Wed Him Before You Bed Him (9 page)

Bowmar sat back and sneered. “Heart? A heart has no place in the newspaper business, sir. Material as juicy as this will sell papers by the hundreds.”

“I won't do it. It's wrong.”

Narrowing his eyes to slits, Bowmar said, “You'll do as I say if you want to keep your position.”

Since coming to work for Bowmar two years ago, Charles had suffered several moral dilemmas. He'd gritted his teeth and weathered every one without losing his job. But this one really stuck in his craw. And he'd had enough.

“I don't give a damn about my position, if this is what I have to do for it.” He turned toward the door. “I quit.”

Charles walked out without a backward glance.

F
ive days after the Pages had left Berkshire for town, David rode toward home after his early morning gallop. Riding had been his salvation ever since Charlotte had left, though it didn't keep his mind off her.

A smile curved his lips. He was in love. No question about that. He could hardly sleep without thinking of her. And in only two days he would see her again in London. This time he would make her give him an answer. He might be young, and he might sometimes be a fool, but he was not going to let her get away.

Of course, Father would be delighted. He sighed. He hated that he was playing right into Father's hands, but it couldn't be helped. If practicality and love just happened to coincide, well, who was he to question it?

As soon as David entered the manor, the servant told him his father was calling for him most urgently. David hurried to his father's study, surprised to find the man pacing and drinking whisky, never a good sign at this hour.

“You wanted me, Father?”

His father whirled to fix him with a look that would have frozen steam, then slapped a newspaper down on the desk. “Do you want to explain how this happened?”

“How
what
happened?” David asked, utterly bewildered.

“There is an article here that says scathing things about a gentleman who sounds an awful lot like you.”

A chill coursed down David's spine. Scathing things about
him
? In the bloody
Morning Tattler
?

Grabbing up the paper, he began to read. It was an editorial full of pompous attacks against “wayward” gentlemen. As an example, the editor had produced a letter from a young female whose dignity had been trampled by such a man:

He couldn't breathe, his blood roaring so loudly in his ears he thought he might faint like some stupid girl. Miss Monkey. It was by Charlotte? How could she have written this…this vile thing?

Every word was a knife to his heart. He barely registered the rest of the editorial, in which the editor raged about the behavior of young gentlemen toward respectable women in the vicinity of Cambridge. He didn't hear his father's questions or even notice the room around them. He just stood there, impaled on her words.

Why had she written this? What had he done? They'd had an understanding. He'd been sure that she cared for him. The last time he'd kissed her, she'd seemed as happy and eager to be married as he.

“Well?” his father repeated. “I can see from your face that it's about you.”

He nodded, only half-conscious of doing so.

“Am I to guess from the timing of it that it was written by Charlotte Page?”

“Most assuredly,” he said dully.

“So what have you to say for yourself? What did you do to that girl?”

Heat rose in his cheeks. “I did nothing except ask her to be my wife.” And act like a besotted fool. And bare his heart for her dagger, which even now twisted in his breast. “She must have heard gossip about me after she returned to London.”

But why had she believed it? That's what sent the knife digging deep—the fact that she had learned some nastiness about his wenching, and instead of coming to him about it, had done
this.
She hadn't even waited until she saw him again to accuse him. She had sent it to the bloody paper to be published! How could she?

He'd known she was a bit high in the instep, that she had wild notions about him and his reputation, but he'd never expected something so inexplicably cruel. What sort of woman did such a thing?

His only consolation was that no one would guess it was he who…

The blood chilled to ice in his veins. He read it again, a glacier creeping over his body, freezing everything it touched. “Everyone will know it's me.”

“Ridiculous,” his father said. “She at least had the good sense not to use any names. The only reason
I
guessed it was the bit about your dressing gown.”

David glanced up at his father. “Exactly. I wore that dressing gown at Cambridge many a time. I was known for it.” He let out a foul curse. “It won't take long for word to get round that it's me.”

The color drained from Father's face. “Where is it now?”

“I gave it to Giles.”

Father called for Giles. As soon as the young man entered, Father asked, “Where is the dressing gown your brother gave you?”

Giles glanced uncertainly at David. “Why?”

“Do you have it?” Father barked.

“It's in my dresser.”

“Have you worn it publicly yet?”

Giles swallowed, clearly afraid he was being accused of something. “No, sir.”

“Good. Then burn it.”

“What? Why?”

David tossed him the paper, then turned to his father. “Burning it will do no good. Hundreds of chaps at Cambridge saw me in it.”

As Giles read the story, David stalked the room, unable to get warm, unable to stop the ice stealing over him.

“We'll sue the
Tattler
for libel,” Father said.

David whirled on his heel. “Thus confirming for everyone that it's me? Are you mad?”

“According to you, they'll know that already,” Father bit out. “Besides, if the little bitch wants to ruin you publicly, she should suffer ruin as well.”

For some reason, an image of a terrified Charlotte balking at going on the river swam into David's mind. But of course it was a false image. If she truly feared her father, why send this letter to a newspaper? Surely she was clever enough to realize that Lord Page would recognize her hand in it. The man had seen David in the dressing gown one morning. He would put together the rest.

David bit back a foul oath. Perhaps that was why she'd done it—to punish her father. That at least made sense. She wasn't brave enough to identify herself, but she was brave enough to drag the son of her father's friend through a scandal in order to destroy Lord Page's scheme of marriage.

Whatever her reasons, they were insupportable. He would never forget what she'd done. Or forgive it.

