Chapter 5 #2
He would marry her. He would take her to Ardenmere, his country house in Hampshire, far from the noise of London, from the suitable suitors, from the Linfields, the Tentwalls, and any other man who believed himself entitled to come near her mouth.
There he would give her time, protection, desire, and as many battles as she cared to wage against him.
He would make her love him.
He would make her love him because he would be patient when she defied him, firm when she tried to flee, and honest when it cost him to breathe beneath the weight of what he felt.
Arden would not repeat the family failure.
Where his father had not known how to keep the woman he adored, he would triumph.
And if all that failed: he would force her to love him!
Eveline would be his wife.
And, sooner or later, she would look at him without believing he was merely her jailer.
He reached London with night already near and sent word to his lawyer even before changing his clothes.
That night he did not sleep at all.
The next morning, the city dawned as grey as Arden’s mood.
The special license required more than a simple visit to a church.
Ordinary marriages could be celebrated after the publication of the banns on three consecutive Sundays, or by means of a common license, valid under certain conditions.
A special license, by contrast, depended on the authority of the Archbishop of Canterbury and permitted one to marry without those delays, in a chosen place and with a discretion the aristocrats valued almost as much as their titles.
Arden went to Doctors’ Commons accompanied by his lawyer, a thin, nervous man sensible enough not to ask about the signs of violence his employer displayed.
There, among ecclesiastical proctors, clerks, and offices where the dust seemed a legal tool, the petition was drawn up with the full names of both parties, their conditions, their ranks, and the sworn affirmation that there existed no impediment to the marriage.
They had to record Eveline’s age, her condition as a single woman, Arden’s position, and the need to celebrate the union promptly.
She would soon be three-and-twenty, so she was of age and did not require her guardian’s permission.
Fees were paid that would have scandalized a less wealthy man.
Arden signed whatever was set before him.
He did not read with the attention any other matter would have demanded. It was enough for him to see his name joined to that of Lady Eveline Hartwell. The ink was still glistening when he understood that this written union meant nothing if she refused to accept him.
That did not stop him.
On leaving, with the license secured and the document well protected, he ordered the coachman to take him to his house to fetch a change of clothes so as to return at once to Hounslow Park. He had not yet climbed into the carriage when he was intercepted.
‘Lord Arden.’
A feminine voice obliged him to stop.
Margot Marwood, Dowager Countess of Ashbury, had just descended from her coach beside her steward, who departed at once, though her attention was very fixed on him.
Lady Ashbury did not need to find things out; gossip seemed to come to her by an instinct for survival.
For years she had moved through society with the privilege of widows who were rich, influential, and too intelligent to be ignored.
Arden made her a bow.
‘Lady Ashbury.’
She studied him without the least dissimulation. First she saw the cut on his lip; then the jaw marked by the blow; and finally she noted the stiffness with which he held himself.
‘Well,’ she said. ‘It would seem the day has been profitable.’
‘That depends on what you consider profit.’
‘In a gentleman of your reputation, any bruise tends to prove informative. Have you returned to your old ways? Some scoundrel who tried to take advantage of a virtuous lady, Arden?’ she probed with false innocence.
It might be said that Lady Ashbury and Lord Arden were good acquaintances.
In fact, the dowager countess had compelled him to take part in the trap laid for Statony to marry the woman who was then Lady Alice Fairfax.
It was one thing to be a means in the machinations of a woman with a great deal of imagination, and quite another to become her target.
And from the tone in which she had just spoken, and especially from what she had just said, he suspected that the lady in question knew more than he could guess.
So, since he knew her well and she could be worse than a dog with a bone, he decided to be honest. Besides, a little help would not go amiss should he need it, for Statony would not have married had it not been for Lady Ashbury’s intervention.
‘I have had a quarrel with Statony.’
‘Ah, how curious. It must be a new way of courting.’ Arden did not answer. He sighed heavily. Lady Ashbury smiled more broadly before asking: ‘Have you already declared yourself to Eveline, and did the duke give you a new face?’
The world stopped. He had suspected Lady Ashbury was a very intelligent woman, but as much as that? So he did what a man in his place would do. He arranged his best look of surprise.
