Two Wrongs Make a Marriage (11 page)

‘But it does not solve the problem at hand. He thinks he will be able to trick de Warde out of the money he has taken from Father. What if he wants me to help him? I am no actress, Mother. And an actress is what his plans are likely to need.’

‘A pity, but ’tis true,’ her mother agreed. ‘You really are quite hopeless, Thea. And it is my fault for trying to raise you to be so much my opposite. But do not fear. Do the best you can. And if it is impossible, then you must come to me for help.’

‘I am sure that will not be necessary,’ Thea said, dreading what that help might entail.

‘In any case,’ her mother said, glancing in the mirror as though to be sure her reflection was still as fetching as it had always been, ‘you and Kenton must visit, if only so that we might speak of old times.’

‘Of course,’ Thea said, vowing that she would do nothing of the kind.

Chapter Eight

W
hen Viscount Kenton announced that he wished a ball to honour his happy marriage to his lovely new wife, the house threw itself into the preparations with vigour, polishing silver and dusting chandeliers that already gleamed with careful tending, handing Thea suggested menus and already prepared guest lists, all awaiting little more than her suggestions and approval.

It had been explained to her in school that being the lady of a great house was no different than being the general of an army. And her troops were properly marshalled and eager for battle, after too many years of peace and quiet.

It was some consolation to know that, when Jack was gone, she would keep her place here until she remarried. Before they’d left Spayne Court, the earl had pulled her aside and reiterated that her place as dowager was secure. Once her mourning had passed she could entertain as often as she liked.

If there was the money for it, of course. She must trust that Jack’s plan, whatever it was likely to be, would turn out successful and that the fresh string of debts she was accruing could be paid in the near future.

But when she was dowager, Thea doubted that she would wish to stay here. Lacking a master, the house would be rather lonely, no matter how fine the hospitality. During the day, there was a lack of closeness between them that, while understandable, kept the house from being as warm and pleasant a place as it might have been.

But he greeted her each evening at dinner with a kiss on the cheek. And over a fine meal he would regale her with his adventures in India. Though she knew them to be complete fictions, they were no less entertaining than they had been. Sometimes more so, for now she asked questions that might lead him into greater and more amusing fictions, and she never found him at a loss for words. It was really most diverting. When they retired to their separate rooms, they parted amicably. Kenton gave such life to the house that she would quite miss him when he died.

She stopped in mid-breath at the thought, confused as to how he had managed to bedazzle her, just as he had the staff. In just two short weeks, she had come to accept him as the man he pretended to be.

She could not miss a man that did not exist. When Jack Briggs pretended to die and Kenton disappeared, the house must be empty of her as well, no matter what the earl had promised. To entertain here at all would be awkward, for she was unsure how long she could keep up the pretence that she was anyone’s widow. The whole truth would likely come pouring out of her with the first glass of champagne. Better to remove quietly to the country and do her best to forget that any of this had happened. But first she must get through her partner’s scheming with as much grace and as little participation as possible.

Now it was the night of the ball and Jack still had not told her what he planned to do. For her part, she meant to smile and nod and do nothing that might give the game away. If she did not interfere, she could not spoil the result and it would be over all the quicker. Then her life could return to something akin to what it had been before that fateful night in the gazebo.

She was wearing her best new gown, a pale-gold silk overlain with embroidered net and banded with satin. The effect must have been spectacular. When Jack saw her, his careful composure faltered and he stood in the connecting doorway between their rooms as though frozen in place, his mouth slightly open in amazement.

‘Does it suit?’ she asked, giving a half turn and pretending that his reaction had not pleased her.

‘Oh, I say. Yes, it does.’ He did not seem to be looking at the dress at all, but the generous, expansive
cleavage displayed above it.

‘I should hope so. It cost you dearly. Or it cost someone. I expect you will be long gone by the time the reckoning for it comes.’

‘I suppose I shall be.’ He said it with a sigh that almost sounded sincere, but he was still ignoring the dress and focusing on her exposed skin.

