Read A Necessary Deception Online
Authors: Georgie Lee
“Can’t you give me more?” Mary pleaded with Mr. Green, the owner of the pawn shop where most of her parents’ valuables now resided. They’d been sold by Paul when he’d exercised his legal right to her mother’s property after they’d married. The two items Mary held were all that were left of value, and they only remained because Mary had hidden them from her stepfather.
“Gold rings is the first thing people sell when they fall on hard times.” Mr. Green set down the ring on the glass case and waved to the ample selection beneath it.
“And the sword?” Mary fingered the cracked leather sheath. It’d been her grandfather’s, captured by him while he’d served with the Marquis of Granby in the Seven Year’s War. He’d been so proud of what he’d done in battle, he’d told the story to her and anyone who’d listen many times. Selling the sword would hurt almost as much as learning Charles was a gambler, and less trustworthy than she’d believed after his dealing with Mr. Pratt. However, losing the Marquis, and with it John’s legacy, would be worse than parting with the items.
“They’re the second thing men sell, especially old soldiers.” He waved to the collection of sabers hanging on the far wall. “Ten pounds for both and not a shilling more.”
With a heavy heart, she pushed the sword towards him, her fingers lingering on the engraved and gilded hilt before she removed her hands. “All right.”
She left the pawn shop with the precious bill tucked inside her bodice, close to her skin. It wasn’t the fifty pounds she needed, but maybe it would be enough to convince Mr. Pratt to give her more time to raise the rest just as her small payments had done before.
Not likely after the way Charles insulted him.
She stopped in the street, hands balled at her sides, ignoring the people stepping around her as they hurried to and from the shops. She wanted to curse Charles, to storm back to the pub and rail at him for making matters worse but she couldn’t. She was glad he’d struck Mr. Pratt. The ugly man deserved it for all the times he’d trod over her and everyone at the pub in his demands for money.
She unclenched her hands and with slower steps made her way back to the Marquis, as amazed as she was baffled by Charles. He hadn’t hesitated in defending her, and like his treatment of John, he hadn’t done it because she was watching. He hadn’t seen her come in from the taproom. He’d done it because he’d wanted to, because he cared.
Maybe Aunt Emily is right about him
.
No, he’s a gambler and gamblers can’t be trusted
. He might have been gallant today, but it didn’t mean the hunger for the cards wouldn’t eventually turn him against her or make him steal their earnings the way Paul used to do to keep playing. Even if he didn’t, marrying him and ending her lie would mean surrendering legal control of the pub and John to him. He could sell the Marquis to pay off her debts or buy his next commission. With the war still raging, he could be forced back to Spain and die for real. Without the Marquis, she couldn’t take care of John and Aunt Emily, and then she’d be forced to wed again like her mother had done.
She pushed back her slumped shoulders as the clutter of London gave way to the fields of Hampstead Heath. The situation wasn’t hopeless. There was still a little time for her to think of something, even if all she could contemplate on the walk home was Charles.
“Are you in, Captain Beven?” Captain Percy asked Charles from across the card table in the large game room of the Army Service Club.
“Not this hand, fellows.” Charles tossed down his cards, scooped up his money, and with some relief quit the gaming room. He started down the hall, the coins in his pocket heavy with metal and guilt. If he hadn’t been dealt a queen in the last hand, he’d have walked out of the officer’s club with significantly less than he’d entered with. Thankfully, the club kept the stakes low, making men work through many hands to either win or lose a decent amount. It kept those who couldn’t afford it from tossing away a great deal of blunt on a reckless hand or two. It also frustrated those who wished to fling it away in smaller amounts over many hours. Charles had possessed the patience and will to endure a number of hands to win what he needed but bad luck had been just as willing to sit beside him.
“Win big, Captain Beven?” Captain Mercer hailed him from across the billiards table as Charles passed the narrow room off the main hall. It was empty except for a wall of books no one read and the table where Captain Mercer’s billiard balls were spread across the slate.
“Not this evening.” Charles strode in to join his friend, stepping into the pool of light cast by the single lamp hanging over the table. Outside, the sun had set. It would be a dark, cold walk back to the pub.
