Six

Cora hadn’t ever imagined herself being involved in a late-night assignation, but here she was creeping down the stairs after midnight to meet Lord Devonworth. Assignation might be too strong of a word. It brought to mind lurid images of kisses and fondling, which is not what they would be doing. Although her stomach took a tumble at the memory of his well-formed lips. She probably wouldn’t say no to a kiss.

The guests had begun to trickle away as the clock ticked toward midnight. They kept country hours here, so the soiree hadn’t gone on nearly as long as Camille had warned Cora the parties in London would last. The locals had left for home while the prospective suitors and the female relatives who had accompanied them returned to their rooms. The men had been given accommodations in the old groundskeeper’s cottage, which was another house on the property. It was nearly double the size of the brownstone Cora and her family had sold in New York, so she didn’t pity them. To keep up an appearance of respectability, the women were the only ones who stayed overnight in the main house. Something told her that the “no men in the house” rule wouldn’t apply to Mr. Thorne. He had hardly left Camille’s side all night.

Cora paused at the bottom of the stairs to make certain that the main floor was at rest for the night. The longcase clock ticked into the silence. It was a quarter past one o’clock. He might already be waiting for her. Her stomach swirled in anticipation as she took quiet steps to the back of the house where Camille had told her they were meeting. The parlor was a scarcely used room that never saw company. It was an ode to comfort with blankets and cushions tossed casually on overstuffed furniture, the interior Cora had imagined a cottage would possess. They had used it often in the days leading up to the party while Camille prepared them with all sorts of knowledge about the British upper class, but the room had sat a bit fallow during the formality of the house party.

As Cora approached the room, a soft giggle broke the silence of the night. It was followed by a deeper masculine laugh and then the foreign but unmistakable sound of two mouths coming together. The door was cracked open enough that Cora could see Camille perched on Mr. Thorne’s knee, his hand tenderly cradling her jaw. A fierce longing strong enough to hold her in place took hold of Cora as she stared at that touch.

What would it mean to be married to a man in an arrangement that was more business than personal? What if a man never looked at her with affection in his eyes? What if he didn’t even like her very much? What if he refused to dissolve their arrangement and she never felt the tenderness of someone who loved her?

Standing in that hallway, she felt more alone than she ever had in her life. That included showing up at Mr. Hathaway’s house unannounced and unwanted. What had once seemed to be a very sure path was now crumbling beneath her feet.

“Cora!” Camille scrambled from Mr. Thorne’s lap as she came to her feet. Mr. Thorne stood at a more leisurely pace, his expression reflecting amusement as he put his arm around his fiancée. “My apologies,” she said.

“It’s my fault,” Mr. Thorne added. “I distracted her.”

“I should apologize. I didn’t mean to lurk. I only . . .” Cora had only been in the midst of an existential crisis, a common enough occurrence for her this past year.

“You did nothing wrong. We were waiting for you.” Using the mirror on the wall near the door, Camille arranged her nearly perfect blond curls. She gave Mr. Thorne’s reflection a harsh look that only made his eyes grow warmer with affection. “Come in, come in,” she urged once she noticed Cora hesitating at the threshold.

Cora nodded and forced a smile. It wasn’t as if she believed in lasting love anyway. Marrying for business was so much more reasonable. She told herself there was no reason to be envious of their relationship.

“The letter from Mr. Hathaway,” she said, holding up the proof of funds that Mr. Hathaway had written out for her. She tried not to think about how important the document was to the future of this betrothal. If she didn’t think about how it represented her only value to Lord Devonworth, then she wouldn’t feel melancholy about it.

Camille took her hand and led her farther into the room. “I can’t find the words to express how happy I am that Devonworth came tonight and has asked to speak with you privately. I can only assume this will lead to good news. He will be perfect for you.”

“I hope so. He is very handsome.”

“He is, but more than that, he’s not a typical aristocrat. He has shown support for the rights of women and the common man alike. You’ll be well suited.”

Before she could respond, heavy footfalls came from the corridor and Lord Devonworth appeared at the door. He still wore his evening suit and looked as if he’d stepped off the dance floor. His hair was lightly oiled and swept back from his forehead, emphasizing the strong and aristocratic planes of his face. He was so handsome that her breath hitched.

“Devonworth,” Mr. Thorne said as Camille turned to greet him.

After addressing them both, Lord Devonworth looked at Cora. “Miss Dove.”

“Lord Devonworth.” Cora didn’t miss how his eyes gave her a once-over before settling on her face. His expression was warm, so she took that to mean that he liked what he saw. She might not be a great beauty like her mother or Jenny, but she was pleasing enough.

