Unmasked by the Marquess

by Cat Sebastian

  It was true. When they met, he had been so dour, so coldly respectable. His chief concern had been repairing and maintaining his family legacy and bank accounts. Two months ago he would no sooner have allowed his brother to marry Louisa than he would have let Gilbert go on stage. But tonight, in between lingering kisses, Alistair had simply stated that Gilbert’s affairs were his own.

  She didn’t know if she had single-handedly worked this magic, but she did know that if she stayed around him he wouldn’t be happy for long. Even if, improbably, they managed to circumvent all the obstacles that lay in their path, he would soon enough realize that he was saddled with a wife who fell lamentably short of his own exacting standards.

  They were approaching the Trout farm now. She touched Gilbert’s arm. “After this is all done, you’ll take care of him, won’t you? You and Louisa will be all he has.” Thank God it was dark and he couldn’t see the tears in her eyes.

  Alistair woke to the sound of paper sliding across the bare wood floor. The sun was beginning to slant through the clouded windows. When he reached out for Robin, he found the bed empty and the covers cool. Of course. She would have left hours ago in order to return unobserved to the farm.

  He sat up in bed and retrieved his spectacles from the bedside table, taking his time polishing them and putting them on before padding across the room to where the single sheet of paper lay folded by the door sill. He eyed it suspiciously for a moment, as if it were a half-dead bird brought in by an overzealous dog. There was no possibility that a note slipped under an inn door at daybreak could signify anything pleasant.

  With a sigh of resignation, he bent and picked it up. The paper was the cheap, flimsy stuff the inn provided, and the handwriting was Gilbert’s messy schoolboy scrawl.

  Dear Alistair,

  I know this is dashed havey-cavey for all of us to run off like this but Miss C says it’s the only way, and I hope you’ll forgive me. I’ll send word as soon as Louisa and I are married.

  P.S. We’ll take Mrs. P home.

  P.P.S. Miss C has your horse.

  He supposed he ought to be grateful that he had any note at all, even such an afterthought as this one. How long had they been planning to abandon him here? Had Robin known last night that she would disappear on the morrow? Had Gilbert known as they dined that it would be their last meal together? Exactly how thoroughly had he been conspired against?

  For God’s sake, Gilbert was now in possession of the special license Alistair had sent for. If acquiring the license wasn’t enough to prove that he supported this marriage, what else was there? Was Alistair not to be granted the chance to see his brother married? Was he such an ogre, as Robin had called him, that his nearest and dearest didn’t trust him to keep his peace at a wedding, and instead ran away to get married in secret?

  Evidently so.

  An even worse explanation occurred to him: perhaps Robin, whose presence was required at the marriage as Miss Selby’s putative guardian, simply never wanted to see him again. Was that the reason for his shunning?

  She had told him that last night was their farewell. She had made no secret of it. But it hadn’t needed to be like this, fleeing in the dead of night. It hadn’t needed to be so immediate.

  As he stared at this sorry letter—shabbily done, Gilbert—his sense of loss slowly ebbed away, replaced by a tide of much more palatable anger. Good. Anger he could work with. Too bad he knew it for the temporary reprieve it was. It would soon burn off and leave him bereft of even the comfort of his righteous indignation.

  But for now he was livid with rage, and he welcomed it.

  He rang for his valet to pack his portmanteau and have the curricle readied, all the while pretending that he had planned all along to leave this godforsaken inn and was merely a few hours behind his companions. He had no idea where he ought to go, but he knew he couldn’t stay here, stewing and seething.

  He mustn’t have done a very good job at pretending, though, because his valet and groom took one look at him and declared as one that they would ride back to London in a hired cart with the baggage.

  On the way out of Little Hatley, Alistair stopped at the Trout farm on the chance that Mrs. Trout could give him any indication of where the women had gone. But the farmer’s wife only told him what he already knew: the ladies had left at daybreak, Mrs. Potton and Miss Selby riding in the carriage with Gilbert and the now-recovered coachman riding outside, and Miss Church on Alistair’s horse.

  He had nearly forgotten that detail in Gilbert’s letter. Robin was a horse thief now, in addition to her manifold other crimes. And why that ought to make him want to smile instead of curse was a mystery for the ages. He would give her a dozen horses, each finer than the last, if that was what she needed. Even if he never saw her again, even if he never so much as heard her name again, if only he could be assured that she was safe and well.

  Thanking Mrs. Trout for all she had done during Miss Selby’s convalescence, he counted out enough coins to pay the maid’s wages through the end of the quarter. Then he thought better of it, and added a few more sovereigns, enough to pay the girl for the next twelvemonth.

  There was something about having lost his heart and having been prepared to lose his respectability that made him free with his spending. He had, even with the constraints imposed by his father’s profligacy, more money than he needed. With a few coins that meant little to him, he could grant this woman who had been kind to Charity and her daft sister-in-law the luxury of a maid for a year. He didn’t know what precisely that meant for a woman in Mrs. Trout’s circumstances—probably nothing more than a set of hands to churn the butter or rock the cradle, which, by the looks of the lady, was to be required this summer. For Alistair, those same coins wouldn’t even buy a new waistcoat.

