The Hourglass (4 page)

She accepted the handkerchief he offered her, and blew her nose, not a very ladylike gesture, but a necessary one. Then she smiled again. “I thank you, and admire your confidence in return, but even you cannot move mountains. I fear my good name is hopelessly destroyed. No one will take me in or hire me. No decent man would accept my child, and no decent woman would permit me near hers. My family has betrayed me. I fear my situation is hopeless.”

But at least five soldiers still breathed due solely to his skill. Heaven alone knew what he could manage with an earl’s influence and money.

*

They were both right.

His gold rescued her belongings and secured better accommodations and purchased her a black gown. His title and haughty manner landed her an appointment with the general’s aide to show her papers. She would be accorded whatever provisions the War Office made for its widows, and transport home.

Nothing could sway the wives, however. They were busy in the aftermath of the bloody battle, but so were their tongues. They had been deceived, and they were not going to be forgiving. Miss Macklin might be Mrs. Macklin, but now she had taken up with an unknown, unholy earl, with her husband, if such he was, barely cold.

Lady Willeford turned her back on Genie outside the general’s office. Her husband sneered when he saw the earl at her side. Then he had to skip to the side when the black bird swooped down and snatched at the gold tassel on the major’s right boot.

Willeford tried to kick the flying thief, and ended up stumbling against his wife, who shrieked and slapped at him while the crow plucked at the boot.

“Tassels remind it of the whips in Hell,” Ardeth muttered softly while the major and his wife gathered themselves.

Furious, Lady Willeford addressed Genie: “And Hell is where you shall find yourself, Miss Macklin. Or Mrs. Macklin. Or whatever you call yourself. I call you strumpet. You and your new protector shall never be welcomed among decent people. You are a disgrace.”

Genie had not recovered from the hours spent in the hospital, or the shock of finding herself a widow, or of being befriended by an earl. She swayed on her feet.

“Do not dare to swoon,” Ardeth ordered, his arm holding her steady. “You are not going to faint. You are going to show that she-witch the backbone I saw last night. Show her, for your self-respect and your future. And your son’s future.”

Genie closed her eyes for a moment, then raised her chin, absorbing his strength and his support. She showed more than her backbone; she showed her redhead’s temper. “You dare call me names, madam, but you were not ministering to the men your husband abandoned on the field. You were here drinking tea. You stayed on at the parties when the brave young soldiers were marching into battle. You do not seek to understand my plight, only condemn it. So your opinion does not mean this much.” She snapped her fingers. “Because you do not matter.” Then she did what the major’s wife had done before. She turned her back, giving Lady Willeford the cut direct.

Then that lady shrieked. “Spider!”

“Spider?” What manner of insult was that? Genie wondered, but the woman was batting at the air, slapping at her clothes. Ardeth was smiling.

“Did you…?” Genie tried to ask.

He merely took her arm and led her farther away, saying, “Brava!” as they left the headquarters.

Genie was glad for his support; she was trembling so violently in reaction. “Brave but foolhardy. I am still scourged by scandal. Forgive me, but your assistance, however appreciated, only adds to my ruination. Everyone knows that there is nothing a highborn gentleman such as you could want with a poor widow of uncertain past. Nothing proper, at any rate.”

Ardeth stroked his chin. “A wedding would be proper.”

Genie stopped walking. “I beg your pardon?”

“Your reputation would be restored if you married me.”

“May I faint now?”

Chapter Three

“No, you shall not faint. I have seen you under fire. You are strong.”

Strong? Genie did not think her legs would hold her up. Her brains and her body alike were turned to blanc-mange. As if he understood, Lord Ardeth led her to a bench outside headquarters. She sank down, because she could not run. If she could not faint, perhaps she should just throw herself under a passing cart. Here she was, alone in a foreign city, and her only…friend was this tall stranger of commanding presence and unknown past. He was handsome, for certain, in a dark, brooding, serious way, far unlike Elgin with his fair boyish looks and ready laugh. Lord Ardeth appeared to be older, perhaps thirty, or perhaps forty with his weary eyes, or twenty with his smooth skin. He was a puzzle, one Genie had no interest in solving. He had shown her nothing but kindness, yet she still feared him. With just cause, it seemed, for the earl had to be a madman.

“I must have misunderstood, my lord.”

“No, you heard correctly. I am proposing marriage. Awkwardly, obviously, but marriage all the same.” He was pacing in front of the bench in long, athletic strides. The crow took up a perch on a nearby railing, his head cocked to one side as if the creature was as confused as Genie.

“I realize that a maiden wishes to be wooed, but we have no time for ballads and bouquets.”

Ballads and bouquets? Maidens? He definitely had been out of England too long, Genie decided, unless he had been locked in his family’s attics, where no one could see their demented disgrace.

“It is the best solution,” Lord Ardeth continued. “No one shuns a countess.”

Genie was no longer worried about being ostracized by polite society. Now she feared for her very life. Thank goodness enough officers and soldiers were entering and exiting the building that she did not have to consider herself alone with a lunatic. The men were looking at them with curiosity, but surely one would come to her aid if she cried out. “Forgive me, my lord, but you do not even know me.”

“Nor you me.” Lord Ardeth waved one long hand in the air in dismissal. He had never met his first wife until the day of the wedding. “That does not matter.”

