The Wedding Escape (9 page)

“I think you should be prepared for the possibility that he may not be quite so willing to give her up. After all, Miss Belford, at the moment you are an heiress without means, having run away from your marriage and estranged yourself from your family's considerable fortune.”

Her eyes flashed with fury. “Tell me, Mr. Kent, do you believe no man could possibly want me just for the woman I am?”

“No—”

“Then kindly refrain from insulting me by questioning Lord Philmore's motives for wanting to marry me. Did you actually meet with him, or did you merely listen to idle gossip being bandied about by his associates at the Marbury Club?”

“I met with him,” Jack replied. “He gave me this note for you.” He produced Lord Philmore's envelope from inside his coat and handed it to her.

“I knew it!” she cried, freshly elated as she read the card within. “He says he is counting the moments until we are to be reunited. I am to meet him at the Wilkinsons' ball tonight, at precisely nine o'clock. There he will declare his intention to marry me before the hundreds of guests in attendance, and shall make arrangements for our marriage shortly thereafter.”

Jack stared at her incredulously. “Why in the name of God would he put you in such a public place when all of England is looking for you?”

“It's very clever, don't you see? My parents will not want to endure any further scandal by trying to stop a marriage that has been formally announced in a public setting. It's brilliant.”

“It's madness,” Jack countered furiously. “You may be interested to learn, Miss Belford, that there is a ten-thousand-pound reward being offered for any information leading to your being found. That means anyone at that ball could grab you and claim that reward—or, if they prefer a less sensational route to your father's wealth, they could merely contact the authorities and let them know where you are.”

“Percy would never let that happen.”

“Percy wouldn't have any goddamn choice,” Jack snapped. “Only a fool would let you walk in there alone. You're not going.”

“Forgive me, Mr. Kent, but I was not aware that you were my keeper.”

“I'm not your bloody keeper, but I am your—” He stopped, unsure how to finish.

“I asked you to help me get to London and find Viscount Philmore, and I am indebted to you for having done both,” Amelia assured him. “I do not, however, expect you to dictate to me how or where I am to reunite with him. Percy believes this is the best way for us to make our intentions public. If he suspected there was any risk involved, he would never suggest it.”

“He may not have thought the matter through.” Either that or Lord Philmore was a goddamn idiot, which was entirely possible. “Or he may not be aware of the reward. Either way, Miss Belford, I'm asking you to trust me.” He moved closer to her, narrowing the gulf between them. “Stay here tonight, and let me go to the ball and meet with Lord Philmore instead. I will make him understand the ball is not safe for you, and arrange another meeting for tomorrow night. If he cares about you as much as you claim, he won't mind a delay of one day. If anything, he will appreciate my concern.”

Amelia wanted to say no, to tell him that she refused to be separated from her Percy even a day longer, for every moment was like torture to two tragically separated lovers. But something in the powerful intensity of Jack's gaze made her pause. Somehow she did not think he would be moved by her declarations of love. Jack Kent did not strike her as a man who had ever known what it was to surrender himself to that glorious emotion. He would also not share her confidence that Percy would do everything within his means to see that she was safe. Jack had already made it abundantly clear that he despised Lord Philmore, although she didn't understand why. All she knew was that he believed he was protecting her, while she was quite certain she needed no such protection.

He was staring at her intently, waiting for her response. It confused her that the man who had so reluctantly spirited her away from her own wedding now felt that he held some sort of responsibility for her. She certainly didn't want Mr. Kent to think she was ungrateful for all that he had done for her. But she also didn't want to be separated from Percy even a moment longer—not when he was so close and their life together was finally about to begin.

“Very well, Mr. Kent,” she said. “I will remain here while you make alternate arrangements for our reconciliation. Will that satisfy you?”

Jack regarded her warily. “Yes.”

“Now if you will excuse me, I still have a number of outfits to try on before I send Beaton to return the clothes I will not be keeping.” She scooped up an elaborate gown of amethyst silk and a delicate pair of matching evening shoes.

