“From a servant to a gentleman,” she marveled.
“Well, from a servant to a man of means. We’ll leave it at that. You understand that I cannot conceal this from your parents, Tessa?”
“Actually...” she began. “Would you consider hedging this bit of your history? Holding back? Just until they become better acquainted with you? They are quite wrapped up in appearances and social expectations, I’m afraid.”
“Holding back until when?”
“Oh... until after we are safely married, to be sure.”
“You mean conceal it?”
“Well, I mean perhaps don’t raise it? That is, if no one asks.”
He stopped walking. “The parents of my wife-to-be can hardly be considered, ‘no one.’”
“Yes, but some pieces of our potential union are too complicated to share, aren’t they? My parents shouldn’t know about the advert, for example. They shouldn’t know that my friends are marrying your partners. Excluding these fine details simply helps to ease the way. If we mean to succeed. If you want my dowry, and I want to get to London with my friends. If we want these things to happen post haste.”
Joseph considered this, his expression pained. He shook his head, struggling to reconcile himself to masking his history.
Tessa forged ahead, determined to convince him. “I am very taken by you, Joseph Chance. So very taken. I want you very much. I should be devastated if something as inconsequential as my parents’ obsession with rank got in the way of—well, if it got in the way.” In a day of half truths and outright lies, this was, perhaps, the boldest truth of all.
He smiled again and bent his head. Not taking his eyes from hers, he brushed another faint whisper of a kiss across her lips. “We won’t tell them yet,” he whispered.
Tessa’s eyes closed and she tipped forward for another kiss.
Can this happen?she marveled.So easily? With a man I enjoy? Nay—a man by whom I am captivated? Can I have a father for this baby and a loving husband, just for me?
This kiss went deeper, and Tessa made a sighing noise. Joseph growled and gathered her up, kissing her in earnest. Tessa felt swept away.
I will not risk any part of it,she thought idly, swimming in the kiss.Not his disdain. Or his outrage. Or his leaving. I need only not tell him to make it work.
He will love me, he will love us both.
I shall not tell him, and the child will be his. And I will be his.
A family.
We. Are. Saved.
Chapter Three
Joseph called on Tessa at Berymede every morning for the next five days. On the sixth day, their discussion of marriage turned from conjecture (Do we dare?) to reality (How soon can it happen?).
On the seventh day, Joseph asked Wallace St. Croix for his daughter’s hand in marriage.
If there had been more time, Joseph would have happily stretched their courtship by weeks, if not months, but the guano expedition was already underway, buyers were expecting delivery on the fertilizer, and Tessa herself seemed urgently motivated to pass over an extended betrothal and proceed immediately to the altar. He would be lying if he said her urgency did not thrill him.
Despite their shared rush, Tessa’s parents imposed a two-day consideration period during which they would weigh Joseph’s proposal.
Joseph had expected this—in all honesty, Joseph was shocked that they’d welcomed his escalating devotion from the start—but Tessa had been angry and indignant about the delay. Joseph assured her, imploring her to remain patient and respectful. Meanwhile, he kissed her good-bye and forced himself to stay away until some summons—yea or nay—came from the St. Croixs. He holed up at the Pixham Inn in the meantime, enduring the skepticism of his partners, Jon Stoker and Brent Caulder.
Brent, the Earl of Cassin, had his own complicated proposal to sort out. He had managed to shackle himself to the leader of this unlikely trio of “dowry investors,” Tessa’s girlhood friend Willow. Cassin was back and forth to London as he reconciled himself to a marriage of convenience.
Unbelievably, it appeared Jon Stoker would marry before either of them, as his Convenient Bride was under the dominion of a violent uncle, and few things motivated Stoker more than abuse. Stoker was sorting out a special license and skulking about, alternately complaining about the marriages of convenience and not being able to wed his bride sooner.
If Joseph thought his friends would congratulate and encourage his own rushed marriage (the only affectionate and authentic marriage of the lot), he was mistaken. The men riddled him with questions and cautions instead, heaping on doubts and dire speculations. By the second drink-fueled night of scrutiny, Joseph had had enough. The three men sat before a blazing fire in the common room of the inn, drinking ale and eating roasted chestnuts.
“I refuse to answer another accusation about her,” he told his friends, wiping his mouth with his sleeve. “I’ve enough to answer for from her parents.”
