Page 6 of The Baron Takes a Bet
“But seeing as you were married by a Catholic priest, it will take more than a few months. Possibly years.”
“Years?” She nearly choked. “No. No, absolutely not. I will not abide by this.”
“Er, hello,” Gavin said, taking a step forward, finished with being ignored. “I don’t mean to intrude, but what exactly is the issue here?”
Once again, everyone turned to look at him, but no one spoke. A wave of impending dread swamped Gavin. He stared back at all of them. Something was wrong, and if the way they were looking at him was any indication, it involved him.
He took a step towards Mr. Armstrong.
“May I?” he asked, motioning towards the papers the lawyer held.
“Oh yes,” he said, handing them to Gavin.
The papers were drawn in exaggerated penmanship, with flourishing letters and flowery prose. Gavin squinted, reading a line twice before realizing it was Latin. He frowned.
“And what exactly am I looking at?”
“A marriage certificate, my lord,” Mr. Armstrong said before coughing and adding quietly, “Yours, actually.”
Gavin paused. He couldn’t have heard that right. His gaze lifted; his eyes locked on the lawyer’s face.
“Excuse me?”
“It’s a marriage certificate. Yours and the baroness’s, to be precise.”
Gavin didn’t move. Why in the world would this man say something so ridiculous? He wasn’t married. After a moment, he turned to see the baroness staring at him with something akin to fear. What the devil was going on?
“I don’t understand,” he said.
“It seems,” she said, finally addressing him. “That your uncle didn’t marry me for himself but as a stand in for you.”
“For me?” Gavin repeated. “How?”
“Well, my lord,” Mr. Armstrong said, pointing to a line on the paper, “do you see this, here?”
“Yes.”
“I believe that is your signature, is it not?”
Gavin squinted. Sure enough, it was his signature, but he couldn’t for the life of him remember when he signed it.
“It is, but how…”
“Your uncle said that you came to visit him, some time before you left for the continent last fall. Is that so, sir?”
“Yes, I was here last autumn.”
“And you submitted to signing several pages when you came, did you not?”
Gavin’s mind reeled as he remembered the visit. It had been a short trip. He hadn’t even spent the night, returning to London as quickly as possible to continue packing for his trip to the continent. Uncle John had given him a ridiculous number of papers to sign, something about inheriting a soon-to-be-defunct whiskey distillery or something preposterous. He rememberedbeing annoyed over having traveled so far for something absurd, but his uncle had insisted on finishing the large pile of paperwork before he left.
“Yes, but I certainly didn’t sign a marriage certificate.”
Mr. Armstrong visibly winced.
“Well, actually, sir… you did. The late baron explained to me that you had given your consent to have him stand in during a proxy wedding, as you were set to leave for the continent. I wondered at the time if he was being entirely truthful as to the degree of your consent, since I knew he was… ah… withholding some information from the baroness… but his instructions to me were quite clear, and I followed them to the letter. The document had your signature, and the marriage was duly recorded.”
“But I never gave my consent tothat.”
