“Then is it your infirmity? You seem to do well enough.”
Gareth did. He’d practiced hard, although there were days when his single hand failed to achieve its objective. But he was proud that he needed no one to button his breeches or cut his food. He might never hold a rifle again, but that was just as well. He might turn it on himself.
“Mrs. Mont, I’ve explained. You seem like an intelligent girl. I’ll have no home, no occupation in a few months. You’ve come from London. Last time I visited, there were still veterans—some even able-bodied—sleeping on the streets, begging. There have been food riots and unrest. At least Napoleon helped with the employment rate. When decent men can’t find work, it does not bode well for someone like me.”
“Rubbish. Evangeline can find you a job.”
“Who?”
“Never mind. You could become someone’s estate agent, couldn’t you? You’ve managed this holding.”
Gareth laughed. “Aye, and run it into the ground.”
“Nonsense. You said that was your father’s doing. If you are good with numbers, and honest, I’m sure we could find you a place if you lose your home.”
All traces of her Cockney speech had vanished. She sounded like a little duchess, looked regal even when holding his gin-stained shirt against her bountiful chest. “You forget the cloud over me, Mrs. Mont.”
“Well, you’ll simply have to get to the bottom of the murder and clear your name instead of drinking all day. When did the woman die?”
“Her name was Bronwen,” he said softly. “It was last August.” Just a few months ago, but long enough for the rumors to take root and flourish.
Time enough, they said, for Gareth’s rage over her rejection of him the previous winter to fester. Time enough for her to take another lover and ensure his jealousy. His recovery had been agonizingly slow, his crops had failed and he was a desperate, angry man. A man used to killing in time of war.
He fit easily into the role his wary neighbors had assigned to him. He’d been gone from home so long they didn’t know him anymore. From the moment he lay delirious drinking the pain of his mangled and then missing arm away, he had put himself on the path of suspicion. He couldn’t blame them for what they assumed—he might do the same.
Mrs. Mont shoved the clothes at him. “The first thing you’re going to do is bring these downstairs to the sink and wash them.”
He lifted an eyebrow. “I am?”
She nodded. “If you cannot afford someone to help me, you’re going to have to pitch in. You’ve nothing better to do now, do you?”
Gareth gave a fleeting glance to his cupboard. “No, I suppose not.”
She was too smart for him. Opening the door, she pulled out the bottle and handed it to him. “You should pour this down the sink, too.”
“I can get more.” He’d need to if he complied with her ridiculous demands.
“Major Ripton-Jones, for a man with limited income, you need to allocate your resources more appropriately. For seed, machinery, etcetera.”
“Why should I bother planting when I’ll never see the results?”
She looked him straight in the eye. “Because, if you give up drink, I will marry you and you can stay.”
“What?”
“I am, as it happens, an heiress. Once we marry, I will come into enough funds to allow you to keep this place. But I will expect something in return.”
Gareth’s head spun, and not from his unfinished breakfast ale. Of course she wasn’t a housekeeper—her skin was fine as porcelain, her skill in the kitchen execrable. True, she could clean, but anyone could grab a rag and make a difference to his hovel.
“I am as notorious in London as you are in Wales. More so, I should think, although no one has accused me of murder. Yet.”
“I don’t understand.”
“Of course you don’t.” She folded her arms, obscuring her breasts. Did she notice his hungry look? He could smell lilac and clean skin. How he longed to pull the cork from the bottle in his hand and drain the whole damn thing. “I will help you with your reputation, and in return, once we set this place to rights, you will let me leave to make a new life with at least half my money.”
She was speaking gibberish. Was this some sort of delayed alcoholic delusion? He shook his head to clear it.
“You are absolutely mad.”
“I suppose I am,” she agreed. “It would have been so much easier for you to advertise for a wife. That was my original plan, but I see things are more complicated than I thought.”
“Who are you?”
“That’s immaterial at the moment. Suffice to say that we can be useful to each other. I can help you with your investigation as well. But”—she gave him a stern look—“you must promise to cease spending your days wallowing in self-pity.”
“I—” He was about to deny the undeniable. What she’d said was true. He’d just passed the worst year of his life. With no honor and very little wit.
“Are you on speaking terms with the local minister?”
“Not really.” The Reverend Ian Morgan thought Gareth was Satan incarnate. A heathen. An inebriate. An adulterer. A murderer.
“Well, you shall have to go see him anyway. It will take three weeks to advertise our intention to marry. You can’t afford a special license. Do you want me to go with you?”
This was becoming more and more absurd. He hadn’t even known Mrs. Mont a full week.
He didn’t even know her first name.
“You said I’d have to do something for you.”
“Of course. But we can discuss my leaving later.”
“We’ll discuss it now, I think.” He patted the bed.
Mrs. Mont hesitated, as well she should. Gareth was a dangerous man to sit next to. With one gentle push, he could tip her over on her back and fuck her. Find some relief, for however long. He was so randy he expected it wouldn’t be very—he’d spend as fast and hard as a schoolboy.
As quickly as he had with Bronwen once they were old enough to know what their dissimilar parts were for. As they grew older, they’d taken more time, learned their rhythms, fell deeper into lust, although he’d been very certain it was love, at least on his part.
