Betina Krahn (15 page)

T
HE
P
RINCE OF
W
ALES
sat in his coach outside Claridge’s, watching “Dandy” escort Mariah Eller into the hotel and feeling a twinge of relief. The dapper Dandy had been instructed to wait until she reached her rooms, then to see if Jack was in his room and bring him out for a talk with Bertie.

“She honestly proposed marrying St. Lawrence?” Jack Sprat, seated across from Bertie, reacted to the prince’s news with a loosened jaw that made his thin, dolorous face look even longer. “Iron Jack?”

“Doesn’t know him like we do, eh, Avery?” Bertie shook his head. “Thinks she can mold him into something ‘suitable.’”

“Humph. Not unless she’s got a hammer and tongs up her skirts.” Sprat sat forward to look out as Bertie sat back. “Never seen a man with more steel in his spine.”

“Twice the man his brothers were. Dependable as sunrise. Now and again comes up with a remark that lets you know those still waters run plenty deep.” Bertie tapped his temple. “Keeps his thoughts close, though.”

“Thinks too much,” Sprat diagnosed. “Not good for a man.”

“He’s seen me to my bed more times than I care to remember.” The future king turned somber. “Been a loyal and considerate fellow on all accounts. I’d hate to see him come to a bad end over a woman.”

“Still and all, she is a beauty,” Sprat ruminated. “And witty.”

“Too clever by half. Managed to dispense with the list in order to set her sights on him. Scheming minx. Not that I don’t admire ambition in a woman…just not in a mistress.”

“So, you’ve gone off her then?”

“I’ll see what Jack has to say.” Bertie sighed sharply. “If I do go forward with her, it will be short. Don’t sleep well beside a clever woman. Never have.”

“J
ACK
!
Stop!”

Mariah rushed into Jack’s room to intervene, but had to dodge the grappling men to avoid being knocked down. “Stop it, Jack—please!”

Her presence registered and his slackening hold gave his opponent space to wedge in a blow. His head snapped back and he staggered but kept his feet. She made for him, but he waved her back and charged the man again, this time landing a punch that knocked his opponent to his knees. She managed to grab him by the coat and pull him back toward the door.

“What’s going on, Jack? Who is this?”

“My brother…the honorable Jared St. Lawrence…come to see I don’t embarrass the family,” Jack said, panting as he wiped blood from his cheek.

Mariah recognized the similarity in size and coloring between the two men as Jared shoved to his feet and reached for his handkerchief, eyes blazing. But there the similarities stopped. Jared was Jack carved out of pure flint.

“This must be Bertie’s trull,” he said, raking her with a hostile glare.

“Her name is Mariah Eller. Widow of Sir Mason Eller.” Jack pulled her against his side. “Soon to be my wife.”

“For God’s sake, Jack!” Marchant stepped forward, mopping his brow. “She’s already Bertie’s mistress, for all
intents and purposes. He expects to have her in his bed a week from now.”

Horror filled Mariah as Jack’s brother turned a scathing look on her. Jack’s friends…his family…Bertie…they all thought the worst of her. How long would it be before their common opinion overwhelmed Jack’s reputation and prospects and slowly poisoned him against her?

Even as her heart was sinking, Jack put an arm around her and pulled her against his side. He was saying something about what Jared and the baron could do with—Wait. What was it he said a minute ago? She was going to be his wife?

She tried to get him to talk to her, but he ushered her forcefully out the door and toward her room. She caught sight of Mercy standing a few doors down, wearing her nightcap, quilted gown and a thick shawl.

“Get your mantle and a cloak for Mercy,” Jack said as they reached Mariah’s door. “She’s coming with us.”

“Coming where?” Trying to resist him was like trying to halt a locomotive engine with a full head of steam. “Tell me what you’re—”

“For once, just do as I ask, Mariah,” he said, ignoring the protests of his brother and Marchant spilling into the hall behind them. “I’ve had enough of people telling me what’s what tonight.”

He pulled her and Mercy with him down the stairs and through the lobby to order the night doorman to find them a cab, a wagon—anything with wheels. He was so intent on the rush of rebellion in his veins that he failed to see the familiar figure of Jack A. Dandy lounging by the reception desk or to notice the way the fellow snapped to attention at the sight of them.

