Married in Haste (33 page)

She smiled.

He snuggled closer to her. “And the fairy whose children trail after him wherever he goes is Pughe, no?”

“Traits,” she reminded him. “I didn’t put the people in literally. But I did have Erwynn Keep in mind when I created the fairy village.”

Under the covers, Brenn ran the bottom of his foot against her leg. “So which fairy am I?”

“You can’t guess?”

“You don’t have a Lord of Lust,” he murmured, pulling her close.

“Fairies don’t lust.”

“How do they make little fairies then?”

She giggled at his foolishness, a sound which turned more serious when his head dipped under the covers and his mouth closed over her breast.

“Tell me,” he commanded softly, pausing to take a breath.

Tess twirled a lock of his hair around her finger. “You’re the Dragon King.”

He poked his head out from under the covers, his smile lazily seductive. “I expected to be nothing but.”

He then showed how pleased he was.

The next morning, just as Tess began work on her stories, there was a knock on the door. Banon had gone to the village for supplies and Brenn was off seeing to the needs of one of the tenants.

She rose from her chair and crossed to the door. Life would be simpler once they moved into the house.

She’d hire more servants and have a room of her own in which to work without interruption.

Opening the door, she was about to greet her caller when the words stuck in her throat. She took a step back. There on her front stoop, his hat in his hand, stood Deland Godwin.

Chapter Nineteen

“Why, Mr. Godwin, I wasn’t expecting you.” Tess wondered at the calmness of her understatement. His presence was so startling she could barely register any other emotion except shock.

“I should have written but I didn’t have the opportunity,” Godwin apologized with a complete lack of regret.

“Yes,” she murmured.

“May I step in?” he prompted, hesitating before adding, “My lady? You are obviously at home.”

She was tempted to refuse him. She would have been within her rights to do so, but her curiosity overrode her good sense. “Yes, please come in.”

Godwin moved to the center of the room, his keen eyes taking in everything.

“I was just down to the main house,” Godwin said. “The workman said you and the earl lived up here.

Charming, utterly charming,” he observed in a flat voice that contradicted his words. The Londoner looked completely out of place in her homey cottage.

Tess wondered when Brenn would return from his visit to his tenant.

“What do you want?” she asked.

He raised his eyebrows. “Why, Lady Merton, such a direct question.”

“I’ve discovered an appreciation for plain speaking, Mr. Godwin.”

“Must be the Welsh influence,” he countered with a mock shiver.

“It must be,” she echoed without humor.

Godwin placed his hat on the table and reached for her copybook. “What have we here?”

Tess felt her heart drop. She reached for the book. “It’s mine. Just some notes I’ve been taking.”

“No, no,” he said, holding the book out of her range. He thumbed the pages. “Why, this looks like a manuscript. What a surprise, Lady Merton. I didn’t know you were literary.”

It was on the tip of Tess’s tongue to tell Godwin that even if he was a publisher, he wouldn’t know a literary work if he saw one, but she swallowed the insult. Instead, she admitted bravely, “I have been writing stories.”

“Really?” He pulled a pair of gold-rimmed spectacles from his coat pocket and perched them on the end of his long nose. He perused the page. “What sort of story is this?”

Tess pressed her hands together. “A story about how fairies live.”

That gained her Godwin’s attention. His forehead wrinkled as he stared at her from over his glasses.

“Fairies?”

“Yes.”

“Oh.” He closed the copybook with a clap.

His one-word opinion was deflating. Lately, Tess had been toying with the idea of submitting her work to a publisher, but if it was going to be rejected completely out of hand—

“Well, I admit I am confused,” he said, interrupting her thoughts. He sat in the rocking chair and made a great show of tilting it back and forth. The smile on his face was as false as that of a cat playing with a mouse.

“I had thought your husband a man of means. And I had most certainly been sure that you were an heiress. Probably the richest heiress in the ton.”

The muscles in Tess’s shoulders tightened. Beneath his pleasant words was a very strong threat. And it made her angry.

Three months earlier, she would have panicked. But she was no longer the same woman she’d been then. Furthermore, the dangers of insulting this gossipmonger no longer frightened her. “Do you always call on people in the wilds of Wales, Mr. Godwin? I had been lead to believe you hadn’t left London in years.”

