He wasn’t anyone she knew any longer.
“What was it you said you had back here?” he asked the sergeant.
“Just some suffragettes,” the sergeant replied. “Nobody important or dangerous. They were making a racket earlier, and we’re having them cool their heels until their men can come get them. You understand how it is.”
“I thought that’s what you said.” Edward felt a smile tweak his lips. “That’s why I didn’t understand you at first. You’re mispronouncing the word.”
“What word? Suffragettes?” The sergeant frowned. “It’s my accent, my lord—a thousand pardons, I know it’s low, and I do try to talk proper, but—”
“It’s not your accent.”
“It’s not?” Bafflement flitted across the sergeant’s eyes.
“It’s definitely not your accent.”
His voice carried, and this time, Free did look up. Her eyebrows came down; her lips narrowed. She came half up from her seat, staring at him.
Edward spoke a little louder. “It’s the way you’re saying it. Didn’t you know? ‘Suffragette’ is pronounced with an exclamation point at the end. Like this: ‘Huzzah! Suffragettes!’”
Behind the sergeant, Free glowed. He could see the smile taking over her face, lighting her until he wanted nothing more than to wrap his arms around her. It was the first thing he’d seen all day that had given him hope—hope that once she understood the lies he’d told, she might forgive him yet. That he might spend tonight in her arms, and tomorrow, and the day after.
“Huzzah,” the sergeant repeated in confusion. “Suffragettes?”
“That’s a question mark,” Edward said sharply. “Try it again: Suffragettes!”
“Suffragettes!”
“That’s it. You’ve got it!”
“Oh, excellent!” The sergeant smiled in pleasure—a pleasure that lasted only a few seconds. “My lord, why are we huzzahing suffragettes?”
“That requires a little more explanation.” He turned and extended his hand toward Free. “Bring that one here.”
There was a long pause. “If my lord insists.”
Free’s eyes widened, and Edward realized that this was the first time she’d noticed the sergeant calling him “my lord.” She glanced down, almost demurely—she’d have fooled him, except he knew there was nothing demure about her—and then looked up at him. She didn’t quite quirk an eyebrow; that would have been too obvious. Still, he could make out the words she didn’t say writ in her expression. Edward, what on earth are you playing at?
Edward kept his face fixed in an expression of bland, arrogant superiority. The sergeant nodded hastily. “Yes, yes. Of course.” He turned and clapped his hands. “You heard his lordship. Fetch that woman at once.”
“Gently!” Edward admonished.
His lordship? Free mouthed at him. The palms of his hands grew clammy, but he ignored her. A guard fumbled out a set of keys and motioned for Free to step forward.
“Let’s see,” the sergeant muttered, fluttering pages. “She’s number 107, and that makes her…ah, 105, 106, here she is. Miss Marshall.” His eyes narrowed. “Are you sure you know nothing of, ah, my arrangement with your brother?”
Edward didn’t bother to answer that. She’d given her name as Marshall? She’d called herself Miss? He’d have raised his own eyebrow at her, except that it would ruin the patrician lines of his profile. And right now, he was too busy playing a role to do that.
Instead, he frowned and crossed his arms, glaring at the man in front of him. “Well, now you’ve done it again. That’s not how you pronounce her name. That’s not how you pronounce it at all.”
“Ah.” The sergeant frowned. “Um. Is it… Let me guess. Huzzah! Miss Marshall! With an exclamation point?”
“No,” Edward said. “It’s not Miss anything.”
Free seemed as surprised by this as the sergeant. She’d not remembered it, then. She’d given her maiden name the same way that one kept writing last year’s date well into February. For that matter, did suffragettes even change their name upon marriage? He’d have to ask Free. If she was still willing to talk to him after she realized what he’d done. Edward kept his attention firmly on the sergeant.
“Married, eh? Who’s the unlucky sod, then? One of your tenants, I suppose? Tell him he needs to do a better job of keeping her under his thumb. You should leave her with us for the night. Let us soften her up.”
