The Price of Desire (2 page)

The walk across the crowded room seemed an eternity to her. Little had the Captain known of the burden he would have to shoulder when he asked for her hand in marriage three long months ago. Was he now regretting his request?

She had liked him well enough, and not preferred any other man, but had accepted his suit mostly because her father had pressed it on her. The Captain’s staunch support of her in her time of need, however, had added gratitude to her feelings for him, and caused liking to blossom into love. He was a worthy man, and she would endeavor to deserve his goodness for as long as she lived.

Her head held high, she made her way through the crowd toward him. She did not have the patience to wait for him to notice she had arrived and to come to her rescue. Her pride was already stretched to the limits of her endurance; her soul was hurting, and his embrace was her harbor against the storm.

People parted in front of her as if she carried the seeds of contagion with her. Nobody wanted to touch her and risk the taint of her family’s bankruptcy. Isolated in the middle of a crowd, she felt like a leper with a silent bell, warning others to keep their distance from her and to avoid her fate.

Kitty Earnshaw looked up as Caroline approached them. Her face colored an unbecoming shade of pink and she tugged uncomfortably at one of the pale brown ringlets that framed her face. Unable to meet Caroline’s eyes, she dropped her gaze to the floor.

Captain Bellamy turned and graced Caroline with a smile. “Miss Clemens.”

Was it her imagination or did his eyes look shifty, as if he, too, found it hard to meet her gaze?

Silently chiding herself, she took his proffered arm with gratitude. Her own misfortunes were causing her to see trouble everywhere, even where it did not exist. “If you will excuse us,” she said to Kitty, “the Captain and I would like to take a turn about the room.”

Kitty had already backed away and was cowering in the corner. At Caroline’s polite dismissal, she scurried off, clearly not wishing to be involved in a confrontation.

“I gather you have something specifically to say to me,” the Captain said in a low tone as they walked arm in arm through the room. “I presume that was your intention in frightening away poor Kitty Earnshaw. Or are you simply suffering from a fit of womanish vapors brought on by seeing me conversing with another young woman?”

“I did not frighten her away,” Caroline protested. The hint of unkindness in his voice disturbed her greatly. He had always appeared to be the perfect gentleman—gentle, tender, and forbearing with all her many faults.

“You did bear down on her looking more than commonly haughty and displeased. It was no wonder the poor girl could hardly speak for fright when she saw you coming. Though I’m sure you did not mean to scare her,” he added somewhat as an afterthought. “After all, what threat could she pose to you?”

Caroline gritted her teeth. “And nor do I suffer from womanish vapors.”

He raised one eyebrow at her tone. “I am sure you do not.”

His tone was so patently insincere that she clenched her teeth together tightly to prevent herself from speaking. There was nothing to be gained from a quarrel with him now. However dearly she wanted to complain at his lofty attitude, she knew she could not afford to.

Three months ago she had been a princess, today she was a pauper and reliant on the Captain’s generosity. That alone must excuse his lack of gallantry, if he
was
lacking in such a commodity.

With a gentle pressure on his arm, she steered him toward the French doors that opened onto the balcony.

It had rained that morning, washing the air clean of the smuts and soot that had poisoned London’s muggy summer air. The breeze was sweet with the rich scent of early autumn and the heady perfume of the late flowering tea roses.

On such a night like this, with the Captain at her side, she could almost forget her troubles.

His voice broke into her thoughts. “You are in full mourning, I see.”

His tone of superiority irked her. He had not spoken to her like that before, or if he had, she’d never noticed it. Had he changed, or had she? “My father is dead,” she reminded him curtly. “You would hardly expect me to be cavorting around in a yellow gown and ribbons when he is scarce buried.”

“But such deep mourning? Under the circumstances, I do not think it is quite, uh…proper. You ought at the most to be in gray or lavender.”

Her fists were clenched so tightly at her sides that her fingernails almost drew blood. “My father is dead. No matter how he died.” Wearing deep black was a mark of respect for her father’s memory that she would not forgo. Indeed, she had gravely depleted her store of ready money to fit herself and her sisters and brother out in suitable mourning clothes.

