To Wed A Rebel (9 page)

That wasn’t the worst part. What irked her, angered her, upset her the most, was how foolish she’d been. If only she’d been smarter, bolder, braver, less…herself.

It was all too easy to blame herself and she did. But it was easier still to blame Isaac Roscoe. What kind of heartless, cruel man was he to seduce a woman for money?

He’s the man I am soon to marry.

Only once did Uncle Osbourne visit her at the inn, to ensure her luggage – containing all her worldly possessions – reached her. He didn’t need them, after all. She had kept her composure the whole time, for she knew how much he hated distasteful displays of emotion. She had stood, her head bowed, and waited for his verdict. To her uncle, her only living relation, it did not matter that Griswell had arranged her fate and it was not her own doing. The outcome was the same and he could not support a niece with such a reputation.

“It’s a business decision,” explained Osbourne, as though she’d understand.

He had to keep his clients happy and his clients could not respect a man who aligned himself with such a damaged relation. It was sensible, it was practical, it was emotionless. Did the man, her uncle, even have the capacity to feel?

Do I?

The other young women she had met in her youth were loud, excitable and prone to hysterics. Ruth was not.

Does that make me deficient?

She had too much pride to beg Uncle Osbourne, to ask him to reconsider. After all, their relationship had always been borne out of duty and nothing more. And her uncle
had
done his duty – not emotionally, that was true, but financially.

What more could she ask?

Everything.

Family, security, a home. She’d never understood her uncle: a man who was not mean, but unable to truly feel as she felt, to value what others valued. He was simple, for an intelligent man. No, she wouldn’t beg him, for it wouldn’t work.

She remembered what her mother had told her.

It was his money that had kept her going this past month and more. Uncle Osbourne had paid for her food and board at the inn she had been staying in. It was because of him that she didn’t starve.

I should be thankful,
thought Ruth as she stood beside him outside the church, his grey whiskers neatly cut, suit crisp and clean, if outdated.
Shouldn’t I?

No.

She hated him.

Ruth had been raised always to be accommodating, grateful, polite, invisible. Where had it gotten her? Here. In a colourless, creased dress, knees locked, staring at a scrubbed stone aisle.

The garment was the best one she owned and no one had offered to buy her another. There was no need, for this wedding was to be quick and uncomplicated. Who cared what she looked like? She didn’t. Let her walk the aisle in rags, for she was little better than a pauper after all that had been done to her.

The empty wooden pews lined each side of the church like teeth, the varnish worn away from the weight of Sunday worshippers.

I cannot do this.

***

It had been her uncle who had contacted Isaac’s family without her knowledge, explained the situation, thrown accusations, and then a man – who claimed he worked for a woman called Lady Mawes – had rapped upon her door at the inn. Ruth had wanted nothing to do with him, that hard creature who called himself Sebastian Wainwright and told her he could help. Instead, she had tried to find work as a governess. No one in the city would take her on, not with her reputation.

Strumpet. Tart. Whore
.

They knew her face now – those peddlers, idlers, hawkers on the street where she hid herself away – they knew her. Their tongues wagged and oh, how they crowed, how they enjoyed to see a woman like her – who’d had more opportunities than they could dream of – reduced to such a state. At one point she had considered writing to Albert and explaining it all. Her hand would not move upon the paper, picturing his jeering face and Lottie dripping poison into his ears. Were they wed yet? Had her place been taken so easily? One bride replaced with another?

Wainwright had been persistent, had asked for an audience each day and finally, she had allowed him to explain it all, including Isaac’s previous ‘work’ and the women like her. Ruth was merely another naïve girl in a long line who had fallen for him.

Ruth had wanted to tell him that she was not like
those
women, but that was not strictly true. A part of her, for a small second, had wanted to be, hadn’t it? To be lost in a fantasy where he would whisk her away, love her like she’d never been loved, give her what she’d never known she’d wanted – craved – lusted after.

