Wed Him Before You Bed Him (23 page)

It took him a couple of hours to reach the school by way of the river, yet even so he arrived a good half hour before the appointed time. He was able to enter the boathouse without being seen, since the door was unlocked. Thankfully, someone had left a lamp burning low on a hook near the door, so he wasn't forced to stumble about in the dark.

But “boathouse” proved a misnomer, which explained why she'd chosen to meet in such a spot despite her fear of the river. Though built near the Thames, which could be heard lapping on the bank a short distance away, the structure was self-contained, with a solid wood floor and four good walls. Only the grappling hooks overhead remained to show that it had once been used for boats.

Now the building was filled with archery bows, quivers of arrows, old furniture, steamer trunks, and lawn-cutting tools. He smiled. Leave it to Charlotte to turn a perfectly good boathouse into a storage and garden shed. Clearly she would never let her charges venture out on the river.

Unearthing a settee losing its stuffing, he stretched out on it, weary to the bone. He was tired of surprises. Right now he wanted only a chance to see and hold Charlotte, to forget the drama playing out in London. He had to make sure that this hadn't driven her even farther out of his reach.

Perhaps he should tell her everything, about Cousin Michael and the rest of it.

No. If he did, he would have to reveal the ugly secret at the core of his masquerade. Given that he wasn't even sure how she felt about this mess with Sarah, he couldn't take the chance of her hating him for it.

And if Charlotte stopped believing in him…

The very idea ripped his soul. He was not going to risk losing her by raising the specter of Cousin Michael! With his world crashing down about his ears, he needed her too desperately now. Let them take his dignity, drag his name through the mud—but he was
not
going to let them take Charlotte from him. Never again.

C
harlotte hurried to the boathouse, wondering if David had arrived. She had spent the afternoon and evening fretting over Mr. Pinter's revelations, and she wanted answers. Now.

When she slipped inside the boathouse, she didn't see anyone at first. Then she spotted the servant dressed in Kirkwood livery sleeping on a settee. Disappointment coursed through her…until she went over and realized it was David.

The anger that had been simmering in her all afternoon flared high. Bow Street runners were investigating his entire life, and he could sleep? Oh, that was
so
like a man.

She picked up a brick and dropped it on the floor.

David shot up and glanced about in confusion, then met her gaze. “Charlotte, you're here. I must have fallen asleep.”

“Perhaps dressing as a servant addled your senses,” she said as she plucked the powdered wig from his head and tossed it aside.

At her clipped tone, he narrowed his gaze. He lunged forward and hauled her onto his lap. “Perhaps dressing as a schoolmistress has addled yours,” he countered, bending his head to kiss her.

“Stop that,” she protested. “We need to talk.”

“We can talk later,” he growled and took her mouth with his.

For a moment she forgot her anger. She forgot he had probably lied to her for reasons she didn't yet understand. Because
this
she understood, this fire between them. When he was kissing her, he was hers and it was glorious.

Until he turned to working loose the buttons on her gown. Then she remembered her anger and shoved away to scramble off his lap.

Closing her arms about her waist, she said, “We have to talk. It's important.”

A wary expression crossed his face. “You're upset.”

“
Upset
is a rather mild word for what I am feeling now, I assure you.”

He rose from the settee and straightened to his full height. “Terence said that you don't believe I killed Sarah. Was he wrong?”

“Of course not. I know you would never do such a thing.” Her voice hardened. “But in the course of questioning me about my pupil and my association with you, Mr. Pinter told me an interesting little piece of information that sounds exactly like something you
would
do.”

He raked his fingers through hair that had been flattened by the wig, causing it to stand up in odd tufts. “Information about what? Sarah?”

“About the codicil to her will.”

When he froze, a look of alarm spreading over his face, she knew the truth. She had desperately been hoping that Pinter was mistaken.

“And what did Pinter say, exactly?” David choked out.

She scowled at him. “You know what he said. He said Sarah did not have a will. So it would have been difficult for the thing to have a codicil.”

“You saw the document.” David's bland reply was a clear
evasion. “Your attorney checked it and said it was legal.”

That
really
sparked her temper. She marched up to him with her hands fisting at her sides. “Yes, he did. Unfortunately, when I showed it to Mr. Pinter, he had an entirely different response.”

“Oh God,” he said under his breath. “You showed it to Pinter?”

