Only Scandal Will Do (19 page)

“Katarina, no!”

“You called him Reginald!”

Their outrage overlapped, a discordant sound. Dalbury’s face flushed fiery red. Reginald threw a hostile glare at him and dipped a hand toward his sword.

“No!” She stepped between the two men. “I have said. It is over and I will make an end to this. I gave my word to Lord Dalbury and I intend to honor it.” She turned to her would-be protector. “I would, however, be obliged, if you would attend the ceremony, though I understand if you prefer not. I will have no friends present save Jack and possibly Aunt Harriet.” She met his eyes, completely ignoring her hovering bridegroom. “It would be comforting to have another kind face at the ceremony.”

Matthews looked stricken, as though she had asked him to butcher an innocent. He recovered quickly though, and bowed. “I am honored, Lady Katarina, to be counted your friend. If it is your particular wish that I attend the ceremony, you may rely on it I will be there. ’Til six o’clock, my lady.” With that he bent over her hand, touched his warm lips to her skin, and was gone.

Katarina stared after him and sighed.

“You would prefer to marry him, my lady?” Dalbury’s tone sounded carefully neutral, all trace of belligerence disappeared.

Facing her bridegroom, she took stock of the marquess, something she had never taken time to do. He was a tall young man, and his toned, hardened muscles showed clearly through his disheveled garments. His skin, tinged with a ruddy glow from their exertions, carried a bronzed hue, attesting to a life lived often outdoors. He towered almost a full head taller than she; indeed, she craned her neck to peer into his face, which appeared flushed and carefully stripped of emotion. The scars on his cheek were healing: thin, pinkish, and slightly puckered. He would probably carry them the rest of his life, his rugged good looks forever marred because of her.

“No, my lord. I would have preferred to marry Amiable Dawson in Virginia, but that seems not meant to be.” She schooled her features to be void of emotion.

“You are in love with him, then?”

“No. But he would have married me and been kind. We could have made a life together, I believe.”

“As you think we cannot? That I cannot be kind?” His tone held a trace of despair and his brows were raised beseechingly. The brown depths of his eyes seemed devoid of everything except concern for her next words.

“I believe you can be kind, my lord. The question is, will you be kind to me?”

“It will be my life’s ambition, Lady Katarina.” His voice shook with conviction.

“Then I will honor my word and marry you at six o’clock this evening.” Unsure how to respond to the look of joy that leapt into his face at her words, she lowered her eyes. “Now, may I please leave to prepare for the ceremony?”

Dalbury looked as though he would say something further, but she made good her escape, stopping only to retrieve her sword from its resting place beside the prostrate Tommy Redmond. She turned to Dalbury and mustered her old spirit. “If you intend your friend to stand up with you, my lord, I suggest you spend the afternoon making sure he
can
stand.”

That last look in his eyes triggered the memory of her body responding passionately to his gentle touch, the safe feeling of his arms around her, her head pillowed on his strong chest. These, and other seductive thoughts of their past encounters, followed her as she searched the downstairs for her brother. By the time she found Jack writing a note to Aunt Harriet in the front parlor, she was heated from head to toe, having almost convinced herself that life married to the marquess might actually have its advantages.

* * * *

Katarina appeared the eager bride when she and Jack left for Dunham House at a quarter to six. With Margery’s help, she had taken extra pains with her toilette, attired in the ice-blue silk intended for her wedding to Amiable Dawson. Her hair, under a lacy pinner cap, formed fashionable waves framing her face. She would do the family credit and impress her bridegroom into the bargain.

Jack had been quiet, even sullen all afternoon. Why, when he had gotten his way? She’d spent the time bracing herself for the encounters to come, both at the wedding ceremony and afterward. Though hard to admit defeat in the matter, perhaps her marriage would not be the disaster she’d once feared. The marquess’s words and demeanor this morning went a long way toward dispelling those fears.