The times he’d had leave from his commanding officer to come home, they hadn’t been able to keep their hands off each other, the vows to her husband be damned. He had ached with wanting her, although he’d been no saint for fifteen years. There had been women. Lots of them.
He hadn’t had a woman in a year. Perhaps Mrs. Mont should ride him once she became Mrs. Ripton-Jones—he wasn’t sure he’d stay upright supported by just one palm. He’d learned how to do lots of things one-handed—making love to a woman would probably be the most diverting.
“Very well.” She sat down gingerly about as far away from him as she could without falling on the floor. “This will be a marriage in name only. Once we go to my trustees in London with the proof of our wedding, a considerable amount will be released to you. I expect you to keep what is reasonable to pay your debts and get the estate functioning again, then turn over the rest to me.”
In name only? What the hell. There went his fantasy. Was he so repulsive she wouldn’t consider bedding him? Just like Bronwen. Did Mrs. Mont really expect to tie him up for life with no expectation of marital relations? No children? He didn’t have much to offer sons or daughters now, but someday he might.
True, he was a stranger to her. There probably had never been a Mr. Mont, so most likely she was a runaway virgin. She was fleeing from her past, and proposing to flee from her present.
He struggled to keep his voice steady. “Where will you go?”
“I don’t quite know yet. France, I suppose. Or America.”
“Alone?”
“If you’re asking if I have a lover, I do not. And don’t want one.”
Gareth saw the shiver she tried to repress. Her chin was raised, and she looked as determined as any general he’d ever served under.
> But she was frightened. There was fear beneath the bravado, just as there should be. He’d seen it in the army. Life was enough to scare the shit out of the most decorated soldier, and the best were scared to death and fought accordingly.
What had he done with his fear lately? Certainly not fought back. He’d drunk himself stupid. Mrs. Mont was right—he’d wallowed, bathed, almost drowned in self-pity.
He could agree to her terms and save his home.
Or pretend to agree.
He was awfully rusty in the seduction department, but suddenly Gareth wanted more than anything to soothe his prickly housekeeper. To cup her rounded freckled cheek. To part her lips and see what she tasted like. To bury his face between her lovely breasts and inhale her lilac fragrance. To feel the wet of her core around his cock.
His future wife. Whom he had no intention of letting go—to France or America or anywhere else. It was time for him to be happy, and if Mrs. Mont could do her part to make him so, he would try his best to return the favor. He’d spent too many months—too many years—deferring his pleasure. No more.
Although some would say he’d raised plenty of hell in his time. The righteous Reverend Ian Morgan, for example.
“Mrs. Mont, I thank you for your generous offer. I’m afraid I don’t know your Christian name. I’ll need it to give Mr. Morgan.”
She froze. “I hadn’t thought of that! Oh, dear. This might not work after all. I don’t want word of my whereabouts to get out. If m-my father finds out I’m here, he’ll never let me marry. Do you think we could get Mr. Morgan to lie?”
CHAPTER 6
This is what came of being impulsive. Anne had proposed to the major, but had not thought the thing through. If Reverend Morgan stood up three Sundays in a row and said her true name aloud, word would spread like wildfire that she was here.
Her father had sent that investigator Mulgrew after her once. He would do so again. Mr. Mulgrew could be very persuasive, especially when he shackled one.
If the minister simply said “Anne Mont,” and she married under an assumed name, the marriage would be illegal. Her father and the trustees would never give her the inheritance and she’d be locked in her room again.
“What are you hiding, Mrs. Mont? At least give me your name,” Gareth said gently.
“It’s Anne now,” she whispered. “My middle name.”
His blue eyes were sharp, but he smiled. “Anne. Annie. That suits you. What was it before? Was there ever a Mr. Mont?”
She avoided the questions. “I think I’ve been hasty.” She waved an arm between them over the crumpled sheets. “Never mind about all this.”
“Now, you cannot dangle a fortune and a beautiful bride in front of a poor man and then yank them back.”
The man looked amused, but none of this was a laughing matter.
“I’m not beautiful. And you probably would not want to marry me if you found out who I am anyway.”
“I realize you have no reason to trust me, but I used to be a somewhat honorable man. Is there a price on your head?”
“No, of course not. I’ve said I’m not a murderer.”
“Nor am I. Who is the father who frightens you so that you had to run all the way to Wales?”
She leaped from the bed. She couldn’t tell him—he would be disgusted. “Really, I’ve been foolish. I always am. Let’s forget I made this silly proposition. We’ll find another way for you to keep your home.”
“Annie.”
Just the one word. A name that wasn’t really hers, but the way he said it caused her heart to kick. She could imagine him whispering it in her ear right in this bed.
If she washed the sheets first.
The heat traveled up her throat to her cheeks. What on earth was wrong with her? She had no intention of being under any man’s control. Being under any man.
He held out his hand as she skittered up against the open window. “I can’t forget. And I actually think I can persuade the good reverend to bend the truth enough. Let me talk to him and see what he says.”
“I don’t want a real marriage!” she burst out.
