How to Marry a Rogue (12 page)

His knowing look caused her to blush. She gave up on her ruined croissant and dropped it on her plate. He shrugged.

“You need to marry someone quiet and kind. Not a Richmond or a Mitford, God forbid. Someone with as much money as you, so you may be assured he isn’t using you. You need a man who’s steady, and patient.” He sipped his tea and added another spoonful of sugar to his cup. “A blithering fool, in other words.”

She stirred her teacup. “Someone who is your complete opposite, you mean.”

“Precisely.” He made a face at her.

She giggled. “I should marry you, Jack. Then I won’t have to be afraid of anything ever again, because you will always be there with your sharp knife.”

“Don’t forget the swords. I’m awfully good with a sabre.”

“And your fists. Jonathan told me about your boxing matches.”

“He talks too much.” But he smirked with pride.

She stifled another laugh. “Why have you never married?”

He sighed and concentrated his attention on his cup. “I may very well have to, and sooner, rather than later. My grandfather recently informed me I must marry before the tender age of thirty, or he will cut off my allowance. I’m a good fighter, but not that good.” His eyebrow arched in self-deprecation. “I rely on his money, and he knows it, damn him. Of course, I can always tell him to take his money and go straight to the devil. Then, you will have to visit me in my little den beneath a bridge. Perhaps you can bring me a hot supper once a week so I do not starve to death.”

“Oh, dear.” She couldn’t imagine Jack living in poverty any more than she saw herself married to Herbert Richmond. “How terrible, Jack! And what are you going to do?”

He drank the last of his tea and set the cup on the table with a clatter of china. “I’m going to enjoy myself as much as I can in the little time I have left. I think in about—oh, three years, I should be ready to settle down. Perhaps I’ll marry a little goose like you. Have you any rich friends interested in a man who only wants them for their dowry?”

“No friend quite so desperate as to settle on you. I know Jonathan wishes for me to marry soon, but I am not about to give up my own freedoms, just as you don’t want to give up yours.”

“I did not know you were a pugilist.”

“I am referring to being able to play my music whenever I like and not be at the beck and call of some bothersome man who can’t decide how to tie his neckcloth.”

Jack indicated his bare throat with a flourish. “Which is why I scorn the blasted things.”

“Here in the country, you may scorn them all you like. When you return to England, you’ll be buttoned up and tied around the neck just the same as the rest of us.”

“Then I shall never go home.” He reclined in his chair and closed his eyes with such a comical expression on his face she laughed. “I have an idea, Georgie. I will find a boringly suitable husband for you, and you may find an equally loathsome bride for me. That way, Jonathan and my grandfather will leave us alone. We can meet once a year for luncheon and chortle over a pot of tea at how we tricked them both, while our long-suffering spouses remain at home.”

She exhaled slowly, studying him. “As much as I would enjoy seeing you trapped forever in matrimony to a shrew, I know just the proper girl for you, Jack. Do you know Veronica Fielding? She has a tidy inheritance as well as her father’s charming house in town.”

“Hmm…can’t say that I’ve heard of her.” He leaned forward, interested. “What does she look like?”

Veronica’s sweet smile and well-endowed charms came to her mind. The image of Jack’s muscular arms sweeping Veronica into a darkened bedchamber unsettled her. She quickly shook her head. “Never mind her. I forgot she is missing her front teeth and has an appalling laugh.”

“Really? What does her laugh sound like, then?”

“Have you ever heard a pig in a sty when its brethren have pushed him aside?”

Jack shook his head, his lips tight.

“Well,” she said leisurely, cutting a piece of sausage into slices, “that is what she sounds like.”

“There must be other girls you know who won’t mind being chained to me for the rest of their mortal lives. Can you think of any others whose laughter does not imitate barnyard animals?”

“Only women who would disappoint you and test your limits of reason, I’m sad to say. I would suggest Leticia Haversham, but she has sworn to join a convent if she can’t marry her father’s footman.”

