Crossed in Love, page 18
Damien shook his head and regarded her strangely. “When was the last time you saw your sister?”
Indignantly, Melanie replied, “She writes every chance she gets. She tells the most amusing stories! I can’t wait to see her again. What time do you think she will return from the park?”
Damien leaned forward and tapped her forehead with his finger. “You aren’t listening to me, sugar plum. When did you last actually see your sister?”
He had already given the driver directions to her own home, so Melanie didn’t resent his attitude. Men had to feel as if they had the upper hand once in a while. Still, she squirmed before giving him the answer he wanted.
“Well, she must visit her in-laws at Christmas because of Pamela,” she hedged. “And she never did have a fondness for the country. She swore she’d never return once she escaped.”
“You haven’t seen her since she married, have you?” he answered for her, leaning back against the seat with his hands on her walking stick as if it were his own.
“But she writes,” Melanie protested. “I know all about sweet little Pamela and how she looks just like Jane. It is just as good as visiting. Better, since I don’t have to listen to her argue with our father.”
Damien nodded and glanced out at the street they now traversed. Melanie could see tall stone homes adorned with expensive windows and iron fences to keep out the uninvited. This street had considerably less traffic than the others they’d traversed. They passed a stately barouche with an elderly lady being helped into it by a footman in scarlet livery. Even in her inexperience, Melanie realized they had reached a wealthier part of town.
“We’re almost there, I think,” Damien murmured, not looking at her. “Will you have servants in residence?”
“The caretaker and his wife. We can hire some tomorrow.” She watched him anxiously. “You do know how to hire servants, don’t you? I have no notion at all.”
He finally sent her that warm smile she remembered so well. “You’ve left your wits to let, gosling. I’ll see if I can borrow someone’s chambermaid for the night so you can pretend you have some sort of chaperonage. I’ll come back around in the morning, and we’ll talk of hiring a real companion for you then.”
Alarmed, Melanie stared at him. “You’re not staying? You’ll leave me alone with complete strangers? You can’t do that, Damien Langland.” She hesitated instantly, realizing of course he could do that. They weren’t really married. She’d let her daydreams get the better of her. A feeling of mixed resentment and fear welled up within her as she realized Damien had no obligation whatsoever to continue this charade. Fear was a great motivator, however. Shrewdly, she asked, “Have you somewhere to go? You must have thought you would be returning to Jane’s.”
She caught the earl’s bleak expression before he carefully shuttered it behind his gentlemanly demeanor. If her lameness had taught her nothing else, it had taught her to sit quietly and watch how people really felt. Damien was in hot water right now. She sensed it immediately.
“I have friends. You needn’t worry, Melanie. I’ve been on my own for quite some time now. I fend for myself.”
Melanie set her lips and ignored this foolishness. “Well, I haven’t and I can’t. Come in with me now so I don’t look a complete ninnyhammer. We’ll send someone around to Jane’s house to see if she’s there and what she wants us to do. If she’s not there, there’s no reason we can’t continue this a little longer. I can’t get about London on my own, and it is rather senseless for me to come all this way and not see the sights. Couldn’t we pretend just a little longer, Damien?”
As the carriage halted before a stately town house, Damien gave her a long, thoughtful look that made her shiver in her shoes. She’d never noticed how long-lashed and brown his eyes were until they seemed to penetrate her very soul. She feared he wouldn’t very much like what he saw there.
“Melanie, you are twenty-five years of age and perfectly cognizant of what will happen shall I stay here with you. Jane left me standing at the church today, so I owe her no obligation. No one knows of our betrothal. We never announced it. I am perfectly free to marry you. Since, as you have obviously surmised, I am in dire need of the ready, I am more than willing to marry you instead of Jane. Actually, had I thought of it sooner, I might have sought you first, but Jane knows the way of things and you’re an innocent. I hate to tar you with the same disillusionment that we suffer. After spending some time in London and in my company, you may wish you had never come. I would not tie you or your dreams to someone of my ilk if it can be prevented. If I go into that house with you now, I go in as your husband, with all the accompanying folderol. I will allow you some time to decide if this is what you want, and if you choose otherwise, we’ll find some way to get you free of both me and your parents. But I warn you now, I will spend these next weeks trying to persuade you that we should wed in truth. I have sunk just about as low as a man can go, Melanie. I’m quite capable of seducing an innocent at this point.”
