Emily Hendrickson (6 page)

Alexander winced at the way she said “rake,” quite as though it were something nasty to be found under a rock. “So why are you here?”

Juliet took a deep breath, then plunged on. “My stepbrother decided to compel me to marry his good friend Robert, Lord Taunton. Marius had it all arranged, even to sending for the parson. Lord Taunton is a gamester and drunkard, a lamentable excuse for a man, as is my stepbrother if I may say so. After years of enduring Marius, I was not about to marry the same sort of man, if you follow my reasoning. So I fled.” She threw up her hands at these words as though to say her actions were obvious.

“That does not explain how you came to be here posing as my wife. How did you know but that I was not already married?” Alexander shifted in his chair so he might better study Juliet, as she had introduced herself. Her eyes, he decided, were her best feature, long-lashed and a lovely amber color like aged brandy.

“First of all, I knew you were single. Your doings are frequently noted in the newspapers, my lord. And I must say, you do seem to go from one escapade to another with scarcely a letup.” She gave him a scolding look such as he might have received from his mother.

“Go on,” he said dryly.

“It was while Pansy and I were at the little inn in the village—I’d had a disagreement with the driver of our post chaise and dismissed him only to find that we were rather stranded. We heard some people discussing this house and you. They said you had never been here, nor were you likely to come.”

“That doesn’t explain why
you
are here. And how long, may I ask, have you been here?” Alexander rubbed his chin while he considered his options, wondering what Mr. Small would think of this mare’s nest.

“First of all, I was looking for a place to hide from my stepbrother. I had traveled quite some distance and hunted for a situation where he would be unlikely to find me. This little village seemed perfect. It isn’t even listed in my
Patterson’s Roads.
So I pretended I was your estranged wife to have a place to hide.” She exchanged a look with Alexander, then dropped her gaze to her lap. “As to the other, I have been here now for about two months.”

“No brother as yet? It doesn’t surprise me. I’d never have found the place had my solicitor not given me good directions.”

“Why are
you
here, my lord? I do not mean to pry, but I would like to know. This is a rather odd place for you to be at the height of the Season, if you will pardon the observation.” Juliet darted a glance at him, mindful of his height and excellence of dress. He was as handsome as his youthful portrait had promised. Only now he emanated a sort of leashed power the child had not yet attained.

Alexander thought that Juliet Winterton deserved as truthful and complete an answer as she had given him. “I, too, am in hiding. There is a willful, some say unbalanced, young woman who has taken it into her mind to marry me. I suspect she desires a title and the money more than my person.”

“Oh.” Juliet digested this for a moment, then said, “Well, I must say this is a wonderful place to hide. The house is charming, and Mrs. Bassett is a gem.” Suddenly, she looked self-conscious. “I have done a few things—garden and mend and those sort of things a lady of the house is expected to do. I even gave a dinner. I have money of my own, so you need not think I have charged it all to you.”

He merely raised his brows as though she were being silly.

Then it struck Juliet that she was actually a criminal; what she had done was punishable by law. She turned cold and said in a small voice, “I beg you, please do not turn me over to the magistrate. I will slip away and go to Canada or anywhere you wish, only I’d rather not to go court and prison.”

“So you are aware that what you do is wrong?” Alexander studied the contrite face, the frightened eyes, and knew he could never expose her to such a fate. After all, she was fleeing a horrible marriage just as he did. Oddly enough, he did not doubt her tale; she had been too direct and straightforward to have been lying. Something about her eyes as well. She had stared directly into his with no sign of guile or evasion.

“Of course, but I could see nothing else to hand and this was extremely tempting.” She managed a wisp of a smile, and Alexander discovered an enchanting dimple nestled beside the left corner of her mouth. A very delectable mouth, he perceived.

There were several minutes of silence in the room while the pair contemplated a possible solution.

“Let me sort this out. Mrs. Bassett and others believe I am your estranged husband. Correct?” He glanced at Juliet, who nodded vigorously in reply.

“True. I suspect they feel sorry for me, alone and unwanted as it were.”

