Chapter 11 #2
“You appear more at ease this morning,” she said.
“I am.”
“Why is that?”
He turned to face her, and Marie’s breath slipped from her lips.
She had never seen Charles with an actual pleasant expression across his features.
His eyes were as dark as hers with hair perhaps even darker, but there was a lightness to his features—brows tipped slightly up in the center, smile lines near the edges of his eyes—that made him appear far less intimidating than he had been.
“I smile,” he began, “because I have finally decided to find a way out of our current...predicament.”
Her stomach tightened. “Predicament? You refer to our marriage, I assume.”
“If you wish to call it that.”
So Marie hadn’t been imagining matters. Charles truly was scheming to end their marriage prematurely.
He resembled his twin a great deal here with that self-satisfied smile.
She hadn’t seen much of Tristan. Only a brief introduction once.
Still, she’d recognized the difference in the brothers immediately.
Charles’s eyebrows were just a degree farther apart, and his smile broader.
More than that, his lack of awareness and devil-may-care attitude practically leapt from his person.
Which was why it rankled her to no end to admit how greatly she enjoyed kissing him last night.
“Who was that man you were speaking with earlier?” she asked.
“Our steward, Mr. Page. I have sworn him to secrecy and subsequently tasked him with learning more about what constitutes grounds for an annulment.”
She stared. “For...us.”
“Well, yes. You told me yourself last night you were forced into this arrangement as much as I was.” He paused. “Unless of course, you were lying...”
She narrowed her eyes. “I was not lying. I was persuaded to accept this marriage.”
“There you have it. I am not well-versed in how to obtain an annulment—”
“Shocking,” she interrupted.
“However, I believe we may be able to obtain one on the grounds of being forced to wed.”
That unsettling feeling continued to creep up behind Marie, a lurking dread of having no future.
“Unless I am mistaken, no pistol was leveled at us to force us to agree to the union,” she said.
He looked away with a shrug. “There may not have been a pistol, but threats were fired clear enough. At any rate, Mr. Page will inform us the moment he learns anything new so that we might both escape this marriage we have no desire to continue.”
He said nothing further, merely tapped his boots against the carriage floor in a rhythmic pattern, appearing perfectly content.
Marie, however, was not. She wasn’t pleased with the husband she’d married, but her future had finally been secured. Now, all thought of leading a somewhat peaceful existence—at least in being financially cared for—vanished.
“You do want the marriage to end, do you not?” Charles asked.
“I...”
She couldn’t answer. Did she wish for that security to end? To return to her family and live with a disappointed father and absent-minded mother? She didn’t think she could bear the whispers that would spread about her spinsterhood and inability to keep a husband even after marriage.
“Marie?” Charles pressed, his brow low.
She needed to explain her hesitance before he assumed something ridiculous—like that she’d miraculously fallen for him.
“I would prefer having a marriage with a man who loved me as much as I loved him.” She spoke the truth, even if she no longer believed love was in her future. “However, I must admit, I do not see how a life after an annulment would be worth living. Particularly for myself as a woman.”
“You refer to your reputation.”
She nodded in silence.
He didn’t speak for a moment, seeming to gather his thoughts.
Finally, he leaned forward in his seat across from her, resting his arms on his knees as he laced his fingers together.
They were only a few inches away from her own legs, so she scooted farther back in the carriage seat, allotting herself more room in preparation of any wayward bump from the carriage.
“You have every right to be concerned,” he said softly. “but I meant what I said before. I will not proceed if there is a chance that your reputation might be damaged.”
The look in his eyes was unlike anything Marie had seen within them—something akin to sincerity. Her heart fought back against his words, but they slipped beneath her defenses, and for some reason she could not fathom, an emotion rose within her at his intent to protect her.
But Oakleys did not cry.
His eyes lingered a moment too long on her, so she shifted in her seat and averted her gaze.
“When do you expect a response from Mr. Page?” she asked, smoothing out her skirts and staring at his fingers still just out of reach from her legs. “And what of my father? Your parents? How will you assuage them?”
“I have yet to solve those conundrums,” he said. “Perhaps we may work together on that?”
Work together as husband and wife to no longer be husband and wife? She’d never heard of anything so preposterous. Still, she agreed, if only to prevent him from assuming she wished to be married to him still.
That would be more humiliating than anything.
“So, we are in agreement?” he asked.
The carriage jostled above a dip in the road, and just as she’d expected, his fingers brushed against her knee. The touch was so faint, she wasn’t entirely sure he’d felt it, as he remained leaning forward.
“Yes,” she breathed. “We are in agreement.”
“Very well. Then we shall continue forward unless the path affects either of us negatively. Or, of course, in the circumstance that you change your mind and wish to remain married to me after all—in which case, I will perform my duty and remain your husband. Agreed?”
Marie stiffened, the flood of warmth emptying her person in great waves. She’d been swept up with his promises of security until that last caveat.
“Unless I change my mind and wish to remain married to you,” she repeated.
“Yes.”
She raised her chin. “And unless you change your mind and wish to remain married to me.”
A smirk of disbelief lifted the corners of his lips, and he finally straightened, leaning back against the seat in a relaxed manner. “Of course.”
Her pride flared, sizzling from her person like steam from a teapot. “Is that so very farfetched?”
“Not at all.”
His smooth voice and level-headed responses were really beginning to irk her.
“Well, worry not”—she added Childish Charlie to her own thoughts—“I will not change my mind.”
Nor would she ever. A marriage with Charles Shepherd sounded worse than purgatory.
She straightened in her seat and pulled her gaze to the window. “Do keep me updated the moment you receive word from Mr. Page. I am quite interested in his solutions.”
“As am I,” Charles said, apparently not catching on to her clear desire to be finished speaking with him—forever if luck would have it. “But we must prepare ourselves if our only solution is to remain wedded.”
She pulled on a face as if she’d just smelled rotting cabbage. “As I said, do keep me updated.”
She shifted her body away from him, and this time, Charles accepted the hint.
They fell silent, and Marie was left to her own thoughts.
She had very little hope that whatever Mr. Page found out about annulments, her reputation would be left unscathed. She also doubted that the knowledge would prevent Charles from seeking an annulment anyway. If he could not keep a vow made before God, why would he keep a mere promise to Marie?
Whatever happened, she knew one thing. She would die before allowing Charles to discover that she would rather remain in their marriage than leave it.