She laid a hand across her bosom to obstruct his view. ‘If we are to go through with this, you had best stop ogling me. We are supposed to be married, you remember. You have seen me before.’

‘Even so, I would still enjoy looking at you.’ To put her at her ease, he looked up into her face. ‘Tonight, we must be sure that others look at you as well. Let us decorate you in a way that will have de Warde’s full attention. Although I suspect the old lecher will be giving you enough of that, even without the Spayne emeralds.’ He produced a padded jewel box from behind his back, stepped forwards and set them on her dressing table. ‘Stand still a moment and let me help you.’ He opened the box to reveal a parure of brilliant green cabochons. There was a necklace of chained
rosettes framed by clusters of diamonds, matching earrings, a tiara and a suspiciously blank space that must have contained a ring.

She touched the ring on her hand nervously and found it hard to take the next breath. ‘I have been wearing
that ring
?’

He smiled. ‘You have heard of it, then?’

‘Everyone has heard of the Spayne emeralds. They were a gift from Henry VII. A heavy girdle of stones, with matching clips, buckles and stomacher. They were lost briefly under Cromwell’s rule, found, restored, reset...’ She ticked off what she could remember of their history on her fingers. ‘Unlike most stones with a long and storied provenance, they are thought to be lucky. They are more famous than the earl who was entrusted with them. But the current Spayne said nothing about them when we visited.’

‘Well, he must have been thinking of it,’ Jack said with a shrug. ‘He brought the lot of them down from the lock rooms in Essex when he came to town yesterday. Said we would have need of them if we truly wished to play at lord and lady.’

She gave the actor an incredulous look, for he was speaking of the famous treasures as though they were nothing more than costume pieces. She looked down at her hand. ‘When you gave this to me, you did nothing to indicate that this was
that ring
. You said it belonged to your mother.’

Jack shrugged. ‘I said all kinds of nonsense when I was eager to get you into bed.’ He put a hand on her shoulder and turned her, so that he could better reach her throat. She felt the warm touch of his fingers at her nape. ‘I did not expect you would remember. And that was almost accurate, if I had actually been Kenton. Spayne said his wife did quite like wearing the ring. She complained the rest was too heavy.’

As he adorned her with it, Thea could sympathise with the late Lady Spayne. ‘They are.’ If his hands had not been there to steady her, she would likely have fainted from the shock of wearing them, for she certainly did not deserve it. If he was not Kenton, then she had no right at all to touch them. ‘They are also the showpiece of the entail. They are a symbol of the family. Even when I thought I was marrying Kenton, I did not think to see the ring on my finger every day, even as a joke.’

‘Tonight, you must wear every last stone, no matter how much they weigh.’ He pulled her body close to his, her back against his chest, his arms around her waist. And for just this once, she would allow it, if only to steal a little of his irrational self-confidence. ‘We want everyone to know that you are the symbolic vessel of the future Earl of Spayne.’ His hands were on her belly and the gentle pat on her stomach raised butterflies in it. He was talking of her womb, full with his child, and her mind drifted nervously to the activities that would make it so.

‘We especially want to impress de Warde. If his goal was to force the earl to disgrace and suicide, it will infuriate him to see how far afield his plan has gone. I expect it will bother him even more so when you tell him that your mother is pregnant.’

Chapter Nine

‘W
hen I what?’

His arms were suddenly empty as she jerked away from them. It was a shame because he had been quite enjoying the round, soft, full feeling of holding her. Now she was turned to face him, all cold chill and sharp corners again.

He smiled, trying to lull her back to what she had been. Then he set the tiara on her head so that it rested crookedly in a nest of curls. ‘Tonight you will tell my esteemed uncle that your mother is most blessed with fecundity, due to the idol he has given your father.’

‘But my mother is not pregnant. Even if she was, I would not be so vulgar as to announce it at a public gathering to a gentleman.’ Her hand was fluttering at her throat as though she might choke on the outrage.

