What a Lady Demands (17 page)

Interesting. She’d lied to her brother, yet confessed all to Lind. He sipped at his drink. “If there’s gossip, I’ll do my damnedest to ensure the tale gets snuffed.” The very least he could do. “Whatever it takes, even if I have to ruin Eversham.”

Sanford leveled him with a penetrating look. “The way you’ve done for Battencliffe? Not that I’d protest the same happening to this Eversham scoundrel.”

In spite of himself, Lind stiffened. “What do you know of Battencliffe?”

“Enough. Now. And no thanks to you.” Sanford nudged his glass. “What I don’t know is what he’s done to deserve it.”

Lind took the hint and poured Sanford another measure of brandy. “You’ve an imagination. Think of the worst manner in which a man can stab a friend in the back.”

Sanford’s eyes went round. “Do you mean Lydia? Good Christ.” He tipped his head and once more downed his drink. “I can scarcely believe either of them would do such a thing to you.”

Lind was about to raise his own glass, but Sanford’s words stopped him short. “Imagine my surprise when I came home to learn what had happened.”

Sanford had the grace to look away. “Indeed. But what good does ruining Battencliffe do you at this juncture?”

Lind simply stared. At one time, Sanford had known him better than that. God only knew how many times he’d stepped between Lind and Battencliffe during their youth—to keep them from some fool competition or other.

Sanford shook his head. “If I had any measure of foresight, I’d have brought my man along.”

Lind’s hand paused in midair, his glass halfway to his mouth. “What was that?”

“Satya. He came back from India with me, and he’s much better at explaining this than I am.” Sanford stared at the ceiling a moment, and raked his hands through his hair. “They have some odd beliefs over there. One is this idea called karma. If I understand it correctly, it means when you act with good intentions, the good reflects back on you.”

Lind flattened his lips into a line. “You know what they say about good intentions. Road to hell and all that.”

“It works the other way, as well.”

Naturally it did. “So, you’re saying…” Lind circled about his desk, his walking stick tapping dully on the carpet, but audible nonetheless. “If I do bad things, the bad reflects back on me? For whatsoever a man soweth, that shall he also reap? Tell me, what bad thing had I done when the grapeshot struck me? When the surgeons wanted to take my leg? When I nearly died? Because all that happened before I ever realized I needed to worry about our old friend Battencliffe.”

Sanford raised a hand, but his fingers curled into a fist before he could set them on Lind’s shoulder. “That isn’t how it works, but what you’re doing now…Satya would say you’re doing yourself more harm than you’re doing to Battencliffe.”

“Do you believe in this rot? After everything that happened to you? Your first wife and her entire family dead? A shipwreck? Financial disaster? When you are one of the most well-intentioned people I’ve ever known?”

“I am alive. As are you, I might point out. I am happy. Can you say as much?”

Lind let out a harsh bark of laughter. “What do you care?”

“Among other things, you’re marrying my sister. Perhaps I ought to worry over what sort of man she’s tying herself to. And as someone who once counted you among his friends, might I not concern myself over you, as well? And what would it hurt to try?”

What, indeed? Lind tipped back the remainder of his brandy.

“Pigheaded as ever,” Sanford went on. “If you won’t forgive Battencliffe for yourself, do it for honor’s sake.”

“What in the name of God does
my
honor have to do with anything?” Lind spat. Sanford and his fool notions. “I am not the one who behaved in a dishonorable fashion.”

“No, but you could prove yourself the better man.”

“Better man?”
The words pierced Lind through the gut like a spear, releasing a torrent of rage. The devil take it, he’d thought the business about karma was the most ridiculous load of codswallop he’d ever heard. “Where in God’s name do you get these ideas?”

Sanford shrugged. “Whatever you do to Battencliffe isn’t going to change the past.”

Lind felt it coming. Sanford was about to dredge up his youthful indiscretions. Time to head that off now. “Do me the great favor of not bringing up the Ludlowe incident again.”

“I wasn’t planning on it,” Sanford replied evenly. Damn him and his calm. “I was thinking more of the time we ended up in that gaming hell. The one down by St. Giles.”

