Chapter Two
One month later
The big, leather writing-chair’s coiled spring made not a whisper of protest as Gwen twined her fingers behind her head and leaned back from the massive desk.
A fine bit of workmanship had obviously gone into crafting the piece.
She’d lived in the grand town house on Portman Square only two weeks, but it had not taken a third of that time for her to discern one thing beyond a shadow of a doubt: Her so-called husband of seven months, shipping magnate Mr. Gideon Devereux, did not skimp on the luxuries.
That included his furnishings. He preferred large and sturdily made pieces, likely to accommodate his solid frame.
Through Mrs. Dove-Lyon’s description, bits and bobs she’d picked up from her friends, and her own late-night investigations through his personal effects, Gwen had developed a rather pleasing image of the man she’d supposedly married.
Broad-shouldered, lean-waisted, and standing heads taller than most of his contemporaries, he had thick, wavy hair of a deep, chestnut brown.
Frequent sailing ventures and time spent at the docks had put honeyed-gold and blond streaks in his locks and lent his complexion a vital, burnished cast. Thick, dark brows over-scored deep-set, intense, hazel eyes that glinted with intelligence, danced with humor, or roiled with impatience, depending upon the circumstance.
She could well picture him seated at this very desk, penning his anecdotes, observations, and reflections into one of his private journals. She’d stumbled upon a cache of them one evening while meandering through his den, enjoying a glass of his very fine cognac.
Feeling only slightly guilty, she’d started reading after deciding it a fine way to get to know the man she’d supposedly married. She’d kept reading because Gideon Devereux made the pages come alive until she almost felt she had known him, and now mourned the loss.
With a heartfelt sigh, she righted the chair, planting her slippered feet on the carpeted floor. She’d idled away enough time fantasizing about a dead man whom she would never have occasion to meet. She had work to do.
Stacking the papers before her, she mentally prepared to scrutinize each line on each sheet—again.
The number of times she had read the purchase contract tempted her to skim the previously agreed upon sections. But she mustn’t grow careless now. She picked up her stylus and, hand aloft, began reading.
Section 1, the parties of the agreement shall be the Bell & Company Publishing House Stakeholders and Mrs. Gwendolyn Barnes Devereux, hereafter known as…
A ruckus outside the den had her head snapping up. The sound reverberated through the walls, flooding the space with a cacophony of excited voices, and seemed to emanate from the vicinity of the front door. She heard Mr. Higgins rapid speech, and another man’s voice—masculine, and very robust.
Ten to one, she could bet who had come to call.
She slammed down the quill, rose to her feet, and marched around the desk. Glaring at the closed door, she braced for the appearance of Mr. Higgins’s shining pate as he ducked in to inform her of the arrival of Master Devereux’s brother, Lord Ashwood.
The stakeholders had proven a pesky lot, and it had taken a lot of back-and-forth correspondence between them before the agreement met both of their specifications.
Yet, difficult as those negotiations had proven, the stress they caused her did not compare with the deluge she faced after the announcement of her wedding to Mr. Gideon Devereux hit the papers, all owing to one impertinent caller: Lord Ashwood.
If not for her memorization of Mrs. Dove-Lyon’s list of crucial facts—the where, when, and how of her courtship and subsequent marriage to Mr. Devereux—she never would have passed muster with his relentless menace of a brother, the future Duke of Ashwood.
She’d extended patience worthy of a saint—at first—for the sole reason that despite the implied insult to her person—Lord Ashwood clearly had difficulty believing his brother would ever deign to marry her—the man’s unmistakable puppy-dog worship of his older brother spoke to the better part of his nature.
She could manage a degree of lenience, considering the fact that Gideon was dead, and that nothing she could do would bring him back.
Lord Ashwood would suffer much when the truth became inescapable.
But enough was enough. Future duke or not, he could not simply barge into her home—his brother’s technically—but as Devereux’s lawfully wedded wife—and she had the paper to prove it—she had every right to be here and Ashwood had not.
The door swung open. Only, Mr. Higgins did not appear.
A tall and powerfully built man with brown, wind-tossed, sun-streaked hair and unfashionably tanned skin, and wearing a well-made suit strode into the den as if he owned the place.
He closed the door behind him, crossed his arms over his impressively broad chest, and fixed her with a quizzical gaze.
