by Laura Landon
CHAPTER ONE
The sky was no longer the shadowy darkness it had been when he’d arrived earlier. Muted rays of sunshine were attempting to break through the mist and fog, and salvage this disgusting day into something more bearable. Although he doubted anything could save the last hour from being one of the most embarrassing hours of his life.
“How are you?” his friend James Trevor, Baron Covington, asked from beside him.
“I’ll live, if that’s what you’re asking,” Benjamin Waverley, said between gasps of pain. “Although I’m not sure…how long I’ll be able to say that…after I get home.”
“How are you going to explain that you’ve been shot?” Covey asked, pressing hard against Ben’s shoulder in his attempt to stop the blood.
Ben moaned. “I won’t have to. My father is the Duke of Townsend He’s probably already heard about the duel.”
“Oh,” Covey said in a commiserating tone.
Ben thought about his father’s reaction to the fact that he’d been involved in a duel; the fact that the man who’d called him out was one of his father’s business associates, Viscount Wellingbridge; the reason he’d been called out—because Wellingbridge had caught him slinking out of his wife’s bedroom window.
The pain in his shoulder worsened.
“This isn’t going to go over well,” Covey added. “Not after all the trouble you’ve been in lately.”
“Thank you,” Ben said. “I really needed to hear that right now.”
“I was only offering my sympathy,” Covey said as he shifted the blood-soaked cloth. “It’s as if all the devil’s minions have conspired against you.”
Ben wanted to laugh. “According to my father, I am one of the devil’s minions.”
“I can see why he thinks that. You’ve been caught committing every indiscretion you’ve attempted lately.”
“Don’t remind me.”
The carriage jostled over the cobbled streets, then slowed. “Are we almost there?” Ben asked.
Covey looked out the window. “I’d say you have about three more minutes to live.”
“Very funny.”
Covey straightened in his seat. “I wasn’t trying to be funny.”
The carriage stopped and the door opened. Several Townsend footmen were waiting to assist him into the house.
He wanted to walk through the door on his own, but the second his feet hit the pavement, his legs buckled beneath him. Two footmen supported him, one on either side.
“Covey?” he asked over his shoulder. He thought perhaps his father wouldn’t be quite so furious if there was an audience to buffer his anger.
“Sorry, old man.” Covey jumped to the ground and strolled in the opposite direction of the Duke of Townsend’s town house. “Friendship only goes so far. You’re on your own with this one.”
Ben groaned, partly because of the pain in his shoulder, and partly because of the pain of having to face his father.
Just as he considered how difficult the next few days could be, he looked up to see his father, the Duke of Townsend, standing in the open doorway. His arms were crossed over his chest, his feet braced wide, and the scowl on his face laced with fury.
“Take him to his room,” he ordered the footmen as they passed him. “The doctor is waiting.”
Ben saw the icy look in his father’s glare and the pain in his shoulder worsened. “Father, I—”
“Not. One. Word,” his father hissed. “Not one.”
The footmen carried him up the stairs and placed him on his bed. Thankfully, Ben lost consciousness when the doctor made the first attempt to retrieve the bullet. Not that it mattered. He knew the worst was yet to come.
. . .
It had been four days since the duel, and his father hadn’t been to see him yet. His sisters, Winnie and Anne, had come to see him several times. Each time when he asked about his father, they simply gave him a sympathetic look and shook their heads. He didn’t find that comforting.
On the fifth day, his valet, Jenkins, arrived without being summoned. He picked out one of Ben’s better jackets from the closet as well as a waistcoat of which he was particularly fond.
“I take it I’m to dress today,” he said rising from his chair. He’d spent time out of bed yesterday and the day before, and, other than the black sling he wore to keep his arm immobile, he’d improved a great deal.
“His Grace requests your presence in his study. You’re to come at once.”
“Requests?” Ben asked, letting Jenkins button his waistcoat.
Jenkins’ eyebrows rose. “Perhaps demands is a better word to describe His Grace’s order.”
A shiver raced down Ben’s spine. “I take it my father isn’t in the best of moods,” Ben said as Jenkins knotted his cravat.
“That would be correct, my lord.”
Jenkins’ expression didn’t change, but Ben heard the warning in his voice. He swallowed hard, then sat in the nearest chair while Jenkins helped him with his shoes and stockings. When he was finished, he rose. He checked his appearance in the mirror, tried to wipe the defensive look from his face, then left the safety of his room.
Oh, how he wished Gideon was here. His half-brother always had a calming effect on their father, and if there was ever a time when he needed help soothing his father’s ruffled feathers, this was it. But Gideon and his wife Eve were still in the country enjoying married life after the birth of their twin sons. It’s too bad the babes weren’t here. Ben needed as much distraction as possible, and nothing distracted the Duke of Townsend more than being around his grandsons.
Ben walked down the long hallway that took him to the stairs. Townsend House had always seemed immense, but today, the distance from his room to the main staircase seemed miniscule.
Ben took the first step down, then the next, and before he wanted his journey to be over, he was at the bottom. His father exited his study and walked to the front door.
