Wed Him Before You Bed Him (11 page)

“To what purpose?”

“So he could control how the funds were spent. So he could have you where he wanted you.”

“And where would that be?” she snapped, growing inexplicably annoyed with her friend's determination to view this in the worst possible light.

“He might have seen this as the perfect chance to get back at you for what you did to him that summer. He might be using this to gain revenge.”

The possibility of that rose up to smite her where it most hurt—in the part of her that still found David far too appealing. “That is ridiculous,” she said in a hollow voice. “It has been eighteen years. No one holds a grudge that long, not even Da-…Lord Kirkwood.”

“We'll see what the attorney says. But heed me well, Charlotte. There's more to this than meets the eye. I'm sure of it.”

Sadly enough, so was she.

T
he night before David was to return to the school, he sat at a table in the Eel and Drake awaiting Joseph Baines, attorney-at-law, trying not to think about what Charlotte would say tomorrow.

He honestly couldn't blame her for her suspicions. She had to find it odd that he was stepping back into her life after she'd treated him as she had. He found it a bit odd himself, even after all these years of corresponding with her.

God knows he'd been furious that summer, especially after hearing that she'd eloped. In his eyes, she'd not only toyed with his affections and publicly humiliated him, but she'd also thumbed her nose at him by marrying his rival for her hand. Even to this day
that
rubbed him raw.

He'd spent the next two years buried at the estate, preparing for when he came of age. But he couldn't remain in hiding forever. Eventually he'd ventured out into society. Still shunned by people whom he'd once considered friends, he'd decided to show them that he didn't care. Though he'd spent his days in fairly sober pursuits, letting his clever friend Anthony direct his investing, he spent his nights in wild carousing, trying to forget Charlotte.

It was during his second year in London, the fourth year after that blasted letter had been published, that news of
Charlotte had trickled through the grapevine to him. He'd already known that she and her husband had inherited her family's money, but it was the first time he'd heard that she had been a widow for some time and working as a teacher at a very prestigious school in nearby Chelsea.

For reasons he only half-understood now, it had infuriated him.
She'd
been doing precisely what she'd always dreamed of;
she'd
come out of their encounter smelling like a rose, while he'd still had matrons giving him the cut direct at social affairs. She'd embarked on a new life, while he'd been unable even to find a suitable wife with that albatross of a scandal hanging over his head. How he had resented that!

A week after hearing the news, drunk to the gills and stewing over Charlotte, David had wagered a huge sum on whist against Samuel Pritchard. Winning had given him little satisfaction—the nearly broke Pritchard had been in such dire financial straits that he'd risked more than he could afford, always a nasty situation.

That was when David had hit upon a way to gain his money from Pritchard and revenge himself on Charlotte at the same time. First, he'd convinced Pritchard to agree to a lien on the property where the school now resided. Since it was entailed, Pritchard hadn't been able to sell it to pay his debt, but he'd agreed to give David the rents for fifteen years. Back then, Pritchard and his family had lived in Rockhurst next door, so the man had been grateful for a chance to save his honor without bankrupting his family or having to sell his own home at a loss.

Remembering Charlotte's passion for opening a school, David had then approached Charlotte through Mr. Baines, pretending to be Captain Harris's distant cousin so he
could coax her into setting up her school on Pritchard's land. She'd been so eager to pursue her dream that she'd taken him up on his offer. He'd even thrown in a bit of his own money to sweeten the deal, never dreaming that one day he'd need that money to drag his family out of debt.

His plan had been to offer her a very cheap rent until she'd had her school fully staffed and functioning, until she'd been lulled into complacency. Then he'd intended to raise the rents dramatically and demand repayment of the loan, watching with glee as she floundered.

A wicked plan to be sure. And one he had soon come to regret.

“I hope you haven't been waiting long, my lord.”

Blinking, David glanced up to see that Mr. Baines had arrived at last. David brandished his tankard of ale. “Not long enough to get foxed.”