Melanie felt a momentary frisson of alarm at the warning tone of his voice, but then she looked up and saw Damien’s familiar face—neither threatening nor seductive—and she relaxed a little. No man would want her for a wife when Jane was available. He was just being gentlemanly as usual. She managed a smile and took back her walking stick. “That sounds quite enticing, Damien. Shall we begin?”
A shadow of a smile curled his lip, and he shook his head at her obstinacy, but he climbed down from the carriage and helped her alight.
When the caretaker opened the door, Damien caught Melanie’s waist in a strong grasp, stooped to catch her behind the knees, and literally swept her off her feet to carry her across the threshold. So totally startled by his action that she nearly dropped her cane, Melanie managed to grasp it with one hand while clinging to Damien’s strong shoulders with the other. She had never thought of Damien’s greater height and weight in comparison to her own smaller stature. The manner in which he casually carried her into her own home made the differences terrifyingly clear. It was a good thing she wasn’t afraid of Damien.
As it was, he left her so breathless she couldn’t speak to the astonished servant stepping back from the door. Damien had to do the honors.
“We realize we have caught you unprepared, but my lady needs to rest and wash after her journey. Some clean linen and hot water, if you would. We will make amends later.” He spoke courteously but with firm authority, never doubting that the poor man could produce what he wanted without question or complaint.
Marveling at the ease with which he took command, not only of her house and her servants, but herself, Melanie grew restive in Damien’s hold. He declined to put her down but carried her up the stairs, following the caretaker to a room adorned in Holland covers. By this time, the caretaker’s wife had appeared, taken in the situation, and started stripping back the linens.
“We were not apprised of your arrival, Miss Berkeley,” the woman said breathlessly, hurrying to ball up the huge sheets and remove them to the hallway, “or we would have hired staff and had all prepared.” She sent them a look of curiosity over her shoulder.
Once Damien set her down, Melanie could speak again, but he spoke for her. “Miss Berkeley is now the Countess of Reister. You need not apologize for lack of preparation. We will see about staff in the morning, or if you know of a few willing to come in this evening, send around for them. We will fend for ourselves for now.”
Melanie watched in amazement as he drove the servants out, leaving her alone in a strange bedchamber with this man who had suddenly begun acting suspiciously like a husband. Wide-eyed, she watched as he turned to her. She watched for an amorous or determined glint in his eyes, remembering his warning all too clearly. It had never occurred to her that Damien might take advantage of the situation to do that to her. She didn’t think any gentleman had any such inclination toward a cripple like herself. An odd feeling crept through her midsection as he inspected her with hooded gaze.
Then he nodded, gave a smile of approval, and indicated a delicate blue velveteen chair. “Sit, gosling. I’ll not woo you yet, although I admit, I felt quite possessive carrying you up those stairs like that. Is that how a husband feels, do you think? You roar so loudly sometimes, I thought you much stouter than you are. You’re a veritable feather.”
She gave this ingenuous monologue a look of suspicion, but took the chair offered so he might sit. “Don’t you begin treating me like some fragile piece of porcelain,” she warned him. “I am quite stout. It is just that my one leg is weaker and slightly shorter than the other. It tires me to walk any distance hobbling about like that.”
He took a large wing chair across the fireplace from her and regarded her through narrowed eyes. “A horse’s gait can be corrected with the proper shoes. I see no reason we cannot do the same with people. You’ll have to see a modiste first thing in the morning. You have no clothes. We’ll find a bootmaker at the same time.”
