The Viscount's Counterfeit Wife (47 page)

The next morning,
Tally, Mr. Mason and Joseph were out bright and early.

They said they were
going to the lending library. Again! Reed watched the three of them
depart from his bedroom window. He didn’t believe them. His Tally
couldn’t lie convincingly to save her life.

No doubt this was her
way of avoiding him, knowing he’d want an explanation for her
shocking accusations yesterday! He’d wanted to talk to her last
night, but Foster said she was feeling under the weather and brought
up her evening meal to her room and when he checked on her after, he
claimed she had gone to bed early.

Reed wished he could
say the same. He hadn’t slept a wink all night brooding over her
parting words. What did she mean about him climbing in the window?
And did she actually believe he could plot to kill her! He’d
planned on confronting her first thing this morning but, he’d
finally succumbed into the arms of Morpheus just as daylight crept
across the night sky and awoke late as they were preparing to leave
the house.

At least Mason was
going with her so she'd be safe. He had half a mind to follow them,
but this morning he had important matters he needed to settle. He
wasn’t sure how, but he had to resolve this quandary he was in. To
start with, he decided as he left his room to head downstairs for
breakfast, now was the perfect opportunity to have a man-to-man talk
with Foster, if he could find him! The butler seemed to know when a
serious talk he wished to avoid was imminent and made himself scarce.

Next, it was time to go
pay a visit to the Earl of Merkvale. If he was the heir, why had no
one from his family come to see him? Was he on the outs with them? He
couldn’t go on like this. He had to know.

On second thought,
perhaps going to see the Earl wasn’t such a good idea. What if
someone in his own family had shot him? Might that person not try
again, perhaps so the next son could inherit?

Lord, he hated all this
indecision!

When he reached the
bottom of the stairs, he noticed a letter on the front table and had
the sudden realization that this was the first mail he’d ever
noticed. Was it just that he was never around when it was delivered?
Surely he must have received some post since his fall. Had they been
keeping it from him?

Hot anger raced up the
back of his neck into his head causing his first headache in two
days. He’d thought he’d left them behind, but this one was sudden
and fierce. He told himself to calm down. She was just trying to
alleviate his confusion because he wouldn’t remember who the sender
was or what the letter was about?

But
it might have helped! Might even have jarred his memory loose!

That thought prompted
him to go see to whom the envelope was addressed. Picking it up he
turned it over and saw it was to Mrs. Leighton, with a law firm’s
seal on it.

He paused a second.
Should he take it? It wasn’t addressed to him. Stifling his qualms
about reading another’s letter, he picked it up and put it in his
inside breast pocket. He had to read it! It might have something to
do with him and he was through being shielded like a sick child.

Foregoing his morning
meal, he went back upstairs to his room. He ripped the seal open, not
caring if Tally knew he’d read her mail. He was convinced it
pertained to him! He felt justified in opening it. It was time he got
answers!

Unfolding the letter
inside, he began to read:
We are
writing this to inform you ...
A quick perusal led to more
questions than answers. In official legal language, it informed Mrs.
Leighton she was living in this house illegally and, given that the
owner was expected any day now, she must depart the premises
forthwith. It went on to enumerate the penalties she would incur
should she not vacate the property. The lawyer, Hornings, said he
would be presenting himself the very next day to ensure that she was
gone.

By tomorrow! What kind
of man put a woman out on the street, in the middle of London,
without proper notice? Where did the cold-hearted fiend expect her to
go?

More puzzling, though,
was why they thought that Tally was living, illegally, in this house.
She’d said they had rented it. He scanned down to read the
signature at the bottom of the letter, expecting to see a lawyer’s
signature. Suddenly, his breathing stopped, his hand began to shake
and his eyes froze on the signature line. The letter was signed on
behalf of
G. Marvin
.

So ordinary a moment to
cause so momentous a discovery!

