The Secret Marriage Pact

‘I’ll do no such thing. I’ll start my own endeavour with it.’

Philip flexed his fingers over the handle of his walking stick. ‘Be sensible, Jane.’

‘I am being sensible. I need something more to do than tend the rose garden and listen to my niece and nephews tear through the house.’

‘And I’ve given you ample opportunities to do so.’

‘Yes, always behind you and your reputation, never out in the open where everyone can see it’s me successfully managing things.’

‘As well as the merchants of the Fleet regard our family, they won’t countenance a single young woman in trade. It would damage both your reputation and mine and hinder all our future dealings.’

She twisted her reticule between her hands, the deed to the building crinkling inside, before she let go. Philip was right. Customers and other merchants would recoil from her if she began openly to oversee some venture of her own. Jane dropped back against the squabs, cursing her unmarried state once again. ‘I hate it when you’re practical.’

‘It’s nothing but a headache when you aren’t.’

The landau carried them past the building she now owned in the middle of Fleet Street. The staid façade with its small Ionic columns reaching up to the first floor sat squat between two taller ones. A round outline of dirt above the front door indicated where the sign from the now-defunct tobacconist’s used to hang. She rested her arm on the landau’s edge and tapped the wood. The building was hers and, despite what Philip said, she would not relinquish it; she would use it to make something of her life and escape from this limbo of being an adult while being treated like a mindless child. She needed activity, industry of her own, or she would run mad. Now she needed to decide what she’d do, and how she’d do it, without drawing attention to herself or needing Philip’s help. Her brother might have her best interests at heart, but it didn’t mean she wanted him or anyone else deciding her path.

She glanced across the landau at Justin who chatted with Philip. Perhaps he could be her secret front. He might help her, if only because he thought it a lark, but with his wine business and the demands of his wife and family, she doubted he had time to dabble in any endeavour of hers.

There must be some man willing to be the front for a business. She continued to trill her fingers on the trim, mulling through the people she knew and not finding one likely to support her admittedly odd idea. No one had ever gone along with her schemes except at one time Milton, and Jasper.

Jasper.

Jane stilled her fingers. She could become a silent partner with him in whatever plans he had for the building. It would be a perfect arrangement—except for her having to hide her involvement from everyone, including Philip. However, being a silent partner was better than nothing at all, and she would only have to be silent in public.

Unless I can find a husband, and quickly.

She rolled her eyes at her own ridiculousness, wondering if she was going mad from boredom and how long it would be until she began collecting small dogs and refusing to leave the house. If landing a gentleman was as simple as selecting a stock, she’d be a wife by now. Besides, all her friends and acquaintances had taken every man worth having in the Fleet, except for Jasper.

‘Philip, did Jasper return with a wife?’ Jane asked, interrupting his and Justin’s conversation.

‘No. Why?’

She shrugged. ‘I was curious.’

Philip narrowed his eyes in scrutiny before Justin drew him back into conversation.

So Jasper isn’t married. She rested her elbow on the landau’s edge again and tapped her fingers against her chin. The vehicle vibrated beneath her arm as it crossed over the cobblestones. And he needs money and a building, and I have both. I wonder if he’d like a wife in the bargain, too.

She and Jasper had been friends once and friendship was an excellent basis for a marriage. After all, she’d tried affection with Milton and look where it had landed her. There was no reason not to try something more practical with Jasper. He might have rebuffed her advances nine years ago, but this wasn’t about romance. It was business. She could present her proposal in rational terms, appeal to his good sense and make him see how perfectly logical, reasonable and completely insane the idea was.

She dropped her forehead into her palm. I should buy a dog and be done with all pretence to sanity.

Even if she was foolhardy enough to approach Jasper with such an outlandish plan, he wasn’t likely to go along with it this time any more than he had before. Nor was she thrilled by the prospect of leaving Philip’s influence to surrender her fortune and all legal responsibility to a husband. However, she doubted Jasper would be difficult about it, especially if they came to an agreement beforehand on how she’d manage her affairs. She was certain they could, assuming their discussions even reached the negotiating stage and he didn’t turn her down outright. He probably would and she didn’t relish another Charton rejection. Two was quite enough.