  Turning his curricle onto the London road, he recalled that his father had used much the same rationale to justify spending absurd sums of money. If the flowers he sent his favorite opera dancers cost less than a mere tin of hair powder, then how could it be an extravagance? Of course, he had then proceeded to buy the hair powder as well as the bouquets, and a good many other things besides, and that was why Alistair’s ledgers had only recently started to add up properly.

  Still, it was disconcerting to find that there was any common ground he shared with his father, and it had been happening more and more lately. Ever since he met Robin, he had behaved in a way that a few months ago he would have considered reckless, shameful, wrong. It was more than reckless spending and condoning Gilbert’s lack of career and improvident marriage. Christ, if Alistair had gotten his way, the next Marchioness of Pembroke would have been a foundling housemaid turned felonious impostor, a woman who declared she wouldn’t give up her breeches and waistcoats.

  If another peer behaved in such a way, Alistair would have thought the poor fellow belonged in a lunatic asylum. But even now, angry and betrayed, he felt no regret, not even an inkling of shame. If he saw Charity riding up towards him—on his horse, which she had stolen, he reminded himself—he’d marry her in a heartbeat, propriety and respectability be damned.

  There were, he reluctantly acknowledged, matters his father hadn’t gotten entirely wrong. Love carried a weight that was heavier than honor or prudence or any of the other things he had valued.

  A damned uncomfortable realization, but not one he could shy away from.

  By the time he reached London, every trace of his anger at having been abandoned, deceived, and robbed had slipped through his fingers, leaving him empty of everything but a dull pain.

  Chapter Nineteen

  It would take over a week to reach Scotland at this rate, traveling slowly so as not to jostle Louisa’s head or Gilbert’s arm. Every hour or so Mab would attempt to canter, but Charity reined her in to this tedious pace. It was anybody’s guess which of them was more bored. At least she was out of her gown and back into her breeches, so she had that going for her at least.

  Before they had traveled fifty miles, Charit
y was forced to conclude that a third person was decidedly de trop on an elopement, or a marriage trip, or whatever this hellacious journey was. Gilbert and Louisa flirted, they exchanged tender glances, they discussed hopeful plans for the future. They were revoltingly blissful. Even worse, they went out of their way to politely include Charity in all their conversations. She might have been roused to discuss famine or pestilence or any other of life’s miseries, but she didn’t feel at all equal to happy chatter. So she kept her horse—Alistair’s horse—well out of earshot of the carriage.

  Hourly, she regretted not having stayed another day or week or month with Alistair. But every moment in his company weakened her resolve; she loved him more with each passing second, and the pain of their eventual parting would only be harder for both of them to endure. So she had persuaded Louisa and Gilbert to leave at once, avoiding painful farewells and recrimination.

  What she would have given for Keating’s company. She could have relied on him for acerbic commentary and a shared sour mood. But she had received no word from him since he left for Fenshawe, even though the London letters were forwarded to her at Trout farm. She took this to mean that Keating had discovered nothing amiss at Fenshawe and was this moment returning to London. He’d find out soon enough that she was gone.

  The happy couple knew of her situation: she was here, and Alistair was not. They knew her heart was broken while their own hearts were full of joy. This disparity made any connection impossible. But still they tried, because they were kind and lovely people, and it wasn’t their fault she wanted to scream at the sight of them.

  Over supper the first night at the inn, they proposed that Charity come live with them in Kent.

  “Kent?” Charity asked.

  “My brother is letting us have the use of his estate near Maidstone. I think he means it as a marriage present.”

  To give Gilbert use of an entire estate was a level of generosity she hadn’t expected of Alistair. She knew how carefully he counted his pennies.

  They must have mistaken her look of surprise for one of dismay, because Louisa nudged Gilbert and whispered, “I told you not to mention him!”

  Charity drained her tankard of ale and excused herself to bed.

  Judging by the blushing glances and lingering touches between the lovers the following morning, Charity supposed they had spent the night anticipating their marriage vows. And good for them. She certainly didn’t care—they were going to be married in a matter of days, for God’s sake. But all that blushing and stammering—Christ, her stomach wasn’t strong enough for this. It’s just fucking, she wanted to scream. People have been doing it for thousands of years. Mice manage it. So do sheep. It’s nothing to fuss yourselves over.

  But it was, though. That last night with Alistair wasn’t the kind of thing a person could get over so easily. He had treated her like she was precious to him. She had done her damnedest to return the favor, every moment knowing it would only make their parting more difficult. If Alistair had been here now, they might very well be the ones blushing and making excuses to touch one another.

  He wasn’t, though, and he never would be again. It was the height of absurdity for Louisa to imagine that Charity could live with her and Gilbert in a house owned by Alistair, where he might show up at any moment.

  For that matter, it was already impossible for Charity to live with Louisa, but she hadn’t quite told Louisa that yet. When Louisa and Gilbert asked why they still had to be married in Scotland, despite having both a special license and the presence of Louisa’s putative guardian, she only explained that she didn’t want the validity of Louisa’s marriage to depend on a forged signature. In Scotland a minor could marry without a guardian’s permission, and Louisa’s marriage would be valid without any deception on Charity’s part.

