But perhaps this change was a good thing, she tried to tell herself. Perhaps they were moving beyond the surface flirtations and she was getting to know the real man beneath it all. Perhaps it was time to be serious.
“They’ll be here for the wedding,” she replied, “but with not an hour to spare. My father is a busy man. He works very hard.”
“I don’t doubt it. To have built such a fortune from nothing, he must be ambitious.”
Was she being foolish, or did this feel like polite small talk between strangers?
“Speaking of fortunes,” Clara said carefully, “I read in one of the New York newspapers Mother brought, that you turned down what my father offered as a marriage settlement. It was the biggest headline on the society page.”
Seger gazed into her eyes. “We live in strange times indeed if you hear of those details in the newspaper. How in the world did something like that get out?”
Clara shrugged as she let him lead her through another turn. “What I want to know is why you turned it down. The newspaper called it a love match and we both know that’s not true.”
His brow furrowed at her comment and the tone with which it was delivered. “You sound cynical, Clara.”
“I don’t mean to. I knew what I was getting into when I accepted your proposal. You’ve been honest with me, Seger, and I respect that. I just didn’t expect you to turn down the settlement. Why did you do it, and why didn’t you tell me the other night?”
She stopped on the dance floor.
Seger stopped, too, and looked tired all of a sudden. His shoulders rose and fell with a sigh. He glanced around the room. “It was unimportant—a discussion that took place between solicitors.”
“But
why
did you turn it down?”
He took his time answering. “I suppose I didn’t want there to be any speculation that I married you for your money.”
“I thought you didn’t care what other people thought.”
He was quiet for a few seconds. “Just so. Come, we’re missing the dance.” He gathered her into his arms again and moved across the floor.
“I still don’t understand,” she said, knowing she should let it go. She was pushing him to talk when he didn’t seem in the mood. This—after she’d just told herself to find her composure and be light and airy. To amuse him.
Lord, she should just give up now. Call the whole thing off. It was one thing to hide a lack of confidence from your fiancé during a one week engagement, but quite another to paste on a smile and pretend things were fine every day for the rest of your life, if they weren’t fine. Clara knew she could not possibly keep up that kind of superficiality.
“It’s just not the way these transatlantic marriages are usually done,” she said with resignation.
Seger spun her around. “You’ve been reading too many stories in the society pages, darling. Don’t worry, your father didn’t get off entirely scot-free, and you won’t have to decrease your spending. He insisted on providing you with a monthly allowance for his own peace of mind, and I agreed. You will, like your sister, have your own bank account and your own money, so you will have the freedom to spend what you like without having to ask your husband for a handout.”
Clara absorbed his meaning and gazed up at him with consternation. “No, no, that’s not why I’m asking you about the settlement. I don’t want you to think that I’m worried about my financial situation. Truly, I wouldn’t have minded having to ask for things.”
He raised a flirtatious eyebrow at her and smiled. “I’m glad. But why don’t you save your requests for the bedroom?”
His seductive gaze traveled over her face and caused an intense flare of heat inside Clara. It was the first time he had flirted with her all night and she was surprised and concerned by how relieved she was to bob back to the surface—back to the superficiality. She was relieved that he was behaving more like his old self, the exterior self that was pleased to be marrying her and pleased to be flirting with her.
She only wished she knew for sure how the interior felt about it.
The following week passed quickly for Seger, with decisions to make about the honeymoon and ten dozen details about the ceremony to work out. He was glad. Glad to be busy, glad to be one day closer to the finale. He would be even happier when it was completely over, and all this commotion would at long last settle down.
He woke on his wedding day, however, to the startling sound of thunder booming just over the house. It was the worst commotion he’d experienced all week. Rain beat noisily against his window and poured down the panes, almost as if someone were standing on the roof, dumping buckets of water, trying purposefully to give him a headache.
He tossed the covers aside and sat up on the edge of the bed. Sleepily, he walked to the window. The fog was so thick, he could not even see the street. Lightning flashed, then thunder boomed again.