The landau turned off noisy Fleet Street and on to quiet St Bride’s Lane. The steeple from St Bride’s Church cast a thick shadow over the houses facing it. Behind the high wall encircling the churchyard lay the graves of her parents. Failure whipped around her like the breeze. She’d failed her parents years ago, now she was failing them, and herself, again.

I won’t be a spinster.

Another rejection wasn’t an appealing prospect, but neither was the future stretching out in front of her like a dusty dirt road. With each passing year her prospects for making her own life were diminishing. Yes, Jasper might ridicule her for proposing this scheme, but if he accepted...

She sat up straight and tried not to shift in the seat. She’d have her freedom and a life, home and business of her own at last. It might not be the loving marriage like the one Philip and Laura enjoyed, or the grand passion she used to dream about while reading the scandalous books Mrs Townsend, her sister-in-law’s mother and Jane’s old mentor, tutor and confidant, used to slip her, but one could never be disappointed by something one had never expected. Besides, she didn’t need Jasper’s heart, only his hand in marriage.

Chapter Two

‘You’re undressed! Why are you not up already? It’s past noon!’ Jane waved her hand from the top of Jasper’s head to the rippled and exposed stomach, and the dark line of hair leading her gaze even lower. She was already out of breath from running up the Chartons’ massive front stairs, but catching Jasper in his bedroom without his shirt was suffocating. His toned chest tinged with a honey hint of a tan nearly knocked her away from the closed door. She’d known Jasper Charton and his family her entire life. But she never thought she’d see quite this much of him.

‘I wasn’t expecting company.’ Jasper wiped the last of the very musky and, if she was not mistaken by the scent, expensive shaving soap from his face and haphazardly hung the towel on the washstand bar. He made no move to take up the rumpled shirt sagging over the foot of the bed, and perched one fist on his hip as though it was every day an unmarried young lady burst into his bedroom unannounced. ‘What are you doing up here?’

‘We must speak about the building.’ She fiddled with the key in the lock of the door but her shaking hand wouldn’t co-operate and she gave up.

Concentrate! This was no time to be distracted. With her brother and Mr Charton downstairs, and Mrs Charton distracted by one of her grandchildren, Jane had precious little time alone with Jasper. ‘I have a plan for it, but I need your help, as a friend. We’re still friends, aren’t we?’

His eyebrows rose in surprise. ‘Even after what Milton did to you?’

‘You had nothing to do with it, and he isn’t pertinent to the matter I wish to discuss today.’ Actually, proving to everyone, including herself, she could catch a husband was very much a part of this, but he didn’t need to know it.

He cocked one eyebrow. ‘You want to talk business, in my room, alone?’

She picked up one of the pair of diamond cufflinks in the dish on the table beside her, then put it down. It did seem foolish when he pointed it out, but speaking here was better than trying to whisper downstairs and risking someone overhearing their negotiations. For this to work, everyone, including Philip, must believe they were marrying for the right reason. ‘Of course. We have privacy.’

‘Which makes me wonder if business is really all you want?’ With a wicked smile he slipped the top button of his fall through its hole. He was teasing her as he used to do and the easy familiarity of their old friendship slid between them. It was more potent than the pulling of her pigtails and she adjusted the top of her spencer, breathless once more as she stared at his long fingers on the button, waiting to see what he might reveal. Offering him her innocence wasn’t an unpleasant bargaining chip, especially since she was dying to finally experience the deed she’d heard Jasper’s sister whispering about at so many parties. If she got with child it would certainly force the matter.

When the fall slightly opened she snapped out of her stupor. This wasn’t how this was supposed to go. He wasn’t supposed to undress or suggest more than business, even if what she was about to propose involved exactly that. ‘Yes! Well, sort of.’

‘Sort of?’ He let go of the button, but failed to fasten the one he’d already undone. It revealed more of the dark hair leading from his navel to places unknown.

‘I have a building and you need one for your new enterprise. We can become...partners in your endeavour.’

The word ‘marriage’ twisted her tongue. She still couldn’t believe she was doing this. One would think she’d learned her lesson nine years ago. Apparently, she hadn’t.