“I do not like it, Miss Clemens.” His face was severe. “It is not fitting.”

“I know that we cannot marry while I am still in full mourning,” she said, making a stab at the cause of his irritation. “But a quiet ceremony at the end of six weeks would still be possible.” She was reasonably confident that she could keep her siblings fed and housed until then, even though it would mean calling in every favor from every one of her friends. “My father’s death need not alter our wedding plans too greatly.”

The Captain did not reply at once. He was staring out over the garden, his hands gripping the rail of the balcony so tightly that his knuckles gleamed white in the evening gloom.

The tense look on his face sent tendrils of fear snaking up her spine. “William?” she said softly, desperately, placing one of her hands on his, claiming him as was her right. She could not let him desert her now.

He turned his head away from her pleading. “I cannot marry you,” he said baldly.

His words were soft but lethal. Only her pride kept her from sinking to the ground in despair. With that one breath, he consigned her and her family to the living death of the workhouse.

“While there was still the hope of some money coming to you from your father’s estate, even though it was far less than the fifty thousand pounds your father and I had settled on as your dowry, I was willing to honor our agreement.” He ran one hand through his hair. “I love you, Caroline. I love you enough to take you for only twenty thousand pounds, or even ten thousand. I would have been content with only ten.”

The light of understanding began to dawn on her, and a dim, dreary light it was. “But there is nothing left for my dowry. Worse than nothing. Papa left debts I can never hope to pay.”

He turned to face her, his eyes haunted. “Caroline, I do love you.”

What use did she have for such a lukewarm love? She would rather have his hatred than such a conditional affection as he offered her. “Just not enough to marry me now that I am a pauper.”

“I cannot afford to take you as my wife. I am far from rich, as your father knew well. I need a woman who will add to my wealth, not be a drain on it.”

“You are breaking our engagement, then?” A brittle laugh escaped her. “How will you find another wife when your behavior toward me becomes known? A gentleman never breaks his word to a lady.”

“You are right—I cannot break it.”

He turned toward her, but the shaft of hope starting to rise in her was quickly dispelled by his next words.

“I need you to break it. I need you to offer to release me from our engagement, an offer that I will then regretfully accept.”

“You want me to cut my own lifeline? The only hope that my family has of regaining respectability?” Was he so cruel as to put a knife in her hand and tell her that she must die, and then ask her to stab herself because he had not the heart to kill her outright? “I cannot do it. You should not ask it of me.”

“I can make it worth your while.”

“You would pay to get rid of me?” Given that she could force him to honor his engagement or have him publicly labeled as an untrustworthy rogue, she should not be surprised that in his eyes he owed her some compensation. No budding businessman could survive the blackening of his reputation.

It was a sign of her desperation that she would even listen to such an outrageous proposal, let alone consider accepting money from him, but the prospect of her sisters and brother in the workhouse forced her hand. “How much?”

“If you release me, I have Mr. Earnshaw’s permission to seek the hand of his daughter, Kitty.” His face relaxed into a self-satisfied smile. “The girl does not seem averse to the match. All going well, I will wed her within the fortnight.”

“Mr. Earnshaw is a wealthy man. Wealthier than Papa was, even before…”

“She comes with sixty thousand pounds in the hand, and a half share in the business when Mr. Earnshaw passes away.”

And she came with nothing. With less than nothing, seeing she had four sisters and a brother to support as well. Such a sum as Kitty had for a dowry would be no small temptation even to a greater man than the Captain. No wonder he was so ready to throw her over for another girl.

“While you still had hopes of a dowry, there was no reason for me to look twice at Kitty Earnshaw. Though she seems quiet and amenable enough, she is not half as pretty or as spirited as you are. But now you have none…” He spread his hands wide in a gesture of helplessness. “You must understand my situation.”

