Counterfeit Countess (28 page)

He shook his head. “Never. Even when I thought you an adventuress, a state of affairs, I have to admit, that didn’t last long, I wanted you.”

She stroked a lock of hair back from his forehead and he caught her hand and kissed it, sharing a smile with her. “Did you tell Wellington about us?” She didn’t have to explain what she meant.

He knew.

“No, he assumed we were married on the field. Our story holds.”

“What do we do now?”

His eyes turned grave. “My love, we stay together. That is my first concern. However, you know what I’ve been about.”

She thought of the piles of ledgers in the bookroom. “Yes. Did you find what you needed?”

“Yes we did. We compiled a report, and made copies, distributing them around various offices under seal. The report puts both Roker and Carlisle in the picture. It seems to have started as a series of minor deceits, such as go on in many estates. But these two escalated matters. Too ensconced in their positions to believe they could be ousted, they perpetuated ever increasing and ever more transparent deceptions. Carlisle pocketed the profits from the mines and invented non-existent disasters and purchases for
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imaginary equipment, as well as taking a share of each crop we produced. Roker set up a false company that charged the estate exorbitant amounts for work that could have been done for half or a quarter the price. It’s all there, and recorded now.”

“Will you prosecute?”

He grimaced. “Not yet. We need to ensure the estate is strong enough to weather the storm. Otherwise the gannets will arrive, picking over what’s available. If they discover the earldom isn’t as wealthy as they suppose, they’ll come in for the kill. Refuse us the loans we need, reject proposals for improvements or further investments. I’ll support it from my private income, something I’m well able to do, and institute new systems. Then we can face anyone.”

“How long will that take?”

“About six months. Can you bear that?”

She nodded. “With you I can bear anything.” Not rhetoric. She meant it, couldn’t imagine a situation she couldn’t put up with as long as John shared her life.

He smiled and kissed her. “Thank you for that.” He swallowed.

“I know I’m selfish, expecting you to take such a risk, but I need you with me. I need to know you’re part of my life, and always will be.”

“Always.” She promised without hesitation, an oath as binding as any she’d made in church.

They shared the kiss that bound them to the promise. He smoothed his hand up her back, pressed gently between her shoulder blades to keep her in place. Not that she needed it. His eyes were brighter when they finally broke the kiss.

“What next?” she said. Not because she cared, but because she’d need to know, so she could support him in whatever he decided to do.

“I’ll remove Roker and Carlisle from their positions of trust.

Roker isn’t in my employ; I’m one of many clients, but without my custom, he’ll lose the rest. He knows that. However, I won’t return
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the books to him and I won’t allow him to make any significant decisions. The likelihood is he’ll agree, if only to mollify his customers. He won’t fuss. Carlisle, however, might do that. I plan to send him north to a smaller estate. That should keep him out of the way for a while.”

“This wilderness you talk about,” she said. “Could I live there?”

“With the bears and the bugs?” His hold on her tightened. “No, my love. But you’d like Canada, at least the civilised parts. I might take you some day. But for the rest, I’m earl, and nothing can change that. It’s not as if I can resign from the position. So we carry on as we have been doing, caring for each other and taking care of business.”

“Business?” She smiled, relaxed as she’d rarely been before.

“The earldom, my business concerns, our baby, if there is one...”

he stopped when he saw the way tension had tightened her face.

She felt her smile turn rigid, the tears prick the back of her eyes. “If there isn’t, then we cope with that, too. The earldom has an heir. If we have a child then we’ll welcome it.” He touched his lips to hers, a brushing kiss. “We don’t even have to be concerned about the sex.”

“Don’t expect it,” she said, forcing calm into her voice. “I might disappoint you.”

“Impossible,” he assured her, and he pressed another kiss to her lips. “Whatever happens, you’ll never do that.” The next kiss took a little longer to accomplish and they were both breathless when it came to an end. “Faith, I love you. You heard me, and it won’t be the last time you hear it. You make me want to protect you and to make you proud of me.”