A sudden sharp pain in
his temples increased his headache and lodged in his right eye,
causing an agonizing throb to pound mercilessly there. Like when, as
a boy, he and his brothers, who haunted the Windhaven stables, used
to snap off the longest icicles from the old shed’s roof to suck on
them. The cold would sometimes freeze their brains.

Today, the pain
appeared to be reviving his memories. He peered down at the name that
riveted his attention.

That
was the name he’d been using to invest his money before he left
England!
He
was
Reed Gordon Eames! That really was his name! The name he’d been
wondering about for several days. Emotion welled up. A lump lodged in
his throat.

Memories came swirling
back in a torrent. Dazed, he sat on the edge of his bed. Waves of
recollection washed over him. Overwhelmed by the onslaught of
information flooding his brain, he lay back on the bed and held his
head in his hands.

He
was
Reed Gordon Eames, Viscount Selwich, eldest son of George Eames, the
Earl of Merkvale! His conclusions were right. Except that he hadn’t
been banished! And he wasn’t on the outs with his family. Well, not
with most of them.

His father, he wasn’t
so sure. He’d had a serious disagreement with him six years ago
about refusing to become engaged to his father’s best friend, the
Duke of Archstone’s devilish daughter. She’d been only thirteen,
at the time, far too young and already a spoiled little shrew, who
would have made his life a misery! He’d packed his bags and left.
Of his own volition! He’d booked passage on a ship for British
India to set his father on the wrong path, should he have decided to
find his recalcitrant son. Instead, that son had boarded another
ship, under an assumed name, and sailed for Egypt.

He’d thought to
continue on to another country, further from detection, until he
stepped ashore in Alexandria and immediately fell under the spell of
the port city teeming with ships of all types from countries around
the globe. He was fascinated by the exotic scents and different
sounds permeating the atmosphere of the open markets, with their
exciting and colorful wares, so foreign to his more conventional
British upbringing.

He adopted a pseudonym
and set up his own export business of coffee, spices, and textiles.
Life became an adventure. He realized he’d been dreadfully jaded by
his life in England. In Egypt, the sun’s brightness and the
vibrancy of life there inspired him to paint every free moment he
could find. And he had no sire to loom over his shoulder with
disapproval. His business flourished and he amassed a huge fortune.
Now, he, or rather his alter ego, was considered a prosperous nabob.

Unbeknownst to his
father, he’d invited his brothers and sisters to become partners in
his company and now they were well on their way to becoming
independently wealthy men and women in their own right. The aim was
to never be at the mercy of their controlling parent ever again.

He had developed a new
view on how he wanted his life to be lived. Aside from providing him
with a very good living, he found he enjoyed the cut and thrust of
earning his own way. He acquired more self-respect than he’d ever
had as heir to his father. Knowing he survived as a result of his own
efforts and had done it well, with no help from anyone else, changed
him. He felt fully a man, confident he could meet and triumph over
all of life’s trials and vicissitudes.

He sat up. But how had
he ended up back in his own home in London?

The Vanisher! The
mission. Suddenly, it came to him. The reason he’d returned now.
That dream of him skulking around in the
souk
in Egypt had been all too real.

Wait! He had arrived
home... to
his
house!
(
No wonder it felt so
familiar!
)… in the middle of the night. He hadn’t been
able to get in. The lock had been changed. So he’d climbed the wall
to his bedroom.

Ah... Tally was right,
he
had
climbed in the
window! Yes, but what had…?

A vivid memory saw him
clambering backwards into his bedroom.

He looked around. This
wasn’t his bedroom! This was a guest room at the front of the
house.

Now he remembered! A
voice had warned him not to move but, startled by the unexpected,
he’d disobeyed that injunction and turned, only to hear the click
of a gun. He’d reacted instinctively and dived to avoid being hit
and… nothing… until now.

That voice had been
female.

Tally’s? Had she…?

She’d shot him! His
own…

No! No! She wasn’t
his wife! He wasn’t married!

