Yankee Earl (23 page)

      
Jason sighed. As he turned it over in his mind, the plan did have merit. He had no interest in marrying any other woman. With him on one side of the Atlantic and her on the other…well, they could both have what they wanted. He would most likely never return to England. Roger could have the bloody titles, and welcome to them. By further involving Fox—not to mention his own mother—in this nefarious adoption plot, his grandfather had finally abrogated their bargain.

      
“I can see how it might work. You are a shrewd tactician, Countess. The wedding will serve as an excellent smoke screen. The old devil will never dream that we would both defy him after saying our vows.” He paced, warming to the idea as his wrath against the marquess grew. “Of course, we will not consummate the marriage, but you will still legally be my countess, though free to live your life as you please. Return to Harleigh and raise cattle, crops…hell, anything you wish. Cargrave will be mad as a scalded rooster, but he'll be able to take no reprisal against you for aiding Fox and me in our escape.”

      
“How thoughtful of you,” she said in a distant voice, concealing her fisted hands in the folds of her gown…the tatty old yellow that she had fretted about earlier.

      
How utterly mistaken Harry had been. Not only did Jason not love her, he no longer evinced the tiniest bit of desire for her! Had that been a figment of her imagination? Or, being brutally honest, would any female body cast in such proximity have driven him to lust? Once time and distance intervened, his ardor had quickly evaporated. So deep in her own misery was she, it took a moment for his next words to register.

      
“In the event that you meet the squire of your dreams at some future time and wish to merge your estates, you can always obtain an annulment.” As soon as the words escaped his lips, Jason was startled at how greatly the idea of Rachel wed to some portly squire upset him. Of course, he'd been sickened at the thought of Forrestal touching her. What man possessed of one shred of decency would not be? But if she were to find contentment with another farmer, why should he begrudge her a happy union? His mind shut down at the consideration.

      
Rachel refused to consider her pain, focusing on the practical. Did the double-damned Yankee lackwit not know that once he was gone, the viscount would immediately begin proceedings for that very annulment? Her father would not force her to submit to a humiliating physical examination to prove her virginity, but she knew for a certainty that Cargrave would do so. However, Jason's rejection hurt far worse than the prospect of being placed once again on the marriage block.

      
Well, she had been bold in the extreme until now. There was nothing to do but face things out. Furious anger stiffened her spine, but she held it tightly reined in as she smiled and said, “Tis you, not I, m'lord, who has thought of every contingency. Our plans are laid, then. I shall see you in church.”

      
With that, she spun about and walked from the room, leaving a startled Jason Beaumont staring after her, wondering why his heart hurt.

* * * *

      
On the ride back to the city house, Rachel refused to share her feelings with her sister. All she would say was that the earl had agreed to go through with the marriage. She complimented Harry for the idea about embellishing the rumor regarding Fox's adoption by the marquess. When the baroness pressed her about Jason's reaction to the proposal, Rachel pressed her lips together and said nothing further.

      
That night she lay in her bed, staring at the shadowy frescoes on the ceiling as moonlight bathed her tear-stained cheeks. Sleep was impossible. “I've become a veritable watering pot since I met that thrice-cursed Yankee earl,” she gritted out as she climbed from the bed and walked over to the window.

      
Autumn was fast approaching, and it had begun to rain once more. Her mood was perfectly reflected in the weather. Jason cared nothing for her. Her plan had backfired miserably, making it abundantly clear that he was as eager to rid himself of her as she had at first been to rid herself of him. But she would be damned if she'd allow a broken heart to cause her to give over. After all he had cost her, Jason would be her husband in fact, not merely in name. She swore it.

      
Never again would she be subjected to her father's persistent wheedling. Nor would she have to endure the marquess' haughty insistence that she prove she was a true wife to his absent heir. The marriage would be consummated in spite of the Yankee's reluctance, and the chambermaids changing the linens the following morning would be her witnesses. The only way a true marriage could be dissolved was by a decree of divorcement, which would require petitioning Parliament. An act which only her legal husband could initiate.

      
“And Jason will by then be on the opposite side of the Atlantic,” she whispered grimly to herself. Damn all men. They sat in control of every aspect of a woman's life. But she would outwit the lot of them. By God, she would be a countess, and she would continue to run her own estate. That resolution made, Rachel returned to bed.

      
She lay in the darkness once more, drifting off in an exhausted slumber, wondering why her heart hurt.

      
“Leave me the bloody hell alone…please, Drum.” Jason's words were slurred as he slumped disconsolately in an easy chair, a crystal decanter of brandy in one hand and a snifter just drained of its contents in the other.

      
Drum stood in the center of the large study of the Cargrave city house, looking down at his friend. A mixture of concern and annoyance marked his expression as he considered how to placate a man who had spent the past week with the worst case of Lombard fever he'd ever seen. “You know full well I cannot leave you unattended after all the attempts on your life.”

      
Then go out and search for the culprits. I've been cooped up in this prison far too long,” Jason replied testily, pouring another drink, then depositing the decanter none too steadily on a turret-top table beside his chair.

      
“Ah, there's the rub indeed, old chap. I have every one of my considerable sources in the city engaged in that endeavor.
Alors
, there is not a trace of evidence linking Forrestal to the skulduggery.”

      
“Then I shall simply have to pound the truth out of him,” Jason said, starting to rise from his chair.

