Trouble at the Wedding (6 page)

Christ
. Christian gave a sigh and sat back down, reminding himself he couldn't afford to snub men with money. “Let me see if I understand you. You want me to strike up an acquaintance with your niece, tell her about my own experience, and persuade her that people who marry out of their class and without mutual love end up unhappy. Is that your idea?”

“Pretty much.”

“I do believe you're serious. My good man, the intimacies of marriage are hardly a topic I can discuss with a young lady. It's not proper.”

“You don't strike me as the sort of man who worries much about things like that.”

“Are you being disingenuous, or do you truly not see the point? I can't discuss these things with her in front of others. I'd have to be alone with her.”

“As long as you behave like a gentleman, I don't see a problem. Lord knows, I'm paying you enough to make behaving yourself worthwhile. Now, if I hear otherwise . . .” He paused and smiled, the benign face suddenly ruthless. “Not only will you not get paid, I'll shoot you dead.”

“A useful thing to know, but that still isn't my point. If anyone saw us together, if anything were misinterpreted, I would be obligated to marry her, something I will not do.”

Ransom gave a decisive snort. “Lord, I hope not! That'd be like trading a toothless horse for a lame one.”

Christian didn't know whether to be relieved or insulted by that. “And if this doesn't work? If I can't talk her out of it?”

“You don't get paid, and I'll have to start boning up on annulment and divorce law in case I'm right about that fella.”

Christian considered. “I only have six days? That's cutting it rather close.”

“I'll pay you even if all you can get her to do is postpone it a few months. I just want her to take some more time, be sure she knows what she's getting into. Maybe tour around England, make some friends there, see for herself what it would be like to live in your world. If after that, she still wants to marry Rumsford, I'll . . .” He paused, frowning, and reached for his glass to take another drink. “I'll accept it.”

“How do you know you can trust me? I married one girl for money. I could do it again. If I stained her reputation on purpose, I'd have the perfect excuse to marry her myself and I'd gain control of her money.”

“There's a marital settlement, limiting Rumsford to a fixed annual sum. You'd get no better. Annabel may be stubborn, but she's got plenty of business sense. In fact, that's a big part of her trouble. She's thinking of this more like a business deal than a marriage. As for you, I've heard that you've said many times you'll never marry again, and though women never believe it, a man who says that usually means it. And if a rich American wife was what you were after, you'd never have passed up the chance to meet Hiram's girl, who's a beauty and even richer than Annabel.”

“I can see you've thought this through.”

“I have. Half a million dollars is enough to give you the capital for those investments you want, so you don't have to marry anybody for money. And if you want advice on American investments, I'd be happy to oblige. I've done a pretty fair job with Annabel's investments over the years.”

Christian couldn't help admiring the other man's thoroughness. “There's still the risk someone will see me with her. Even if all we are doing is talking, if there's no chaperone present, it could still stain her reputation.”

Ransom sighed. “I know, but I'm running out of options. And I say a tainted reputation is still better than a lifetime of misery with a man who doesn't love her and who's only after her money.”

Those words jerked Christian to his feet. Walking to the window, he stared out again at the traffic, but in his mind, he didn't see Fifth Avenue or the faint reflection of his own face in the glass. He saw instead London's May Day Charity Ball, and a blond girl in a blue silk dress, a shy girl with a pretty smile and a sweet, terrible innocence, and guilt felt like a ten-ton weight on his shoulders.

Evie, I'm sorry.
He touched his fingers to the glass, wishing he could touch her face, wipe away her tears, do it all again a different way.
I'm so damned sorry.

He squeezed his eyes shut. If he could stop another girl from making Evie's mistake, perhaps—

He turned around. “You're sure Rumsford doesn't love her?”

“I'm sure.”

He nodded slowly, for he was sure of it, too. Fortune hunters always recognized one of their own. “All right,” he said. “I'll do what I can.”

