Only Marriage Will Do (28 page)

They entered the glittering ballroom, four crystal chandeliers casting a magical glow over the decorative holly and horn decorations. Juliet and her sisters-in-law had labored long and hard during the month. Tonight would be a triumph for all of them.

The couple of honor stood at the end of a receiving line, Juliet next to Vee and Reni so anyone not known to her could be introduced. Despite the holiday, the house began to fill with guests. She had met what seemed like scores of people she didn’t know. And the room continued to fill. Had they really invited this many people? She could hear the orchestra tuning up, but the line still stretched into the foyer.

“Are you related to everyone in London?” she whispered to Amiable. Her neck would break with bowing.

“Between my two sisters and their families, and your brother and yours, yes. I believe we are.” He laughed, nodding again to an acquaintance. “Here’s one I actually know. Lord Trevor. Good of you to come. I haven’t seen you since the middle of November. Did we scare you away with all the excitement that day, my lord?”

“Morley, Juliet.” Lord Trevor smiled. He cut an elegant figure as always. “Of course not. I am ever up for some excitement. I’ve been a bit preoccupied lately, however. A distant connection of mine is in want of a position and I am attempting to resolve her dilemma before my marriage.”

“Are you betrothed, Tris?” Juliet asked, pleased at the news. Everyone should have the happiness she and Amiable shared. “Who has managed to take you off the most eligible list in London?”

“Miss Dora Harper, daughter of Lord Downing. We met at the end of the season then became reacquainted at the Braeton’s Hunt Ball in October.” The handsome young man gave a flicker of a smile. “We came to an agreement just before all the excitement at Dunham house. I suppose there were other things on your mind, or I’d be hurt neither Duncan nor Morley here mentioned it.”

“When is the wedding to be?”

“Early March. It had to be postponed as her sister-in-law has been very ill.”

“Well, I wish her sister-in-law the best of health, Tris, and you many felicitations.” Juliet peered behind him. “She is not with you tonight?”

Tris shook his head. “No, her family is spending the holidays at their estate in Wiltshire. I’m to go down day after tomorrow to visit. I’ll be there through New Year, I expect.” Tris looked behind him. “I beg your pardon. I am quite holding up the line. May I secure the promise of a dance later, Juliet?”

“You certainly may. I shall look for you.” She smiled after him as he moved away.

“You have known him long?” Amiable’s voice sounded strained. Mouth pinched, he stared after Lord Trevor then slipped his arm through hers.

“Tris? Yes, of course.” She raised amused eyes at his ill-disguised jealousy. “He’s been one of Duncan’s greatest friends for years. They were at school and went on the Grand Tour together.”

“Oh, well, then.” He patted her arm, then dropped it and turned toward the next guest with a smile.

Laughing to herself, Juliet peered about the crowded room and spied Katarina near the entrance to the ballroom, a strange man, dressed in plain clothing, at her side. Deep in conversation, the two seemed at odds. Some instinct urged her to flight. She clutched her husband’s arm, her gaze darting about for Duncan.

“What is wrong, my dear?” Amiable looked down at her, frown lines springing onto his brow. “Are you fatigued already?”

“No, but look at the man Kat is talking to. Do you know him? He seems out of place here, don’t you think?” She glanced back to find her sister-in-law beckoning to them. “I don’t like this.”

“It’s likely nothing to alarm you. sweet. I’ll go see what this is about.” He took a step toward the mismatched couple.

“No.” She dug her fingers into his arm, and he pulled her forward with his momentum. “I won’t let you go, no matter what.”

“Very well, love. We will go together.” With a reassuring pat on her arm, Amiable led her out of the receiving line. When they reached Katarina, she gave them a nervous smile then closed her eyes briefly before speaking.

“Amiable, Juliet, this man,” she nodded toward the stocky gentleman, “is Mr. Haimes, one of Sir John Fielding’s Bow Street Runners. He is here because—” She fell silent as words seemed to fail her.

A Runner? Cold dread gripped Juliet’s heart.

Katarina took a deep breath, a false smile plastered on her face. “Duncan is waiting for us in the small reception room in the front of the house.”

“Why?” Juliet turned anxious eyes to her husband.

“Because I have come to finally take you home,
chérie
.” The loathsome voice sent a shower of fear through her as Lord St. Cyr sauntered around the corner to stand in front of her, his cruel smile aimed directly at her.

