His Jilted Bride (Historical Regency Romance) (16 page)

Lord Strand's face grew red. “Now, see
here, young man. My daughter might have dreamed up some sort of
foolish notion of love as far as you're concerned, but that gives
you no right to come in here and take away her chances of a good
match.”

“
A good match? Surely you don't mean to reference Lord Friar
when you use those words.”

“
He is an earl,” Lord Strand said smugly.

“
I see,” Elijah said slowly. “My lack of title never seemed to
bother Amelia before.”

“
Perhaps not,” her father agreed. “But you've also never
sought me out to ask for my daughter's hand in marriage before,
either.”

“
The time was never right.”

Lord Strand snorted. “You seemed happy
enough to accept Amelia's affections for you for years now without
giving her more than a few minutes of idle chit-chat in the corner
and an occasional waltz, but never did you call on her or ask to
court her, and now that she's about to marry another, you suddenly
have an interest in her.” He curled his upper lip up in disgust.
“Disregard what I said earlier about your father instilling his
gentleman's honor in you. It's nothing more than sheer,
unadulterated jealousy that has brought you here today, isn't
it?”

“
No,” Elijah clipped. “I'm not here out of jealousy. I want to
marry Amelia because—” because he loved her and realized that he
always had, but he couldn't marry her while he was still working
for the Crown. It was too dangerous. She'd live her life as an
oblivious walking target. Anyone who wanted to inflict pain on him
would only have to take one look at them together to know the best
way to hurt him was to hurt her. He couldn't do that to
her.

“
You don't have a good reason, do you?” Lord Strand placed his
large hand on Elijah's shoulder. “It's all right, Elijah. You're
still young. Another young lady will come along.”

“
I don't want another young lady,” Elijah said through gritted
teeth.

Lord Strand urged him toward the door.
“Let her be, Elijah.”

“
And if I don't?” Elijah challenged.

“
Then you'll wish you had,” Lord Strand said, his fingertips
digging into Elijah's shoulder.

Elijah pretended not to notice the
vice-like grip the older man had on his shoulder. “Sir, other than
not having a title and waiting a little longer than you may have
liked, why do you find me so unfavorable in comparison to Lord
Friar?”

Silence hung in the air and Lord
Strand's grip loosened. “It's not something I can explain.” He
sighed. “She made the choice and I have to respect what she's
done.”

“
What she's done?” Elijah echoed.

Something flickered in Lord Strand's
eyes. “Her decision is to marry Lord Friar. It's done.”

“
Right,” Elijah agreed, narrowing his eyes on the older man.
He was hiding something. But what?

He didn't get the chance to ask when
the door swung open and Amelia's older brother Philip strolled in,
sneering.

“
What are
you
doing here?” he asked without ceremony.

“
Nothing,” Lord Strand answered for him. “He was just on his
way out.”

Philip stepped aside and gestured to
the door. “I'll see you out.”

Elijah thought to protest, but quickly
decided not to. With Philip in the room, his chances of getting any
more information out of Lord Strand were nonexistent. “Good day, my
lord,” he said to Lord Strand.

“
Good day, Mr. Banks,” came the man's gruff
response.

Elijah chanced one final glance at the
man. His face confirmed the sadness his voice had
indicated.

“
You'll leave her alone if you know what's good for you,”
Philip whispered in his ear as soon as they were in the
hall.

Elijah spun around to face the weasel.
Thinner than a reed and the spotted face of a green boy, Philip
Brice was the last person who should ever be issuing any type of
threat. “And what about what's good for her?”

“
That'd be Lord Friar,” he said simply. “He's everything
you're not.”

“
Yes, cruel and heartless,” Elijah mused. “Oh, and he has a
title.”

“
And a great deal of wealth,” Philip added.

Elijah's muscles tensed. “Is that it?
Is your father in need of money?” It was an impolite question, to
be sure. One that could get just about any man called out, but
seeing how Philip possessed less strength than it took to shoot a
gun or hold a sword for longer than thirty seconds, Elijah didn't
mind breaking the rules of etiquette.

Philip snarled. “No. It would be, it
has nothing to do with Father being in need of money. Amelia
consented to marry Lord Friar all on her own.”

Her father had said as much, but he
doubted it was the truth. It was widely known that Lord and Lady
Strand's visits to London had become fewer and were often cut
short. Not once in the last four years had they hosted so much as a
breakfast. The undeniable truth was, they had no money. “Do you
know why she accepted?”

“
One can only speculate.”

“
Then speculate.”

Philip gave a lopsided shrug. “There
are many reasons young ladies decide to marry, Elijah. She could
love him.”

“
Not bloody likely,” Elijah cut in.

Philip's lips formed that unsettling
smirk he usually walked around town wearing. “There are many things
you might believe are unlikely when it comes to Amelia, but I
assure you sometimes the truth is more absurd than those gothic
novels that are all the rage.”

“
If you really believe she loves him, then you are a
fool.”

Two flags of bright red appeared on
Philip's cheeks. “And if you believe love has to be involved for
two people to commit certain acts, then you are the fool,” he shot
back.

Elijah took his meaning, Amelia had
been compromised. “With Lord Friar,” he nearly choked out in
disbelief.

“
Perhaps. Perhaps, not.” He shrugged. “She really doesn't
know.”

“
She doesn't know?”

The clodpole shrugged again. “As I
said, more absurd than a gothic novel.”

