could. It’s not your fault the girl can’t listen to reason.”

&nb
sp; “Exactly!” Oh, this was something, to have such a kindred soul at his side. Furnival was a treasure. A diamond. A—

  “Excuse me, Furnival, but I need to speak to my brother.”

  Alistair looked up and saw Gilbert looming over him. He looked angry—everybody was so angry today.

  “You ought to have some brandy, Gilbert.” He held out the bottle but quickly reconsidered. “But you’ll need to order your own bottle. This one’s mine.”

  The younger man made a frustrated noise and grabbed the bottle from Alistair’s hand, thrusting it at Furnival. He then took Alistair’s arm and hauled him to his feet. “I’m taking you home.”

  This was an excellent idea. There was brandy at home, as well as enough wine to keep him going until he didn’t care about Robin or anything else. Gilbert was brilliant to have thought of it. “You’re a genius,” he said, squeezing his brother’s arm. “I never had any idea. Always thought you a bit poky.”

  “You’re filthy drunk, Alistair, and need to stop talking until we’re in the carriage.”

  The ride home did a good deal to discompose Alistair’s mind as well as his stomach. What had Furnival been talking about? Why were carriages so damned bouncy? So many questions.

  “Public drunkenness, on top of whatever it was that happened at the Selbys’ house earlier.” Gilbert looked out the window, as if it pained him too much to see his brother in such a low state. “I hardly know what to think.”

  Alistair tried to summon up some dignity. “What happened at the Selbys’ house was a marriage proposal.” And screwing against the wall, but they had been quiet about that. Hadn’t they?

  “Right.” Gilbert snorted. “A marriage proposal. You didn’t even speak to Louisa about it.”

  “Why the devil should I have said anything to Louisa?”

  Gilbert slammed his hand into the seat. “Just listen to yourself. Christ. I literally never want to hear you speak ill of our father again. At least he was honest about who he was and who he loved.”

  “It would have been more convenient for all of us if he had remembered to love his wife rather than a string of—”

  “Mother never gave a damn about Father’s affairs. That was their arrangement and none of our business. And she’s been dead ten years, so I think you can stop pretending that your hatred of Father had anything to do with her.”

  Pretending! Hatred! Alistair objected on every conceivable ground, but before he could manage to make his brain formulate a coherent response, the carriage rolled to a stop.

  “Go to bed, Alistair,” Gilbert said when they reached the doorway. “Don’t let him have a drop to drink,” he told the butler. “You remember how the late marquess got when he was low.”

  Hopkins, blast him, had the gall to bow his head and say, “I quite understand, Lord Gilbert.”

  Alistair fell asleep on top of his bedcovers, still dressed right down to his boots, which meant that he was a dozen different kinds of uncomfortable the first time he woke up that night. And he must have woken a dozen times before the sun rose.

  With dawn came a cottony mouth, a throbbing headache, and the realization that what he had offered Robin was a paltry thing compared to what she needed. He had rank and consequence, a reputation of unmarred respectability, and an adequate fortune. But they would only be shackles to Robin. She did not want to be dressed in a gown or kept in a fine house. She wanted freedom, and she couldn’t have it as Lady Pembroke.

  The recollection that there were surely dozens of other women, all with more to recommend them than a smattering of freckles and a checkered past, who would jump at the chance to become his wife, did nothing to soothe him. By the time he had taken headache powder and rung for a bath, he was beginning to wonder whether he was as shackled by his fortune and position as Robin would have been.

  The sun had set hours ago and the house had grown quiet. Charity climbed into her narrow bed more from lack of a better plan than out of any hope that sleep would come.

  Surely, Alistair had known she would refuse his proposal. If he had wanted to continue their affair, he could have offered her a post as his secretary. That would establish her in his household, give them access to one another day and night, and not require her to don what now felt like a mortifying costume. She could continue as Robert Selby; she would not need to lose her friends or abandon her pursuits. The only problem was that she would need to continue stealing from Clifton.

  But perhaps Alistair could have done something with his rank and fortune to quietly get Fenshawe transferred to Maurice Clifton. Entails could be broken, Clifton’s cooperation could be bought. Somehow.