‘Your brother won’t be happy about you wading so openly into business. Or being up here.’

‘I don’t care what Philip thinks and I wouldn’t be single when I share in the trade.’ Jane took a deep breath, the portion of the negotiation she’d spent the better part of the night and this morning contemplating, and dreading at last upon her. ‘I would be your wife.’

Jasper’s smug amusement dropped like the towel off the rail of his washstand. ‘My wife?’

‘It’s perfect, don’t you see?’ She hurried up to him, drawing close enough to feel the heat radiating off his skin. She took a cautious step back, acutely aware of how much taller and wider he’d grown since he’d left. She tried not to be distracted by the more intimate terms of marriage, but with the sunlight caressing the angles and sinew of his shoulders it was difficult. ‘You want the building and I want my freedom. There’s only one way for us to get both. We’ll get married.’

‘Married?’

‘We’ll work together to build up your whatever-it-is.’

‘A club for merchants.’

‘Excellent.’ She had no idea what that meant, but they could discuss the details later. ‘You’ve been gone from London for so long, you lack connections. My connections through Philip, combined with my keen managerial sense, the property I purchased—the one you wanted—along with your particular expertise in this kind of venture will make us quite a force. And you know how good I am with negotiation.’

He smothered a laugh. ‘Yes, I remember.’

But he wasn’t rushing to agree. The same tightness in the pit of her stomach as when she was thirteen and begging him to offer her some promise of a future together knotted her insides again. Anger began to creep along the edges of her confidence. ‘You remember what good friends we were, though you never troubled to write me a single letter the entire time you were in Savannah. Do you know how much I could’ve used your friendship, even from across the ocean?’ She winced at this slip. What in Heaven’s name was she thinking saying such a thing?

‘I do.’ Regret flickered in his eyes and he raised his hand as if to graze her cheek, the ruby on his small finger glinting in the sun before he lowered it again. ‘But marriage is different from children scampering through the Fleet in search of a shilling or eavesdropping on the adults.’

‘You sound like my brother.’ She crossed her arms in front of her. ‘And I’m perfectly aware of the seriousness of a union, which is why I think one based on friendship is the best kind. Don’t you agree?’

‘No.’ He didn’t even hesitate in his answer. ‘As much as I respect and admire you...’

‘Don’t.’ She held up one hand, humiliation clipping her words. ‘That’s the drivel your brother tried to placate me with when he returned from Scotland with his simpering wife. I expect better from you, Jasper.’

‘All right, you’ll have it.’ He dropped the lothario act and spoke to her as he had when he’d told her there could be nothing between them once he left for Georgia. ‘There are extenuating circumstances preventing me from marrying anyone, even an old and valuable friend.’

‘You’re already married?’ It wouldn’t surprise her. Everyone appeared capable of finding someone except her.

‘No.’

Well, this was a small relief. ‘Betrothed?’

‘No.’

‘Keeping a mistress?’

‘Of course not. Where did you get such an idea?’

She tilted her head in pride. ‘I’m not a complete innocent. I read novels and the newspapers.’

He stroked his smooth chin with one large hand. ‘And yet you are, aren’t you?’

‘If we married, I wouldn’t be, now would I?’

His eyes flashed the same way they had when she’d turned around to greet him yesterday. ‘No, I don’t suppose you would be.’

‘It’d be quite an honour for you.’ She lowered her head and peered up through her lashes at him, imitating the young ladies she usually scoffed at during parties. She felt like a fool doing it, but she was willing to try anything to persuade him, even the promise of something more carnal.

‘That’s one way to put it,’ he choked out through a laugh.

‘Then why are you objecting?’ She dropped the dewy-eyed pose, having expected him to respond with something other than humour. She was losing him as much now as when he’d set sail and she couldn’t. She was tired of being a failure and she wouldn’t fail at this. ‘You need me and you know it.’

‘Yes. I always have.’ A loss greater than their mere time together, one she’d experienced the day her mother had died, and in the many years since, filled his words. Whatever had happened in Savannah, it’d scarred him like her parents’ passing had damaged her. He did need her the way she needed him and for more than just a club.