“Which undoubtedly places me in the role of a cad and a bounder to send my dear little wife to the ends of the earth while I live it up in the city.” Alexander grimaced at the image that scenario prompted and winced at her eager agreement.

“I believe you have the right of it,” she said in a subdued voice. “Mrs. Bassett is even now likely wondering if you are about to scold me.”

“Perhaps we could help each other?” he mused and was startled at the instant flame of hope on her face. It was as though someone had lit a candle behind each of those remarkable eyes.

“How? Oh, I’d do anything to avoid marrying Lord Taunton. I will
not
be his wife and stuck in a country house with a cluster of babies and no money, for you must know that as a gamester and all he would go through my fortune in no time.” She stretched out a dainty but capable hand to touch Alexander on the arm, then hastily withdrew it as though she had been burned by the contact.

Alexander cleared his throat at the image presented of Juliet surrounded by a cluster of babies and continued. “We can proceed with the deception as begun. You will portray a dutiful wife, and I the husband who is making an attempt at a reconciliation.”

“We do not have to marry? I have no wish to many you. Forgive me if you do not like that, but it is true.” She gave him a clear look that revealed she spoke the truth, however uncomfortable she felt in doing so.

“No,” Alexander replied gently. “I believe we can manage to avoid that distasteful state. We can take things day by day, see how we get along.”

“There is a dinner party tomorrow evening at the Tackley’s. I am invited, and I expect you had best make an appearance if we are to make a success of this. Must I pretend to be in love with you?” she said with a blush staining her delicate cheeks.

“Not if you find it disagreeable,” he said and found he was rather put out that she objected to even pretending to be in love with him.

“And I shan’t have to kiss you or hang on your arm?” she demanded in her direct manner.

“That does not appeal to you? There are many women in London who would leap at the chance,” he found himself saying to his chagrin.

“Perhaps so, but I do not love you, and I could not kiss you if I had no love for you, you see.”

“I am not encumbered with such nicety,” he observed, “and if the situation arises where I deem it to our mutual advantage, I may kiss you. Is that acceptable?” Alexander thought this had to be the strangest conversation he had ever held in his life.

“Very well.” She rose from her chair and took a step toward the door. “Why do you not settle into your room and we can discuss anything else that comes to mind over dinner. We dine later than country hours, yet not so late as London, I suppose.” She looked troubled, but said nothing more.

“I would that you show me to my room. Somehow I believe Mrs. Bassett expects it of you.”

Alexander watched Juliet square her shoulders as though preparing to do battle, then offer a decisive nod.

“Come, your room is clean and needs but fresh sheets and towels. No doubt Mrs. Bassett has seen to that even as we talked. It would not occur to her that you would sleep anywhere but in your own residence.”

Alexander walked at Juliet’s side up the curving stairs that led to the first floor and the bedrooms. As he anticipated, his room was adjacent to hers, and he smiled as she blushed when she saw him look at the connecting door.

“I do not believe there is a key for that door,” she muttered.

“You may trust me, Juliet.” He walked closer to her, touching her lightly on the chin so as to see her face more clearly. He could not resist those lips and touched them lightly with his own, smiling at her dazed expression.

“There was no reason to do that, my lord.”

“Ah, but there was. I cannot have you going about looking like an unkissed schoolgirl. No gentleman would accept that of me. And you had best call me Alexander; all my intimate friends do.”

“We may not be intimate, but I hope we might be friends,” Juliet said in that small voice he found oddly appealing.

“Friends it shall be. Is it a bargain, then?” he asked, holding out his hand to her.

Hesitantly, she placed her slim hand in his. “Indeed! A bargain it shall be.”

Chapter 4

He was mad, utterly, totally mad. Alexander rubbed a hand over his unshaven and shadowed chin as he stared out the window at the morning scene below. He absently took note of the splendor of the early summer garden, all the while wondering if his wits truly had gone begging. He—the man who had insisted that he would never be trapped into marriage, that no woman would trick him into that state—was well and truly caught. Never mind that she was a fetching little piece with those seductive amber eyes and that delectable dimple at the corner of a very kissable mouth. She was also a woman who thought ill of him, declaring she had no desire to marry him or any other man. He winced again at the memory of her contempt as she had used the word
rake.

