Marry the Man Today (23 page)

Possibly.
If she only knew which account they were questioning. Her very large, very legitimate portfolio that she kept in her own name in the Bank of England? Or all those little accounts she'd helped women like Lady Ellis open against their husbands' wishes?

Dear God, was that what this was all about? The warrant hadn't been specific. And if they knew that, then what else did the authorities know?

"I'm sorry, Blakestone." She tried to look past his outrage, tried to shrug off his disturbing alarm. "I don't know what the bank is talking about."

He pulled her closer, glaring into her eyes. "Who is Adelaide Chiswick?"

Adelaide
?
"Oh, Adelaide!" She gulped back a deep sigh of relief. Maybe she could talk them out of that charge after all. The Bank and Scotland Yard and Ross Carrington, the powerful Earl of Blakestone whose breath was dancing warmly, deliciously, against her mouth.

"Who is she?"

"Well, my lord, she's ...
me.
Sort of. It's my account."

He grunted and wheeled her backward onto a wooden bench and then stared at her from just inches away. "Yo
u
opened a bank account in the name of Adelaide Chiswick?"

She tried to wet her lips, but her mouth had dried up on the blatant lie she was about to tell to the man who was only trying to protect her from her own risky affairs. "It was last Christmas."

"Why?" The word came out like a growl.

"I was ..." It had seemed like a fine idea at the time. A test of her skill at deception. A way to see if she could pass herself off as an elderly widow and open a little account in the completely false name of Adelaide Chiswick.

Because if she could do it, then she could help other apparent elderly widows do the same thing.

Like Lady Ellis and her alter ego, the widowed Althea Moore.

But she couldn't confess that little ruse to Blake-stone. There were too many of her innocent followers to protect. And besides, the Bank only seemed interested in Adelaide.

Still, she would have to think fast to come up with a suitable explanation for the man who was still glaring at her.

"It all began, my lord, when a young woman came to work for me when I was getting the Adams ready to open. A very sad case, very poor. She lived with her old mum and eight siblings somewhere in the Seven Dia
l
s." This was going well for an instant story. Though she couldn't let it take on too much of the penny dreadful.

"Tragic, Elizabeth, but what has this to do with the Bank of England?"

"Her name was Addie Chiswick. And I felt sorry for her and her family. I tried to help her out with some extra money, but she said she wouldn't take charity. So I opened the account for her, in her name, thinking that I would send a solicitor to her home a few months later to tell her that she had inherited a few pounds. And to give her the bank book. But, sadly, Addie quit working for me after a few weeks, and when I sent off the solicitor, he couldn't find the house or any sign of Addie or her family."

The lout blinked at her, skepticism dripping from his reply,
"
Oh, really?"

"Yes, my lord, and to this day the account sits unused, waiting for the solicitor to find Addie." She offered him her most saintly smile, pleased with her little fabrication. But not sure that he believed her.

He chewed on his cheek for a while, assessing her from every angle, then shook his head. "You're either lying, Miss Dunaway, or a damned fool. And I've known you long enough to know that you are no fool."

"And I'm not a criminal. I didn't defraud anyone. It's my money. I'm not trying to steal anything. Who cares what name I use on my account?"

"That's not the point, madam." He knelt in front of her and wrapped his huge hands around hers, frightening her with the clarity of his concern. "You can't confound the Bank of England like that and expect not to be punished for your insolence."

"Because I'm a woman?"

No, my dear Elizabeth, because you terrify them.

Because the woman couldn't help herself. Because her heart was filled up with a restlessness he knew only too well. That he'd had to learn to manage in his own life.

"Because you're an upstart, my dear. You're not playing by their rules and that makes them spiteful." Willing to put this bright, uncompromising woman in jail.

She harrumped and leaned back against the bench. "Which is the very reason I've also been charged with disturbing the queen's peace."

"Indeed."

"Because I'm a woman. And I've dared to inform the emperor that he has no clothes. That his laws have no place in the natural order of life." She stood and paced away from him to the opposite wall, bringing him to his feet, making him want to follow after her. "That charge against me is completely unfair. Our march down Whitehall was peaceful. And that ballyhoo in Parliament the other day wasn't our fault."

"I'm aware of that, Elizabeth." And newly aware of the injustice she was battling against, of his own growing sense of outrage on her behalf. "However, the worst of the charges against you are undeniable."

"By that you mean my printing and distributing salacious material."

"That's how the warrant reads."

"It's wrong." She crossed her arms beneath her breasts, plumping them above her bodice, causing havoc in his groin and blowing up a fire in his chest. "
Unbridled Embraces
is not salacious, nor is it meant to be, as you well know!"

"In fact, my dear, should I ever be asked the question in a court of law, I would have to state that I highly approved of Miss Dunaway's unbridled embraces."

"There, you see!"

But she obviously didn't. Couldn't see the effect she was having on him, on her freedom.

"However, Elizabeth, according to the solicitor I consulted on your behalf, the law deems that the publication of your little booklet constitutes a threat to public safety."

"Suggesting that a wife make herself attractive to her husband is a threat to public safety? That's absurd."

Bloody shortsighted. "But it's the letter of the law. And that's all the courts know."

"But you know differently, Blakestone. You know my intentions. You can testify in my defense. They'll believe you; you're a man."

To the marrow. He could feel the pulse of her spirit thrumming through his veins. A new brightness in his soul.

