Indiscreet

“I beg your pardon?”

“Well, it’s true. Men, after they marry, are still free to do as they please, the rulers of their households, whereas their wives have no freedom at all. They are expected to obey their husbands and raise heirs and keep the house in order. And nothing else. They have no rights and no freedom.”

Sedgewick smiled faintly. “Come now, Miss Ferrand, surely you overstate the matter.”

“Do I?” She straightened, looking at him with narrowed eyes. “A woman’s property becomes her husband’s as soon as they are married. She, in fact, is considered his property, a chattel. He has the right to discipline her, to restrict her movements, even to beat her if he wishes. She cannot vote.”

“Vote? Good Gad, you wish to vote?”

“I don’t see why not. But that is beside the matter. The point is, whether I wish to or not, I cannot. I have had an excellent education, and my understanding, I think I may say without contradiction, is not small. Yet the stupidest fellow is allowed to vote, simply because he is a man and owns property, whereas I am not.”

“God help us,” Benedict commented dryly. “A bluestocking.”

Camilla shot him a look that would have blighted a less sturdy sort. “I fail to see what is so reprehensible about a female of intellect and education. No doubt you are the sort who thinks that women should tend to their knitting and not speak unless spoken to or have a thought in their heads that does not pertain to dresses and hairstyles.”

“No, Miss Ferrand, actually, I have had quite enough of empty-headed females.” He gave her a small bow, a faint smile on his lips conveying the distinct impression that he included her among that number.

Sedgewick turned the conversation back to its original track. “So that is why you have not married, Miss Ferrand?”

“Yes. I see no reason to give any man control over myself or my property. I am a person in my own right, and I shall remain so as long as I do not marry. Therefore, I am twenty-five years old and a spinster, and while I am quite happy in that condition, it has worried my grandfather for years. After he was taken ill, it plagued him even more. He would tell me how he could not bear the thought of dying and leaving me unprotected. And no matter how I tried to tell him that I was fine, that I had the property my mother and father left me, so I am quite able to live independently, he would not stop fretting about it. He told me it was an unnatural sort of life I was leading, living on my own, even though I have a companion, so it is perfectly respectable. But he wanted me to have children and a man to take care of, and all the things that he said were right and natural for a woman.” She paused, then sighed and confessed, “So I told him that I was engaged.”

Benedict let out a short bark of laughter. “Oh, that’s rich—the defender of women’s rights, pretending that she has snagged a husband.”

“I was trying to keep him from worrying!” Camilla snapped. “Of course, you would never think of such a thing as trying to save someone pain or worry.”

“Whatever your reasoning,” he pointed out mildly, “’tis still a lie.”

“Fine words from a thief!” Camilla retorted hotly. “Or smuggler, or whatever you are. You don’t hesitate to steal carriages and kidnap people, or to knock a man senseless or draw an innocent bystander into a fight, but you draw the line, of course, at telling a small fib to ease the mind of a dying man!”

“Benedict…” Sedgewick shot him a quelling look. “Pay him no attention, Miss Ferrand. Benedict has little use for us ordinary mortals and our petty problems. It’s perfectly understandable that you would have told your grandfather that story, so that he could die more peacefully.”

“Thank you.” Camilla smiled at him gratefully and took another sip of her drink. It no longer felt like fire as it rolled down into her stomach; it merely sent a pleasant warmth spreading throughout her, lifting her spirits a little. She felt better already, she thought, and she realized that confession must indeed be good for the soul.

“You are a very understanding gentleman,” she told Sedgewick with a warm smile. “I am so glad I told you. You see, I didn’t want to lie to Grandpapa, but it seemed a small enough thing to do to make him happy. He was so sick that he didn’t ask me much about the man or how we had met.” She smiled faintly. “He didn’t even lecture me on the impropriety of becoming engaged without the man coming to ask for my hand from him first. He was quite happy about it, and after that he rested more quietly. Then he began to improve a little, and soon he began to feel much better. Before we knew it, he was cursing his valet and wanting to get up and go downstairs, and ringing a peal over the doctor’s head for not letting him. The better he felt, the more he asked me about my fiancé, and it became most awkward. Of course, I had to make everything up, and I felt so awful about lying to him. I regretted ever having told him, but I couldn’t tell him that I had invented the whole thing. I was afraid it would upset him so that he would have apoplexy again. Finally, I could not bear it any longer, and I fled back to Bath. But then I kept getting letters from him asking about my fiancé, wanting to know when I was going to bring him to Chevington Park to meet him. I have been trying ever since to figure out a way to get out of it.”

