As she halted in front of him, she worked to contain her rage and muster her dignity. She might have been born in a tin-roof shack on a stretch of Mississippi backwater, but she was about to become a countess, and a countess always behaved with decorum.
She lifted her chin to a haughty angle worthy of her future position and opened her mouth to tell him in a coldly polite manner to leave at once, but he spoke before she could.
“Don’t you just love those Turkish baths?” he murmured under his breath, and any notions Annabel had of countesslike dignity went to the wall.
“You bastard.” Without conscious thought, she hauled back her arm, curled her fist, and in front of more than one hundred members of New York and English society, she punched the Duke of Scarborough right in the jaw.
Chapter Nine
“That has to be the most humiliating spectacle I have ever witnessed in my life.”
Sylvia stopped pacing back and forth across the sitting room of their suite to look daggers at him. “God knows you’ve always been cavalier about the niceties of etiquette, Christian, but this is so beyond the pale, I don’t know what to say.”
She proved that last statement a lie by continuing to talk as she resumed pacing. “Beyond the pale, unforgivable, and downright idiotic as well. What in heaven’s name were you thinking?”
Christian pulled the poultice of ice chips from his bruised jaw and opened his mouth to reply that thinking really hadn’t had much to do with it, but before he could say a word, Sylvia was off again.
“I know Rumsford is not one of your favorite people, but really! Stepping up and objecting at the man’s wedding? Who ever heard of such a thing? That business about ‘if any man has just cause’ isn’t meant to be taken literally, for heaven’s sake! And what cause could you possibly have? And that poor girl. Dear God, I can only imagine what she must be feeling.”
Sylvia stopped again, enabling him to at last get a word in. “Poor girl? She was about to marry Rumsford. Believe me, I did her a favor.” He touched his bruised jaw with his fingertips and grimaced. “I think I did him one, too.”
“A favor?” Sylvia shook her head, laughing in disbelief. “How is humiliating the bride, the groom, and all the guests a favor? How is embarrassing me and yourself and making the girl the subject of distasteful gossip by your insinuations a favor?”
Christian frowned. Had he made insinuations? He strove to remember, but the entire episode was already becoming quite vague in his mind. All he could recall was standing by the pillar thinking what a farce it was. And how someone should stop it. And Annabel’s fist slamming into his face. That part he remembered with perfect clarity. Christian moved his jaw in an experimental fashion, and needles of pain shot through his entire face, making him appreciate that Annabel had a smashing right hook. In his inebriated state, the blow had actually sent him to the floor. He was lucky she hadn’t broken his jaw.
She’d stepped over his prone body and walked out, her family chasing after her. Bernard, his sisters, and his best man had vanished by a side door for parts unknown. And Sylvia, with the help of ship’s company, had dragged him off for this private set-to.
“How could you?” she demanded, still pacing and still fuming. “How could you do this to an innocent girl and a fellow peer?”
He found it hard to answer that question, for he didn’t quite know what his motive had been. Still, he decided now was probably a good time to tell her about the half a million dollars, but she gave him no chance.
“You’ll have to go at once and apologize to Miss Wheaton. And to Rumsford. You’ll also have to explain yourself and find some way to make amends. God only knows how you’ll manage that. What makes amends for something like this, I haven’t a clue.”
Sylvia was right, of course. An apology would be rather hypocritical, since he wasn’t the least bit sorry, but it was required. As for making amends, he knew he’d have to do that as well, though he wished he’d thought of how to accomplish that particular feat before he’d opened his mouth. “Certainly, but I can’t do it now. I’m quite drunk at the moment, in case you hadn’t noticed.”
“Who could help but notice?” she countered acidly. “And even if you hadn’t been tilting three sheets to the wind, I would have known you were drunk, because you clearly didn’t appreciate the implications of what you were saying.”
Christian didn’t reply. Sylvia’s pacing was making him quite dizzy, especially since there seemed to be two of her. Trying to appreciate the implications of anything was nigh impossible. “What . . .” He paused and swallowed hard. “What implications are you referring to?”
