The woman at the inn, where she’d left the mail stage, had informed her that the vicar would be in the church all afternoon, preparing Sunday’s sermon. She wouldn’t be expected for a fortnight, but if she’d delayed somewhere else that might have given her a moment or two of hope again—and that seemed a cruel thing to do to herself.
In the same vein, she might have attempted to convince herself that Gulval, in the Penwith district of Cornwall, would have been less gloomy in better weather, that if she’d arrived with the sun shining and the birds singing she might have felt more optimistic about her future. But the weather truly didn’t signify. It was inside that she felt cold and lifeless and moss-covered.
Traveling to Yorkshire and Greaves Park had been a stupid mistake to begin with. No, she hadn’t expected to fall in love, much less with the least likely man in the country, but she’d been looking for more of that blasted hope. For fond memories. All that meant now, though, was that she had more regrets. And one maddening, amazing man she both wished she could forget and wanted to keep inside her heart always.
With Adam, she’d charmed a man most people were afraid even to speak to. Could the Reverend Loines possibly be as difficult as the Duke of Greaves? With measured footsteps, shoving hard against the feeling that she was walking to her own funeral, she pushed open the church door and stepped inside. Silently she moved up the center aisle, between rows of black-painted pews and toward the altar draped in white cloth and topped by a pair of candles.
“Hello?” she called, not seeing anyone within the main room.
A wooden door to the left side of the altar creaked open. A young man, hair brown and neatly combed, stepped inside. “May I help you?” he asked, brown eyes taking in her drenched greatcoat and the rivulets of water running down her face from her ruined blue bonnet.
Well, he didn’t look like Frankenstein’s monster, anyway. She mustered a smile. “Mr. Loines?”
“Yes.” His eyes narrowed, then widened. “Miss White.”
“Yes. I’m several weeks early, but—”
He backed into the side room and shut the door on her sentence. For a moment Sophia stood there, dripping. As that wasn’t even the rudest thing ever done to her, she set down her boxes again and made for the doorway. As she reached it, though, it opened again.
“You are to wait here,” the Reverend Loines said, as he pulled a heavy coat and wide-brimmed hat on over his simple black and brown attire. “I will fetch Mother, who will be your companion until our marriage.”
“Your moth—”
“I cannot be alone with you,” he interrupted, “as we are unmarried.” Moving past her, he hurried up the length of the church and vanished out the main door.
“Well.”
She couldn’t even remember the last time a man had decided he couldn’t be in a room alone with her. With a scowl, she sat in the front pew and practiced folding her hands in her lap. The bench was hard and far too straight-backed to be comfortable, though they had likely been so for years before Mr. Loines was even born. A few cushions, however, would do wonders.
For some reason she’d thought he would be older, someone Hennessy had deemed capable of keeping her in check. But he’d barely looked older than she was, herself. If he was merely four- or five-and-twenty, he couldn’t have been in this position for long. Perhaps he wasn’t as set in his ways as she’d feared.
The idea of Mr. Loines had haunted her for weeks. And whichever conclusions she wished to leap to now about his youth and his character had no more validity than her nightmares. She was here. The good or bad of it wouldn’t matter, except it would determine how she could best make do.
Nearly ten minutes passed before the church door opened again. A tall, round woman stepped inside and pulled a scarf from over her white-peppered dark hair. “Mrs. Loines, I presume?” Sophia asked, standing again.
“I am.”
“I’m pleased to m—”
“You surprised the vicar. Have a seat while I fetch some tea, and he’ll return momentarily.”
Sophia sat again. “Where did he go, if I might ask?”
The vicar’s mother vanished into the side room, then emerged a moment later with a pot and three cups. “To the house. He has some notes, he said.” The woman eyed her. “You’re going to behave, I hope. Gulval is a God-fearing village, and we won’t stand for a woman leading our men astray.”
“Please, Mother,” the vicar’s voice came from behind them. “You’re speaking to my betrothed. Miss White is not going to lead anyone astray.”
Well, that was nice—and unexpected. “Thank you, Vicar. I—”
“She is the example from which we all shall learn how better to serve our Lord and savior,” he continued. “Christ walked among lepers, and we shall follow his example.”
“I’m not a leper,” Sophia stated, frowning.
“Of course not,” he said, dragging a chair from one side of the room to sit directly in front of her. “You are Mary Magdalene, a fallen woman waiting to be raised to grace. And I shall raise you.”
“I didn’t fall anywhere,” Sophia retorted, the gleam in his eye somehow more troubling than if he had been a drooling, arm-swinging monster. “My parents are unmarried, which is no fault of mine.”
He smiled. “Yes, of course. And your employment at a den of sin? Your life in a house full of Jezebels? Is that no fault of yours? And your fraternization with men? You must acknowledge your faults in order to learn from them. And you must be the example for other women who teeter on the edge of damnation.”
Sophia sent a glance at Mrs. Loines, who’d taken a seat on the opposite pew and nodded. “Is there no woman in Gulval who’s caught your eye, Mr. Loines?” she asked. “You seem to view me as a poor choice for matrimony.”
