Dangerous to Hold (10 page)

“You want me to do
what?”
In her agitation, Catherine jerked her hand, and droplets of tea spilled down the front of her gown. She was hardly aware of what she was doing when she set down her cup and saucer and began mopping the spilled tea with a handkerchief she’d found in her pocket. Her eyes never left Marcus. She couldn’t have heard what she thought she’d heard. It was too bizarre. In fact, everything he’d told her was too bizarre.

At her outburst, Marcus had risen from his chair. He was the one who had left the door open in the interests of propriety. Now he closed it and returned to his seat. They were in Catherine’s study. A fire had been lit to take the chill off the air, and both chairs had been pushed close to the grate.

“I want you to play the part of my wife,” repeated Marcus.

Catherine was slumped in her chair, looking up at him with eyes rounded with incredulity. Alarm licked through her and she could hardly breathe. He’d told her, only moments before, that he suspected his wife was trying to murder him, and now this. What game was he playing, and how should she respond? Did he or didn’t he know that she was Catalina? She had to get a grip on herself; she had to continue with the charade that she wasn’t his wife.

“Are you out of your mind?” she demanded. “Do I look like a Spanish girl? Merciful heavens, I don’t even know the language.”

Marcus patiently listened to the stream of incredulous objections that followed. His problems had nothing
to do with her. She didn’t know if she believed him. Partisans?
El Grande?
He thought his wife was trying to murder him? It was all so farfetched. She had her own life to lead, thank you very much. It was one of her cardinal rules never to get between a husband and his wife. Was what he proposed even legal? Besides, she had her articles to write. He should be locked up in an insane asylum for even suggesting such a thing. She could never pull it off.

When she paused, he said quietly, “I’ll make it worth your while. Five thousand pounds, Catherine.” He cast a disparaging glance around the shabby interior. “Don’t tell me that you can’t use the money, because I know that isn’t true. Just hear me out, all right?”

Though her shock was genuine, she had to know more. “Five thousand pounds is quite a sum,” she responded noncommittally.

“I thought that would get your interest,” said Marcus dryly.

As he spoke, he reached for the bottle of brandy McNally had provided and topped off his glass. He then explained the circumstances surrounding his marriage to Catalina, ending with, “Perhaps she only married me assuming I would be killed in the war, and she would inherit a considerable portion of my fortune. But instead, I survived, which has now put her to the inconvenience of having to finish me off herself. And she may very well accomplish it—if I don’t find her first.”

When he paused to marshal his thoughts, she said, “But surely you could simply have the marriage annulled? It sounds like a completely trumped-up affair. I would think it wouldn’t even be a legal marriage in England.”

“Then you’d be wrong,” said Marcus. “This was wartime, remember, and in the battle zone. The marriage was witnessed by English officers. Many other British soldiers married Spanish girls in unusual circumstances, and their marriages are considered legal. Why should mine be different?”

“But if the marriage wasn’t consummated?”

She asked the questions only because she felt he would expect it of her. In fact, she already knew the answers. When she’d returned to England, she’d done some
research and had discovered, to her dismay, that it would take an army of lawyers and judges to untangle the legalities of her Spanish marriage. Even the fact that she’d used a false name wasn’t grounds for an annulment. She’d counted on Wrotham to use his money and influence to buy his way out of it.

He said, “How could I prove it? Besides, contrary to what most people think, a marriage is still legal even if it isn’t consummated. And getting a marriage annulled for a man in my position is very tricky. The verdict could go either way, and if it went against me, I’d be tied to Catalina for the rest of my life. And I have the succession to consider. At any rate, all of that is irrelevant if she manages to get me murdered first.”

“Then what’s to be done?”

“A divorce, Catherine. Oh, not an English divorce. These things are more easily arranged in Scotland. I’ve looked into it, you see. It could be done if Catalina were willing. But she has to be here in person before I can proceed.”

Catherine understood at last why Wrotham had not taken any steps to have the marriage annulled immediately after leaving the partisans’ base. In Spain, she’d wanted to punish him for what he’d done, for deceiving her, for making her fall in love with a simple cavalry officer when all the time he’d been the Earl of Wrotham, The Earl of Wrotham whom she hated with all her heart. It was because of Wrotham that Amy’s life had been destroyed.

She’d wanted to make him suffer, to clip his wings for a while, to make him wonder if and when his Spanish “wife” would turn up on his doorstep. It had never occurred to her that that’s what he was waiting for her to do.

Ironically, in punishing him, she had also punished herself. Not that she had any romantic ideas about finding love and marriage with the right man. Quite the opposite. At six-and-twenty, she was well aware that she was considered a confirmed spinster, and that suited her just fine. She had no desire to have her own wings clipped—and that’s exactly what would happen if she were married, really married.

Wrotham was her husband, and that gave him enormous power over her, something she hadn’t thought of at the time. A man could do almost anything he wanted with a wife. The law gave him that right. He could take her house away from her, or stop her writing, or lock her up in his castle. Wrotham, in particular, would be looking to punish her for what she’d done in Spain.

She studied him, surreptitiously, and understood how Amy had been taken in. A man like him, a womanizer from his schooldays, knew how to charm a woman off her feet. Catherine, too, had been susceptible. He had caught her off guard, of course. She wondered if that’s what had happened to Amy.

Just thinking about Amy revived the old hatred. She tried to suppress her feelings, reminding herself that with this man she couldn’t afford to give in to hot emotions; she needed all her wits about her. Perhaps he, too, was playing a game, a more sinister game than she.