Edward managed not to shiver at the thought.
“Nonsense.” Edward smiled grimly. “Now you’re mispronouncing everything, Sergeant. She’ll do better with me. As for her husband…” He savored every moment of the sergeant’s expression—the shift from confused to surprised to appalled, the blood draining out of his face. “Let me tell you how to pronounce her name. You say it like this: Lady Claridge. And I’m her husband.”
LADY CLARIDGE.
For a moment, Free’s world stood still. She felt very high up, her lungs unable to gasp for air. He couldn’t—she wasn’t—that thing Edward had said, it was entirely impossible. But then reality asserted itself, and she remembered the plan they’d sketched out together.
He’d been supposed to come up with a brief note of release—the sort with a muddle for a signature, one that wouldn’t be traceable.
He’d apparently changed tactics, and not for the better. A forged order of release from a harried bureaucrat was already pushing things. But this? This was an utter disaster. He might as well have waltzed into a bank and announced his intention to empty the vault.
But she could hardly argue with him in front of the sergeant. That would just get them both thrown back in that cell.
Instead, she narrowed her eyes at him, willing him to change his story. Did I say Lady Claridge? I misspoke. Clark. I meant Mrs. Clark. That’s what he needed to say next.
He kept silent, looking down his nose at the sergeant.
The man had gone goose-fat pale; his eyes were round. Behind him, one of the guards—the one that had shoved her against a wall—whispered, “Oh, bugger me.”
“Your wife,” the sergeant said weakly. “Number 107 is your wife?”
Edward inclined his head to Free. “How was your stay in gaol, dear?”
So they were going to play it this way. Free managed a bored little shrug of her shoulders. “Passable, love. I’ve had better.”
“Well, then.” Edward smiled, letting his teeth show. He turned to the sergeant. “You know perfectly well you can’t hold my viscountess.”
“I’ll…” The sergeant swallowed. “I’ll just release her to your custody, then?”
“No, you’ll release her to her own. While we’re at it, you might as well release the lot of them.”
Oh, he was absolutely going to hear from her about this lie. And how they were to avoid the inquiry that would result afterward, she didn’t know.
“All? But they hadn’t a lawful permit!”
Edward gave him a supercilious little smile. “Come, sergeant. We’ve had this discussion already. When I say ‘all,’ you don’t add a question mark at the end. You say, ‘yes, my lord,’ and you snap to it.”
Free could hardly believe her eyes or her ears. He played the role of viscount so perfectly. His accent… God, if he’d spoken to her like that, with that snobbish public-school-affected mouth full of mush, she’d never have married him.
“Yes, my lord,” the sergeant said. And then he raised his voice. “You heard his lordship. Let them go. Let them all go!”
“My lady?” Edward smiled at Free. There was nothing of the rascal in his smile. It was highborn and stuffy, and she wanted no part of it. Especially since once this mess caught up with them, they’d both be arrested. And this time, there would be real cause behind it, not just some ridiculous quashing of permits.
This was not the time to have that argument.
“My lord,” Free said.
He held out his arm to her and she took it. He conducted her through the station like t
he best of stuffy husbands—guiding her around debris with a gentle touch, as if she couldn’t figure out not to step in refuse on her own. Her teeth ground, but if this was the act they had to put on…
Of all the lords to impersonate, why on earth had he chosen Claridge? James Delacey hated them enough as it was. It was a good thing that the sergeant knew nothing about the rarified heights of the ton. Delacey would never marry a suffragette, and if his wife had expressed a wish to attend a demonstration, he’d have starved her into compliance rather than fetched her from gaol. Delacey would never joke about exclamation points. He didn’t have a puppy-cannon. He’d never declare his affection for her by saying that he gave a very small damn about her. Edward was nothing, absolutely nothing like Delacey, thank God, because that man made her skin crawl.
