For Desire Alone (25 page)

Of course, it could not and did not. Pleasure faded and John collapsed back onto the bed, dragging her down across his chest as their panting breaths eased into something more normal and Mariah found she could speak once again.

“What meeting were you telling Mr. Thomason to prepare your waistcoat for?” she asked as she feathered soft kisses along his naked chest.

John shivered and she smiled. Oh yes, at least there would be this between them. Even if he didn’t love her. Even if he never could. She would console herself with pleasure, it was all she could do.

“I received a note from my solicitor, Mr. Jacoby. The special license has been arranged. We marry in three days’ time.”

She stopped kissing him and stared up at him in what she knew was utter shock. “Th-three days?” she repeated. “So…so soon?”

He nodded, but he was watching her through a hooded and unreadable gaze. “Not so very soon. We agreed to marry a week ago, almost, and I have been bringing down the full force of my name and worth in order to bring this to pass quickly. It is the best way to protect you, after all.”

“I knew you had been working diligently,” she whispered. “But I simply did not realize—”

She cut herself off and he sighed softly.

“I will do my best to make you happy, Mariah,” he said after they had both been silent for a long moment. “I can promise you nothing else but that.”

She knew she should tell him it was enough, but the fact was that it wasn’t. It wasn’t enough. And she couldn’t perceive a time when it would be.

Chapter Twenty

Adam entered the parlor and smiled as he found John in the seat he was uncomfortably perched in.

“I didn’t expect to see you today,” his brother said with true friendliness and welcome. “I hope you weren’t kept waiting too long. I was in the middle of some business to do with the Clarke investment.”

John blinked to clear the distraction that clouded his mind and managed to belatedly push to his feet.

“No, of course not. I knew you were likely busy. How are the arrangements advancing?”

His brother grinned. “Excellently. We should have a deal in place by day’s end. I never knew how much I would enjoy shipping as an industry,” he continued as he sat down and poured himself a cup of tea. “There is so much to learn.”

Now when John smiled, he did not have to force the expression. He was truly happy for his brother as he began finding a place in the world that was beyond the scope of their father’s influence. He knew full well how heady a prospect that could be. He remembered his own early days when he’d found his place, no matter how many years ago the same had happened to him.

“Did you come to talk to me about the work I have been doing in your company?” Adam asked as he wolfed down a biscuit in one bite. He cast his brother a quick glance. “I do hope I’m up to snuff.”

“I have heard nothing but good about you from my foreman, I assure you,” John said with a shrug. “No, the business is not what I’m here to talk about.”

Adam sipped his tea and there was a shadow that crossed over his face that no one could deny. John frowned. His greatest hope was that his brother would one day shed the notion that he was constantly being judged, that he had something or someone to fear. Their father had pounded those facts into them as children and John hated feeling them, and seeing them on his brother’s face.

“Then what is it that brings you here?” Adam finally asked very softly.

“It is…
happy
news,” John said, forcing false brightness. “I am to marry in two days’ time. On Saturday morning. At Helmsford Church near the park.”

His brother nearly dropped his teacup and instead set it down with a clatter as he stared.

“M-Married?” he repeated and the word had emphasis, like it was foreign.

In truth, the entire idea felt foreign to John, though perhaps not in as negative a way as he had implied to Mariah a short time ago.

“Yes, married,” he said, shaking his head and returning to the conversation rather than mull his thoughts.

“To whom?” his brother asked, but his voice was too quiet for his ignorance to be believed. Not when his eyes were bugged out and his face pale.

“To Mariah Desmond, of course.” John waved a hand to dismiss any other possibility. “I wouldn’t be fool enough to marry anyone else.”

Adam blinked a few times in rapid succession. “You are marrying your mistress?”

“I am. Father is threatening her, which she does not deserve.” John dipped his head. “And this is the only way to fully protect her. With my money, my home and my name behind her, she will be at far lower risk.”

His brother searched for a response, opening and shutting his mouth several times before he finally managed to find
something
to say. “There will be talk.”

John laughed, but the sound was hollow. “Do you think so? She is not from any family even vaguely associated with rank, which would start tongues wagging anyway. And then there is the fact that I am marrying a woman who has been my mistress for a short time and was, before that, my best friend’s lover for years. My best friend who died in so shocking a fashion that it is still openly discussed in ballrooms.”

His brother pushed to his feet and staggered back, staring at John with such an expression that it forced John to his feet, as well. His brother looked…terrified.

“Y-You mean to tell me that Mariah was once the lover of Lord Heathcote?” he said, his voice trembling.

John nodded. “Owen, yes. You remember him, I’m sure. We were chums for years. I thought you knew the connection to Mariah?”

“I do remember him,” his brother said on a gasp of breath. “I remember him well. But I did not realize…”

He spun on his heel and paced to the window where he stared outside, his shoulders taut and trembling. John moved toward him a step, then stopped. He wasn’t certain his brother wanted him to pry, but wasn’t this about him?

“Dear God, Adam, what is it?” he asked, trying to keep his tone light so the riotous emotions unexpectedly involved in this conversation would not be increased further.

His brother shook his head. “That was why he said—” He cut himself off.

“What?” John asked. “Who said what? What are you talking about?”

His brother turned, but there was almost no expression on his face. He was blank and pale.

“It isn’t anything,” he murmured. “I am simply very surprised by this turn of events, as I’m sure you have heard from dozens of people already.”

John shook his head. “In truth, you are the first person to be told outside of Mariah’s friend Vivien Manning.”