“Good morning, Father,” he said when he drew even with his father.
His father didn’t answer. He stood in silence while Willis, the Townsend butler, held out his father’s hat, gloves, and cane. Next, he handed Ben his. When they were attired, the Duke of Townsend nodded sharply in Willis’s direction, and the butler opened the door. The Duke of Townsend led the way into the sunshine. Ben followed.
“I take it we’re going for a drive,” Ben said when they were in the carriage and the driver had pulled away from Townsend House.
“We are,” his father answered without looking to the right or the left. His gaze locked with Benjamin’s.
“Might I inquire as to our destination?”
“We are paying a call on my old friend, the Earl of Kendrick.”
“Might I ask why I am required to accompany you?”
“Of course. You are about to meet your bride.”
Benjamin felt as though he’d been sucker punched. As if someone had walloped him in the gut, then kicked him in the groin, then blindsided him with a battle axe.
“What did you say?”
“I said you are about to meet your bride.”
“You can’t be serious.”
“Oh, I’m very serious. More serious than I’ve ever been in my life.”
Ice flowed through his veins. A fear more terrifying than any he’d felt in his life consumed him. He looked for a way to escape the confines of the carriage, but knew his father would stop him before he could open the door.
“I have no intention of marrying, Your Grace,” he said as bravely as he could. “And you know why.”
“For the last year you’ve been running from what happened, Benjamin. You’ve gotten yourself in one scrape after another, each one worse than the last. Your latest was the worst. You could have been killed.”
“But I wasn’t. And it won’t happen again.”
“I know it won’t. It’s time you settled down. Time you had a wife. Children.”
“You know that’s not possible.”
“I know nothing of the sort. You think that what your mother did prevents you from ever having a life with a wife and children.”
“My mother was a murderer!”
“A fact that is only known by the immediate members of our family.”
“For how long?”
His Grace sat in grim silence.
“And if it doesn’t remain hidden? What then, Father? How long do you think the woman I take as a wife will survive the scandal? I can survive if what my mother did becomes public, but I refuse to ruin an innocent person because of our family secret.”
“Which is why I selected your bride with the utmost care.”
“No! Don’t you understand? I refuse to marry!”
“What you don’t understand, Benjamin, is that I will not let you continue down the path you’re taking. You had an affair that almost got you killed.”
“That was—”
“That was the last straw! You broke the proverbial camel’s back! You left me no choice but to find someone to save you from destruction.”
“To save me?”
“Yes. Someone to save you. And someone you can save.”
Ben sank back against the squabs and stared at his father. He couldn’t believe what he’d just heard. “What do you mean, someone I can save?”
His mind raced to understand his father’s cryptic statement. He scoured his mind for anything he’d heard about the Earl of Kendrick’s family.
Kendrick was well thought of. He’d handled his affairs properly and was rumored to be one of the wealthiest men in Society. He had four children: one son, Lord Rutherford, who Benjamin had met and liked, and three daughters.
His mind froze. There was a scandal involving one of Kendrick’s daughters. Which one was it? What was the scandal?
“I seem to recall hearing something concerning one of Kendrick’s daughters.”
“Yes, Lady Rachael.”
“And she is to be my bride?”
“Yes.”
Ben stared at his father with raised eyebrows. “Well, are you going to enlighten me as to the scandal that ruined Kendrick’s daughter?”
“Nothing you can’t overlook.” His Grace said the statement with more indifference than Ben was used to hearing from his father. Whatever the reason for the scandal, it wasn’t small.
Ben rubbed his fingers across his forehead. “That’s reassuring.”
“It wasn’t meant to reassure you. It was meant to leave no doubt as to my seriousness.”
“And if I refuse?”
The man sitting across from him no longer seemed to be the same person his father had been a few days ago. But a man Ben had heard he could be. A man used to having his orders followed.
“Then you will find yourself cut off.”
“You will disown me?”
“I will never disown you. You are my son. I love you. Which is why I am doing what I am.”
“Then what are you saying?”
“I am saying that if you refuse to marry Lady Rachael, the money you are used to having at your disposal will cease. The lifestyle you’re accustomed to living will no longer be possible.”
“And how will I live?”
The Duke of Townsend looked at him for several uncomfortable moments. “You can always find employment,” he finally said. “Or there is the army. If that is your choice, I will buy you a commission. And as a last resort, there is always the clergy. Although I doubt you will find yourself suitable for that calling.”
Ben closed his eyes and took a deep breath. His father was leaving him no choice and he knew it. He turned his head and stared out the window. The houses of fashionable Mayfair went by far too fast. He needed to make a decision—now.
The carriage turned a corner, then stopped.
The carriage door opened and his father descended. Ben hesitated, then stepped out of the carriage behind his father. He tried to tell himself marriage wouldn’t be as bad as his gut told him it would be. But when his legs buckled beneath him, he knew it would.
CHAPTER TWO
Rachael watched the street from her upstairs bedroom window. The Duke of Townsend’s carriage stopped in front of her father’s town house. A footman opened the door and His Grace stepped out first. His son after. They both disembarked, and the duke led the way up the walk.
