Chapter 14 #2
His eyes found mine for a split second, and then he looked away.
“Marrying quickly is the best way to keep our marriage quiet. I will not have my father know of it.” He took my hand in his and held my gaze.
“You must know my life is complicated. You knew me when I was young; you saw how I was treated. I’m doing much better now, but bringing you into my family could tip the very delicate balance we have.
” David leaned forward until his forehead was pressed into mine.
His touch was so intimately familiar that I gasped.
He didn’t seem to notice. “My father would see you as a pawn. A means to gain the upper hand with his children, and I would never expose you or any other woman to that.”
“I’m not going to run away because of your father.”
David’s grip on my fingers tightened, and he pulled away from my forehead to look me in the eyes. “I cannot have him near you. If he finds out about us, I won’t hold you to the marriage. I’ll find you somewhere to go.” His voice was like steel. “I promise.”
He was promising all the wrong things.
I swallowed the hurt as I remembered the boy I’d thought had come from a poor tenant family when all along, he’d been the son of a viscount.
The way Lord Murphy had injured David’s dog Charlotte and how he’d treated his own footman the one time I’d seen him.
What exactly had Lord Murphy put David through?
Even now, without being here, he was controlling what kind of marriage his son was to have.
“I’m not scared of your father.” That wasn’t completely true, but it was true enough. I wasn’t so scared of him that I would leave David behind if I had to face him.
“Anna. This is my one condition. I will marry you, but I won’t tie you to a man like him.
Our marriage must be one that can be dissolved at a moment’s notice.
And that moment will be when he learns about you.
Because the second he does, he will come to Tate Hall, and he will torment us.
” His eyes were firm and his voice like steel.
This was something he was not going to retreat from, no matter how much I tried.
Which meant I needed to decide whether or not to accept his condition.
“And if this happens years from now? What if we have children? Would you turn them away also?”
“We won’t. We can’t. I’m not offering you that kind of marriage.”
Heat rose to my face. “What are you saying?” David was as confusing as ever, and this was something I refused to be confused about. “Is ours to be . . .”
“We won’t be sharing a bed,” he said bluntly. If I expected him to blush or be embarrassed by our conversation, I was wrong. He only held my eyes steady. “We can’t have any impediments when you leave.”
Impediments.
He meant children. I put a hand to my neckline, gripping the hem and willing my breathing to remain steady.
So this was what David was offering me: a place to live, a path to pay Mr. Green, and the opportunity to be his wife in name only.
The clock on the mantel ticked in a slow, steady rhythm, unaffected by the words David had just said, but everything else around me seemed to fade into a hazy fog.
I should crawl back into bed and pretend Mama and I hadn’t opened the door to him.
I should take his generosity and move to Lincolnshire.
I never should have told him I wanted to marry him.
“I cannot allow you to make that kind of sacrifice only so I can pay off my debt to Mr. Green,” I said quietly.
“That isn’t what this is about,” he said, his voice low, matching my own.
“Then I cannot allow myself to agree to such an arrangement. It would only be a shell of what I want from a marriage someday.”
David lifted his chin. “An annulment should be possible. You will be able to have that someday. Just not with me.”
Was he trying to be noble?
My trunk was half packed upstairs. Where did I want it to go? If I didn’t marry David, Mama and I would live alone again, working for years to pay off Mr. Green.
I could try to find a man willing to marry me in truth and pay Mr. Green back in that manner.
But if given the choice between a true marriage with someone I only slightly knew and a marriage in name only to David, my choice was easy—I’d rather be a sister to David than a wife to anyone else.
“All right,” I said softly.
He lifted his head away from mine, and his eyes widened. “All right what?”
“All right, I will marry you. Today, if you’d like.”
He pursed his lips together as though he were trying to hide a smile, but it escaped anyway. “You’re certain?”
I nodded. “I am.”
He suddenly let out a whoop like a young boy who’d just been given a long-anticipated gift, grabbed my waist, and lifted me in the air.
The sound of my shocked laughter burst into the room.
Last night, I would have thought it was a sound I wouldn’t hear in ages. He spun us around and lowered me down.
Once my feet were back on solid ground he put a hand on the back of his neck and stepped away from me. “Sorry,” he said with a sheepish grin.
My head was spinning, and only a small part of that was due to his outburst. I smiled back at him.
I didn’t understand David at all, and somehow, in a few hours, I was going to be his wife.
