“There’s where you’re wrong, Papa,” she replied. “It was entirely Cathy’s idea to elope with Mr. Mayne, because she loves him and he proposed to her. She tried to tell you! When you said you’d got the marriage contract from St. James, she told you she cared for Mr. Mayne. You didn’t listen!”
“A country curate!” He stared incredulously. “She can’t want a country curate when she could have a gentleman from London, an eligible, elegant gentleman with connections to a—”
“A duke, yes,” Bianca finished scornfully. “I know. She knows. Everyone knows, Papa. But there is far more to a husband than connections, and Cathy didn’t want St. James.”
“And you encouraged her to thwart me!”
“I supported her in following her own heart!”
“Keep your voice down!” he whispered harshly, even though his voice had grown as loud as hers. “Someone might hear you!”
Bianca’s brows went up. “Someone who didn’t hear Ellen shrieking?”
He cursed, which took her aback. She’d heard him bellow the same language at other people, workmen who broke a whole crate of dishes or a potter who showed up to the factory drunk, but never at her or Cathy.
For the first time it crossed her mind that Papa was not merely upset but truly angry. He stood with his hands on his hips, staring at the floor, one toe tapping angrily. Instead of his usual gray wool, today he wore his best suit of dark blue satin, with the silver buckles on his shoes. He had gone to great lengths to bring about this wedding, and now he would be humiliated when he had to tell St. James that the bride had fled rather than marry him . . .
And yet it was his own fault. He ought to have listened to Cathy.
“This is not some girlish prank, is it?” he asked after a moment, his voice more controlled. “Cathy’s not hiding somewhere—perhaps at Frances’s home—waiting to emerge when I promise her a new wardrobe or a carriage if she goes to the church?”
Bianca was shocked. “No! Cathy’s never done anything like that.”
“But you have.” He looked up, a glint in his eye. “You ran off and spent the night in the woods when I wouldn’t let you become an apprentice potter.”
“And see how wrong you were,” she returned, flushing angrily that he would bring that up again almost fifteen years after she’d done it. “I’m a good thrower and a better glazer.”
He conceded with a nod. “Aye. And you got your way. Just as you did when I refused to let you accompany me to Liverpool.”
She quailed inside, just a little, at that. It was true. Papa had been going to see a man about printing designs on his pottery. She had been eighteen and had questions about the process. It wasn’t a new technique, but a refined version that promised more flexibility and colors, subject only to the engraver’s talent. Bianca wanted to see it in person, and she’d waged a fierce campaign to persuade her father until he finally threw up his hands and took her.
“That was different,” she said, before pivoting back to, “even though it was very fortunate I went.”
She’d struck up a friendship with the printer’s wife, and because of it they had secured the printer’s exclusive services for two years. Even Papa had admitted it was better than he could have done.
Her father put his hands on his hips. “Was it? And how shall you turn this circumstance around to the better?” He swept out one arm. “I’ve agreed to a marriage contract. St. James can sue me for breach, because you helped your sister run off with the penniless, soft-mouthed curate.”
“I warned you not to do it.”
“But I did.” He leaned closer. “What’s more, I’d do it again. He’s got an eye for the business, Bianca. He’s also got connections among the highest society in London and knows how they think. He’s a clever gent, no matter what you think, and I gave him a share of Perusia.”
She reeled at this shocking news. “What? Why?”
“Because he was to be my son-in-law!” her father replied. Too late she realized his temper had not died down, it had only burned low, into a white-hot fury all the more dangerous for being smothered and contained.
“How much?” she demanded.
“A one-quarter interest,” was his horrifying reply.
Bianca felt incandescent with rage. She had expected to inherit half, with Cathy getting the other half. It was true she had envisioned Cathy wed to an amiable, pliant husband like Mayne, leaving her effectively in charge of Perusia, but now Papa had given one quarter to this invader, this usurping, grasping, fortune hunter—
“And if you want any hope of saving Perusia and placating St. James so he doesn’t drag us into court and end up owning half of Perusia,” her father added in the same ominous tone, “perhaps you ought to put on your sister’s bridal dress and fulfill the contract.”
