your objection?” she asked. “I could look after him for you while you’re away performing. It wouldn’t be a marriage in the real sense, of course. I understand that he has a child’s mind.” Her face grew earnest. “I do feel affection for him, Jon. He would never want for anything, I promise. You must know I’d never take advantage of his...” She faltered and dropped her head.
“His idiocy?” Jon finished, with a dark look. He felt a sharp pang of guilt for what he was about to do, but he had learned long ago to grab an advantage wherever and whenever it presented itself. This one had virtually fallen into his lap and screamed, Take me!
“Please, Jon,” she implored, resting a hand on his arm. “If you have one scrap of compassion in that black soul of yours, do this for me.”
He sighed. “All right, Kathryn. I’ll do it, but I want something for my trouble.”
“Anything!” she promised, and then obviously thought better of the offer. “What?”
“Six thousand pounds,” he stated baldly.
Kathryn’s mouth worked soundlessly. She looked irate.
Jon tried to explain, “It’s not so mercenary as it sounds. I’ll never ask you for another groat, and I’ll pay you back with interest before year’s end. Five percent. My word on it.”
She looked doubtful, considered in silence for a few moments. “Eight percent,” she countered.
“Six.”
She bobbed her head once. “Done.”
Jon held out his hand, and she gave it a firm shake. He tried to disregard the disappointment in her eyes.
“Come with me,” he said. “I’ve a friend in Lakesend who’ll perform the ceremony without the banns. He owes me a favor. It’s probably best if I stand proxy for Pip.”
Kathryn hesitated, tugging her hand away from his and remaining where she stood for the moment. “Well, I suppose that would do. Are you certain that will be legal?”
“Binding as a hangman’s noose. Sure you really want to do this, Kathryn? Pip’s not exactly every lass’s dream come true.”
“I think it’s the only solution,” she said with a sigh.
“We’d best get on with it, then,” he said, ushering her toward her mare and providing a boost up. “If we hurry the ceremony, I can still make the Turkingtons’ do by nine o’clock, and you can put your bridegroom to bed by ten. Let’s ride.”
All the way to Lakesend Jon watched her with a wary eye. She could call the whole thing off at any second. He prayed. He promised whatever gods were watching that he would make this up to her. He would face her wrath when she discovered what he had done, and give her her freedom whenever she asked for it. And, in the meantime, Pip would be the most docile, undemanding husband any woman ever had. No, Kathryn would never suffer because of this night’s events. She would be saved from the machinations of that avaricious uncle, and Jon could pay off Bunrich. A perfect scheme.
Kathryn was right. This was the only way.
Darkness had fallen and the full moon risen by the time they arrived. “You wait outside and let me talk to the vicar first,” Jon suggested as they reached the outskirts of the village. The old stone chapel snuggled comfortably at the edge of Lakesend Common. Unthreatening moon shadows bathed the churchyard that flanked the parsonage. A weak light shone through the window signaling the presence of Reverend Carl Lockhart. Thank God Carl was home tonight. Jon thought it a good omen.
He dismounted and looped his reins over the spiky wrought-iron fence. “I’ll be back in a few moments,” he promised with a pat on her knee.
Lockhart answered immediately, and after a perfunctory greeting, Jon stated his case. “Carl, I need a hasty wedding performed. The lady outside doesn’t know she’s to be a countess, and I’d as soon you didn’t make any reference to it. For my sake, just do the pretty and say only what’s necessary, will you?”
Duplicity didn’t sit well with the good reverend. “I don’t know, Jonathan. Doesn’t seem right, somehow.”
If you only knew, Jon thought with a grimace. He lounged negligently on the corner of the parson’s desk. “Why? She needn’t know just yet about my title. She’s perfectly willing to marry me thinking I’m Nathan Chadwick Lyham, a simple musician. If she knew the rest, she’d balk. Her attitude toward the nobility could make this marriage impossible, and then I’d be done right out of my heir. The chit has no notion how difficult it would be to rear a bastard. Her parents will throw her out. No telling what she might do then. Best we marry and have done with it. I promise I will tell her the rest when the time’s right.”
The vicar shot him a suspicious look and began to shake his head.
Jon held up a gloved hand to forestall any denial. “Bear with me on this, Carl. We were fast friends as children. Still are, eh? Didn’t I see that Edward gave you the living here when your father died?”
Lockhart snorted. “Such as it is. You’re a sporadic landlord, at best. Better than Edward was, but still...”
Jon brightened. “Well, you’ve the best music in three counties, haven’t you? Draws ’em in like flies. We’ll build that school of yours by next summer, too. Things are looking up.”
“Sounds like bribery, milord,” Lockhart replied with an infectious grin.
“We always did understand each other, Carl,” Jon said. “You fix the papers. I’ll get the bride.” He turned on the way out. “Don’t mention the child. She’s dreadfully embarrassed about it.” Again he paused. “And thank you, friend. I won’t forget this.”
Kathryn took the whole thing rather well, Jon thought with relief. The words were said in a rush, witnessed by Carl’s sleepy housekeeper and the resident gravedigger. Jon punctuated the ceremony with a brief kiss he dared not prolong.
The taste of her soft lips lingered in his mind as he handed her the pen to sign her name on the church register. When she had done so, he handed her the marriage lines. She pored over the document for a moment and then scratched her name with a flourish.
Her eyes rested on his hand as he boldly wrote J. Nathan Chadwick. dropped down a space and wrote Lyham a little to the right. He handed her the paper. She looked at him then, with a helpless little smile, as though she’d only just realized what Pip’s real name was. No mistake there, Jon thought with a wry twist of his lips, only a few letters missing. A lie of omission.
He waited until Carl drew her away to congratulate her and then turned back to the church register. Jonathan Chadwick, Fifth Earl of Lyham, he wrote clearly beneath Kathryn’s signature and quickly closed the book.
God help him, it was done. He had wed Kathryn Wainwright for her wealth, an act of desperation and wicked deception. Hell was too good for him, but at least he had postponed that destination for a while. Ah, well, he’d march along the path of survival, as out of step as ever, and hope one day to find the rhythm that always eluded him. This was only another stumble.
“We must away now, Reverend. Our thanks to you,” Jon said with a nod to the housekeeper and the gravedigger.
