Her Counterfeit Husband (12 page)

“I wish my husband would lose his memory if it meant he’d become a better person,” Candace whispered so the other ladies wouldn’t overhear.

“I’m sorry.”

“Why should you be sorry?  You weren’t the one who arranged my marriage?  It was my greedy brother
who did the vile deed.  I’m just glad I finally conceived so Ian won’t come to my bed anymore.”

Anna inwardly shuddered.  She knew all-too-well how awful it was to have a brute of a husband in her bed.  “I can’t blame you for being relieved.  I never got such a reprieve, but at least mine was always quick.”

In fact, Anna estimated it took her husband a total of five minutes from the time he
entered her bedchamber to when he left
.  She used to count down the minutes to distract herself at first, and after a while, she counted
them
to assure herself it’d soon be over.

She reached for Candace’s hand and squeezed it.  “I hope you hav
e a son.” And she hoped Ian
wasn’t the type of gentleman who wanted two sons in case one died.  “You do realize you can live apart from him if you have a son.”

“That’s what I’m hoping for.  He only wanted an heir.  Otherwise, he wouldn’t have married, and any lady would’ve suited as long as she wasn’t associated with scandal.”

“What irony it is when our pristine reputations attr
act the wrong kind of gentleman.”

“A cruel twist of fate might be a better way of stating it.”

Anna let go of Candace’s hand and smiled.  “You’re always welcome at Camden should you need a place to stay while you seek out your own home.”

“Thank you, Anna.  You’ve always been a good friend.  I had a feeling you’d be dear to me when I first met you at the engagement party.”

“Ian and my husband knew each other since their school days.  It was natural
you and I were bound to meet
.”

Lady Templeton approached them with three ladies following close behind.  “You two don’t make it a habit of keeping to yourselves during all of Lord Mason’s dinner parties, do you?”

“Oh, they do,” Helen rep
lied.  “If you marry Mason, you’ll get used to it.”

Anna’s cheeks warmed.
  Helen often chided her and Candace for removing themselves from the other ladies on several occasions.  “My husband almost died
. 
It’s been a hard ordeal.”

“Then why did you agree to attend this dinner party?” Lady Templeton asked.

Anna couldn’t tel
l if she was trying to bait her
or if she was honestly concerned.  “Lord Mason is my husband’s brother.  It’d be improper for us to neglect attending the party.”

“Hmm...” She shrugged.  “I suppose that line of reasoning works as good as any.”

The other three ladies giggled and whispered amongst themselves.

Anna f
rowned.  All right.  So Lady Templeton
was hoping to bait her.  That being the case, she would fit in very well with those three cackling busybodies
hovering around her
.
Anna turned her attention to Lady Templeton who looked overly impressed with herself.  “So you and Lord Mason met while he was in British India?”

Lady Templeton sat in a chair and, like a bunch of puppies, the other ladies followed suit.  “
One might term it that way, but I prefer to think of it as me taking the initiative to get something I need.”

Anna glanced at Candace who gave a slight shrug.  “I’m afraid I don’t understand your meaning, my lady.”

“You weren’t supposed to,” Lady Templeton replied with a snicker.

Her skin bristled, and she knew right then and there that she didn’t like Lady Templeton.  Such a thing wasn’t necessarily bad.  At least if Lord Mason married her, the two would be
an equal match
.

“Was he as dashing as he claims he is when meeting the fairer
sex?” Helen asked, her
lips curled up in mischief.

Lady Templeton chuckled.  “Is that what he claims?  While I wouldn’t exactly call him inadequate, I will disclose that
I was far more charming than he was
.” As Helen stifled another giggle, she touched her arm and added, “We must never tell the gentlemen this, of course.  You know how much they pride
themselves on
their prowess when obtaining our affections.”

“That is the way g
entlemen are,” Helen replied.

Anna sighed and glanced at Candace who looked just as eager to get away from them as she felt.  Before the others could notice her friend’s unease, Anna cleared her throat.  “Lady Templeton, I’d love to hear
your version
of
how you and Lord Mason met.”

“Oh yes!” Helen eagerly nodded as the other ladies turned to Lady Templeton in interest.  “Please tell us!”

“All right,” Lady Templeton agreed as she shifted into a more comfortable position on the seat.  “First, however, I must assur
e you that every part is true.” With a wicked grin, she continued in a sly voice, “Especially when he fell at my feet and swore his undying devotion to me.”

Resisting the urge to roll her eyes, Anna put on a polite smile and listened as the lady
continued with
her endless drivel of how she impressed Lord Mason.

***

“And this is the sword I acquired when I trav
eled to China,” Mason told his brother
as he turned the object over in his hands, admiring the way the silver blade glistened next to the firelight in the den.  “Would you like to hold it?”

Jason shook his head.  “No, I’d rather not.”

“Come now, my brother.  You never could resist the opportunity to touch a weapon, especially a sword as
magnificent as this.”

From across the room, two gentlemen played chess and the others watched.  Though Jason didn’t remember anything about the game except
that
Mason had told him he loved it, he would have preferred to have been over there at the moment
instead of here with Mason.

Now as Mason held the sword out to him, Jason reluctantly took
it in his hands, waiting for something to trigger his memory, but his mind was blank. 
“You said I used to enjoy holding this?”

“I didn’t say you enjoyed it
. 
I said you couldn’t resist the opportunity to hold it.”