A thread of curiosity twisted through Lind’s seething anger. “St. Giles? I suppose we were all the better men that night. We won at those tables.” Which was where the trouble had started. “At any rate, I’m not sure how any of us could maintain a clear recollection of those events.”

They’d been fresh out of Eton, young, stupid, and desperate to prove themselves. And quite foxed—the reason they’d reckoned it a good idea to venture into such a dangerous part of Town in the first place. Or Lind and Battencliffe had. Sanford made an appeal to prudence before going along to keep them out of too much mischief.

“I wasn’t quite as deep in my cups as the pair of you,” Sanford said. “Do you remember the fight?”

Lind nodded, still not quite certain where Sanford was headed with this memory. A gang of street toughs had attempted to relieve them of their winnings. Naturally, they’d protested.

“Do you remember the knife?” Sanford prodded.

The blade had flashed in its lethal arc toward Lind’s neck, deflected at the last moment, but in the heat of the action, he’d never seen how. “You’re not going to try to convince me Battencliffe stopped it.”

“If not him, then who? It wasn’t me.”

Lind narrowed his eyes. “But you didn’t see.”

Sanford shrugged. “I can surmise well enough.”

“That’s not how I remember it.” It wasn’t even a lie, but in truth he recalled very little about that night. Something about a surfeit of cheap claret.

“Whether or not you care to admit it, Battencliffe saved your life that night. That, in my considered opinion, cancels anything he might have done to you later. Especially when what you’re doing to him now will change nothing in the end. It won’t bring Lydia back.”

Unable to withstand the other man’s scrutiny a moment longer, Lind turned his gaze to the window. “That’s not how I remember it,” he muttered. Perhaps if he repeated it often enough, he’d convince himself.

“At least I know my sister’s in good hands with you.”

“What the devil is that supposed to mean?” If the man wanted to make an overture to renewing their past friendship, jibes like that would not accomplish the feat.

“I refer to her current need for protection. I can rest assured you’ll see to the matter. You are the most stiff-necked, mulish bugger I’ve ever met.”

“Are you sure about this?” Henrietta adjusted Cecelia’s bonnet, centering it over her brow. The way Henrietta was fussing, she might have been Cecelia’s mother and not her sister-in-law. “You don’t have to marry Lind simply because your brother insists.”

Cecelia stared down the aisle of the small parish church. The air in the sanctuary smelled of humidity and dust compounded by the surrounding stones. The space looked more like a monk’s cell than a place of worship, but unless Lind wanted to travel to London for a special license, they’d have to make do with something local. The cross-country journey would have delayed proceedings even further, even with the wait while the bishop granted their common license.

Lind already stood at the altar, solid, leaning his weight on his walking stick, yet still managing to give off an air of impatience.

“We should go,” Cecelia said.

“Not before you answer my question. Why have you agreed to marry Lind?”

“Because he asked me.” She couldn’t confess the real reasons—either of them. Not in church, not when both involved a more-than-scand
alous amount of sin.

“That is not a good enough reason. Men have been insisting we follow their silly dictates since…since…Well, forever.” She waved a hand, and looked ready to launch into one of her tirades pulled straight from Mary Wollstonecraft.

“In my case, I haven’t got a choice,” she said between her teeth, as much to forestall a lengthy rant than anything.

“Don’t be ridiculous. We always have a choice, even if society prefers to take that away from us.”

Oh, goodness, she’d have to confess to the lesser of her sins, at least. “Even if certain events have transpired?”

“What sort of events might those be? You mean…Oh.” Her cheeks darkened, what was undoubtedly a wash of pink appearing gray in the low light.

“Oh.” Under other circumstances, Cecelia might have been amused at the idea of a married lady missing such an obvious hint, but not today. Not when she was having trouble keeping her breakfast where it belonged. Yes, she had agreed to go through with this wedding, but that didn’t help ease her doubts for an uncertain future. She could prove to her brother she’d grown enough and taken on responsibility, but at the cost of chaining herself to a man who still harbored feelings for his first wife. Who might always do so.

