Page 67 of Unmasked by the Marquess
“It takes something from you, coming back from the dead,” she told Keating as she lazed on the sofa in a patch of late afternoon sunshine. “I find I need to restore my strength.”
With a clatter, Keating placed a tray of buttered muffins on the table before her. “I wish I knew what your game was. That way I’d know what to tell the magistrate when I get called before him.”
“I don’t have a game. We wait here for a few more days. If Alistair has come to his senses and realizes he doesn’t want anything to do with me, then he’ll pretend he doesn’t know I’m here. And you and I will go to India, like we told Clifton.”
“And if his bloody lordship does turn up?”
“Don’t be so boring, Keating,” she drawled, languidly stretching her arms over her head. “You can’t expect me to spoil all your surprises.” In truth, Charity had no idea what would happen if Alistair came. It was quite possible he’d be furious and turn them out into the street. In which case, they’d go off to India as planned and she wouldn’t have lost anything by coming here.
“Hmph. Maybe you’ll let me in on the secret of why we had to come to this drafty shambles of a house instead of going to London like civilized people.”
“I told you. I wanted to see it.” Also, she wanted to give Alistair the chance to avoid meeting her or even acknowledging her existence. That would give him a graceful, gentlemanly way to end things.
Keating flounced out. All things considered, he hadn’t complained about this interlude at Broughton nearly as much as she had expected. Perhaps he had found some handsome and like-minded fellow to pass the time with.
Charity, for her part, was almost enjoying herself. Never before in her life had she been utterly without occupation. Even during those months in London, which had been the closest to a holiday she had ever experienced, she had been busy; between escorting Louisa and trying to pack a lifetime’s worth of amusement into a span of weeks, she had hardly sat still. But here at Broughton Abbey there was nothing to do. She felt wonderfully indolent.
It truly was a terrible house, though. None of the chimneys worked properly, the furniture was almost universally uncomfortable, and there were some very noisy bats in the attic. It was no wonder that previous generations of de Laceys had sought pleasures of the flesh after being reared in such a comfortless place as this.
She read a few more pages of her novel, but was interrupted by the sound of heavy footsteps in the hall, rapidly approaching the library. Realizing that it didn’t sound like Keating’s step, she only had time enough to scramble up from her reclined position when the double doors to the room were flung open.
And there stood Alistair, the capes of his greatcoat billowing behind him.
“You,” he said, relief and exasperation in his voice.
“Me,” she agreed affably.
“Why the devil are you wearing that?” He still hadn’t moved from the door.
“This?” She touched the bodice of the blue-gray gown. “You bought it for me. And I pawned the other one for Keating’s wages.” Which he had promptly spent on the stagecoach fare to Shropshire, but that was neither here nor there.
“I damned well know I bought it for you. Why are you wearing it, though?”
“I don’t want to tell you when you’re acting so abominably.” She sniffed. She wanted to fling herself into his arms, kiss that angry line between his eyebrows, then knock him to the ground and kiss him some more.
He was across the room in three strides. “Miss—wait, are you going by Miss Church?”
“I told your housekeeper I was Mrs. Selby.”
His voice was a low and sinister rumble. “Mrs. Selby, then. Why are you dressed as a decent and respectable lady when in fact you are a scoundrel who runs off in the middle of the night in order to commit untold felonies and nearly worry me to my grave?”
“The men’s clothes you bought me were quite ruined in the boating accident, if you must know, and I was too dispirited to steal another set.” She took a deep breath. This was how gamblers felt before rolling the dice. “Besides, I thought I ought to present myself as a marriageable sort of person in the event that anyone wanted to marry me.”
He took her hands in his, nearly crushing them. “Hear me now, Robin. I will marry you regardless of what you’re wearing. And Iwillmarry you. You could be dressed as a goat or as the Archbishop of Canterbury and it’s all the same to me.”
Perhaps she wasn’t made to withstand this degree of happiness, because she thought she was about to burst. “Alistair, do you realize that you have a kitten peeking out of your coat?”
“We’ll discuss kittens later. Will you marry me, Robin?”
She couldn’t quite bring herself to say yes, afraid that the joy of it might make her faint. But she gave a sharp nod, and was rewarded by the answering flash of triumph in Alistair’s eyes. “You’d have to do something about Clifton. He wants a death certificate.”
“Then you shall have a death certificate as a wedding present, my dear. But you leave Clifton to me.” The look in his eyes made Charity nearly feel very bad for poor Maurice Clifton.
“You do realize you’ll be sinking yourself even below your father’s bad reputation?” She needed to get all these doubts out of her mind. She wanted to throw them onto the floor before him like birds that needed plucking and dressing before they could be cooked. “You’ll be branded an eccentric, possibly a lunatic, for having a wife who goes about in men’s clothes. Your heirs—”
“Our heirs,” he corrected her, squeezing her hands.
“Our heirs,” she amended, her heart giving an extra beat, “will be touched by the scandal.”