Mason laughed and gave him a hearty pat on the back, an action which caused him to stumble forward
a
nd knick his hand on the blade.

“Jason, you shouldn’t be so clumsy.  Look what you did to my blade.” He took the sword from Jason in an abrupt way that almost caused Jason to get another cut.  “I’ll have to get this cleaned.  Immediately.”

While he went to pull the cord to alert the butler to enter the room, Jason sucked on the small cut in the palm of his hand.  It took him a moment to recall his handkerchief.  He quickly grabbed it and pressed it to his wound.  Compared to what he’d
been through with the
fall down the stairs, this was a minor thing.  Unfortunately, he wished he could say the same thing about Mason.  He didn’t know why, but
Mason seemed to
have a vindictive streak
.  And for some reason, it was aimed
directly at him
.

The butler entered the room, and Mason gave him orders to clean t
he sword.  Jason glanced over at Mason, and for a moment, he thought that Mason scowled at him.  But in the next instant, Mason smiled.  Jason blinked and shook his head, not sure of what to make of the whole thing.  Surely, Mason understood he hadn’t meant to get blood on the sword, and truth be told, he wouldn’t have if it hadn’t been for Mason giving him a good swat on the back.

“Don’t stand there looking as if you’ve lost all your friends,” Ian called out in a jovial tone.  “Pull up a chair.  The game is getting good.”

If for no other reason than to have something to do, Jason made his way to the chess game where the two players were studying the piece
s.  Jason retrieved a chair,
found a free spot to sit and breathed a sigh of relief.  He hadn’t realized he
’d been nervous around Mason.

The butler left, and Mason went to the wall of his prized collectio
n of weapons and brushed a pistol
with a cloth.  Jason turned his attention back to
the game.  Even if he didn’t remember the rules, he thought watching the two men strategically move their piece
s
across the board was more entertaining than Mason’s ramblings.  The men remained quiet, and the spectators upped their bets on who they thought would win.  According to Ian, it was a close game.  Jason could only nod and continue to watch as the men played.

He didn’t know how long he was watching the game until his mind wandered off, but the butler’s voice jolted h
im back to the game.  “Brandy, Your G
race?”

Jason straightened in his seat and turned to the butler who
presented a tray with glasses full of brandy on it
.  “Yes, thank you.”

He went to reach for one glass, but the butler turned the tray slightly to the right and said, “Perhaps this glass might be better.”

“I don’t think it should matter,” Jason replied.

“Lord Mason requested you have this particular glass.”

Jason’s gaze went to Mason who was examining the sword.  Turning his attention back to the butler, he whispered, “I’ll make do with this one.”

He tried to reach for another glass, but the butler stopped
him.  “Excuse my boldness, Your G
race, but Lord Mason was quite adamant you receive this glass instead.” He lifted the glass and held it to him.

Jason hesitated, but then Mason glanced in his direction and he knew he had to accept it.  He settled the glass on his lap and watched while the other gentlemen took whichever glass they wanted.  Studying the glass in his lap, he tried to figure out if something was in the brandy that shouldn’t be
there
but knew
he wouldn’t be able to see anything suspicious in it
.  Mason was much too clever for that.

“Are you sure you don’t want to place a bet?” Ian asked, drawing Jason’s attention back to the game.

“No,” he replied.

“I’ve never known you to resist the chance to make some easy money.”

“It appears that Jason is a different person ever since he lost his memory,” Mason
said
.

Not realizing Mason had walked up behind him, Jason jerked.

Mason laughed and placed a hand on his shoulder.  “My goodness, dear brother, you’re as squeamish as a lady.  First the sword and now this.  I hope you haven’t lost your taste for liquor as well or we might have to send you to the drawing room so you can sip tea with the ladies.”

Most of the men chuckled, but Lord Basemore—if Jason remembered right—shook his head.  “He’s been ill and lost his memory, Mason.  There’s no need to be so critical of him.”

“You’re right,” Mason replied, appear
ing appropriately contrite.  “It’s just that the old Jason would have put me in my place.  Even if that was aggravating at times, I rather miss it.  But
,” he shrugged,
“
there you have it.” He looked down at Jason and though he smiled, there was no mirth in his eyes.  “Like I said, you’re a different person.  I’ll have to get to know the new you, hmm?”

Jason
frowned.  What did he mean by that?

“You can’t blame him for what happened,” Lord Basemore muttered and turned back to the chessboard where he waited for his opponent to make the next move.

Mason’s grip tightened on Jason’s should
er
for a second before he released his hold on him.  Finally, Mason walked away from him, and Jason relaxed.  He was starting to detest Mason, which was a shame since Mason was his link to his childhood and the only one
who
could tell him all about it.  Now all the questions he’d consider asking his brother vanished.  Even if he asked Mason the questions, he had no way of knowing if his brother
would tell him the truth
.

He glanced down at the glass.  There might not be anything in it.  For all he knew, Mason was playing cat and mouse with him, but he didn’t dare take the chance.  A careful scan of his surroundings showed him that he was within reaching distance of one of Mason’s plants.

Lord Basemore moved his piece, causing a cheer from the gentlemen who betted on him.  Since Mason was looking at the chessboard, Jason poured the contents of his glass into the plant’s soil, making sure no one saw what he was doing.  Having managed the task undetected, he breathed a sigh of relief and
settled back into the chair to watch the rest of the game.