The alarm in his face gave her a twinge of guilt that was swiftly banished by her reminder of what David had done. “What else was I supposed to do? After all, I assumed that my
lover
would never lie to me about such a thing.”

Ignoring the look of remorse on David's face, she went on relentlessly. “Even after Pinter told me that Sarah's family claimed she had no will, I believed in you. I told him that the Linleys must be confused. I had that blasted document to prove it, after all.” She dragged in a breath, fighting to keep from crying in front of him. “But it got hard to deny the truth when Pinter said that
your
attorney, the one who wrote up the agreement, also stated there was no will.”

David groaned.

“So when Pinter asked if he could have the ‘legacy' document,” she continued, “I did not know how to answer. He is an officer of the law. I did not think I could refuse. And I figured he would take it and discover that he was mistaken about the will.” She stared him down. “But he wasn't, was he? It
is
a fabrication. The whole legacy is just one big lie.”

He did not even bother to deny it. How could he? Instead, he grabbed her by the shoulders. “Listen to me, Charlotte. I can explain everything.”

“Explain? How can you possibly explain such a lie?” She wriggled free, her feelings of betrayal stampeding over her
already wounded heart. “I must have been mad to believe you.” A self-deprecating laugh boiled out of her. “What was I thinking? Sarah would never have given the school money.”

Hugging her waist, she whispered, “But I wanted to have you back in my life so badly, I was willing to overlook the idiocy of what you were telling me.” That was the worst of it. “Because believing it was a lie would have meant you hated me so much that you would deliberately make a fool of me just to pay me back—”

“No!” he cried, clearly horrified. “Damn it, you know it had nothing to do with paying you back for anything!”

“Do I?” It was the only explanation that made any sense. “Why else would you pretend—”

“Not for revenge, for God's sake! Do you really believe I could make love to you, ask you to
marry
me, out of revenge for something you did eighteen years ago? Especially when by then I knew why you'd done it?”

There was logic in that. But it did not answer her question. “So what other reason is there? Are you in league with Pritchard? You did seem to know him awfully well. Did he convince you to help him by lulling me into thinking I should move the school, just so he could get me out of the way?”

“Now you're not even making sense,” he bit out. “The only way you could move away from here is if the money is genuine, and it is. Every penny is yours. Legally. It was always yours. If you want it.”

Charlotte gaped at him. She couldn't believe what he was saying. She couldn't believe any of this. “How can it be mine legally if the will is not?”

“It's my own money. Out of my own investments.” His gaze was black in the lamplight. “I knew you would never
take it from me, so I made up a legacy.” He reached out to stroke her cheek, but when she jerked back, his voice hardened. “If you don't believe me, ask my solicitor.”

“He's the one who said Sarah didn't have a will,” she choked out.

“He was uneasy with the situation from the beginning, so I'm sure he thought it in my best interests when speaking to the authorities not to mention the fake codicil.”

“A pity that no one thought to include
me
in the little subterfuge.”

David blanched. “If you ask him about it, he'll tell you why I did it. He knows everything. He knows I was doing it for you.”

How she wanted to believe that. But it was a mad idea. “Why would you help me and the school with your own money? After all these years…”

“After all these years,” he said hoarsely, “I wanted to regain the woman I so foolishly had thrown away.” His voice caught. “I wanted you, and I couldn't figure out a way to cut through your defenses to have you.”

“But thirty thousand pounds—”

“I would have made it more if I'd dared.” His gaze played over her face, tender and tormented. “I knew the school was in trouble. If you'll recall, Sarah and I attended that charity to raise money for it. And after her death, I knew I wanted you back.”

This time when he lifted a hand to her cheek, she did not stop him. “But I also knew you'd be suspicious if I offered you the money outright, and you would never have let me court you while I was in mourning. You needed the funds sooner than that, what with Pritchard starting all his nonsense. So I decided upon a different plan.”

Everything he had said that first day came back to her—his insistence upon rebuilding the school elsewhere, about being involved. Surely if he had wanted revenge, he would not have wanted to spend so much time with her. And could she really think that David could make love to her while hating her?

Still, given what she had done to him, given how things had stood between them at that point, it was incredible. Why, he still hadn't even known that her foolish letter had only been published by accident. “How can I believe you?” she whispered.