Melanie brushed aside the mention of boots but smiled with delight at the idea of new clothes. “I will have my choice of the latest London fashions! That hadn’t occurred to me. Oh, Damien, do you know the very best modiste? Or will Jane? I want to feel like the best dressed female in all London. The Countess of Reister ought to be, don’t you agree?” Then reining in this pleasant fantasy, she added, “Should you go ’round to Jane’s now? We really can’t continue this silliness until we know what happened to her.”
“I know perfectly well what happened to her,” Damien replied dryly, “but I shall go around and verify it for your sake. Have a bit of a rest, and I’ll see what your caretakers can do about summoning up some food. Do they have a household account?”
From that, Melanie quickly deduced that bribing the vicar had cost Damien his last coin. For a proud man, that must be an embarrassing circumstance. She nodded toward the reticule she had left on the night table. “The grocers and such send the bills to my solicitor for payment. I don’t believe the Harrises have much coin. I certainly have enough for a meat pie or two. I had hoped to find Jane a pretty present in the village, but I got away too late.”
Nodding curtly, he rose and emptied the reticule into his pocket. “As a fortune hunter, I soon must become used to this, but for now, I shall just relish the thought that I am spending Jane’s wedding gift on something that we will appreciate more than she would.”
He walked out, leaving Melanie with little opportunity to find words of reassurance. She ached for the pain he must feel, finding some similarity with her own. In a way, they were both handicapped, but Damien’s disability crippled his pride more than hers. She had grown accustomed to pitying looks. He never would. She must find some way to help him stand on his own, as she did.
Damien watched with amusement as his new “wife” exclaimed over the multitudinous bolts of cloth set before her. She behaved as if he had just given her Christmas a hundred times over. Silks and satins, velvets and muslins lay scattered around her chair in a rainbow of colors, and still she squealed with delight each time the modiste brought forth a new one. He hadn’t known spending someone else’s money could be so pleasant.
He knew himself for a cad and a bounder, an unscrupulous fortune hunter with every intention of trapping this enchanting innocent in his web. He’d thought he’d lowered himself as far as he could go by persuading Jane she would make an excellent countess, that the title would add to her prestige. He and Jane were two of a kind, predators in the society that fed them. He had come to loathe her as much as he loathed himself, but he needed the money and she was the quickest way to it. To substitute Jane’s innocent sister for Jane was the most caddish thing he could do, but it was too late to turn back now. Jane had escaped his net. Melanie wouldn’t.
He rationalized his actions by telling himself he would do everything in his power to make her happy, but he knew ultimately, he would destroy that happiness. It couldn’t happen any other way. The reason he needed Melanie and her money would be the very thing that destroyed her.
Still, he would give her what he could, while he could. She had time to run away. The one thing he wouldn’t do was take her to his bed until the vows were said. He could seduce her with a million little lies, but not the final one. He would return her whole to her parents if she chose against him. Unless he behaved like the cad he was, he didn’t think she would go against him. Melanie had a loving heart. She would have him.
As they left the modiste and headed for the bootmakers, she looked up at him anxiously. “Should we check at Jane’s again? Perhaps she has had second thoughts and returned home.”
He’d told her Jane had left for an extended stay with a friend in Hampshire. In reality, he’d returned to his former rooms and found a message in Jane’s furious scribbles calling him every name in the book and some he hadn’t heard before. Some bastard had obviously revealed his little secret ahead of schedule. Damien wondered who hated him that much. Or perhaps the fates worked against him, as they always had. He wondered how to keep the apostles of fate away from Melanie. Keeping Jane away from Melanie wasn’t any problem. She’d gone to Hampshire just as he’d said, only the friend she went with wasn’t female.
“Jane may send ’round a note when she returns,” Damien answered doggedly. “I have sent the appropriate announcements to the papers of our marriage. Your father will be expecting them. I daresay you’ll hear from Jane then.” It took every ounce of his pride to keep from asking her to marry him in truth again. He didn’t know what Jane would do when she discovered her little sister had fallen into his clutches.