“A vicar should marry so that he may more completely serve as an example to his congregation. You are a perfect choice for me to demonstrate the effects of faith and charity and repentance.”
Ice coursing down her spine, Sophia scooted back as far into the pew as she could. The degree of … hate the Duke of Hennessy must have had for her—and why? Because she’d been born? Every muscle, every sinew in her body tensed up, ready for her to run. She wanted to run. But she couldn’t. The Tantalus Club, the three dozen women who’d sought employment there for the same reasons she had—because they had nowhere else to go but the streets—would suffer if she fled.
“You seem very certain of my place in all this,” she ventured, attempting to keep her voice steady. In the back of her mind she could abruptly hear Adam’s voice, telling her that she was an unusual, extraordinary woman. She concentrated on that, drawing strength from the idea that someone else in the world found her worthwhile. “And yet, I don’t even know your Christian name.”
He nodded, folding his hands together. “Peter. But we must be proper in all things. I am to be addressed as Vicar, the Reverend Loines, or Mr. Loines at all times. Just as you will be Mrs. Loines.”
“But your mother is Mrs. Loines.”
His mother sat forward. “I have agreed to go by Mother Loines,” she said.
“Oh.”
The vicar rested his elbows on his knees. “I know a vicarage is frequently a … gift, given to an aristocrat’s younger son merely to provide him an income. That is not so with me. Mother says I was born for this. It is precisely where I’m meant to be.”
Sophia forced a smile. “It’s rare for someone to find their perfect place in the world.”
He tilted his head at her. “This is your perfect place as well, Miss White. Here you will join me in church every Sunday, sitting right where you are now, and twice a week when portions of the congregation gather you will confess your sins and we will pray for you. You will do good works, tending the poor and reading the Bible for the uneducated and the infirm. And of course you will contemplate your sins wh—”
The door at the back of the church creaked open. “There you are, Sophia,” came the familiar voice of the Marquis
of Haybury.
Jumping, she whipped her head around. “What? What are y—”
“I’m glad I arrived early,” he cut in, striding forward to her side. “It isn’t every day I’m invited to give the bride away, after all.”
The vicar stood when she did. “My lord, I hadn’t realized you were still in Gulval. And I was under the impression that you didn’t care for the idea of this wedding.”
The marquis offered a smile that didn’t touch his eyes. “Suffice it to say that when Miss White marries, I mean to be there.”
That sounded rather ominous, even to her. And considering that she hadn’t expected to see anyone she knew ever again, Sophia was quite proud of herself for not bursting into tears. But she hadn’t told Lord and Lady Haybury the details of this match. All she’d told them was that Hennessy had found her a husband, and that she had agreed to marry.
Lord Haybury took her hand and tucked it around his arm. “Have you settled on a date yet?” he asked, briefly squeezing her fingers. “I hadn’t expected to see you until just before the fifteenth of the month.”
“Neither did I,” Mr. Loines returned, a scowl knitting his brows together. “Nor did I expect that anyone from your previous … life would be in attendance. You are to begin a new life here.”
“Yes, I know,” Sophia said, far too flippantly. Considering that she was near to having an apoplexy, though, it would have to do. “But Lord Haybury is family.”
“I’m like a father to her,” Haybury seconded, clearly ignoring the fact that he was only six years her senior.
“I see.” The vicar looked from one to the other of them. “This is to be a small, simple ceremony, presided over by the vicar from Newmill. As you’re here, I see no reason to wait. The Reverend Matthews can marry us by Thursday afternoon.”
“Aren’t you going to have the banns read?” Oliver asked, frowning in turn. “It would be somewhat improper to ignore the custom under the circumstances, would it not?”
“I have been reading the banns,” the Reverend Loines returned. “Sunday will be the third occasion. I didn’t wish to have the wedding delayed after Miss White’s arrival. An unmarried female of her character roaming about the village would be … unfitting.”
“You’ve been thorough,” the marquis returned. “We will wait, of course, until after the third reading of the banns. I suggest a week from Saturday. That will give you ten days, Miss White, to find an appropriate gown to wear. Most of her things were lost in a carriage accident, you know. They went into the river. She nearly drowned.”
Mother Loines snorted. “You aren’t suggesting she wear white, are you, my lord?”
“Mother, please. Saturday next would be acceptable. And I shall use the metaphor of lost belongings to equate with the wages of sin being washed away.” He tapped a long forefinger against his chin in a gesture no doubt meant to look thoughtful. “There remains the matter of where to place you until we are safely wed. I suppose you could remain at my home, sharing Mother Loines’s bed, until the wedding. That would halt any talk of impropriety.”
There had been some lovely cliffs on the road down from London. Perhaps she could find one of them now and simply leap off. It would be less painful than a lifetime of this. How could she manage it? How could she manage not to run when that was all she wanted to do? When Adam had already given her a place to hide if she could stand this for a year or so?
“I’ve rented out the Oyster Shell,” Haybury countered. “There are four empty rooms there, and a staff. Surely that would suffice just as well.”
“I don’t believe th—”
“Yes, that will be lovely,” she heard herself say. “Do you think we might go there now, my lord? I find that four days in a mail coach has tired me terribly.”