“Just tell him the fellow cried off,” Benedict suggested callously. “That will put an end to the matter. It is quite believable. If your escapade tonight was any indication, you would give any man adequate reason to get out of an engagement.”

Camilla swung on him. “You have the gall to blame me for what happened tonight? Anyway, my fiancé is not the sort of man who would ‘cry off’ an engagement, as you so vulgarly put it.”

He let out a bark of laughter. “That’s rich. Since your fiancé exists only in your imagination, I would imagine that he can do anything you wish.”

“I mean that the sort of man I have told my grandfather he is would never do such an ungentlemanly thing. You cannot understand that, no doubt, but most gentlemen have a code of honor.”

“Oh, aye, that’s a bit out of my reach, miss,” he replied, adopting a thick accent and tugging at an imaginary forelock like some dim-witted farmhand. “Not being used to Quality, like.”

“Do shut up, Benedict,” Sedgewick said mildly. “Obviously she could not tell her grandfather that either of them had broken off the engagement, because the old gentleman is not supposed to be upset.”

“That’s it exactly,” Camilla agreed, pleased to see that he understood. “Grandpapa is still in ill health, and the doctor says not to disturb him. He says it is a miracle that he hasn’t gone already. So I kept putting him off about when Mr. Lassiter and I were going to come to Chevington.”

“Mr. Lassiter?” Benedict asked.

“My fiancé.”

“Ah, yes, of course.”

“Would you let her get on with the story, Benedict?” Sedgewick asked. “I still haven’t heard about Aunt Beryl. That is what I’m waiting for.”

“Her!” Camilla said with much disgust, her lip curling. “She decided that Grandpapa needed her care to improve, so she moved to Chevington Park, girls and all. Aunt Lydia says she just took advantage of the fact that Grandpapa is too sick to kick her out. Well, he can’t, very well, when she came there on an errand of mercy. But I am sure that she has been driving him mad. And it put the housekeeper’s nose out of joint, as if she couldn’t take care of the house unless one of the family was there to keep an eye on her. But that’s neither here nor there. The point is, Grandpapa told Aunt Beryl that I was engaged. I never dreamed of his doing that. Of course, when I told him the lie, I didn’t expect him to even be alive a few days later.”

“I see. And Aunt Beryl’s knowing it puts a whole different light on the matter, I presume.”

“Oh, yes.” Camilla shook her head sadly and took another sip of her drink. Despite the awful situation she was in, she was beginning to feel quite mellow. “Aunt Beryl is the worst of my relatives. She has two of the most insipid daughters, whom she is always trying to marry off, and it has been a source of great pleasure to her that I have not married before either of them. However, she is always afraid that I will yet tie the knot before she unloads her brood on some poor, unsuspecting men.”

“Haven’t you told her of your philosophical position against marriage?” Benedict asked, his lips curling in an amused way that Camilla found quite irritating.

“Of course I have, but she doesn’t believe me. She thinks that I am simply making excuses for being an old maid, and that I would jump at the opportunity to marry, just as her daughters would.”

“An understandable misapprehension, considering the fact that you are pretending to be engaged.”

Camilla frostily ignored Benedict’s interruption, speaking only to Sedgewick. “Aunt Beryl didn’t believe it—that I was engaged, I mean. Apparently she and Grandpapa had quite a quarrel about it. Lydia learned all about it when she went down to Chevington Park. The doctor was so angry that he told Aunt Beryl not to bring the subject up again with Grandpapa. But Lydia writes me that the two of them keep sniping at each other about it. Aunt Beryl makes pointed remarks about the fact that I have not brought my fiancé to visit. Lydia says that Grandpapa defends me.” Tears sprang into her eyes at the thought of her grandfather’s loyalty. “Oh! I feel so wretched! I have lied to him, and I cannot bear to think what he will think of me when he finds out. Because he must find out. Lydia wrote me that I have to come. Grandpapa keeps asking for me. She is right. I must go. I have to be with Grandpapa. I am afraid that it won’t be much longer before he—”

She broke off, her throat clogging with tears. Sedgewick reached out and patted her hand. “There, there, my dear.”

