Chapter 23
TWENTY-THREE
MY DECISION IS FINAL
Beth
The scene before me, in Belvedere’s splendid entrance hall, didn’t make any sense. James’s uncle had brought home his bride? No, no. I dropped James’s hand and rubbed my eyes.
The three people still waited on the black-and-white marble floor.
Right. Not a hallucination.
At my side, James had frozen, turned to stone, and I looked up to see the same expression on his face as when I’d visited the Highlands. After I’d travelled all that way to see him and he’d refused to get in the car with me behind the wheel.
It had happened again—his conditioned response. Well, this time, I wasn’t going to storm off. I knew him.
Forcing a smile, I took his hand again, just as James reached for mine.
Relief flooded through me in a rush.
His frozen expression lifted, and he spoke in a low voice just for me. “Please believe me, I had no idea he was planning this. I’ll handle it.”
“Yes.” I trusted him. With all my heart.
We descended the rest of the stairs together, stopping at the bottom.
“Uncle,” James said, not moving closer. “May I present Beth Grace. The woman I told you about.” He put an emphasis on the last four words.
“What? Oh, yes.” His uncle gave me a once-over and offered a faint, slightly baffled smile to James. “Very nice. If somewhat bad timing.”
Very nice?
The man continued, “This, James, is Irene Vandenberg. You’ll recall her from the information I sent you. And her father, Ambrosius Vandenberg.”
The woman, Irene, who looked oddly familiar, though I couldn’t place from where, gave us a composed and polite smile, not seeming at all surprised to see me with James.
Her father peered forwards. “Who’s the girl? You didn’t say anything about him having one of those.”
With a gentle waft of his hand, James’s uncle dismissed me like I was a bothersome insect. “Boys will be boys. She won’t be a problem. The young earl knows how to be discreet. We’ve just surprised him, that’s all. It won’t happen again.”
James’s back stiffened again, and his fingers clenched around mine. “No, you’re right, it won’t happen again.” His words were for his uncle alone, and James’s features compressed in anger. He bent his head down to my ear. “Will you please excuse me? I need to speak with Richard.”
He’d said he would talk to his uncle in private, should the man be discourteous, but I hated him walking away. James ushered his uncle down a corridor, and I waited, utterly exposed in the middle of the hall with no clue what to do.
“What was that all about?” The man—the father of the bride?—stuck his chin out.
Irene Vandenberg pressed her fingers together. “Daddy, go and make some calls or something, won’t you? Let me…” She made a gesture my way, then her father sighed heavily and turned his back and walked off.
“Beth, isn’t it?” On nice, heeled shoes, she clipped over to me. “I’m really sorry about all this. I take it from your expression that we’re a bit of a surprise.”
Everything about her was gorgeous. Her shiny hair, her expensive, tailored dress, even her cultured American accent. In many ways, she reminded me of Mathilda, though Irene was closer to my height than Mattie’s. She was younger, too. Maybe eighteen or nineteen.
Strangely, these facts made me want to be nice to her.
Even if she represented the destruction of my dreams.
I nodded, blindsided and struck dumb.
“Right. Come with me. Let’s get out of the cold breeze.” She led me into the Elizabethan drawing room, with the portraits of James’s ancestors and all the fancy furniture.
Irene took a seat on a tapestry sofa, her knees together, legs bent to one side.
Like a visitor, I stood before her, no clue what to do. Then a thought occurred to me.
“You’ve been here before,” I said. She’d known exactly where to go.
Irene opened her perfect mouth. “Yep. Once or twice. Now, Beth. Let me start by backing up a step. You’re not quite a surprise to me. I prepared myself for this and I believe I can make it work.”
She glanced to the side, an uncomfortable gesture which made me suddenly pity her.
“You expected James to…have someone else?” Who, or what, was I, in the scenario she’d envisaged?
“It’s common in arranged marriages for the man to take up interests elsewhere.” She made little hand gesture, side mouthing her words like this was an in-joke between us. “Heaven forbid anyone actually falls in love!”
At this, a bloom of assertiveness returned, and I straightened my spine.
Last night, James had told me he cared about me.
He’d stated that he didn’t want this arranged marriage, and if he’d decided that there and then, well, his uncle wouldn’t have had the chance to call this off. Maybe it was just terrible timing.
I chose my words carefully. “James and I are…”
What were we? Serious? Committed? In love?