‘Then why are you refusing me?’ she asked in a softer tone. It made no sense.

* * *

Voices from downstairs filtered up through the floorboards. He should insist she return to her brother, but he hesitated. She was offering him the building, her help in establishing a legitimate venture, and something his fifteen-year-old self would have sold his soul to acquire. But a wife? He was struggling to keep everyone out of his affairs, not searching for ways to draw someone deeper into them. Except this was Jane. If anyone could help him make a go of his club it was her, but he couldn’t ask her to share his secret and to deceive her family the way he was deceiving his. Nor could he risk her realising the terrible man he’d become in Savannah, not when she viewed him as an old friend still worthy of her affection.

The time ticked by on the ornate dolphin clock perched on the excessively gilded bedside table while he racked his brain for a delicate path out of this indelicate situation. He needed a reason why he was refusing her, one she wouldn’t try to logic her way around or hate him for saying.

‘Be honest with me, the way you used to be,’ she demanded.

I can’t be, with you or anyone. Nor could he wilfully hurt her. She’d taken a risk by approaching him and he admired her too much to treat her as poorly as his brother had. Despite his not having written to her while he was gone, she’d still believed in him and their mutual past enough to ask him for his future. If he told her even one of the real reasons behind his refusal, it would put her off him and this idea, and he wasn’t ready to pull himself down in her eyes.

There was a more subtle and less hurtful way to make her abandon this notion of marriage.

He stepped closer, affecting the smile he used to employ with agitated gamblers in Savannah, smooth, charming and convincing. ‘Because I’m not sure you could handle the level of honesty I’m prepared to offer you.’

‘What do you mean?’ She didn’t step back and he inhaled her flowery scent. It was lighter and more alluring than the cloying mixture she’d fancied at thirteen, the one which used to remind him of her whenever he inhaled it on a passing woman in Georgia. He might not have written to her after he’d sailed away, but she’d never really been far from his thoughts.

‘Your brother wouldn’t approve of the match.’

‘I’m past the age of needing his permission to marry.’ She waved her hand in dismissal, her fingertips grazing his chest before she pulled them back. Her faint touch raked him like a pitchfork. She must have felt it, too, because she clasped one hand in the other and nervousness softened the crease of irritation between her eyes.

‘You shouldn’t approve of me either.’ He pressed his palm against the wall behind her, all the while ignoring the curves indicating her maturity. He must convince her to forget him by giving her a reason to run from him, no matter how much he wanted to slip his arm around her waist and pull her closer. ‘You see, I don’t want to marry. I want to enter into a less formal arrangement.’

Her gaze slid along the firmness of his bicep beside her ear, then traced the line of it to his face. She frowned at him. ‘You want me for a mistress?’

Jasper swallowed hard to keep from laughing. Jane was nothing if not blunt and practical. She always had been, as well as headstrong and impetuous. It was a delightful combination of traits he still enjoyed and hated to drive away. ‘You could say that.’

He allowed the suggestion to linger between them as if it had been hers and not his. Jane’s lips parted in uncertainty, her full breasts hugged by the fitted yellow spencer rising as she drew in a long breath. He pressed his fingertip tighter into the wall, glad he hadn’t removed his breeches for fear he might embarrass himself as he imagined her agreeing to his idea. It’d be a disappointment to them both if she did. He’d done a lot of dishonourable things, but he would never ruin Jane by following through on his suggestion. However, the temptation in her blue eyes, the faint brush of her breath across his naked chest almost made him relent. He could lean down and claim her lips and at last learn what they tasted like, after considering it so many times when they’d both been young, curious, and for the first time aware of one another as more than friends. He moved his head a touch lower, wondering if the old curiosity, as opposed to a desire for a business, had really brought her here. Whatever her motives, it was time for her to leave before someone discovered she was up here.

‘Jane, are you in there?’ Mr Rathbone’s voice carried in from the hallway.

Jasper’s fingers stiffened against the wall. Too late.

‘How did Philip figure out I was in here?’ Jane ducked under his arm and began to pace in the centre of the room, revealing how much she did care about her brother’s opinion.