Camilla smiled at him waterily. “You are very kind. None of this is your problem, and you have been the kindest of men to listen to me.”

“But what are you going to do?” he asked.

“I must tell them the truth.” She sighed. “Lydia thinks that we can stave off Aunt Beryl’s questions and barbs, but I don’t see how. I am certain that she will ask me all sorts of things about my fiancé that I won’t be able to answer. Things one should know. She will want to know what family he belongs to and how he is related to this person or that. I would be bound to get caught in a lie, and that would be even worse than telling everyone that I am not engaged. And what sort of excuse can I give for his not coming with me? I mean, it is a family crisis, and he wouldn’t let me travel down here all by myself. But I don’t think that I can bear to confess that I lied about it all and have Aunt Beryl look at me in that pitying, superior way she has. And Grandpapa—what if it upsets him so that he dies? It is just too awful to contemplate.”

She stood up abruptly, setting her cup down on the table with a clatter, and began to pace agitatedly about the room. “If only I could think of some way out of it! I have been cudgeling my brain for days. All the way down from London, I could think of nothing else. But I came up with nothing…nothing!”

There was a long moment of silence, then Sedgewick said quietly, “What if I thought of a solution?”

Both Camilla and Benedict swung toward him in astonishment.

“What the devil—” Benedict began.

“What?” Camilla asked, hope rising in her face. She started toward him eagerly. “Do you mean it? Have you really thought of a way out of my predicament?”

He nodded. “Perhaps. If you are willing to risk it.”

“I would do anything!” she exclaimed rashly. “Just tell me what it is!”

“What you need to do is arrive at Chevington Park tonight with a fiancé.”

“What?” Camilla frowned, confused. Had the fellow not understood what she had been telling him? “How could I— Who—”

Sedgewick smiled and nodded toward the other man in the room. “Benedict will be your fiancé.”

CHAPTER THREE

CAMILLA GAPED AT Sedgewick.

Across the room, Benedict expressed her fears more forcibly. “For God’s sake, Jermyn, have you run mad?”

“Not at all. If you will think about it, you will see that it is the perfect solution.”

“I see that it is perfect insanity,” Benedict retorted. “If you think that I am going to become engaged to that…that…”

Camilla turned to look at him, her eyes sparkling dangerously. “To that what, Mr. Benedict?”

“Come, come, Benedict, you are usually not so slow,” Sedgewick told him lightly. “Of course, I don’t mean actually engaged. I am talking about a pretense of it. You will ride to Chevington Park tonight with Miss Ferrand. In the morning, you shall meet her relatives, talk to her grandfather and so forth. You stay a few days, then you say that you have to get back to the city, and you leave. The Earl will be reassured and happy, the dragon of an aunt will be routed, and you…well, you will spend a few days at Chevington Park, which I understand is an elegant country house.”

Benedict narrowed his eyes and started to speak, then pressed his lips tightly together. He turned away, growling, “You are as silly as she is. It is impossible.”

“Why? You are well able to act the part of a gentleman, aren’t you?”

Sedgewick’s gray eyes twinkled. “A trifle rude, perhaps, but then, some lords are.”

“Oh, I don’t need a lord,” Camilla stuck in. “Simply a gentleman will do.”

Benedict turned on her. “Don’t tell me that you are actually considering such a harebrained scheme!”

Camilla had had no intention of agreeing to Mr. Sedgewick’s plan. However, Benedict’s sneering tone made her decide that it was worth thinking about after all. Her chin came up, and she glared back at Benedict defiantly. “Why not? It would suit my purposes. And however rough your manners are, you do speak like a gentleman. We might be able to pull the wool over everyone’s eyes for a few days—as long as you avoided talking to everyone as much as possible. I will pay you for it, of course. Wouldn’t that be a better way of making money than thievery? And it will answer my problem. It will make Grandpapa happy, and then, later, I can just pretend that I realized that we should not suit. Or better yet—” her face brightened “—I shall say that you died! That would be perfect.”

“Perhaps for you.”