Blast!
How would he ever extricate himself from this mess? He raked his fingers through his dark hair in frustration. Could they pull the deception off? He thought with hope that
if no
one came from town, and
if
no one read the papers, and
if
neither her family nor his got wind of this supposed marriage, they might each eventually go their separate ways. And pigs might fly.

On the other hand, Juliet was
not
Camilla Shelford! He imagined he could tolerate an alliance with the delicious and aggravating Juliet should it prove unavoidable. Their first test would come this evening at the dinner party given by some local gentry. Tackley, he thought Juliet had said. Perhaps it would be well to discuss how they would act? After all, if they were to play roles, they had parts to learn.

Randall entered the room, and Alexander turned to request his clothes for the day and then submit to the valet’s ministrations.

* * * *

Juliet sank down on the pretty window seat in her bedroom. She gave an apprehensive look at the closed door between her room and
his.
Her pretend husband—Alexander—he was a rake, a womanizer, a man who would attract women like flowers attracted bees. Recalling his seductive voice, even when angered, she wondered how a woman resisted such a man. She sighed deeply. For a woman who had determined never to marry a rake she had put her foot in it this time.

What on earth could she do now? She was not so naive as to think they could emerge from this bumblebroth unscathed. But to what extent would she be punished and how?

Still, he was not Lord Taunton. There might have been gossip about Alexander in the newspapers, and he certainly was devilishly handsome—putting the chinless Lord Taunton totally in the shade. But the truth of the matter was that he appeared to live up to his reputation—kissing her because he didn’t want an unkissed schoolgirl for a wife! Even were it true, he had promised to behave. Was she afraid he would or wouldn’t do it again?

She drew her legs up, then wrapped her arms about them, resting her chin on her knees. Could they fool the people of Woodbury? Mrs. Tackley had known the viscount’s grandmama. That was a danger. What other pitfalls lurked in their way she couldn’t imagine, but she guessed she had best discuss the matter with Alexander. He had taken charge yesterday, and without a doubt he would take charge again. Truth be known— and she would never have admitted it to a soul—it was rather good to have another who knew her secret and was to help in one way or another.

Pansy opened the door, nudging it aside while balancing a tray upon which sat a cup of steaming chocolate and some buttered toast. “Morning,” the maid said with her usual terseness. “Trouble is still here, I see. His man came down for hot water while I was getting your chocolate and toast. Nothin’ but trouble, missy.”

“You think I do not know that?” Juliet moved to accommodate the tray in her lap and munched toast and sipped hot chocolate in silence while Pansy nattered on about the day to come and what did Miss Juliet intend to wear to the dinner that evening.

“Not
Miss
Juliet, Pansy. Madam or my lady. And you must remember it, particularly now that his lordship is here.” Juliet glanced again at the closed door and set the tray aside, the toast forgotten.

“Your yellow muslin, madam?” Pansy asked with a gloomy manner.

“That’s better,” Juliet muttered and proceeded to dress for the morning confrontation. That there would be one, she had not the least doubt.

When she marched down the curving stairs to the ground floor, she searched the area to see if Alexander was around. Then she nearly jumped out of her skin when a voice came from behind her.

“I am here, and as soon as we have broken our fast, we had better discuss what is to be done.” Alexander joined her, keeping his distance as might be expected from a gentleman whose wife was not quite pleased with him.

Juliet thought back to various novels she had read. Not one of them dwelt with the problem of an estranged couple. In the future she would ignore all those Gothic books and look for something more helpful.

Pansy had added a frilled betsy over Juliet’s gown, and Juliet found it very useful to occupy her nervous fingers. It was pointless to try to eat a thing, but she did manage to sip a cup of hot tea. Lord Hawkswood had no such difficulty, it seemed. He loaded his plate and ate a hearty meal, drinking several cups of coffee as well.