W
AITING
across the street, Bertie and Sprat saw the doorman rush out of the hotel and give two short, sharp blasts of his
whistle, summoning a growler. But after a look up and down the street, spotting none of the four-seater cabs, he blew a single sharp blast and waved on a smaller Hansom that was waiting down the block.

As the doorman rushed back to the lobby, the doors burst open and Jack and Mariah Eller emerged, dragging an old woman with them. The three crowded into the two-seater and took off at a fierce clip.

While they were staring after the cab, Dandy came running out and Sprat opened the door to admit him.

“What in hell’s going on?” Bertie demanded. “Where is he off to?”

“No…idea,” Dandy wheezed, trying to catch his breath. “I delivered her, she got her key…I gave her time to get to her room. I was starting up to fetch Jack for you when I heard some kind of a ruckus and he came rushing down with her and some old woman.”

“What’s the damned idiot doing? Where would he be going at this hour?” Bertie growled in frustration. “I’m going to bloody well find out!” Seizing the impulse of the moment, he stuck his head out the window and ordered his driver, “Follow that cab!”

I
NSIDE THE
Hansom, they were so crowded they could hardly breathe until Jack pulled Mariah onto his lap and wrapped both arms around her. Mercy gave several “tsk’s” at the liberty he took with her mistress, but she was too grateful for the room and too busy holding her cloak closed against the cold air coming through the open cab front to complain.

“It won’t take long, I promise,” he said, running his eyes and hands frantically over Mariah. “Are you all right? Bertie didn’t—”

“He was a gentleman.” She steadied herself against the
back of the cab seat, turning her shoulder to the wind. “Jack, what happened back there with the baron and your brother?”

“Apparently Marchant saw us in the lobby last night and decided something was going on between us. He fetched my brother to knock some sense into me.” His voice hardened. “Never been a successful tactic with me, the frontal assault.”

“Jack, I have to tell you—” His fingers to her lips stopped her.

“No, Butterfly,
I
have to tell
you—
” he tossed Mercy a close-your-ears look “—what I should have said days ago.” His throat tightened. “I love you. With everything in me. With all that I’ve got.” He stroked her cheek and pulled her dark, luminous gaze into his. “Which may not be much after tonight, but it’s all yours. I love you. I can’t say it any better.” He felt the softening in her frame and pulled her tight against him, holding her fiercely. “I nearly lost my mind when Bertie spirited you away. I was damned close to striking the future king of Britain.”

“Ye were with the
prince?
” Mercy gaped at her, then scowled at him. “Ye might ’ave told a body.”

“I wasn’t exactly thinking straight,” he said to both women. “Then I realized, watching him walk away with you, that I don’t ever want to lose you. Not even just for a stroll. Not even to my future king.”

Mariah’s eyes shimmered in the flashes of streetlight.

“Stop there, Jack,” she said, taking his face between trembling hands. “It’s enough to have you say that you love me.” Tears filled her eyes and voice. “I’ll cherish that always. But your brother is right. I never fully realized what it might do—you can’t ruin yourself on my account.”

“A little late to worry about that, isn’t it? You’ve knocked my life arse over teakettle, seven different ways. But the thought
of not seeing you, not touching you, not hearing your laugh or breathing your scent is unbearable. I want you in my life, my bed, my heart. I want to laugh with you and celebrate Christmases with you and pick out new hats with you. God willing, I want to have children with you and grow old with you…and read every book in old Mason’s scandalous library with you.”

Tears rolled down her cheeks at the hope, the love in his eyes. She laid her forehead against his and closed her eyes, wanting nothing more than to embrace the joy battering the “sensible” barriers in her heart.

“Marry me, Mariah, and make me the happiest crazy man in Britain.”

She lifted her head to look at him.

“If I marry you, the prince will—”

“Have to look for another mistress? Absolutely. Discover that not even princes get their way all the time? He could use a reminder now and again.” He ran his hands up her shoulders to cradle her face. “There are a thousand reasons against it, Butterfly, and only one for it. But that one—the love we feel for each other—outweighs every damned objection you and I and the rest of the world could ever come up with against it.

“Marry me, Mariah.
Make me yours.
”

Make him hers? Take him into her life as she had into her heart? The fact that he thought he had to ask said volumes about his respect for her.

