by Darcy Burke
He sighed. “I don’t know.”
“I do. When you told me you’d asked Miss Loren to marry you, I thought maybe you’d found a way to be happy,” Arden said. “I’ve seen the way you look at her. If anyone deserves happiness, it’s you, Jim.”
He didn’t believe her, but God, how he longed to. Arden knew him better than anyone else. From the moment the Lion had brought Arden home that stormy night fifteen years ago, they’d been as thick as thieves.
“I’m coming with you,” Arden declared, breaking into his thoughts.
“Where?”
“When you take Miss Loren for training,” Arden said. “My trunk’s already packed.”
“Ah.” The trip he’d planned to tell Vivian was a wedding trip, but in actuality was Clocktower protocol.
He didn’t have the slightest idea how he’d explain Arden’s presence on such a trip, yet he couldn’t bring himself to ask her to stay away. Having her there made sense, from an instructional perspective. If Vivian were going to learn self-defense, it would be better that she received help from someone of similar build.
“I’m going so you don’t always have to be the spy.” Arden patted his hand, rising from the bench. “Let me watch your back, while you spend time with your new wife.”
It was a nice idea, but highly improbable in practice. “You know the mission comes first.”
“For me, yes,” Arden answered. “I checked the manifest. We’ve a good team in place. Elinor scheduled Nixon to drive, and I’ll be taking Northley too, of course.”
He shuddered at the mention of Arden’s maid, who’d picked up more than a few defense maneuvers in her time with the family. He now had a perpetual fear of parasols thanks to that old woman.
Arden smiled at his reaction. “Leave the intrigue to us. Make something real with Miss Loren.”
He stayed on that bench long after she left, listening to the silence of the conservatory. Smelling the flowers that reminded him so much of Vivian. Maybe it was time for a new mission. For the last year, he’d held onto Louisa’s memory, punishing himself. He had thrown himself into work and little else. He stopped living.
But every time Vivian entered the room, his breath caught in his throat. She’d somehow managed to demolish his walls. He felt alive again. And that feeling centered him, gave him purpose. Whatever Sauveterre tried to bring to them, he’d fight, and he’d win. For Vivian. He might not be the man she deserved, but he was the man best suited to guarding her.
And he would not fail this time.
Chapter 11
Precisely fourteen days after the Duke of Abermont had proposed to her, Vivian stood beside him at the newly constructed altar in his family’s parlor and prayed to God that she was making the right decision.
The old grandfather clock in the hall chimed eight in the morning, signaling the beginning of the wedding. Vivian grasped the bouquet of lilacs tightly in her hand, her knuckles no doubt whitening from the force of her hold. The flowers were the same color as the silk dress she wore, with its lavender netting, spangles, and long train.
She glanced over her shoulder at the assembled coterie. James’s friends and family, for the ceremony had been arranged too swiftly for her to write to her old friends in Devon. She shouldn’t have been surprised by the efficiency with which the Spencer family had arranged the wedding. Everything they did was quick and well organized, with nary a detail forgotten.
Still, she wished she had someone from back home. Someone who’d help her remember that she could remain largely the same person she’d always been, even when surrounded with such opulence. Someone who would console her when the threat on her life made her doubt the wisdom of staying instead of running.
Upon a nod from James, the minister opened his common prayer book and began to read in a sonorous tone, “Dearly beloved, we are gathered together here in the sight of God, and in the face of this congregation, to join together this Man and this Woman in holy Matrimony...”
Surreptitiously, she peered out from behind her veil at the duke, standing on her left side. Her eyes traveled from his startlingly black crop of hair, those smooth waves she wanted so badly to run her fingers through, to his wide forehead and his rounded chin. This man, with his hawk nose and his serious eyes that seemed to track her every movement, would be her husband. She’d see him every morning and end her days with him.
It had been so long since she’d been excited by the prospect of anything so truly scintillating, she’d almost forgotten what it felt like.
As the minister addressed the congregation, explaining that the purpose of marriage was primarily to procreate, Vivian’s nails dug deeper into the ribbon around the bouquet. She let her eyes drift down James’s frame, her cheeks pinking at the mere thought of being that close to him.
Of being with him. He stood with his strapping shoulders back, his kerseymere coat expertly tailored to display his muscular chest. And his pantaloons, God help her, his pantaloons were skin-tight, the drop front hugging that private area of his body she most certainly should not be pondering.
The masculinity of him almost took her breath away. How positively sinful, to have these stirrings of desire for him when she ought to be focused on pledging her obedience to him.
“I require and charge you both, as ye will answer at the dreadful day of judgement when the secrets of all hearts shall be disclosed...” The minister’s eagle-eyed glare zeroed in on her, as if he could sense the tawdry turn Vivian’s thoughts had taken. “If either of you know any impediment, why ye may not be lawfully joined together in Matrimony, ye do now confess it.”
Vivian gulped. Would anyone offer a protest? It would make sense if the Spencers didn’t want a lowly governess sullying their aristocratic bloodline. She chanced a glance at Abermont’s three sisters, who flocked her on the right. Lady Elinor schooled her features into absolute blandness. Beside her, Lady Korianna appeared amused by everything she saw. And Miss Spencer simply smiled at Vivian as though she couldn’t wait to welcome her into the family.