For a moment she thought she would have an apoplexy; she could barely breathe, she was so angry. Cathy’s dainty chip hat decorated with pink cabbage roses lay on the bureau, next to the lace fichu that had been their mother’s. Knowing she would be eloping with her love, Cathy had happily gone through all the motions of preparing for the wedding. With shaking hands Bianca jammed the hat onto her head and tossed the fichu around her shoulders.
“Very well,” she said coldly. “If that’s all you care about, and what I have to do to preserve Perusia, I will.”
She threw open the door and went out of the room, knocking over Ellen, who was crouched down at the keyhole listening. “Get up, Ellen, we’ll be late for the wedding.”
Down the stairs she marched, hands in fists and head high. Aunt Frances emerged from the dining room, nose twitching in expectation and Trevor yapping at her skirts, and Bianca pushed right by her and out the front door. Her father was roaring at the servants upstairs, but stormed after her in time to catch up as she reached the gate, hauling the flustered Mr. Filpot behind him.
For a moment they both paused. This was the moment, Bianca would acknowledge later, that she ought to have said something. Not necessarily an apology—she would never be sorry for helping Cathy marry a man she loved instead of a man she didn’t know—but some word of understanding, to let her father know that she did regret some consequences of her actions.
She was sorry that Cathy’s elopement, on the eve of a much-trumpeted marriage, would be humiliating to Papa, particularly given that all of Marslip as well as the jilted bridegroom would witness it. She did not want to let her temper get the better of her again and lead her into making a massive mistake that all of them would rue for the rest of their days. She didn’t like quarreling with her only remaining parent, who was so like her in temperament and humor, making them the closest of fathers and daughters—when they weren’t quarreling like mortal enemies.
But before she could bring herself to say any of that, Papa opened the gate for her, and Bianca stalked through, carried along by fury and outrage.
Ironically, it was a glorious day. The sky was a peerless blue, dolloped with billowing clouds of pure white. The honeysuckle was in bloom, its sweet scent rising to meet her as she strode down the path toward the small stone church. Peevishly Bianca hoped the roads to Wolverhampton were dry, so that her sister at least would remember this day happily.
Guests were loitering outside the church—no doubt waiting for the bride to arrive. Bianca cut through them like a scythe, ignoring their scandalized and fascinated stares, until someone touched her arm.
“Good morning, Bianca,” said her friend Amelia impishly. “That hasty to see your sister wed, are you?”
She opened her mouth, then paused.
“Such a lovely thing for your papa to invite us to the wedding celebration. Mum’s beside herself; unpicked her best gown and turned and pressed it.” She wrinkled her nose at this waste of energy. “Where is Cathy?” Amelia craned her neck. “Is she already a fashionable London lady, late to everything?”
Bianca seized her hand. “Amelia, go home,” she whispered. “Tell everyone—take them all away—”
“Bianca!”
She looked over her shoulder. Papa had come back for her. He barely managed a nod at the astonished Amelia before taking Bianca’s arm and leading her, firmly, into the sacristy. “A moment,” he barked at Mr. Filpot, who was trying to don his vestments. The startled fellow fled, collar in hand, and Papa closed the door behind him.
Too late Bianca realized Mr. St. James was also in the room. Today he was magnificent in an ivory coat over emerald green breeches, his coal-dark hair as sleek as a seal’s fur. At their entrance, he looked up from the book in his hands, his brows raised in idle inquiry.
“St. James,” said Papa with determined cheer. “Good morning, sir.”
“Sir. Miss Tate.” The man made a languid bow. He was so elegant, so handsome, Bianca glared at him in fulminating disgust. In return he gave her a sinfully intimate smile. Not at all the sort of smile a decent man would give any woman except his bride, on his wedding day.