“Of course.” Haybury nodded at the vicar and his mother, who looked at the moment like frowning mirrors of each other. “Perhaps Mr. Loines will call on us there at breakfast.”
“I … certainly will. There are rules you must learn before the wedding. And vows I’ve written for you to recite.”
Clutching the marquis’s arm, she dipped down to pick up one of her hat boxes, while he took the other. Then, before someone could lock the church door and prevent them from leaving, she made her exit. Haybury, of course, had an umbrella waiting outside, and he handed her the second box before he put an arm across her shoulders and lifted the umbrella to shelter both of them.
“The inn’s just over here,” he said, guiding her across the street.
Sophia nodded, not trusting herself to speak until they were safely inside. Safe—she doubted she would ever feel safe or secure again. Every moment of the rest of her life, with the exception of the next ten days, would be spent either in the company of her husband or his mother. And she would have to listen to every bit of her past being criticized, the act of a fallen woman, while they preached over her moldering carcass.
“Sit,” Haybury said, nudging her toward a table set beside a large stone hearth. He said something to the thin man who’d followed them inside the common room, and with a nod the fellow fled again. A moment later the marquis took the seat opposite her and poured them each a glass of whiskey. “Drink.”
She downed it all at once. The heat bit into her throat, sending her shuddering into life again. “What are you doing here?” she rasped.
Gray eyes assessed her. They were a shade or two lighter than Adam’s stormy gaze, she noticed, and though the two men shared a jaded cynicism, she would never confuse one for the other. The Duke of Greaves’s gaze lifted her heart, warmed her insides, filled her spirit, even when he was angry.
“I think the better question is, why are you here?” he finally returned, refilling her glass. “You neglected to mention a few details about your nuptials, I believe.”
Deliberately draining the glass again, Sophia shook her head. “Oh, no, you don’t. You knew about the coach falling in the river. And you’re here, when you have no reason to be. You need to tell me.”
“You know, my employees don’t generally attempt to order me about.”
“I don’t work for you. I worked for Diane.”
“Semantics,” he countered easily. “I received a letter. Two of them actually.”
“From whom?” It couldn’t have been from Adam, because the two men didn’t speak. Keating? Or more likely, Camille. But why? Cammy would have known that nothing could help the situation, and she knew quite well that Lord and Lady Haybury were not to know the details of this arrangement.
“That’s my business,” he answered.
“I need to know,” she stated, thumping her fist on the tabletop. “If Greaves has been corresponding with you, and told you to be here, then I have to be suspicious that he means to make trouble for me.”
He eyed her. “The days when Adam Baswich orders me to do anything are long gone. No, that’s not true. Those days never existed.”
That had the ring of truth to it. “When did these letters arrive, then?”
“Persistent, aren’t you? The first one arrived a week or so ago, directing me to travel here and meet your betrothed, and asking for my … assessment of his character. The second one arrived by courier this morning. That lad nearly dropped dead from exhaustion the moment he handed it off to me. And that’s all I’m saying about them.”
It must have been Camille, or her and Keating together. They, at least, would be worried over her vicar-to-be. “Very well, then.”
The marquis took a sip of his whiskey and then set his elbows on the table, resting his chin on his folded hands. “You made an agreement with Hennessy that day he came calling at the club. And it wasn’t merely about a marriage. I assume it was ‘Marry Mr. Loines, or I’ll destroy the Tantalus,’ or something equally naughty.”
“My reasons for marrying the vicar are my own. What did the second letter say?”
“Several very interesting things. Tell me about your holiday. How did you find Greaves Park?”
Though sh
e attempted not to think about what he’d just said, the moment he uttered the words her mind conjured the snowy hills, the crackling cold of the air, and holly and mistletoe and ribbons in the drawing room. And Adam, smiling at her. A tear ran down her cheek before she could stop it. “It was very nice,” she said, wishing now that she hadn’t drunk so much whiskey on an empty stomach. Sophia squared her shoulders. “And you shouldn’t have delayed the wedding. Ten days? I just want to have it done with.”
“Because you’re so looking forward to being that zealot’s wife, I assume. Yes, I can see how very compatible the two of you are.”
“I agreed to marry him. I am a woman of my word. You’re only making things worse.”
“I do enjoy trouble.” He rolled his shoulders in his dark gray jacket. “Even so, a person generally only marries once. You should do it well.”
“I don’t have any money with me. And you can’t purchase me a dress.” Her heart broke a little bit more as she remembered having a very similar conversation just over four weeks ago. Heavens, had it only been a month? It seemed a lifetime ago.
“You have money in your account in London. I will lend you a sum against it. Because you cannot marry in that.” He gestured at her dripping wet blue walking dress, still half covered by Adam’s greatcoat. “And I would not suggest you walk into the church garbed in one of your Tantalus gowns.”
Sophia glanced down at her dress. The poor garment had survived her dunking in the river, four days in a mail coach, and now another soaking in the rain. The Reverend Loines would more than likely be delighted to see a bedraggled, drooping, heartsick bride, and he would use her appearance as proof that she was a sorry, broken soul. At this moment, she felt like one.
Rules to Catch a Devilish Duke Page 29