Vivian decided she liked her the best.
When no one spoke up, the minister continued. “Wilt thou have this Woman to thy wedded Wife, to live together after God's ordinance in the holy estate of Matrimony? Wilt thou love her, comfort her, honor, and keep her in sickness and in health; and, forsaking all other, keep thee only unto her, so long as ye both shall live?”
James didn’t hesitate. The surety in his voice fortified her. “I will.”
The minister repeated the same questions to Vivian, but her focus wasn’t on his words. She saw James. The reassurance in his eyes. His crooked smile. Somehow his presence made her feel stronger—though certainly not more at ease.
And so when it came to be her turn, she said resolutely, “I will.”
When the priest asked who would give her away, Vivian’s heart tugged. She’d always thought Evan would be the one to give her away. If only he could be here!
Instead, Lord Haley came forward, presenting Vivian to the minister. Perhaps that was fitting, for Haley did so remind her of her own brother, with his glib grin and his sandy brown hair.
The minister gestured for her to hold James’s right hand in hers. Silk to the softest kid leather, their palms touched, leaving her wondering what it would be like to feel his hand on hers without such impediments.
“Repeat after me,” the minister indicated. “I, James Alexander Spencer, take thee, Vivian Eloise Loren to be my wedded Wife, to have and to hold from this day forward, for better for worse, for richer or for poorer, in sickness and in health, to love and to cherish, till death us do part, according to God's holy ordinance; and thereto I plight thee my troth.”
James’s deep voice rang out through the crowded room, rich and clear. His eyes shone with intensity, while the set of his mouth was earnest. He meant every word he said, if Vivian was as adept at reading him as she wanted to believe.
I plight thee my troth.
They loosened hands. She missed t
he solidity of his contact, the way he made her feel like she wasn’t alone.
As the priest repeated the vows for her, she tried to conquer the anxiety waging war within her. If she said those vows, if she pledged her soul to him, there was be no going back. She’d be his.
Quickly, so quickly she would have missed it had her gaze not been locked on him, James winked. Her heart beat faster, and for a minute, she wished she could speed up time. To get to the point where they were alone—free of this pomp and circumstance. Where they could be simply two people.
She reached for his right hand, covering it with hers. As she promised to love and honor him through all eternity, she gave herself to this marriage. Even though it was a marriage of convenience, even though she didn’t know if they truly would suit as he claimed, even though all the odds were against them...she’d be his wife and devil take it, she’d be loyal to him.
He dropped her hands, drawing from his coat a ring, which he laid on top of the prayer book. The priest handed him the ring, which James held out to her.
“With this Ring I thee wed, with my Body I thee worship, and with all my worldly Goods I thee endow,” he murmured, slipping the ring onto her finger.
She stared down at the gold band. Sapphires twinkled back up at her, shaped to look like leaves encircling a diamond flower bud in the center. It was majestic, surely, yet there was no way she could ever deserve such extravagance. Would she ever feel like this ring was supposed to be hers? Or would she continue to expect another woman to pop out from the woodwork and exclaim that all along Vivian had simply been a placeholder for her?
James caught her eye as the minister bid them both to kneel so that they could join in prayer. You needn’t worry, his eyes seemed to be saying. You are the one I want. Vivian had begun to think his eyes could say as much as his expressive nods.
The prayers became a blur. She repeated the words without fully registering them. With her eyes focused on the ring on her finger, Vivian held onto that unspoken promise.
The wedding breakfast had ended. The fifty or so odd people that had descended upon Abermont House to attend the ceremony had left to continue celebrating at the neighboring Haley estate. Ostensibly, Richard had agreed to host the house party to give the newlyweds some privacy, but really, he’d always been far better at entertaining.
Normally, James would have breathed an immense sigh of relief at the absence of his guests. Relocating the party meant there was less chance of one of the guests discovering his family’s covert activities, and he’d be able to read his newspaper and drink his morning coffee in peace, the two things he required to start his days off properly.
None of that mattered when compared with the fact that he was alone in the parlor with the woman who had become his wife. The woman he’d sworn to protect.
The woman he’d now whisk away to a safe house under the pretense of a wedding trip.
He ruffled a hand through his hair, resisting the urge to jump up from the settee. That morning, before the ceremony had started, he’d received a letter from Deacon Drake, who he’d left in charge of the organization’s headquarters. His agents had located Sauveterre—but they’d been too late to catch him. The villain was on the move again, possibly to Maidstone.
Which meant he had to get Vivian away from here as soon as possible.
Nixon, another agent with the Clocktower, prepared the coach and four. Arden had packed their tools the night before, and arranged for the necessary bags to be loaded while the rest of the house was distracted with the wedding. A trunk of knives, truncheons, flintlocks, and then Korianna’s addition: enough supplies for three small black powder bombs or one huge explosion. Northley had packed Vivian’s trunk with her old gowns. There was no point in ruining the finer dresses Elinor had ordered for her when they’d be out in the wilderness, far from prying eyes.
Or so he hoped.
