“Father hates the place. He says it makes him bilious. My aunt saw me presented at court at the proper time, but then he swept us all back home. Every year he had another excuse and another ailment for not letting me take part in the Season, where I might have found other gentlemen to my liking. I think he always intended me for Fredricks, when my brother was finished with university and could take over the running of our estate that I oversaw. Papa’s health did not permit him to visit the tenants and survey the fields, you see.”
“Forgive me, but I do not see. Your sire makes mine look like Father Christmas. Perhaps he never intended you to marry, but to stay on as his unpaid servant. But do go on. Captain Sondebeck returned your regard?”
“He said so. And I believed him, so I argued with my father to let us wed before he had to return to the army. Papa would not relent, telling me I would marry our neighbor or no one. So I told him Captain Sondebeck and I were…were lovers. We were not, of course.”
Of course not. Hugh could tell by her blushes that such a happenstance, two mature adults in the throes of thwarted love expressing that passion, was beyond her ken.
She was going on, wanting him to understand, now that she had begun. “I thought my father would be happy to post the banns if he thought I was ruined for any other marriage. Instead, he threw me out.”
“The coldhearted bastard. Forgive me. He is your father.”
“You need not apologize. I have called him that and worse. At any rate, the captain had already embarked to rejoin his unit.”
“So what did you do?”
“I followed
him
, of course. I was not entirely penniless, you see. I had my mother’s jewelry, trunks full of pretty clothes, and the household money. I felt my father owed me that, for my years of keeping his accounts since my mother passed on.”
“He owed you a great deal more, by Harry. He owed you his love and understanding. Tossing his own flesh and blood out on the street! If I had my hands on his neck he’d sing a different tune, I swear.”
“At present your hands do not both work, but I thank you for the thought. Anyway, I had enough funds, and my maid along to satisfy the conventions, so I set sail for Portugal and true love.”
Now he understood her black gowns and grim expression. Pity overcame
him
, so he reached out for her hand. “Poor puss. You came all this way, giving up everything you held dear, only to find that your soldier had died in battle.”
“I wish,” she spat out, slapping his hand away. “I found that the swine was already married, with a wife in Lisbon.”
Now he understood her grim expression even better.
“Gads.”
“‘Gads’? That’s all you can say when that man’s lies ruined my life? Cost me my aunt’s and my brother’s regard, as well as my reputation and my dowry? Left me stranded at an army headquarters, where I was mortified at every turn, and an embarrassment to the commanders? ‘Gads’? Surely you can find something more to say.”
He could. He did. “Would you do me the honor, Lady Marian, of accepting my hand in marriage?”
Then his icy Maid Marian, indomitable, courageous, and more than a little stiff-rumped, melted. She started to weep. Hugh passed over a handkerchief, but that was like trying to dam a river with a pebble. She cried and cried, all the tears her pride would never let anyone see. Great racking sobs sent the dog under the bed and Hugh out of it, all of his protective instincts aroused. Lud knew nothing else was, for Lady Marian looked even worse than usual, her face all red and splotched, her nose running. Hugh tried to gather her close to comfort her, but with only one usable arm he found he could merely pat her back, noting how frail she seemed under the enveloping gown. “Hush, my dear. Don’t cry. Things will get better, I swear. First thing I’ll do is kill the dastard who lied to you. I can shoot with my left hand, you know.”
“He’s already dead,” she murmured into the front of his now-damp dressing gown. “They sent him to the front to get rid of him. His wife blames me for that.”
“She would have been a widow soon enough anyway. And better off without the muckworm.”
Marian stepped back, out of his awkward embrace, to blow her nose. Hugh felt damp—and bereft, somehow. “But she told all of the other women,” Marian said when she was through, “that I had thrown myself at her husband. No one would speak to me. And she wrote to her sister, who is married to Viscount Aldersham, so everyone in London knows of my disgrace and humiliation.”
Hugh scratched his head. “I never shot a woman before. There is a first time for everything, I suppose.”
She sniffled. “You cannot stop gossip with a pistol ball.”
“No, but I can kill it with a ring. Do you think that anyone would snub a marchioness, a future duchess? The daughter-in-law of one of the proudest, most powerful noblemen in the empire? Not in this lifetime, they won’t.”
“Perhaps the political hostesses will overlook my history for your father’s sake, but the high sticklers in the
ton
never will.”
“Who? My godmother, my cousin, my sister’s mother-in-law? They are all patronesses of Almack’s, you know. That’s the only reason I am still allowed into the wretched place. But you will be welcomed with open arms, I promise. You will have invitations to all the fetes and festivities your father denied you. Unless you prefer the country? I own a pretty cottage in Richmond, and another place in Somerset.”
“I adored London the few short times I visited. The shops and the theater…”
Hugh was relieved, until he thought of the chaps whose wives were stashed in the shires so the husbands could continue their wenching. Perhaps marriage wouldn’t be so bad if he had to spend only a few weeks a year with his wife. No, he did not want a polite, distant, occasional relation with the mother of his children. He’d never thought long enough about marriage to decide what he expected from it besides grandsons for the duke, but now the idea of leading separate lives did not sound appealing. It might be fun to introduce Marian to his friends and his pastimes in town, once she was dressed more presentably, of course. “Then London it is, except for visits now and again to the country. You’ll have new clothes, new friends, a hundred new experiences every day.”
“But I will be married.”
“Aye, there’s the rub. To me.”
When she made a whimpering sound instead of chuckling as he expected, Hugh said, “It is not a fate worse than death, you know.” He could not keep the bitterness from his voice that she was so appalled at the match. He was not getting any great bargain, either, but no one heard him complaining. Well, Kirby had, and the dog,
but they
did
not count.