“Well, only insofar as my family is concerned, of course.”

“It would be a trifle awkward, don’t you think, if they happened to meet me again a few months from now?”

“Don’t be absurd. Why should they meet you?”

“I could run into one of them on the street in London. I am free to walk in London, despite my lack of gentility.”

“Oh. Well, in that case, I suppose I shall have to stick to the story that we broke it off.” She sighed. “Pity. The dying story would have been much more dramatic.”

“You’re right,” Sedgewick agreed, his expression disappointed, though his eyes twinkled merrily. “However, I suppose we shall have to be content with the plainer tale.”

“Would everyone kindly stop talking this nonsense?” Benedict burst out. “I am not going to pretend to be your fiancé. I can’t believe that you would even consider it. It is obvious that you are drunk.”

“I am not!” It was true, Camilla acknowledged to herself, that she felt very warm and cheerful, and that her mind was a trifle, well, fuzzy, but she had merely been relaxed by the rum punch. It had not influenced her thinking. “I am open-minded enough to see the value of Mr. Sedgewick’s idea. It would work admirably for both of us. You are simply too stubborn to go along with anything that anyone else says.”

“I am glad that someone appreciates my endeavor,” Sedgewick said lightly, taking out his snuffbox and expertly flipping it open with one hand. “Pinch, my dear Benedict?”

The other man let out an inarticulate growl. “Obviously I am the only person in this room with any sense.” He stalked toward the door and opened it, then turned back. “It doesn’t matter what you two bedlamites cook up, because I am not going along with it!” With that parting shot, he walked out, slamming the door behind him.

Sedgewick and Camilla stood for a moment, looking at the door, then turned toward each other. Sedgewick gave her a long, considering look, then asked quietly, “Are you willing to do it?”

Camilla gazed back at him, wide-eyed. Was she? This plan would no doubt shock a conventional female like her aunt down to her toes. However, Camilla had always prided herself on not being conventional. She was independent and generally unafraid to tackle any situation. Of course, it was odd that a stranger like Mr. Sedgewick was so willing to help her out of her troubles, but just because a man went out of his way to be kind, that did not mean that she should reject his help. The worst aspect of the plan was having to be around such a rude, insufferable man as Benedict for several days. However, she was quite competent and reasonable, and she was sure that she would be able to manage both the situation and him. Fate had dropped this opportunity into her lap, and she would be foolish not to take advantage of it.

“Yes,” she responded firmly. “I am willing.”

Sedgewick gave her a small smile. “Then I will go talk to Benedict. In the meantime, you may use this parlor to, um, freshen up.”

Camilla almost giggled at the inadequacy of his polite words to describe the daunting task that lay before her. She was caked all over with mud, and she could not imagine how she would ever get it all out of her hair and off her skin without taking a complete bath.

“I shall tell the maid to bring in a pitcher and basin. I’m sure you have a change of clothes in your post chaise.” When Camilla nodded, he went on, “I’ll have my man fetch your bags, then, so you will be able to get into some clean clothes.”

Camilla nodded. “Thank you.”

“No trouble at all.” He started toward the door, then hesitated. “You might want to fortify yourself with another cup of punch, as well.”

* * *

BENEDICT WALKED NO farther than the bench in front of the inn and sat down on it to light a cigar. He had no doubt that Sedgewick would be following him in a moment. For all Jermyn’s exquisite manners, he was like a dog with a bone when he got his mind set on something, and Benedict was sure that he was not about to give up easily on his latest idea.

He had barely gotten his cigar lit when Jermyn came out of the inn and strode over to the bench. Sedgewick stood for a moment, looking down at him. Benedict blew out a cloud of smoke, studiously ignoring the other man.

“Well?” Jermyn asked at last. “Would you like to explain why you are refusing such a golden opportunity?”

Benedict cocked his head to look at him. “Golden opportunity? For what? Making an even bigger hash of things? Wasting what precious time we have? Good Gad, Jer, I think you have gone mad.”

“At least I’m not blind. Or is it hopeless? Have you given up?”

That remark brought Benedict surging to his feet. “No man, not even you, can accuse me of giving up.”