“I’ll play you, maybe you can beat me,” Captain Mercer offered. He was ten years older than Charles’ twenty eight with thinning dark hair above a narrow face.
Charles held up his hands. “Billiards isn’t my game.”
He leveled his cue stick at Charles. “Because you’re too honest for it. It’s why you’re one of the few men most officers around here, including myself, will play at card. Even when you’re down you don’t cheat.”
At least someone thinks well of me.
He’d done nothing to earn Mary’s distrust and yet she’d painted him with the same brush as her odious stepfather. It ate at his gut like cheap wine, especially since she was right. He was a gambler, but unlike others he didn’t have a passion for play. It was, like his having sold the captured horses in Talavera and the seized wine near Madrid, a way to raise money to purchase his way up the ranks. Being the son of a baker had left him without the resources of the higher born officers. An ability to count fast and anticipate the next card in the deck had given him the only advantage he’d ever possessed. Sadly, as tonight had proven, it wasn’t an infallible one.
“So, what are you doing here? I thought you were going to capture the publican’s daughter?” Captain Mercer rubbed chalk on the end of his cue stick then blew off the dust.
“There are some impediments to our union.” One of which was her infuriating stubbornness. Even if he’d won enough tonight to save the Marquis and buy his commission, there was no guarantee Mary would accept his assistance or him.
“Are we going to pass the hat for you like we did for Major Wilson?” Captain Mercer laughed.
Charles smiled. “The men are generous with ten pounds for a common license, but not fifty.”
Captain Mercer let out a long whistle. “No, they aren’t. Now come and play, we won’t gamble. It’ll take your mind off your troubles.”
Charles selected a cue stick from the stand and lost shot after shot as thoughts of Mary continued to distract him. He hadn’t been bluffing when he’d said he wanted a say in John’s life. It was the problem of gaining it which still plagued him. If he pressed the issue of the pretend marriage, he could assert his privilege as the boy’s father, but it would drive a wedge between him and Mary, one he could never overcome.
Perhaps I should let her go like she wants
. He could reside in London and she could pretend he was in Spain. They’d live in their different spheres and no one would be the wiser, except he’d know he’d left her and his son. He couldn’t do it.
Charles lined up a shot and sank it with a crack of the stick against the cue ball. He wouldn’t give up here anymore than he had in Spain when his cold and starving men had begged him to surrender to the French. He’d believed then he could get them home as he believed now he could win Mary. Let her be headstrong, he could be equally so in return and convince the loving and happy woman who’d once cared for him to return again.
Evening fell and the crowd in the pub increased, leaving Mary little time to consider anything except serving beer and collecting coins. Thankfully, Charles had gone to London, removing the distraction of his presence. She still didn’t know what to do about him or their situation, and chatting with her regular patrons, all of whom congratulated her on the return of her
husband
, didn’t make the situation any easier.
Charles didn’t come back until late into the night. He walked in as she was ushering out the last of the drinking men. Dust dulled the shoulders of his red coat and the sweat of walking dampened the brown hair at his temples. He’d pushed it back, revealing the strong forehead, straight nose and hard jaw which had caught her notice the first night he’d come here to drink. She longed to approach him like she used to, eyes lowered to wink at him from beneath her lashes, the heady potency of his answering grin making her heart flutter as he imagined exactly what she was suggesting with her coquettish smiles.
Stop it,
she chided herself, frightened by the weakness pulling her towards him. She’d forgotten herself with him and, in the end, it’d cost her so much more than she’d gained.
“I’m leaving, Mary,” Mr. Ogden buttoned his coat over his round stomach. “You must be eager for your reunion with your husband.”
"Mind your mouth, and get home to your wife.” She snapped her towel at him, too accustomed to drinking men’s blunt talk to blush, but his teasing tightened the anxiety already twisting her stomach. Everyone expected a happy reunion night for her and Charles. It would be a stretch in the morning to pretend there’d been one.
Her concern increased when Charles leaned against the bar. His scent of sweat, dust and shaving soap settled around her making her want to lay her head in the crook of his neck and inhale. Instead, she rooted herself to her place behind the bar as he spoke, his voice as tempting as a cool breeze in the stifling room. “So, where will I be sleeping?”
She wiped a spot of water off the wood, folded the towel and set it aside. “With me.”