The safe house in Guildford had never been compromised. Only twelve agents knew of its existence. For all the servants knew, they were heading toward the shores of Brighton to celebrate their new union.
So now all he had to do was wait. He opened his mouth to speak, but no words came out. What did a man say to his wife? Surely, not that she was in even more danger than they’d originally thought. There was no point in worrying her, not when the plans were already underway.
He tried to think about how his father and mother had acted. Mama had died shortly after Louisa’s birth, so his memories were hazy at best, but he thought his parents had been amiable with each other. He remembered the Lion’s second wife, Thomas’s mother, better. Though the two never had a great love, Juliana and the duke had been partners. The best of friends, supportive of each other.
One look at Vivian and he wanted more than simple companionship, even if he knew he didn’t deserve it. Even if he wasn’t certain he could ever be enough for her.
Vivian saved him from sitting there for the next half hour silently. “It was a lovely ceremony.”
She spoke as though she was commenting on the weather, not her wedding day. This was absurd. If this was how proper husbands and wives discoursed, he wanted no part of it.
He shifted on the settee so that he was next to her. “Vivian.”
She held his gaze. “James.”
He’d been many names over the years. Abermont. The Marquis of Silverton, prior to inheriting the dukedom. Edouard when he’d spent a summer undercover in France. Dupont during his time assisting the Swabian Agency in Switzerland. Falcon to his fellow Clocktower and Alien Office agents.
Prior to today, he’d always felt more at home in these secret identities—free of responsibilities, the past, and societal pressure.
Now, he did not want to be anyone else. He would not be Abermont to her, or even Falcon. He was just James. He had not anticipated how musical his true appellation would sound on her lips. Bollocks, he hadn’t anticipated any of this. She’d changed everything.
“Vivian,” he said again, partially to focus his thoughts, and partially because he wanted to feel her name on his tongue once more. Her name became a commandment in itself. “With God as my witness, I’ll keep you safe. You needn’t fear anything.”
“I know.” Those two simple words packed more of a punch than any long-winded declaration, for she spoke as though her faith in him was a given. “And I do trust you.”
As a spy, missions depended upon his ability to get a target to trust him. In the past, he’d always been successful. In the past, he’d always been someone else.
He did not know if he—James Spencer, not Falcon, not Edouard—deserved her trust.
She watched him, her wide eyes never leaving his face. Under her scrutiny, he felt exposed, as though she could see inside to the depths of his soul. He was transfixed by the delicate curve of her high cheekbones, juxtaposed with the sharpness of her chin. Everything about her was a contrast. Her dainty, petite frame against the strength of her willpower. Her excellence in the more typical occupation of governess against her unconventional love of fencing and mysteries.
“Evan used to say that people were mostly good,” Vivian said.
Evan Loren had only been an agent for the Alien Office for a few years. Long enough that his idealistic bent would have started to wear off—but not long enough that he’d be truly jaded by everything he’d seen.
James had been on missions since he was fifteen. His optimism had been stripped away, little by little, until all that was left was harsh reality. Good people were often driven to do bad things—and bad people often triumphed. He fought for a world he sometimes wondered if he should let burn.
But he kept fighting because he knew no other way.
“I guess I always believed him,” Vivian continued. “We were sheltered in Devon. And when we moved to London, I thought everyone was nice. But my brother was murdered by a madman, and I don’t know why. So how am I supposed to believe the world has good in it?”
He’d asked the same questions after Louisa’s death.
God, he still asked those questions.
“The world may not have good in it, but some people do,” he said. “It’s not enough to make up for Evan’s death, I know. But it’s all we have.”
“Revenge is what I need for Evan’s death.” She met his gaze, and the simmering rage he saw in her blue eyes shook him to his core.
He’d been there before. In the moment when he’d hunted down Nicodème, he had felt good. Justified. But he was already so far gone—taking one more life was immaterial to the state of his soul. For Vivian, killing Sauveterre might change her irrevocably. It could take away her chance at healing from her brother’s death. He’d do anything to make sure she still had that chance.
He shook his head. “Revenge won’t bring him back.”
She smiled, full of bittersweet sadness. “I know. But it’ll taste sweet.”
He could think of many things that would taste sweeter and be far more pleasurable. But he tried to shove those thoughts to the back of his mind. She was an innocent, and he had a job to do.
“We are working on getting him justice.” He went to the teacart, picking up the silver tray and carrying it to the table. At least it gave him something to do besides pacing the room. “You will see in time that justice is much better than revenge.”
She picked up the teapot from the tray, pouring tea into the two china cups. “Cream? Sugar?”
“Both.”
She fixed his tea, and he accepted the cup she handed him.
She added a lump of sugar and a splash of cream to her tea. “Revenge is what Sauveterre deserves. I want to make the bastard pay for what he did to Evan.” She paused, her nose wrinkling. “I want to make him pay for what he did to me.”
“And I promise you, we’ll catch him.” He took the tea tray up from the table, bringing it back to the cart. The more space he put between them, the easier he found it to think. Should he tell Vivian what he’d learned about her Sauveterre’s whereabouts earlier? Korianna’s suspicions about her brother being a spy would have to wait until he could safely confide in her about the Clocktower.