He drew her stiff body into his arms. “I never stopped thinking about you, Charlotte. Never. Every time I saw you in society after I married, I had to force myself not to care, not to wonder whom you turned to in your lonely nights.”

When he kissed her hair, she didn't resist him, though she hated herself for her weakness. It frightened her, how much she wanted to believe that he cared. How could she want him in her life so badly that she would throw away everything for him?

“But once Sarah died,” he murmured, “there was no reason to fight my feelings. I had a chance to gain the wife I'd always wanted. So I did something stupid. I just didn't know what else to do.”

“You could have told me the truth,” she said against his shoulder. “You could have said you knew why I'd written the letter. You could have said all of it was in the past, and you wanted to start over.”

“And would you have believed me?”

“I don't know.” She lifted her gaze to him, her feelings still confused. “But you never even gave me the chance to believe you.”

“I was afraid you'd dismiss the idea outright. I didn't know how you felt about me, if you even cared for me anymore. I needed a bridge to get to you. The legacy was the bridge.”

Godwin had said as much the first time she'd talked to him about it, but she'd thought him mad. And now…

Now everything was so much more difficult. David had
made
it more difficult. “I cannot take your money. You realize that.”

His eyes blazed down at her. “Yes, you can.”

“I cannot. How would it look?”

“If you marry me, it will look like your husband helping your school.”

She pushed free of his arms. “Surely you realize I cannot marry you
now,
not with Sarah's death hanging over your head. They will think that we…that you and I…”

“Oh. Right. I keep forgetting about this madness with Sarah. I can hardly even believe they think she was murdered. It makes no sense.”

“So you understand why we cannot marry right now.”

Uttering a groan of pure frustration, he stared down into her face. “Of course. I certainly don't want them coming after you. But this won't go on forever. They'll find whoever killed her. We just have to wait to marry until they do. In the meantime, let me loan you the money—”

“Oh, yes,” she said with heavy sarcasm, “that would not look suspicious in the least, you loaning a widow thirty thousand pounds.”

A look of uncertainty crossed his face. “Perhaps if we are careful in how it's done…”

“Have you gone mad? That man Pinter wants your head! And I will not be the cause of your being hanged.”

He snorted. “They're not going to hang me. I have an alibi for that night.”

“Then why did Mr. Pinter not mention it?”

His expression grew more guarded. “It's…complicated.”

A cold chill seeped through her. She could think of only one reason he would have an alibi for that night that he did not want to tell
her
about. “Were you…with another woman, is that it?”

“God, no!” The shock on his face looked genuine. “I never broke my marriage vows. Not once.”

The fierceness with which she wanted to believe him frightened her. “I would not blame you, you know. You said that you and she had not shared a bed in some time.”

“That doesn't mean I felt free to take a mistress. I told you years ago, I believe in fidelity. And I always hoped Sarah and I could find some way through to repairing our marriage. I thought if I could wean her from the gambling…”

Pity rose up in her, despite her attempts to squelch it. “Then what is your alibi? And why did you not tell Pinter of it?”

He closed up, as he always did. “The secret is someone else's. And it has nothing to do with us, anyway.”

“Your secrets never seem to involve us—until they blow up in my face, as they did this afternoon,” she snapped.

She turned for the door, tired of trying to sort through his evasions, wishing to escape the emotional maelstrom he stirred up inside her whenever he was near. She did not need this agony in her life.

“Where are you going?” he demanded.

“You do as you please, David. I want none of it.”

“What the bloody hell does
that
mean?” he growled as he followed her.

“That means this is not a good time for us to be…involved. We need some time apart.”

“Look here, Charlotte, I know we cannot see each other until they've found Sarah's killer. It's too risky, not only for me, but for you. I can't have them thinking anything wrong of you.” A note of desperation sounded in his voice. “But surely once this matter is settled, and things go back to normal—”

“You don't understand.” She could not bear even to face him as she spoke the words. “It's not just about the danger or any of that. I…I just don't think that you and I are…a good idea right now. Not until I've settled the school's problems and made up my mind about how I feel about marriage. Until then, it is better if we do not—”

“No, damn it!” he hurried up behind her just as she reached the door. “You can't be saying what I think you're saying!” He grabbed her from behind, his fingers digging into her arms. “I won't let you do this. I need you too much.”

Not love, but
need.
It was not enough. Not anymore. “You clearly do not need me enough to let me know your secrets.”