He raised one eyebrow as the tension between them filled the smoky pub. If she had a free room, she’d put him in it, but of the three above stairs, a paying border took one, Aunt Emily the other, while Mary kept her old one. John slept with Aunt Emily tonight because he’d had a nightmare, or so her aunt had said. It seemed more like a plot to see Charles and Mary thrown together rather than a true consoling of a two year old. She should be thankful for her aunt’s plotting. It would make the ruse of their marriage easier to maintain. The longstanding patrons thought her a proper wife and if they learned otherwise, she’d lose their much needed business.
“This way.” She took a lamp from its hook and led him to the stairs. As they climbed the rickety steps, she gripped the lantern handle tight, aware of every rustle of his coat against his waist as he raised one firm leg and then the next to climb the steps behind her. Each inhale of his breath followed by a gentle exhale plucked at the old memories of his hot and needy mouth on hers while he’d pressed her against the stairway wall. She’d been dizzy with desire as she’d brazenly undone each brass button on his coat, and slipped her hands beneath it to caress his chest through his shirt, eager to be in the privacy of her room but not wanting to break from his lips or stop him from caressing her thighs.
“Thank you for handling Mr. Pratt today,” she said as they reached the upper hallway, trying to distract them both from the memories filling the shadows.
“I had to protect my wife.” He bent to avoid the slope of the roof, his face so close to hers she could see the sheen of sweat on his taught neck muscles, and the faint stubble along his jaw. She opened and closed her fingers on the lantern handle, wanting to trace the planes of his cheeks but she couldn’t. Her touch would be an invitation she wasn’t ready to extend. “But we aren’t married.”
He pinned her with a wry and tempting smile. “Not yet.”
She nearly dropped the lantern. Taking a deep breath which almost made her breasts brush his chest, she slid out from between him and the wall. “My room is at the end.”
His wicked grin seemed to shrink the already tight space. “Yes, I remember.”
The lantern flame flickered in her eyes as she set it on the washstand in her room. The narrow bed under the window was just as he remembered. It was Mary who'd changed. Her problems had tethered her buoyant nature and stolen the light from her face. He yearned to bring it back, to
slide his hand behind her neck and draw her lips to his and reclaim not just the passion from their past, but the connection they’d shared in the darkness, and the comfort it’d brought them.
“Do you mind taking the floor?” She motioned to a rag rug, with, if he was not mistaken, a blush of shame.
“I suppose it’s better than a bench downstairs.” He shrugged out of his coat and laid it across the turned wood chair. “Besides, I’ve had worse accommodations.”
“I’m sure you have.” She made no move to undress, and instead traced the lantern handle, doing her best to avoid looking at him. “Where were you tonight?”
He stopped in the unlacing of his shirt ties, heartened by her curiosity. “Trying to win money for us.”
“You mean gambling.” Her frown condemned him but not the hope in her eyes. “Did you win?”
“No, but I didn’t lose either.”
“This time.”
“And what about you? Did the pawn shop give you enough?”
Her full lips drew into a surprised O. “How did you know I went there?”
“You aren’t the first to trade a sword for money. There are a lot of old soldiers in London without theirs.”
“So I discovered. I didn’t raise enough.” She sighed as if relieved to tell him the truth. It was the first time she’d been open and trusting with him. It didn’t last though, as she straightened herself against him once more. “I still have some time to f
igure something out.”
“We have time to figure something out,” he gently corrected, noting how it eased the stiffness of her stance but not the conflict making her lips draw together in a thin line.
“I told you, I don’t need your help.” It wasn’t as forceful a declaration as it’d been earlier today. Her defiance was weakening, and it gave him as much hope as the flush of her cheeks and the nervous play of her fingers on the ribbon of her dress.
He cupped her face with his hands and the heat of her tender skin against his made his chest catch. He kept his touch light, waiting for her to pull away but she didn’t. Uncertainty marred her round eyes as she gazed up at him, the fight between her desire to trust him and to push him away clear in the way she worried her bottom lip with her teeth. They stood achingly close to one another and yet as far away as if he was still in Spain. "You're a strong woman Mary, I don't doubt it, but a strong person also knows when to ask for help. Please, let me help you."