A fine day for a wedding, he thought.
He washed and ate breakfast in silence in his room. Calmly, he read the newspaper. An hour later, he decided it was time to dress. He was about to summon his valet when a knock sounded at his door and a footman entered carrying a silver salver with a letter upon it. A telegram, Seger discovered when he picked it up.
It was from an anonymous person in New York.
YOU SHOULD HAVE TAKEN THE SETTLEMENT STOP
YOUR BRIDE IS A LIAR STOP
YOU’RE NOT THE FIRST STOP
ASK HER ABOUT THE EMBEZZLEMENT STOP
He read it again. “What the bloody hell?”
Seger turned it over, looking for a clue about who would send such a thing, but there was nothing to reveal who had written it.
Perhaps it was a scandalmonger who had read about their marriage in the newspapers and wished to create havoc.
He flipped it over again.
You’re not the first
.
Of course he was the first. He knew he was. He had made love to Clara a week ago and she had been a virgin. There was no doubt about it.
But what the hell was the person referring to, and what embezzlement?
Seger rose from his chair and walked to the window. Looking out at the storm, he made a fist and tapped it a few times against the dark oak frame. They were to be married today. In three hours to be exact.
He felt a deep need to know the facts behind this note before he said I do.
A half hour later, he was stepping out of his coach in front of Wentworth House and dashing through the cold, hard rain to the door. He noticed the look of concern on the butler’s face when he informed him that he wished to speak to Miss Wilson, but paid it no heed. He followed the butler upstairs to the drawing room, where he had to wait a significant number of minutes before Clara appeared.
Finally she walked in wearing a simple green morning dress. Her hair was elegantly adorned with pearls and white flowers and combs that sparkled.
God. He was interrupting her wedding day preparations. He saw the apprehensive expression on her face, watched her wring her hands together in front of her, and felt instantly guilty for coming here unexpectedly and in a panic, and for seeing her this morning when she would have preferred not to be seen—at least not by her bridegroom.
He was surely causing her great distress at the moment. She probably feared he was going to call everything off.
“You look lovely,” he said, crossing the room to take her hands in his, kissing them and hopefully easing her mind.
She spoke with shaky uncertainty. “Thank you. Why are you here?”
He tried to convey warmth with his voice and expression, for he did not wish to cause her any further anxiety.
Surely a woman’s wedding day was filled with enough anxiety as it was, without the groom barging in to the bride’s house two hours before the ceremony to ask intrusive, accusing questions. He would try not to let it sound that way, at least until he knew the particulars.
“I received a telegram this morning from someone in America, but it was anonymous. I wanted to speak to you about it. They suggested I ask you about an embezzlement.”
Clara felt her heart go
thump
inside her chest. All she could do was stare bewildered at her fiancé, and wonder how and why this telegram had come to him today at the worst possible time.
She had told Seger about Gordon proposing to her, but she had not told him everything. She had not explained all the details and complexities. Now she wished she had.
Looking back on it, however, there had never been an opportunity to bring it up. After Seger proposed, she thought she could tell him later, when it would hardly matter.
It hardly mattered now, she tried to tell herself. The embezzlement had nothing to do with her, after all. She had known nothing. She had been innocent.
She would tell Seger that.
Clara sat down on the sofa. “You remember the man I told you about? The man who proposed to me two years ago?”
Seger remained standing. His expression was calm. “Yes.”
Clara’s heart began to race. “Well, the reason I didn’t marry him was because he was arrested for embezzlement.”
The room seemed suddenly very quiet. Seger stood motionless, staring down at her. She tried to stay calm.
She gazed into her fiancé‘s eyes. He did not seem angry. He didn’t seem anything.
“It’s a rather strange story, actually,” she said with a smile, trying to keep things light.
Oh, she hoped he would be understanding about this. He, of all people in the world, should be. He—the king of scarlet pasts…
“Tell me.”
