A Kiss to Remember (18 page)

Nicholas put up a hand to stay him. “I don’t know whether you did or didn’t have anything to do with Lottie’s mischief and I don’t really need to know. That’s not why I’m here.”

“Then why
are
you here?” George demanded, no longer making any attempt to hide his belligerence.

“Since it appears your sister is going to live long enough to become my bride next Wednesday morning, I find myself in need of a groomsman. I was hoping you would consider doing me the honor.”

George’s jaw dropped in surprise. “I can’t be a groomsman,” he said bitterly. “Haven’t you heard? I’m just a boy.”

Nicholas shook his head. “The true measure of a man has nothing to do with years and everything to do with how well he looks after those who depend upon him. I’ve seen how much you do around here—how you chop wood and help Dower tend to the flocks and take care of your sisters. And Laura assures me that a groomsman need have only two qualities—he should be a bachelor and he should be my friend.” Nicholas held out his hand. “I like to think you could qualify on both counts.”

George stared at Nicholas’s outstretched hand as if he’d never seen one before. Although his eyes remained wary, he finally reached out and caught it in a firm grasp, shoulders back and head held high. “If you need someone to stand up with you at the wedding, I suppose I’m your man.”

As they picked their way over the rubble, Nicholas draped an arm lightly over the boy’s shoulders. “You haven’t had any supper, have you? I’m famished.

Maybe we could get Lottie to whip us up something sweet.”

Although it took visible effort, George somehow managed to keep a straight face. “That won’t be necessary, sir. I do believe Cookie made a fresh batch of crumpets just for you.”

As the days passed with no word from Dower, Laura grew increasingly jumpy. The old man had never learned to write, but she’d sent him off with a purseful of coins and instructions to hire someone to pen a note if he discovered anything at all about a missing gentleman that required investigation. In some small shameless corner of her heart, she was hoping he wouldn’t return before the wedding. That he would stay gone until Nicholas was bound to her forever—or at least for as long as they both should live.

The wedding preparations continued at a frantic pace, as relentlessly as the ticking of the longcase clock in the foyer. Every time Laura turned around, Cookie was waiting to drape a length of lace over her shoulders or jab another pin into her hip. Although the old woman kept up a cheery stream of chatter, especially when Nicholas was around, Laura knew that Cookie was just as worried about Dower’s whereabouts as she was. Even Lottie seemed to have lost her exuberance and had taken to moping listlessly about the house or disappearing for hours at a time.

On Sunday morning, the banns were read for the third and final time. As Reverend Tilsbury asked if anyone knew of any just impediment to the two of them
being joined together, Laura sat stiffly at Nicholas’s side, terrified she would leap to her feet and shout that the bride was a fraud and a liar. The only thing that stopped her was imagining the look of loathing that would spread across Nicholas’s face—a look she endured every night in her tortured dreams.

They were gathered around the dining room table that evening for supper when the jingling of a harness fractured the tense silence. Dropping her spoon in her soup, Laura jumped out of her chair and ran to the window. She was searching for any hint of movement in the shadowy drive when George pointedly cleared his throat.

She slowly turned to find a black-and-white kitten dragging a bell attached to a scarlet ribbon across the floor. As Laura sank back into her seat with a dispirited sigh, Lottie retrieved both bell and kitten, muting the merry tones.

While Cookie emerged from the kitchen with the next course, Nicholas surveyed the circle of their gloomy faces. “I know you’ve been trying to hide it, but I can tell you’re all worried sick about Dower. Would you like me to ride to London and search for him?”

“No!” all four of them shouted in unison.

He leaned back in his chair, plainly nonplussed by their reaction.

Laura dabbed at her mouth with her napkin, hoping he wouldn’t notice the trembling of her hands. “I appreciate your offer, dear, but I don’t think my nerves could stand the strain. We’ve only three more days before we’re to be married. I can have a wedding without Dower, but I can’t very well have one without a bridegroom.”

“Don’t you fret on our account, Mr. Nick.” Although.

