The Devil Is a Marquess (Rescued from Ruin Book 4) (26 page)

Pryor sighed. “One hundred thousand pounds. There are stipulations for alternate circumstances, but that is the crux of the matter.”

Catherine flicked her fingers at him. “Thank you, Archibald. That will be all.”

The solicitor nodded and slunk back into the ballroom.

Something squeezed inside Charlotte’s chest. It ached until she couldn’t catch her breath. One hundred thousand more. For a child. Their child. She felt sick. Her father’s machinations were legendary, but she had not imagined he would go to such lengths. Two hundred had to be nearly his entire fortune.

And Chatham. Why would he not tell her?
Perhaps he believed it was unimportant, as he’d no plans to act upon it. He avoided consummation for months, after all.
From the near-gleeful gleam in Catherine’s eye, her mother-in-law obviously thought Charlotte would collapse into hysterics. But Charlotte was made of sterner stuff.

“Perhaps Chatham should have told me everything. Clearly, you believe you have won some sort of victory with your revelation, but you haven’t. My husband loves me. Something you know little about.”

Catherine removed her mask, dangling it from its ribbon, swinging the red, spangled thing back and forth, back and forth. “Does he? Love you.”

She swallowed. Confidence beamed silver and white from the woman. It was unsettling. “Yes, he does. He has asked me to stay with him after our year is over. Insisted, in fact.”

“Of course he has. You cannot very well bear his child if he loses access to you.”

Her skin flushed colder in the night air. “No, that is not—even you said it. I am his Meg. You said it only yesterday.”

Again, the tilt of her head. “You are painfully naïve, Miss Lancaster. Yesterday, I believed my son would be willing to part with a fraction of the absolute fortune he will gain from your father. It was in my interest to further your … infatuation with him.”

“No,” Charlotte whispered, her stomach lurching, her mind scrambling to discover a flaw in her logic. “He loves me. You are lying to hurt him.”

“Has he
said
that he loves you?”

He had, hadn’t he? She struggled to remember. When they were in the dressing room, and he’d looked at her with haunting desperation, telling her that he’d thought he could let her go, but he could not. Telling her she must stay with him. Her heart had nearly burst, so full of love, she had been unable to contain it. Her feelings for him had spilled from her eyes, then her lips. She had repeated her love over and over. And he had said … that he wanted her.

Want. Not love.

In the hours since, he had not said it, either. She had said it a hundred times. But he had not. He had touched and kissed and stroked and pleasured her. He had whispered of need and desire. He had released inside her again and again, as he had done for weeks, seemingly unconcerned about getting her with child.

“My son is incapable of love, much like his father,” Catherine said, her sharp voice a distant noise.

“You don’t know him,” Charlotte said hoarsely. Desperately. “He is brilliant and kind and he cares for me. He battled a fire to protect me and our home. He—he is always affectionate—”

Catherine laughed. “Affectionate. An interesting term for lust. My dear Miss Lancaster, he saved you because you are worth one hundred thousand alive and nothing dead. He is ‘affectionate’ on a regular basis because that is the most effective method of begetting a child. Good God, you are worse than I ever was. At least with Rutherford, I accepted the truth once it was forced upon me.”

She shook her head. “No,” she whispered. “No.”

He would not do this. He would not engage in such a pretense. Such a betrayal.

Scoundrels don’t change. Lady Wallingham was right.

He has been faithful.

Because he had to be. It was part of the agreement.

He is my friend, my partner.

Because he needed you to trust him, to let him bed you. He even managed to make it seem as though it were your idea. You threw yourself at him.

No. He wants me. There can hardly be a doubt of that.

Likely his other benefactresses believed the same.

Charlotte lifted a hand to her forehead, her head spinning with the arguments, her belly cramping and bubbling with the strain of them. She needed to think clearly. She needed to be alone. Away from Catherine’s poison. Away from the temptations of his eyes and mouth.

