Chapter 14
Fourteen
Min gasped.
“Don’t look so horrified.”
She was staring at him like he’d just stabbed her. And, fair enough, he hadn’t exactly meant to say the words himself. He went to drag his hand through his hair, encountered his hat, and half knocked it off before swiping it down to his knee.
“I don’t mean actually married. But we could be engaged for a bit. Think about it.”
It was Warde he kept seeing. That slimy, sly look he’d given her. Friendship hadn’t seemed a strong enough protection. But no one would dare touch his wife, would they? And besides, Min getting married would mean her money was no longer there to tempt anyone. It was all quite logical really.
“If people think we’re engaged, it’ll keep the worst of the wolves at bay.”
She was very white.
“Why…?” she tried. Stopped. Let out a shaky breath. “Whatever are you talking about?”
Ah yes. She probably didn’t even know about this rumour of her wealth yet.
He tried to find a delicate way into the topic before deciding ruefully that horse had already bolted.
“You’re an heiress, Min. Or so most of London believes.
Apparently your aunt is on her deathbed, and she’s left the whole of her fortune to you. ”
“Agatha is dying?” she whispered, appalled.
“No!” he said quickly. God damn. There were bolting horses everywhere. “It’s all a hum. Or so I believe. You said she was well, didn’t you?”
“In her last letter, yes, but I received that two days ago. What if… She might… Oh, I must write at once!”
“No, no. Be easy, Min.” He tried to lay a comforting hand on hers, but she pulled it back, instinctive as a horse twitching off a fly.
Inside, he found a bit of time to frown about that even as he did his earnest best to reassure her.
“It’s nothing but talk and conjecture. All these rich old folks are always dying in everyone’s imagination.
It’s the glimmer of gold. Disorders the senses.
” He waved a hand in a gesture reminiscent of a stage magician, but Min didn’t look any less stricken.
“Ignore the bit about her dying. The crux of the matter is that everyone believes you’re an heiress.
A very considerable one. And now every fortune hunter in town is going to be angling for you, laying their snares and traps.
It’s a horrible business, believe me. I’ve been through it all with George, and it’s been hard enough to keep him safe, even with him being a man and able to look after himself, more or less.
But with you…” He trailed off. Now she was looking at him like he’d lost his wits.
“I’m no heiress!”
The horses were walking slowly, their earlier fidgets trotted out of them. He was at liberty to study her properly.
“Are you sure?”
“Yes!”
Her eyes were wide, her face flushed, her lips parted in indignation. There were probably men who might be tempted by her whether she had money or not.
“Well.” He took in the reins and collected his horses, suddenly hating all his fellow men. “It makes little difference, given everyone thinks you are.”
“No difference? For everyone to think I have come to London to…to deceive them and puff myself up and play such an outrageous trick! I suppose you will say it makes no difference when the truth is discovered and I am the laughingstock of the whole town!”
“But it isn’t you who said it.”
“They won’t remember that!”
“No one’s going to laugh at you, Min. I won’t let them.
Besides, the fact of the matter is people don’t know the truth, and London being what it is, no one is going to want to believe the truth because the story of you being an heiress is much more interesting.
” He let the horses walk loose and slow again, Sunlark, on the right, taking a greedy snatch at the bit.
Leaving half a strand of thought for the temperamental horse, he turned the rest to Min, running an eye over her tense and unhappy form.
She still didn’t seem to understand the true danger she was in.
“People will either believe it and act accordingly, or they’ll try to get close enough to you to discover how much you’re really worth. Either way, you’re a target for men on the hunt for a fortune. They’ll try to wheedle their way in—you’ve seen yourself what your aunt endures from her visitors.”
“Yes, and I am wise to it!”
“But you’re not an elderly widow living in seclusion. You’re a young, inexperienced, and unmarried female mixing freely in London society, and therefore in the path of every crooked sharp in town.”
“If you think I am foolish enough to fall for some…some rakish flatterer—”
“They have more weapons than words and smiles.”
“And you think I’m stupid enough to marry such a man? It is not as though anyone can force me!”
He clenched his teeth at an image of a struggling Min being dragged to the altar but tried to keep his voice as soft as his hands on the reins.