“Still, that is not enough reason—”

Cecelia raised a brow. Wonderful. She’d already begun adopting her future husband’s mannerisms. “No? And might I ask why you married my brother in such haste if it wasn’t for similar reasons?”

“That is not the same thing. Your brother and I love each other.”

She flicked an imaginary dust mote from the end of her sleeve. “What makes you think I’m not in love with Lind?”

“It’s rather the opposite that concerns me. Whether Lind is in love with you.”

“If you must know, I’m doing this for Jeremy’s sake.” She nodded up the aisle where the boy sat in a pew facing Lind. It was the best excuse she could come up with that would also shut down her sister-in-law’s objections. “That child needs stability as well as a champion, and I can offer both.”

Champion. And there was an interesting choice of words. Lind had said much the same thing to her.

Henrietta opened her mouth to continue the argument, but the sound of a throat clearing cut her off. Cecelia turned to find Alexander had traversed the length of the sanctuary. He cocked an elbow in his wife’s direction. “I believe we’re only waiting on the bride. I trust you do not wish to hold up the proceedings.”

Faced with the proffered arm, Henrietta stood adamant. “I only wish to ensure there’s no coercion involved, whether overt or covert.”

“Come again? The matter is arranged. The contracts are signed.” Alexander had spent an entire day working out the settlement. Why it had taken so long, Cecelia had no idea. Her brother did not possess enough funds to dower her properly, and she was hardly in a position to demand anything of Lind under the circumstances.

“Society coerces women into all sorts of actions they might decide against on their own.”

“This was Cecelia’s choice,” Alexander reminded his wife, “and I, for one, am content that she’s made it. She’s a grown lady now. She doesn’t need your help.”

Cecelia nodded her thanks to her brother. At least she’d achieved that much. If her brother had accepted her decision as the proper choice, he no longer viewed her as an irresponsible little chit he needed to take in hand. No, as of today he could give that responsibility over to Lind.

The thought made her frown, but she turned away before Henrietta could catch the expression. She might decide Cecelia was being forced into this marriage, after all.

She let her brother and sister-in-law precede her down the aisle before embarking on the walk herself. The length of the chapel seemed to stretch with every step she took, yet she reached the altar all too quickly.

As she came to a halt beside Lind, she chanced a glance at him. He pressed his lips into a line, and his green eyes darkened. Tension radiated from beneath his black topcoat. The shadow of his beard clouded the line of his jaw, and she curled her hand into a fist to stop herself from running the pads of her fingers along his cheek. She’d have ample opportunity to touch him for the rest of her life. To plumb depths he’d merely hinted at until now.

As the vicar began the ceremony, she suppressed a shiver. It felt as if Lydia’s shade stood between them.

Cecelia’s hand shook in Lind’s. He watched her as she opened her mouth to repeat her vows, watched as her normally healthy complexion paled to ash. Damn it all, she was about to keel over, if he didn’t miss his guess.

He tightened his grip and willed strength into her.

He could hardly blame her, he supposed, with the future so uncertain. He could not even honestly promise her love.

Hang it, she deserved someone who loved her, not a man whose guts had been eaten raw by the desire for vengeance. She deserved the sort of future any hopeful young lady looked forward to when she made her come-out. But then Cecelia, by her own admission, hadn’t even been out in society before Eversham ruined her. If redemption came for her, it wouldn’t be in the form of marriage.

Not unless it came from him. He shouldn’t care, but somehow, he did. And so, when his turn came, he tried to infuse sincerity into the words, but he couldn’t shake the feeling he was cursed where marriage was concerned. He’d repeated these same vows once before and meant them with all his heart, and look how that had turned out.

In his mind, he drifted back to the day he married Lydia. They’d had a proper
ton
wedding with their family gathered about. He’d procured a special license so they could do it up right, in her parents’ townhouse. Battencliffe and Sanford had both stood at his side until it was time for the ceremony—propping him up, in truth. They’d made rather a job of burying his bachelorhood.