“I am. Very proud.” A tear escaped, trickling down the side of her face. She didn’t wipe it away. He caught the drop on one finger and glanced at it before touching the tip of his tongue to it and sweeping it away. “I will never stop trying to make you proud.

We’re good together.”

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“Yes,” she said, another tear escaping, but this of happiness.

She’d never imagined such complete joy existed, or if it did, that it would ever happen to her. “I don’t deserve this. I usurped your name, stole your pension and your money. You should have cast me out, denied me.”

“If it had been anyone else, I might have done.” He smoothed her tears away with his hands. “Don’t cry, Faith, I can’t bear it. I wanted you when I first saw you when you were married, and I knew I could not take you. I knew you weren’t entirely happy, but nobody in that army could claim they were content. You and your husband seemed to deal well together for all he was rougher than I thought you deserved.”

“Vicar’s daughter,” she reminded him, smiling. “I knew nothing when I agreed to marry him and worse when I agreed to follow the drum. I thought it sounded exciting, more fool me. John—John Smith—had a house in Portsmouth where I could have lived, or he offered to set me up closer to him. I thought the army sounded like a fine life, and so it proved from time to time. I don’t regret making the choice. I saw things, met people, experienced more than I ever could have expected or had the opportunity to know about.” She paused, thinking back, watching for any sign of tedium on his beloved features. “Women often lead sequestered lives. I was one of many children, overlooked and disregarded for the most part. John was the first man to take notice of me, and I was flattered. When he proposed, he was frank with me, said he wanted a companion as much as a bedfellow.” Heat rose under her skin, but she kept his gaze. Honesty was harder than she’d imagined. “We did deal well together, but bed, intimacy—“ Now she did flush, and dropped her head to bury her forehead against his shoulder. “Forgive me,” she muttered hotly.

“Nothing to forgive.” His voice was soothing, quiet. “I knew you shared his tent. How could I not? It would have been strange had it been otherwise. I only felt jealousy that you weren’t sharing mine.”

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He paused, cupped the back of her head, threaded his fingers through her hair. “When I came back, when I saw you, I was glad.

Glad you were mine at last. There was never any possibility of me throwing you out. I would have moved heaven and earth to finally have you. In Canada I tried to forget you but I couldn’t get you out of my mind. I’d wake up thinking about you. My last mistress had black, curly hair—“ He gave a shaky laugh. “My very last.”

She lifted her head. “I suppose you could say I’m your mistress.”

“Not for long.” He held her face between his hands. “We will marry, Faith. Tomorrow if you wish.”

She thought of the day and couldn’t see a moment she’d have to herself. Without realising it, her life was settling into a busy routine.

“Maybe after the ball? We have a lot of preparations to make.”

The ball was set for the end of the week, and it was Tuesday already. “Maybe. As soon as we can arrange it, but you’re right. I want a honeymoon after the ceremony.” He drew her down for a kiss, and that sparked another conflagration neither of them seemed to be able to control. Nor did they want to.

“They won’t consider this too light-coloured?” Faith loved the gown, but now she had it on, she was not sure she should wear it.

“After all, I’m in mourning.”

“I find it perfectly acceptable, ma’am, perhaps somewhat conservative in tone.” Turvey sounded certain. She’d dressed Faith’s hair with lavender silk ribbons and pearls, matching her lovely clothes. The lavender silk gown had seed pearl embroidery, snowdrops drifting towards the hem. She’d never worn anything so exquisite in her life.

In a surge of pleasure, she pirouetted, the fabric swirling about her, the image in the mirror blurring. Still smiling, she stopped, let the skirts spiral around her legs, then spin out again to settle perfectly around her feet.

Only to come face to face with John.

He was smiling, his eyes glowing with the expression he held only for her. Although she’d seen him often in his town wear, in evening clothes he looked magnificent. Tall, broad-shouldered men should wear nothing but crisp black and white, she decided. The ivory embroidered waistcoat looked good, too.

