A Worthy Wife (2 page)

“Oh, dear, no. There will be talk enough as is!”

The earl nodded his agreement. Then he turned to the beleaguered bride. “Honor demands my offer, Miss, ah, McPhee,” he began, although no one could possibly hold him responsible for her present situation, except in his office of bearer of ill tidings. “I already have an heir of sorts, so there could be no embarrassment to the succession, and I have been thinking of acquiring a new wife anyway. This merely expedites the decision. Furthermore, you might be of comfort to my sister, proving that she is not the only gudgeon—ah, gullible female—to fall prey to such a plausible vulture. She was disconsolate at Podell’s supposed death; she is distraught at his deceit.”

Aurora could well imagine. Yet finding consolation for his sister seemed a poor reason for wedding a stranger, a mere nobody. He knew nothing about her, or had the least inkling if they would suit at all. Why, the earl spent more time selecting his waistcoats, Aurora supposed. “I am honored, my lord. But there is no need—”

“There is every need,” Vicar Mainwaring put in, putting down the cup he held, which held the remains of Windham’s flask. No one had thought to offer Aurora a drink, more’s the pity. She could barely stand, much less decide her entire future.

Windham seemed to recognize her confusion. “You’ll have at least an hour to think about your decision, for it will take me that long to procure a special license. If you don’t choose to accept my offer, simply go home.”

“An hour?” the vicar echoed. “More like a week to get all the papers in order. Bishop Hollingsworth doesn’t approve of skimble-skamble weddings.”

The earl tapped his gloves against his muscular thigh. “Nonsense. Bishop Hollingsworth is my mother’s uncle. He’s been after me to remarry this age.” He turned to smile at Aurora, a warm smile full of humor and understanding and sympathy. “You see, Miss McPhee, there are many advantages to our wedding, besides the obvious. Do consider carefully.”

After he left, while everyone was clamoring about her
future, Aurora sat wondering what the earl considered the obvious: his devastatingly handsome looks, his wealth, social standing, the power to move bishops, if not mountains—or merely the natural charm he showed to one and all. A woman could well enjoy basking in the sun’s rays for the rest of her days, Aurora reflected.

But where was the advantage for Lord Windham? He’d have a bride without having to present himself at the Marriage Mart, but his wife would be a Bath miss with more hair than wit, who’d gaily tripped down the primrose path to her own ruin. He’d likely have no handkerchiefs left either, she realized, seeing how she’d shredded the one he’d handed her. But his lordship did not seem to care. Aurora supposed an earl was beyond worrying over petty matters such as soiled linen and soiled reputations. And his own sister was in a worse state, having actually married the blackguard bigamist.

And what choice did she have, after all? Everyone would know that the marriage had been interrupted. Soon they’d know she was ruined beyond redemption, and Aurora would be cast out of all decent society. Most likely her dear aunt and uncle would be ostracized along with her. They’d be miserable without their friends at the Amateur Naturalists Society, and they’d have her on their hands forever, for no honorable man would make her an honorable offer, not that she’d ever trust her judgment of a man’s character again. No, she was and forever would be an embarrassment to the loving relations who had adopted her as their own daughter, giving her their name. What a repayment for their affection.

As for his lordship, his very offer proved him honorable and kind. His devotion to his sister also spoke of his loyalty and steadiness of character. He was a tad intimidating, Aurora reflected, but he would keep her safe from scandal—and everything else. His class often married by arrangement instead of affection, although not usually penniless brides of nondescript ancestry and dicey reputations. Still, if he was kind enough to offer, she’d be a fool not to accept. And Heaven knew she’d been enough of a fool for one day.

“Nonsense, my girl,” Lord Phelan argued. “No reason
to take up with any London swell. Why, I’ll marry you m’self. Yes, that’s what I should have done. Would have married your mother, by Jupiter, if my blasted brother George hadn’t interfered.”

Since Lord Phelan was old enough to be Aurora’s father, no one paid attention to his offer. The vicar merely poured the contents of Lord Phelan’s cup into his own. “Too much excitement, old fellow.”