  The rest of it they would discover later.

  The road to Scotland took them straight through Northumberland, right into Alnwick, the town whose market square had given her that first glimpse of a world beyond Fenshawe. It was fitting that this was where that episode of her life would come to an end.

  “I’m turning off here,” she said while Gilbert and Louisa awaited a fresh set of carriage horses at an inn.

  They both looked at her blankly.

  “You’ll be in Scotland this afternoon,” she explained. “You don’t need me to be with you. Marry, and then . . .” What? Send word? Write a letter? All impossible. “Take care of one another.” She looked pointedly at Gilbert, willing him to remember what she had asked of him. Take care of Alistair.

  “Where are you going?” Louisa asked.

  “Fenshawe is an hour’s ride.”

  “Charity,” Louisa protested, sounding panicked. “Please.”

  She wanted to leap off the horse and hug them both, to tell Louisa she had loved her like a sister, like her own child. But if she got any closer she wouldn’t be able to stop herself from weeping, and that would only spoil the happiness of Louisa’s day. So she kept her distance.

  “Don’t be silly,” she said, trying to keep her voice light even as she took one last look at Louisa’s face. “You don’t want me on your honeymoon, and Scottish weddings make me maudlin anyway.” There, let Louisa think Charity was remembering her own elopement. Oh God, now she really was going to cry. The tears were already pricking her eyes. She smiled brightly, “Now, be off with you!”

  She turned west to Fenshawe.

  Alistair went over his ledgers so carefully that his eyes were starting to hurt, but it had to be done. First, because at least this would give him something to do besides pace the floor and worry about Robin. But his other reason was that he wanted to see precisely how much more recklessness this estate could take.

  Not recklessness, he decided. Nor extravagance. Generosity.

  A few weeks at a lamentable inn, wages for the maid, a barnyard’s worth of fowl for the farmers, clothes and books for Charity, a gift for Mrs. Potton, the special license, and couriers to and from London. None of it had ruined him. Even discounting the income from the Kent property that would now be Gilbert’s, he wasn’t stretched quite as thin as he thought he might be.

  He had hoped that with a few more years of careful investment and reasonably frugal living, he would know that the estate was safe for future generations. That plan had gone out the window the minute he had met Robin. But a new plan was beginning to take shape in his mind, and it would not come cheap.

  This was what money and power were for: not to hoard up in the name of prudence and security, but to spend and use to take care of the people who needed it. The people who needed him, or at least whose lives would be better for a bit of help. Two months of knowing Robin, and his sense of value had twisted around so that he could scarcely recognize it anymore.

  How long would it take without her for his sense to return? Best to act now, then.

  He ran his finger down the column of figures one final time, confirmed that he had calculated correctly, and called for his carriage.

  So this was how people felt when they were about to do something intensely stupid, like diving off a cliff or climbing a snow-covered mountain. Alistair was not a man who was much given to feats of daring. He had always assumed that men who chased danger were half-mad. But here he was, standing at Mrs. Allenby’s door, about to pledge a sizable part of his income to his half sisters.

  Portia Allenby, who was no doubt used to all manner of shocking creatures showing up on her doorstep, still stared at him in openmouthed astonishment for a few seconds before recovering her aplomb.

  “My lord,” she said.

  “I have a matter to discuss with you.”

  She nodded wordlessly and led the way to a room at the back of the house. From a chamber off to the side, he could hear laughter and music. This, he realized with a pang, was a happy house. That was why Robin had liked it here. Perhaps that was what had brought his father here too. Alistair would never have this for himself—a house where laughter echoed through the ha
llways, a place people wanted to be. But it didn’t matter. It had never occurred to him to want such a thing, so it shouldn’t pain him to know he’d never have it.

  “I’d like to make arrangements for the girls,” he said, gripping the back of the nearest chair. “Settlements.”

  “Oh,” she said, her eyes wide. “I was not expecting that.”

  That sounded like she had thought he had come for some other purpose, but he’d deal with that later. “Do they have anything now?” he asked.

  “Six thousand to split between the three of them,” she replied, sitting in a low gilt chair. “Your father was very generous with us,” she said slowly, but with no trace of apology. “However, most of it has gone to school fees and governesses.”

  He had already gathered as much. He had seen Amelia Allenby often enough by now to know that she had been raised as a lady, and that level of finish cost money. Remembering his own manners, he sat in the chair instead of digging his nails into its upholstery. “I quite understand,” he said, and tried to sound like someone who hadn’t been in the practice of judging this woman’s finances for years.

  “To be entirely honest, they don’t need any more.” She regarded him frankly. “Two thousand pounds apiece isn’t a grand sum, not by any means, but it will do.”

  It was a pathetic sum for the acknowledged daughters of a marquess. “I was thinking of giving them each three thousand pounds.” Five thousand pounds was still not a grand dowry—three times that amount would not even be a grand dowry. But in Alistair’s scheme, it wasn’t only the money, but the family connection, that would serve these girls. By publicly settling money on them, he would be announcing that his sisters were under his protection. “It wouldn’t be a dowry, but for them to do with as they please once they come of age. If you consent, that is.”