Chapter Three

C
hristian decided not to tell Sylvia he was hiring himself out as an obstacle to transatlantic marriage. She would never approve, even if the girl's own uncle was paying him an enormous amount of money to do it. No, she'd nag him about the propriety and the moral implications—interfering, risking a girl's reputation, that sort of thing—and she'd bring up again how much better it would be to find an heiress of his own. Clearly, keeping mum was his best option.

But when he told Sylvia he was returning to England straightaway so that he and Arthur could further discuss business on the ship and in London, her pleased little smile told him she still held out hope for his eventual capitulation in the matter of finding a wife. After all, there would be many heiresses in London for the season.

His sister was probably composing a list of possible candidates this very minute, he thought as he stood on the balcony of the stateroom suite they were sharing aboard the
Atlantic
.

While he was enjoying the beautiful late afternoon sunshine and watching the pier recede into the distance as a tugboat pulled the
Atlantic
out into New York Harbor, Sylvia was inside, supervising her maid and his valet in the unpacking of their things, and thinking of pretty faces, considering various names, and tabulating possible dowries.

To say his sister was mercenary wasn't quite fair, he reflected, turning to stare out across the harbor toward Staten Island. She was simply the product of her upbringing. Marriage without an appropriate alliance was unthinkable for people of their class. A hundred years ago, alliance meant the accumulation of lands and the preservation of the aristocratic bloodlines, but nowadays, it was all about survival. The land rents their ancestors had lived on were drying up in the face of agricultural depression and technological advancement, and for the past few generations of British gentlemen, marrying a girl with a fat dowry was as inevitable as a public school education and a tour of the Continent. He, like most men of his class, had been raised to think it perfectly acceptable, even honorable, to secure the future of the family estate by marrying money, without much regard for things like love and affection.

If Evie hadn't died, he'd probably think that way still. But her death had revealed to him the sordid consequences that could result from such arrangements, and any notions he'd been stuffed with that marrying a girl for money was an honorable course had died with her.

“Sir?”

He turned to find his valet behind him in the open doorway. “Yes, McIntyre, what is it?”

“There's some confusion about Your Grace's things. Her Ladyship is insisting that you shall need two suits of evening clothes during the voyage as well as your customary wardrobe. I explained that the private card rooms aboard ship do not require formal evening dress, but Lady Sylvia . . .” His voice trailed off tactfully.

“I understand,” he said, appreciating the vital point. “When Sylvia gets a bee in her bonnet, there's no arguing with her. If you don't pull out two tuxedos, she'll do it for you. Besides,” he added, “in this case, she's right. I doubt I shall be much engaged in cards during this voyage.”

To McIntyre's credit, he showed no reaction to this most unexpected development beyond a slight raising of his fiery red eyebrows. “Verra good, sir,” he said, and returned inside to accede to Lady Sylvia's wishes, and Christian returned his attention to the view from his balcony.

Leaning forward, he rested his forearms on the rail and looked back toward the stern where the enormous Statue of Liberty could now be seen. A fitting symbol for its host, he decided, for it rose up out of Bedloe's Island like a resounding shriek of triumph—a bold, brash statement for a bold, brash country. From here, he could also make out Ellis Island, where the immigrants came in to embark upon a new life. America was a country bursting with vitality and hope. England seemed like such a tired jade by comparison, and he wondered, not for the first time, why these American girls were so ready to leave their exciting homeland to live in a place of interminable boredom, where everyone, including him, got through their endless days in a state of perpetual ennui.

The door directly below him banged open, interrupting his contemplations, and a voice floated up to his ears, an unmistakably female voice. “Dinah? Dinah, where are you?”

American, he knew at once, American and Southern. Strange how that voice seemed to underscore his very thoughts, for despite its slow and drawling cadence, it managed to convey far more energy than Christian's clipped and proper British accents ever could. It reminded him of Arthur Ransom, and Christian wondered if it might perhaps belong to the niece.

