“I wish I knew,” Montacute said. His thin lips tightened. John was suddenly angry at the baron. Keeping so calm and level-headed was a gift, but not when it was being used against such an obviously innocent and wronged woman. “I would likewise take pleasure in disciplining my cousin if I were able. But since Hepworth is not my dependent, I have no great hold over him.”
Hepworth had, in John’s estimation, only ever gone after widows and women capable of handling the attention. That was what was widely shared in the scandal sheets. But perhaps boredom, a lack of suitable women, and Lady Cate’s numerous attractive qualities had gotten the better of him.
“Well?” Dobbs asked. “What shall we do about the young lovers?”
“I am not my cousin’s keeper.” Montacute wasn’t looking at Dobbs, but at his daughter, with a concerned expression. With a milder, gentler tone than John had ever heard him use before, Montacute asked, “Are you alleging my cousin assaulted you, madam? Or did anything to you against your will? I would neverpunish a woman for such a thing. All blame would lie with the man.”
“No, my lord,” she replied softly. John could not see her face, since her loose blonde hair fell forward, hiding her expression.
“She doesn’t know what she’s saying,” Dobbs huffed. “She is all innocent. That is how I raised her.”
“Father, please—”
“If you do not know where the blaggard is, thenyou, my lord, will need to wed her. You will need to step in and protect my daughter’s good name.” Lord Dobbs smiled as if this had been his plan all along.
“I am not at liberty to offer my hand.” Montacute rubbed his forehead. “I am already engaged. Therefore, I am sorry that I cannot offer to wed her ladyship.”
This seemed to take the wind out of Dobbs’s sails and he flapped his arms, regarding Lady Cate with such vehemence that John found himself moving. Unbidden and unknowing, instinct took over. He stepped between the two of them.
“If there is only a small number of Beauchamp’s guests who were present and witnessed the occurrence, then perhaps…” Montacute started to say.
“You think I have kept this man’s disgrace a secret?” Dobbs asked. “You think me a fool who would hide away when it is Hepworth who has wronged me?”
“I would have thought a wiser man would have wished to protect his daughter from any scandal.”
“Well, I never—”
“I cannot tell you where Hepworth might be, but I would not be surprised if he had gone to visit our distant cousin in Scotland. She resides past the border. It would take a week to reach her estate, let alone get a letter there and reply. Besides, my cousin says, as many a young man does, he will never wed.”
Neither lord noticed the tiniest of noises, a half-cry, half-moan from Lady Cate, but John did. He caught Lady Cate tightening her grip on the handkerchief he had given her, as she rocked in the chair at the horror of what awaited her.
No one deserved that fate. No one deserved the cruelty that John had read about in the papers when one of the faulted members of the ton stepped ever so slightly out of line. Their malice was famous. There was no sympathy for someone if they were to display a fault. It would prevent this luminous young woman, who had always been so kind and generous to the lowly likes of him, from ever marrying, thereby stopping her from having children, and from living the life of respectability and gentility she had presumably always envisioned for herself. It would cut her off from her sisters, her friends, and everything she had ever known. And for what purpose? The absurdity and the injustice of the idea throbbed within him.
“I’ll do it,” John declared, not quite daring to look at the young woman who he was suddenly so eager to save from whatever fate her father had in store for her. “I will marry your daughter if she will have me.”
Chapter Two
The carriage bumpednoisily down the road. Cate hung on to the interior of the carriage upholstery, trying her best not to catch her new husband’s eye. She understood the need for the driver’s punishing pace. Since it was nearly winter, it was best that they reach their destination before night fell at five o’clock. Nonetheless, it did make her feel as if the dogs of hell were chasing them out of Weybridge. Perhaps it was merely to accentuate her father’s distaste for her. His spite and disappointment would continue no matter what she did or where she went.
“I told the man we wished to make it to Salisbury’s before nightfall,” said Lieutenant Perrin.
In the last few days, there had been a great deal of change. The next few were likely to bring more.
“Is that where we will have our honeymoon?” she asked. Her sisters had been married to men of consequence, with grand titles and estates to go to, whereas Lieutenant Perrin came from a small village in the wilds of Yorkshire.Keighley, she thought he had said. None of his family had even been at the wedding. Not that she blamed them for that. If they knew about her, they would probably loathe her.
The mild light of the morning streamed through the carriage curtains as the driver eased his pace and Cate settled back into her seat. The outside world gave no huge indication that it wasnearly December. Inside the carriage, she was snug inside a thick wrapper. A warm brick had been placed by her feet.
There had been a hundred things she wished to know about her husband, but an awkwardness struck her as she slowly studied him surreptitiously. He had been an acquaintance before their marriage. A working man. One of her father’s fellow lords’ employees. John Perrin was a man of the navy. It marked him out as different from most of her milieu. Frankly, that was not a bad thing.
Today, on their wedding day, he was dressed in the finest officer’s uniform, which made him rather handsome in Cate’s eyes. With his gorget, epaulets, rich blue coat, and the black hat discarded next to him on the seat, he was an intriguing sight. One which spoke of brute masculinity, a warm Yorkshire accent, and muscles. Yet what a contrast to his decidedly sweet treatment of her. What, Cate wondered, lay beneath the shield of his uniform and rank? And how precisely should she phrase that question?
“No,” he replied, “We’re headed for the seaside. I hope that is agreeable to you.”
Cate nodded. She had had no say in any of the wedding preparations, forced into her sister’s gown and into the place of her father’s choosing. So it struck her as no surprise she should not have chosen the honeymoon destination. Still, she liked the sea.
“I thought it was a pleasing ceremony,” John remarked. There was a slight but encouraging smile playing around his lips, which illuminated his face and warmed his grey-green eyes. Cate would have liked to sink her fingers into his curly hair. The pale brown color matched his eyebrows, which sat on his rugged face. His lips were a sin that Cate tried her best to ignore. The bottom one in particular was a glorious, rounded temptation she longed to nibble.
“Indeed,” Cate lied. The ceremony had been cobbled together to protect her good name, with only a handful of witnesses and a vicar. The special license had been bought hastily. The only thing that had been remotely pleasing was their brief kiss. It made sense that he had not pushed the kiss further, and yet part of Cate longed for him to kiss her again. The initial contact had been glorious, and she wished he could have continued.