‘I beg your pardon, my lady?’
‘Oh, do not pretend with me. It bores me when interesting men behave like mere mortals. I asked whether you have already declared yourself to Lady Eveline or whether you intend to wait another four years. You have a great deal of patience, did you know that?’
It took Arden an instant to remember that he ought to breathe.
‘I did not know my interest was so evident.’
‘It was not, to everyone, and certainly not to the lady, surely. Yes, to those of us who look at something more than the embroidery of waistcoats, and since you are too sober, I have been paying you more attention than I ought. ’
He turned his gaze towards the street.
‘There is nothing to declare.’
Lady Ashbury arched a brow.
‘Then those signs of violence on your face are the consequence of a political dispute,’ she decreed mockingly.
‘In a manner of speaking.’
‘What a pity. I would have sworn they had to do with a lady of dark curls, a sharp tongue, and a talent for leading sensible men to ruin.’
Arden looked at her again. There was no sense in hiding the truth from someone who might become his ally. Among other reasons, because the woman regarding him with such interest would end up finding out the truth sooner rather than later.
‘What do you know, my lady?’
‘Enough to warn you that Eveline is not a woman to be won merely by watching her all the time.’
‘I am going to marry her,’ he disclosed at last.
‘I did not ask whether you are going to marry her, Lord Arden. That I knew the first time I saw you dance with the lady. I asked whether you have declared yourself.’
The difference, framed by that woman so softly, proved more uncomfortable to him than Statony’s blow.
‘The first time you saw me dance with her?’ he questioned.
‘Very well, perhaps it was not the first, but do not forget that I was at Statony’s wedding and saw you with her—specifically, the way you behaved with her.
Tell me how you have managed to make Eveline fall in love.
She did not seem the sort of woman to accept in the end a man of as upright a morality as her brother’s, not after seeing that the girl felt a certain inclination towards scoundrels. ’
‘I do not know whether I should thank you for your consideration or be offended, my lady,’ he reflected.
‘You still have not answered me, Arden,’ she reminded him.
‘There will be no courtship; the situation demands haste. ’
‘I see. What kind of scandal have the two of you played out?’ she asked, though it was not proper to keep insisting.
‘Has anyone ever told you that you are very direct, Lady Ashbury?’
‘Do not be ridiculous, Arden. My audacity did not seem to trouble you years ago when Statony was involved. Why should it be different now? Do you not prefer that I know the details from you and not from other ill-intentioned people? How long do you think it will take for the rumors of what I suspect was a delicious slip to reach the city, if they have not arrived already? It will be better for you if I am prepared for your defense,’ she determined with conviction.
‘A kiss,’ he noted in a low voice.
‘What?’ She had not heard him well.
‘There was a somewhat public kiss. That is the reason the matter of the marriage must be swift, and there has been no time to court the lady,’ he stated as firmly as he could.
‘The situation demands intelligence. Haste, in the hands of a desperate man, tends to produce very long marriages and very bitter conversations. By now I know exactly what has brought you to the place we are standing,’ she noted, alluding to the special license she imagined he had acquired.
The earl clenched his teeth.
‘I will not allow the scandal to harm her.’
‘Admirable. And, if I may say so, insufficient. And it is rather telling that you have not denied being desperate.’
‘I am not desperate,’ he hastened to deny.
‘Too late, Arden. ’
‘Lady Ashbury…’
‘Hear me well,’ she interrupted. ‘Eveline does not need only to be saved. In truth no woman needs that. Your lady has spent years sick of everyone wanting to save her, especially her brother. She needs to be chosen. And you, my lord, have the look of a man who would choose her even if he had to set half of England ablaze to do it, but I very much doubt you have told her so, because you are exactly like Statony. It does not surprise me that you are such friends, though it does that you have fought.’ Arden did not answer.
The countess’s smile softened, though it did not lose its edge, and then she added: ‘I see. So you have not spoken with her. I can imagine it now; you saw her in a dark library and could not resist. You kissed her, you were caught, and the marriage must be hastened. Am I wrong?’