Before she spoke, she reached for the china teapot, refilled her cup with piping hot tea and took a long swallow. “What makes you think your wife wants you dead?”

Marcus studied her face, and wondered what she had been about to say before she’d taken a swallow of tea. “There was an attack on me in London,” he said. “In Hyde Park to be precise. Footpads were lying in wait for me, hiding in the bushes.”

“Footpads? What does that have to do with your wife? Attacks in the city are commonplace.”

“Random attacks are commonplace. I was deliberately set up. I received a hand-delivered note from a lady, asking me to meet her at the bridge that crosses the Serpentine. It turns out she never wrote the note.”

“Perhaps it was just a prank gone wrong, or,” she added sweetly, “perhaps it was the lady’s husband who had taken you in dislike.”

A faint smile touched his mouth. “I never take up with married ladies. Even if I did, gentlemen in my circles settle their quarrels on the field of honor.”

“Duels!”

He ignored the scathing tone. “This was an ambush. My attacker or attackers were quite determined to get
me. I, on the other hand, didn’t even have my pistol with me. I did the only thing I could. I vaulted over the railing of the bridge, swam to the opposite bank, and took cover in the undergrowth.”

She shook her head. “But still, what makes you think your wife was behind the attack? You must have other enemies. Why not—well, your heir?”

“Penniston?” He laughed. “The only thing my half brother is interested in is horses and farming. No,” he stopped her as she made to interrupt, “I’m not saying Catalina or
El Grande
pulled the trigger, but they could have hired thugs to do their dirty work.”

She couldn’t defend Catalina and
El Grande
without rousing his suspicions, so she said instead, “Wasn’t there anyone there to help you? Hyde Park is usually crowded.”

“It was twilight, just before the park closed. After the shooting, people came running, but no one saw anything or anyone.”

She said weakly, “I still find it hard to believe that your wife is behind it.”

“My wife and her brother. Don’t forget
El Grande.
And recently I’ve discovered some other things that add to my suspicions.”

He rose, glass in hand, and began to stroll around the room. When he came to the French windows, he pulled back one velvet curtain and looked out on the heath. It was too dark to see anything, and the room behind him was reflected in the dark pane of glass.

Suddenly turning, he said, “A week ago, a good friend of mine was murdered in his rooms. Colonel Frederick Barnes. Did you hear of it?”

She nodded wordlessly. The report of the murder had been on
The Journal’s
front page.

His eyes smoldered like the hot coals in the grate. “He was one of the witnesses to my marriage to Catalina. There were seven English soldiers in
El Grande’s
mountain hideout when I was there, five cavalry officers including myself and two Riflemen. Now there are only two of us still alive—myself and one of the Riflemen.” His fingers tightened around his glass. “The other Rifleman died
in battle. The four other officers died in suspicious circumstances, though Freddie is the only one whose death is unquestionably a murder. Are you with me so far?”

“No. What suspicious circumstances?”

“Accidents—or what appeared to be accidents. Accidents without any witnesses.”

“I see. Go on.”

“Apart from the fact that we were all English soldiers, the only other thing that connects us is that we were at
El Grande’s
base at the same time.”

She remembered the English soldiers who had been at the monastery with Marcus, but she remembered them vaguely. She had kept well out of their way on the chance that one of them might have recognized her, or might recognize her again. She would have done the same with Marcus if he had not been so badly wounded when he was brought in.

He was waiting for her to say something. “It might be nothing but coincidence,” she said.

“Then again, it might not. Having been attacked once, I’d be a fool not so suspect so many coincidences.”

“And you think
El Grande
and Catalina are responsible for—what?—these four, five deaths?”

“Well, he did once threaten to kill my comrades if I didn’t marry his sister.”

“He threatened—?” She had a vague recollection of
El Grande
threatening something when she’d accused Marcus of trying to rape her, but she didn’t remember it as clearly as Marcus. “But you did marry his sister. Surely, if he’d wanted to, he could have killed all your comrades there and then.”

“Perhaps it was a warning for the future.”

Realizing that nothing she could say was going to change his mind about
El Grande
, she went on to something else.

“What about the Rifleman who is still alive? How has he managed to escape being killed or attacked?”

Marcus took a sip from his glass, then returned to his chair. “I don’t know who he is or where to find him. For all I know, he, too, might be dead.”

“But you said he was at the guerrilla base when you were. You must know who he is!”

“That’s the damnable thing. I never got to know either of the Riflemen. They were enlisted men, and as a rule, enlisted men don’t mix with officers. Remember that I wasn’t billeted with the others. Because of my wounds, I was given a room to myself, Catalina’s room. Just these past few days since Freddie’s death, I’ve tried to discover who these Riflemen were, but there are no records, and the only people who would know are all dead.”

She thought about this for a moment, then said cautiously, “I don’t see how this fits in with what you’ve already told me. If your friends were witnesses to your marriage, wouldn’t it be better for Catalina if they were alive and could support her story?”

“It seems that way,” said Marcus. “There’s obviously more here than meets the eye. I haven’t figured out Catalina’s game yet, but I don’t intend to simply wait for her to make the next move.”

A thought was revolving in her mind, and she voiced it hesitantly. “I should think
El Grande
would have more enemies than you. What if he is the target? From all I’ve heard, many private accounts were settled in the
guerrilla
, the partisans’ little war. Perhaps someone has a grudge against him.”

“Believe me, I am not discounting any possibility.”

There was something in the set of his face that made her go cold all over. Her throat was so dry, she had to swallow before she could find her voice.

“You said that you wanted me to play the part of your wife. What could you possibly hope to gain by that?”