“He must be the perfect specimen of footman if she would refuse a man like me. Perhaps I should eschew boxing and learn a lowly trade in taking care of carriages and horses.” He cocked his head to the side. “You know of nobody else?” She shook her head, and he sighed. “It is hard to believe you know so few eligible ladies, Georgiana. Where did Lockewood send you to school? A dark castle in the middle of the Bavarian forest?”

She divided her sausage slices into little rows. “It doesn’t really matter, does it, Jack? Any woman you marry would be unsuitable.”

“How do you mean, pray?”

She echoed his sigh. “You enjoy drinking, gambling, and fighting. Not many wives would put up with such behavior.”

“Oh, you’d be surprised with what a woman puts up with if there’s a promise of five thousand a year.”

“Not if she fell in love with you. A woman who loved you would make your life miserable.”

He leaned his elbows on the table and stared at her. “Yes, I see your point. Better I choose someone who has no interest in love, but a cold-hearted, soulless fiend who will let me do as I please, regardless how lowly and sordid. Is that what you suggest?”

She nodded once. “Exactly. Someone who feels the same way about love and marriage as you do.”

“You should do the same. Find a scholarly man more interested in what lies between the pages of a book than in making you happy.”

“I shall stay here with you, then. Nobody bothers one here in Bordeaux. Even the servants stay out of sight. It’s as if we are the only two people in the world.”

“Your brother will want you soon, Georgie. Baby Lockewood is on his or her way any day now. You shall have to go home. I’d love to hear you explain to your brother how you managed to spend the remainder of your holiday abroad sequestered in my palace of sin. Lady Richmond has probably composed a half dozen letters to him as we speak, informing him of our recent marriage.”

She ignored the last part of his sentence and sipped her tea instead. “You are correct. The baby will arrive, and I’ll have to go home.” Her heart sank, which confused her. She didn’t particularly care for France one way or the other. The food was wonderful, of course, and the countryside picturesque. But she would miss Jack’s humorous comments and the way he made her laugh.

She would miss him.

The thought shocked her enough that she upset her saucer when she placed her teacup on the table. Eventually, she would be someone’s wife. No self-respecting heiress would stay single when there was a family name to uphold. What if her brother’s other choices were worse than Herbert? She lowered her head for a moment to fight a wave of panic. There was only one possible solution to her quandary. It stood out before her in all its simplistic, obvious glory.

“Will you marry me, Jack?”

He stared at her as if she’d just announced she was a mermaid. “I’ve always admired your mischievous nature but never believed you to have such an absurd sense of humor as that, Georgiana.”

The thought grew in her mind the more she studied him. She almost smacked her forehead at the brilliance of her idea and only wondered why she hadn’t thought of it sooner. “It’s the perfect solution, for both of us. Do you not see?” Her voice rose in excitement. “You will be able to present a bride to your grandfather and keep your allowance, and Jonathan will abandon his list of suitable suitors, who are completely unsuitable. Lady Richmond can write a dozen letters, and they will not mean a thing.”

“I thought I told you earlier I would never marry. We were just discussing…”

“But it would be different with me.” She rose from her chair and hurried over to him, dropping to her knees and upsetting his cup when she gripped the tablecloth to steady herself. She took his hand and held it fiercely, as if she would press the idea into his skin. “I will not be the kind of wife you detest. You may box all you like, and drink, and make merry. I will never ask you where you’ve been, or with whom. We can even have separate homes.” Her voice rose in her excitement, while her plan formed before her in all its glorious simplicity. “You will have my dowry when I marry. All I ask is a lovely little house in town, or else in the country. It matters not. What does matter is I shall be left to myself, with my music and my own mind to command. You may live wherever you wish. Do as you wish. We are the best of friends and know each other well enough to leave each other alone. It’s the perfect arrangement, and you must say yes.”

She finished on a breathless plea. He glanced down at their entwined fingers. His jaw moved once or twice as if he were about to speak, but her heart sank when he shook his head.

“It will never work.”

“But why, Jack? You are so stubborn.” She pushed his hand away, not trying to hide her disappointment. “Give me one good reason.”

He dropped another spoonful of sugar into his tea and stirred it four times. He then added a slice of lemon into his cup, carefully removing a seed that floated on the top. She almost held her breath awaiting his response.

