Regency Innocents (40 page)

She scanned the harsh features, scarce six inches from her own face. The warmth of his breath fanned her cheek. She could smell the faint aroma of bergamot, a scent she had associated with him since the night when he had supported her, half-fainting, from the heat of that crowded ballroom. Her hands remembered the texture of his sleeve, and, through it, the strength of the arm that it clothed.

How she longed to be the one to wipe away those lines of suffering that a lifetime of disappointments had etched so deeply on his face! To make those eyes, that burned with suspicion, glow with contentment or light with laughter.

Oh, she knew he was only asking her to marry him out of disappointment in losing Susannah to a rival. But she could empathise with the streak of practicality in his nature that had him reasoning that if he could not have the woman he had set his heart on, there was no reason that he should forgo the property, as well. Had she not planned her own future along similar lines? Having given up hope of marrying the man she loved, she had decided she would at least stand on her own two feet and not be beholden to anyone.

Though it was depressing that he thought so poorly of her. He saw her as a girl with so little going for her that she would be grateful for the chance to live in comfort, even if it meant allying herself to a man he assumed no woman could look upon with anything but revulsion.

‘If any other man had asked me in such terms,' she declared, determined to justify her intention to accept him, in spite of his insults, ‘I would have turned him down flat. Don't you know that the way you just addressed me was hurtful, almost beyond bearing?'

‘If that is what you think,' he said, rearing back and making as though he was about to stand up, ‘then I will trouble you with my unwelcome attentions no more.'

She regretted her impulse to put him straight, as soon as she saw the pain in his eyes. She had never intended to hurt him. Oh, blow her stupid pride. It was not worth defending if doing so wounded him.

‘Your attentions are not unwelcome,' she hastily reassured him. ‘And of course I will marry you. It was just the way you put it …'

He got to his feet, looking down at her with an expression so fierce she felt almost afraid of him.

‘You must not expect honeyed words, or any insincere flattery from me, Miss Gillies. I may not have put my proposal with any great eloquence, but at least you know exactly what it is I am offering. I am offering you financial security, a chance at a good, comfortable future. You are about to marry a man who has been a soldier all his adult life. A man who has fought hard and lived rough. I am not going to spout some silly romantic nonsense to try to deceive you into expecting what I cannot give.'

She blinked in astonishment. Hurt tears sprung to her eyes. Had any woman ever received such an insulting proposal or had her acceptance met with such a stinging rebuke? If she had a grain of sense, she would tell him what he could do with his proposal, and walk away.

But then she would never see him again.

She would become a teacher, just as she had planned, but with the knowledge that, had she had more courage, she could have been Captain Fawley's wife.

She could have endured that lonely life of drudgery, had he never proposed to her. But now, such a future would be unbearable.

A cold hand seemed to reach into her bowels, and twist them into a knot as another horrible thought occurred to her. Seeing the ruthless way he had tried to bludgeon her into a marriage he was convinced she
could not want, was he not bound to bully some other hapless female into taking him on, so that he could get at his inheritance? She could not deceive herself into thinking she was anything more to him than the first on a list of prospective wives, drawn from the pool of available females in desperate straits.

‘I do not expect anything from you,' she said despondently. How could she have forgotten, even for a second, that he was in love with Susannah? She might have fanciful visions of creating a happy family with the man she loved, but as far as he was concerned, she could be any female.

A means to an end.

A
sense of elation swept over him, so strong that it made him almost dizzy. Vengeance, for all of it, was almost within his grasp! He could not believe it had been so easy. He had all those fools to thank—the fools who had made this lovely girl believe no man could want her.

He sank down on to the chair next to her, and would have seized her hand in gratitude, had he not been aware that she saw acceptance of his proposal as the lesser of two evils. Poverty and drudgery on the one hand, or marriage to a man no other woman could stomach on the other. What was it she had murmured, tears in her eyes? The devil or the deep blue sea!

So what if she felt she had made a bargain with the devil? She would soon learn that though he might not be the kind of husband most girls dreamed of, she would most definitely enjoy the comfortable lifestyle marrying him would bring her. From what he had been able to glean from his brief visit to the lawyers, to verify exactly what he needed to do to inherit, the old woman had left
a tidy sum of money, as well as the property that would become their home.

‘Thank you, Miss Gillies. I cannot begin to tell you what this means to me.' He almost winced at his own choice of words. He had been deliberately economical with the facts. For he never wanted her to discover that he had taken advantage of her vulnerability in order to exact revenge on a Lampton. Such knowledge was bound to chafe at her tender conscience.

He had suspected, before he came to put his proposal to her, that she would refuse him outright if she knew that marrying him would be tantamount to ruining another person's future. She seemed capable of putting everyone's happiness before her own. Look at how pleased she had been to observe Susannah's success. She had displayed no trace of envy, though Susannah had totally eclipsed her more understated beauty, denying her a chance to attract her own suitors. And she had been pleased that the London Season, which was clearly sapping her strength, was helping her mother to get over her grief.

No, he had no intention of burdening her with the knowledge that he was determined to deprive Lampton of a fortune the man had always regarded as his.

But he had to secure it swiftly. Lampton was bound to take steps to prevent him marrying if he got wind of it.

‘We must marry at once.'

‘Must we?' she replied, in bewilderment.

‘Yes, for if I do not fulfil the terms of the will, within a specified time, I may lose out on the inheritance altogether.'

