Chapter 12
CHAPTER TWELVE
Nicholas watched the color drain out of Miss Tate’s face.
She froze in her armchair, and he worried she would collapse again like the night prior. Out of the corner of his eye, he perceived her uncle moving toward her. But Miss Tate remained seated and upright.
So long as she remains in good health, I must explain my idea to her. I will never be able to convince her why she should accept, so long as her uncle is still here watching…
“Baron Spencer,” Nicholas began, stopping the man in his tracks. “Would you allow me a moment alone to speak with your niece?”
He half-expected the man to refuse. But circumstances being what they were, it seemed nothing worse could happen than already had. With an eventual nod, the uncle retreated, closing the door behind him.
“You must be as mad as they say I am,” Miss Tate whispered once they were alone. Her nails dug into the upholstery of the chair. “Why would you ever suggest such a thing? Is this another trick of yours?”
“I assure you, this is not a trick. And there are more pressing matters than my previous deception—”
“It is one and the same.” Miss Tate rose suddenly out of her chair, and the energy of the movement both alarmed and captivated him. “If you had not lied to me in the first place about who you were—”
“Now, now,” Nicholas interjected, holding up a hand. “There is much I may be rightfully accused of, but this mad chain of events would have ensued regardless of our first meeting.”
He wondered how true that was. He had, after all, been trying to flee from her at the Bodleian ball. And that was precisely how she had landed in his arms.
“I will not apologize for stumbling upon that dismal scene last night, no matter the cost to us now. Had I not appeared outdoors and caught you with…”
He sighed, ran a hand over his mouth. She did not need to be told what would have happened to her if De Rees had not been interrupted.
“No. We need speak of that moment no longer. What matters now, what we must speak of, is what is to come next.”
“A marriage.” Miss Tate scoffed, but there was no mirth in the sound. “That is the future you would see for us?”
“For a time, yes.”
In the ensuing silence, Nicholas moved toward the door and pressed his ear against it. If the uncle had lingered to eavesdrop, he was doing so silently.
He dropped his voice low for good measure as he said, “Marriages, despite what we are told, need not last till death. There are ways in which one might be annulled. That is what I have come to suggest.”
She frowned. “I… I do not understand.”
“It is a mad plan, one I have barely had the time to devise.” He had gone over things on the drive into town, counting every mile until he arrived.
“You and I…” He gestured vaguely between them.
“We will marry by special license as soon as one may be secured. Weeks will pass, or months, if we feel that is necessary. After such a time, the union may be annulled.”
She raised her brows. “On what grounds?”
It shamed him to answer, “On the grounds of your… incapacities… to understand and consummate the union you undertook.”
Miss Tate reeled back in shock, and Nicholas instinctively reached out to her. She flinched away from his touch, and her fear wounded him.
“I do not think you are mad,” he assured softly, gingerly taking a step toward her, like he was a hunter, and she was a doe ready to flee.
“But as we have established, society does believe as much. If you were to become my wife for a time, your reputation may be mended. In what concerns your propriety at least. The rest… I do not know.”
Another step. She did not move.
“I would not treat you unfairly, Miss Tate. A modest income, as my wife, to last you forevermore. It need not be divulged to anyone. An agreement between us.”
He watched her carefully for a reaction.
She chewed on her lower lip, turning that plump swell of flesh red until he had to look away.
Even now, when they were devising the most sacrilegious plan, he could not deny how much she maddened him, this woman who might temporarily become his wife.
“You would have me lie to my family?” she whispered, balling her fists at her side. “What makes you think I am capable of such a thing?”
“I presumed nothing of the sort—”
“This plan is nonsensical,” she pressed on, not listening to him. She began to pace, and he watched her carefully. “First a lie, and then… then… I could never stay in England after an annulment,” she murmured. “Not if we… Not if I agree to what you are proposing.”
He shrugged. “Should you wish to retire elsewhere, it would not be a difficult thing to arrange. I have the means to provide you whatever future you desire.”
He recognized the look of a woman slowly being convinced of something awful.
“And the orphanage? I have a life, Your Grace. Insignificant though it may seem to you, I have little desire to abandon everything I have built and love.”
“Twice now you have put words in my mouth. I never said your life was insignificant. It seems most significant to me. The orphanage… If that place is truly so important to you, I would see it funded in earnest. You assumed previously that the Duke of Avon has the means to help. He does—and he would help if you commanded it.”
She laughed pitifully, shaking her head up at the ceiling. Maybe it struck her, like it recently had struck him, how strange and cruel fate could be. A playful, tricksy mistress.
“If I were to agree…” She met his eye at last. “What would you stand to gain? You are speaking truthfully, so I shall be truthful too. The Duke of Avon… I have heard things. This is not the first scandal that has found you. You could have taken any one of your conquests to wed. Why me? Why now?”