Jasper picked up his shirt and tugged it on. ‘The new maid must have seen you. The woman is a busybody.’

Jasper had been forced to slip past her to leave the house late at night numerous times. What she was doing up at those hours he’d never discovered, but he suspected it had something to do with his father’s brandy and if he could he would soon see the woman dismissed.

‘Jane. Are you in there?’ Mr Rathbone punctuated his question by pounding on the door.

‘I must hide.’ Jane rushed to the large wardrobe in the corner, then stopped. She glanced back and forth between Jasper and the door, the plotting narrowing of her eyes both familiar, and terrifying. ‘If Philip catches me in here, he might insist we wed.’

Jasper stopped tucking in his shirt. She didn’t know her brother very well if she thought he’d force her into a marriage, even after finding her in a compromising situation, but he couldn’t take the chance. He strode up to her, tugged the shirt over his head and flung it away. ‘I think not.’

He took her by the arm and pulled her against him. She let out a startled squeak as she hit his chest.

‘What are you doing?’ Her fingertips pressed into his flesh, jarring him as much as her.

‘Jane, open this door at once,’ Mr Rathbone demanded, and the brass knob began to turn.

‘Making sure he sees me as an unsuitable suitor.’ He pressed his lips to hers as the door swung open.

* * *

Jane barely heard her brother’s angry breaths or Justin Connor’s howl of laughter from the hallway. Jasper’s warm mouth on hers consumed her entire attention. It made her knees weak and she shivered as Jasper slid his tongue out to tease hers, his large hand against her back pressing her firmly into his bare chest. There could be an entire crowd watching them and she wouldn’t notice, all she wanted was for him to lay her on the bed, slide up her skirts and satisfy the ache making her almost moan. He didn’t so much as move a hand down to grasp her bottom, but broke from the kiss and leaned back. A shock as powerful as the one he’d sent hurtling through her coloured his own hazel eyes.

This was definitely not how she’d imagined this plan unfolding.

* * *

‘What the devil were you doing?’ Philip’s voice was so even it made Jane cringe. He hadn’t said a word to her during the entire carriage ride home. Not even Justin, who leaned against the French doors of Philip’s office watching them as if they were a theatrical performance, had dared to break the icy chill. Philip hadn’t spoken until they were settled in his office with Laura and all their past quarrels and disagreements beside him. Jane preferred the silence. It was less lethal.

‘I was trying to reach an agreement with Jasper about the building.’ She straightened the tortoiseshell comb in her hair, attempting to remain calm and level-headed, but with Jasper’s sandalwood scent still clinging to her spencer it was difficult. ‘He didn’t agree to my terms.’

‘It didn’t look like it when we stumbled in on you,’ Justin observed through a restrained laugh.

‘Don’t you have a wine shop to see to?’

‘This is much more fascinating.’

‘Justin, please.’ Philip rubbed his temples with his fingers, addressing Jane once again. ‘You decided to discuss the matter with Mr Charton alone, in his room, while he was undressed?’

‘It wasn’t my intention when I first went upstairs, at least not the portion where he was undressed.’

‘You shouldn’t have been up there at all.’ Philip dug his fingers harder into his temples while Laura and Justin exchanged amused looks. Not so Philip. He dropped his hands to the blotter and pinned her with a seriousness to still her heart. ‘You risked ruining your reputation and our relationship with the Chartons, and for what?’

My freedom, she wanted to cry, but she bit it back. He was right, again. With her ridiculous plan, she’d risked more than minor humiliation or the disapproving tsking of merchants and their wives. The Chartons were good enough friends to be discreet about the matter, but they weren’t a family renowned for keeping secrets. There were too many of them. It would only be a matter of time before someone heard of this and it would end whatever slim chance remained of her some day finding a husband.

‘Ever since Mrs Townsend married Dr Hale, you’ve been stubborn and wilful,’ Philip stated.

‘She hasn’t been so bad since my mother left,’ Laura said, trying to soothe him. Given Laura and Philip’s past, and the way she’d snared Philip by surprising him in his bath with a pistol when she and her mother had been on the verge of ruin nine years ago, she was the last to pass judgement on Jane’s behaviour.