“It’s so unlike Jane.” Melanie fretted beside him. “Are you quite certain the note was in her writing? Perhaps someone has abducted her to keep her from marrying you. I know she must still love you. I just cannot understand this at all. Are you sure we shouldn’t wait a while on those announcements? She will simply be devastated if she sees them before we have time to explain.”
Damien leaned forward and tipped her chin upward so she met his gaze. She had the most amazing heart-shaped face, with wide violet eyes and the sweetest lips when they weren’t pursed with concern as they were now. He wondered what she would do if he kissed her. He had no wish to diminish his prospects by rushing his fences. He merely brushed his thumb reassuringly over her bottom lip and watched it tremble. Good. She wasn’t immune to desire.
“You have not seen your sister in ten years, sugar plum. I assure you, Jane knows precisely what she is doing. We meant to marry this time around for the same reasons we meant to marry the first time: my title and her money. I don’t like to hurt your dreams, Melanie, but love is not a commodity easily traded in society’s market. Should you and I marry, the trade is the same one, only perhaps I can earn my way a little better with you since I can also trade experience. Jane never needed that.”
She gave him one of those shrewd looks that reminded Damien all too uncomfortably of her papa, and he removed his hand from her chin, sitting back in his seat. He knew she’d led a sheltered life. Her parents had seen to that. He just kept forgetting that innocent face disguised an all too creative mind.
“You are trying very hard to name yourself cad, Damien. A true cad wouldn’t, you know. You ought to be whispering loving sentiments and stealing kisses about now. I’m certain I’m as susceptible to both as any other maiden.”
He laughed. He couldn’t help himself. He wanted to hug and kiss her and tell her he never was such a fool as to try to get past her. But he was, and he would, and she just made it that much more challenging with remarks like that.
“I shall do just that, if you wish, my lady. I aim to please. Shall we visit the bootmakers first or just repair to the park where I shall start on those kisses?”
“The bootmakers,” she announced firmly. “I wish to be quite splendid before you’re seen about with me.”
By the time they returned to the house late that afternoon, Melanie felt quite drained. She refused to acknowledge her exhaustion to Damien who had become more pensive as the day wore on. She knew she had spent an enormous amount in just a few short hours, but she thought it vindicated a lifetime of saving. He really shouldn’t worry. She had more than enough for herself and whatever debts he’d run up. She supposed they should have gone to the bankers first, but the temptation of new clothes had diverted all good intentions. Besides, she kept waiting for her father to appear, roaring over his discovery of their lack of marriage lines. Or for Jane to come back and fall at their feet to plead her love and apologies. She just really couldn’t believe all this was happening and wanted to grasp every opportunity as it was offered.
A groan from Damien made her look up from her ruminations to discover where his thoughts had strayed. When she saw he’d covered his eyes with his hand, she glanced out the window.
Strangers sat on her doorstep. Not elegant strangers, although she couldn’t imagine even Damien’s rakish friends stooping to sitting on a doorstep. These men wore round hats and garish waistcoats and smug grins as the carriage approached. They very much seemed to be waiting for them. Melanie sent Damien a questioning look.
“The cent percenters,” he groaned. “They’ve come to collect already. Someone at the papers must have tipped them off. I’m sorry, Melanie. I’d meant to fob them off a while longer so you wouldn’t need to see them.”
“Oh, you mean loan sharks!” She looked out the window with curiosity at the smug, smiling faces grinning up at them. One man had a nose that looked as if someone must have battered it extensively. Another had a decidedly ugly red scar down the side of his face. Despite their smiling exteriors, she feared these were very rough men, indeed. “Well, I suppose it’s too late to visit the bankers. You will have to tell them to send their bills ’round to my solicitor in the morning.”
Damien gave her a look of amazement. “You don’t even know the extent of my debt. Why should you pay what you do not owe for someone who isn’t really your husband?”