While the carriage wound through the streets of London, Kat tried to entice Jack out of his surly mood. “Why so gloomy? You should be elated. You haven’t lost me to Virginia and you’ve gained a wealthy and influential brother-in-law.”

“This was your own doing. I offered to fight him and you wouldn’t have it. So don’t come crying to me now.”

Did that fight still gall him? “All fighting would have done was get you killed. I’d still have had to marry him because with you dead, I’d have no one else to protect me. And I’d then be married to the man who not only compromised me, but killed my brother. I think my solution best. I had my chance, and I lost. But I think I can live with the consequences.”

Despite her words and an encouraging smile, Jack still scowled. “I particularly did not care for the way he treated you after the duel. Biting your neck.” His expression froze into hard lines. “It was almost obscene.”

Heat rose in her face at the mention of that scene, and she fingered the small wound on her neck. Her flesh had pebbled all over at his touch, and the feel of his lips on her skin had made her want to turn to him and pull his mouth down to hers. Resisting the urge to fan herself, she said, “It truly was not that bad.”

When his brows drew down in a deeper scowl, she hastened to reassure him. “I think the marquess and I will get along well enough. He has acted the gentleman through all of this, and when we spoke after the duel he promised to be kind. I believe him, Jack. I think…” Katarina paused, but made herself continue. “He may have come to care for me. And I believe I could care for him. So you have no cause to berate yourself.”

Jack’s face went white. Mouth puckered, he stared out the window as if unable to meet her eyes. Alarmed by this unexpected response, she placed her hand on his arm. “Jack? What is wrong? I thought you would be happy this marriage is no longer so repugnant to me.”

He turned to her then, and she drew back sharply at the anger that filled his face. She would swear sparks flew from his eyes, which flashed so vehemently beneath his lowered brows. “Is that truly what you feel, Katarina?” His voice frightened her with its lack of warmth.

“Y-y-yes,” she stuttered, afraid of him as never before. “W-what is wrong?”

Jack clenched his fist, then relaxed it and drew a letter from his breast pocket. He opened it, skimmed the words he had obviously already read. Crinkling the paper in a harsh grip, he swore underneath his breath. “Yesterday, I took your words to heart, Kat. When you said we knew nothing really about the marquess? So I sent letters to Lord Braeton and Lord Malton, a man at my club who knows Dalbury, asking for information about him because he had offered for you. One came this morning, but it gave me little more information than I already knew. The chap from my club touched on the scandals, hinted some of Dalbury’s entertainments were more risque than most gentlemen’s parties, but nothing that seemed truly detrimental to his character.”

Her heartbeat raced, then slowed. A sudden stomach cramp, and her mouth tasted of bile. “This is the response from Lord Braeton?” She barely recognized her own voice as she whispered the question.

“It came while you were dressing.” He watched her face, and shook his head. “According to Braeton, who has known Dalbury for years, the marquess is not only a rake of the first degree but a man who has never, to his knowledge, pursued a young woman of good family with the purpose of marriage until this season. Now he needs to marry and get an heir, but most members of the
ton
won’t consider him eligible because of the scandals last year.”

She tried to find some loophole in this logic, to keep at bay the icy fingers of doubt creeping up her spine. “But we know about the scandals. He was defending his sister, for God’s sake.”

“He also kept mistresses, both here and in Italy, according to Braeton. He may even hold part interest in the very house where you were sold to him.” Jack’s look seemed to bore into her. “Have you forgotten so soon that he bought you for a ridiculous sum, just so he could bed you?”

She shook her head and crossed her arms over her chest, hugging herself as her heart sank. Dalbury might very well have duped her again. But– “If Braeton holds the marquess in such disdain, why did Lady Braeton confide in me her hopes for a match between him and her cousin?” Perhaps this letter was a ruse, a way for Braeton to salvage an alliance with the marquess. She hoped so.

“Lord Braeton was not aware of his wife’s intentions until the night of the ball. He writes that he has forbidden Lady Braeton from pursuing such a match, and urges me to turn the marquess away as well.”