He was worse than crazy. Wed a total stranger after a day or two of acquaintance? How could he think that a marriage could succeed that way? Genie had had a hard enough time accommodating herself to Elgin’s quirks, and she had known him nearly her entire life. She firmly believed that women should know what they were getting when they gave their hands and their lives into some man’s keeping. She stood up, hoping her feet were ready to carry her away. She would worry about her future later. “Thank you for the, ah, honor, my lord. But I am afraid—”

“Do not be. I would not hurt you. No one else would, were you my wife. Think on it, lady. What other choices have you? You said your family will not take you in, nor your dead husband’s relatives. Would you seek a position, in your condition? No one would hire you, were you able to keep working. Or do you believe the British government will pay you a pension? Ha! My wife would still be waiting for six hun—”

“You have a wife?”

“If I had a wife, I meant. She would be long dead before the government thought to look after her. You and the babe would starve waiting for official promises to turn to gold.”

He was right and Genie knew it. Still, marriage? She shook her head.

Ardeth watched the sunlight flicker through the reddish curls that were not hidden by her black bonnet. “Do not say no. Sit. Hear me out.”

Against her better judgment, Genie sat again, clutching her reticule as if the paltry contents could bash in the earl’s skull if he turned dangerous.

“I am rich,” he began as if his apparel, to say nothing of the funds he had already expended on her behalf, did not proclaim his wealth and his generosity. “And I am titled. It means naught to me except that I will have entree to all levels of society. As my wife you will be welcomed also.”

If not welcomed, his countess would be tolerated, Genie knew, for such was the power of an earldom and money.

“I do not know if I can make your son heir to the earldom. Too many people will know the circumstances of your previous marriage and the dates.”

“I might have a daughter,” Genie put in, for the sake of argument in this absurd conversation.

“No, your child is a son.”

Both the crow and Genie shook their heads. The irrational man believed he could read the stars, or whatever addled, impossible notion it was that made him so confident.

He was going on, as if there were nothing unusual about predicting births or proposing marriage to lost widows. “Someone would be sure to contest such an effort, although I believe he is legally my son if I am married to his mother at the time of his birth and I acknowledge him as mine. I will have to look into the law. Either way, he can bear my name with whatever authority it carries. I shall settle a goodly sum on him, and on you, of course. You would be left a wealthy widow this time, and soon.”

“Soon?” The attics-to-let earl was not consulting any crystal ball, but again he sounded certain. She had seen him lifting the wounded soldiers, staying awake for hours with little sustenance or rest, yet she felt a pang at the thought of his weakness. “Have you a wasting disease, then?”

“Yes. That is, no.”

The crow gave a loud squawk. The earl glared at him, on the railing. “No, I am not ailing, but my time is measured, in all-too-short hours and weeks.” Reminded that his time was flying, he ordered the crow to fly, too, to keep looking.

Which did not reassure Genie in the least of his soundness, his mental soundness, anyway. “Um, how old are you?”

“In years or experience?” He turned and stared at her with his dark eyes, willing her to understand, knowing she could not. Now Ardeth was the one to shake his head. “I was one and thirty when I passed on—that is, when I passed my last birthday. It is enough that I am ancient in wisdom and I know marriage is the right thing for both of us.”

“For both of us? I do not see how you can benefit.”

“For one thing, I would gain the honor of a deed well-done, if only in my eyes. I could not leave a damsel unprotected, you see. That would be forsaking my vows.”

“Are you a holy man, then?” That might explain his steadfast beliefs, Genie decided, and his selfless helping of the wounded soldiers when no other gentleman of his rank would attend to them. “I did not think such religious orders permitted marriage, though.”

“I belong to neither cult nor congregation, yet my vows are no less sacred and binding.”

“To whom? You made me no promises.”

“To myself, like an oath of chivalry.”

“Chivalry belongs in storybooks, with knights and white chargers.”

“Black.”

“Black?”

“I always preferred black horses.”

Now the conversation had gone totally beyond Genie’s control or comprehension. She stood again. “I will be all right. I have passage back to England—you heard the captain—and I shall find a solution on my own. You have been more than kind and have fulfilled any possible onus laid upon you by your, ah, code of honor.”

He crossed his arms over his broad chest, an unmoving iron statue except for his black cape billowing behind him and a lock of dark hair lifting off his forehead. “No. Marriage is the only way of providing for your future.”

Genie clucked her tongue. “Nonsense. You could simply ask me to become your mistress.” She would not accept, of course, but such arrangements were made all the time, wherever there were needy women and wealthy men with other needs. She prayed that her situation never became that desperate.

His expression grew darker and sterner, if possible. “You insult both of us, and the memory of your husband. He wed you out of honor.”

“Elgin Macklin wed me because my father threatened to shoot him.”

“You will not become any man’s whore! I shall not permit it.”

Genie almost expected to be burned by the fire in his voice and the sparks in his eyes, like lightning that appeared in the sudden clouds on this clear day. She would not show how much his anger frightened her, though, so she raised her chin. “You are not my keeper, my lord. No one made you responsible for me or my morals. You might have consulted higher powers for your oath, but you did not consult me.”

“Forget my vows. Common decency dictates that a gentleman look after those in need. Marriage is how I can accomplish that most expeditiously.”

Genie did not care to be the object of his misplaced noblesse oblige. Expeditiously, indeed! “Common decency also dictates a year of mourning. If you speak of insults, Elgin’s memory—and all of society—will be affronted if I wed without a proper mourning period.” That should end the ridiculous conversation, Genie decided, if he cared about propriety.

“I cannot wait a year. Neither can your son.”

“Daughter.” The man might be an earl, but Genie was growing weary of Ardeth’s arrogant manner.

He raised one black eyebrow and quirked his lip in what might have been a smile. “You would not wish your child to face all the gossip and scorn of society.”

“I do not wish it for myself, either, but it is bound to happen, and to you, too, if you continue with this mad scheme. You would be tarred with the same brush of scandal.”

Now he did smile. “Believe me, I have been painted with far worse.”