Jack's jaw tightened as she raised the gown to her shoulders and turned to study herself in the mirror. Should Lord Philmore decide to break his betrothal to Miss Fanshaw, he would not be in any position to pay for the extravagant clothes to which Miss Belford was evidently accustomed. Somehow Jack forced himself to turn away from her, denying himself the pleasure of her loveliness as she cast the gown aside and rifled through the mound on the bed, searching for another.

If Miss Belford's precious viscount did decide to marry her, then she would learn the harsh reality of Philmore's finances and sexual preferences soon enough.

Chapter Five

W
E LOST HIM.”

The old man scowled with impatience. “What do you mean, you lost him?”

Neil Dempsey swallowed nervously and stared down at his notes, wondering how much this recent failure was going to cost him. It was difficult to predict the mercurial moods of his volatile employer, who could be unaccountably enraged by the most innocuous of details, and then moved to the brink of tears by some other equally insipid observation. Cursing his associate for losing Kent, he consulted the brief telegraph message he had received earlier that day.

“He was last seen yesterday leavin' Lord Whitcliffe's wedding in his rented carriage, with his old servant, Oliver, driving. Mr. Potter, my associate, was under the impression that Mr. Kent was plannin' to return to Inverness by train. Unfortunately, it seems he never reached the station. There's nae record of him purchasin' a fare, and no one saw either him or his servant boarding the coach. My associate continued to watch the station until the last train left last night. He then went to Whitcliffe's estate, where some of the guests were stayin', but Mr. Kent was nae there, either.” He closed his journal. “I'm afraid that's all I have, yer lordship.”

The earl sat upright suddenly, which provoked a violent fit of phlegmy coughing.

“Get out!” he snapped furiously at the sausage-shaped woman who opened the door. “Get out, I say!”

“Ye should save yer breath for them that's willin' to listen to ye,” the woman retorted, marching purposefully into the room. She poured some water from a jug into a glass, added a few drops of laudanum from a small brown bottle, then slipped a strong arm behind his back and held the glass to his papery lips. “Drink this.”

The once formidable Earl of Hutton reluctantly choked down a few sips of the foul-tasting brew. “Enough!” Edward barked when his coughing had subsided. “I'll not drink a sip more—I swear you're trying to poison me!”

“If I were, I'd use something that'd finish ye in one tidy gulp,” his nurse assured him brusquely. “That way I'd nae have to listen to ye chokin' and rantin' as ye went.” She eased him back against his pillows and briskly adjusted the covers over his frail form before turning to give Neil a stern look. “I've told ye to nae excite him.”

“And I've told you to mind your own bloody business!” snapped Lord Hutton, only to start hacking once more.

“I'm sorry, Mrs. Quigley,” said Neil. “Perhaps I should come back tomorrow—”

“Stay where you are.” Lord Hutton cast his investigator as menacing a look as he could muster, given his state of undress and feeble condition. “And you,” he added, turning to glare at his nurse, “get the hell out.”

“Ye've but five minutes,” Mrs. Quigley informed Neil, ignoring Lord Hutton. “Not a second more.”

“I'll be finished.” Neil did not know which of the two he found more intimidating.

“I'll decide how much longer he has,” Lord Hutton objected fiercely.

“Aye, ye will,” she agreed. “Because if I hear ye spewin' up yer lungs again, he's out on his ear, and never mind the five minutes I promised.” She banged the bedroom door shut behind her.

“I'd like to throw her out on her backside,” Edward muttered irritably. “How the hell did Potter lose him?” he demanded, turning his attention back to the twitching little mouse before him.

Neil stared morosely at his closed journal. “His telegraph didn't say, yer lordship. I imagine he must have looked away for a bit, or let too much distance grow between Kent's carriage and his own. Ye have to do that, sometimes, so them that ye're watchin' doesna get wind of the fact that he's bein' followed—”

“Spare me your inane excuses,” Edward snarled. “Tell Potter his services are no longer needed.”

Neil nodded glumly. “Do ye want me to find someone to watch for Kent in Edinburgh or Glasgow, or maybe London? He may have gone there to do some business—”

“Or he may be on his way to bloody Bangkok.” Edward steepled his hands together, thinking. “Go down to the docks and see if you can quietly find out whether or not they are still expecting him to sail on the
Lightning
. If something happened to change his plans, it's possible he sent word. If they haven't heard anything, plant yourself outside his house and don't bloody well move. He may show up there yet.”