He bristled at her challenge. “That isn’t true, Lady Merton. I have often visited friends in the country.”

“Well, hopefully you don’t bully your way into their homes they way you have just done so here.”

She knew the moment the words left her lips she’d hit the man’s pride. Everyone avoided Deland Godwin if they could help it. Bullying was the only method he had to force himself to be included.

He pushed up from the rocker, towering a good half a head over her. “You are right, Lady Merton,” he replied with chilly civility. “My visit is not just a pleasant coincidence. I am in Wales at the behest of Lady Garland. She needed a companion to escort her while she visited her brother, Lord Faller. I’d be remiss if I was so close and didn’t pay you even a short visit.”

“Lord Faller’s seat is fifty miles to the north of us. You are far out of your way.”

At that moment, Banon came in, opening the door without a knock. She lugged two baskets, one in each hand, which were full of vegetables.

“Lady Merton, I talked to the miller—” She broke off the moment she saw Godwin. “I’m sorry, my lady, I didn’t realize there was a guest.”

“It’s fine, Banon. Mr. Godwin was about to leave.” She was being rude, but she didn’t care. Godwin came from a different place and a different time in her life. Seeing him here in the same room as the sweet, unspoiled Banon gave her a terrible sense of foreboding. She wanted him gone.

“No, Banon, you be on your way,” Godwin replied presumptuously. The mask of manners was gone. “I have something to say to Lady Merton and I’m certain she would wish it to be kept private. Especially since it involves her brother.”

Tess pulled back slightly. “What are you talking about?”

He didn’t answer her. Instead, he flicked his finger at Banon. “Go, go. Scurry away.”

Banon quickly set the baskets down on the table, dropped a curtsey—something she rarely did—and left the cottage.

“What is this about?” Tess demanded. “What do you wish to say to me?”

“Shouldn’t we sit down?” Godwin asked, in control of the situation. “Where are the pleasantries?”

“Oh, Mr. Godwin, what a pleasure to see you again,” she mimicked. “I’m sorry but the butler is ill and you’ve just sent the cook hurrying out the door. What is it you want?”

“You are rusticating in the country, Lady Merton,” Godwin said without humor. “You’d best return to London—but then, you can’t, can you? If you did, people would start wondering, as I do, about the fabulous fortune you were supposed to possess.”

“We are using it to build the house.”

“I know differently, my lady.”

Tess stared at him in silence a moment. “Perhaps you should sit down.”

“Thank you,” he said in that infuriatingly cynical manner of his.

She sat in the chair across from him. “What do you think you know?”

“I know that your brother squandered your fortune. He has just joined several gentlemen investing in ships to ply the spice trade. It seems to be a good opportunity and, with a wife like his who has markers all over London, he may need the blunt. Mr. Christopher is remarkably tightfisted. I’ve heard something about his wanting to preserve the estate for future generations of Hamlins.”

Tess had heard enough. He’d convinced her he knew it all. “What do you want? Money?”

Godwin wrinkled his nose in distaste. “Absolutely not. If it had been that then I would have gone to your brother. Believe it or not, Lady Merton, it is not you I wish to see humbled. You have always been kind.

But your husband? That is a different matter.”

“Brenn? I didn’t even think he knew you.”

“He knew me enough to humiliate me in front of my friends. He has damaged my reputation. I wish to return the favor.”

“How did he do that?”

“He forced me to issue an apology.”

Tess wanted to laugh. “That’s all?”

“All?” Godwin came to his feet and paced in front of the fire. “Do you not realize that is everything? I don

’t apologize to anyone. Even Prinny had the good sense to listen to me when I speak. However, since my confrontation with your husband, I have been spoken to with nothing but disrespect. Me! The editor of The Ear. Not even my colleagues respect me.”

“But Mr. Godwin, I’m certain that was not my husband’s intention.”

“His intention doesn’t matter, and as fond as I am of you, your wishes don’t matter, either. Because of our contretemps, word of my humiliation has spread. I have enemies, you know.”

“Oh, yes,” Tess agreed quietly.

“Someone did a cartoon of your husband with his fist around my neck. It was very embarrassing.”

“My husband is not someone who overreacts…unless he is provoked. What did you say to him?”