His brother stared. “I am?”

“Yes. I came here today hoping you might stand up with me at the wedding on Saturday. It will be the smallest of affairs, but I’d like for you to be there.”

“Why?” Adam whispered.

“Because you are my brother,” John replied in surprise. “And I’m very happy to have you back in my life. There will be few who support any of this madness, but I think I can count on you to do so. Am I wrong?”

His brother swallowed hard. “No, you are not wrong. Of course I will stand up for you on Saturday.”

“Excellent,” John said as he moved forward to offer his brother a hand to shake. As Adam did so, he said, “I will send you something with all the details this afternoon. Now I must depart, I fear there is a great deal to be done in a short amount of time.”

“Of course,” his brother said as he led John to the door and into the foyer. As John took his hat, Adam stepped forward. “John—”

He said his name, but then cut it off so abruptly that John stared at him, as did the butler.

“Yes?” he asked.

“I—” his brother said. “That is—”

John wrinkled his brow at his brother’s struggle. “What is it?”

“Nothing,” Adam finally said with a shake of his head. “I will look for your missive today and be there for you Saturday.”

John nodded and stepped outside, but as he mounted his horse, he could not help but be troubled by the nagging notion that his brother was more than shocked by John’s sudden engagement or taken aback by his inclusion in what would likely be one of the most important days of John’s life. He felt like Adam was hiding something.

And he just hoped that when he found out what it was, it wouldn’t end up being a secret that would tear apart their delicate reunion.

“How can you want me to stand up for you at your wedding?” Vivien said, wincing as her fidgeting made the seamstress stab her with her needle.

The girl lifted her eyes in apology, but Vivien hardly seemed to notice. If Mariah hadn’t been so out of sorts herself, she might have smiled at her normally cool friend’s obvious nervousness.

“Because you are the dearest friend I have and I need all the support I can get,” she said as she leaned back against the settee cushions and watched the seamstress continue her alteration of the gown Vivien would wear for Mariah’s wedding in… Dear God, two days’ time.

“But what a scene it will create,” Vivien continued with a moan, “to have a woman hardly better than a common whore stand up for you as you marry a man who is the grandson of a duke, for Christ’s sake. I will make your situation far worse, not better.”

Mariah stood and reached for her friend’s hand. “Please, Vivien, don’t argue with me about this. I do not think
anything
I ever do will result in my being accepted by those in the larger social sphere John moves in. And since he does not wish for this marriage to be real in any way, the best I can hope for is that I will still have my true friends to surround me.”

Vivien stared at her and the anxiety that had lined her face faded. “Of course, this is
your
day. I did not mean to place my own worries on to you when you already have a great deal to fret over. I’m sorry.”

Mariah released Vivien’s hand and shook her head. “No, there is to be none of that. No apologies.”

Vivien watched her as she retook her seat. “What of your gown?”

She sighed. “John has paid some exorbitant sum for it to be ready Friday night. I believe there are five seamstresses sewing madly on it now.” She stared at a point far across the room without seeing it. “It is ridiculous for him to do so, but he seems to want me to have some sort of passable wedding, as if this were all real.”

Vivien pursed her lips. “But it is real for you, isn’t it?”

“If you mean I shall marry a man I love, then certainly it is more real than anything I have ever known.” She shook her head. “But it is meaningless nonetheless. John wishes to protect me and this is the only way he can see to do so.”

“At least that is romantic,” her friend said.

Mariah stared at her. “A less romantic notion I have never known. He would
protect
a dog that was being kicked on the street too. No, this resolution speaks more to his character rather than anything to do with me.”

“Then things are still difficult between you?” Vivien asked.

Mariah took a peek at the seamstress. She had slipped across the room to record some measurements in a little book, so Mariah edged closer and whispered, “He has begun making love to me again, at least.”

Vivien smiled. “Then I think all this proves he does care for you, Mariah.”

Mariah’s heart leapt, just as it did any time she allowed that fleeting thought to cross her exhausted mind. But she pushed it away.

“He may care, but that does not mean he loves. I shall accept the first, but I do not think I shall ever stop longing for the second. And that will mean a great deal of heartache, I fear.” She smiled. “But then, it will not be much different from many other marriages in Upper Society, will it?”

“I suppose not,” Vivien said, then pursed her lips as the seamstress returned and they were no longer at liberty to speak of more intimate subjects.

Mariah was just as pleased for the shift in conversation. She had to accept that in two days time she would be the wife of a man she loved, but would not, or could not, love her in return. Those were the facts.

And someday, perhaps she would find a way to endure them with the grace befitting her new station in life.

Chapter Twenty-One

Mariah stared at the clock with increasing frustration and anxiety tightening her chest. It had been fifteen minutes since her lady’s maid had left to find a bit of ribbon to wind through her hair and there was no sign of the girl’s return yet.

Mariah stood with a huff of her breath and moved toward the bell. She had rung it once already with no response. If she didn’t know the servants so well, she might think they were ignoring her on purpose, as some kind of sign of their disapproval. But they had been nothing but kind, both in and out of John’s presence, so she doubted it was that.

Something was keeping Nellie from her side.

She went to the door and opened it, peeking into the hallway. It was silent. Of course, many of the servants had already left for the church, where they would stand in the wings to watch as John pledged his life to hers. But there were a few to stay behind and ready the wedding luncheon and help see her off.

But not a one appeared. She didn’t even hear them bustling about.