Chapter Eight #2
“Well, that’s easy enough—hold your horses, my good sir. I shall return forthwith,” Rose said smartly before turning on her heels and marching out of the church.
Samuel’s mouth fell open. So, it appeared, did the vicar’s, for when he turned around to ask the older man whether or not this whole thing was quite sound, the vicar seemed to be catching flies with his mouth.
“She’s… She’s quite something, your wife. Your future wife, I mean,” managed the vicar. “Where on earth did you find her?”
“You have no idea,” muttered Samuel as he stared, boggle-eyed, at the woman now marching back up the aisle.
Rose was flushed, but appeared supremely pleased with herself. “My love, allow me to introduce you to Mr. and Mrs. Howarth.”
Samuel stared. They were just…people. A couple in the middle years of their life, smartly dressed, utterly bewildered. It appeared to be a reasonably catching issue around Rose.
“Delighted,” muttered the stout Mr. Howarth. “I-I gather, my lord, that you require us? Apparently?”
“Mr. and Mrs. Howarth have agreed to stand witnesses for our marriage, my cherub,” trilled Rose with a grin.
Samuel was almost certain that only he saw the wink.
“Right,” he said weakly.
“Right,” said the vicar.
“Right?” said the rather tall and thin Mrs. Howarth.
Samuel shook his head, as though ridding water from his ears were as easy as ridding all this nonsense from his mind.
He needed to marry Miss Rosemary Morgan.
That was the only thought which should be propelling him at this time. Time was ticking onward, and he needed this wedding to occur as soon as possible. He had paperwork to complete, after all. Letters to solicitors to write.
Fortunes to claim.
Samuel leaned forward and grabbed Rose’s hand, most definitely ignoring the spark of heat that poured down her wrist, into her fingers, and into his own. He had imagined it. Probably.
“Vicar, church, witnesses—bride,” he said decisively. “Right. Marry us, sir. Immediately.”
The vicar, much to Samuel’s chagrin, blinked blearily. “‘Immediately.’”
“My husband—my future husband is a little eager,” Rose began with a sweet smile that twisted Samuel’s stomach in a most irregular way. “It is most amusing, actually, last week—”
“No time,” Samuel ground out through gritted teeth.
Honestly, it were as though the whole pack of them were conniving to make sure the wedding did not take place at all!
Rose frowned and was looking at him with…was that pain in her eyes? “I just thought that Mr. and Mrs. Howarth would appreciate hearing the story of how charming you could be.”
“Well, they don’t,” Samuel snapped, temper rising. Where had all this anger come from? He was not usually a furious man, but this woman—this woman knew just how to get under his skin!
Mrs. Howarth cleared her throat. “I would like to hear the story.”
“No, you don’t,” Samuel barked, glaring at the woman.
Where on earth had Rose found them, anyway? Had she merely dragged them off the street?
Good God, the name of Chance had sunk low indeed if that were the case…
“Excuse us,” Rose said with a saint-like expression.
Samuel blinked. Us? What did she mean by—“Ouch!”
It was not, perhaps, the most coherent of statements, but then, it was more a reaction than a political declaration. It was also the only noise Samuel could think to make as Rose grabbed his arm, tugged painfully at his shoulder, and started dragging him to the left.
Feet stumbling, pulse racing, Samuel just about managed to hiss, “What the devil do you think you’re doing?”
“Not in a church, thank you,” Rose threw over her shoulder as she pulled him into a chapel on the side of the church and released him.
That was, she released his arm from her hand. She then proceeded to pin him against the wall with a glare.
“What is all this about?” Samuel asked, perhaps more defensively than he should have done.
He certainly should have lowered his voice. Blast, why was a church designed to have one’s words echo about the place, ensuring that everyone—vicar, Mr. and Mrs. Howarth, anyone else within fifty yards—could hear him?
Rose was still glaring. “You are rushing.”
“‘Rushing’?” repeated Samuel, eyebrow raised.
“Yes, rushing,” she said, voice lowering and cheeks flushing as she met his eye. “And I don’t like it.”
This was all getting a tad ridiculous. We have come here, Samuel thought fiercely, to be married. Why, precisely, it had to go at a certain speed and with random personages literally dragged off the street, he could not say.
“You will marry again.”
Samuel had prepared himself to deliver a long, coherent, and most of all righteous speech, but all the air was taken from his lungs as he stared at the woman before him.
Her whole face was pink now, not just her cheeks, yet her gaze was steady as she stared.
“‘Again’?” Samuel repeated in a whisper, hoping to goodness the vicar couldn’t hear them.
Rose nodded as the candlelight in the small chapel flickered, casting a golden glow over her.
As though she needed adornment.
“After this is all over, in a year and a day, you will marry again,” she said softly—no malice in her words, just plain fact.
“I will not. This is the only—the only real wedding I will ever partake in. It may not be true, but it is real. I do not wish for it to be over in a breath merely because you wish to rush.”