Suddenly, the lemonade she had imbibed earlier sat sour and uncertain in her stomach. She raised a hand to settle over her belly, but perhaps she should have placed it over her mouth, for the urge came on so quickly, there was little she could do.

Apart from bending forward and promptly retching all over Catherine’s bright-pink ruffles, that was. When the contents of her stomach had been expelled in spectacular fashion, Charlotte straightened, her head swimming, her gloved hand wiping her mouth. Catherine’s face had been spared, unfortunately, but the woman’s gown and décolletage were a dripping mess. Satisfaction, petty and unbecoming, warmed Charlotte’s cold skin.

“Apologies,” Charlotte murmured. “I seem to have spilled something upon your gown.”

*~*~*

CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE

“A ball with the addition of masks and the illusion of intrigue is still merely a venue for vapid revelers to consume vast quantities of refreshments at my expense. But I find your point about the feathered mask most persuasive. I do favor feathers, as you know.”
—The Dowager Marchioness of Wallingham to Lady Gattingford upon said lady’s suggestion of a masquerade.

Chasing a purple plume like a fox’s tail across Grimsgate’s expansive ballroom, Chatham sidled between two wrinkled gentlemen discussing their new snuffboxes, and brushed past a dark-haired lady with whom he’d once had a dalliance at Vauxhall Gardens. She eyed him with hunger. He ignored her.

The only woman worth a damn to him was his wife, now and forever, and he hadn’t been able to locate her for forty bloody minutes. Odd panic had set in, tightening in his gut. Spotting the feathers of a certain dowager near the eight-foot portrait of one of the Tudor kings, Chatham made his way to the last person he had seen speaking to Charlotte.

“Lady Wallingham,” he said to the back of the diminutive dragon’s plumed head.

She turned razor-like green eyes upon him, raising a white brow and curling a nostril. “Rutherford. I scarcely recognized you without your customary cloud of illicit vapors. Have you misplaced your cup?”

He hadn’t time to joust with the dragon. “I have misplaced my wife. Do you know where she is?”

She sniffed, her mouth tightening into a pinch. “Lost her already, have you? Sooner even than I had calculated.”

“Answer my question,” he said, his voice low and soft.

The woman’s chin elevated. She studied him for long seconds, the pinch in her nose and lips slowly dissipating. “You share your father’s eyes.” She sniffed again. “And his possessive nature, it seems.”

“My father was not possessive, which is just as well, considering my mother’s penchant for variety.”

Her mouth curled at one corner. “Regarding your mother, you are correct. But Margaret could not travel ten feet without his eyes trailing her like a hound.” Sadness shadowed her brow briefly before her expression resumed its customary hauteur. “The last I saw of Lady Rutherford, she was following a rather large earl into the gardens.”

Tannenbrook. She had followed Tannenbrook. Chatham turned toward the paned glass doors before the decision was even made. He shouldered his way through the throng of guests, frustration burning his veins. Why would she follow the giant into a darkened garden? Did she
want
to see Chatham pummel the man?

He charged through the center set of open doors—and promptly plowed into a short, plump, bald man wearing a mask too small for his face.

“Pryor? What are you doing here?”

“Lord Rutherford, I—I … that is to say, I …”

Chatham’s eyes narrowed on the annoying solicitor, his suspicions piqued. “Where is my mother?”

The man’s shoulders slumped sheepishly. “She asked me to escort her, my lord. I was reluctant. But Lady Rutherford—the dowager, that is—can be most persuasive.”

“Yes, I can imagine. Where is she now?”

“I do not know. She disappeared from the garden after concluding her conversation with Lady Rutherford. Your wife, that is.”

Chatham’s blood ran cold. “My mother asked you to accompany her here so she could speak with my wife alone. What topic was so urgent, pray tell?”

Pryor swallowed visibly and retreated a step, his boots scrambling on the flagstones. “It was not my wish to reveal—”

Chatham’s left fist bunched the smaller man’s lapel. “What did you tell Charlotte?”

“She—she … Lady Rutherford … the dowager informed her about the additional terms of your marriage contract. About the child. The one hundred thousand. I only verified the information, I assure you.”