The solicitor laughed. “A pity, that.” Tossing his hat onto the bench opposite David, he folded his skinny frame into the seat and slid a document across the table. “I brought your original agreement with Pritchard as you asked, but you'll find it unhelpful. I read it over again. My professional opinion is that there is nothing you can do to keep him from evicting the widow.”

With a grimace, David slid the agreement into his satchel. “I know you're right, but I still want to look it over.”

Baines called for a tankard. “Did the ‘codicil' pass muster?”

“Frankly, I'm not sure. Charlotte is too clever to swallow such a tale on my word alone. She wouldn't even discuss it until she could have it examined by her own attorney. Will that be a problem?”

“My lord!” Baines exclaimed, his pasty face stiff with the insult. “That document is unshakable. Your family solicitor and I made sure of it.”

“Forgive me, Mr. Baines. This matter has me out of sorts.”

“I imagine so, what with Pritchard on the verge of selling Rockhurst to that Watson fellow from Yorkshire.”

David swallowed some ale. “Actually, that might help me. It will signal to Mrs. Harris that it's time to move the school.”

“You do realize the irony of this situation.” Baines eyed him closely. “If you were to let matters take their natural course with Pritchard, you'd have Mrs. Harris exactly where you'd wanted her when you started this.”

“I know that only too well. I just pray that
she
never discovers it.”

“You had good cause to be angry.”

“Yes. But as I recall, you cautioned me against demanding that lien from Pritchard.”

“It wasn't the lien I cautioned you against. That was clever. At least you had the forethought to realize that rents for properties in Richmond would soar.”

“You give me too much credit.” David knocked back the rest of his ale. “I didn't give a bloody damn about soaring rents; revenge was my only aim.”

“Yes, well,
that
was what I cautioned you against. Fortunately for Mrs. Harris, you changed your mind.”

David snorted. “
She
changed my mind.”

“Got to you with her letters, didn't she?”

A rueful laugh escaped him. “The woman can write, I'll give her that. Here I was, relishing the moment when I could throw off the mask and demand what she couldn't
pay. Then she starts sending me all those missives, thanking me for my ‘kindness and generosity,' asking advice about how to save her ‘dear girls' from making the same mistakes she'd made.” He shook his head. “I swear, only a man with a heart of stone could have stood up to that for long.”

“Aye.”

“I should have told her the truth then. But after Father…”

He trailed off, still unable to speak easily of his father's suicide, which had occurred six years after Charlotte opened the school. Two suicides—his father's and later, his wife's. The first was not his fault, but the second…

Baines glanced up, then frowned. “Sir, there is a man approaching.”

David scarcely had time to turn before a stranger reached the table, hat in hand. “Good evening, my lord. My name is Ned Timms, and I am—”

“I know who you are,” David growled as he recognized the name of a moneylender notorious for shady dealings. He rose to tower over the man. “You have the audacity to corner me in this public place?”

Timms wore the placid expression of a man used to being rebuffed but not deterred. “You leave me no choice, my lord. Your servants refuse to admit me at your home.”

“Because you can have nothing to say to me. My wife has been dead for some time. Try as you might, you can't get blood from a corpse.”

“She left behind many debts.”

“Yes. And I paid off every legitimate one.”

“Her debt with me was legitimate, I assure you.” Reaching into his frock coat pocket, he pulled out a jewel case and opened it to reveal the Kirkwood sapphires, which
David had been unable to locate since Sarah's death. “She used these to secure it.”

With his stomach roiling, David stared down at the glittering parure—a matched set of ear bobs, necklace, bracelet, and ring. It was part of the collection of jewels that had been in his family for generations. Even Father, in his darkest hour, had never attempted to sell or pawn any part of those.

How could Sarah have done it? Had she hated him so much that she would pawn something precious to his family rather than come to him for money?

He knew the answer to that. Their arguments had always been over her gambling. “If my wife owed you, then you have the means right there to cover it. The sapphires are surely worth more than any debt she could possibly have contracted. That's how your kind operates, after all, by preying on those willing to take a pittance for their valuables.”