Cookie was patting his shoulder, she was looking directly at Laura. “That old rascal of mine’s probably holed up at some tavern somewhere. He’ll come draggin’ in here the night before the weddin’, reekin’ of spirits and beggin’ my forgiveness. Just see if he don’t!”

Jeremiah Dower sat at a grimy table in a shadowy corner of the Boar’s Snout, tossing back his third gin of the night. The tavern was one of the seediest on the waterfront and more than one body had been found floating in the Thames after a night spent partaking of its dubious pleasures. It was whispered that if one of the patrons didn’t kill you, the cheap gin would. Or you could stagger upstairs with one of the blowsy whores who haunted the docks and die a slow, festering death of the French pox. Several slumming young cubs had lost their innocence, their purses, and eventually their lives between those plump, accommodating thighs.

Dower’s mother had been one of those whores. He’d spent his boyhood scrubbing tobacco stains and emptying slop buckets in a tavern just like this one. After his ma had been strangled by one of her own customers, he’d been only too eager to trade the choking clouds of smoke and drunken shouting for the sweet, pure air of a Hertfordshire morning and Cookie’s smile.

It was that smile he was longing to see as he slumped in his chair and surveyed the motley crowd. He’d spent the past week combing the streets and docks for any rumors of a missing gent. He’d even visited Newgate and Bedlam, hoping to hear news of a recent escape. But thus far, his search had yielded nothing and his time was running out.

If he didn’t return to Arden by Tuesday night with proof that Miss Laura’s mysterious gent was pledged to another, she would go through with the wedding. The young missie had always been sweet natured, but there was no standing in her way once she had her heart set on something. And she definitely had her heart set on that handsome young buck of hers.

Dower scowled. The man might not be a fugitive from the law or an escaped lunatic, but that didn’t make him any less dangerous to an innocent girl.

He was about to settle up his tab and take his leave when a lad with a shock of red hair and a mouthful of crooked, yellowing teeth came wending his way through the crowd. He leaned over Dower’s table and jerked his thumb toward the back entrance. “There’s a bloke out in the alley says ’e wants to talk to you. Says ’e may ’ave somethin’ you’d loik to ’ear.”

Dower nodded, sending the boy on his way with one of the coins Miss Laura had given him. Not wanting to appear too eager, he took his time polishing off the gin, then wiped his mouth with the back of his hand. As he rose, he took care to shove up the sleeves of his shirt, enjoying the wide-eyed reaction of the whore straddling the lap of a bearded man at the next table. He knew from experience that any cutpurse thinking to rob a frail old man would think again when they saw the thick ropes of muscle that banded his arms.

The fog had come rolling in with the night. As the door fell shut behind him, muffling the drunken din inside the tavern, a man materialized from the shadows. Dower had expected to find some gibbering beggar seeking to earn an easy coin, but it was quickly apparent that this man had no need of his shillings.

He wore a tall felt hat and balanced a marble-headed walking cane in his gloved hands. He had the sort of round, bland face that might be mistaken for a hundred others. “I do hope you’ll forgive me for interrupting your evening libations, Mr. … ?”

Dower folded his arms over his chest. “Dower. And I ain’t no mister.”

“Very well, then,
Dower.
I wouldn’t have troubled you, but it’s come to my attention that you’ve been making certain inquiries along the waterfront.”

“I ain’t done no such thing,” Dower protested. “I just asked a few questions.”

The man had a crocodile’s smile. “According to my associates, you’ve been asking about a tall man with golden hair, well spoken and well formed, who might have gone missing over a fortnight ago.”

Dower’s nape was beginning to prickle with foreboding. It had been his intention to save Miss Laura from a stranger’s clutches, not get her arrested for kidnapping. “Them ’sociates o’ yours may not know as much as they think they do.”

“Oh, I can assure you that they’re very thorough. Which is why I’ve come to the conclusion that we may be looking for the same man.”

Dower’s curiosity nearly got the best of him, but something in the man’s flat brown eyes put him off his feed. “Sorry, mate,” he said. “You’ve got the wrong bloke. All I’m lookin’ for tonight is a bottle o’ gin and a willin’ bit o’ skirt to warm me bed.”