He turned from the view of Bedloe's Island to that of the promenade deck below as a feminine figure dressed in buttery yellow wool emerged from the ship's interior. She paused only a few feet in front of him, planted the tip of her ruffled parasol on deck, and rested her white-gloved hand on the carved ebony handle, glancing up and down the promenade, which was nearly empty at this time of day. “Dinah?” she called again. “Oh, Lord,” she muttered to herself when there was no answer to her call. “Where has that girl got to now?”

Though her face was hidden beneath her hat, an enormous, frothy confection of yellow straw, white feathers, and black and yellow ribbons, nothing blocked the rest of her from Christian's sight, and he was able to indulge in a long and appreciative study of her figure. If these hourglass curves did indeed belong to Miss Annabel Wheaton, and if she had a face to go with that body, then it was no surprise Rumsford had gone after her instead of an equally wealthy girl from the Knickerbocker set. On the other hand, she seemed willing to settle for Rummy quite gladly, so how pretty could she be?

The door banged again and the young woman below looked back over her shoulder. “There you are at last!” she exclaimed as a girl about ten years old came into view, her age evidenced not only by her more diminutive stature, but also by the shorter length of her skirt, the sailor motif of her dress, and the fact that her dark hair was not put up. It hung to her shoulders, prevented from tangling in the ocean breeze by the curl-brimmed boater hanging down her back.

“I've been looking everywhere for you,” the woman in yellow went on. “Where have you been?”

“Exploring. Did you know they have a sweet shop on board?” The girl pulled a lollipop out of her skirt pocket. “Just down there,” she added, flourishing the candy toward the aft end of the ship's cabins.

“So that's what you've been doing all day while the rest of us have been unpacking your things for you? Exploring the ship and buying sweets with your pocket money? Eating them all, too, I'll bet, and spoiling your supper.”

The girl paused in her task of unwrapping the candy from its red paper covering. “You won't tell Mama, will you?”

“Tell her what?” The woman in yellow tilted her head as she asked the question, giving Christian a brief, tantalizing glimpse of delicate throat and jaw, but not much else. “Am I supposed to tell Mama something?”

Dinah laughed and stuck the lollipop in her mouth. “I love you, Nan.”

The older girl sniffed, not seeming particularly impressed by this declaration of affection from the younger one, who was clearly a sister. “If you love me, then kindly act like you got some raisin', Dinah Louise, and take that candy out of your mouth when you're talkin' to me.”

The younger girl pulled out the lollipop long enough to drawl a rather impudent-sounding “Yes, ma'am,” and earned herself a hard jab in the ribs from her sister's elbow. “Ow!”

“Do you still have that map the purser gave you when we came aboard?” the woman asked. “Get it out so I can have a look.”

Dinah shoved the lollipop back in her mouth and reached into her pocket. She pulled out the requested document and unfolded it, and side by side, their backs to Christian, each holding one side to keep it from being carried away by the stiff ocean breeze, they studied the map.

“What's this?” The woman reached up between them, tapping the handle of her parasol against the map, then she bent her head to read the minuscule print. “A Turkish bath. My, that sounds exotic, doesn't it? I wonder what it is.”

“I know!” her sister said and once again removed the lollipop from her mouth. “I saw it earlier. A maid was there putting out towels, and she told me all about it. It's a tiled room with big radiators and no windows, and they fill it up with steam.”

“No water?”

Dinah shook her head. “No, just steam, because it's not really a bath. There's no tub or anything, just big wicker chairs you sit in.”

“But if it's not a bath, then why do they call it that? What's it for?”

“It's supposed to make you sweat, so that you . . . release unhealthy toxins from your body.” She said the last part with care, as if to repeat what she'd been told as precisely as possible. “The maid said it's supposed to be relaxin'. Some people, she said, even fall asleep.”

“That's all there is to it?” Her sister sounded a bit disappointed. “You just sit in a hot, steamy room and sweat and fall asleep? What's so special about that? Why, we can have baths like that back home in Gooseneck Bend just by goin' to church in the summertime!”