“Don’t be,” I said with a laugh. “I’m not certain what is making you so happy, but I suppose I should go look in my wardrobe for a wedding dress. I can’t get married in my nightgown.”
David’s eyes slid down to what I was wearing. His neck reddened slightly. I glanced down to find his energetic spin had left my wrap open, exposing my collar bones and most of my shoulders. I hastily pulled it closed.
He turned his head to the door and cleared his throat.
“I won’t make a habit of being too familiar with you.
Not very often, at least. I promise.” Another horrible promise.
He looked at me once again, carefully keeping his eyes on my face, even though I’d made myself decent.
“I know what kind of marriage we’ve agreed to and will be careful to respect the boundaries of propriety.
I don’t ever want to be responsible for making you cry again. ”
“People make other people cry at times.” I shrugged because there was no possible way he’d missed my red-rimmed eyes when he’d first arrived. “I will bear it if it happens.”
“I’m not certain I will.”
I gave him a smile. What kind of man married a woman in this manner and was happy about it?
He was much too kindhearted, and I was taking advantage of him.
The room dimmed as if it were the end of the day and the sun was setting instead of just coming up.
David was too happy with far too little.
Somehow, I needed to find a way to give him more.
“What time shall I tell the vicar to arrive?” he asked.
“Here?”
“I would rather we marry here than at Tate Hall, and if we marry at the church someone from town might see us. That is one of the advantages of the special license. We can marry anywhere.”
“Oh.” My voice cracked. I’d always thought I would marry in a church. I nodded, not trusting my voice to say another word without displaying too much emotion.
He pulled out a pocket watch. “Will four hours be enough time to prepare?”
I nodded again and pulled my wrap tightly around my neck. The cold had finally managed to seep through me.
“Then I need to go home, tell Julia, and prepare.” He turned to leave.
I placed a hand on his arm. “Wait.”
His shoulders tightened before he turned hesitantly back toward me.
“What should I tell Mama?”
His expression relaxed. “Whatever you think is best.”
I rubbed my face. We’d had only a day of truth between us. Did I dare inform her that David, the man I’d told her I wanted to marry, was willing to marry me but not able to commit to staying married to me? “What are you going to tell Julia and your brother?”
“They will need to know the truth. I don’t want them to think I’m taking advantage of your situation. But anyone else will see nothing other than a typical marriage between us.” A soft smile formed on his lips. “That is something I never thought I would have.”
He still wouldn’t. Our marriage would be anything but typical, yet .
. . I could feel his longing for it. What kind of monster was Lord Murphy to have broken his son so thoroughly that he couldn’t become part of a healthy marriage?
Life was terribly unfair at times, and there was little I could do about it.
Or could I? I could do for David what he’d done for me when we’d entered into our engagement.
I swallowed down my worries—all my concerns about what to tell Mama and whether or not I would have the strength to leave David when the time came.
If we had a finite amount of time together, I wanted to spend it in a way that would make him happy.
“And what does a typical marriage look like?” I asked with a raised eyebrow.
He understood my intention immediately. I could tell by the look of wonder in his eyes and his long pause before he carefully added the first item on what was to be our marriage list. “Breakfasts together.”
I nodded. That would be very simple. “What else?”
“I’d love it if my wife would spend time with my sister.”
“And I would love to do it.”
His lashes lowered, and he shifted his weight from one foot to the other. “And I think touching you would become ordinary. Something that is a part of my life for every day we have together.”
I stepped into him, my nightgown swishing in the small space between us. “And stolen kisses? Should we keep that on our list?” I asked.
He looked up, raising a hand to my face and putting his finger and his thumb under my chin. “No,” he said firmly. I blinked down my disappointment. That was probably for the best. He lifted my chin. “Once we are married, there will be no reason to steal them.”
The room brightened. “There will be kisses?” I pressed.
He nodded.
Smiling, I leaned into his touch. Perhaps I wasn’t to be a sister to him after all. “I think we should begin with that one.”
“I’m not your husband yet.”
“Then I think you should go fetch the vicar.”
He laughed softly and shook his head as if he weren’t certain what he was going to do with this new wife of his. “I’m going to keep you safe, Anna. I want that responsibility, and I want you to know I’ll take it very seriously. Nothing is more important to me than that.”
Then, because suddenly it was the most natural thing in the world, he leaned in and, without touching me anywhere else, pressed an achingly gentle kiss to my mouth.
It was brief, but more than a light brush—he lingered just long enough for the warmth of his lips to wash away the most pressing of my fears.
And then he turned and strode away.