“So you’ve said. I would never force my attentions on an unwilling woman.”
Gareth seemed sober. Sincere. She took a step toward him. “If you were my husband, you’d have every right to.”
“That’s true. And you are a very appealing woman. Tempting. It would be hard to resist you.”
Anne glanced down at her battered black dress. “Don’t be ridiculous.”
“Who has hurt you, Annie?” he asked softly.
“N-no one.” She wouldn’t, couldn’t tell him. It was one thing confessing to Evangeline. After all, she’d held a gun on the poor woman—it was the least she could do to explain the reason for her very odd behavior.
“All right.” He sighed, rose from the bed, and met her in the middle of the room. “Get dressed. We’ll go down to the village and talk to Ian Morgan. If you need privacy to divulge your secrets, you’ll have it. We’ll have three weeks to get to know each other better. Maybe by then you’ll feel more comfortable with me and tell me what is troubling you so.”
“I’m not troubled, not at all.”
He gave her a wry grin. “You may not drown your troubles in spirits like I do, Annie, but I recognize a fellow traveler.”
“Will you stop drinking?”
Gareth towered over her. The cut on his cheek was healing, but he hadn’t shaved again today. Dark bristles edged his jaw, and she held her hands together so she wouldn’t touch them. When he looked down at her like that with those blazing blue eyes, she almost forgot what her true name was.
“I promise I’ll try.”
She allowed herself a small smile. “I guess that’s the best you can do.”
“You’ll have to help me. Keep me busy so I won’t be idle.” Anne flinched as he laid a teasing calloused finger on her cheek. He noticed and dropped his hand to his side.
“I did tell you to do the laundry.”
“So you did. I’ll get right to it once we come home. Now I’ll have to make myself decent so fire and brimstone won’t rain down upon us. Will you be ready to leave in half an hour?”
Anne took a deep breath. “Fifteen minutes.”
“I need a button sewed on my coat. Can you manage that?”
“I-I think so.” She had spent years poking needles through linen, going mad with chain stitches and French knots as she worked on the insipid embroidery which society deemed was so necessary to prove oneself a lady. She’d failed miserably.
The major tugged open a drawer and returned with a bent brass button. “The coat is hanging downstairs in the front hall cupboard under the stairs. Don’t hurry. I have to dress and help Martin with the horses. You do ride?”
One of her greatest pleasures. Something her father had restricted once he knew how much it meant to her. “Yes.”
“I think we still have my mother’s saddle. Her riding habit might be in one of the attic trunks if the moths haven’t dined on it. It would be too long for you, though.”
“I’ll go up and look for it.” She didn’t want to beg a favor from the vicar in her hand-me-down maid’s uniform.
“An hour then for both of us to become presentable. I’ll see you down in the kitchen when you’re ready.”
Anne was grateful for the extra time, as it seemed she would be sewing and altering clothes. She ran up the attic stairs and pushed into the cavernous space, wishing she’d brought a lantern. The grimy windows let very little of the gray winter light through. There were trunks and boxes stacked against the north wall, the dust on the floor around them undisturbed except where she’d stepped the other day in her exploration of the house.
Pinching her nose to stop a sneeze, she was rewarded with victory on the first trunk she threw open. Even in the dimness, the silks and satins and velvets shone. Everything was decades out of date, of course, but a woman who knew what to do with a needle and thread could have a field day. Alas
, that was not her talent, but she unfolded a dark green thick wool habit from the middle of the lavender-scented pile and held it up against her. Gareth had overestimated his mother’s height. Anne thought she might get away with simply rolling up the waistband. The jacket and stitched linen blouse seemed a little big, but they would do. A large canvas drawstring bag held a pair of well-worn leather boots, which fit almost perfectly when Anne wiggled into them.
Wasn’t she a shallow creature? She’d worn servant’s clothes for less than two weeks of travel and work, and already she thrilled to exchange them for a dead gentlewoman’s leavings. She’d like to get her hair back to its natural color again as well. That bath tomorrow . . .
She could not think about relaxation when she held the fate of both the major and herself in the palm of her somewhat grubby hand. What could she do to convince Mr. Morgan to cooperate? As a man of the cloth, he had sworn not to lie. Sometimes the Commandments were very inconvenient—Anne was totally disregarding honoring her father’s wishes just now, but was sure God would want her to in this instance.
She clambered down the stairs to her room with her new clothes. It was misting outside, but at least she wouldn’t have to sink in the mud all the way into the village. As she dressed and re-braided her hair, she practiced confessing a brief but accurate summary of the liberties her father had taken with her. She was determined not to cry in the retelling, but would if her tears caused Mr. Morgan to take pity on her and fudge her name.
The spotted glass showed her determined freckled face under Mrs. Ripton-Jones’s green velvet hat. Anne looked entirely respectable and even a little dashing.
The major’s button! She fished it out of the pocket of her discarded apron and hurried down the stairs. He was waiting for her at the kitchen table wearing a fresh shirt, a length of crumpled linen draped over his shoulders. He was hunched over Mrs. Smith’s book, so entranced by whatever receipt he was reading he didn’t even look up.
Lady Anne's Lover (The London List) Page 5
