CHAPTER 1

London, 1816

 

There were few things Beaumont Halliwell, Sixth Duke of Wroxton, loathed more than unpunctual behavior—especially on his wedding day.

Beau took out his watch; it was four minutes after the last time he’d checked. His bride-to-be was officially late.

He slipped the watch into his pocket and drummed his fingers on the carved altar rail, staring at the stained-glass window on the east wall. It cast a colorful, but sullen, glow over the dark flagstone floor and battered pews, but it did little to shed light in the ancient church.

The window was a depiction of Queen Elizabeth with two massive bells at her feet. He assumed they were a reference to the church bells alleged to have rung so joyously the day Princess Elizabeth was released from the Tower prison.

Prison.

The word clanged in his head like the slamming of a cell door. Yes, prison was a good thought to keep in mind just now. Of course, as a duke and counselor to the Sovereign, Beau could not actually be thrown into debtors’ prison—as much a relief as that thought might be at this particular moment.

No. There would be no prison for Beau. Instead, there would be marriage. Although there would not even be that if his betrothed did not arrive.

Beau felt no relief at that thought: if he didn’t marry Josephine Loman, he’d have to marry somebody similar—and this time Beau would have to find a rich wife rather than having one tossed into his lap.

He snorted. Good God, what a blur these past months had been.

Beau had known the moment he’d learned of his brother’s death that he couldn’t hide from his responsibilities indefinitely. But a series of momentous events conspired to keep him from assuming his ducal duties.

First it had been Napoleon keeping Beau—and hundreds of thousands of other soldiers—lethally occupied in Belgium.

After Waterloo, it had been unavoidable diplomatic duties with Ambassador Stuart’s staff in Paris. But then, by the beginning of the New Year, after almost a decade at war, all plausible excuses for staying away had disappeared and he’d returned home, not to visit, but to stay.

Whether he liked it or not, Beau was the new head of a large, demanding, and impoverished family. And whether he liked it or not, he’d had to accept Edward Loman’s offer to marry his daughter.

Josephine Loman was a woman Beau had never met before today, although—thanks to her father’s persistence—he’d been betrothed to her since last August, less than a month after Jason’s death.

It had been Beau’s engagement to one of the richest women in Britain that had placated his dead brother’s—and now his—creditors and allowed him to remain away as long as he had.

“Pssst.”

Beau turned to the only person in the dim, dank church besides himself and the vicar.

“What is it, Moreton?” he asked, deliberately repressive.

Lucas Powell, the Earl of Moreton and Beau’s best friend, grinned up at him, unrepressed. “I think she’s done a runner on you, Wroxton. Maybe I’ll take a whack at her next.”

Beau ignored his’s friend’s levity.

Behind him, the vicar said, “Er, Your Grace, is it pos—”

A noise from the narthex cut off whatever he was about to say and all three men turned as two people entered the church.

“Ah.” The vicar sounded so relieved, you’d have thought it was his bloody wedding.

Beau strode toward the newcomers, propelled by irritation and anger, his eyes riveted to the slight, veiled figure in pale blue: his wife-to-be.

“I’m terribly sorry, Your Grace,” the companion said, a woman whose name Beau had forgotten, if he’d ever known it.

She wittered and flapped and came toward him. “I’m afraid there was a—”

Beau raised a staying hand that instantly stopped her chatter.

“Is aught amiss, Miss Loman?” he asked the woman who should have been his wife by now—had she arrived promptly.

Her shoulders stiffened at his sharp tone. Good. Beau wanted her to know he didn’t appreciate being badgered toward a hasty wedding by her father and then kept waiting by her.

The older woman opened her mouth, but Beau shook his head. “Give us a moment in private.” It was not a request.

He led Miss Loman a few feet away. “What is going on? Where is your father?” he demanded, unable to see her face through the almost opaque veil.

“Don’t bark at me as if I’m one of your servants.”

Beau winced at the flat, nasal vowels. Good God, how bloody atrocious! He knew her father spoke with an even more appalling accent, but Loman was a product of the stews—why the hell hadn’t the man sent his daughter to a proper school?

Beau shuddered; just wait until his family met the woman the newspapers unflatteringly referred to as the Potted Meat Princess.

Later. He’d have ample time to deal with that later.

But for now, he took a deep breath and leashed both his revulsion and his temper. “Are we to wait for your father, or not, Miss Loman?”

“He is not coming.”

She sniffed and Beau stared at her thickly veiled person with mounting horror. Damnation! Was she—?

She raised a gloved hand that held a handkerchief beneath her veil.

An unfamiliar emotion—shame—heated his face. Bloody hell! What a beast he was. The woman had been crying—perhaps was still crying—and he’d been entertaining uncharitable thoughts about her person.

He grimaced. Regardless of her background and accent, Josephine Loman was his, and his family’s, savior and she deserved respect.

