The Bartered Bridegroom

by Teresa DesJardien

  “Look again,” Mercer said, pointing to a different penmanship on the same page. ‘“Warehouse, Fenchurch Street. Ordnace,’ ” he read, “ ‘one hundred, rifled long guns. One hundred ten, pistols.’ What is this?”

  “Cullman knows,” Benjamin said, receiving a glare for his trouble. “He meant to take papers that belong to the Admiralty.”

  “Liar!” Cullman cried out.

  “To avoid just this sort of theft and to keep our enemies guessing as to our strength and readiness, the Admiralty does not like for the location of its wares to be generally known. Imagine if the nation’s enemies knew of five warehouses they could bum to incapacitate half the fleet with a lack of supplies and weapons! So the Admiralty keeps their records carefully stored elsewhere, in unlikely spots, not least of which is with known patriots who can be trusted to keep the information until it is needed.”

  “You mean. Papa had an accounting of where some of the Admiralty’s assets are located?” Jeremy said round-eyed.

  “That is what Cullman meant to steal, yes.” Benjamin blotted his lower lip with the back of his finger, and grunted with satisfaction when it came away with no fresh blood. “Mr. Cullman,” he explained, “has been the contact between goods smuggled off ships or out of the Admiralty’s supposedly secret warehouses, to those who wish to have them. Smugglers. Including, I suspect, the French.”

  All three of Katherine’s brothers cried out, offended at the very idea of smuggling naval goods to the enemy, depriving good English lads of their use.

  “You cannot prove that,” Cullman said, but his face had gone ashen.

  “True,” Benjamin agreed. He stood close to Cullman, his own hands folded voluntarily behind his back, watching while Cullman gave a brief but futile struggle to break free of the hold Jeremy had on him.

  When Cullman stilled once more, Benjamin went on. “At present I cannot prove you have been selling to the French, but I can prove you have been selling stores and weapons to the highest bidder among English smugglers, and heaven knows where the stores go from there. I have little doubt a connection could be made that the goods you sold ended in French hands.

  “That, Mr. Cullman,” Benjamin said solemnly, “is a hanging offense. And even if the connection to France cannot be proved, I feel compelled to point out that smuggling, by itself, especially with governmental goods, is also grounds for death by hanging.”

  Cullman suddenly went limp in Jeremy’s hands, all fight dissolving in him. “No,” he mouthed in horror. “You cannot do this. You cannot prove anything.”

  “Stephen Dahl told me everything.”

  Cullman slumped even further, forcing Jeremy at last to let his arms go, that the man could form a puddle of misery at Benjamin’s feet. Jeremy stood at the ready, but it was evident that the fight had fled out of Cullman.

  “Dahl swears he will tell a court of law as well. He hopes for the court’s mercy, but he says he will risk hanging in the greater hope that death would cleanse his soul of the crimes he and you committed.”

  “You are making all of this up,” Cullman wailed, but his posture of abject misery did little to persuade that he was being maligned.

  “At last I understand why you ‘befriended’ me that night, asking me to come to Sir Albert’s card party,” Benjamin went on. “You knew that I had taken the blame that should have been Stephen’s, that I had saved him from punishment, because without his income his sisters and mama would have starved. You saw in me the perfect gull, because you knew what I had been accused of, the smuggling I had supposedly done. You knew you could use that against me, could threaten to shred any hint of reputation I had left. One way or another, you had targeted me as the man who must take your place in the betrothal. It was no accident that you chose to ‘sponsor’ me that night.”

  Cullman rocked his head from side to side, as if to block hearing anything more Benjamin had to say.

  “Stephen Dahl did not know your name—I will give you that much credit, Cullman—but after Dahl had described his accomplice, I took him to view the painting of you that hangs in the Academy of Arts, the painting you had made that all might look upon the visage of the First Beau. He knew you at once. He identified you as his coconspirator.”

  “No,” Cullman mewled, his face to the floor. “No!”

  “And there are four witnesses here, Cullman. Four who saw you try to steal papers you thought Sir Albert kept safe for the Admiralty. Do you want to know the humor in that, Cullman?” “No!” Cullman repeated, his hands over his ears.

  “He does not keep papers for the Admiralty, not here in London. He has done so in Kent, as you well knew, because you took an opportunity when it fell into your hands, as you yourself told me. Somehow, by accident or design, you discovered in Bexley that Sir Albert had some of the Admiralty’s warehousing papers in his care. He told me himself how he had hidden them among his estate papers, how he never suspected they’d been copied. But you did copy them, or memorized them, and then you arranged to steal the munitions from those locations, with Stephen Dahl as your compatriot in crime. That is how you came by the funds you so desperately wanted, the funds that allowed you to leave the countryside for London.” “But, Cullman, you should have known these pages were different. You should have paid attention to the fact you found no papers the first time you went through Sir Albert’s desk here in London, the day you ‘disappeared’ before the butler could announce you. You found nothing then, and you should have realized these papers were a trap I set just now for you. / added those words of ordnance to the weekly reports from Sir Albert’s steward.”

  “I knew it was not Papa’s hand!” Lewis affirmed.