Aunt Thisbe was weeping, this time at the thought of her little girl becoming a countess. Uncle Ptolemy kept fumbling in his fob pocket, checking the time. No, he was checking the toad.

What a fine match his lordship was making!

Chapter Two

The bride was haggard in crumpled satin. The groom was heroically handsome in his buckskin breeches. Windham’s auburn hair was freshly combed, and he had found time to get his boots shined. Still, he smelled of horse, which somehow made Aurora feel better. The earl was a mere man, not a visiting deity.

Instead of her wedding bouquet, which had been trampled in the earlier debacle and kept too long out of water at any rate, Aurora clasped a paper sack of peppermint drops. Lord Windham had returned with it, along with the special license, to settle her stomach, he’d said. Aurora clasped that small kindness to her heart, for courage.

While the vicar wended his slow way through the wedding service once more, Windham patted her hand and whispered, “I promise not to beat you, you know. My first wife died of the typhus. I was not even in the same country at the time.”

She managed to give him a shaky smile in return, at which he said, “Good girl. I knew you had bottom,” and turned back to the vicar.

The most momentous day of her life, Aurora thought, and she was liable to recall his praise above all. For sure she heard not one sentence of the Reverend Mr. Mainwaring’s speech, until he got to the part about just cause and speaking now, and oh, dear, Uncle Ptolemy was poking Lord Phelan in the ribs, to keep him still. The vicar went on, and Aurora sighed in relief. When he got to the part where Aurora had to repeat her vows, though, she could not utter the words. Likely a peppermint drop had glued her tongue to her teeth, for she
could not open her mouth. The silence in the near-empty church was like a stone gargoyle, hovering. Then Lord Windham raised one eyebrow at her, and one corner of his mouth, and she found the will to whisper: “I-I do if he does.”

Windham winked at her. “She does.”

Aunt Thisbe sighed in relief.

The bride’s mouth was sticky from the peppermint drops, and the groom’s was quirked in a smile, but the kiss sealed the marriage. It was done.

The vicar sighed in relief.

*

Windham signed his name in the church registry with a flourish. He raised his quizzing glass to watch Aurora sign almost as if he were checking to see if she knew her letters. She frowned at his enlarged eye—of a lovely forest green color, but horridly magnified—and muttered, “Odious affectation.”

The earl chuckled, but put the looking glass away in his pocket. “I can see I’m to live under the cat’s paw.”

Aurora gasped at her own audacity. Heavens, they’d been wed for less than a moment, and already she was turning into a fishwife. It must be all the high drama of the day, that and his gentle smile that led her to such indiscretion. “I swear I am not a managing female, my lord.”

Windham merely shrugged, as if a gnat had apologized for lighting on his shoulder. “It’s too late now, my dear, one way or the other. And perhaps you might call me by my name now that we are officially man and wife? It’s Kenyon, if you missed it during the ceremony.”

Aurora had, but she’d checked the registry after he’d signed. “Kenyon. And I—”

“You’re Lady Windham,” Aunt Thisbe gushed, embracing her once more. Uncle Ptolemy was shaking the earl’s hand, and Lord Phelan was making certain Podell was still securely tied.

At the earl’s suggestion, they all agreed to send the makebait back to his first wife in Jamaica, after getting a signed confession from him. No one wanted a public trial, least of all Aurora or the earl’s sister. With Podell
out of the country, Lord Windham convinced them, other women were protected, and the scandal would more quickly fade from memory. The earl did make sure the blackguard understood his ultimatum: if Podell ever returned to England, he would face criminal charges, a military tribunal, and Windham’s Mantons. Lord Phelan offered to take charge of the prisoner until Kenyon could make arrangements in London to have the shabster shipped off.

Since the wedding breakfast would have been long since spoiled, and the invited guests long since gone about their business, no one could argue with the earl’s plan to cut short the nuptial celebrations. He wished to leave for the City as soon as he could hire a proper vehicle and collect his new wife’s trunks. “I apologize,” he told Aunt Thisbe, who’d been eager to show him off in Bath as if he were a rare butterfly she’d just added to her collection. “But I left London in such a rush that I must return with all possible haste. I was in the midst of negotiating my brother’s return from a French prison hospital when I got word of Podell’s latest villainy. You will understand my concern with completing the arrangements, I’m sure. And I’ll also see to inserting notices of the wedding in all the papers, and visit with the solicitors concerning Miss McPhee’s—ah, Lady Windham’s, ah, your niece’s settlements and such.”