“There is a way out. You needn’t suffer here with such an uncertain future,” said Sebastian, back on that Thursday morning when at last Ruth had permitted him to speak. “You are a sensible girl who has fallen on hard times. I have spoken with your guardian and we have settled on this course of action. It is all arranged, a week from now.”

This is what her uncle had alluded to, had told her he’d organise on her behalf. She hadn’t questioned it. She’d never questioned him. She’d been raised better than that.

“What action would that be, sir?”

“You will marry Isaac Roscoe.”

Naturally, she had refused. The word ‘never’ had escaped her lips. Time went on. Her situation did not improve. If only she were Lottie, prone to hysterics, able to voice her thoughts without regret or reproach. Ruth was too reserved, too sensible, too intelligent. For that reason, she considered the proposal and once she’d done that, she had as good as accepted. What other choice was there?

***

It was time.

Uncle Osbourne was a shadow at her back when she strode towards the altar, fencing her in, there to talk sense to her – a cruel, logical sense – if she dared to turn away. The church was cold. Sunlight could not break through the thick, stained glass that dappled her gown with rotten greens and sickly yellows.

Grit whispered as she walked, like a warning from those buried beneath the tiles at her feet. Isaac stood at the altar as she approached, with his back to her. It was a broad, rigid frame. There was no taming his dark hair. Once, she had wanted to run her hands through it. Now she dared not touch him at all, lest he contaminate her, infect her heart once more with longing.

Most girls pictured their wedding day. Ruth had thought it would be a little nuisance, an embarrassing – yet necessary – affair, where her cheeks would turn red and all eyes would be on her. At least, she had assumed, she’d be happy.

Oh, what a foolish child I was.

Ruth’s march ended and she stood beside Isaac. He would not look at her. Could not face her.

The vicar’s features were heavily wrinkled and his jowls sagged, as he began to speak words he had spoken a hundred times before, the phrases running together. Was it all real? It didn’t feel real. It was as though another person was looking out through Ruth’s eyes and standing in her place. Let her marry him. Let her do the deed.

Those fateful lines came, asking whether there was any lawful impediment as to why she should not marry the man beside her.
Because I do not love him, because he has ruined me, because he has rerouted my life.
Ruth opened her mouth to speak and nothing was uttered. A pianoforte with the metal strings cut, so that when the keys were pressed, no sound came forth.

He won’t look at me.

Mute.

Who was she to refuse? She had spent a month close to poverty, isolated as an outcast, a sinner, a fallen woman. To refuse would be to return to that. She did not have the strength.

“Wilt thou have this man?”

The vicar asked the question with force. It did not seem to be the first time he’d said it. Ruth risked a glance at Isaac. He stood with his head bowed as though she did not exist, as though he were studying a crack in the stone floor, a scuff upon his shoe.

“I will,” she said.

Isaac looked at her then.

She had not seen his face in weeks. In her mind, she had warped her memories of it. Made his brown eyes harder when now she knew them to be the limitless, almost-black pools she’d near drowned in before. That mouth was not the lewd sneer she’d envisioned. It was partially open, as though in shock that she’d ever accept him.

You left me with no choice, Isaac.

A bruise smattered one cheek and Ruth ignored the weakest parts of her that sought to soothe it.

And when his time came, when the question was uttered, there was no delay on his part.

“I will.”

It was not over yet, for the vicar demanded she provide her hand and it was passed to Isaac, while words were said and she repeated them, barely caring to let them take root in her mind. For how could she think, feel, act when that man’s grip was on her. It had bespelled her once and she tried to harden herself against it, against him.

Was there truly no other option, no way out but to marry that man? To become Mrs Roscoe, rather than Mrs Pembroke? It was Lottie who would be Mrs Pembroke now. It was she who’d do all Ruth had prepared herself to do. On that first night together, would that other woman recoil at Albert’s touch? Would she detest his clumsy hands and his selfish needs?

I feel sorry for you, Lottie.

Her marriage to Isaac would be a sham. She didn’t love him. She’d never love him. But she’d never have loved Albert either. When comparing the two…

Isn’t this better?