“Yes. Oh, yes!” She flung her arms around his neck and sank into his hungry kiss with all the joy and passion she possessed. From across the coach came a whimper and a sniffle.

“Good work, sarr.” Mercy’s voice was choked with emotion. “It were touch an’ go there for a bit, but ye got ’er done.”

The cab stopped outside the vicarage of St. Thea the Divine
Church in the south of Knightsbridge. A single gas lamp provided light for the steps and front doors. Jack put his arm around Mariah as they waited for someone to answer their knock. A bluff, hale-looking blond fellow in a cassock and Anglican split collar opened the door and stood squinting at them in surprise.

“Jack St. Lawrence?” The vicar half smiled, looking confused.

“Nathan—thank God you’re still posted here. I need your help.”

“Of course, Jack.” The clergyman stepped back, making room for them. “Whatever I can do.”

Jack’s countenance changed as he broke into a beaming smile.

“We need someone to marry us. Tonight.”

The good vicar took in their glowing faces and close embrace.

“I think you’d better come in.”

He led them into a cozy parlor, where the coals in the grate had already been banked for the night. A petite dark-haired woman wearing a night-braid and a warm robe appeared behind them.

“I heard voices. What is it, Nathan?” she asked, wiping sleep from her luminous brown eyes.

“You caught me up late finishing a sermon,” the vicar said. “This is my wife, Kristine.” He beckoned to her and she went to settle in the crook of his arm. “This is Jack St. Lawrence, dear…the fellow I used to count on to keep me from being hacked mercilessly in football matches at school. He’s…here for a wedding.”

“This is my bride, Mariah Eller,” Jack said. “Mariah, this is Father Nathan Lord. We were at Rugby together as boys.”

“Just Nathan, please…if you don’t mind,” Nathan said.

“Congratulations.” Kristine’s face lighted as she embraced
Mariah and wished her many years of happiness and a house filled with healthy children. “I’ll go light the candles.”

“But, Kristine—” Nathan began.

She reached for a shawl and was out the door before he could stop her. He sighed.

“She’s often asked to prepare the church and stand in as a witness. It seems she never tires of weddings.” Then he took Jack aside for a moment. “There is, however, a potential obstacle. I can’t read the vows, Jack, if it is not to be a legal and binding marriage. We must have a license.”

“No problem.” Jack reached into his coat pocket and pulled out the envelope that had seared itself into his consciousness. “A special license. A friend secured it from the Bishop of London for me—” he glanced at Mariah with a speaking look “—thinking I might need it on short notice.”

Father Nathan opened it and looked it over, eyes widening.

“You always did have influential friends, Jack.” He frowned. “Mariah’s name is here but yours is not.”

“That’s easily remedied.” Jack took the paper, smoothed it out on the side table and filled in his own name and signature. Afterward Mariah signed with trembling hands and then asked Mercy to stand up with her. The old servant nodded through a drizzle of tears.

When the paperwork was done, Jack and Mariah followed Nathan through the open walkway into a chilly stone sanctuary warmed by two banks of glowing tapers. After a few instructions, they took their places before the chancel railing in the fragrant glow of beeswax candles, holding hands and feeling their hearts racing.

As Father Nathan directed them, they traded promises of faith and fidelity, agreeing to love, comfort, and support each other in sickness and health, riches and poverty, and through good times and bad. Halfway through the ceremony a toddler
in a nightgown came stumbling into the sanctuary, rubbing his eyes. Kristine picked him up in her shawl and patted him to send him back to sleep.

Then came those blessed words: “I pronounce you husband and wife.”

Jack not only kissed Mariah afterward but picked her up and swung her around as he did so. She wrapped her arms around his neck, absorbing the moment, letting her laughter mingle with his. When he set her back on her feet, she caught both his gaze and his heart with her smile.

“There’s no turning back now,” she said, glowing.

“You’re mine at last.” His voice lowered but still carried all the way to the back of the church. “And no matter what happens tomorrow and the day after, I am yours.”

F
ATHER
N
ATHAN
and Kristine invited them into the rectory for a glass of wine and some cake which they gladly accepted. Soon the church was quiet enough that whispers could be heard at the back, in the darkened narthex.