The glacier stealing over his body now crept toward his heart. “As appealing as ruining Miss Page sounds to me at the moment,” David ground out, “that is the surest way to fuel the fire. She'll be touted as a martyr while I am vilified in the press for my attempt to vilify
her
. Give the press even a morsel of the truth, and they will pounce on us like ravening dogs. They'll unearth the fact that you wanted me to marry her for her fortune and that her father had hopes for political gain. We'll be publicly humiliated as scheming scoundrels, which is probably exactly what she wants.”

The arctic fury sliding over him was vastly preferable to that first white-hot lance of pain in his heart. He welcomed the frost, embraced it, letting it freeze his soul to a solid block of ice. “Silence is our best recourse. Silence, and a hope that no one connects me to this bloody letter.”

His father glanced over at Giles. “What are you doing standing there like a slack-jawed fool? Go burn that dressing gown. That's one thing we can do.”

“Yes, sir,” he mumbled and fled the room.

David stared after him, now numb to the very soles of his feet.

“I'm sorry, son,” his father said in a low voice. “This is my fault, for bringing them here. For asking you to consider the chit as a wife. I had no idea she was such a mad-woman.”

No, but David had known. Somewhere in the part of him that treated all people with caution, he'd known that she and her parents were an unpredictable lot. He should have listened to that instinct, instead of letting his cock lead him into trouble as usual.

Much as he hated to admit it, Father had been right. Love
was
for fools and children. David should never have conflated the practical advantages of marrying Charlotte with some dubious and foolish emotion. Then he wouldn't be standing here with his heart in shreds.

Fine. He would weather this as best he could, but he would learn from his mistakes. There would be no more debauchery, no more whining about Father's investments, no more drunken orgies with his friends. There would certainly be no more attempts at love matches. He was done with that. He would set the course of his life with the same ruthless efficiency as she.

And after the gossip had died down, and he'd had time to develop a plan, he would make Charlotte Page pay for making a public laughingstock out of him. Just see if he didn't.

 

Charlotte was about to enter the breakfast room when her father's raised voice wafted out to her in the hall.

“I tell you, this time she's gone too far!” Papa shouted.

Her heart racing, Charlotte slid up next to the door to listen.

“You don't know that it was her,” came her mother's timid voice. “Truly, Rowland—”

“What? You can defend her after this travesty?” There was a rustle of paper. “She sent it to the
Morning Tattler,
of all things! I saw young Masters in that dressing gown one morning—I know he's the one who is meant in the letter.”

Charlotte's heart nearly stopped. A letter? They'd got hold of
her
letter? No, that wasn't possible. It wouldn't be in the newspaper.

“It does sound like him,” Mama said, “but I'm sure it
was some other girl who wrote to the paper. He does have a reputation, you know.”

“What about this line here: ‘as fickle and deadly as the waters of the Thames'? It's something she would say. And she actually called him an ‘unrepentant libertine' before we arrived in Berkshire. Don't you remember her terming his friends ‘debauched'?”

Fear crawled up from Charlotte's belly, clawing at her, making her sway on her feet as she recognized phrases from her letter. Oh god oh god oh god, how had it ended up in the
Morning Tattler
?

“I don't think our Charlotte would—”

A smack sounded, then a sharp cry from Mama. Charlotte stilled, panic gripping her. Papa had never hit Mama that she knew of. If he were to start now, because of Charlotte's stupid,
stupid
letter…

“Rowland, please,” her mother said in a low voice, “hitting the furniture will accomplish nothing. The servants will hear. Besides, you can't be sure that it
was
her.”

Relief coursed through Charlotte, but it was only temporary. Papa's temper was sure to be ungovernable after this. And what would he do to her? He would never forgive her for this, never!

“I've asked her three times since we returned how it went with him,” he cried, “and she got close-mouthed about it every time.” The paper rattled again. “That's because she was plotting
this,
damn her! I won't stand for it, do you hear? She will apologize to him in person. I'll see her grovel before him and all his family if that's what it takes to make this right! Because if she doesn't, I'll suspend her by her damned feet from the London Bridge until she does!”

The very idea sent horror slicing through Charlotte.

Papa continued to curse as he tramped about the room. “I swear to you I'm never letting her leave this house again. She will stay locked up in her room until hell freezes over! I've had enough of her impudence!”

She was done for. Fearing he would burst into the hall any minute and find her skulking there, she crept toward the back entrance to the house. Once she got outside, she ran for the furthermost corner of their little garden.

She paced beneath her favorite willow, frantic to figure out what had happened and what she should do. How could her letter have gone to a newspaper? Oh, if she ever saw that Tom Dempsey again, she would box his ears! She'd known something was wrong when he never returned for the other ear bob.

“Miss Page!” hissed a voice from behind her, making her start.

Turning toward the iron bars of the fence, she was shocked to find Captain Harris sitting astride his charger in the alley. Color crept up her cheeks. She'd scarcely thought of him in these past few days, too caught up in her pain over David's betrayal.

“What are you doing here?” she whispered, hurrying toward the fence.

Before she could stop him, he'd vaulted off his horse and over the sharp-tipped bars to land on his feet before her.

“I came to pay a call on you,” Captain Harris said, “but the butler told me you weren't home to visitors. So I rode back to the alley, hoping for a glimpse of you.”

Under the circumstances, she didn't know whether to be flattered or alarmed. “I-I suppose you read the letter in the paper.”