Читать книгу Deceived - Nicola Cornick, Nicola Cornick - Страница 12

WHEN SHE HAD BEEN SEVENTEEN, Isabella had dreamed of marrying Marcus Stockhaven. This marriage, however, was not the stuff that dreams were made of. In deference to the occasion, Marcus had paid two shillings to a fellow prisoner to borrow a clean shirt but there had been no hot water for him to shave. The chapel was gloomy, with no floral decoration to brighten the atmosphere. There were no guests and no one to dance at the wedding. It was, in short, a miserable business.

The priest had to be prized away from his brandy bottle. He glanced at the special license with vague interest and looked with a great deal more energy at the fifty guineas Isabella proffered to encourage his participation.

Marcus was also scrutinizing the special license as they stood before the altar in the Fleet chapel. His brows rose infinitesimally as he scanned the lines.

“Who is Augustus Ambridge?” he asked. “As your future husband, I feel I have the right to know.”

“Oh…” Isabella felt confused. She had forgotten that she had been required to supply the name of a bridegroom in order to purchase the marriage license in the first place. Lacking any inspiration, she had chosen the first name that had come into her head, that of a gentleman who had been an admirer of hers in the two years of her widowhood, but whose intentions had never been either permanent or honorable.

“He is a…friend,” she said.

Marcus’s brows rose farther. “A friend? I see.”

“Not that sort of friend,” Isabella said. She could hear the thread of defensiveness in her tone and wondered why she felt the need to explain herself to him. She owed Marcus no information. He was to be her absentee husband only and, under the circumstances, it mattered nothing to him how she comported herself, since he could do nothing about it. Yet something in that steady dark gaze compelled her honesty.

It always had. The feeling unnerved her.

“He is merely an acquaintance,” she said. “I have a great many such.”

“I see,” Marcus said again, and Isabella had to bite her tongue to prevent herself from pleading her innocence. That was not the way she did things. Never complain, never explain. Those were the tenets of royalty.

Looking at Marcus, at the hard, uncompromising line of his mouth and the forbidding light in his eyes, she wondered how such a man could have ended by being incarcerated in the Fleet. If such a thing had happened to Ernest, it would have been no surprise at all, but Marcus was deep where Ernest had been shallower than a muddy puddle, strong where Ernest had been weak, perceptive where Ernest had been worse than insensitive. Or, more to the point, Marcus had been all of those things when she had known him before. Twelve years could bring many changes in a man. She must remember that she knew nothing of him now.

She fidgeted with her cloak to conceal her nervousness and distract herself from the thought that she was making a very big mistake. She had wanted to meet, marry and part, remaining a stranger to her husband at all stages of the process. Yet already she had broken her own rules. She felt more deeply involved than she had ever intended to be.

“You will see that I have crossed out Augustus’s name,” she observed, pointing to the document and adopting a crisp attitude to mask her feelings of vulnerability.

“So that I may insert mine?” Marcus said, scowling. “I think that probably stretches the legality of the situation.”

Isabella twitched the license from between his fingers and handed it to the priest. “The license is legal enough and with another hundred pounds the wedding will be recorded properly in the register. The marriage certificate will be enough to satisfy my creditors.”

Marcus took the quill from the desk and wrote his name above that of Augustus Ambridge on the license. He scored out the other man’s name with another thick black line, although it was already obliterated. His face was grim and Isabella’s heart sank. This felt terribly wrong and suddenly she was not sure that she could go through with it. She found that she was shivering and shivering, like a dog left out in the cold. She folded her arms tightly to try to comfort herself.

“Do you have any paper?” Marcus asked the priest.

The old man looked startled, as though Marcus had requested some unacceptable privilege. After a moment, he trotted across to the dingy side chapel, returning with a sheet of rough parchment that he handed over with a look that implied another sum of money would now be in order. Isabella sighed and passed across two shillings, which disappeared into the pocket beneath the dirty surplice.

Marcus dipped the quill in the ink pot and scribbled a few lines, dusting the paper with sand to dry it. He handed it to Isabella.

“Take this. I would not wish there to be any ambiguity.”

Isabella frowned as she scanned the paper. He had written a few curt lines to the effect that he was prepared to take complete responsibility for the debts incurred in his wife’s name. If anything was destined to make Isabella feel even more squalid and money-grubbing than she already did, it was these few lines. They emphasized the commercial soul of the agreement in a manner that left no room for sentiment.

“Witnesses?” Marcus said. There was a clear note of impatience in his voice now.

Isabella’s heart sank still further. That was the one thing she had not considered.