Rachael expected his son to march in tandem with his father, but there was something about the hesitancy of his gait that gave her the impression that Lord Benjamin might not be entirely in tune with the match their fathers had made.
Well, neither was she.
She studied the Duke of Townsend as he neared the house. He wasn’t at all what she’d thought he’d be. He appeared much younger than she’d imagined, and he was much taller. That must be where his son got his height. As well as his regal bearing.
The duke moved with an air of command even when no one was looking. He took each step with a noble set of his shoulders as if he were sure of the outcome of this visit.
Rachael was equally determined to control the outcome. Her future was at risk.
She took in everything she could about the two men before they were out of sight. They were her adversaries. At least the Duke of Townsend was an enemy. She wasn’t sure about his son.
From the angry scowl on his face, she didn’t think Lord Benjamin looked forward to this match any more than she did. He didn’t seem to be in a hurry to meet with her father. That would only help her cause. The fact that he didn’t want to marry her any more than she wanted to marry him would only work in her favor. His obvious lack of enthusiasm bolstered her resolve.
When the two men disappeared from sight, she stepped away from the window and sat in the nearest chair to wait. She knew she would be sent for eventually, and she was ready.
She’d practiced what she was going to say since her father had summoned her to his study two days ago to tell her of her fate. She’d rehearsed her refusal until she could recite the words from memory. There was no way she would agree to marry Lord Benjamin Waverley. She didn’t intend to marry anyone. She’d made that decision eighteen months ago when her life had changed forever. And nothing would change her mind.
She tried to recall what she knew about Lord Benjamin—other than that he was the second son of the Duke of Townsend. She knew very little, but according to her sisters, Mags and Livy, he was a rake of epic renown and the topic of more gossip than any male in London Society. And, if the latest scandal was true, he’d just fought a duel with Viscount Wellingbridge after Wellingbridge found him climbing out of his wife’s bedroom window. The sling he wore gave credence to the reports that he’d been shot in a duel.
His reputation didn’t bode well, and it made that much firmer her resolve to refuse any offer he made for her hand.
How could her parents expect her to marry someone she didn’t even know? Someone she’d only spoken to once before in her life.
And that had been at the summer house party that had changed her life forever.
She took several deep breaths and relaxed her fingers clutched in her lap. She straightened her shoulders and sat upright. She’d made enough of a mess of her life. She wasn’t about to dig the hole in which she found herself any deeper by marrying a man she didn’t want. A man who was the worst kind of fit for her.
No, Lord Benjamin Waverley was the last man on the face of the earth with whom she would agree to spend her life.
She looked up at the soft rap on her door. Her maid, Ginny, stepped into the room.
“Your Father requests your presence, Lady Rachael,” the maid said.
“Thank you, Ginny.”
Rachael slowly rose to her feet. She didn’t bother to check her appearance in the mirror, but focused her attention instead on the mission before her.
>
As she made her way to her father’s study, she said a silent prayer that she was strong enough to win this battle. More hung in the balance than just her future. She wouldn’t marry Lord Benjamin. She wouldn’t marry anyone. Her secret would not allow her to take the risk of marrying anyone.
A Kendrick footman opened the door when Rachael reached her father’s study. She entered the room with her spine straight and her shoulders squared. She took two confident steps into the room, and stopped.
Her father sat on the sofa in the center of the room and her mother sat beside him. She hadn’t expected her mother to be here, but wasn’t surprised that she was. Very little went on in their household that the countess didn’t know about. Or wasn’t in control of. Only once had Rachael been able to keep something from her.
The Duke of Townsend sat in one of the two chairs placed opposite the sofa. The conclusions she’d drawn when he arrived seemed more accurate than ever. The serious expression on his face gave him the appearance of a man unused to having his orders questioned, or disobeyed. The calm determination in his eyes told her that he’d decided to force his son into marrying her, and nothing either of them said would change his mind.
Rachael stepped farther into the room. Little did His Grace know that this time he’d met his match. Rachael had decided that nothing he could say would force her to marry a man she didn’t know. Or had no intention of getting to know.
She stepped closer and his gaze met hers. He studied her appearance, then her features. The slight lift to the corners of his mouth said he wasn’t disappointed in what he saw. The flash of warmth she saw in his eyes told her he approved of his choice of a bride for his son.
Rachael didn’t know why. She wasn’t a beauty, but she didn’t care if she met with his approval or not. She had no intention of agreeing to this farce. She was of legal age, and nothing anyone said could force her. She could refuse to marry Lord Benjamin and no one could make her change her mind.
Rachael realized she hadn’t looked at the man she was supposed to marry. She turned her head and focused on the Duke of Townsend’s second son.
Since she’d been informed of the contract her father had signed, she’d tried to recall anything she could about him: what he looked like, whether or not she’d ever spoken to him before. Then she remembered that she had. At Julia Bentley’s house party, but she couldn’t remember what they’d talked about, or whether or not she’d enjoyed visiting with him. That had been eighteen months ago and she’d only been with him that once.