“We’ll leave you two alone to talk, but we’ll be right next door.” Camille took Mr. Thorne’s arm and led him to the adjoining room, which was a sort of gaming room with card tables and a chess set. She gave Cora an encouraging smile, leaving the door open a crack so they wouldn’t technically be alone.

Camille and Mr. Thorne shouldn’t be alone, either, but they were to be married later in the summer and Camille was a widow. He owned the infamous Montague Club in London and was living in Paris temporarily to open a new club in that city. Camille visited him there with her mother in tow, so Cora imagined they were desperate for time alone together.

With their absence, the room became heavy with silence. She and Lord Devonworth stared at each other, unsure of the next step in this arrangement. Finally, he broke the quiet. “Would you care to sit?” He indicated the sofa.

“Yes, thank you.” Her knees inexplicably trembled as she settled herself on one end. She expected him to sit at the other, but he took the adjacent chair instead.

“Thank you for meeting me. I regret that it must be in the thick of night, but we are due back in London tomorrow,” he said.

“I understand.”

They didn’t acknowledge that it was better to speak late at night anyway so that no one would be aware they had met. If he found something to dislike about the terms and changed his mind, then there wouldn’t be gossip.

He glanced at the door leading to the corridor, which remained partially open. “Shall we wait for your mother to arrive?”

“My mother isn’t coming. It’ll just be us.”

He frowned and settled down into the chair. She couldn’t help but notice how his shoulders stretched across the entire back of the piece of furniture. His wasn’t a thick, brute strength, but lean and powerful nonetheless. She should probably spend less time noticing that and more time focusing her attention on their negotiations.

“Why is she not attending?” he asked.

The question threw her off for a moment. Cora had discussed the meeting with her mother earlier, but it hadn’t occurred to either of them that Fanny should attend. That was simply how things were in their household. Cora attended to the business at hand, whether it was negotiating with the butcher or selling the family home, and Fanny handled . . . well, whatever held her interest at the moment, whether that be mastering the perfect soufflé or helping one of her theater friends prepare for a role.

A proper debutante would be expected to have her mother present. A sweat broke out on her upper lip. They had already committed a faux pas.

“Um, she had a headache and needed to lie down. I think she might have had too much champagne.” Partially true. She had drank too much champagne, but when Cora had left them, Fanny had been dancing Eliza around her bedroom as she sang a bawdy tune about a randy fellow on the way to his wedding.

A look of displeasure crossed his face, but it was fleeting. He shifted in his chair and seemed genuinely uncomfortable with talking to her alone. “Perhaps we should postpone. Marriage”—her heart did a funny skip in her chest at that word on his lips, but she forced herself to continue listening—“is an important matter. This discussion has the potential to affect the rest of your life. Your mother should be present.”

A part of her was touched by his concern. It was clear that he wanted to make certain she wasn’t taken advantage of in this meeting. But she was tired of men—Mr. Hathaway came to mind—who always assumed they knew better about her life than she.

“I agree. Marriage is a very important matter. When will your mother be arriving?”

His eyes widened infinitesimally before the corner of his mouth quirked in that way she was coming to appreciate. “I only meant that the unmarried women of my acquaintance would never attend such a meeting alone.”

“Would those young women attend such a meeting at all?” she countered.

“Fair.” He shifted again and brought his hand up to stroke his brow, regarding her thoughtfully as if she were a puzzle he was trying to decipher.

She rushed on so that she didn’t give him a chance to turn her away. He was obviously uneasy. As much as she was coming to realize what she was giving up by this marriage arrangement, she stood to lose so much more if it didn’t happen. “I admit this must seem strange, and probably unprecedented. You likely have many questions.”

“A few. I don’t wish to start this discussion with secrets, so I will confess that I had an investigator look into your identity before the house party.”

Her blood froze. An investigator could have found any number of things Cora would rather keep from him and, by extension, Society altogether. Her entire little family had thrived because of secrets.

When she could finally move again, she turned her attention to the letter in her lap. “What did you find?”

She couldn’t meet his gaze, so she slowly and deliberately removed the paper from the envelope and took great pains in smoothing out the lines. He was silent for so long she imagined she could feel his censure singeing the hair on the top of her head.

“I found that your father owned several theaters across America, and he died when you and your sisters were very young. His associate, Charles Hathaway, stepped in as a sort of family protector. What more can you tell me about that arrangement?”

She felt as if she were under some sort of legal examination. She licked the sudden prickling of sweat from her lip and repeated the facts she had practiced her entire life. “Mr. Hathaway and my father were close friends. After his death, Mr. Hathaway oversaw our care and my mother’s allowance. Now that we are older, he is determined to help our mother arrange our marriages. In fact, we must find appropriate husbands as a condition of our inheritances.” She handed over the proof of funds. “He has very exacting standards on what constitutes an appropriate husband.”