“Min…you’re so…innocent. You don’t know…
There are sordid things that go on that I’m glad you haven’t the slightest idea of.
Not long ago there was a rumour about someone trying to trap an heiress by…
Well. I’ll not sully your ears with it. But believe me that you don’t know the dangers.
But if we let people think we’re engaged—”
Colour scalded her cheeks, and she jerked her head away to look out across the park, tugging fretfully at the fingers of her gloves.
“No. It is ridiculous.”
“Why?”
She said nothing, presenting a stiff shoulder to him in silence, the rigid curve of her neck below her bonnet, all of her turned away as though she’d sooner jump out of the carriage than consider it.
“What’s so awful about it?”
She was the one being ridiculous. If it hadn’t annoyed him so much, he might have laughed. “Do you realise how many girls actually want to be engaged to me? You’d be the envy of dozens.”
No reply.
“It’s not ridiculous at all.”
Wonderful. He sounded petulant when he was attempting to be the voice of reason.
He let out a long breath and looked up the path, to the distant trees, the wide horizon. He took another conscious breath, attempting to pull up some conviction with it, to speak from some deeper, truer place.
“Min. I know you see me as…well…just Jack, but to the rest of the world, I’m the Viscount Orton, and that counts for something.
” Or it used to, when his father had been alive.
Whether the name carried as much weight now it was in his hands was a distant flicker of doubt he was in no mood to examine.
“We’re good friends, we know each other well enough to put on a believable show.
Any fool can see we’re fond of each other, that we know how to talk to each other and get along comfortably.
I want to protect you, as a man, as your friend, and the Lord knows I haven’t done a good job of it since you arrived in town.
” He frowned. “Or since you left Herefordshire. Or ever, really, if I’m being honest.”
She hadn’t moved one bit. Was entirely still as the curricle rolled slowly on.
That sainted heiress from a season or two ago—Marchfield?
Marshfield?—she’d been found on her back with Lansbury up her skirts—up her skirts and therefore soon to be her husband and the possessor of her fortune, whether she liked it or not.
And though the earl had always been a devil, Jack had never believed him capable of that.
But one thing he’d learned in his twenty-six years of unwisdom was that half the people one met were capable of things impossible to imagine.
“My name, my status, will keep you safe. The Sedgewicks don’t have that power.
And it need only be for a few months, until this rumour has run its course, until you’ve found your feet in London or gone back to your aunt’s.
You can cry off, Min.” He gave her a smile, though she still wasn’t looking anywhere near him.
“You can accuse me of something shocking or other and no one will blame you. Most people will probably believe whatever you say about me.”
Only the wheels of the curricle answered back, the creak and jingle of the harness, the hooves dull on the packed earth.
Somewhere, magpies were making a hellish racket, but the smile he’d meant for Min lingered, one amusing idea after another lighting up his brain now he’d given his imagination flight.
“It could be fun. No! It would be fun. Imagine the look on Nell’s and everyone’s faces when we told them the news.
Jack Orton finally caught by the parson’s noose…
” He laughed. “Caught by little Min, of all people, after I’ve had every renowned beauty in town flinging their cap at me.
Just think what they’d say! You can admit it’d be funny, at least.”
Finally, and very quietly, she spoke. “I don’t think that would be funny at all.”
“No? Not even going about town with me? Shopping for your trousseau? That would be good fun. I’d fit you out like a princess, Min.
And, what’s better, we could be always together, just like we used to be as children, with no stuffy old matrons sniffing about propriety and all that tedious nonsense, as though grown men and women can’t spend time alone together without—” He hastily recalled there were some topics off limits, even with Min.
Especially with Min. “Anyway. You know what I mean. It’d be just like old times.
Jack and Min. Min and Jack. I have missed you, you know.
I didn’t realise quite how much until I saw you again.
” Alarmed by a sniff, he pulled his attention from the path. “Good Lord! What are you crying for?”
“I’m not. It is the…the wind.”
He stared at her in horror. “Devil take the wind. You are crying, and I’ve no idea why.”
She turned her head away, hands at work mopping her cheeks. When she dropped them to her lap, the tips of her gloves were darkened with tear stains. His heart gave an almighty wrench.