Godwin straightened his neckcloth. “It is a matter between men. But let me tell you that even as we speak, my paper is printing the story of your brother’s perfidy.”

“You’ll ruin him!”

“And your husband,” Godwin agreed. “He will be the laughingstock of all England.”

“No one would dare laugh at Brenn,” Tess said proudly.

“Perhaps not, but there will be those who will enjoy learning of your fall from grace.”

There it was. Her greatest fear.

But the realization came over her. It no longer mattered. This was her life and her home. Let the match-making mamas snicker and the Society debutantes laugh. They meant nothing. Brenn, and what they had created together, was everything.

“Tell them,” Tess said calmly, “I have nothing to hide.”

“Nor do I,” came Brenn’s deep voice from the doorway.

Both Tess and Godwin turned in surprise. They’d been so involved in their argument they had not perceived his presence. Nor was he alone. Banon hovered not far from the doorway, flanked by her muscular father and a goodly number of the villagers. As Brenn walked into the room, they crowded in around him.

“What is this?” Godwin said with irritation. “Have your created your own army? Do you still miss the call to arms, Merton?”

“They are worried about my wife, Godwin,” Brenn said almost pleasantly. “Is there any reason they should be?”

Godwin smiled, his expression almost benign. “I was merely having a visit and waiting for your arrival.”

“Then here I am,” Brenn said. He opened his arms like a magician showing he hid no tricks.

“What I have to say, I think should be said privately,” Godwin answered smugly.

Tess would have none of it. She was done with secrets. “He knows about Neil stealing my inheritance, Brenn. He says he has already printed it. I imagine the only reason he is here is to gloat.”

Brenn’s expression didn’t change. “He won’t expose anyone.”

“That’s where you are wrong,” Godwin said. “It’s done.”

“Tess,” Brenn said. “Fetch my dueling pistols. They are under the bed.”

Tess didn’t even question the order but did as he asked.

“What are you going to do with pistols?” Godwin asked, the overconfidence in his voice starting to waver.

“Put a hole in you,” Brenn answered calmly. Tess found the velvet case where he said it was. She hurried back into the main room.

“You must be kidding,” Godwin was saying as she walked back into the room. Pughe and the others all waited in silence.

“No, I’m not.” Brenn took the case from Tess and, setting it on the table, opened it. He lifted the finely crafted weapon and held it to the light.

“I’m not a duelist,” Godwin said briskly. “I will not fight with you.”

“I didn’t ask you to duel,” Brenn said. He began loading the weapon.

“If you don’t want to duel, what were you planning to do?” Godwin asked.

Brenn replied almost cheerfully, “I thought I’d fire the ball through one ear and let it come out the other.”

He grinned. “Sort of an homage to your scandal sheet The Ear.” He chuckled at his own small joke.

“You can’t be serious!” Godwin complained.

“I am.”

“But there are witnesses. You can’t shoot me in front of them.”

Brenn turned to Mr. Pughe. “What do you say, Pughe? May I shoot him?”

“Of course, my lord,” Pughe said heartily. “You’re our earl and we’d go to our deaths for you.” He repeated what he’d said in Welsh and there was a chorus of “Aye’s” to support his claim.

Brenn aimed the pistol. “Oh well, Godwin. It doesn’t seem as if anyone will miss you.”

Godwin turned the rocker around so that it shielded him. “You can’t do this! There are laws!”

“But I’m the law here,” Brenn said. “And once it is discovered that you threatened blackmail—”

“Not blackmail. I never asked for money. Lady Merton can attest can attest to that!”

“That’s true, my lord,” Tess said, fairly certain that Brenn was teasing the man. “However, he does want to ruin all of us. He claims he has already.”

“Well, there you have it.” Brenn looked down the sight of his pistol. “That’s enough reason for me to kill you.”

“But it would be murder!” Godwin shouted.

“Some call it murder; others call it justice.” Brenn sighed. “Don’t worry, Godwin. You won’t be around to participate in the debate.”

Pughe laughed, repeated Brenn’s words in Welsh, and the villagers all made a big show of waving good-bye to Godwin.

Godwin fell to his knees. “You…can’t!”

The pistol fired.

Tess reeled back in shock. She hadn’t seriously thought Brenn would do it. The smell of sulfur burned the air.