That question brought her to a blessed halt. “Christian, you stood up and declared you had cause to stop her wedding! The only cause you could possibly have is a prior claim on her affections, but since you had only arrived in New York the day before the ship sailed, having never met her before, that claim is barely creditable. And after this morning’s events, your names are now linked and you’ll be the subject of intense gossip. I’ve no doubt rumors that the pair of you have been meeting secretly aboard ship have already started circulating through that room. You’ll have to deny those rumors, of course.”
Guilt slid through him. “Of course,” he murmured.
“That is,” she went on, staring at him, looking suddenly like a cat ready to pounce upon a hapless mouse, “if they are untrue.”
Uh-oh. The fat was in the fire now. He tried to look innocent of any wrongdoing, but that didn’t work. It never did with Sylvia.
“Oh, Christian.” She groaned and sank into a chair. “You took advantage of an innocent girl? Oh my God.”
“I didn’t. At least, not really. I mean . . .” He rubbed his hands over his face, trying to think how to explain. “I didn’t take the girl’s virtue, Sylvia,” he said after a moment. “And we have no romantic entanglement. She isn’t tainted, for the love of God!”
“Then you’ll have to go to Rumsford at once, explain that you were drunk, and that’s all. That there’s nothing between you and the girl, she’s wholly innocent, and you acted out of . . . I don’t know! Jealousy or something. Claim a crush on the girl, flatter his ego for having chosen such a pretty one, deny that she had anything to do with it—hell, I don’t know what you’ll say, but God knows you’re glib enough to think of something and make it sound convincing. Somehow you’ve got to persuade him to go ahead with the wedding, which would halt any rumors in their tracks. You’ll also have to apologize to him for your unspeakable conduct, too, of course.”
That idea made him more nauseated than he already was. “Apologize to Rumsford? Not a chance in hell.”
“Then what are you going to do? You have to do something! You compromised an innocent girl.”
“I told you, I didn’t compromise her.” He swallowed hard and closed his eyes, fighting for control over his rebellious stomach long enough to explain. “Arthur Ransom hired me to try and talk her out of marrying Rumsford.”
“What?”
“He offered to pay me half a million dollars.”
“You stopped that girl’s wedding and humiliated her for money?” She gave a disbelieving laugh. “You won’t marry a girl for her dowry, but you’d allow yourself to be paid for ruining her? And her uncle hired you to do it?”
“No!” He opened his eyes. “All I was supposed to do was talk her out of it, and I was trying, but she wasn’t listening. She doesn’t love him, and damn it all, Sylvia, he doesn’t love her, either. He is after her money, and he’s not even bothering to pretend otherwise, since he went to a prostitute the night before the ship sailed, right under her uncle’s nose!”
“Oh heavens,” she murmured, staring at him. “Does Miss Wheaton know any of this?”
“I don’t know. I doubt it. Anyway, I was there, watching her, knowing she was about to throw her life away, and I was thinking what it would be like for her married to that pig—and Rumsford is a pig, Sylvia, you know it as well as I do—and all of a s
udden, I was objecting without even realizing what I was doing. I wasn’t even thinking about the money, although I’m sure no one in her family is going to believe that.”
“Probably not,” Sylvia murmured. “But I think I’m beginning to understand your motivations.” She frowned, still studying him thoughtfully, a scrutiny he was in no frame of mind to interpret, for the room was starting to spin before his eyes, his stomach was wrenching violently, and he began to fear all the alcohol he’d consumed was about to come back up.
“I’ve got to lie down,” he muttered, and suited the action to the words. The settee was too short for his long frame, but just now, his sleeping bunk seemed a long way away. He rested one foot on the arm of the settee and planted the other on the floor. Thankfully, the room stopped spinning.
“Lie down?” Sylvia cried. “You can’t. You’ve got to do something.”
Whatever his next action might be, he wasn’t going to implement it now. He’d sort this all out and find a solution later, when he was sober. “Leave off, Sylvia,” he muttered. “For God’s sake, leave off. I’m in no condition to do anything at the moment. But I’ll rectify the situation somehow.”