We hadn’t said any of those things, and only ten minutes ago we’d been arguing over having kids.
The thing was, though I’d stated with vehemence that I never wanted babies, in that second, with James, I did.
A long time in the future, but I could imagine them with his eyes and my energy.
Happy, joyful children, running around the apartment.
Going with us to the Highlands for long-distance playdates with Mathilda and Callum’s kids.
The vision had entrenched me deeper in my position because of how utterly terrifying it was.
My heart had clung to it all the same.
“Oh, I know.” Irene’s bright-blue eyes widened. “I could tell that the minute I saw you both. I mean, when we walked in the door. The way he looked at you was just so beautiful. And it’s good. I can work around that.”
“You can?” Weariness overcame me, and I sank into an armchair—a matching print with Irene’s sofa.
Her elegant fingers with French polished nails drifted to press on her bottom lip.
“His uncle used the right word: discreet. I’ll need to be the one standing at his side and hosting formal events, bearing the heir.
” She pulled another face, her mouth wide in a grimace.
“But we’ll turkey baster that part of the deal. ”
My mouth dropped open. I couldn’t help it.
“Sorry!” Irene shook her head, her sheet of blonde hair rippling. “But he needs an heir. I’m trying to work this out.”
“What do you mean part of the deal?”
Her cheeks reddened. “Dad has to buy me into this marriage, but one baby, two at the most, then I’m free. The earl gets an heir, I get the payout from his estate, and it’s mine to do with as I want. As a daughter, I’m a pawn, but I’ll be an awesome brood mare, and that money will be mine.”
She was desperate. She must be. Her polished manner hid it, but there were cracks in her facade.
“You’d be paid to have his baby?”
“It’s part of his trust arrangements on this place. To ensure the line of succession. The wife gets handed a lump sum. It’s not accessible for anything other than this. He gets this bride price from my dad, though. It works both ways.”
It was a parallel universe, where people traded people, and arranged marriages actually happened. Trustee boards, Elizabethan shit, I was brimming over with alien concepts, and my heart raced.
“Look.” Irene flattened her palms on the sofa.
“It’s better if we’re friends, isn’t it?
I can already tell you’re a good person and, with a bit of effort and understanding, we can coexist. You have no idea what it’s like being brought up in a family like mine.
Dad’s a senator, and every move I make is watched.
Judged. And there’s another good reason…
But all I want is freedom. Here, I can do as I please. ”
My knees ached as I rose, sitting still no longer an option. Somehow, I felt I was letting Irene down. It sounded like she had a horrible home life, but this couldn’t be her only route to freedom.
“Of course, Ella’s going to take more convincing,” she intoned carefully, looking at me. “Maybe you can help with that.”
Then it twigged, in a rush, where I knew her from. “You’re Ella’s friend. We saw you at her college.” My mind scrambled over the connection, trying to recall the few moments we’d been there. I’d been so wrapped up in James. “You left the school. Does she know that this was why?”
Irene stood. “No. And I’ll deal with the fallout from lying to her, but please, Beth, I need this.”
“Why did Ella call you by a different name?”
“She knows me as Taylor. Irene is my true first name, but only Dad uses it. Mom calls me Taylor. I’d like it if you did, too.
” She clutched my hand, and her face took on an increased desperation.
“Let me be super clear. I’m not muscling in on James.
I’m not interested in anything apart from getting free. ”
“I don’t—”
“It’s not like he can marry you, is it? Not if he wants to inherit.”
I stared again. Did I even want to marry him? “Why not?”
“James has to marry a woman with money. That’s a fact.
His uncle told my dad. It’s been part of their negotiations.
” She looked me over, releasing me. “You don’t seem the type to be hiding a few spare million.
I don’t mean that in a bad way, but it’s obvious.
If you had a family like mine, had to show up to society events in Manhattan, Tokyo, anywhere the glittering money train takes you, you’d be forced into a salon every other day like I am.
But your nails are short, and your hair—it’s gorgeous, by the way—but shaved?
Not in my world. You’re a real human. No one is pushing you to always be on show.
I know you don’t have the money, so you can’t be his bride.
I have and I can. We’ll be a team in this.
For his sake. If you care about James, you’ll do this. ”
Through her narrow assessment of me, she accurately diagnosed poverty and a lack of care in a snap of her fingers.
Then something else occurred to me, and I wondered how I’d been so blind.
