Rebel Marquess (12 page)

“I don’t believe Father will challenge you when you refuse,” she muttered. “But if he does, please make note he is not a good shot. He is exceptionally skilled in many things, really, just not with a pistol or a fencing sword for that matter, or fisticuffs. Perhaps you can find a way to satisfy the challenge in a non-violent way. There must be something—”

“Miss Terribury.” His voice was low and stern as he took her by the shoulders and turned her around to face him. “There is only one option.”

A painful tightening seized her midsection. “What do you mean?”

“Every one of those witnesses will draw the same conclusion from what they saw here. If I do not offer for you, you will be ruined.”

“I don’t care.” Her voice rose in her panic. “Truly, I do not.”

“It is not only your reputation at stake,” he said more sternly. “I must do the honorable thing.”

She lifted her hands to grasp his wrists, shaking her head. “No, do not say that. You are a man, your honor will suffer for maybe only a week or two and then everyone will forget the matter. Honestly, you can do this. You
must
refuse.”

He released her then and took a step back. His posture stiffened as if he had been insulted and he looked at her down the length of his aristocratic nose. “We have no choice. I will convince your father there is no need for a special license. It should give us time to explore whether or not there is a reasonable alternative to our fate.”

Eliza released her breath and felt the spinning in her head start to recede as she latched on to a faint glimmer of hope. “Yes, right. We will find a way out of it,” she muttered. “We just need some time.”

“Now, are you ready?”

He turned away from her to offer his arm. The shadows concealed the upper part of his face much like a mask, and for a second she thought she was once again in the presence of the mysterious highwayman. Her heart gave an odd little skip before her rational mind reassured her it was the marquess and not the highwayman who stood with her in the moonlight.

Swallowing hard against the overwhelming urge to flee, she took his arm and allowed him to lead her out of the gazebo. Fortunately, much of the crowd had gone back into the house, perhaps coerced by the hostess to keep the scene from degrading into a circus of scandal mongers. Eliza could only imagine the whispers that were likely running rampant through the drawing room. At least only her parents and a few others remained in the garden to bear witness to her humiliation.

The moment seemed suspended as all eyes turned to them. Eliza felt the solid presence of the marquess beside her and then the warmth of his hand covered hers where is rested on his arm.

“We will be wed.”

Rutherford’s words were expected. Still, hearing the intention stated so plainly caused a shiver to chase down Eliza’s spine.

Lady Terribury promptly fainted onto the grass.

Chapter Nine

Eliza cowered in the attic, dreading the summons she knew would come. Soon she would be called down to her father’s study to hear the details of her fate.

Last night in the garden, after her mother regained consciousness with the help of some smelling salts, it had been decided that the marquess would call at the Terribury residence the next morning at ten o’clock to finalize the details of the engagement.

The marquess had arrived promptly at the designated hour. She knew because she had watched from the attic window as he drove up in his barouche. And now it was nearly eleven and he had been holed up with her father for almost an hour coming to an agreement on the particulars of a marriage that must never come to be.

She clung with desperate hope to what Rutherford had said to her before they left the gazebo. They would find a way out of the engagement.

It had to be so.

At least he wanted this match perhaps even less than she did, though for him it was for much more personal reasons. She did not want to be married at all. He quite specifically did not want to marry a Terribury.

Still, there had been something in the way he had declared his intention to do the honorable thing that caused Eliza to shiver at the memory.

We will be wed.

Not
we are engaged
. Or even
may I have your daughter in marriage?

Of course, the idea of him actually asking permission was outright laughable, but still, his declaration was far too certain for Eliza’s taste. Too concrete. Too definite.

A sharp knock at the door startled her and nearly had her tumbling from the window seat when she spun around at the sound.

“Yes,” she called out, her voice wavering in an embarrassing manner.

The door opened and a young housemaid peeked in. “Your father would like to see you in his study, miss.”

“Thank you. I will be right down.”

“Yes, miss.” The maid backed from the room, leaving the door open as she left.

Eliza stared through the open door to the shadowed hallway beyond, realizing it represented the path to an indefinite future. One that had at least momentarily become entwined with the Marquess of Rutherford’s.

The thought left her breathless with uncertainty, but she knew she had to be brave and face the challenge head on. She could not successfully mold her fate if she did not reach out to take it in her hands.

She pushed to her feet and practically marched from the attic and down the two flights of stairs to her father’s study. When Eliza entered, she was struck with the force of Rutherford’s presence in such a familiar place. His large frame dominated the modest-sized room and his imposing energy seemed to take up all available air. His back was to her, but she read much in the solid line of his shoulders and the way he grasped his wrist behind his back. He was firmly inhabiting his role as haughty lord of the realm.

She glanced to her father to see how he had fared against the formidable superiority of the marquess.

To her relief, her father appeared none the worse for wear. There was even a trace of a smile on his face as he acknowledged her arrival. “Elizabeth, dear. There you are.”

Eliza intentionally met her father’s eyes as she walked toward him with far more composure than she felt, hoping to still have her long-time ally in the midst of this new threat. She saw concern in his warm expression but also a sort of triumph.

Of course, he would be pleased by the match. Perhaps not in the way her mother was, but he would be happy to have his youngest daughter finally settled in such a grand manner. It must have been difficult for him to have so many daughters to worry about. And now his last was finally settled. He looked infinitely relieved.

Rutherford turned to face her as she reached the center of the room.