No, not absurd. Asinine. How does a
lady not know who she's shared intimacies with? Was such a thing
even possible? Perhaps if she were a trollop in the seedy part of
Covent Garden and a stranger approached her. Otherwise how would a
lady not know her partner's identity? Elijah's innards twisted and
the air was robbed straight from his lungs as understanding came
over him: a lady wouldn't know the identity of a masked man at a
costume party.

“
Is she here?” he asked despite the lack of air in his
lungs.

“
No. She's staying with a relation until her
wedding.”

“
Which relation?”

“
I'm not sure,” Philip said, looking down to inspect his
fingernails.

It would only take two hits—Elijah to
hit Philip, and for Philip to hit the floor—to end this nonsense
here and now. Fortunately for Philip, he was spared a punch to the
gut when his father reappeared. “Banks, go home. Philip, get in
here. Now.”

Elijah waited while Philip walked
away. It didn't matter that Philip hadn't given him the information
he needed. He still had two and a half days before the wedding was
to take place. Brighton wasn't too terribly far or that large of a
place. That should be plenty of time to find Amelia.

More than two days, was
not enough time to find her and convince her to jilt Lord Friar,
however. In fact, his time had been cut short when he'd been
seeking information about Amelia's family in a tap room and had
overheard a boat named
Jezebel
had been spotted down by the docks—

SLAM!

Elijah jolted in his seat as if he'd
been struck by lightning. He looked around in the darkness; his
skin tingled. Someone else was in the room with him.

“
Alex, stop,” his sister-in-law Caroline protested with a
giggle.

“
Someone's in here,” Elijah barked.

Caroline let out a little shriek and
someone clearly tripped. Alex muttered a curse as he fumbled in the
dark for a match. He tried to light one of the candles on the
table, but there was nothing left to light since Elijah had watched
them all burn out this evening. Instead, Alex held the lighted
match in the air between them, as if it were some great light
source. Fire quickly consumed the little wooden stick and he put it
out, but didn't let the lack of light deter him. “What are you
doing in here?”

“
Sitting.”

Elijah couldn't see his brother's
expression, but assumed he'd scowled. “In here? Right
now?”

“
Yes, I do believe here and now would be accurate.”

“
Why?” Alex ground out.

“
I don't know. Why did you come in here?”

“
To help me find a book,” Caroline blurted before her husband
could answer. She fumbled for something on the desk. “Now, that I
have it, I'll go on up to bed.”

“
She does know that she took a quill and not a book, doesn't
she?” Elijah asked when he was sure Caroline was out of the room.
“Perhaps she plans to pen—”

“
Yes,” Alex snapped, ending Elijah's words. “She also knows
this is her own home and she's welcome to go in any room she'd
like, any time she'd like, and take from it any
thing
she'd like.”

“
I never said she couldn't,” Elijah said. “But last I heard,
one's bedchamber was more appropriate for the activity you brought
her in here for, Amorous Alex.”

“
You have such a small imagination, it's astounding,” Alex
murmured, taking a seat. “Why are
you
here?”

Elijah didn't answer.

“
Ah, I see. matrimonial troubles already.”

Elijah doubted he did. Just as he
struggled to believe his mother could offer him advice about his
situation, he couldn't even imagine Alex offering him any good
advice. Alex had been very fortunate, indeed to find a lady like
Caroline. She didn't mind his love for science, nor the fact that
he often missed subtle, and not-so-subtle, hints; and said things
that were easily taken out of context. But nobody was ever offended
by the latter—even Caroline.

When they'd begun courting, Alex had
foolishly written down his courtship strategy as it if were nothing
more than a science experiment. When she found out what he'd done,
she hadn't developed a tongue sharper than a sword or turned into
an Ice Queen. Instead, as far as he could remember, she'd never
said anything to him about it at all.

“
Caroline and I didn't always have an easy time of it,” Alex
said a moment later.

Elijah snorted. “That's not what I
remember.”

“
That's because you don't know everything like you think you
do.”

Elijah shoved his hand into his pocket
and ran his thumbnail along the edge of his gold pocket watch.
“Alex, this is different.”

“
Is it?” The sound of a chair leaning backwards was the only
sound in the room. “I know you think I say idiotic things because I
don't realize what I'm saying, but that's not always true. I'll
grant you it's true sometimes, but I've learned it's better to keep
one's mouth shut than to say the wrong thing.”

“
Then take your own advice and stop talking now.”

“
I've hurt Caroline with my words before,” Alex admitted as if
he hadn't heard Elijah's former statement. “Purposely.”

Thank heaven for sending the storm
clouds to block the moon's light or else Elijah's slack jaw would
have given himself away. “What?”

Alex brought his chair back to the
floor with a soft thud. “I said I've knowingly hurt Caroline's
feelings.” He let out a deep breath. “The night you and Henry
informed me that Caroline had known for some three weeks about what
I'd done, we had a row. As usual, I misunderstood what she'd been
doing and what she was saying that night. I got angry and left. The
next day, she tried to speak to me about it and instead of
listening, I let the hurt she wasn't even trying to inflict on me
get the better of me and rattled off every hurtful thing I could
think of. It only got worse from there,” he added
quietly.

Elijah thought back to that day. He
vaguely remembered sitting in the breakfast room with Henry, Mother
and Edwina, when in the middle of the meal Mother abruptly stood
and closed the door herself, rather than directing a footman to do
it. He'd thought it odd at the time, but had never given it any
further thought.