“With the reward my employers are offering, you could buy all the gin and whores a man could ever want.”

Despite the dank chill in the air, Dower could feel
beads of sweat pop out along his brow. “Just wot makes this fellow you’re lookin’ for worth so bloody much?”

The man shifted his cane from one hand to the other. “If you’ll come with me, I’ll show you.”

Dower never had taken kindly to bullying. Especially when it came disguised beneath a brittle veneer of cultured speech and polished manners. He bared his teeth in a rusty smile. “I’m afraid I’ll ’ave to decline. I got a much better invitation from a little bit o’ redheaded fluff at the table next to mine.”

He turned, reaching for the tavern door.

“That’s a pity,
Mr.
Dower, for I’m afraid I really must insist.”

Before Dower could whirl around, the marble head of the cane came down on the back of his skull, sending him spilling to the ground. He barely had time to admire the glossy leather of the man’s expensive boots before one of them slammed into his face, plunging him into a pool of darkness.

It should have been
the happiest night of Laura’s life.

Tomorrow morning at ten o’clock, she would stand before the altar of St. Michael’s and pledge her heart and her life to the man she had wanted before she even knew he existed. He would tenderly take her hand, gaze deep into her eyes, and vow to keep himself only unto her for as long as they both should live.

She should have been snuggled beneath her bedclothes, hugging her pillow and dreaming of the day to come. Instead, she was pacing back and forth across the bedchamber, nearly frantic with apprehension. She paused beside Lottie’s iron bedstead to smooth a tumbled curl from her sister’s cheek, envying her the sleep of the innocent.

It was a luxury Laura hadn’t enjoyed since the day she found Nicholas in the wood. And if she failed to heed the prodding of her conscience, it might very well be a luxury she would never enjoy again. She almost
expected God to force her hand. Expected Him to send Dower galloping down the long curving drive with word that Nicholas already had a fiancée waiting for him back in London.

Even if Dower failed to return before the wedding, she knew it wasn’t too late to redeem herself. All she had to do was march across the darkened corridor to Lady Eleanor’s bedchamber and confess all, throwing herself on the mercy of a man who would suddenly be a stranger.

But then there would be no sunny wedding morning, no white crepe gown trimmed in Brussels lace, no towering bride cake iced with almond paste. There would be no Cookie beaming at her as she pinned a circlet of roses in her hair, no Lottie to hold her fragrant posy at the altar, and no George to offer his grudging congratulations as he was forced to admit that her plan had been a sound one after all.

And there would be no Nicholas to gently lay his lips against hers, sealing their vows with a kiss.

Laura could feel the tendrils of temptation securing themselves around her heart, as cunning and sinuous as the serpent in the Garden of Eden. Thinking only to escape their hold, she unlatched the window and threw it open, settling herself on the broad wooden sill. The night was warm and windy, thick with the scent of jasmine and honeysuckle. A fat slice of moon brightened the sky, defying the scudding clouds with its brilliance.

It was the sort of night that sang of pagan enchantments, the sort of night that had always quickened Laura’s blood and compelled her to throw off the constraints of her safe, tidy life. But now she knew the price of surrendering to those reckless urges.

If she could only return to that moment when she had found Nicholas sleeping in the wood! Perhaps he would have fallen in love with her anyway. She would never know because she’d never given him the chance.

Sighing forlornly, she rested her cheek against the window frame. It was as much of a sin to lie to herself as it was to lie to him. A man like Nicholas probably wouldn’t have spared a glance for a humble country girl like her. A girl whose cheeks were sprinkled with freckles because she so rarely bothered to wear her bonnet. A girl whose nails weren’t manicured, but were blunt and chipped from digging in the garden dirt. Winning his love would have been as unlikely as Apollo reaching down from the heavens to bestow his favors on a mortal maiden. He might have found her a pleasant enough diversion for a summer’s day, but not for a lifetime.