He wondered how much she knew about his scandals.
“This situation is much different. I escaped something in London which… which I cannot discuss with you at present,” he admitted.
“Suffice to say, I intend to return to life there as soon as I am able. If word should spread southward that I have been caught in another predicament...” He sighed.
“It would forestall my return overlong. A marriage to you, on the other hand, could shift the scales in my favor.”
He knew little about Miss Tate, besides her courage and beauty. But her quick wit was plain to see.
“You want to be seen as my savior,” she concluded. “A man likely to take a wife, despite everything presumed about him, only to marry for love and learn that she was mad. A tragic hero… I knew you were a liar. But this…?”
She looked almost disgusted.
Almost.
Something else colored her gaze.
“You are more dishonorable than I thought,” she said.
“Dishonor? If that is the word you want to employ, I will not stop you.” He stepped toward her, closing much of the space between them.
“But I never claimed to be honorable. I see a situation that will either crush us, or which we may use to our benefit. You must know, as I do, the brush with which they paint you. Would you not want to wrest it from their grasp?”
“You make it sound so simple.”
The sound of her voice curled up his spine.
“It is simple, Miss Tate.”
“Why should I trust you now when you lied to me once before?” she asked. “How do I know you will not abandon me as soon as I agree to be your wife? You could have me committed to a madhouse, or worse!”
Nicholas smiled, though it was no smiling matter. “You have no assurance that such a fate for you will not come to pass. And you have no reason to trust me.”
“Not exactly a compelling argument.”
“I lie only when it is necessary—or when the choice between a truth or a lie seems inconsequential.”
“Inconsequential to you…” Miss Tate grabbed the locket she wore and held it tight. “But you are right that I have no reason to trust you. A contract… We would need a contract…” She released the pendant and looked up. “And you will allow me to include my own stipulations.”
“Chief of which, I assume, will forbid me from locking you in a madhouse and throwing away the key.”
“I have other ideas too. If you are sincere.”
“In this moment? Scarily sincere.”
“Then it seems I have no other choice but to agree.”
“Do you mean that?”
“I do.”
He was surprised by the strength of his relief as it swept over him. He took a surprised step backward, clutched his chest. A smile worked its way unbidden to his lips, and he thanked the heavens for her agreement.
“Then it seems there is little else to do but inform your uncle,” Nicholas nodded once.
He began moving toward the door. Miss Tate stopped him by grabbing his arm.
His body shuddered in surprise.
“Not yet,” she begged, not releasing him. “There is more I must know first.”
Her fingers tightened around his arm.
“As your wife… Would it be expected that I live with you?”
“Frankly, I had not thought that far ahead.”
“And now that you must?”
Nicholas’s throat had gone dry. He cleared it, unable to think clearly while she was holding on to him. He was more than acquainted with the touch of a woman. But something about the fierceness of Miss Tate’s grasp made him uneasy.
“I… suppose you would,” he replied.
For a foolish moment, he pictured Miss Tate arriving at Riverside Court. Pictured her roaming the grounds, exploring the library—her delicate yet powerful fingers trailing over the spines of the books he had collected…
He pictured those same fingers curling around bedsheets. White linen twisted in the grip, knuckles pale with the force of it. Those sharp grey eyes going hazy with need, her thighs locked around his hips—no, his mouth—as he made her forget every proper thing she’d ever been taught.
He could almost feel the slide of her stockinged leg against his bare spine, the give of her body beneath his weight, the little catch in her breath when he—
God. What was he doing?
Was that what she was asking? Or had he imagined it?
“The marriage… could be as real or as artificial as you desire it, while it lasts,” he rasped against his better judgment.
A light flush bloomed over her cheeks. She was not as na?ve as she pretended to be—knew at least what a real marriage entailed. Pressure built low in his body as he watched her curious discomfort spread, the skin above the neckline of her dress growing pink.
Her fingers dug deeper into his arm as she pulled him closer. Or perhaps it was he who had moved against her.
They stood so close, he could see the desperate rise and fall of her chest.
He had never seen anything as strong as it was fragile until he met her, and his own strength, the tattered remains of his honor, threatened to crumble into dust.
“While it lasts…” she repeated back to him, adding nothing that would bring him relief.
Nicholas, foolishly, driven by compulsions he had tried hard to bury, leaned down slightly, eyes trained on her expectant mouth…
Just as a knock rapped on the door, and he quickly stepped away.
Her uncle—whom he did not know whether to curse or bless—entered without asking permission. Nicholas heard Miss Tate hurry to the hearth, putting an unsuspicious amount of distance between them.
“Your Grace,” Baron Spencer began. “Have you received an answer?”
Nicholas nodded, not daring to look back at Miss Tate…
Fearing what he might do if he did.