He had a way of affecting her at such an elemental level. Just meeting the dark draw of his gaze caused her palms to sweat and her mind to go a little soft. He stood so strong and confident. So handsome and devastating. And she was to be linked to him. Her. A common enough woman with nothing to set her apart from the crowd aside from a vivid imagination and a penchant for daydreaming.

Eliza tore her gaze away and turned back to her father. She had more at stake here than either of the men before her and she could not afford to lose her wits right now.

“You have come to an agreement?” she asked, seeing no reason to step around the purpose of their meeting.

Her father frowned at her direct manner and answered with a note of censure in his tone. “Yes, the marquess and I agree there is no need for a special license, though that does not mean this will be a lengthy engagement. I will leave the details to your mother, but we will look to set a date for the wedding sometime before the end of the season.”

Eliza’s heart seized. That was only a few short months away. She glanced to the marquess, but he revealed nothing in his expression. Surely he realized it was not a lot of time.

She tried to come up with a valid argument to push the date back, but her mind was a jumble. Her tongue twisted in her mouth as a dozen thoughts formed at once and she found herself incapable of uttering any of them.

Perhaps seeing her distress and recognizing its cause, the marquess stepped forward.

“Miss Terribury, would you join me on a drive this morning? Your father has given his permission.”

She released her breath in a puff of warm air and nodded. Eliza saw the invitation for what it was, an opportunity for the two of them to discuss their strategy going forward.

“Yes, of course. Let me fetch my bonnet.”

“I will wait in the hall.”

“Excellent,” her father said, clearly happy to have the discussion of marriage out of the way.

Eliza flew to her room to fetch her bonnet and was still tying the ribbons beneath her chin as she reached the front hall.

Rutherford stood near the door, already wearing his coat and hat. Eliza met his eyes briefly, and though she had a dozen questions flying through her mind, she held her tongue. There would time enough to press for information on the drive. A footman came forward with her short cloak and she looked back to the marquess once it was secured about her shoulders.

“Ready?”

“Of course,” he replied with a stiff little bow of his head and turned to allow her to step past him through the front door.

She sensed a hint of impatience in his tone, though her preparation for departure had taken less than five minutes from the moment he’d issued the invitation. She would have liked to make a comment about how long she’d waited while he and her father made their plans. Instead, she bit the inside of her cheek and waited until they were seated across from each other in the barouche and the vehicle started off down the road.

She eyed him as he sat with supreme masculine grace. His feet were braced evenly apart on the floor and his hands rested atop the surface of his thighs. He looked as if he hadn’t a care in the world, and she found herself scowling in annoyance. As he met her studied gaze, even though he bore no particular expression on his angled features, she detected a distinct air of humor hovering about him.

She narrowed her gaze and studied him further. When he simply stared back at her, his expression the picture of bland disinterest, she leaned forward in her seat to give him a stern look. “You cannot torture me like this any longer. You must tell me what was said. Did you explain the scene was entirely innocent? Did you even
try
to get him to understand it was not at all what everyone thought?” She fell back against the seat and threw her hands into the air before dropping them heavily into her lap. “Tell me you at least asked for a delay in having the banns read.”

He took a slow breath and glanced over at a passing vehicle as he answered. “I was wondering how long that would take.”

He had kept her in suspense on purpose. Eliza pinned him with a fierce glare. “You dreadful man,” she accused darkly. “What a terrible thing to do.”

She only barely caught the sound of his soft, throated chuckle before he turned his gaze back upon her. “The temptation was too strong to resist.”

He spoke in a low and private tone and there was a flash of something wicked in his eyes. Eliza experienced a fine flare of sensation across her nerves and a delicate trembling in her stomach. She stared back at him as she clean forgot what they had been discussing. Her mind was suddenly crowded with the memory of when he had nearly kissed her in the woods at Silverly.

Unbidden, her gaze dropped to the hard arches and lines of his mouth. His lips were smooth but appeared firm and unforgiving. Were they capable of softening?

The marquess cleared his throat and her eyes flew back to his quickly enough to catch sight of a harsh kind of heat in his gaze before he glanced away. He cleared his throat again and took to observing the city sights as they passed by as if he had never driven through London on a foggy morning.

She would have liked to know what he had been thinking with that raw light in his eyes. But after another moment, Eliza managed to return the focus of her thoughts to the urgent matter at hand.

“Do you intend to fill me in? Or shall I simply be surprised one day when I wake up to find Father ready to lead me to the altar rather than breakfast?”

The marquess shifted in his seat before answering. “There is not much to report. I did explain the truth of the circumstances of last evening to your father, but as you know, the details do not matter.”

“Of course they do,” she argued vehemently. “The whole thing was a great misunderstanding.”

“Your father believed that, apparently being well aware of your excitable reaction to arachnids. But the damage is done. Everyone saw you half undressed and my hands all over you. Any explanation that tries to deny a scandal will be futile.”

A wild little tingle chased through her at hearing him mention his hands on her body. But the frisson of pleasure was overrun by the importance of what he had said. Eliza groaned and slumped back in her seat. “So we are truly engaged?” she muttered weakly.

“We are. For now.”

“Have you a plan?”

“Not yet. Breaking an engagement is tricky business. There will be damage to your reputation.”

“I told you last night, I do not give a fig for my reputation. I know the nature of my own character. It matters naught what others may think of me.”