An Arrangement of Sorts (5 page)

It was said without malice, but that did not make her words any less stinging. He had been wishing only for an endpoint, and that was all that had mattered. He had not even considered what this would mean for her. “You may tell me whatever you wish to, Miss Dennison,” he said softly.

She nodded and looked away. For a long moment, she said nothing. But he was in no hurry. If they were going to Preston, there would be quite enough time for everything, and they would no doubt run out of things to talk about before they were even halfway there.

“I was fifteen when Charles Allenford came to live with his cousins in Gillam,” she began in a voice that hardly sounded like her own. “He was a little older than I was, but we quickly became friends. Both of us had lost our parents and were living with relatives. We were lonely. But suddenly, we had each other.”

Nathan watched her carefully, but her expression was surprisingly devoid of emotion.

“We became betrothed when I was nineteen,” she continued, thankfully skipping extraneous details. “We decided not to be married until we could properly afford to do so. Charles was determined to provide for me.” Here she broke off with a small snort of derision, which he did not understand, but made no comment. “Around my twentieth birthday, Charles decided that he could not make any sort of living in Gillam. He was going to try for Preston, but would seek work of any kind along the way. He wrote to me faithfully for three months, and then nothing. I have not heard from him since.”

A multitude of thoughts flooded Nathan’s mind. The first was the oddity of the choice of Preston as a destination for one living in the southern part of the country. The second was the sudden stop of letters to Moira. Two questions sprang to mind: Why would a man be willing to go so far from the woman he supposedly loved if all he wanted was to provide for her, and why would he stop writing to his betrothed if he loved her so much to go to the opposite end of the country?

Nothing Moira was telling him made sense, but he could not ask the questions he wanted to. He doubted she had answers herself.

“How long since the last letter?” he asked as gently as he could.

“Eighteen months, perhaps a week besides.”

“And his family is not looking for him?” That was another point that bothered him.

“His uncle died shortly after he left and the cousins decided not to remain, and moved their mother to the coast. I have not heard from them.” She sighed and looked up at him with a wry smile. “I know it is a great deal to ask of you, Mr. Hammond, but are you still willing to help me find him?”

It was, as he always knew, a foolish trip by a young romantic with no notion of how the world worked. The likelihood of any of this working out in her favor was far less than probable. Frankly, it would end badly. It would hardly be worth his time to continue on with this excursion. It was certainly not something he should be doing.

And yet…

“Of course, Miss Dennison. I am at your disposal.”
    

C
hapter
T
hree

“W
e should be married.”

Nathan jerked, startling Mercury so badly he sprang ahead suddenly. Once Nathan had his horse under control again, he turned back to Moira, who still sat primly on her mount, watching him. “I beg your pardon?” he managed to ask in a voice that was quite a bit higher in pitch than it had been in his mind.

Moira seemed confused by his behavior, as if her words had been perfectly sound. Then she stopped short, her eyes widening perceptibly and her hands shot to her mouth.

“I meant as our story!” she cried, her cheeks flaming. “When we meet people. To protect our reputations. Oh, it made perfect sense in my head!” She covered her face with both of her hands.

Now that Nathan’s heart had stopped racing so frantically and he’d caught his breath, he had the oddest desire to laugh. “I take it your thoughts went ahead of your mouth?”

She nodded, still keeping her hands over her face.

He allowed himself a chuckle. “It happens to the best of us. Now, if you would please remove your hands from your face. I would feel much better about your riding abilities if you could see where you were going.”

She slowly dropped her hands and looked up at him, her cheeks still delightfully pink. “I am so sorry.”

He smiled at her kindly. “Think nothing of it. I actually had that thought as well, but it was hardly decent to bring up.”

“Wonderful,” she muttered, her eyes turning colder. “You are accusing me of being indecent again. I have had quite the day, it seems.”

He groaned and pointed at her. “Stop putting words into my mouth, Miss Dennison. I did not say you were being indecent. I said it would hardly be decent for
me
, as a man, to bring up the idea of a marriage between us. There is a quite distinct difference.”

“Yes, I suppose there is, you are right,” she grumbled. “Again, my apologies.”

“I think you should stop apologizing for everything you do, Miss Dennison. Not everything you
think
offends me actually offends me.”

She nodded with a grateful smile.

“It’s also quite irritating,” he added under his breath.

Her suddenly narrowed eyes told him that she heard him, and he quickly changed the subject. “As I mentioned, I had that thought as well.”

“We could just as easily be brother and sister,” she interrupted quickly, her cheeks flushing again.

He silenced her with a look. “Who would look at us and allow for that story, Miss Dennison? We look nothing alike.”

She frowned, but said nothing.

“The only logical choice to save our reputations and allow us to keep looking would be if we pretend marriage between us.”

She nodded at his words, but still said nothing.

“Miss Dennison,” he said quietly, more than slightly unnerved by her sudden silence. “You are the one who brought this up. Are you having second thoughts?”

“I think I am up to about fourth thoughts at the moment,” she answered in a very small voice, avoiding his eyes.