Why had she said they
were? And why didn’t she tell him she was the one who shot him?

Their talk yesterday...
Just before she’d run from the room. She said she’d thought he’d
come to kill her.

But the question was —
why had she been in his house in the first place?

* * *

“But sir, surely you
jest. We’ve only just become acquainted.” Tally was horrified and
terribly embarrassed. She’d agreed to meet Mr. Dubuc in the lending
library this morning because he said he had something important to
tell her. She’d hoped it meant news of his uncle. Now he’d pulled
her into a small alcove and was down on his knee proposing marriage
to her!

“Oh no! Don’t do
that! Please, stand up!” Must she always attract the Spence’s of
the world? He’d seemed so different, so sophisticated.

“I insist you listen
to me pledge my troth.”

Stubborn and truculent
were not endearing qualities in anyone, much less a husband, she
reflected, lamenting his sulky attitude. If this... dolt! ...thought
this was the way to win a woman’s heart, he was sorely mistaken.

“If you must.
However, before you do, please know that I have no intention of
marrying. Ever. To anyone.”

“But why not?”

“Because I want to
retain my freedom. The right to do whatever I choose.”

“You may rest assured
I will allow you full freedom to do as you please,” he avowed in an
earnest manner.

She sniffed in disdain.
“You see, sir, it’s that little phrase ‘
allow
you’
that is the crux of my problem. Why should you or
any man have the right to
allow
me,
tell
me, what I
may or may not do?”

“But surely you can’t
expect…” Indignant, he leapt to his feet. “Women cannot...”
Noting her frown, he stopped in full flow.

Pleased that he seemed
to finally understand that she fully did expect to make her own
decisions about how she lived her life. “Indeed, I do.”

“That is most
unusual.” He paced away, then back. “But that needn’t prevent
us from marrying.”

“I’m afraid so.”
She gave him a sympathetic smile. “Marriage gives a man full legal
rights over me and my assets. I could never accept that.”

“You can trust me to
honor my word that I will never oblige you to do or not do anything.”

“It is more than just
being allowed or not allowed to act a certain way. Marriage means you
would own me, every part of me and all of my worldly belongings.”

Was that an avaricious
glint she’d glimpsed in his eye? It disappeared so quickly, she
might have been mistaken. Not that it mattered, for she had no
intention of making him or anyone her ‘lord and master’. “The
very idea… of anyone having that much power over me and my
life....” She shuddered and didn’t finish her sentence.

Uncertain of his
reaction, she watched him carefully while he absorbed her words. Was
he going to be reasonable? She hoped so. She had no time, or
patience, to deal with yet another persistent suitor.

“Well... I suppose I
can understand your position.” Giving a crooked smile with palms
out, he shrugged. “I had to try. Please don’t hold it against me.
If that is what you believe, then I accept your view.” He turned
his most potent weapon on her, his angelic smile. “I hope we can
remain friends?”

She expelled a relieved
breath.
Grazie al cielo!
He was going to be nice about this. “Yes, of course.”

“Come then, let us
enjoy the rest of this beautiful afternoon. We can walk in the park
next to here.”

“I’m afraid I
can’t.” She offered a hasty apology. “I came because it sounded
urgent. You might have had news from your uncle.” She shook her
head. “But I have several important matters to attend to this
afternoon.”

That wasn’t strictly
true. She had only one important matter to attend to. She had to pack
up their things and move out of Reed’s townhouse.

She’d just come from
his attorneys, where she’d learned that they had indeed been living
in the wrong house. She was feeling rather shaken and would never
have come to meet Mr. Dubuc, if she’d known he had nothing new to
report about Monsieur.

She had no idea how she
was going to explain this move to Reed. Of course, after yesterday’s
quarrel, he might not be so shocked.

She knew what she had
to do. Tell him the whole truth. Surely then, he’d insist on
remaining in his own house while they moved next door. If he didn’t
insist on dragging her off to jail.