Except…
Now that Edward had cut his hair, now that he was wearing that stiff suit of navy superfine…
He looked like him. A little. And she’d mistaken James Delacey for him once. While it had seemed ridiculous at the time, it no longer seemed so impossible. With that stance, with his hair cut in that sober, respectable way, he looked a bit like an older, thinner version of Delacey.
She shook her head, dispelling that awful illusion.
Edward conducted her outside, handed her into a carriage marked with, of all things, the Delacey family crest: a hawk clutching a rose. Stealing, or more forgery? It had to be forgery, she told herself. Had to be. But if so, he must have planned this for longer than a few hours. Why hadn’t he told her?
She entered the carriage and found the family crest tooled in the butter-soft leather of the squabs.
“Edward,” Free said dangerously. “Edward, I don’t know what you’ve done, but this is madness.”
He nodded to the footman—the footman! As if she’d ever want anything so ridiculous as a man to do nothing but open and close doors for her!—as insouciantly as if he were a lord, and the kind who sprung his wife from gaol on a regular basis. He followed her into the carriage and waited until the door was shut.
“Impersonating a lord,” Free continued, taking the seat across from him. “That has to be a felony. And Claridge, of all people—now there’s a man who will press charges, if ever I saw one. What on earth do you think you’re doing?”
“I’m not impersonating James Delacey,” Edward said. He’d dropped that false, stuffy tone, thank God. She’d have hit him if he hadn’t.
“Oh, really.” She frowned at him. “I was with you back there, recall. You’re doing a very bad job of not impersonating him. Next time you try not to impersonate a man, don’t give out his title as your own.”
He folded his hands. “If I were impersonating James,” he explained, “I would have introduced myself as the Honorable James Delacey. I would not have called myself Claridge.”
She shook her head. “A technical matter of forms of address. Besides, Delacey was supposed to have been seated…soon. I’m not sure when. There may not even be a technical difference at this point.”
“I told them I was his elder brother,” he said.
“His elder brother?” That flustered her for some reason. “He doesn’t have an elder brother.” No, but Stephen had mentioned there was one awhile back. She frowned in memory. “His elder brother is dead.”
Edward shrugged and looked away. “I did promise you necromancy. Here you are.”
She was beginning to have a headache. “This is a terrible idea. Claridge will still come after you. If Edward Delacey were really alive, his brother wouldn’t be the rightful viscount any longer. He would tear an impostor to shreds.”
“True,” Edward said simply. “But I know James well enough to goad him into admitting the truth of who I am before the Committee for Privileges.”
None of this was making any sense. She blinked at him, trying to decipher those words. They’d sounded as if…as if…
She must have misheard. “But you’re not his brother. You’re…”
Edward Clark. Who was sent abroad—into a war zone—by a father who had hoped for more from him… Her whole mind froze.
“You’re too old to be him,” she said. “You’re…what, thirty-six?”
“Twenty-seven.” His lips firmed. “It’s the hair; I got all that white in a matter of weeks. I look older than I am.”
No. No.
“It wasn’t really a lie.” He didn’t look at her. “I did mention that you wouldn’t like my younger brother.”
“You’re not Edward Delacey.” Her voice shook.
“I’ve tried my damnedest not to be him. My solicitor says I can keep the name Edward Clark, and I will. But…” He swallowed. “I was him. Once. And I may have misdirected you in some minor fashion in that regard.”
Minor? Her hands were beginning to tremble.
“No,” she said. “No. You’re not.”
And, oh, God. Last night. For all the columns she’d written, all the horrible stories she had heard about what marriage might mean to a woman, she had never imagined that she might end up in one of them.
“For God’s sake.” She swallowed. “Do you know what this means? We’re married. We can’t annul it, we’re unlikely to be granted a divorce, not unless…”
Not unless she was unfaithful to him, a prospect she found even more disgustingly distasteful than having Claridge as a husband.
She shifted away from him.