  “But you are greedy, Cullman. You were willing to try your hand at crime a second time, because it was your only source of income since your father cut you off, trying to force you to earn your way as he’d had to do. So you saw what you wanted to see, and we all witnessed you attempting to take the fake papers.”

  Benjamin shrugged. “These papers were not real, but their attempted theft still shows intent. I think such testimony in a court of law would be very persuasive of guilt, especially coupled with Mr. Dahl’s brave testimony. I suppose there are many other witnesses to be had as well. The recipients of the stolen goods you sold, the servants who were ordered to carry them away in the night, the locals who could not help but note the word “Admiralty” and “Navy” stamped into the newly arrived crates and caskets—”

  Cullman slowly sat back on his heels, his normally handsome face ravaged by trepidation. “Enough, Whitbury. You would not bother to take the breath to list my sins if you did not want to be sure I was ready to barter.”

  “Let no man ever call you feeble-witted,” Benjamin said with an inclination of his head. The cur had realized there was no point in denial; he was well and truly caught.

  “My proposition is a simple one,” Benjamin said with deadly clarity. “Remove yourself from England, never to return, and I will not have you pursued or arrested. Understand that, above anything else, you are never to contact Miss Oakes by any fashion or means, nor cause anyone else to contact her in your stead, nor offer her any form or hint of harm. Do these things, and you will live. The moment you do aught else, I will see you prosecuted unto death,” Benjamin said, his voice as cutting as steel.

  Cullman stood unsteadily, his jaw working. “I’ll go,” he said, looking as though he wanted to spit poison.

  Benjamin looked him directly in the eyes. “You have until noon tomorrow to be on a ship, or at one minute after I will have a bailiff swear out an arrest warrant on you.”

  “Noon—!” Cullman started to protest, but something in Benjamin’s gaze must have blocked his throat with fear or resignation, for he swallowed his objection.

  “Take these, or sell them before you leave. I do not want them here,” came a voice, and every man turned to see Katherine had come down the stairs and was bending to pick up one of the three volumes that had fallen to the floor.


  She crossed the room, picking up the other two. She approached Cyril, dropped the books into his arms, then turned at once from him. She faced Benjamin, her hands now folded before her skirts, her color high.

  “I heard everything,” she said. She pointed up the stairs. “Every word spoken here in the entry carries directly up there.”

  Benjamin’s brows drew together. “I am sorry for it. I would have spared your learning the worst about this vermin.” He cast a quick, dismissive glance toward Cullman, only to return his gaze at once to Katherine.

  “Spare me? Because I had tried to make myself believe I could come to love him?” she asked, some terrible pain making her brown eyes even darker.

  “You must not take his duplicity to heart,” Benjamin said with concern. “His evilness, it has nothing to do with you. You were but a pawn—”

  She lowered her chin to her chest, and the sight of that bowed head, of Katherine beaten down, made him long to withdraw his offer to Cullman, made him itch to mete out justice, here, now, to strangle the man with his own hands.

  “Katherine, I hope you can forgive me for interfering in your life as I have this one last time,” he said, willing her to understand, to lift her head and not be defeated by one man’s evil selfishness. “I know you would have sent this creature packing eventually, but I could not bear to think how he might hurt you until then. 1 presumed by stepping in, but please believe I did so out of friendship.”

  He moved closer to her, his finger to her chin, lifting her head slowly. He wanted to gaze into her eyes, wanted to wipe away whatever pain made her bow her head.

  To his amazement, when her gaze met his, he saw laughter there. Laughter!

  “Oh, Benjamin,” she said, and now she was half laughing, half crying. “I promise I am done making you prove you are my friend! I believe you, truly I do.” She stepped even closer to him. putting a gentle finger to his split lip. “Was it not enough that you were forced to declare your love like that, in the parlor, in front of Papa? Now you have taken a beating for me as well?”

  “A thousand beatings, if you like,” he said, a gentle tease as he caught her hand with his own, his heart soaring, for there was such promise in her eyes.

  “No, please, no more pain. Just kiss me soon and swear you’ll marry me, and then both of us will be able to believe we can love one another.”

  He caught his breath. “I would ... I want to, but... first, I must tell you how it is I came to be falsely betrothed to you that night. We must have the air clear between us. I never meant to do anything that would harm or upset you. You see, Cullman wanted to play a hand—”

  “Shh. I think I already guess most of the truth about that night. It does not matter.”

  “No?”

  “No.”

  “Then ... you said something about... ?”

  “A kiss? Yes. I want you to kiss me, please soon.”

  He laughed, because too much joy filled him. Had he slept last night, he would have dreamt she’d say words like these. He almost could not believe them now ... but she stood so close, he could smell her hair and feel the heat of her body matching his own.

  “If you like,” he said, his voice a little unsteady.

  “Kiss me, and make a real troth between us.”

  So he did, not caring his lip ached where it pressed to hers, for the ache was gone from his chest, and Katherine was in his arms and kissing him.