Then she remembered that she might now be that bride. Not that St. James knew it, which left him firmly in the category of rogue.
“I have some unfortunate news,” went on Papa. “It appears my daughter Catherine has . . . left.”
St. James’s brows snapped together. “Left?”
“She’s eloped with someone else,” said Bianca before her father could reply. “A man she is desperately in love with. No doubt they are exchanging their vows at this very moment.”
St. James didn’t move a muscle but the room seemed to grow at once smaller and hotter.
“I cannot vouch for that,” said Papa, holding his palm out toward Bianca as if to push her physically from the conversation. “But it’s true she’s run off with the fellow.”
“Our agreement, sir,” began St. James.
“I have another daughter,” said Papa, almost defiantly. “If you’ll have her.”
The man blinked. He turned to Bianca as if just realizing, very belatedly, that she was there.
“Bianca’s agreed already,” said her father. He turned toward her, that bullheaded glint bright in his eye. “Haven’t you?”
Angrily she shrugged.
If asked, at that moment, she would have said that she fully expected St. James to cry off. There would be some shouting, perhaps; at the very least a blazing argument. Not because he cared for Cathy, whom he’d only met twice, but because Cathy was beautiful and gentle and eager to please, and only a madman would take Bianca in trade for that. She would have wagered everything she had that by now, St. James had taken her measure, enough to be well aware that she despised him and saw right through the fraud he was trying to perpetrate on her father.
Slowly his gaze, now as bitter cold as ice, ran down her figure, then back up to her face. Bianca’s temper began to boil.
“Very well,” said St. James, as coolly as if he and Papa had just agreed to the sale price of a different horse.
Papa nodded once. “Excellent. Bianca, come with me.” And he pulled her from the room before she could say anything.
Cathy would have been in tears by now, incoherent with despair. Bianca felt only righteous fury as she stomped down the path with her father. All he cared was that someone marry St. James. He cared that much for St. James’s connections and business proposal, that he would marry any daughter of his to the man, one way or another.
Fine, then. Papa would have his distant-cousin-of-a-duke son-in-law. He would have his elegant new London manager, flattering lascivious countesses into buying some dinnerware so that Papa could boast of the aristocratic tables his soup tureens sat upon. He would be rid of both spinster daughters, and she hoped he reveled in having that big, empty house to himself.
As for St. James, he would have his share of Perusia and a wealthy bride. Bianca meant to make certain he bled for every farthing, though. If he could consider marriage purely a business arrangement, so could she.
The only thought that consoled her was that Cathy would be blissfully happy as Mrs. Mayne.
Papa opened the church door. Amelia was standing there, holding the posy of flowers she had offered to provide, craning her neck looking for Cathy.
Bianca snatched the flowers from her and started down the aisle. A confused murmur arose from the guests awaiting them outside as Cathy failed to materialize. Inside, Aunt Frances was all but falling from her pew, her face flushed with interest. Bianca ignored them all and fixed her eyes on the mercenary rogue at the altar.
And he, of all people, wasn’t even looking her way.
Chapter Five
There was a genuine possibility, growing stronger by the moment, that Max had lost his mind.
No more than ten minutes had elapsed since he had agreed to switch brides, and wed not the lovely, gentle Catherine Tate, but her fiery sister, Bianca.
You remember her, Max savaged himself mentally. The one who hates you.
He wondered if this had been Tate’s plan all along. Perhaps Max had been just as much the prey as the pursuer. Perhaps he’d been tricked, coerced into marrying the shrewish sister so Tate could win a better suitor for his more appealing daughter, and be rid of both in one neat trick. Max vaguely thought there was a similar case in the Bible itself. Tate could have got the idea right here in church.
Not, Max admitted, that Bianca wasn’t a beauty as well, in her own way. Her hair was somewhere between blond and brown, her eyes shifting from gray to blue. She was taller than her sister, and curvier, too. He had not missed the fact that she possessed a spectacular bosom. She moved with purpose and energy, not gentle grace, and her wit was as sharp and keen as a rapier.