“I had not thought—” she began. She looked over her shoulder. The jailer was standing behind them looking hopeful. No doubt he thought there was another few pounds in it for him, both in acting as witness and in keeping quiet about it afterward. Perhaps he could even rustle up one of his colleagues to be the other signatory to the marriage lines. Hysterical laughter bubbled in Isabella’s throat. Married in the Fleet, with a turnkey as witness and the priest half-drunk on the brandy she had supplied as part of the bribe…how ill-fated could a wedding be? She pressed a hand to her lips to suppress her amusement.

The jailer rubbed his palms on his dirty trousers, whistled up one of the other warders and came forward as the priest beckoned. Marcus took her hand. His touch was impersonal and yet a flicker of awareness ran through Isabella like a flame through tinder, catching in an instant and distracting her thoughts from everything but him. She almost snatched her hand away, so acute was her response to him. She knew that he would be able to feel her trembling, and felt as vulnerable as though she had been stripped naked. This was not how it was meant to be, with her emotions at the mercy of this man.

The service began. It seemed to Isabella that they were racing through it, for a Fleet wedding was never going to be a long and languorously romantic affair. There were no lingering glances of affection between bride and groom or indulgent smiles from the chaplain. There was a tense silence broken only by the mumbled words of the service, Marcus’s decisive tones as he made his responses and Isabella’s own, more hesitant words of commitment. At one point she faltered, engulfed by memories of her first marriage twelve years earlier, and Marcus’s hand tightened on hers as he turned to look at her. She thought that she would read impatience in his eyes, but when she looked up at him, he was watching her with a strangely speculative interest. She drew on the shreds of her courage and straightened, repeating her vows in a stronger tone.

“Do you have the ring?” the priest asked.

Isabella shook her head. She had not remembered that she would need one and since she had pawned all her jewelry to meet some of her debt, she could not have provided one anyway. She heard Marcus sigh with resignation. A moment later he had taken his signet ring off and placed it on the open pages of the priest’s Psalter. Isabella shot him an agonized look.

“You cannot give me your signet ring!”

Marcus looked unimpressed. “This is not the time and place to discuss it.”

“But I—”

Marcus ignored her and turned back to the priest. “Proceed.”

He took the ring and slid it onto her finger, clasping his hand briefly around hers in an oddly protective gesture. The ring felt warm and heavy on Isabella’s hand. It was too big for her—she fidgeted with it, turning it round and round on her finger. It was inscribed very plainly with four entwined letters. M…J…E…S… She traced the lines in the gold.

It felt quite wrong to be taking Marcus’s signet ring, wrong and too personal when she had wanted nothing more than his name on a piece of paper.

The priest folded the Book of Common Prayer away under the sleeve of his dirty surplice. He had already scribbled the marriage certificate and now he thrust it at Isabella and waited for his fee, anxious for the matter to be finished. Isabella’s fingers were shaking as she folded the document carefully and stowed it in her reticule. This was her liberty, the paper that spelled her freedom. Yet when Marcus had let go of her hand at the end of the service, she had felt more alone than ever, free but not comforted.

Marcus was watching her. She thought that there was an element of mocking amusement in his eyes. No doubt he found her predicament comical, the scandalous Princess Di Cassilis obliged to marry a debtor…

“Well?” he said.

“Thank you,” Isabella said, finding herself unable to look at him.

“Do not mention it.” Marcus was smiling but it was not the sort of smile that comforted her. “I do believe that in return you offered me something.”

Isabella met his eyes. Her errant heart skittered nervously. Her throat felt suddenly dry. Images of those long-lost evenings mingled in her mind; the tender touch of his lips against her damp skin, the dry salty scent of the sea mingled with old roses, the blazing heat of that summer…but the flames of that passion were long dead after many winters.

“Some bottles of wine, the means to purchase some proper food and a few items to make life more tolerable?” Marcus prompted when she did not speak.

“Oh, of course.” Isabella could feel herself blushing at the vastly different direction her own thoughts had taken. She paused. Her purse was almost empty, but it was not that that held her back. To repeat the offer of such a crude inducement had seemed unthinkable after Marcus’s angry rejection of it earlier.

“I was intending to pay you,” she admitted, “but I thought you had dismissed my suggestion.”

Marcus smiled again, with more genuine humor this time. “I am not so proud, I assure you. Besides, I thought that we had agreed that this is a business venture? We made a bargain.”

“So we did,” Isabella said. She fumbled for the coins and pressed them into his hand. He tucked them away in his waistcoat pocket.

“And you must take your ring back,” she added hastily, making to draw the gold signet ring from her finger where it had rested for such a short time.

Marcus shook his head, taking her hand and holding the ring in place. “Keep it,” he said. “Until we meet again.”

Isabella felt a pang of disquiet. “Will that happen?”

“Assuredly.”

“But not until we are safely unwed.”

Marcus’s smile deepened. “Of course.”

They stood looking at each other for a moment. Isabella felt strangely at a loss.

“I suppose that I should go?” she said uncertainly.