He was startled, he had to admit. This was not the sort of reaction he had expected Moira to have. She didn’t think twice about marching into a pub in a town she did not know to find a man she had never met to tell him, not ask him, what he was going to do, but she became shy and retreating upon reconsidering the prospect of a pretend marriage?

“I can understand your reluctance,” he began slowly, praying he was going about this in the correct manner. “If we proceed with this, it will certainly place us in situations that neither of us have faced before, and would probably be very uncomfortable due to the level of familiarity that people will assume of us.”

Moira nodded silently, swallowing with difficulty.

“But I think that you see as well as I that it is the safest course.”

“Yes,” she whispered, still not looking at him. “It’s the only way we can accomplish what we must and maintain our reputations.”

“I don’t wish to add to your discomfort, Miss Dennison,” he started, wondering how to approach the idea he had formulating. “I know that we had a bit of a rough beginning...”

Her eyes finally met his and she managed a weak smile. “I hope you understand that this is not about you, Mr. Hammond. I would feel reluctant pretending marriage with any man.”

He returned her smile. “Well, thank you for that, but yes, I did gather as much. I have an idea that may help the situation, if it is agreeable to you.”

“At this moment, I am willing to try almost anything to make this more comfortable,” she offered, sounding relieved.

He was not entirely sure she would be willing to try his suggestion, but it was all he could think up. “I think that it would help matters a great deal if we were more familiar with each other in private. For example, no more of being Miss Dennison and Mr. Hammond. We could just be Nathan and Moira. It might allow us to be more comfortable with each other, so that when we are expected to appear close, it would not be so awkward.” He held his breath and waited for the tirade to begin, afraid to look at her.

To his astonishment, he saw that she was nodding to herself. “I think that would be a very sensible thing to do.”

“You do?”

She grinned. “Taken you by surprise, have I? Now, that is refreshing, Nathan.”

The fact that she tossed out his name so easily, and that it sounded so good to his ears, was something else he was entirely unprepared for. “I suppose you could say that,” he managed, barely remembering that he could say her name, and hastily added, “…Moira.”

It felt good to call her by her given name. He liked her name. It suited her. But he couldn’t tell her that. He had his own reputation to uphold. Giving her as severe a look as he could manage, he said, “Though I can hardly call it refreshing. If you keep taking me by surprise in such a way, I cannot be held responsible for my actions.”

She smirked. “So I have your permission to call you Nathan, then?”

He snorted and gave her a look. “It was my idea, if you recall. I would have hardly brought it up if I had a problem with you using my given name. I assume that I have your permission to do the same, Moira?”

“Yes, I suppose...” She wrinkled her nose a bit. “This is going to take some getting used to, isn’t it?”

He chuckled. “Probably. Breaking habits usually does. But my friends have all called me Nathan for years, so if we just consider each other as friends, perhaps it will be easier.”

She tilted her head and her smile grew. “I would like that very much. Nathan.”

“As would I.” Unable to help himself, he grinned. He really would like to consider her a friend. He would like to know what was really going on in that head of hers, and what drove her to march in demanding to see him the way she did. But more than that, he wanted to know her, the woman she was on the inside. Ironically enough, he thought he could quite genuinely like Moira Dennison, if she would let him.

Or parts of her, at any rate.

“I think we are in for a very interesting experience,” Moira said, musing aloud.

“I fail to see how it could be anything but,” he agreed. “If we view it as an exercise in creativity, it could be very interesting indeed. Imagine the sorts of scrapes we could get ourselves into.”

“Then let’s do it,” she piped up with an impish light in her eyes. “I can spin quite a tale, if called upon to do so.”

“Can you now?” he queried, not sure he believed her. “Well then, when we first have to pose as man and wife, I will let you do the talking.”

She narrowed her eyes. “You don’t think I can do it.”

He held up his hands in surrender. “On the contrary, I think you will have no trouble convincing people that we are married.”

“Hmm,” she murmured, still eying him warily. “I don’t trust you.”

“Then we are better friends than I thought.”

Her face broke into a smile once more, and it was as if the sun had suddenly broken through a dark blanket of clouds. It transformed her face from merely attractive into something so stunning it was all he could do to blink.

He hastily swallowed the unexpected choking sensation that was now in his throat and somehow managed to speak. “I have a ring.”

Well, now
that
was certainly coherent of him.

He cleared his throat and tried again. “If we are to be traveling as husband and wife, we should try to do so from all outward appearances. I have procured a ring for that reason.” There, that was much more sensible.

She nodded thoughtfully. “Excellent idea. I will, of course, compensate you for it.”

He shook his head. “No, it is not worth very much. Besides, it has been in my family for some time. I will just collect it when we are through.”

“If you wish. I am impressed by your forethought, Nathan.” She smiled at him, and he found himself returning it, despite his twinge of guilt.

She might not smile so fondly if she knew where the ring had come from.

He pulled out the ring from his pocket and handed it to her. She took it and slid it onto her finger. “Perfect fit, how fortunate.”

He took a silent breath in.

Enough of that. He cleared his throat and was about to ask her something when she spoke.