“I hope so. For the sake of that poor, devastated girl, I hope so.”
Contrary to what Lady Sylvia thought, Annabel was not devastated. She was mad, spitting mad, so mad that she hardly felt the pain in her hand. So mad that she was having difficulty expressing her anger, at least in words that did not describe the low moral character of the Duke of Scarborough.
“That vile man,” she muttered, turning at the fireplace and starting back across the carpet. Though she was still in her wedding gown, her steps were not hampered by her train, which had been removed by Liza and taken away. “That low, despicable, dishonorable cad. That bastard. That villain.”
Her mother and uncle were the recipients of this assessment of Scarborough’s character. Since the awful events half an hour earlier, she had not seen Bernard or his sisters. She assumed they had gone to their staterooms. George, never good at handling difficult situations, had escaped to the smoking room. Dinah had been dispatched to her bedroom with orders to stay there, but though the door was closed, Annabel had no doubt her sister was peeking through the keyhole or pressing her ear to the door. She was too mad to care.
As for the source of her anger, she didn’t know his whereabouts, and she didn’t want to know, unless, of course, someone had thrown him overboard, in which case she’d have been delighted to hear the news.
“How could he?” she demanded, turning in a swirl of satin and tulle and starting back across the rug. As she asked that question, a fresh set of furious tears filled her eyes, but she blinked them back. “How could he do this?”
Arthur and Henrietta hadn’t said a word since they’d all returned to the suite, allowing her to pour out this slew of perfectly justified outrage without interruption, but now, with Annabel’s question hanging in the air, Henrietta was the first to respond.
“Well, he must have had a reason. What was it, Annabel?”
Annabel’s steps faltered to a stop. That kiss flashed across her mind, more vivid each time she remembered it. She felt a blush of guilt and something more creeping into her face, and she hastily resumed pacing.
“Annabel?” Mama’s voice was sharper now, sharp with suspicion. “What reason would the duke have to stop the wedding?”
Annabel was saved having to answer that inconvenient question by Uncle Arthur, of all people.
“Don’t be raking Annabel over the coals, Henrietta. It’s not her fault.” He gave a cough. “It’s mine.”
“What?” The two women asked the question at the same time. Annabel stopped wearing out the rug, Henrietta turned to her brother, and they both stared at him in shock.
“I . . . um . . .” Arthur lifted his fist to his mouth and coughed again, wriggling in his chair as if he was a naughty schoolboy instead of a grown man. “I hired the duke to talk Annabel out of marrying Rumsford.”
“You did what?” Annabel cried.
“Oh Lord.” Henrietta fell back in her chair, eyes lifting heavenward. “Oh my Lord.”
Annabel wouldn’t have thought she could get any angrier, but now, looking at her uncle’s shamefaced expression, she knew she’d been wrong about that. She discovered she had plenty of anger to go around. “You paid that man to stop my wedding?”
“No!” Arthur leaned forward, rubbing a hand over his balding head. “I only wanted him to talk with you. Try to explain to you what you’d be getting into marryin’ one of these British peers. Maybe get you to postpone the wedding, take more time, think things over. But that was all. I sure didn’t hire him to do what he did!”
“Oh, Arthur.” Henrietta sighed. “How could you?”
Annabel stared at her uncle, but it was Scarborough she was thinking of. All their conversations made perfect, horrible sense. The way he’d tried to paint British marriage as some sort of awful trap, the way he’d disparaged Bernard, how he’d followed her down to the cargo bay. Even kissing her, she realized, must have been deliberate—to show her there were other fish in the sea, a calculated move with only a pretense of passion. He was good at acting, she realized. Very, very good. But then, bad boys always were. And it wasn’t even as if he wanted to marry her himself. No, all he wanted was to stop her from marrying someone else so he could get paid.
That snake.
Her hands curled into fists. “How much?” she asked in a hard voice. Every man, she was beginning to appreciate, had his price. She wanted to know Scarborough’s. “How much, Uncle Arthur?”
“Half a million dollars.”