Perhaps Lady Marian would do better in the country, after all. He wanted no unwilling wife to play the martyr.
“But you do not wish to marry me.” Tears started to
fill
her eyes again. They were quite lovely eyes, he noted, despite the redness.
“No, I do not wish to marry anyone. It is nothing personal. But I do not believe either of us has a choice anymore, so what do you say? Shall we make a match of it?”
She started to rearrange the medicine bottles on the nightstand. Her face was averted, so he could not see her expression, but he could recognize misery even from the back. “I swear I will try to be a good husband,” he said, “although I have no experience.”
“You had no experience being a soldier and look where that got you.”
Was that a joke? From the ice maiden? Hugh took it as a good sign that she was warming a little. “I seldom drink to excess, rarely lose my temper, never gamble away more than I can afford. If you are worried about the, ah, intimacies of marriage, we can delay that until we know each other better.” And until he consulted with a London physician.
She stood straighter, as if a weight were lifted off her shoulders.
He went on. “But if we find we do not suit, we can conduct our lives as many other couples do, with courtesy, and discretion, and distance. So what do you say?”
“Yes.”
“‘Yes’? Just that? After I have made my first and, hopefully, last ever proposal of marriage, all you can say is yes? What, do you want me to get down on my knees? We both know I’d never be able to get up, if I did not fall on my face at your feet.”
She took a deep breath and said, “Yes, my lord, I shall accept your eloquent and gracious offer of marriage. I am struck speechless by the honor you are bestowing upon me. And if I had one other choice in all this world, by heaven, I would take it.”
Hugh did not dare kiss her to seal their engagement. The woman was liable to box his ears. He did raise her hand to his lips though. “You’ll see. It won’t be so bad.” Not so bad? Hugh thought it would be hell to be married to a woman who never smiled.
Not so bad? Marian thought it would be torture to be married to a man who did not know the meaning of fidelity.
6
You cheated!”
“Did not.”
“Did too.”
“Well, you cheated first.”
“Hah, then you admit you are not so holier-than-thou after all.”
Nicky and Pete almost came to blows. The winds of their anger blew so strongly across the Spanish plains, in fact, that the war had to be postponed.
Nicodemus shook his fist. “You said no interference, and now you send in a general to order my sinner to reform. Speak of deus ex machina, that is Machiavellian.”
“And how is the prince?”
“That is irrelevant. You cheated, so you forfeit the bet. Hardesty is mine. He can suffer a relapse and be rowing across the River Styx by morning.”
“You speak of interference?” Saint Peter pointed at the gremlin dog and said, “Woof.”
The devil had the grace to look embarrassed. “I didn’t think you’d notice.”
“How could I not, when the creature smells of brimstone, no matter how many baths they give it? Anyway, you should be happy the general stepped in. Your man was about to grovel to the woman for the sake of her company. Who knows how they might have gone on in their own time? They were already discovering a mutual respect that could have led to affection. But this way, your unrepentant rake will never be faithful to an unwanted wife, one foisted upon him by the authorities he’s rebelled against his entire life. He’ll go back to his licentious ways and you’ll have his adulterous soul in your hands before you can say Genghis Rabbit.”
“
Hmm.
You have a point. He’ll take those sacred marriage vows because he must, but he’ll never keep them, not if I know my man. He’d never fall in love with some featherbrained chit who ran off to wed a soldier, then got shoved his way when no one else would have her. So he’ll forsake those holy promises and be back at the ga
ming
hells and bordellos before the ink is dry on his wedding lines. Yes, that might work.”
Saint Peter smiled. “But it won’t work.”
“What, you t
hink
he will stay true to that freakish, frumpish, frigid female, after he has known the pleasures of the flesh with the highest flyers in England?” Old Nick saw the opportunity for another wager, an easier win this time.
“I
think
he might not have a choice. It won’t work.”
“It? You mean
it
won’t work?” the devil roared, and started two brushfires with the lightning. “You made him a eunuch just to win the bet?”
Saint Peter shook his snowy head. “I was not the one who had his mount fall dead on top of him.”
Satan picked sulfur out of his teeth. “I simply wished to end the man’s suffering more quickly.”
“Angel feathers. You never had a charitable thought in your life. You just wanted to claim his soul that much sooner.”
“I was busy. There was a war on, you know.”
“Well, it might be a temporary condition.”
“It had better be, or all bets are off. I mean, what’s the point of putting your money on a horse that died last week?”
“He could still stray in his thoughts.”
“If I collected the soul of every man whose imagination lusted for a woman not his wife, you would not have enough residents in heaven to hold a cricket match. Hardesty was—and would be, without your piss-pious interference—a true sinner, not just a dreamer. I want him.”
Saint Peter smiled that all-knowing grin that Nick hated. “We’ll just have to see what he wants, won’t we?”
“He sure as Hades won’t want to be singing soprano!” As soon as the Guardian of the Gates left, the
Patron
of Purgatory turned on the dog, who was cowering behind a bush, as if that could keep him from his master’s wrath. “You! This is all your fault. If you weren’t so busy licking your privates”—the new dog had learned an old trick—“this would never have happened. Well, he might get married, and he might be
hors de combat,
so to speak, but neither one will last, not with that lusty young buck. Your job will be to make sure that temptation lands at the sinner’s doorstep.”
So Impy dug up a bone and started to carry it to Lord Hardesty’s room.
“Not something to tempt a dog, you flea-witted fool. Something to tempt a man into adultery! Find him a woman, I say, a sexy, seductive siren that no rake can resist. You know the kind. We have plenty of them below. Low necklines, wavy hair, painted faces. A female who will get his attention.”