He held a flat black box and as she watched, wordlessly, he opened it.

Pearls. Large, alive, gleaming in their pristine perfection. “Family treasures?” she managed to ask.

He shook his head. “Yours,” he said.

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Her first reaction was to take a step back. Had he bought them for her? Why would he do that when she could use family jewels?”

Being the man who knew her best in this world, he understood without her telling him. “Because you deserve them,” he said.

“Because you will look beautiful in them.
More
beautiful,” he corrected himself with a smile. “Because we need to make a splash tonight.” His voice lowered. “Because I love you.”

Dear God, if he gazed at her that way they’d never get downstairs. He made a twirling motion with two fingers and she turned around. Turvey took the box while John fastened the double string of pearls around her neck. He caressed the sensitive skin at the back of her neck and bent to kiss the base, in the place that sent shivers through her. He loved her. He’d told her often in the three days between him first saying it and today. She responded as much, and delighted in the expression it brought to his face. His stern countenance softened and lightened, and he showed his real pleasure in her saying the words. His delight gave her the courage to tell him more, to rely on him more. She still felt vulnerable when she did so but that weakness decreased every day.

She had deceived this man, stolen from him and he responded by taking her in, then by loving her. She deserved much less than that. She had discovered that deserving something had little to do with love. That happened no matter what.

Tonight she had to prove herself worthy of holding the title of countess. The jewellery and the clothes gave her the fortitude to do so. Not that she wouldn’t have stood in front of the assembled great and good in her old Pomona green gown, if John stood by her side.

But she could vie with attendees tonight in full knowledge she was as stylish as they. It helped. If she had John she could face anything.

Turning, she gave him a bright, unforced smile. “Does the necklace suit?”

His returning smile, warm and loving gave her her answer. “I’m proud to have you as my wife.”

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She wasn’t, although soon she would become his wife. She’d finally allowed him to set the date for the following Monday. They would quietly enter the church and become joined to each other.

Nothing would separate them then. Nothing but death. But, she realized, that applied now, without the benefit of clergy. They were only making formal what they had promised one another.

Turvey hooked the earrings into place, and clasped the matching bracelet around her lower arm, before draping a fine gauze shawl over her elbows, barely a strip of fabric, but so fine and beautiful it proclaimed wealth and privilege. It added a sliver of concealment, coquettish rather than hiding anything.

John held out his arm. “Come, my love, my countess. Let’s face the ravening hordes.”

She laughed and the shadow of her amusement remained when they entered the drawing room to meet their dinner guests, the privileged few who would then help to open the ball. At least the people they’d invited had come.

Faith’s tension showed no sign of decreasing any time soon, tightening her stomach muscles, throttling her. However, she utterly refused to let John down so she smiled and chatted, racking her brains for non-controversial topics. Interesting dinner subjects, so she couldn’t discuss the war, her particular area of expertise. She went for politics instead and shortly discovered the subject of the recent Habeus Corpus Suspension Act held most people. The return or otherwise of prisoners was one that currently engrossed many. Since the end of the war had resulted in the mass return of soldiers who could find nothing to do except engage in criminal activity. Or so some of the dinner guests would have it. But Faith, who had known many of the men, knew them to be good hearted, but desperate to find a source of income to support their families.

Despite the glares coming her way from the dowager she refused to be cowed into stupidity, or making the kind of inane comments Charlotte and Louise were engaging in.

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For reward, she received encouraging smiles from her husband and the respect of some of his military colleagues sitting around the table. Not all, though. In the debate she forgot her nervousness and concern that she would do something inappropriate, or they would reject her out of hand. She no longer cared. Only that the men she’d known for so long not receive the blame for something they could not change; namely the influx of men, too many for them to obtain respectable positions.

Indeed, she grew so engrossed she barely noticed the changes in the three-course banquet until the last remove was taken away. The footmen whipped away the cloth to reveal the smooth, polished mahogany surface beneath and provided the wine for the toasts.