That
garnered a reaction from the bastard. His gaze turned deadly cold. “Ah, but sir, such a lovely heirloom. I should think you would want to keep it in the family. I'll be happy to return it to you for a reasonable price—”

“Go to hell,” David snapped, knowing full well that the man's reasonable price would be more than the jewels were worth. “You'll never get a penny from me. Between you and your kind, you killed my wife. I have no use for you and your blood money.”

The man's eyes narrowed to slits. “You would do well to rethink your position, sir. I'm sure the papers would love a tantalizing little tidbit about what your wife was willing to do to gain money for her…pleasures.”

It was the wrong thing to say to him, of all people. He
marched forward, forcing Timms back with every step. “Are you threatening me, you little worm? I would advise against that. Because I'm very friendly with the local magistrates, and I daresay a hard look at your affairs would turn up certain illegalities. Are you willing to chance it?”

Timms was forced to halt when he came up against a nearby table. “Forgive me, my lord,” he said, an edge of resentment in his tone. “I thought to do you a favor. I see that I was mistaken.”

“Quite mistaken. But now that you've been set straight, I expect no repetition of this discussion. Have I made myself clear?”

Bobbing his head, Timms slid from between David and the table. “I shall not trouble you again, sir.” Then he scurried off.

David was still trembling with rage when he returned to take his seat at the table with Baines. “You heard, I suppose.”

“I did. Are you sure you don't want them back?”

“Absolutely certain.” How could he ever look at them again without thinking of where they had been and why? Wondering what had possessed his fool of a wife to give over something of such sentimental value to his family?

Wondering again how he had managed to go so wrong with her.

He called for more ale. “I should never have married Sarah.”

“You did what you had to.”

“That's little comfort now.”

He should have married Charlotte. Indeed, he'd been on the verge of approaching her to reveal his foolish deception, when his father had sent the family finances crashing.
That and Father's suicide had changed everything, putting the burden of supporting his family on David's shoulders. Faced with crippling debts, he'd known there was only one way to save them—by marrying an heiress.

So he'd married Sarah, and the masquerade had continued. After all, he couldn't let his wife know that he was supporting another woman's school.

A chilling thought occurred to him. Had that been the key to Sarah's pain? Had she somehow found out about his connection to Charlotte?

It was hard to believe that she would even have cared. Their marriage had lapsed into a formal one shortly after their elopement, though that had been her choice as much as his. Indeed, that's why her suicide left him reeling. He would never have guessed that his petty and frivolous wife would have felt
any
pain so deeply that she would kill herself over it.

And her brief note had been distinctly uninformative:
Forgive me, David, but I can no longer endure this intolerable life.
He'd told people she'd killed herself over her gambling debts. What else could he say? That his wife had been living in utter misery, and he'd been too much of a bastard to realize it?

Clearly, he had no talent for reading women. First Charlotte, then Sarah…

He ran his fingers through his hair. How he wished he could go back and do everything differently. Not take up with Pritchard. Not marry Sarah.

Not lose Charlotte.

The rumble of long-ignored pain settled in his chest. What if he had gone to her the day her letter hit the papers? What if he'd demanded to know why she'd written
it? Why she'd actually been so angry as to let the papers publish it? Now that he knew her better, he realized how strange that had been.

But back then he'd been too bent on salvaging his pride to do something as silly as talking to her. And what good had pride done him? While he'd been posturing and cursing her name and plotting a stupid revenge, James Harris had swept in to marry her.

Her turning to Harris for comfort still gnawed at him. Even knowing that Harris had proved a disappointment as a husband didn't assuage his jealousy.

Jealousy? Nonsense. He refused to be jealous of Charlotte's husband, suitors, or male friends. He would not let her mean that much to him. Confound it all, he'd put that behind him!

Muttering a curse under his breath, David thrust his empty tankard at a passing taproom maid and barked, “Another!” He would not let Charlotte get under his skin this time. This was just…tying up loose ends. Correcting a disastrous mistake. Nothing more.

Right. And the Taj Mahal was just a building.

“Keeping the truth from Charlotte was the worst mistake I ever made,” he growled. “But I honestly thought matters would resolve themselves before they came to this pass. I expected her to have remarried by now and closed the school for good. She's a beautiful woman, after all.”