“How dare you enter here?” Amiable dropped his hand to his sword. “Damnation.” No weapon to hand. He had not deemed it necessary at this gathering.

“I dare to come claim my wife,
monsieur
. My
legal
wife.” St. Cyr’s smile broadened as he waved his hand toward Mr. Haimes.

The gentleman spoke up quickly. “I suggest we join his lordship in the reception room.” He turned glowering eyes on St. Cyr. “Where I instructed you to wait, my lord.”

“I have come to claim that which is my own, Haimes. I have waited long enough.”

“She’s not going anywhere with you, St. Cyr.” Spoiling for a fight, Amiable glanced at the family’s ancient ceremonial broadsword hung above the fireplace. By God, he’d take that weapon and end the discussion here and now.

“At last I have the law on my side, Monsieur Morley. Do you plan to disobey the fine English law that says a wife belongs with her husband?”

Juliet clutched his arm tighter. Stark terror drained her face to a pasty pale. “Do not worry, sweetheart,” he murmured in her ear. “I will never let you go.”

“Gentlemen, if we can retire…before this becomes the last scandal of the year?” Katarina tried to move them toward the French doors that led onto the main corridor, but her efforts were outflanked.

Vee and Reni stepped up to him, smiling as though nothing was wrong. Their narrowed eyes gave the lie to that. “Amiable? Juliet? It is time, my dears.”

“Time?” Juliet managed a startled croak.

“Time for the first dance, of course.” Vee gestured toward the dance floor. “The family is waiting for you to take your places.”

Before either of them had the chance to speak, Vee grabbed Juliet while Reni snared his arm and propelled him onto the dance floor. “The minuet, if you please, Amiable. A
danse à deux
for you and your bride.” Reni’s stiff carriage and strained smile belied her brisk manner.

He willed himself to seek clarity, the battlefield tactic that had saved him more than once during his service to the Crown. He took Juliet’s trembling hand. Icy fingers greeted him. He led her to the middle of the ballroom and faced her.

“Smile and dance with me, my love.” Nodding to the orchestra to begin, he lifted her hand to his lips. Her stricken face stabbed his heart, but he raised their hands and began the first figure, bowing elegantly as she curtsied, a single beat late.

He kept his eyes trained on his wife’s face, frantically summoning and discarding solutions to this horrible mess. He could simply grab the broadsword and kill St. Cyr. Such an idea should not be entertained, but the temptation simmered just beneath the surface, nevertheless. Better still, he could spirit Juliet away until the matter could be settled, but where to take her? Where would she be safe and undetected?

He did not know what had brought St. Cyr out tonight with that seedy-looking Bow Street Runner to put an official seal on the matter, but he would demand to know by what legal right the dog now claimed Juliet. Mr. Grimes had still had no word from the witnesses or magistrate. Without such proof, the proxy contract remained so much paper and ink and the English courts had yet to render a ruling.

Amiable recalled himself and led Juliet into the second pattern of the dance. He smiled reassuringly at her. Difficult to manage with no reassurances to give. He drank in her every step, absorbing the graceful movements of her lovely body, memorizing the tentative little smile she ventured, the way her eyes never left his. In case…

No. He would never let her go. By whatever means necessary, he’d make sure Juliet remained safe with him. If that meant St. Cyr had to die, then so be it. He’d killed Frenchmen before.

The rest of the minuet—their first dance together—passed as though in a trance. He tried to concentrate on his wife, but with each turn of the dance he glimpsed St. Cyr, like a vulture, waiting ever so patiently just within his line of vision.

All too soon, they took the final steps. They bowed to one another, and he took her hand and led her off the floor. Their first dance would be memorable in many ways. Mr. Haimes stood before the doors to the corridor, St. Cyr hovering nearby.

“Mr. Morley, please bring Lady Juliet and come with me.” The authority in the runner’s voice rivaled Colonel Robert Fitzwilliam’s, his old commander and Katarina’s father. A tone disobeyed only at the hearer’s peril.

He drew Juliet’s hand through his arm and escorted her down the hallway to the small front receiving room the family seldom used. He had last occupied it the day he decided to go in pursuit of Juliet on her ill-omened journey to Cumbria. If one believed in fate, then this was the perfect place to be.