Bloody hell.
He should have booked his mother passage to Australia. He should have tied her to the ship’s mast himself. “Where is Charlotte now?”

“I’m sorry, my lord. I don’t know. Ten minutes after I left them, I returned here and found them gone. I was preparing to search the ballroom when you, er, arrived.” Pryor was telling the truth. Chatham could see it in his face despite the foolish mask.
Daft sod.
He shoved the solicitor away.

The women had been in the garden only ten minutes ago, so perhaps Charlotte was simply collecting herself before she returned to the ball. But the cold stones residing inside his chest, leaking ice into his veins, said otherwise.

She would be wounded. Feeling betrayed. By him.

It was untenable. He should have told her about the second portion of her dowry. He should have known his mother would gleefully reveal the information after he had expelled her from Chatwick Hall. He hadn’t thought of it. So much for being clever. After the fire, his rage had driven him hard, his mind closed to everything other than loving Charlotte and ridding himself of his mother. His vindictive bitch of a mother.

For the next quarter hour, he prowled the gardens in search of his wife. He found four lusty couples and one drunken lord, but no Charlotte. He returned to the ballroom, questioning every footman he could find. Servants always had been his best sources of information. “Have you seen Lady Rutherford?” he asked again and again. “Tall. Red hair.” Each one shook his head. Until the last, a strapping fellow with dark, heavy brows.

“Indeed, my lord. Saw her not a half-hour ago, on the drive at the front of the castle.”

“The drive? Was she waiting for a carriage?”

“Didn’t appear so. Looked as though she intended to walk for a ways, my lord.”

Chatham wasted no more time. When she was distressed, Charlotte coped by walking, doing, moving. She said it gave her body something to do while her mind worked on the problem. If she was upset—and she clearly was—her long strides would carry her a great distance in a half-hour. He would have to act quickly to intercept her.

After asking the footman to send their carriage back to Chatwick Hall, Chatham tore off his mask and broke into a run. He must find her; that was all he knew. He must explain that he’d never intended to hurt her, that he had battled his lust for months in order to let her have her dream of America. That only when he could no longer bear the thought of losing her had he given in to his baser impulses. He had wanted a child with her, yes, but not because of the money.

He would explain, he thought, his chest burning as he loped along the moonlit drive, past Lady Wallingham’s gatehouse and the towering oaks on either side of the graveled road. He would explain, and she would understand. She was reasonable, his Charlotte. Sensible. It was one of his favorite things about her.

At last, as he rounded a curve bordered by a hedgerow, he saw her. Tall, her long arms swinging like willow branches, her beaded blue gown glimmering in the moonlight. He put on a burst of speed to catch up to her.

“Charlotte,” he panted. “Slow down, love.”

She did not slow. She did not stop or say a word or even look at him.

He drew up alongside her, matching her pace. “Speak to me, please.”

Her skin was unusually pale without her mask. Even in the moonlight, her freckles stood in stark relief.

“I know what my mother told you. I know you are upset. If I explain, will you listen?”

Abruptly, she halted. Pivoted to face him. Crossed her arms over her small, beautiful bosom. “Of course, I will listen. Go on, then. Explain.”

He cleared his throat, still a bit out of breath and unaccountably nervous of a sudden. “I should have told you about the provision.”

“Yes. You should have.”

“I am sorry I did not. My only excuse is that, to me, it did not matter.”

She snorted. “One hundred thousand pounds did not matter? How very ascetic of you. Perhaps you should join a monastery.”

“Your dowry is more than sufficient. We have no need for the additional sum.”

“So, you never entertained thoughts of getting me with child, hmm? Never hoped it might occur, even knowing my original plans to leave for America?”

For long moments, he could not answer, wondering how much to confess. In the end, he decided to tell her the truth, for he had only ever hurt her by doing otherwise. And he could not bear to hurt her any longer. “I contemplated it, yes.”

Her breathing turned jagged, her lower lip trembling.