The man never seemed to do anything at a leisurely pace, it appeared to Aurora. In no time at all she found herself dressed in her new traveling ensemble, seated in an elegant carriage with fur throws and hot bricks and a picnic hamper, and her new husband, who was ordering the driver to spring ’em. He settled himself opposite her, sprawling exhaustedly against the cushions. “I instructed the coachman to stop for the night halfway to Town. No reason to get to London after midnight. The Black Dog is where I usually stay, but you might wish to rest before then.”

Stop for the night? It occurred to Aurora that he was expecting to spend the night with her…and informing her that she should rest to prepare herself! Good grief, no amount of rest could prepare her for such intimacies
with a perfect stranger, unless it was the eternal sort! Of course she’d made her bed, and now had to sleep in his. Dear heaven. Aurora popped another peppermint drop in her mouth to keep her teeth from clattering in fear.

“I say, you aren’t going to be ill again, are you?” Windham asked, almost as nervous at the thought. “Are we traveling too fast? I’ll tell the fellow to stop at the Golden Thistle in Bycroft.”

Stop sooner? “No. That is, no, the carriage is so well sprung, I swear I could ride straight through to London.”

He relaxed again. “Well, I for one am looking forward to a hot bath and a comfortable bed, the sooner the better.”

Aurora swallowed the candy whole, almost choking on it.

“No, tomorrow afternoon is soon enough to reach London,” Kenyon told her with a yawn, leading her to hope that he’d be so tired he might forget he had a wife. “I’ll still have time to send notices to the papers and see your family’s solicitor concerning your dowry.”

“My dowry?” Now Aurora had a new concern, that he expected her to be bringing him a vast fortune. Surely he understood that the McPhees were minor gentry, living modestly on annuities and investments. “I’m afraid that I—”

“Never fear, as I assured your uncle while you were changing, I intend to see that your monies are put into a secure trust for your children.”

Children? Her children would be
his
children, may the saints preserve them, and her. But monies? “Uncle must not have been listening. He does tend to let his mind wander, especially when the ground starts to thaw. Otherwise he would have informed you that the sum is so small it needs no legal safeguards. Why, I doubt my dowry would keep an infant in nappies for a year.”

“Nonsense. Podell only battens on heiresses. You must have a healthy bank account somewhere.”

“I assure you, there is none. I keep the accounts for my aunt and uncle, and I know to the shilling that there is no fortune. Aunt Thisbe was constantly bemoaning her inability to see me presented at court.”

“Then the money had to come from your parents in India.”

She shook her head. “By all accounts my father never rose above his post as one of the East India Company’s minor clerks. He died before amassing anything but debts, and my mother shortly before him. If not for the generosity of the British colony there, I understand, she’d have been buried as a pauper.”

“Then what the deuce could Podell have been after?” Kenyon wondered.

Aurora drew the fur rug and her pride more closely around her. “Might it not occur to you that he loved me for myself, not my family’s wealth?”

“No.”

She gasped. “That is plain speaking indeed.”

The earl seemed to recollect himself, and his company. “I say, I did not mean to insult you, Miss…ah, my dear. It’s not that Podell couldn’t have held you in the greatest esteem, but that his motives were never so pure. My apologies—I must be even more tired than I realized.”

With that, the earl settled into the corner of his side of the carriage and pulled his hat down over his eyes, as if he intended to nap right then—on her wedding day! This might not be the glorious celebration Aurora had imagined in her schoolgirl’s fantasies. Gracious, this was not even the bridegroom she’d pictured in her fondest dreams. Yet this was the only wedding day she was liable to have, and this the only husband. Till death did them part. That much she remembered the vicar saying. Granted, Windham had ridden
ventre-à-terre
to save her from Podell’s clutches, and he had sacrificed himself on the matrimonial altar, but still! How could any person of sensibility sleep on such a momentous, cataclysmic day?