Henrietta gasped, obviously shocked by the amount, but Annabel wasn’t shocked at all. One thing she’d learned about having money was that most things could be bought, if one was willing to pay enough. “Well, now that my reputation’s in shreds because of that man’s insinuations,” she choked, fighting back tears of fury and pain, “I hope you’re satisfied.”
“I’m sorry, Nan,” Arthur said heavily. “I’m sorrier than I can say. I thought I was acting for the best. But I swear, I just wanted him to talk you out of marrying Rumsford. I had no idea he’d stand up at the wedding! I love you, and I just want you to be happy, and I didn’t think you knew what you were doing. I wanted you to take more time, sure if you did, you’d realize Rumsford wasn’t good enough for you.”
A knock at the door interrupted any reply Annabel might have made. She glanced at her mother, who was looking at her in inquiry, and she shook her head in refusal. She didn’t want to face anybody, not yet.
Henrietta walked to the door, and Annabel returned her attention to her uncle. “We’ll talk about this again,” she told him through clenched teeth. “When I’m not mad enough to spit nails. That man doesn’t get a penny of money, yours or mine, understand? And you are just damned lucky I love you so much,” she choked, her throat closing up, “ ’cause if I didn’t, I think I’d have to kill you, Uncle Arthur.”
Henrietta opened the door, cutting off any reply her uncle might have made, and at the sound of Bernard’s voice, Annabel froze, glad he couldn’t see her from this part of the sitting room.
“Mrs. Chumley,” he said, “may I speak with your daughter, please?”
“My lord, it might be better to wait,” Mama answered. “Annabel, as you might guess, is not feeling well.”
“I realize that, but I believe it is best if this matter were resolved as quickly as possible. The guests are all still assembled.”
That gave Annabel a spark of hope, trumping all the other emotions that were threatening to overwhelm her. If Bernard had inquired about the guests, perhaps he was here to see if she was ready to proceed. It might be just like Bernard to regard Scarborough’s outburst as an appalling lack of good manners, best ignored and forgotten. He might be here to propose that they carry on as if nothing had happened.
She nodded to her mother, and Henrietta opened the door wide for Bernard to come in. T
hen, murmuring something about Dinah, she went to the girl’s room and returned with her younger daughter firmly in tow. “Come along, Dinah. And you, too, Arthur. I think we could all do with some air.”
For once, Dinah didn’t protest being ordered about. Giving Annabel a wide-eyed look of sympathy over her shoulder, Dinah followed their mother and uncle out the door without a word, closing the door behind her.
Silence followed in the wake of her family’s departure, and as she looked into Bernard’s face, searching for signs of hope, she found little there to encourage her. He was always inclined to be a bit stiff, but now he seemed more aloof than ever. His expression was unreadable, and the silence seemed unbearable. She wanted desperately to say something to fill the void. “Bernard, I—”
“In light of this morning’s events,” he said, cutting off whatever she’d been about to say, “I believe we can both agree that the wedding needs to be canceled.”
Her heart sank, but she thought maybe she could still head this off at the pass, if only she could find the right words. “Does it have to be canceled? We could . . .” She hesitated, but decided she had nothing to lose. “There’s really no reason we can’t go ahead.”
“Go ahead?” Bernard looked at her askance. “Ignore that mortifying spectacle as if it never happened? Annabel, you struck a duke in the face.”
She grimaced, but decided it was best not to defend herself by pointing out that Scarborough had deserved it. “Everyone is still in the ballroom,” she said instead, striving to sound calm and reasonable. “They’re all waiting for an announcement of some kind, and if we announced that we’re just going ahead as planned, everyone would conclude there was nothing to what Scarborough said.”
Bernard stared at her, his appalled face telling her what he thought of that idea even before he spoke. “You can’t possibly think I would marry you now?”
Annabel felt the first tear fall, sliding down her cheek, and with it, she felt all her hopes and dreams sliding away, too. She blinked, striving to hold back, as if stopping the tears would prevent what was coming, but his next words proved how futile that notion was.
Trouble at the Wedding Page 14