Marcus’s voice took a mocking edge at her obvious discomfort. “I suppose that you should. It is, however, customary to kiss the bride on the wedding day.”

Isabella’s nerves jumped. She took two steps backward until her skirt brushed the wooden upright of the front pew. This time when she withdrew from him, he followed her. She put out a hand to ward him off.

“As you have reminded me, this is a business arrangement, sir, and that was not part of the bargain.”

Marcus smiled at her again. It was a lazy smile, full of intimate challenge. She was not sure whether he was doing this out of revenge or devilry or simply to amuse himself, but his proximity was enough to shatter her composure. She wanted to escape but she could not move.

The jailer was becoming restive and fidgeting behind them, anxious to get his man back to the cells. Marcus ignored him. He took a single stride forward, caught Isabella’s arm and drew her to him, bringing the tips of her breasts up against the rough material of his jacket. He bent his head. His grip tightened on her arm. Then he was kissing her.

The pressure of his lips was no more than a whisper against hers. Even so, it was enough to cast Isabella back into the past, where the memory of his kiss had been locked away along with all the other tumbling images of passion. She had hidden those feelings from herself and from others for so long and now they were stirring, threatening to break out. So much for dust and ashes. Any tenderness there had been between them might be long gone, but the attraction still flared as hot as ever. It terrified her.

She made a small, incoherent sound and tried to put some space between them, but suddenly Marcus’s arms were about her and his mouth moved over hers with an expert thoroughness that stripped away every vestige of defense. The sensual heat washed through her, burning her up, scorching her to the tips of her toes.

No one had ever kissed her the way Marcus had. Ernest had indulged in a few cursory embraces before getting down to the consummation of their marriage but his lovemaking had lacked any tenderness. In all honesty, it could hardly be dignified with the word lovemaking. A less appropriate description would be difficult to find.

Ernest had not courted her; he had bought her. Bought her, taken what he wanted, tried to mold her to his tastes. And when she had proved less than satisfactory, he’d claimed that she had reneged on their bargain, and they had continued in a hollow sham of a marriage until he died. No indeed, there had been precious little romance and no true passion in Isabella’s life. Until now.

She trembled in Marcus’s arms. The touch, taste and desire mingled as he kissed her, then released her a little only to reclaim her mouth once again. Isabella’s body roused from what felt like a long sleep as she felt the hardness of him, his strength and control. Then it was all over and he let her go with an abruptness that plunged her back into darkness.

The atmosphere between them was blistering. Marcus’s face was shadowed but in his eyes burned a flame that seared her.

“You should not have—” she began.

His expression was hard. “It needed to be done.”

“Time to go,” the jailer said from behind them. He fingered the money in his pocket suggestively. “Unless you would prefer to stay a while longer, madam? A cozy cell for the two of you to celebrate wedlock?”

Wedlock. It sounded very final.

Marcus raised an eyebrow in inquiry. Isabella wrenched her gaze away from him. “No,” she said. “No, thank you.”

Marcus turned away from her without a further word and fell into step before the jailer. He did not look back. Isabella listened as their footsteps faded away and the door of the chapel swung silently closed behind them. For one mad moment, she wanted to run after Marcus and drag him back, make him stay with her. But he had gone. That was it. It was all over.

The priest touched her arm.

“You will be wanting to be away from this place, ma’am. Allow me to escort you out.”

Isabella followed him in something of a daze through the warren of shadowed corridors and out into the daylight. The door clanged shut, leaving her out on the street. The air was bright and the afternoon was loud with the vibrant noises of the city. She felt very odd, light-headed and confused, as though she had awoken from a vivid dream, a dream laced with sensuality and long-buried desires. Except that this had been no dream. She was legally married to Marcus Stockhaven—or perhaps illegally, given the circumstances of their wedding. The thought made her heart clench with emotion.

His signet ring felt heavy and unfamiliar on her finger. She wondered why he had not pawned it to buy himself more comfort. But a man’s pride was a delicate thing and maybe selling off the family’s arms was a step too far, even for a debtor in dire straits. He could scarce be said to have graced the Stockhaven name with his behavior.

He had not sold his signet ring but he had given it to her. Isabella felt a passing regret for the fact that she could not wear it. Nevertheless, she would keep it safe, and once the marriage had been annulled she would send it back to him. No matter that he had said they would meet again. She knew it would be better—safer—never to see him.

She could feel the marriage certificate stiff in the reticule beneath her arm. She was free and she was secure from arrest, and surely that had to be the most important matter. Yet as she walked quickly out of the labyrinth of alleys that snaked about the Fleet, a deep feeling of disquiet possessed her. She wondered why she was so anxious. After all, Marcus was locked up in debtor’s prison and she was at liberty to carry on as though nothing had happened. She had exactly what she wanted.

