She removed the stopper from a bottle, sniffed, her eyes sprang with tears and she coughed.

Brandy.

She took up a glass and dribbled a thimbleful into it, then made her way a chair and settled down. The pure luxury of doing nothing at ten o’clock in the morning but sitting in a comfortable leather chair and sipping spirits made her smile.

She was still smiling when she glanced at the papers piled in three neat stacks before her. She set down the glass and took up the folio on top of the stack in the center of the blotter.

Pursuant to your intention to petition Parliament for grant of a divorce: a complete and detailed accounting of your wife’s infidelities must be compiled, including dates, places, names, and all possible witnesses. In establishing her True and Undeniable Infidelity in preparation for a hearing of this sort, you must be willing to expose her thoroughly, including those factors in her family and youth that could provide grounds for character assassination. There is no easy way about this, and although I know that a man of your character will be loath to expose his family to public censure, these are the steps that must be taken to ensure your desired result.

It was clearly the draft of a letter, with smudges where the author had dipped his pen anew and words crossed and corrected in the margins. Arabella’s stomach churned nevertheless.

It must be a mistake. Perhaps a prank? Luc would not insist that she wed him in order to immediately divorce her.

But he was hiding secrets from her.

She pulled the stack of papers toward her, and her hands threw each page aside after her desperate eyes scanned them. Her gaze arrested finally on a letter written in the same hand, another draft but signed this time.

The lady in whom you have expressed interest is Miss Caroline Gardiner, the eldest daughter of Lord Harold Gardiner and Lady Frances Gardiner. A new title, the estate is fifty miles northwest of Combe and prosperous. The portion to be settled on Miss Gardiner is fifteen thousand pounds, including rights to the operation of the mill at Gardiner Crossing. Potential investment in the mines on Lord Gardiner’s lands is to be considered separately from any marriage settlement. But in my estimation the lady’s portion is more than sufficient to reinvigorate the estate at this time, leaving ample surplus for future projects or to be spent on your properties in the North and in France, as you wish.

If I may, there is an added attraction: the girl is remarkably pretty and recently out of the schoolroom. As her parents are not longtime members of society, they are unaware of the exigencies that could serve as potential deterrents to the marriage. Indeed, I have it on good counsel that they will be more than eager to ally their family with Combe.

I will await your instructions before drawing up an official offer.

Sincerely,

Thomas Robert Jonas Firth, Esq.

An heiress?

Arabella felt astoundingly dizzy. She set the letter atop the pile and tried to draw even breaths. She suspected she would shortly succumb to panicked misery, but at present she felt only cold, metallic nausea and thorough confusion.

Luc had insisted she marry him. Insisted. Then he refused to give her an annulment. Then he asked her to marry him—again—not quietly to fulfill the requirements of the Church, but in a wedding entirely of her choice.

It made no sense. Except that Combe would benefit enormously from fifteen thousand pounds suddenly emptied into its coffers. With that money, the tenants would be round and merry in no time.

The tenants he had wanted her to know.

She pressed a shaking hand against her face. What sort of game was he playing?

Abruptly she could not be still a moment longer. She bolted out of the chair. Her head spun and stomach heaved. She grabbed the edge of the desk and swallowed back her gorge.

With a wash of pure, hot awareness, she understood. Her body was rebelling because she was no longer alone in it.

She sank onto the chair and her hands stole to her belly then to her breast. The nipple was tender, her flesh ever so slightly fuller. It was not her gown the previous night that had displayed her bosom to such great advantage. It was Luc’s child growing inside her.

She smiled. Then she laughed. Then she cried.

Then she wiped the tears from her face and went to the door.

She would not release him. Despite his secretary’s letters and his continued distance, she did not believe he wished to release her. She would deliver him an heir as he needed and it would have brilliant green eyes. And she would help him solve the problem of the tenants’ poverty.

Armed with uncertain courage, her first order of business would be to send a footman to bring the modiste to the house. She was to be married—again—in ten days. She needed a wedding gown.

Chapter 16

The Wedding

“Must be nice to be nearly a duke, Luc old friend.” Captain Anthony Masinter of the HMS Victory stood at the helm of the hundred-twenty-two-gun man-of-war and surveyed his realm. “You can demand that the Royal Navy send its ship not only into port but up a river, for God’s sake, and the Admiralty leaps to it.”

Festooned with garlands of white flowers, paper lanterns, and servants rushing about, the vessel was nothing less than an elegant festival afloat on the Thames. Adina Westfall was a silly woman, but she knew the pomp that must attend such a wedding. All was celebratory.

Except his bride.

As the day drew near, she had been increasingly evasive. Claiming herculean tasks yet to accomplish, she took her dinners with Adina and Mrs. Baxter and spent much of every day in meetings with caterers, florists, and the like. Luc visited his club and met with Firth again, and tried not to crave a glimpse of her in passing. Pathetically, in the hopes of actually sitting in a room with her for several minutes, he visited Adina’s chambers. Arabella was not present, but Adina was loquacious.

“Oh, Luc, you will be the most splendid guardian to my baby, whether it is a boy or a girl,” she gushed. “I am delighted my darling Theodore arranged it thus.”

She was not intelligent enough to be a good actor; he believed her. Fletcher had not yet spoken to her. His threats were either for show or he did not wish to distress her until the baby was safely born.

Word came from Parsons that several of the tenant farmers had requested the opportunity to meet with him when he returned to Combe. The land steward asked him how long he would be absent on his wedding trip. Luc could not give him an answer.

He sent a note to his comtesse . . . who lived in the same house. Nearly six years as captain of one of the navy’s finest vessels, and he felt like an absolute imbecile that he could not even command the voluntary attention of his wife.

As Miles pulled his coat over his shoulders—a coat he would undoubtedly wear to dine alone—she poked her head into his dressing chamber. She wore a simple black gown that climbed all the way up her neck, and her glorious hair was braided in two thick plaits that fell over her shoulders. A Valkyrie’s hair. Rather, she looked like a girl training to be a governess. Both, combined. She wore no jewels or ribbons, not on her hands or in her ears or about her neck, and the lump of the ruby ring was missing from beneath her bodice. Her cheeks were flushed with pink and her lips parted.