“But not for the money,” he rushed to reassure her. “That was … beyond a moment or two in the days following our wedding, the additional funds scarcely crossed my mind.”

She swallowed. “Why else would you contemplate a child?”

He did not want to tell her. It was a part of himself he preferred to keep hidden from her, dark and base. But she had loved him, believed in him, been his honest and faithful friend, and she deserved honesty in return.

“I wanted to keep you.” His voice was raw to his own ears. “It was selfish. I fought the impulse for a long time. So bloody long, I thought I would die from it. The way you spoke about America, I knew remaining here as my wife, bearing my children, was not what you wanted. But it was what I wanted. You were what I wanted.”

In the silence that followed his confession, an owl hooted and the wind soughed, playing with the small red curls at her temples. She turned her head to gaze down the road, her arms now hugging herself as though she needed comfort.

Chest tight, he waited for her to look at him again, to speak. When she did not, he took a small step toward her. Watched her stiffen. “You must believe me, love.”

Finally, her eyes came back to him, tears sheening in the full moon’s light. “I don’t know if I can, Chatham,” she whispered achingly. “When your mother told me the truth, I—I wanted to believe in your love for me. But then I realized you’ve never said it.”

He frowned. “Said what?”

“That you love me.”

The air felt both heavy and thin in his lungs.

“I have told you that I love you,” she continued, her voice small and high. “Because I do. It is bigger than me. Bigger than the moon and the sky and all the wheat in Northumberland. So big, I cannot contain it inside me, Chatham, so I must tell you. Over and over. It is the only way to ease the pressure.”

He tried to catch his breath, but the air wasn’t enough. He felt like he was choking.

“Can you say it?” she whispered. “If you say it, I will believe you. I will forgive you.” A tear rolled down her cheek, carrying the moonlight with it. “I will stay, and you may keep me forever, whether there be a babe or no.”

He had never been loved by anyone before, and the strangeness of it, the intensity, was disorienting. His reactions to her had all been instinctive, for he had no experience to temper or inform them.

No one had ever loved him.

But
he
had loved, and each time had been a lesson. A nursemaid when he was four had been kind to him, and he had clung to her skirts, screaming his grief when she left for a new position. His mother had held him once, and he had reached out to comfort her, only to have his hand shoved away. Even his best friend, Lucien Wyatt, had abandoned him at Eton, caring more for new adventures than for answering his chum Ben’s letters.

Eventually, a man learned the truth about love—that it was the worst sort of pain when it was not repaid in kind. That most people would inevitably prove a disappointment, and that one was wise not to become attached.

With Charlotte, however, he’d had no defense. No whisky to dull his senses. No bed sport to reduce her to a mere source of pleasure. Not even a chance to avoid her silly discussions about radical economic theories. She had crept up while he lay in bed listening to her laugh, and she had claimed his heart as though the black thing had been hers all along.

It should be easy tell her he loved her, because he did. He was mad with it, sick with it, drowning in it. He wanted to tell her, the words forming in his mind.

But they would not come.

In the distance, he heard the crunch and clop of their carriage. Soon, Booth pulled to a stop, calling down from his perch. “M’lord. M’lady. Fine night for a stroll. Be glad to drive ye home, if ye like.”

Charlotte shuddered and hugged herself tighter. Her gaze fell to her feet, her lips pressed together. She nodded and took a deep breath. “Thank you, Booth. I believe Lord Rutherford wishes to walk, but I shall take the carriage.”

Then, without looking at Chatham, she climbed inside. Booth clicked his tongue, snapped the reins, and set Franklin and George in motion.

It felt like hours before Chatham moved. The sounds of wheels crunching over gravel had disappeared, leaving only the chirping insects and hooting owl and sighing wind.

Inside him, however, the cacophony had built every second he had watched her disappear from his sight. The pressure of the words pushed and raged and expanded until his lungs wheezed with it.

Until he fell to his knees with it.

His head hung over the gravel. Something wet splashed upon the ground.

She was right. It was too big. It could not be contained. He was going to explode if he did not let it out.