He watched the fingers for a moment, toying with the chained emeralds dangling at the delicious hollow of her breast. ‘That is not important,’ Jack said, pulling his eyes away and trying to focus on the matter at hand. ‘You will be telling him that she is. And you will insist that I have told you it is a boy, using arcane skills I picked up in the mysterious East.’

‘But that would be lying.’ She was staring at him with her beautiful green eyes and a worried expression, as though it mattered in the slightest what happened to de Warde, as long as they succeeded. Had her mother taught her nothing about dissembling?

Then he remembered how easily he had fallen for her tricks and looked at her, eyes narrowed to see the schemer before him and not the tasty package that held it. ‘When did you discover such morals? You lied to trap me and it did not bother you then.’

‘That was merely a deception. Evasion. Halftruths in the moonlight. Certain latitudes must be taken if one wishes to catch the attention of a man. But this...’

‘Is to trick de Warde,’ he said, frustrated. ‘He is your enemy, is he not?’

‘It does not matter who he is. I cannot say such a thing.’

‘Do you want him to go unpunished?’

‘I do not wish to sink so low as to discuss my mother’s...’ She gave him a helpless look. ‘Not even to see justice done.’

‘Yet you were willing to marry a stranger to repair your family’s fortune,’ he reminded her. ‘And that would have required far more than discussion.’

‘Of course,’ she replied, ‘because the stranger was a viscount. How else would I have helped my family? Taken in washing?’

As though a little manual labour was the worst fate that could befall a woman with financial difficulties. Jack could think of at least one career for such a voluptuous female that could have netted a pretty penny. ‘And see how well that worked for you. Next you will tell me that it is more honourable to give yourself to de Warde, like some kind of martyr.’

There was a hint of desperation in her expression, as though she might actually consider it. Then she shook her head. ‘That would be totally different. We were married. Mr de Warde could not marry me, as he already had a wife.’

Jack clenched his fists at his sides to keep from pulling out his own hair. Her combination of wide-eyed innocence and cold-blooded social climbing was maddening. ‘Perhaps you are right and I do not understand people of your class. There is nothing particularly intelligent about taking the honourable course as the nobility do. It is littered with male suicides and ruined women. Do you have no sense of self-preservation at all?’

She was still looking at him as though he was talking gibberish. If he was smart, he’d have turned and run at that moment. Since there was no saving her, he would be better to save himself.

There was the faintest twinkle in her eye, caused by a single unshed tear. She was not stupid, for his own vanity insisted that no stupid woman could have caught him. And the trick she had used was a clever one, he had to admit.

But she had been unlucky enough to have the rest of the sense trained out of her to make her acceptable to society. It was as if someone had taken a diamond, then forced it into an inferior setting. He had but to pry it out again and set it right.

He took a deep breath and schooled himself to patience. Hard experience had taught him the lessons needed to stay alive. The current circumstances would force this woman to fight unarmed against a man who did not share her high ideals. She needed to learn life’s true lessons all at once, and he must be her teacher.

‘What you are saying, that you do not wish to lie and cheat to get what you want, is an honourable and worthy thing,’ he began. ‘It is cruel of me to taunt you for it. But you must have realised by now that de Warde is no gentleman, no matter his birth. He has shown no respect for you, for your family or for your honour.’

‘And now I will be forced to sink to his level.’

‘Only long enough to beat him at his own game,’ he promised. ‘We will use his greed against him. It is only in grasping at things that do not belong to him that he will overbalance and fall.’

‘You are saying that, if he were a proper gentleman, we would not be able to defeat him with lies?’ she said hopefully.

Her own father had been brought low by them quick enough. It was a spurious argument, but it seemed to console her. If Jack lied now, it was a small white one that would save her fragile pride. ‘Indeed. For all his good birth, my dear Uncle Henry is as base a villain as any I have met. That will be his weakness in the end. But I will need you to help me if we are to prevail.’

She sighed. ‘Even if it goes against my nature.’

‘It is nothing worse than a little play-acting,’ he coaxed.