She nodded and complied. “His name was Gordon Tucker, and when he proposed, my father refused to let me marry him. I told Gordon I would marry him anyway, despite my parents wishes, but he knew he could never afford to take me away, so he stole from his employer. I assure you, I knew nothing about it. All I knew was that he had somehow managed to pay for our passage to Europe. He told me he was in possession of enough savings to tide us over until he could find work when we got there. We were going to get married on board the ship. I suppose he thought that once we were married, Father would have no choice but to provide us with an allowance.”
Seger’s eyebrows drew together, and for the first time, she saw mild anger in his face. “So you
wanted
to marry this man? Enough to elope with him?”
Her nerves tensed immediately. “Yes.”
“Did you love him?”
She bowed her head and paused a moment before answering. She had been enamored with Gordon, certainly. He was handsome and he knew how to charm her, how to manipulate her, but she had never been in love with him.
“No,” she answered at last.
“How can I be sure you are telling me the truth?”
“All you can do is trust me and believe me when I tell you that I was nauseated getting on the ship with him, and I wept with relief when my father came to take me home. When I said yes to Gordon’s proposal, I only wanted to escape the pressure.”
“The pressure to marry well.”
“Yes.”
He took a moment to consider this, while she sat helplessly, not knowing what to say, wishing she knew what was going on inside his head. Was he furious with her? Did he hate her?
Or was he hurt?
“So you didn’t love him,” Seger said. “Did you desire him? Did you ever let him touch you?”
The question unnerved her. It was clear that for Seger, desire was paramount.
She shook her head. “Never.”
He stared at her for a moment, then, appearing satisfied, turned toward the window. “Where is this man now?”
“He went to prison for the embezzlement.”
Seger faced her again. “Prison? Good Lord. There was a trial? Were you involved in the scandal?”
“No, my father took care of that. I was removed from the situation.”
Seger’s broad shoulders rose and fell. He looked fatigued. “So there was much more to this than what you told me at your sister’s assembly. This is very serious, Clara. You should not have kept it from me.”
She saw the disappointment in his face and wished more than anything that she had told him about it sooner. She hadn’t set out to keep a secret from him. She had simply pushed it out of her mind.
Pushed it out of her mind
. Perhaps it had been her way of pretending—at least to herself—that it hadn’t happened, because she was not proud of it. And she had been afraid that if he knew the magnitude of the situation, he wouldn’t want her.
“I couldn’t tell you at first,” she said. “I barely knew you. It’s not something I talk about with strangers. Then, when things started to progress between us, I simply forgot about it when we were together.”
“Forgot about it.” He said it like he didn’t believe it, then he faced the window again. “Have you told me everything?”
“Yes.”
“Are you sure? There is nothing else I should know about? Because whoever sent this telegram knows about what happened, and if you are guilty in any way…”
“I am not guilty.”
“You’re telling the truth?”
“Yes!”
Clara wondered again if he was hurt. If he was, he certainly wasn’t showing it. He was focusing on the facts, not his feelings. She should not be surprised.
“Who do you think would have sent this?” he asked. “And why?”
“I don’t know.”
“Perhaps it was your jilted lover.”
“Perhaps.” She hated to hear him use the word
lover
to describe another man.
Seger paced about the room, considering everything. “Do you realize that in my position, I would be perfectly justified to call off our wedding?”
His coarse words embedded painfully into her heart. She nodded.
“But we have already made love,” he continued, “and you were, as it turned out, a virgin.” He paced around the room, thinking for a long time.
She waited nervously for him to make a decision. What would it be? He had been hurt once before in regards to a woman. Perhaps he felt defeated again. Powerless. Perhaps he was disappointed in Clara, and would not be able to forgive her. Or maybe this turn of events had spooked him and reminded him of why he had spent the past eight years avoiding marriage.
This was torture.
At last, he stopped behind the sofa where she couldn’t see his face. She could only hear the deep timbre of his voice and feel the intensity of his presence curling around her.