“Oh, give over, Rawdon,” his friend retorted equably. “I know better than anyone how little likely you are to give up. When everyone had given you up for lost there in the Peninsula, I was the only one who was certain that you would find your way back to your own lines—and bring back your comrades as well, even though you had caught two balls in your leg. After all, I was the one who had had to suffer to the bloody end through every ghastly childhood escapade you dreamed up. However, I cannot understand why you are so unwilling to do this.”

Benedict goggled at him. “You have come unhinged, Jer. Anyone could see that it’s utterly impossible. Pretend to be engaged to that…that hoyden? It wouldn’t last a day. We would be at each other’s throats in a half hour. No one could believe that we are wanting to marry each other.”

“Why not? She’s an attractive woman…underneath that mud, I mean.”

“How can you tell? Hell, it’s not her attractiveness. I’ll grant you that she has a pleasant face.”

The other man groaned. “Pleasant? Didn’t you see those eyes? Blue and sparkling…”

“And a passable figure.”

“Now, I know you haven’t changed that much. No matter what Annabeth did to you, surely you can still appreciate a damn fine figure.”

“Oh, all right. Yes, she has a most delectable body.” Benedict’s voice roughened faintly on the words as he remembered how that body had felt as it slid through his hands, the brief moments when his fingers had brushed over her ripe breasts as they struggled. “And no doubt she has skin like an angel beneath all that mud. But that is beside the point. It is not her physical appearance that is the problem. It is her personality. We have been at each other like hammer and tongs from the instant we met.”

“You think there are not husbands and wives who are the same way? You must have lived too sheltered a life in the military.”

“Of course I’ve seen battling couples. But surely they were not like that when they were first betrothed.”

“Nonsense. There are some who simply love to fight. Remember Capston? He and the baroness couldn’t get through the day without a disagreement, but he was mad about the woman.”

“Capston was mad, period.”

Sedgewick shrugged. “So? These people don’t know you. How are they to know that you are not mad, also? Besides, there are other reasons people marry, you know, besides compatibility. There are bloodlines, wealth, titles—”

He stopped abruptly, casting a guilty glance at Benedict. “I’m sorry. I didn’t—”

“Yes,” Benedict retorted flatly. “I am well aware that there are those who marry for wealth and titles. And it is precisely because of my experience, Jermyn, that I do not want to get involved in this. Do you think that I could trust my safety and the safety of all our agents to a woman?”

Sedgewick sighed. “Not all women are like Annabeth. Not all would sell their souls or their bodies for a title.”

“Oh, Annabeth did not break our engagement simply because I had lost the title. There was also the estate.” He smiled grimly. “And I know that not all women are like her. There are some whose price is much lower—and doubtless some who would look even higher. But I will not put my faith in a woman again, much less give my secrets and my life into her hands. Least of all a hellion like that one.”

“But there is no need to! That is the beauty of it. She need know nothing about us. Or about our little project. She needs a fiancé for her own purposes. She is too busy worrying about her problem to wonder what you are doing or why you are willing to do this for her.”

Benedict snorted. “She would not wonder why I was willing. She thinks I would do anything for money.”

“You haven’t done a great deal to give the girl a good impression of you,” his friend pointed out. “And that’s all to our advantage. Thinking you are a scoundrel, she will not question your hiring yourself out as her fiancé. She will never dream that you are a spy in the midst of her family. You do not have to trust her. She will be as deceived as the rest of them.”

Benedict looked at his lifelong friend. Jermyn’s bland good looks and impeccable manners had always hidden an active and scheming brain. It had usually been Jermyn who came up with the tricks they pulled as lads, though it had just as usually been the dark, willful Benedict who was blamed for them, while the blond, angelic Jermyn was forgiven for going along with his mischievous friend. Benedict often thought that if the war with Napoléon had not come along, giving Jermyn a chance to turn his devious, imaginative skills to the task of defeating the enemy, Sedgewick would have wound up in Newgate—and doubtless would have somehow inveigled Benedict to be there with him.

“And you see nothing wrong in deceiving an innocent young woman in this way? In planting a spy in her household and embroiling her in a vipers’ nest of treachery and murder?”

Jermyn pulled back, one hand going to his chest in a dramatic fashion. “Benedict…you think that I would harm this young woman in any way? I wonder that you should even want to claim my friendship.”