"And I've learned to play by their rules when it suits me to do so."

"Like breaking me out of jail."

He was finished listening to her debate, more sure than ever that he had made the right decision. For the both of them.

"I told you, my dear, I've had the charges against you dropped."

"Then why are we here?"

Braced for the mother of all battles, Ross put himself between Elizabeth and the door. "Because, madam, there is one condition to your release."

She narrowed her brow up at him. "That we attend a midnight wedding?"

Indeed. "A simple accord that I reached with the Lord Mayor."

"What kind of accord?" She fisted her hands against her hips and scowled up at him. A scowl that he was sure would turn to horror in the next instant. But he was ready for that.

He hoped.

"I intimated to him, madam, that since you and I were planning to be married anywa
y
—"

"Married!" Her eyes had grown to saucers. But for the moment he had her full attention.

"That I would advance that date, my dear, marry you tonight by special license in exchange for dropping the charges, thereby taking you off the streets and out of the court docket for good."

"Now you've lied to the Lord Mayor." She was shaking her head at him in horror. "I'll be swinging from Tyburn for the noonday rush."

"I didn't lie to the Lord Mayor, Elizabeth. We are getting married tonight."

He didn't like the stark stillness of her silence. Didn't like that her fine mouth was set firmly in a frown. Or that she was blinking at him from under a thunderous scowl.

"Is that why you brought me here to the Lord Mayor's? So that you could take charge of me like a wayward lunatic?
"

She looked that way at the moment, with her gold-tipped hair gone slightly wild, her cheeks pinkening to crimson, her kitchen maid apron stained every which way. But at least she wasn't pitching a tantrum.

"The choice is yours, my dear," he said, trying to keep his own breathing steady, his temper in check, because this was not the way he would have chosen a wife and a wedding day. "Marriage to me, or a lengthy trial by a jury of men. A lifetime as my wife, or twelve years in prison."

She raised a very wry brow and focused her glare into the deepest part of him. "The rock or the hard place? The fire or the frying pan? Is that the choice you're offering, my lord?"

A slap in the face that he felt all the way to his heart. "Have I been such a rogue?"

"No, damn you." She paced to the wall and back to him, scrubbing her fingers through her hair. "But you're still a man. And the law is on your side. My fortune becomes yours. My every decision. My children. My bookstore. My friends. The Abigail Adams."

And here he was, as good as forcing her to marrying him. No wonder she couldn't trust him.

"If I tell you that I'm not like tha
t
—"

"What's that old saying, my lord? That absolute power corrupts absolutely."

"That's unfair, Elizabeth."

"But it's the truth: that as my husband, you'd wield absolute power over me. You could so easily shut down the Adams, forbid my friends, grow tired of me. . . .”

He couldn't imagine ever growing tired of her enterprising spirit, or the challenge in her eyes, or the goodness of her heart.

But how to convince her that he would do his best by her to the end of their days?

"Elizabeth, I can't force you to sign the registrar's book. The choice to marry me has to be yours alone."

"How can you do this to
m
e?" Her face fell to a flood of tears. "Offer me my freedom as long as I surrender my independence to you?"

"That's not my intention, love." But he was beginning to understand her terror, could see it in the trembling of her chin. "But you've
f
inally pushed them too hard. And they've got the power to remove you from the sunlight. And I wouldn't like that a bit."

"But
I
—" Her chin wobbled. Her hands were quaking, her knees knocking against his. Panic welled in her eyes as she shoved herself away from him with a cry. "No, no, no, no, no! I can't do this."

Then she turned and sprinted toward the door they'd come through.

Fortunately, he was faster, scooping her into his arms, the force of her flight sending him into a spin. He stopped in place, then held on tightly as he carried her back down the corridor.

"Running won't take you where you want to go, love."

"But I want to go home!" She clutched her arms around his neck, holding on for dear life, as though he might drop her. "Back to the country."

"That's no longer an option for you. They'll find you there too. Home is with me from now on, Elizabeth. You've left yourself no choice but to marry me. Tonight."

"But I can't—"

"Ah, there you are, Blakestone!" The Lord Mayor himself came strolling down the hall on a bouncing heel, grinning madly at them. "And you, Miss Dunaway. Good evening."

"Has the registrar arrived, Callis?"

"Just before you did, my lord. Everything's in place for your wedding to Miss Dunaway."

The man was looking at Elizabeth with a ready smile, obviously expecting a delighted bride.

But her eyes swamped with tears again and she turned her face into Ross's collar, wetting his neck, steaming against his nape. Then a huge sob rolled out of her, roaring through his chest.

But she didn't say no.

Didn't try again to bolt from him.

Ross nodded back at Callis to ease the moment, feeling only somewhat like a cad. "Overcome with emotion."

"My wife cried on our wedding day," Callis said, starting off ahead of them. "Come to think on it, she cries most days, for one reason or another."

That set the woman in Ross's arms into a howling sob.

A lamb to the slaughter.

His
lamb.

Chapter 14

His designs were strictly honorable, as the phrase is; that is, to rob a lady of her fortune by way of marriage.

Henry Fielding,
Tom Jones

_R
oss carried his reluctant bride-to-be all the way into the Lord Mayor's office, surprised that she was still clinging so fiercely to his neck when they arrived. As though he was threatening to throw her over the side.

"You'll be all right, Elizabeth," he said as he stood her on her feet, halfway expecting her to bolt again.