There’d be no heirs to produce and no expectations. She owed Isaac nothing. Surely he would not expect a real wife, a woman who would honour and obey?

Given a real choice, wouldn’t I have chosen this?

“With this ring, I thee wed.” A metal band was pushed onto her finger. Its biting cold contrasted against Isaac’s warmth. “With this body, I thee worship.”

Those eyes were trained on her once more, gauging her every expression, as though trying to fathom why she stood there before him and had not fled. They captured her own as though he could see into her very soul. Could he? The colour that rose to her cheeks told him where her mind wandered, for his words had brought it there. She hadn’t thought on a wedding night, not since she’d been engaged to Albert and had been repulsed at the idea of that sweaty body beside her, upon her, within her. Isaac, in contrast, roused a different reaction. Her own body betrayed her as prayers were given and she was forced to hold the man’s hands once more. Did he mean to skim his thumb across her knuckles or had it been instinctive?

I hate him.

And she couldn’t stop thinking on him: a few hours from now, that mouth against hers, those hands smoothing across her skin, fingers pulling apart the fastenings on her dress and casting it aside, while she whispered and writhed beneath him.
Isaac, Isaac, Isaac.
It did not matter that she despised him. That intense loathing only made it worse and boiled the blood in her veins and lit a fire below her belly that only he could sate.

Blessings were given. Ruth’s maiden name was signed away. The marriage was done and she was…relieved.

“Is that it?”

The question sounded breathy to her own ears and the others around her propelled her, through their movements, to the outside world. Had the sun always been this bright? It stole her sight and she lost her footing, eyes caught in the bright glare and her lungs filled with the putrid, stale air that only churches could hold.

It was her new husband who steadied her. A hand on her waist. Another at her elbow. Holding her to him as though unaware that
he
was the problem. That he’d done this to her, addled her mind, stolen her life. Isaac’s touch was a brand for more reasons than she could count.

There would be no wedding breakfast, no celebration, no well-wishers, no music, no dancing, no flowers in her hair and no smile upon her lips.

This close to him, she could smell whisky on his breath and it broke whatever spell he’d cast over her. Had that been how he’d gotten through this morning? Men could fall upon drink for courage, whereas Ruth had been forced to find it in herself.

Isaac guided her to the waiting post-chaise. Its confines shouldn’t have been a threat, yet Ruth’s throat tightened. Dizziness gripped her. She had eaten barely anything in days.

A scratchy voice against her hair, a warm breath upon her cheek. “I’ve got you.”

If the statement was meant to offer comfort, it didn’t. The street beyond seemed darker, colder, distant. Ruth’s legs gave way beneath her. Only the strong, firm presence at her back stopped her head colliding with the sharp, stone steps.

Oh, he did have her.

For better or worse.

As long as we both shall live.

Chapter Three

Isaac

“I’ve got you.”

Isaac regretted the words the moment they had left him. He heard within them too many meanings, a warning, a threat he could not dispel. “Miss Osbourne, I mean, I…” He trailed off, faltering, as he remembered that was no longer her name.

Ruth went slack in his arms. There was nothing to her. She was so light. Skin and bones. The colour had faded from her complexion and she looked translucent, ghostlike, with dark rings beneath her eyes. Over the last few days, as the wedding approached, he’d thought often on her, cursed her name, hated himself and yet, amongst all his brooding and selfishness, he had never really considered how she’d felt. The idea that she had been wasting away, either through choice or poverty, angered him to an extent that surprised him.

Hovering beside the church’s door was Mr Osbourne, who was too busy straightening his sleeves to show real concern. Isaac shot him the darkest look he could muster. He had no other ammunition. He wished he had. Ruth didn’t deserve this awful fate.

And she deserves far better than me.

As always, Sebastian was close by and muttered about smelling salts. “A good night’s sleep and a decent meal is what she needs,” he added, a hand to her forehead. “She’ll get both before the day is out, when we reach the first inn.”

“Not before?”