He accepted the paper and read it quietly. His eyebrows rose in surprise before he managed to pull them back into line. When he finished, she said, “I hope the amount is sufficient.”

He cleared his throat. “It’s sufficient.”

She had assumed that it would be, but she didn’t really know what sort of fortune an earl might require. She felt herself relax into the cushions at her back. “Good.”

“Will Hathaway be visiting London to . . .” With his pause, she understood how delicate this entire situation was for him. The money he needed for his estate was there in the letter, but such a fortune was a tenuous thing until it was in his account. “To validate the transfer of funds?”

“Yes, and he has plans to attend any eventual weddings.” She would wire him first thing in the morning to make certain, assuming the rest of this discussion went well.

“Tell me about your mother’s family. What do I need to know about her?”

She tensed again. She preferred not to explicitly lie to him, but she didn’t know how else to explain the situation. The fact that her mother had been an actress would simply not be acceptable, never mind the fact that she had no idea who her family was. “She was born in South Carolina, but her family died when she was a child. Cholera. After that, she was raised by a distant cousin in Chicago. That’s where she met my father.”

In truth, Fanny didn’t know her family at all. Her mother, probably young and unwed, had left her on the steps of a Chicago orphanage as a newborn. There she had been raised until she had run away at fourteen years of age to pursue a stage career. At fifteen, she had married a handsome young actor and divorced him almost as quickly as she had wed him. Then, a few years later, Fanny had met Charles Hathaway when he had gone to Chicago on business. Mr. Dove had introduced them, since he knew Fanny from his ties in the theater business, and he knew Mr. Hathaway from long-standing social connections. She had promptly become Mr. Hathaway’s mistress and moved to New York.

Months after arriving in New York, Fanny had given birth to Cora and then Jenny and Eliza in rapid succession. Fanny talked of those years with fondness, as if they’d had some great romance. Cora supposed it had been romantic, since Fanny had allowed herself to fall pregnant so often. Her mother claimed there had even been talk of marriage once his parents could be brought around to the idea. They never approved, and he had married someone else, and Fanny and her children had slowly become weights around his neck.

Their love story had ended unhappily. Cora very much suspected that most great romances did. Eventually, the glamour wore off and everything else intruded. Romantic love wasn’t meant to survive in the world. Once it became clear that Mr. Hathaway was not going to wed her, Fanny had insisted that he make some arrangement for her and the children. Eliza had still been an infant when they had moved into their brownstone. Mr. Dove had been a convenient husband. Cora didn’t know what sort of arrangement Mr. Dove and Mr. Hathaway had between them to make the man take on the responsibility of their small family. But it hadn’t mattered, because he’d died within a year or so. To be honest, Cora wasn’t entirely certain that Fanny had married Mr. Dove. That might have all been a fabrication.

But, of course, she could mention none of this to Lord Devonworth.

He sat watching her dubiously, and for one fraught moment she was certain he was going to tell her that his investigator had found out the scandalous truth about them. Instead, he cleared his throat again and said, “You have shown me what you will bring to this arrangement and, as is proper with any negotiation, it is only appropriate that I show my cards. My line stretches back to the sixteenth century when Henry VIII granted my ancestor—”

“Oh, I’m certain you are qualified, Lord Devonworth. Camille wouldn’t have invited you otherwise. All the suitors are qualified as far as that goes.”

He made a sound of acknowledgment in the back of his throat. It was a very deep, very interesting sound that caused a pleasant prickling sensation to move across her scalp. She didn’t want to think about that. Her physical attraction to him did not matter.

“Am I in competition, then?” he asked. “Have you another offer?”

“Well, yes, as of now, though they were all told to hold their offers until the end.”

He rose abruptly and crossed to the hearth. This information seemed to unsettle him in some way. She realized then that he had thought he might be the only one to offer . . . or at least the only one she would want to accept. He hadn’t expected competition. This could be good. He might make concessions he wouldn’t have been willing to earlier. Concessions like a separation. Or divorce.

Suddenly, he swung around to face her. “Miss Dove, I know that you don’t know me. You don’t know any of us, for that matter. But I can promise you that I will treat you with honor and respect. I will do my best to consider your wishes in all things. I don’t know you, so I can only assume a title is of the utmost importance to you and your guardian. If that’s the case, I have two of them. Our son shall carry the second one at his birth. I don’t think those men can offer you that. Any other children we may have can be assured of a good and proper education, a thoughtful and understanding fath—”

“Lord Devonworth!” She rose because she couldn’t withstand his earnest expression as he pleaded his case to her. “I think we need to talk further.” She moved toward the hearth, but not to look at him. God, she couldn’t look at him. She was too aware of Camille and Mr. Thorne in the next room, and what she needed to tell him, she didn’t want them to hear. “Please, before you go on, there is something I’d like you to understand.”

