Not Quite Married (41 page)

“Wretched man. I hate it when you say things so beautiful that they make me cry.”

Weston sat with his fork poised halfway to his mouth, watching between his daughter and her husband as revelation after revelation unfolded. Astounded, he put down his fork and picked up his wine glass and drained it.

There really was a God in heaven, and He really did answer prayers.

Twenty-Seven

AFTER DINNER, Brien left her father and Aaron in the salon, sharing a brandy, while she went up to their rooms to freshen up.

Aaron cast more than one look toward the door as he listened patiently to Weston’s latest news of the East India Company and the commodity trade. Weston pretended not to notice his son-in-law’s restiveness. He was, for all intents and purposes, newly wedded and no doubt eager to sample the delights of the marriage bed. Weston smiled to himself. Let the young buck wait.

The sound of the doors opening and raised voices in the hall caught them both by surprise, and they rose like one man. As Aaron gained the door first and stepped into the entry hall, the familiarity of the action dawned upon him. He suddenly felt as though he had responded just so a thousand times before.

He stopped short in the hallway as the driving force behind that well-remembered action loomed up before him. For a moment there was no sound or motion in the hallway as father and son faced each other.

“So.” The earl eyed his prodigal son appraisingly. “You’re home.”

“How did you know?” Aaron asked, tilting his chin upward to parry his father’s intense gaze.

“Peters.”

“I expected as much. Did he also tell you why I’m here?”

Aaron’s voice was lower, tighter than usual.

“Some nonsense about a marriage.”

Aaron’s voice and stubborn mood mirrored perfectly those of the man he confronted, even to the impatient twitch of the corner of his mouth. “I
am
married,” he said. “She is here with me.”

The earl handed his hat and gloves to Peters and headed into the salon, brushing by Aaron and totally ignoring Weston, standing in the doorway.

Weston considered making a discreet exit, but the drama was too high, too tempting. In the end, he followed Aaron back into the salon and sat down in an out-of-the-way chair. This didn’t seem an auspicious start to an introduction, but at least he would see what manner of family his daughter had married into.

“Why have you come back?” The rail-straight earl of Wilton sounded less hospitable by the moment. Weston winced as he thought of his outrage upon learning of their marriage and imagined what a howl this acerbic old aristocrat would raise.

“We needed a place to stay,” Aaron replied.

“Why not a public house?” The earl tossed his words like javelins. “Or has your waywardness wasted all of your resources?”

“We came for other reasons,” Aaron answered tightly. Then a reckless urge to honesty goaded him. “To avoid disgrace and possible arrest.”

Weston’s eyes widened at the audacious way it was phrased. The boldness of an experienced captain became pure, thoughtless rebellion when faced with his father’s hostility. Weston’s mind raced to gather facts and nuances and to trace them to their melancholy conclusion. The man, however worthy, would never fulfill the ambitions of his lordly father, however courageous he was, whatever he became or built, it would not matter. He would be an ungrateful, rebellious wastrel in his father’s house . . .

unless . . .

Weston was jolted back to the present by the earl’s heated charge. “Caught cuckolding some fat merchant or bedding his wayward daughter?”

“No, only assaulting a peer of France and spiriting away my lawful wife.”

“If you were married legally, then it could not have been honorably, to send you skulking back to the shelter of my house.”

“You have no right to judge my honor . . . or my wife’s.” Aaron’s voice was too low, too controlled for the heat contained in those words, and Weston sprang to his feet.

“I’ll judge who I want to judge in my own house—including you and your illegal strumpet.”

Only Weston’s physical intervention prevented Aaron from striking the older man. The elder Durham stood his ground regally. Only then did Thomas Durham take notice of the well-dressed observer who had intervened on his behalf.

“Think, man—” Weston strained against Aaron’s youth and strength, summoning his every reserve. “Would you bring such disgrace upon your head, upon your wife?”

At Weston’s reference to Brien, Aaron eased and straightened.

Weston sensed the younger Durham was again in control, but with passion full-blown and all the more dangerous for it. What a turn. He now feared for his daughter’s husband, when only hours before he had practically sought the man’s head! He stepped slowly aside, to keep both father and son in sight.