Gideon Devereux? No. It couldn’t be. He was dead.
Gwen found her tongue. “I beg your pardon, sir, but—”
He held one long finger to his lips, silencing her in a blink.
Her instant compliance annoyed her—with herself. In her defense, the man had an air of absolute authority about him which Gwen did not often encounter. Make that never.
He started toward her with a prowling gait, and she had the distinct urge to flee to safety behind the big desk.
She did not, of course. She refused to be cowed. She lifted her chin and held her ground.
“What’s this?” the man asked, his voice laced with sarcasm. “No kiss? No open arms? I expected a much warmer reception after six months apart, Mrs. Devereux. Or should I say, madam wife?”
Gwen was not given to swooning, thank goodness, or she undoubtedly would have fainted on the spot. Her legs did wobble a bit, however.
Reaching blindly behind her, she grasped the edge of the desk, then leaned onto it for support. “Are you saying…” She broke off, aghast at the breathless quality of her voice. Clearing her throat, she started again, this time speaking in an admirably normal tone. “Are you claiming to be—”
“Gideon Devereux, at your service.” He clipped a debonair bow.
The playful aspect of his behavior did not match the coolness in his stunning gaze. To be sure, Mrs. Dove-Lyon had sadly misinformed her of his eye color.
Her second was less a thought and more a rush of unadulterated pleasure. She sent him a tremulous smile. “It is very good to see you, sir. May I say how happy I am you’re alive?”
His expression went perfectly blank. A moment later, he erupted with laughter. “Are you indeed?” he managed, before more laughter spilled from his lips.
She couldn’t imagine what he found so funny. Meanwhile the reality of her situation began to sink in, like a rock crumbling under her feet on a cliff’s edge. Glad though she was he lived, Devereux’s return meant an ocean of trouble for her that encompassed far more than simply foiling her plans.
On the premise the man had died, she had moved all of her earthly belongings into his opulent town house.
Now she would have to move. More pressing, yet, she had spent a large chunk of her savings acquiring an apparently meaningless marriage certificate to a man almost-certainly dead who certainly was not dead and who might—likely would—likely had called the authorities on her.
Dear Heaven. Might she wind up in Newgate for this? She hadn’t any knowledge of how the courts dealt with fraud. She’d never committed a crime in her life.
She nibbled her fingertip and wondered if the gambling hell proprietress might consider giving her a refund. She would need money to stave off prison, especially if Lord Ashwood got involved.
She glanced up to see the amusement in Devereux’s eyes had faded. He studied her with blatant suspicion.
She could not blame the man. He’d come home to find a perfect stranger living in his home, posing as his wife.
“If you would be so kind as to answer a few questions?” he asked coolly.
“Certainly,” she agreed, and sent him her most genial smile.
He blinked as if taken aback by her apparent acquiescence. A moment later, his cool expression reasserted itself. “Who are you, why have you chosen to embark on this masquerade, and, more importantly, as I’m certain I have never met you, who put you up to it?”
“Put me up to it? No one. You simply satisfied a need, or, more to the point, the probability you’d died made you an ideal candidate.”
She replayed her last words. That had not come out right. “I must reiterate how happy I am to learn you did not perish in some mysterious manner.”
He looked supremely unimpressed. “As opposed to a non-mysterious death?”
Her cheeks throbbed. Her face was probably beet red. What was wrong with her? She was normally so adept at choosing her words.
He pinched the bridge of his nose. “I have been a long time from home, and this promises to be a more complicated discussion than even I could have anticipated. I may as well fortify myself with a drink.”
Gait confident and graceful, like, she imagined, that of a large cat, he moved to the credenza.
He unearthed the bottle of cognac she had discovered her first night here and paused in the act of uncorking it to hold it up against the backdrop of light pouring in from an adjacent oriel window.
After a long survey of its contents, his gaze slid to her. He arched a single, thick brow.
She cleared her throat, clasping her hands behind her back. “You have excellent taste in liquor, sir.”
One corner of his broad mouth quirked upward. “Glad you approve. Perhaps you’d care to join me?”
She sniffed, deciding his blatant sarcasm did not merit a reply.
Evidently he agreed, as he splashed a liberal amount of the amber liquid into two crystal snifters. Scooping the glass stems between the fingers of one large hand, he strode ’round his desk and pulled out his chair.