He stared at her; she could feel his eyes on her as she fumbled with her own fingers. “I had hoped that whatever marriage I make would be in name only. I don’t think it’s fair to bring children into it.”

He frowned. “In name only?”

“Yes, I hoped to secure a separation after a couple of years . . . or . . . or perhaps even a . . . divorce.” There, she had said the word out loud for the first time. “Once the dowry has been funded,” she hurried to add.

“A divorce?” His face reflected the incomprehension she had expected.

“You think I’m mad.”

“No.” But the word came too quick. That’s exactly what he thought.

“I know that divorce here is complicated, but it’s not unheard of. I have read there are a couple hundred divorces a year.”

“How do you know that?” he asked, brows furrowed.

“I came across a newspaper story. Obviously, I don’t know the particulars or how troublesome they are to coordinate here. I believe it must go through Parliament, which I assume you can arrange if needed. At home, there is a saying, ‘Marry in New York, divorce in Newport.’ ” The quote didn’t appear to alleviate his concerns. The trench between his brows only deepened. “The divorce laws in Rhode Island allow for terms such as desertion and incompatibility,” she found herself rambling.

“Divorce isn’t so simple here. Not among the nobility, at any rate.”

“I assumed it wouldn’t be.” She felt him slipping away, so she forged ahead. “A divorce will allow us to go our separate ways with no entanglements. I know it isn’t ideal in your world, or mine, either, honestly, but it does happen. People divorce every day. I had hoped we could come to some sort of arrangement about the dowry. Obviously, you would keep a large portion. Enough to support your family, your estates, or whatever you need the money to accomplish.”

He bristled at that. It was crass to discuss money in such terms, but she could see no way around it.

“And you?” he asked after a moment. “What would you keep?”

“I would ask that you invest a portion for me, enough that will earn a respectable annual return. Once we divorce, you will sign that over to me in the settlement. I will retire from public life and live somewhere away from London. Believe me, I have no wish to make any sort of impact on London Society. I will retire to the countryside or somewhere in America, maybe. I don’t know yet.”

“Not New York where you’re from?”

A hint of sadness shadowed her eyes. “No, not New York. I want to support my mother and my sisters if necessary, not spend the income on a lavish lifestyle. Somewhere quiet and stable will be enough for us.” She wanted to start her own women’s rights publication, a publication that would discuss the obstacles facing women and the unjust laws that fostered those boundaries. It would be modeled on the one she had written for in New York, but he didn’t need to know that.

“And for this you want a divorce?”

“At best, yes; a separation if it isn’t possible. However, I understand male primogeniture and how important that is to the way you do things here, so I think a divorce is ideal. That way you can remarry and have an heir.”

He took in a long, slow breath through his nose as he regarded her with the wariness of a man weighing his future. It was not an unreasonable look, but it gave her pause. What would she do if he said no? She would either have to accept him anyway or settle for Sir Barnaby.

“You put me in a difficult position, Miss Dove. I have been charged with continuing my line. I have to produce the next Earl of Devonworth. If I neglect that duty, it will fall to my brother, Harry, a boy completely unequipped to carry out the duty.”

“I’m sorry for that, my lord. Perhaps you will find that a financially healthy estate is worth that risk.”

He stared at her a moment longer. “I can promise to consider a divorce, but they can be difficult to obtain, and with my political future to consider . . .”

Her heart leaped at the small concession.

“I will agree to a separation, but only after we’ve lived together and presented an ideal image of husband and wife for a period of two years. I think that should be sufficient.”

She nodded, willing to give him almost anything. “Yes, that is reasonable.”

“If a divorce isn’t possible, then I will need an heir.”

Something came to life inside her. The little flame burned deep in her belly, but she ignored it. “I understand.”

He breathed out through his nose. “Five years, Miss Dove. It’s all the time I can give you.”

“Fine. I’ll agree to an heir in five years’ time if a divorce cannot be arranged.” She held out her hand.

He stared at it before finally taking it in his. His palm was warm and his fingers were long but thick. She ignored how pleasant his hand felt in hers. She had a feeling she would be ignoring quite a lot in the next couple of years.

“Does this mean you will be my wife, Miss Dove?”

For the first time that night, all of the tension holding her stiff seemed to drain away.

“Yes, I will marry you, Lord Devonworth.”

“Good, then we shall be married immediately after the reading of the banns. That will put us after Easter. You should meet my mother and brother before then, obviously. I’ll arrange a dinner.”

She took in a deep breath and nodded; words escaped her at the moment. In three weeks, she would be Lady Devonworth.