She did not care to understand him further. All that mattered to her now was that he would pay her a goodly amount so he could wed Kitty’s dowry. “What will you pay me to break our engagement?” Her voice came out hard.

“When Kitty and I are wed, I will pay the rent on a modest house in town for you, and add an annuity of two hundred pounds a year…”

A rent-free cottage and two hundred pounds a year would be barely enough for all five of them to scrape by on, but with a little bit of luck, it would be enough. Though it was by no means generous, the sum would at least keep them out of the workhouse. She felt no guilt in accepting it. It was little enough for him to pay to exchange a poor fiancée for a rich one.

“…an extra payment of five hundred pounds for every child you bear me, and a reduced annuity of fifty pounds a year if ever our liaison should come to an end.”

She’d been so fixated on the tantalizing prospect of a modest competency to support her family that she almost missed the end of his proposal. Her eyes widened in horror as the realization of what he was offering her struck home. “You are offering to become my keeper? You want me to be your whore?”

A black cloud of despair descended over her. He was asking her to release him from their engagement and to become his mistress instead. For two hundred pounds a year. Such a sum would scarce keep her and her family in coal over the winter. The offer which half a minute ago had seemed tolerable enough was now exposed as hopelessly and insultingly mean and penny-pinching. “And what of poor Kitty? You would marry her though you do not love her enough to be faithful to her?”

If her father had been alive, the Captain would never have dared to make her such an offer. If only her father had not given up hope that his speculations would one day be successful. But he
had
given up hope. Last Thursday night in his study he had put a gun to his head and abandoned them all.

“Do not worry about Kitty.” He brushed aside her fears with a wave of his hand. “I will be kind enough to the girl. She will have no cause to regret marrying me.”

Though she had no reason to love Kitty, his callous dismissal of his intended bride made her stomach roil with anger. “Even though you would use her money to set me up as your mistress?”

“I cannot marry you, but I still love you.” His voice turned smooth and pleading, as if it were coated in cream. “Think about it, Caroline. If we were to marry, we would be poor together. You are too fine a woman to live in poverty.”

“I do not fear being poor.” Poverty was manageable, tolerable even. She had already learned to live with it. Utter destitution was what she really feared. The workhouse. It sent a shiver of fear snaking up her spine whenever she thought of it.

“Be sensible, Caroline, and look logically at the situation. My way we both get what we need. I can set myself up in business and still be with the woman I love, and you get to live a comfortable life with your family and still be with the man
you
love. For you
do
love me, don’t you?”

For a horrible moment she wanted to accept. She wanted to be generous and allow him to be generous to her in return. Two hundred pounds a year was a goodly sum to a family that was facing the workhouse. Surely her father would have understood the dire straits that led her to take such a desperate path.

That much, at least, she knew was true. Her father would have understood and he would have forgiven her.

But her pride was stronger than her fear. She would not take the easy way out like her father had. He had spared himself the shame of his situation with a bullet to his brain, and left his family in double pain. Being the daughter of a bankrupt was shameful enough, but being the daughter of a failed banker who had committed suicide was worst of all. In escaping his troubles, he had doomed his family to a living hell.

She straightened her spine. Hard though it was, she would be stronger than her father. There would be no easy way out—not for her, nor for the Captain. He had made her a promise. Be it on his own head if he wanted to break it now. “No.”

“No?”

“No, I will not become your mistress. Nor will I willingly release you from our engagement.” Her voice was hard as stone. “If you no longer wish to marry me, if you intend to break your solemn vow to me, you will have to stand up like a man and take the consequences.”

“Whether you release me or no, I will not marry you.” His voice had turned low and menacing. “You cannot think to shame me into it. I will not condemn myself to a lifetime of poverty for fear of a moment of embarrassment.”

“I know you will never marry me.” She turned her back to him so he could not see the tears in her eyes. So much for her hopes and dreams of sharing her life with a man who loved her. The Captain had flung them to the ground and crushed them beneath the heel of his boots. “I am glad of it. After the offer you have made to me, I no longer want to marry you, either.”