Samuel swallowed, attempting and failing to ignore the twisting guilt searing through him.
He… He had not thought of that.
But she was right. This may not have been special in the traditional way, but he would have to marry again, if he was to have heirs for the estate.
True, his brother and his brother’s sons might suffice, but he felt it was his duty to at least try.
Especially since he wasn’t so sure Benjamin would ever settle down himself.
But Rose—yes, she would be considered unworthy of matrimony, unless the men among the working classes did not care about this charade like a gentleman would, and besides, she would have her portion of Great-Aunt Tessie’s inheritance. She would have no need to wed again.
This is likely the only wedding she will ever have.
It was a strange thought. What was even stranger was that Samuel was now filled with a longing to give her the best possible wedding he could.
He pushed the instinct aside as strongly as possible. That was nonsense. There was no time to arrange anything splendid, and there were no funds to do so. That was precisely the point.
Rose was smiling wistfully. “I see you understand.”
“I…argh…yes.” Why the devil was his tongue so disobliging?
“I am not asking for rose petals up the aisle and a choir of schoolboys singing arias,” Rose said, her mouth quirking slightly. “Just for a wedding service that is not rushed.”
She tilted her head as she spoke, biting her lip as nerves overcame her.
Pity for her, and something else, something hot and enthralling, surged through Samuel as he stared at her. The woman deserved arias, and rose petals, and—
And she is an actress. And she is playing you.
Samuel glared. “You’re acting.”
“It’s working, though, isn’t it?” Rose said lightly, straightening up and somehow transforming into a far more businesslike figure. “Besides, I spoke the truth. I don’t want this rushed, Samuel. This is my only chance at a wedding. Give me at least an un-rushed service.”
Hot anger was trickling through him, mingling with the remnants of the pure pity she had managed to awaken in him. Damned woman was an actress! He should have remembered that, should have prevented her clever wiles from having such an immediate impact on his conscience.
And yet…
Well, he could hardly deny her this. It was such a small request.
Samuel threw up his hands. “Fine! Fine, we’ll do it your way.”
Rose grinned. “The only way, I think you’ll find. Come on, then, dear.”
With the last few words, she lifted her voice so that it echoed both around the small chapel and beyond, into the main part of the church.
Slipping her hand through the crook of his arm—and precisely when he had formed a crook with his arm, Samuel did not know—the pair of them returned to the gawping Mr. and Mrs. Howarth and the bemused vicar.
“Really, this is all very irregular,” the vicar began to say, a censorious tone in his voice.
Samuel’s spirits sank. It had been hard enough to find a church who would perform such a ceremony at such short notice. If the man refused to wed them, they would be in trouble, indeed.
“I know, and the Marquess of Aylesbury is very grateful. We both are,” said Rose smoothly with a squeeze of Samuel’s arm that was more a vise than a caress. “That is why we wanted to discuss the size of the donation that we shall be making to Saint…Saint—”
“Saint Margaret’s,” the vicar said with eagerness—with avarice, almost, Samuel could not help but think. “Why, that is so generous of you, my lady.”
“And we of course have gifts prepared for the two of you, Mr. and Mrs. Howard—”
“Howarth,” Samuel hissed, mortified to see the way that Rose could so easily sway those around her.
For they were swayed. The vicar was all smiles at the thought of the beneficence that was about to come his way—his church’s way—and Mr. and Mrs. Howarth had brightened up considerably after hearing the title ‘marquess’ of anything.
“Marquess, is it?” Mr. Howarth said enthusiastically. “My-My-My lord, I had no idea!”
“Such an honor, it is,” Mrs. Howarth was murmuring, cheeks flushed as she curtseyed so low, she was almost sitting on the church flagstones.
“Such a donation,” the vicar was murmuring.
“Such power,” Rose whispered in Samuel’s ear, practically breathless.
And Samuel hesitated.
This was all getting out of hand. His idea in the first place had been slightly nonsensical, even he could see that. It was rather a miracle that he had managed to get this far.
However far this was, with two strangers genuflecting and a vicar visualizing gold falling into his lap.
Perhaps it would be best if he simply called the whole thing off now. Great-Aunt Tessie’s fortune could go to the undeserving cousin, and he could hold his head up high—
Rose planted a searing kiss on his cheek. “Ready to become my husband?”
“Yes,” Samuel croaked, his throat moving before his mind could engage.
Blast. How on earth did the woman have such an effect on him?
It was most disagreeable, and it had to stop here.
The last thing he needed, now that he was the Marquess of Aylesbury and had come into a substantial fortune, was to have feelings for a woman who intended to leave him and could quite clearly play him like a mandolin.
Samuel straightened himself up as much as he could, inclined his head imperiously at the still-lowered Mrs. Howarth, and turned to the vicar.
Well, in for a penny…
“Proceed,” he said in what he hoped was a commanding voice.
Rose giggled.
“Dearly beloved,” the vicar said, his cheeks flushed and eyes sparkling. “We are gathered here today…”