“Who are you?” Thomas Durham demanded, confront-ing him.

“I, sir, am the
strumpet’s
father . . . who yesterday led an attack on your son for abducting my daughter.” Weston’s dress and cultured bearing were all that prevented Wilton from ordering the insolent wretch thrown out. “I shall excuse your distasteful reference, for it is clear you have no knowledge to speak from.

But it is clear you know even less about your son than you do about my daughter. A deplorable fault in a father, sir, however it is justified.”

“The effrontery!” Wilton exclaimed. The redness that flushed his prominent cheekbones let Weston know his words had found a mark. “Just who do you think you are to lecture me in my own house?”

“I am your son’s father-in-law. Otherwise known as Lawrence Weston, seventh Earl of Southwold.”

At the name, Thomas Durham’s eyes widened; he had heard of the wealthy Southwold, but had never met the reclusive nobleman. Then his eyes narrowed. It would take more than a fine suit of clothes and a bit of cultured speech to convince him of the authenticity of the claim.

“Clever you are to bring so accomplished a liar as an accomplice,” Durham declared, searing Aaron with a look. “But it will do you no good. Whatever you seek, you will go away empty-handed.”

“What makes you think I want anything of yours?” Aaron declared angrily. “Had I known you would return so soon, I would never have stayed.”

“I see.” An ugly curl crept into the elder Durham’s lip. “You thought to rob me blind in my absence . . . you and your trollop.”

Weston had had enough. He grabbed Durham’s arm and yanked him around to give him the tongue-lashing of his life. “You arrogant, insufferable, foul-minded—”

The senior Durham drew back in outrage and before he was even aware of making the decision to do so, reversed and planted Weston a facer.

Weston staggered back, shocked from his toes to the roots of his hair. And then, igniting with equal outrage, he lowered his head and charged at Durham, sending him sprawling back onto the settee and gasping for breath.

Aaron stifled the urge to join the melee, but could not bring himself to stop it. They were healthy and reasonably well matched in age and size. In a few energetic exchanges they both were panting and swinging furiously, but without much effect. At least once each man was brought to his knees—an even bout to Aaron’s incredulous scrutiny. Somewhere in the midst of watching his rigid old iconoclast of a father engage in a full-out knuckle-banger of a fight with another peer of the realm, his own anger was spent.

By the time Brien’s voice split the air, they were more than willing to halt.

“Merciful God! What do you think you are doing?”

Weston got up heavily from his knee and Thomas Durham leaned over the back of a chair, panting. Their clearing gazes turned to her at the same time. All of them stared—each for a different reason.

She was a vision in a borrowed dressing gown that highlighted her smooth skin and womanly curves. Her hair had been brushed and was pinned loosely atop her head. Her cheeks were flushed and her eyes flashed indignation.

“What is going on here?” she demanded, steadying herself on a nearby chair.

Aaron cleared his throat as the others looked to their clothing and bruised faces.

“It seems our fathers had a difference of opinion.” Amusement played at the corner of Aaron’s mouth.

“Father?” She turned on the earl in disbelief. “Whatever possessed you?” Without waiting for a response, she moved on to Thomas Durham. “And you, sir, to brawl with a guest in your own home . . .” Then she turned on Aaron. “And you let them?

You’re as daft as they are! What possible provocation could they have had?”

There was an uncomfortable silence in which not one of them would meet her eye.

“My father doubts our marriage and your father’s word on his identity, and thinks I am here to steal him blind.” Aaron’s brutally simple summary told Brien all she needed to know.

She approached the earl with a display of determined grace that made her father hold his breath and made her husband bite his lip in anticipation. Her effect on Thomas Durham was harder to read, but his sidelong glance at Weston hinted that he was reconsidering his earlier stance. She clearly was not what he expected.

He took Brien’s proffered hand awkwardly.

“Since no one seems to have the manners to introduce us, I am Brien Weston Durham. Your son and I were married some time ago. The circumstances, while unusual, cast no doubt on the honor or legality of our union. Tomorrow morning you may inspect the marriage documents yourself, if you wish.”