Though he tried to remember Battencliffe on that day, nothing struck him. He pictured his friend’s face, not overly serious, but then he rarely was. They’d been rivals for Lydia’s attention, and damn it, Lind had been victorious there.

Or so he’d thought.

“My lord?” Cecelia’s voice drew him from his thoughts.

He looked from her to the vicar, who was watching him with an air of expectation. “Er, I do.”

“No, my lord, you’ve already said that bit. The ceremony is over.”

Good God, he’d recited his part without a clue as to what he’d promised. For all he knew, Cecelia’s meddling sister-in-law had rewritten the vows and he’d given over all of his unentailed estates to share equally with his wife and their female issue.

He shook off the thought. He was being completely foolish, of course. Such a matter belonged in the marriage settlement he’d already worked out, far outside the realms of the holy.

“I think he needs to kiss her.” In the pews, a sly smile played about the lips of Sanford’s damnable wife. “A bold man would.”

Jeremy clapped his hands over his mouth to muffle a snigger.

And a proper lady wouldn’t suggest something so scandalous in the middle of a sanctuary. Sanford ought to take the woman in hand. But damn it all, Lind thought, he couldn’t stand here and allow the hoyden to affront his manhood in such brazen fashion.

His attempt to return Henrietta’s smile of challenge may have been more of a grimace. He leaned in and pressed his lips to Cecelia’s cheek, and turned for the long walk toward the door, his wife on his arm.

Outside the church, he let a footman help his bride into the waiting carriage. He’d chosen an open curricle for the journey back to his manor. Ironically, the sun shone brightly on the proceedings; the sky was that perfect deep blue one only sees in summertime, a striking contrast to the fluffy white clouds that floated like so many sheep grazing in a pasture. A perfect day for a wedding, one of his female relatives or other would have termed it. Even the air smelled of freshly mown hay undercut with a tang of salt from the coast.

It was the perfect kind of day for one to feel happy, a day to dance on the village green. It was the exact opposite of the day he’d married Lydia, when rain had poured down in buckets.

He climbed onto the seat next to Cecelia, and she turned her gaze to the front. Good God, what had he done now? She couldn’t be miffed over that chaste peck on the cheek. It seemed the most appropriate gesture for church. If she wanted passion, she could wait for nightfall. It wasn’t as if he hadn’t given her all he had over the preceding week while they waited for their license.

Mrs. Carstairs was likely to be scandalized with all the nights Cecelia had openly slept—or not—in his chambers. Yes, and so much for his insistence on purity, but he could hardly turn Cecelia out when he’d been a party to the scandalous behavior. And he’d made an honest woman of her now. That was all that counted.

He chirruped to the horses, and they set off. Alexander and Henrietta followed with Jeremy in their own conveyance. A wedding breakfast awaited them back at the manor, but Lind wondered how much cake and small talk he could stomach.

Boff was due back from London any day now, hopefully bringing news that their plans had reached fruition. All he wanted was to put the entire sorry episode behind him. And then, only then, would he consider moving to his future and making a life with Cecelia.

“You’re thinking too much,” she said quietly. “I can tell.”

“Indeed?” Damn her, Lydia had done the same thing, once upon a time—when they were newly married and happy. She’d take one look at him and practically list his thoughts verbatim. “And what was I thinking?”

“You’re thinking of the past.” She was studying him, and he didn’t like the hint of censure in her gaze.

She said no more, but then she didn’t have to. She’d said it a week ago.
Let go the rest.
But when a man felt as if he were hanging off the side of a cliff by a fingernail, the last thing he wanted was to let go. Essentially, she was asking him to step into the void. To take a leap of faith. He could see no other outcome than a lethal plummet onto jagged rocks.

But then she gasped and sat forward in her seat, neck craning. Lind turned, following the line of her sight, and cursed. Eversham lounged against a low stone wall lining the road back to the manor, his weight propped on one elbow, and a smug sort of smile playing about his lips. As they passed, he tipped his hat.

An outside observer would have taken the gesture as mere courtesy, but Lind knew better. He recognized a threat when he saw one.