      
Drum placed a restraining hand on his shoulder. “I fear that might not be wise. If you were to find yourself thrown into Newgate for assaulting the son of a royal duke, you would be easy pickings for whoever wants you dead.”

      
“At least 'twould be a change of scene,” Jason groused, pouring another draught and glaring at Drum.

      
“What you require is not a change of scene, old chap.”

      
“And what, pray, do I require?” Jason dared him.

      
“Rachel Fairchild.” Ignoring the earl's snort of disgust, Drum continued, “You've been blue-deviled, not to mention vile-tempered as a badger, ever since you saw her last at the mantua makers.”

      
Jason had explained the quandary he was in regarding his grandfather's plans to adopt Fox. Would it truly be fairer to the boy to allow him to remain in England? If so, would Jason have to wed Harleigh's daughter? Drum suspected that Rachel Fairchild had a deal more to do with his friend's high dudgeon than the situation with his foster brother. “What transpired that afternoon between you and your betrothed?”

      
Jason shrugged and took another sip. The expensive French brandy tasted like gall to him. “Lud, I'm drinking myself sober.”

      
“I know you don't intend to go through with the marriage, but perhaps—”

      
Jason's harsh laugh cut him off. “Ah, but you are mistaken. The lady has a new plan. We shall go through with the wedding. Then the day after, we shall steal Fox away and I shall return him to America. Jolly old England shall never see me again. And you, my friend, need worry no longer about preserving my thick Yankee hide from assassins.”

      
Drum stiffened, an expression of incredulity narrowing his green eyes. “I say, old fellow, this is a rather drastic step. Marriage.” He shuddered, withdrawing his snuff box and placing a pinch on the back of his hand.

      
“Oh, it will not be consummated. But it will secure the lady's future. Once she is Countess of Falconridge, she will be off the marriage mart. Free to pursue her own life.”

      
Drum digested that bit of information, all the while studying his friend's haggard face. “I've often spoken of my friend Alex, but I have never told you of another very dear friend: Jocelyn…his wife.”

      
Jason looked up, surprised at the warmth in Drum's voice as he said the woman's name. To date, he had never heard the acerbic little dandy speak of a female with such fondness.

      
“Joss is quite…unusual for a woman. Not in the same ways as your Rachel—”

      
“She is not
my
Rachel,” Jason interjected emphatically.

      
Drum waved the remark aside. “Strong woman, willful, determined, lots of common sense. Not at all the thing in the way of fashion or beauty as the ton defines it, but a good heart. She was the only one for Alex.”

      
“Well, Rachel does not have a ‘good heart’ and she is decidedly not the one for me…if I even wanted a wife—which I do not.”

      
Drum looked skeptical. “Don't be so certain. Takes a wise man to see beneath the surface of a gel.”

      
“This from a man who cannot abide the fair sex,” Jason said sardonically.

      
“Don't mean I'm green when it comes to understanding them,” Drum replied, deciding that it might be wise to meet Jason's betrothed and take her measure for himself.

      
When the earl rang for yet another bottle of brandy, the little dandy said good night, leaving his friend to spend the night drinking alone in the library. “At least 'twill keep him out of harm's way while I attend to business,” Drum murmured to himself after instructing two trusted family retainers to put his lordship to bed after he passed out. Everyone in the Beaumont household understood the danger the earl was in and watched over him closely.

* * * *

      
Rachel, like Jason, was spending a solitary evening in the city. Her father, Harry and Melvin had gone to see a play at Covent Garden, but she had begged off attending. Everyone there would remark upon the fact that her soon-to-be husband was not escorting her. What the ton whispered was not a flea bite to her, but the fact that Jason wanted nothing to do with her stung deeply.

      
Although she had remained in residence at the city house until her trousseau fittings were completed, he had not called once in eight days. In spite of the fact that most of the upper ten thousand were in the country for several more weeks, invitations to a number of social activities had piled up on the card table in the entry hall of the city house. Rachel knew she received them only because people were curious about the relationship between an infamous ape-leader and the wild Yankee earl.

      
She loathed being on display and would not have attended most of the soirees even if Jason had been present. But she wanted to know why he refused to at least play his part in this wretched charade. Even Harry, who was wont to put the best construction on any social situation, could make no further excuses for his negligence

      
Rachel intended to return to Harleigh Hall on the morrow and remain there until the nuptials. Let the ton gossip and be damned. If Cargrave set a dozen guards outside the bridal chamber at Falconridge, it would serve the accursed Yankee right for neglecting her this way.

      
She was in the midst of selecting what few items of clothing she would take with her on the journey when a maid knocked, bearing a card. The Hon. Alvin Francis Edward Drummond had come calling. Rachel knew of him by reputation. And it was not good. He was from a distinguished old family but was consistently in disfavor with his father, who had recently made noises about disowning him because of his extravagances. He was an inveterate gambler with a fearful reputation as a duelist who associated with Brummell's crowd of dandies, an utter scapegrace.

      
He was also Jason's companion on many larks, if the scandal sheets had the right of it. What on earth could he want with her? Giving her appearance a cursory inspection in the looking glass, Rachel headed downstairs to see.

      
She was not at all what he expected. He had heard that Harleigh's eldest daughter was a frightful tabby who drove away every suitor the viscount brought before her. She supposedly preferred the company of horses to society. If not for his aversion to horses, Drum might have applauded that sentiment, since he, too, found many of the diamond squad to be crashing bores.