She wielded it much the same way a swordsman might a rapier, too.
If he’d had more time to consider, would he have agreed to the switch? Max pondered the question in some remote, analytical portion of his brain as he took his place in the church, before the handful of whispering guests and the minister, who was still fumbling through his book of Common Prayer for the marriage service.
He would like to know if either, or both, ladies had been in on the scheme all along. Miss Tate had never refused his attentions; she’d appeared flattered by them, with her shy blushes and murmured thanks. He didn’t imagine that it meant her feelings were engaged, and frankly he had not hoped they were.
Now, of course, it was clear her feelings had been engaged . . . just not by him.
As for Bianca, her feelings toward him had always been crystal clear: disdain, disgust, and dislike being chief among them. At the time he’d been amused. He’d thought she might be jealous of her older sister, betrothed at last while she remained a spinster.
More fool you, he told himself. Perhaps he should have recognized the chance offered in the sacristy to reject this mad plan, and cut his losses.
But Max had learned to seize opportunity when it crossed his path. Dame Fortune hadn’t smiled upon him often in life, and she rarely allowed him the luxury of pondering and debating her offerings. He still half expected the Duchess of Carlyle to withdraw her support and cut him off without warning, which was why he had moved so swiftly to propose this arrangement to Tate.
No, he reflected, he didn’t think more time would have changed his answer. He was used to making the best of things, and this last-minute adjustment did nothing, really, to change his plans.
A murmur of amazement signaled the appearance of the bride. Max kept his gaze on the cross standing on the altar behind the minister as she strode up beside him. He didn’t need to see her face to sense her fury; it fairly streamed off her, like heat from a fire. With whom? he wondered idly. With her father? With herself? She could have denied agreeing to it, but she hadn’t.
Still, when the minister reached the admonishment to anyone who wished to protest the marriage, Max tensed. All she had to say was one word and everything would be ruined.
Nothing. The silence in the church was absolute.
The minister, Filpot, cleared his throat and turned to Max. “Wilt thou have this woman to thy wedded wife?”
Max
barely heard the rest of the charge as Filpot droned on. He would. He would have her, and keep her, and be just as good a husband to her as he’d meant to be to her sister—which was to say, probably not a very good one, though he intended to atone for that by being away as much as possible. The best marriages, after all, were ones conducted at some distance. The only times his parents had seemed at all fond of each other was when they were apart—far, far apart. As Max planned to spend most of his time away from Marslip, it didn’t much matter which wife he left behind.
“I will,” he answered with calm certitude.
Filpot nodded once, darted a nervous glance at Mr. Tate, and turned to the bride. “Wilt thou take this man to thy wedded husband?”
Aside from a faint noise of derision as Filpot read, “Wilt thou obey him and serve him?” she made no protest. When Filpot raised his eyes warily at the end, Bianca said, quietly but clearly, “I will.”
It sounded to Max’s ears like a threat.
He was smiling in mild amusement when he took her hand from Tate’s. She still hadn’t looked at him, but kept her fierce gaze fastened on the minister. “I, Augustus Crispin Maximilian, take thee, Bianca Charlotte, to my wedded wife,” he recited. At his name, she finally glanced at him, horror stamped on her face at the terrible moniker. Max’s smile widened as he gripped her hand tighter. “According to God’s holy ordinance, and thereto I plight thee my troth.”
She pulled loose at the last word, only to take his hand again when prompted. In a flat voice she repeated her own vow. Max laid the ring on the minister’s book and listened with the same detached amusement as Filpot blessed it.
At the last moment he worried it would not fit. It had been chosen for her sister, after all, and Max had spent some time deliberating over it; women liked jewels, and Max liked to make a good impression. But when he took Bianca’s hand and tried it, the ring slid smoothly onto her finger. She made a fist, causing the gold to sparkle in the sunlight, and he couldn’t resist another smile.
About a Rogue EPB Page 6