  These weren’t gifts she would ever have dared ask for, not from Alistair and not from anyone else. But what he had offered her instead—marriage, her mind simply reeled with the inanity of it—was so much more costly to him than a few pounds and a secretarial position, that she was astonished he hadn’t thought of it himself.

  He must have not given this any consideration at all. He ought to be positively ashamed by his failure of imagination, his want of reason. If he had spent five quiet minutes turning the matter over in his stuffy little brain, he would have realized what a terrible marchioness she would make. He set so much store in being a model of rectitude, a pillar of sodding society. Even if, somehow, they managed to overcome the constant threat of her fraud and deceit being exposed, she would forever be making mistakes a real lady wouldn’t. She would cause him a lifetime of shame. Did he imagine that a change of costume and name would effect a transformation of her entire personality? Her identity, even?

  Evidently he did. That’s precisely what he thought. He supposed she put on the character of Robert Selby the way one might wear a new hat, and that she could just as easily dispense with that persona and return to being Charity Church. And he thought Charity Church, who the last anybody had heard had been a foundling and disgraced housemaid, could simply slip into the role of Lady Pembroke.

  Charity Church. She felt like she was being asked to resurrect someone long dead. She had been eighteen when she first cut her hair and put on Robbie’s clothes. She had experienced over five years of love and loss and fear and hope, but she felt like all those things happened to somebody other than Charity.

  There was a scratching at her door. Charity sat up in bed. “Come in.” She didn’t want to see anyone, but at this point any distraction would be welcome.

  It was Aunt Agatha, wearing a voluminous dressing gown, her gray hair in a plait down her back. “I brought you a sleeping draught. I heard you tossing and turning and thought you might need it.”

  “Thank you,” Charity said, reaching for the glass. Aunt Agatha was not a regular visitor to her bedchamber. They didn’t even usually converse. Charity had sometimes wondered whether the elderly lady even remembered that Charity wasn’t really her nephew. She certainly never acknowledged it. For Charity’s part, she had long since stopped thinking of the lady as Miss Cavendish.

  The older woman didn’t sit, instead standing at the foot of Charity’s bed. “Is it true that you’re considering a match with the marquess?”

  Charity bent her head over the glass to hide her surprise. There was no shilly-shallying around the matter for Agatha Cavendish, was there? “Considering is too strong a word. He made an offer and I declined.” And how had Aunt Agatha even guessed that marriage was even on the table?

  She took a tentative sip of the sleeping draught. It smelled like orange water but tasted like honey mixed with something much more nefarious. Likely laudanum. Good. Charity couldn’t think of any other way she would fall asleep tonight.

  “If he keeps asking, will you have the strength to keep refusing? I recall you being highly persuadable where handsome men are concerned.”

  Of all the things she had to remember, it had to be that? True, Robbie had persuaded her to go to Cambridge, had persuaded her into his bed, had persuaded her to participate in all manner of harebrained schemes. But she had wanted to go to university. S
he had certainly wanted to go to bed with him. It hadn’t taken all that much in the way of persuasion. It was part of their game. By God, they had been so very young.

  “Would it be so bad if I did accept?” she asked. “I’m very fond of him.”

  “Child.” She shook her head. “I know you’re fond of him. That’s the problem.”

  It was. If only she didn’t like him so much. If only she didn’t love him. Then she could . . . she didn’t rightly know what. Her head was starting to feel like it was stuffed with cotton wool.

  “What am I to do?” She spoke aloud, but didn’t expect an answer. There was no answer.

  “Young Robert did you a disservice when he raised you above your station. I wish I knew what will become of you when this is over, but I can assure you that Lord Pembroke has no part in it. A man like him, if he knew half of what you had been up to, would have you sent to Newgate as soon as look at you.”

  But he did know. He knew a good deal more than half, in fact. If only her head were clearer, she would calculate the precise percentage of her wrongdoings that he was aware of. And for all that knowledge, he hadn’t sent her to Newgate. Instead, he had offered to marry her.

  She was about to explain this to Aunt Agatha, but she was so very tired. She was going to fall asleep, and it was such a relief to know that her eyes would close and she could spend a few hours not turning this matter over and over in her mind. She lay back on her pillow and let sleep overtake her.

  Chapter Fourteen

  Charity didn’t even need to lift her head from the pillow to know that something was wrong. The room was too bright. She was used to rising before eight, but now it looked to be nearly midday.