“Because you will fall in love with me, and there goes my freedom. It will be over between us before it starts.”

Her lips parted with a rush of air. “You are so conceited, Jack! I will never…”

He caught her hand as she struggled to her feet, her legs tangling in the twisted folds of her gown. “Listen to me, Georgiana.” He seldom used her full name and she reluctantly met his gaze, although she ensured her lower lip trembled.

He sighed. “I know you, my dear. You will say now it is for convenience, or we are great friends, or what have you. But eventually, you will be like every other woman who fancies herself married. You will begin questioning my whereabouts, and search my linen for any telltale scents of foreign perfume. You’ll beg to accompany me regardless of where I’m going, and you will put an end to my boxing.” As he spoke, she interjected with a few shakes of her head and verbal denials, but he only silenced her. “It will never work. You will be unhappy, and I shall be unhappy because I’ve made you so.” He brushed a wayward strand of hair from her hot cheek. “The last thing I ever want in this world is to hurt you.”

“You would prefer I marry a blithering fool, as you called it?”

His gray eyes darkened with a sudden shadow. “I would see you happily married to a loving man who deserves you.” He lifted his cup but did not drink. “I regret I am not that man, as would you, if you were so foolish as to see this idea of yours to the finish.”

She chewed her lip, her thoughts racing as she tried to change his mind. “What if I do not fall in love with you and our marriage is exactly as I promised? What if it really is possible for us to marry, and you may continue with your bachelorhood existence? Prizefighting and paramours from morning ’til night? And you may have all my money. I just want…” This time, her voice trembled of its own accord.

His eyes narrowed, and he finally drank his tea, draining it while he studied her, his face inscrutable. “I’d be wealthy beyond words with all your thousands. I’d be the happiest bachelor husband in all of England, with a beautiful wife who allows me to spend my days in idle pleasure, while she lolls around her pianoforte all day.”

Her breath hitched. “Does this mean you have changed your mind?”

He groaned, but she heard his stifled laughter. He scrubbed his face with his hands, then blinked at her as if he’d just awoken from a dream. “How do you do it?”

“Do what?”

“Use those big blue eyes of yours to get whatever you want? God help us should you ever use your powers of persuasion for evil deeds. It would be the end of the world.”

Her breath trapped in her throat. “So—it’s a yes?”

“Against my better judgment and my conscience screaming vividly into both my ears…” He paused for effect. “Yes.”

Laughing with delirious joy, she threw her arms around his neck. “Thank you, thank you! You have saved me yet again. Oh, Jack, you will not regret it!”

He patted her back then held her at arm’s length. “It is not so easy to marry here in France. Better we wait until our return to England.”

“We cannot wait, Jack! Jonathan will forbid it.”

“The laws of France require a bride be over the age of one and twenty. You are underage.”

“I shall lie.”

“To a priest?” His eyes were comically serious. “While I would love to help you, it just will not do. You need a guardian’s permission, and your brother, thankfully, is absent.”

Was he trying to change her mind? Frantic, she blurted out a name. “Aunt Adele is my legal guardian while abroad. She can give her permission.”

“That dear woman will not risk your brother’s wrath.”

Her one chance of escaping the future her brother planned was almost gone. “She will if you threaten her.” His eyebrows arched, and she hastened to explain. “I mean only if you tell her Jonathan must know about Alphonse abandoning me at the ball. She will do as you demand.”

“Machiavelli.” He shook his head, but the ghost of a smile lingered on his lips.

She held her breath and counted the ticking of the clock on the mantelpiece.

Eight seconds passed before he finally sighed. “Very well. But…” and he held up his finger when she reached for him, ready to embrace him. “There can be none of that, Georgie. If I’m to remain your husband-of-convenience, we shall keep our friendship intact. Any…intimacy will only confuse the matter.”

She gulped back her laughter and took her chair. “I hadn’t thought of that.”

“It will just make it easier for us if we remain friends.” He paused. “And by us, I mean you.”

“Why just me? Is your heart made of stone, Jack Waverley?” She giggled but stifled it at the flash of pain that flickered across his face. Like a shadow fading in the dusk, she wasn’t sure she had seen it.