For a moment she contemplated what might happen if Marcus were to regain his freedom and a shiver of apprehension shook her. With Marcus imprisoned, she felt safely in control of the situation. Marcus at liberty would be a very different matter. There was no way one could control a man like that. He was too strong, too forceful.

She turned her face up to the sunshine for comfort and told herself that it was impossible that Marcus would ever be free. Her debts would be dismissed, her inheritance would be proved and then she could pay for an annulment. She had no cause ever to see him again.

Nevertheless, she felt afraid.

MARCUS WAS LYING on the mattress in the empty cell, which was now his own, the book about naval architecture lying untouched by his elbow and a bottle of wine almost as untouched beside it. The cell looked exactly as it had when he had stepped in there in the weak light of morning. There was nothing to show that Isabella Di Cassilis had ever been there and in doing so had changed his life. There was no sign of her, yet her presence lingered in the air and wrapped itself about him so that it was impossible to think of anything else.

During the preceding twelve years he had thought about Isabella sometimes, but he would dispute that he had ever pined for her. His mouth twisted in bitter amusement. He was not a man to dwell on those things that might have been. He was not cut out to be a martyr. Bur while he had always believed that he had put the entire matter of his ill-fated, youthful love affair behind him, he now knew that was not so. Now he knew he wanted Isabella and he wanted a reckoning.

Marcus rubbed a hand across his eyes. He had tried very hard to shut Isabella out of his mind and his life, but he had not been able to ignore the tales entirely. Her husband’s name had been a byword for depravity, especially in his later years when he had traveled through Europe trailing a raffish court behind him like a wayward comet and taking with him a wife whose name was inevitably ruined by association with his debauchery. Marcus thought of Isabella and the crippling blow that her late husband had dealt her. Twenty thousand pounds was an immense debt to burden her with, but no doubt the feckless Prince Ernest had cared as little for that as he was reputed to have cared for his wife. And one could argue that it was only just that Isabella, who had married for money, should in her widowhood be crippled by debt.

Marcus shifted, trying to achieve a more comfortable position on the hopelessly uncomfortable mattress. Isabella had chosen to marry Prince Ernest and she was now reaping the consequences of that decision. She had jilted Marcus heartlessly to marry a rich and titled man. That was the simple truth. Marcus had fallen for the charms of an adventuress.

He had not wanted to feel anything for Isabella Di Cassilis when he met her again. He had wanted to look at her and feel nothing—no love, no hatred and certainly no desire. He had failed singularly. It had taken him all of ten seconds to realize that he still wanted her and, when she had trembled under the onslaught of his kiss, he had forgotten the grim surroundings of the Fleet and ached to take her there and then on the cold stone floor of the chapel.

No indeed, indifference was the last emotion on his mind.

Marcus got to his feet and walked over to the small grille that covered the window. Tantalizing brightness flooded in, promising all the things that he had given up—light and liberty and the freedom to do whatever he wished. He had gone voluntarily into the Fleet for a most particular purpose and Isabella’s assumptions about his financial state, while logical, could not have been further from the truth. He could buy up her debts three times over and not notice the difference.

He paused, staring at the small square of light. What did he want from Isabella Di Cassilis? She had chosen him for no more reason than that he was a convenient husband in the same way that she had made a calculated decision to marry Prince Ernest all those years before. Marcus had given her the freedom to escape her debts. He owed her nothing more. But she…she owed him an explanation of the past as well as a reckoning for the present. When he paid off her creditors, she would owe him a great deal more.

His work here was almost complete. He had been intending to call for his release in a week’s time anyway, but that could easily be brought forward by a few days. It was probably preferable to leave now anyway. Isabella’s visit, and her largesse, had made him a figure of curiosity and that he could not afford. Already there was a buzz in the air, talk of his wife’s beauty and speculation about her true identity. Secrets could not be kept in a place like this.

Marcus stared up at the small blue square of sky above his head. He did not deceive himself that Isabella would be pleased to see him at liberty. If there was one thing he had learned from their interview, it was that Princess Isabella Di Cassilis—or more accurately, the new Countess of Stockhaven—did not wish for a husband in anything more than name.

Marcus grinned. Too bad. She was about to get one. There was business unfinished between them.

He called for a pen and ink, spending one of Isabella’s guineas lavishly on the privilege of having the letter delivered immediately to an address in Brook Street.

The note was very simple:

Alistair, my plans have changed. I rely on you to get me out of here with great despatch. My thanks, S.

He paused, then added a postscript.

Pray find out for me, if you would, who are the major creditors of Princess Isabella Di Cassilis.

The turnkey was waiting to take the note. Marcus knew the man would fulfill his commission. The jailers in the Fleet had a fine instinct for power and they could sniff the change in Marcus’s fortunes.

This, they knew, was a man who would soon be free.