  “Ho now,” Jeremy said, his hand on Benjamin’s shoulder, a foreign touch that barely penetrated the cloud of happiness that enveloped him. “I think you two are a match, for there is clearly not a speck of common sense between you. I dread to think of the children of this union. But, you must tell us what to do with—”

  “Cullman!” Benjamin gasped out the name, remembering only now that the man had yet to be thrown out on his ear. He looked around the hall, not finding the cur. “What—?”

  “Already gone,” Jeremy said, his eyes laughing. “Ten seconds after you started kissing my sister.”

  Katherine laughed and blushed. He wrapped his arms around her, tight, barely able to resist kissing her anew.

  “Then what—?” he said toward Jeremy.

  Jeremy pointed. “We have been wondering what to do with that.”

  Katherine and Benjamin turned to look through the open front door. A horse stood there in a red warming rug, on which were stitched black letters that read “Katherine Oakes’s School and Stable for Excellence in Horse Racing.”

  “Fallen Angel!” Katherine cried, a startled hand springing to cover her delighted smile.

  “Red for your hair,” Benjamin explained the rug, making a sheepish gesture. “I was rather hoping the sight of it would make you fall in love with me,” he said.

  She shook her head. “The horse would not have done it, nor the blanket.”

  “Then what?” he asked, at long last sure of her—but still leery of her answer. One could never be sure what answer she would give, his Katherine—and he was going to marry her in order to be there every day as she came up with her outlandish, wonderful, never dull replies.

  “The fact that you are still going to allow me to have my stable, of course!” she said. “You are, in fact, going to help me make it a success.” She looked up at him from under her lashes, seeking confirmation.

  “My darling lady,” he said, not funning at all, “I would not dare to stand in your way, especially since you are liable to make us rich.”

  She smiled widely, throwing her arms around his neck. “Liable to make us poor,” she said on a laugh. “But how happy I am that you are going to let me at least try.”

  “You must try everything your heart desires,” he told her seriously, sealing his promise with another kiss.

  They were married four weeks later, and chose to live in her cottage, built on the hill overlooking her stables in Bexley. Benjamin left his position at the shipping office after discovering Gideon had left a “bridal gift” of ten thousand pounds in his brother’s evening coat pocket. With the money was a note, insisting Gideon would not take the funds back, and Benjamin had “best not be a stiff-necked fool, and so use the money to keep your bride content. For she’ll not be content in Bexley with you on the London docks.”

  Even with such a gift to keep their hearth and home together, Katherine had fretted that leaving his employment would mean not being at sea.

  “It was never so much the sea itself,” he had explained, gazing into her eyes, “but longing for a place to belong.”

  “Benjamin, you are giving up so much for me—”

  He had taken her in his arms and reminded her of their special creed; ‘“You must try everything your heart desires,’ remember? And for me, right now, making your dream a reality is what I desire. It is the place I long for, being at your side.”

  As if sensing their happiness, fate seemed inclined to make short work of what should have been longer and harder, for Katherine’s papa had a bridal gift of his own when he returned a few weeks later to Bexley from London.

  “The thing of it is,” he said, looking abashed, “well, I never let Katherine or the boys know that Katie’s dowry was never meant to be merely that puny strip of land above her own. She’s to have all of the acres attached, between Meyerley Creek and Ramshead Creek.”

  “That must be two hundred acres!” Benjamin cried, stunned. “Closer to three, and already planted with maize and oats for the racers and other cattle you will be housing, you see,” Sir Albert had explained. Then he had grinned and laughed as his daughter threw herself into his arms, and kissed and thanked him effusively. “I did not want any fortune hunters after you,” he said, hugging her in return. He gazed over her shoulder, directly at Lord Benjamin. “I wanted my Katie’s husband to be a man who loved her for her own sake, not her land. She’d not thrive with just any man to husband, you know.”

  Fallen Angel continued to run well, and her sister in the stables, the other racing mare, had also proven swift of foot for her
owner, who shared the “secret of his success” with many another owner—namely Katherine’s stable and training ground. Within a month, the Katherine Whitbury School and Stables of Excellence in Horse Racing had eight new boarders.

  “I cannot believe we have enough funds, with fees paid and purses won by Fallen Angel, to be sure we can last through the winter,” Katherine declared as she looked up from the books Benjamin kept for their venture. “With near half the bridal gift from Gideon still in the bank!”

  “People think it is my business,” Benjamin explained, giving her an apologetic shrug. “They do not really comprehend that you oversee it, even with your name on it.”

  “But the owners who spend any time here soon know to ask me what manner of mash their horse ought to have,” Katherine had said with happily glowing eyes.

  “They have to, since I say to them ‘what’s mash?’ But, Katherine, enough about the business. Come, you have not answered my request.”

  Now, as Katherine stood and resumed getting ready for bed by running a brush through her increasingly long red curls, Benjamin repeated the phrase that had become a creed for them: “You must try everything your heart desires.”

  Katherine gave him an arch look. “My heart does not desire that I prance about in only my underthings and boots, as you have suggested.”

  “Liar. I know quite a bit about your desires.”

  She did not look at him, and tried to hide a smile.

  “How about just boots then?’ he suggested.

  “Benjamin!” She put her hairbrush down with a clatter, even as she tried to sound shocked—but her laughter bubbled up despite herself.