“Aye, yer lordship,” said Neil hastily, relieved to have another assignment. Lord Hutton paid him a handsome salary for simple, regular work that so far had required no risk whatsoever. He did not want to lose his employment with him.

“If you've nothing more for me, then get the hell out.”

“Aye, sir.”

Edward watched as the skinny, flat-faced young man fled the room, no doubt afraid that his crotchety old employer might suddenly decide to sack him anyway, in a fit of pique. It was certainly within the realm of possibility. As it was, however, he was too bloody tired to do any more sacking. He lowered his hands and closed his eyes, trying to ignore the grindingly incessant pain that radiated now throughout his bones and organs and flesh, and fighting to stifle the cough that threatened to burst from his chest. If he permitted himself to cough, Mrs. Quigley would come running with her insufferable nattering and bossiness and foul-tasting medicines, which she would force past his lips as if he were some helpless, stupid child who didn't know what was good for him.

It was pathetic and degrading, this condition to which he had been so cruelly reduced at the age of sixty-nine. In his mind he was still a robust young man, while his pitifully failing body had transformed him into a quivering, coughing, aching husk. Cancer, the doctors had told him some six months earlier—an evil tumor swelling within his abdomen or bowel or some such foul place. They could try to cut it out, they told him, as a handful of surgeons had been attempting such drastic measures, but his chances of surviving the surgery were remote. At best they could assure him that if he did submit to the surgery, he could take comfort in the knowledge that he was helping to advance the science of medicine, and others might benefit from his sacrifice. Never one to choose the more difficult path, Edward had opted to endure the cancer and live whatever time he had left on his terms.

Had he known he was going to be reduced to this helpless, pain-wracked, bedridden state, he would have told them to hack him open and be done with it.

He opened his eyes and stared at the portrait of himself hanging over the fireplace on the opposite side of the room. His mother had commissioned it when he was a young man of twenty-eight, and his life had stretched before him like a spool of golden ribbon spilling across a sun-soaked lawn. He had been arrogant and pompous and lazy—he realized that now—but at the time he had thought himself to be a fine example of his class, and he had genuinely believed that he was going to actually do something of significance with his life. And why not? God knows, he had the means to do almost anything he wanted. A first-rate university education, a respectable title, a beautiful home and accompanying lands that simply fell to him for having the good luck to be born male, and first. There was also the fact that he was blessed with a sufficiently handsome face and hardened physique that could loosen both the morals and thighs of almost every woman he ever pursued. It was clear to him now that his money and his title were a significant part of his appeal, but at the time he was callow enough to believe that his conquests were thoroughly enraptured by his personal charm.

He had been an idiot.

He reached under his mattress and withdrew a small silver flask. Unscrewing the top proved to be a challenge for his severely weakened fingers. Finally he put the damn thing between his teeth while twisting the flask in his hands. His persistence was rewarded with the fiery heat of fine French brandy bathing his mouth—a gift from the scrawny little chambermaid who changed his sweat-soaked bed linens every day. Of course he had to bribe her in exchange for it, but that scarcely mattered. Money was the only allure he had left now, but at least he had enough of it that it wasn't an obstacle. He rolled the liquid around his tongue for a moment before swallowing, then sighed as the liquor burned a slow path of flames down his throat and chest. There were so few pleasures left that he could enjoy, he'd be damned if he'd let Mrs. Quigley or any of those mutton-headed doctors keep him from at least having a bloody drink. What the hell were they worried about, he wondered darkly—that the liquor was going to kill him? If so, that was an unexpected benefit. He took another long swallow, enjoying it even more because he knew it wasn't permitted.

Strange, he mused, suddenly melancholy. After so many years of indulging in anything that gave him pleasure, he now employed doctors and nurses and servants whose sole function, apparently, was to deny him whatever pleasure he might have left. He should discharge the lot of them, and fill his house with young, rosy-fleshed strumpets who would be only too eager to do whatever he asked of them, whether that meant serving him the entire contents of his wine cellar or dancing naked for him upon his bed.