When we’d seen the so-called bride and her father in the hall, James hadn’t denied the arrangement.
No yelling at them to leave. No. It was the manner in which his uncle spoke to me that he disliked.
Then, as I went further back, he hadn’t actually stated that he wasn’t going to go through with the marriage.
Only that he didn’t want to.
Hell, we all had to do things we didn’t want.
A sickness wound in my stomach, and I clutched my hands to my belly. “This is all a huge mistake,” I murmured, looking anywhere but at Irene. Or Taylor. Whatever her name was.
“What?” she whispered.
“I’m a fling. I just didn’t realise it until right now.”
Except I had and I’d told myself not to fall. But I’d done so anyway. I’d fallen in love. Fuck! It was true. I loved James with my whole heart, and we were stuck in the middle of this mess.
Energy zapped me into motion.
Leaving Irene in my wake, I fled the room through the unlocked French doors, finding myself on a terrace above the garden. Putting my head down, I stomped down the first set of steps.
Even if I had this all wrong, and he was in one of the other rooms, telling his uncle where to go, he’d be throwing away his home. His whole world. All for me, a woman he barely knew.
But this wasn’t a likely scenario. He had his plans, and there was no way he could have accidently fallen for me without knowing he was risking everything. With all that work to do in managing this place, he’d get over me in a heartbeat.
Unhappiness welled, and I sniffed, trying to stop the tears that slid down my cheeks. I failed, and an ugly sound ripped from my chest.
Stupid, stupid Beth.
The weak sun that had risen today couldn’t beat the cold spring wind. I wrapped my bare arms around my body—the cardigan I’d worn last night left upstairs—and hurried along the path, the tears still coming.
But as I neared the corner of the house, voices accosted my ears. I hadn’t meant to stop, not for anything, setting my sights on the summerhouse and my personal belongings, but it was James whose voice was raised.
Had I ever heard him shout in anger?
Despite myself, my nausea and hurt, I paused, arrested by James’s tone.
Then I took a step back towards the house.
I’d descended one set of steps, but many more ran up and down the formal terrace.
Bushes and flowerbeds lined each level so, though I was no more than ten feet from the house, I was out of sight.
I just needed to check he was okay.
“No,” James roared.
I crept closer, climbing halfway up the nearest steps.
“I told you I won’t, and that’s an end to it. You’re not listening.”
His uncle’s voice intermingled with his, the man talking over him. “…after everything I’ve done for you, and what respect do you show me? Let alone to the honour of our name. The money this arrangement would bring in. You would throw everything away on that…that…”
“Don’t. Don’t you dare.” James’s tone turned icy cold. “If you want to be part of my life ongoing, you’ll hold your fucking tongue.”
Silence met my ears. I dried my cheeks and took a shuddering breath, but still no sound came from the house.
Shit.
Two more steps, and I peeked over a leafy bush. Through a door made of small glass panels, James and his uncle stood toe to toe. A narrow, open window allowed their argument to escape.
“You dare swear at me.” His uncle curled a hand around James’s lapel, his reddened face stretched in a scowl.
My muscles tensed, ready for me to run in and swing that door open. Knock away the hand that dared touch James.
James gazed down at the man, half a head taller and apparently undaunted. “I’ve chosen my own path, and my decision is final.” He took a step back and dislodged his uncle’s grip. “Would you care to tell me about Ella’s guardianship? When did you change it, and why?”
His uncle grasped the back of an office chair, his knuckles pronounced from his grip. He tipped his head to one side, and his expression turned calculating.
“Who took care of you, James, when you were lying in a hospital bed, half cut to ribbons and coated in your mother’s blood?
Who buried your parents and took you and that girl in?
Found her a good school, despite all the caterwauling?
I did. I picked up the pieces of the family you destroyed, and I won’t have you do it again.
Listen to me, you will not wreck the arrangement I took months to make. ”
As the man spoke, James’s face flushed white, visible to me, even behind the glass. The light in his eyes dimmed, and I clasped a hand to my mouth at the evil spilling from his uncle’s lips.
He wouldn’t listen to this. He couldn’t. For too long had Richard hurt James, and I was sure, so sure that the man had no power anymore. James was his own man. Quiet, but self-assured, and stronger than anyone else I knew.
I knew him.
Which was why, when James dropped his uncle’s gaze, my heart, and my hopes, sank to the floor.