“I . . . I shall.” Durham’s jaw slammed shut.

Brien withdrew her hand. “I do not know what you have been told, but I shall tell you the truth as I know it. Aaron and I were lost to each other for some time before being reunited on the maiden voyage of his new ship to the American colonies.”

“So,” Durham cast a caustic look at Aaron, “you managed to complete your little boat without your inheritance.”

“I learned a great deal about him during that voyage. I learned how smart and talented and creative he is. I learned how honorable and capable and dependable he is. And I learned that, unlike many men, he doesn’t have to prove his manhood by controlling and manipulating others.”

“Well.” Durham seemed a bit less acerbic when he said,

“Congratulations. You finally managed to convince someone that your daydreams are grand and noble visions.”

“Unfortunately, when he told me that he was going to stay in the colonies, to make his life there . . . to register his ships under and sail under the colonial colors, I couldn’t imagine how anyone could abandon a life of privilege and opportunity in England for the hopes and promise of something not yet built. It took a voyage back to England and a lot of thinking for me to realize that to look at a sprawling land filled with raw, untamed beauty and see it built into a fine, strong, prosperous new country takes a very special vision . . . something given to very few men, whatever their birth. Aaron is one of them.”

Durham stared at her with his lips drawn into a tight, impregnable line.

“You should know the rest.” Her calm, determined voice had the ring of a steel blade on stone. “Aaron rescued me from an abduction and very nearly a forced marriage. He risked life and limb, fought bravely and honorably to save me. I owe him my life as well as my happiness. But with all of that, he would still have let me go if I wanted to leave. He knows, in a way few will ever know, that to love someone is to free them. To want them to grow and live and use their talents as they see fit.

“I wasn’t certain I had done the right thing in marrying him. But I find now that being Mrs. Durham—
Brien Durham
—living with and loving your son has become the very foundation of my life.”

Her coolness in the face of an obviously hostile father-in-law surprised even her a bit. But if the earl rejected them totally, at least she would have the satisfaction of setting the pompous old curmudgeon straight. “I intend to live with him until my dying day.”

“Surely you cannot expect me to welcome you with open arms,”

Durham said, pulling his chin back and reddening. “For all I know, this is a ruse—and a diabolically clever one at that. I warn you, you’ll not get a shilling!”

Brien’s gaze grew withering as she drew herself straighter. “If you weren’t so blind and stubborn, you would already know that Aaron wants none of your money. And he desires your title even less.” She looked to Aaron, then back to his father. “Having seen how nobly you wear the honor, I make it a condition of my marriage to him that he never even consider it.” She edged closer to him, eyes now blazing. “It doesn’t matter what you think of me or my family, your lordship. But you must be the world’s greatest fool to disparage the honor and courage of a man as exceptional as Aaron Durham, solely on account of his being your son.”

The earl looked as if he’d just been doused with cold water.

She stepped back slowly, her mind racing and her heart filled with a jumble of indignation, pride, and sadness. This was the scorn Aaron had lived with until he could bear it no longer and had fled to the open and hungry arms of the sea. She looked at him with all the love in her heart visible in her eyes, vowing silently to love him all the more dearly for the hurt he had suffered here.

“You needn’t worry about being bothered with us.” She turned on Thomas Durham with fresh fire in her eyes. “We plan to make our home in Boston in the colonies. There, at least, a man is judged by his own skill and cleverness and courage—not by the confines of a lifeless tradition.”

She stepped back, raking him with narrowed eyes. “This I will take from you, your lordship: I shall spend what is left of this night in
your
bed. Tomorrow, I shall take nourishment at
your
table, and I will leave shortly thereafter with
your
son, to make my life with him.”

In the silence that followed, she crossed to Aaron and took the hands he extended to her. She turned to fire the finishing salvo.

“In return, sir, I will give you beautiful grandchildren that will honor their father, their grandfather, and the name of Durham.

Only you must come to Boston to claim them.”

“Boston?” Aaron grinned. “Are you sure, sweetness? I don’t want you to ever regret—”