As they entered the room, Dalbury turned from the window overlooking the nighttime London street, his expression as bleak as the sky. Amiable closed his eyes. Foreboding rippled through his body. He could barely bring himself to put one foot before the other as he led Juliet to her brother. As though their efforts combined could shield her from this all too inevitable fate.

Juliet stared at Dalbury, her face strained, her eyes dulled.

Mr. Haimes took in the gathering, his gaze coming to rest last on Juliet. He took in her increasing figure and sighed heavily.

“Yesterday morning, as I left the magistrate’s office at Bow Street, Lord St. Cyr approached me. He made me privy to the ongoing problem with his proxy marriage to Lady Juliet Ferrers and made me aware of the solution now at hand. Lord St. Cyr called on your family solicitor, Mr. Grimes, two days ago to inquire about the status of the investigation of the validation of the proxy marriage.” Haimes cut his eyes to St. Cyr. “After some…persuasion, Grimes confessed he now held all four replies to inquiries he had been making since September.”

At this pronouncement Juliet trembled.

Amiable cursed under his breath and sat her down on the gilt-edged chaise, his hand resting on her shoulder.

“Grimes had apparently decided to withhold this information until after the holidays.” Haimes’s tone carried a hollow note. “A compassionate decision to be sure, though not a legal one.” He looked around at the forlorn stares ringing the room, his gaze again coming to rest on Juliet.

“I have in my possession a sworn statement from Mr. Grimes, which I watched him sign myself yesterday afternoon.” He raised a sheet of foolscap with writing on it and held it out to ward off any objection as Dalbury stepped forward. “It states he received the final testimony from a Mademoiselle Jeanette Valois three days ago. She writes, as the two witnesses did as well, that the marriage ceremony did take place, with her as the proxy, on February twenty-third, 1760, a week before Count Mallain received the revocation of the proxy.”

Silence shattered the room.

“What of the magistrate?” Amiable could scarcely force the words out of his parched throat. He clasped Juliet’s arm in a death grip. “What was his testimony?”

“The magistrate, Paul d’Eberhart, has died since the event took place. Which explains one delay in acquiring the information. No one at court had been assigned to attend to letters addressed to him.” Haimes took a deep breath. “As he is unable to provide testimony, French law therefore affirms the marriage contracted between Philippe…”

“No.” Juliet moaned and twisted on the chaise.

“Viscount St. Cyr and Lady Juliet Ferrers…”

“Nooo,” Juliet screamed and covered her ears. Her body shook and her face paled.

Amiable clutched her, at a loss how else to comfort her. If only stopping the runner’s words could stop the inevitable.

“Is legal and binding.”

“In France, by God.” Amiable shouted and leaped up. “It is still valid only in France.” He moved in front of Juliet, daring anyone to come near.

“I’m afraid not, Mr. Morley.” Haimes shook his head and drew another piece of heavy, official paper from his coat pocket. “Lord St. Cyr’s attorney immediately took the affidavits to the magistrate.” He unfolded the stiff paper, and Amiable’s heart lurched at the sight of the official seal affixed to the bottom. “Today he has ruled, in light of these new circumstances and because the Hardwicke Act is mute on the subject, that the marriage is valid, although irregular.”

He offered it to Amiable, who snatched it and read the document. He read and re-read words he fought to make sense of with the no, no, no shrieking in his mind. Unfortunately, the document’s determination was clear. At last, he forced himself to look into Juliet’s stricken face. The news must come from his lips, cruel though it might be. “It’s true. The court has ruled the marriage valid.”

The devastating pronouncement sounded like a death knell. Haimes wore the grim expression of an executioner. Amiable dropped to his knees and gathered his wife…not his wife—Christ, he could not fathom it—into his arms. She thrashed and sobbed, loud wails erupting from her.

He kissed her face, her brow, her cheeks. “Don’t worry, sweetheart. We will find a way to right this. You are
my
wife, Juliet,” he whispered, convinced he lied to her for the first time in their acquaintance. He could make no assurances, for their marriage had never existed in law. If they could not find grounds for an annulment, it never would.

As though from a great distance he heard her brother saying, “What is it you want, St. Cyr? If it is money, I will see you receive an amount equal to what Juliet would have brought to the marriage. Some twenty thousand pounds for her dowry, and perhaps an additional ten thousand in properties and jewels. I will have a draft prepared at my bank on Monday. In return, you will start annulment proceedings immediately. God knows you have grounds enough.”