He felt a vague stirring in his loins—a faint, fleeting memory of what it was to have his prick harden. He concentrated on it for a moment, straining to recapture the sensation of being aroused.

Ultimately he gave up and took another swallow of brandy.

Even if he had a woman straddling him all hot and wet and willing, he would not have been able to service her. Between his flaccid cock and his swollen, cancer-ridden belly, he hardly made a very desirable lover. He could accept that. What pained him more was that after sixty-nine years he had no one but servants surrounding him, who cared that he go on living only because their livelihoods depended upon him. His wife had died some eight years earlier, thank God. He had married her because his mother had insisted upon it, and as the daughter of a marquess, she had come with a reasonably attractive dowry.
Marry her to run your household and bear your children,
his mother had commanded.
You can always amuse yourself with mistresses, as long as they're clean and reasonably discreet.

A fiercely pragmatic woman, his mother. No romantic illusions clung to her steely breast. He supposed his father had cured her of any she might have had as a young bride. Just as he had cured his own wife.

A fist of guilt tightened in his chest, causing him to take another drink. In fairness, he reflected, he had not understood at first what his wife had expected of him. He had thought that she went into the marriage as he had, looking for a sensible, practical union that would enhance their social status and produce reasonably intelligent children, one of which absolutely had to be a boy. He had sincerely believed that when one tossed in the title of countess and all the social niceties and servants and jewels she received as a result of their union, that she was actually getting the better part of the bargain—despite the fact that her dowry was helping to pay for it.

He had been genuinely taken aback the night she wept so wretchedly when she discovered he had slept regularly with other women since their marriage. He had not understood what she wanted—did she really expect him to forfeit all the amusement in his life merely because he was now married? She was being a silly little nitwit, which he told her in no uncertain terms. They did not love each other, he reminded her briskly, nor had they ever lied and said that they did. And she had confessed to him, through a haze of tears he had thought pitiful and irritating, that she had hoped that eventually they might have come to love each other. That she had spent the year since they had married trying to love him,
and that despite his efforts to maintain his distance, there were actually moments where she felt she did. She was eight months pregnant with their first child at the time, and he had imagined he was being a considerate husband by seeking his carnal pleasures elsewhere. The idea of actually loving her was completely ridiculous. He had no need to love her. And more, he didn't want the burden of her love, and he told her so.

She had cried so violently her birthing pains started. The screams that filled his home that night and into the next were unlike anything he had ever imagined.

Late the next evening she finally gave birth to their first child. A girl. When it was finally over the doctor had told him that his wife had nearly died, and that there could never be any more children. Overcome with shock and remorse, Edward had gone into her bedroom to see his young bride lying pale and broken, too weak to even hold the tiny child she had labored so hard to deliver safely from her body. He had sat beside her, hollow and ashamed, struggling to find some words. Finally, not knowing what he could possibly say, he had reached out to caress her cheek.

And she had closed her eyes and withdrawn from him, forever severing whatever tenderness they might have sifted from the ashes of their relationship.

Regret pulsed through him, as dark and ragged and painful as it had been that terrible night. He took another swallow of brandy, but it had lost its power to comfort him. With effort he managed to secure the cap once more, then bury the flask beneath his mattress, where Mrs. Quigley wouldn't find it. Too tired to blow out the lamp beside his bed, he lay back and closed his eyes, almost as weak as his poor Katherine had been the night she put up a wall between them to save herself. He swallowed thickly, feeling the hot lick of tears pooling beneath his eyelids.

There was so much for which he was sorry, he scarcely knew where to start.

 

P
ERCY BARING, FIFTH VISCOUNT PHILMORE, SLIPPED A
gloved hand into his exquisitely tailored waistcoat and withdrew a finely wrought gold watch. It had belonged to his great-grandfather, and bore two small enameled blue birds surrounded by diamonds on its polished cover. Opening it, he studied the time, then frowned. Seven minutes past nine o'clock. He twisted the tip of his carefully waxed mustache with annoyance and snapped the watch closed before dropping it back into its satin-lined pocket.