“Oh my God. James Delacey is now my brother by marriage.” And that wasn’t the part that hurt the most. “You didn’t tell me. You knew, and you didn’t tell me—you with your necromancy and failed logic. Why?” She could feel her eyes begin to sting. But she wasn’t going to cry. She wasn’t.
“I did tell you once that if you knew everything about me, you’d not want me.”
“You’re Claridge,” she said, feeling a little sick to her stomach. “You weren’t some low-level scoundrel out to get revenge for some minor slight. It was your brother scheming against me. You could have stopped this whole thing—quashed their quashing of our permit, silenced your brother for good, taken your place. You could have done all that without marrying me.” She let out a little noise.
“I wasn’t sure I could do it in time.” His lips had gone white. “It might have taken another day—paperwork and all. I wasn’t sure that mere bluster would have worked. If you were going to be arrested, you needed to be a viscountess. They’d have to let you go then as a right of peerage. I couldn’t risk them holding you—not with what James might have had planned.”
She turned away from him. “It wasn’t your risk to take. It was mine.”
He shook his head—and then he shrugged. It hurt, that expression of indifference. As if all her emotion, her care, meant nothing to him. “I have always known you would come to hate me eventually. What’s a little sooner?”
“Why didn’t you tell me?” She was almost desperate. “You could not have kept it from me, and once I found out, I…”
He gave her a wintry smile. “It’s that simple. I’ve never expected that I would be able to keep you with me. All I could do was keep you safe.”
That steadiness in his gaze… She still remembered last night. The way their bodies had joined, the way their hands had intertwined. It had been one of the sweetest, loveliest experiences of her life. If she let him do that again…
No. She slid into the corner of the carriage, her shoulder pressing against the door.
“I’m sorry, Edward,” she said. “I can’t. I can’t do this.”
“I know. I never expected you would.”
Somehow, his acceptance cut her more deeply than if he’d demanded her submission.
“If I stayed…” she started.
But she could not continue on. If she stayed, she’d let herself be seduced. She was being seduced now by the sudden hope that flared in his eyes. God, how he’d smile if she kissed him now. And all she would have to do was…no.
Free slid her hand up the leather of the seat until her fingers met
the side of the carriage. She traced a figure eight against the side, and thought about all the reasons she’d married—bad ones, it turned out. And yet not so bad.
“But I can’t,” Free said. “I can’t stay.”
God, she hated that the one person she wanted to comfort her at this moment was…him.
The carriage rumbled on. She had no idea where it was taking her—Claridge House, perhaps? Was there such a thing? The only thing she knew was that she had to get away before she did something foolish. “I can’t stay,” she repeated. Her fingers found the latch on the door.
“I know,” he said calmly. “We’ll work it all out, darling. I’ll leave you to your work, if that’s what you want. You won’t ever have to see me again.”
It wasn’t what she wanted. She wanted everything she’d lost back—her scoundrel, her Edward Clark. She couldn’t listen to this man who seemed to be that same person and yet answered to my lord. She couldn’t bear to sit down with him and plan a future apart. She’d break down if she did.
She turned the handle in one smooth motion. The door tumbled open. The carriage was moving at a stately clip through a residential area. She could see no more than a blur of passing houses. One second since she’d opened the door; he was staring at her in confusion. Two, and he began to reach forward.
“I can’t,” she said one final time. But she understood now why she was saying it. She was saying it because she could. If she remained here, she would.
She stood. He reached for her, but he was too late. She jumped through the door. Her feet hit the cobblestones; her ankle nearly gave way beneath her. But she caught her balance, if not her breath, and as quickly as she could, she darted down an alley.
“Free!” she heard him calling. “Free!”
She scrambled through a mews, and then down another side street.
“Free!” he called once more, but he was farther away now. So long as she kept going, he’d never discover her again.
Chapter Twenty-One
IT BEGAN TO DRIZZLE while Free found her bearings.