‘Oh,' was all she said, but he could hear acceptance in her tone. Relieved to have surmounted yet another hurdle, he braced himself for her objections when he stipulated, ‘And I must insist that we send no announcement to the papers until after the ceremony. Nor tell anyone who is not directly involved either when, or where, it is to take place.'

She looked at him with a troubled frown. ‘You want me to marry you in secret?' She shook her head. ‘No … that would be … quite repugnant to me.' To marry in secret, as though there was something to be ashamed of … it did not bear thinking about.

‘It seems so underhanded,' she persisted.

‘I know I am asking a great deal of you. But, please, look at it from my point of view.'

Sometimes, a battle had to be fought with subtlety, using whatever stratagems necessary to outwit the enemy. He was not exactly lying to Deborah. Only throwing a little dust in her eyes. It was no worse than lying in ambush for an enemy who had superior numbers, rather than meeting him on open ground, where defeat would have been inevitable.

‘I do not want there to be any more witnesses to our wedding than are absolutely necessary.' That much was the literal truth. But then, relying on her sympathetic nature, he added, ‘Do you think I enjoy having people stare at me? Wondering what on earth I had to do to induce a beauty like you into taking on a wreck like me?'

‘Beauty?' she gasped indignantly. ‘You just said that you were not going to spout silly romantic nonsense! So don't resort to insincere flattery just to get your own
way. I would much rather you kept to the plain speaking you say you pride yourself on.'

‘Miss Gillies, I am being perfectly sincere. You posses an inner beauty that any man with an ounce of sense—'

‘Oh, inner beauty,' she snorted in derision. That was how a man always tried to cajole a plain girl into doing his bidding. Well, he would soon find out that she was not as biddable as all that. She must tell him she simply could not act in a way she felt was morally reprehensible.

She took a deep breath.

‘I refuse to keep this news from my mother, or marry without her to attend me ….'

‘Well, naturally,' he said, taking the wind out of her sails. ‘Miss Gillies, I am not asking you to enter into a secret marriage. Only a very private one. There will be nothing havey-cavey about it. I shall be asking my brother to stand up with me. And once the ceremony is over and we are on our way to our new home, I will be only too pleased to advertise the fact.'

That did not sound too unreasonable, she supposed.

‘However, I would rather you did not tell your mother that we are to marry, until you are in the coach and on the way to the ceremony.'

Deborah blinked.

‘It is the only way to be sure she does not let slip what is about to take place. She is clearly very fond of Miss Hullworthy. Would she be able, do you suppose, to keep the news of your marriage from her? Would she be able to keep it from anyone? Most mothers are so pleased to know their daughters are to wed, they cannot keep a still tongue in their head.'

Deborah chewed on her lower lip as she pondered this aspect of the case. Her mother would indeed be thrilled to hear she was getting married, doubly so that it was to Captain Fawley. And if she knew that he planned to take her into the marital home, and care for her in her old age, nothing would keep her from flinging herself on his neck and weeping all over him, before she proudly announced to all her cronies what a splendid son-in-law she had managed to net.

And as for keeping the news from Susannah … She sighed. Captain Fawley would not want her to be present at the ceremony that represented a final farewell to the woman he loved. In fact, if she was honest with herself, having Susannah there would ruin the event for her, as well. It was bad enough knowing she was a poor second-best, without having her husband's first choice there in person to remind her what a second-rate marriage he was embarking upon.

She hated subterfuge, or anything that smacked of dishonesty in any form, yet refraining from telling her friend her news would certainly save both Captain Fawley, and herself, some pain.

‘How long would you expect me to keep our engagement from my mother?'

She could not miss the flare of triumph that lit his eyes as he recognised her capitulation to his terms.

‘Now that I have your promise, I can obtain the special licence required to marry without the need for banns. We will have to meet with the lawyers who are acting as executors of the will of which I am a beneficiary too. It is no use marrying without their prior
knowledge and agreement. Providing all goes well, the ceremony itself can take place the day after tomorrow. We shall leave town immediately after the ceremony. Walton can send the notice to the
Morning Post
once we are safely out of the way.'

‘Just a minute—what will happen if the lawyers do not give their agreement?'

‘I am sure they will. You have no need to worry. I did not mean to imply they might not approve you. I just need to make sure I fulfil all the terms to the letter, so that nobody may contest my claim.'

‘Contest your claim? Is that likely?'

What would happen to her, if she did not fulfil the requirements of this will? Or if someone contested his claim? He had only proposed because he wanted to inherit this property. He would have no use for her at all if the lawyers decided she was not fit for some reason. She went cold inside. What would he do in such an event? Take her home and wash his hands of her? Could he be so ungallant?

Was that why he had sworn her to secrecy? So that she would not be able to complain that he had proposed and then jilted her? For she had too much pride to admit to another living soul that she had done something so improper as entering into a secret engagement. Suddenly, she felt very alone, and very afraid.

But then, to her surprise, Captain Fawley reached out and placed his hand over hers as she twisted them together in her lap.

‘I know it will not be easy for you to creep out of the house, without your mother's knowledge.'

She had not even considered the practical aspects of attending an appointment at the lawyers' office without her mother's knowledge until that moment. Now she had another worry to add to those already tormenting her!

‘But only think how happy she will be when she finds out it was all in a good cause,' he cajoled her. ‘And you will not have to keep her from our plans for more than a day, if all goes well.'