Christian gave a shout of laughter, but fortunately for him, the sound was drowned out by the blare of trumpets announcing that dinner would commence in one hour, and because of that, neither of the young ladies below perceived they had an eavesdropper.

Dinah seemed to think what her sister had said was as amusing as he did. “I don't think it's like church, Nan,” she said, giggling. “You're supposed to be naked, the maid told me. Nobody goes to church naked, do they?”

“Unfortunately not,” Christian murmured under his breath, studying the shapely backside of the woman in yellow.

“What do you mean, Dinah?” she asked in lively astonishment. “You don't mean completely naked, do you?” As if realizing she'd raised her voice with that question, she glanced around to be sure no one was within earshot, but fortunately for Christian, she didn't glance up as she looked over her shoulder. Mistakenly reassured by the empty deck that no one was listening, she resumed discussion of the somewhat salacious topic of Turkish baths. “No clothes at all?” she asked, lowering her voice again. “Not even your unmentionables?”

Dinah shrugged. “You might be able to keep those on, I suppose. The maid said ‘unclothed,' so I think that means naked. C'mon,” she added, jamming the lollipop in her mouth and pulling the map from her sister's fingers. She began refolding it as she started toward the door leading back inside. “That was the dinner bell. We have to dress or Mama will tan both our backsides.”

She returned the map to her pocket and shoved open the door, but then paused as she realized her sister wasn't following. “Aren't you coming, Nan?”

The woman shook her head and walked away toward the starboard rail, staring out over the view of Staten Island in the distance. “You go on,” she called back. “I want to stay out here a little bit longer.”

Dinah departed. Christian, however, remained right where he was. He watched as the woman lifted her arms to pull out her hat pin and remove her hat, a move that only served to better show off the perfection of her figure. A shame if this was indeed Miss Wheaton, for such exquisite curves should never be wasted on a husband like Rumsford, for he would never appreciate them. Did she know that? Did she care?

He'd concluded the other night when he knew nothing about her that she must be one of those sweet, biddable girls who did what she was told, but after talking to Ransom, he knew there wasn't anything sweet or biddable about her. She seemed to have a mind of her own, and a will that didn't bend to anyone else's, not even her nearest and dearest. She was also, if her uncle was any judge, intelligent, with heaps of money, a voice like warm honey, and a body that was—obviously—splendid. So why would a girl with all that in her favor settle for Rumsford? Arthur's explanations didn't quite satisfy him.

She might be plain, of course. In the ruthless marriage marts of New York and London, a plain girl without connections had a devil of a time landing a titled husband, even if she were wealthy as Croesus. Miss Wheaton had probably taken a good, long look in the mirror, faced facts, and decided Rumsford was the best she could do.

“Annabel?”

She turned at the sound confirming her identity, and as she tilted her head back to look at the woman who had called to her from a balcony near his own, Christian stared at her upturned face and realized with some chagrin that he'd been wrong, utterly and completely wrong.

The girl was gorgeous.

With her hat off, her hair gleamed in the late afternoon sun, turning it from chestnut brown to deep, flaming red. She possessed the pale, luminous complexion that usually accompanied hair of that shade, though he couldn't tell from here if her eyes were the usual redhead's green. Nor could he discern if any freckles dotted her nose, but he could see that it was a nose so retroussé that one might call it impudent. Her mouth was lush and pink, with a wide, brilliant smile that made even Christian's jaded, supposedly nonexistent heart stop for just a second.

This was Rummy's fiancée? This vibrant, vivid, luscious creature was engaged to that stiff, pompous ass? It was absurd, nonsensical, one of Nature's great jokes.

“Yes, Mama?” She lifted her hat to shade her eyes from the sun, a move that shadowed her face and prevented him from any further scrutiny, but Christian knew he hadn't conjured that face out of his imagination.

“Annabel Mae,” the woman called down. “Put on your hat, young lady, and put up your parasol! Sakes alive, do you want to get freckles? And what are you still doing down there? It's less than an hour until suppertime. You've got to change.”