“He certainly seemed jovial enough to him at the ball.” Anger–at Braeton, Jack, the marquess, herself–seemed a fiery knot lodged in her chest.

“You can esteem a man a friend, Kat, and still not want him married to your relations.”

Jack’s look of pity was more than she could bear. “The man keeps mistresses and frequents a brothel he may own to buy women without a twinge of conscience,” he said. “He killed two men who insulted his sister, when he could have just as easily spared their lives. And his ‘entertainments’ that Malton spoke of, have apparently been re-instated at his house. Word was out, via the servants, that an entertainment was planned for today, one so bawdy that his staff was dismissed from the house. I daresay he had to call it off at the last minute because of your wager.”

“So he wants me for his brood mare, is that it?” The marquess wanted only one thing from her–an heir. He was the same prodigious rake she’d met in March, more than able to seduce her with sweet words into thinking he cared for her. And once she married him, not only would she have to submit to his baser attentions, she would have to put up with his carousing and infidelity as well. The marriage that such a short time ago held so much promise, now offered only misery.

Jack rapped on the trap. “Turn back for home, Benson,” he called to the coachman.

The words penetrated her exhaustion. “What are you doing, Jack?”

“You are not going to marry him. Not after this.”

“Then what will you do, challenge him?”

Jack’s impassive face was his answer. She stood up in the slowing carriage, and knocked on the roof with her knuckles. “Drive on, Benson. We must not be late.” The last was shouted as Jack hauled her into her seat.

“Katarina, you will not–”

“I will. And you will not stop me.” She grasped his arm as he tried to raise his walking stick to the trap a second time. “I will not have you challenge him. Even disregarding your safety as an issue, if you challenge him the whole story of the brothel will come out. I will be ruined, you will be shunned and the scandal will follow us for the rest of our lives. That will not happen on my account.” She grabbed his hands and held them, gazing into his eyes, begging for his understanding. “Despite his subterfuges, I issued that wager and I lost. In honor, I can do nothing but marry the man.” She shook her head to forestall his protest. “My situation is no worse, I suppose, than any other arranged marriage. Except I am going into it with no illusions about the groom. So I will hear no more from you other than your best wishes for my happiness.”

He jerked his hands from hers. “I would not insult your ears with such a lie.”

“You would wish me ill, then?” She managed a shadow of a smile for him. “I need your support if I am to do this. If you love me, don’t fail me.”

Though she could see how it cost him, Jack nodded in agreement as the carriage slowed before the splendid house that would shortly be her home. Indeed, her trunks, which had never been unpacked, were following in a separate conveyance.

Once inside, she and Jack were shown into a large drawing room, furnished lavishly in blue and gold. Jack sat, stony-faced, on the gilt-edged sofa to await the rest of the wedding party. Drawn to one of the tall casement windows that faced west, Kat gazed at a formal garden at the back of the house. The sun, now beginning to lower in the sky, cast deep shadows on the fancifully shaped topiary trees and elegant garden ornaments. Tears rose, and she tried to swallow them back. These were her last moments of freedom and in her heart she could not help but feel devastated by the finality of them.

The door opened. She straightened her shoulders and fixed what she hoped would pass for a pleasant smile on her face. Never would she let him know her true feeling. He would know her scorn, but her despair was hers alone. She turned, surprised to see Lord Trevor enter followed by Lord Dalbury, who escorted a young woman.

She had never seen Dalbury dressed to the degree of magnificence he now displayed. His jacket, of silver and black jacquard, gleamed with buttons that must be actual diamonds. They caught the firelight and twinkled like icy stars. Frothy lace cascaded from his stock and spilled at his cuffs, layers and layers that almost obscured his hands. His waistcoat was pure cloth of silver, embroidered in black, with black satin breeches, snowy white stockings and jet-black shoes. For all his elegance, he glittered coldly in the flickering light of the room.