“I am sorry to hear Mr. Loman is doing so poorly.” Lord, he’d just seen the man eight days ago; he’d looked ill, but not—

“He tried to get out of bed and fell,” she said in a vaguely accusatory tone—as if this unseemly haste to marry were Beau’s notion rather than her father’s.

“Do you wish to postpone the ceremony?” he asked, hoping the answer was no, hoping they could get this farce—or at least this part of it—over already.

Her head snapped up. “No, Your Grace,” she said coldly, her answer the turning of a key in the cell door he’d heard close earlier. “It is my father’s wish that we go through with the wedding. Today.”

And what is yours? Beau wanted to ask, but of course he didn’t.

* * *

Jo was grateful for the veil. The last thing she wanted the beautiful, arrogant, and proud aristocrat to see right now was her homely, tear-stained face—which was doubtless even less attractive than usual.

Not that her face—homely or otherwise—would make a speck of difference to the Duke of Wroxton; he was marrying her for one thing only: her money.

Even with the advantages that her father’s wealth had purchased for her, the glorious creature across from her might as well be a separate species from Jo. She had no doubt that he believed he was a separate, superior, and more cultured species.

Of course Jo wasn’t helping matters by adopting a false accent and speaking to him like a fishwife, but what did he expect when he addressed her in such a peremptory tone, as if she were his serf?

Besides, Jo had seen from his expression that he’d been revolted by her accent, but not particularly surprised. Indeed, he’d likely expected a coarse, pushing Cit—a wife who’d be a constant reminder of just how low he’d stooped for the sake of her father’s money.

Not that he’d need a reminder; the Duke of Wroxton would never let either of them forget the vast gulf between them.

And what about you, Jo? Will you ever forget—or forgive—Wroxton for something he doesn’t even know he did? Will you forgive him for not wanting you five years ago? Or will you take this chance to make his life a misery?

Jo flinched away from the thought. Good Lord—could that really be true? Was that why she was so furious? So quick to see a slight in his expression, his tone? His actions?

Hell hath no fury like a woman scorned.

Jo closed her eyes, as if that might somehow transport her away from the muddle she’d made of her life.

But when she opened them again, the dark little chapel was still waiting for her.

St. Olav’s, with its terrifying gargoyles, and crooked grave markers that looked as though the very earth were trying to expel them, seemed a grim choice for a wedding. Jo wondered if Wroxton had purposely chosen the bleakest church in all of London for their nuptials.

After all, she thought, cutting a quick glance from beneath her veil, her groom was looking more than a little bleak, himself.

And all thanks to you, Jo.

Jo kicked and shoved the taunting voice into a cupboard in her mind and latched the door shut. There, that was the last time she needed to listen to such drivel today.

But just when she’d banished one voice, another took its place: this one her father’s.

“This is what I’ve always wanted for you, Josie, but do you want it for yourself?” Edward Loman had asked her, just last night. “It’s not too late to change your mind.” His deep-set green-gray eyes were shadowed by unease, as well as the pain that always plagued him now.

“What? Second thoughts, Papa?” Jo had teased, not because she’d felt lighthearted but because she’d asked herself that same question at least a hundred times: Was she mad to want a man whose only communication to her—a brief, businesslike letter—proved he’d not remembered her, and wouldn’t want her if he did?

Had she been mad, or just desperate, to have snatched at her father’s scheme so quickly when he’d raised it all those months ago?

“I got you a duke, Josie!” He’d been gleeful, like a little boy who’d discovered a shiny penny, when he’d told her the news last August.

Jo knew whom her father had gotten for her even before he told her: Beaumont Halliwell, the newly minted Duke of Wroxton, a man she’d not seen for over five years but hadn’t been able to forget. And not for lack of trying.

Now, looking up over half a foot at her betrothed’s cold, hardened face, Jo wondered if she shouldn’t have rejected her father’s seductive offer and worked harder on scouring her brain of the duke’s memory.

While he was every bit as gorgeous and golden as the last time she’d seen him—a dashing soldier on leave who’d been engaged to marry the diamond of the Season, Lady Victoria Beamish—his angelic face was now that of a haughty, remote, and weary angel.

What had made him so grim? Had it happened when Victoria broke off their engagement to marry his brother, the former duke? Or was it the inevitable effect of a decade’s worth of war on a man’s soul?

Or perhaps it is his impending marriage to you, Jo?

Jo sighed.

“Hello again, Miss Loman.”

She looked up from her unpleasant musings to find the Earl of Moreton had come to stand beside the duke. Jo’s lips curved in response to his grin, even though he wouldn’t be able to see her expression through the heavy lace veil.

“Good day, my lord,” Jo said.

“It’s been a long time, Miss Loman. What—five years?”

Jo was flattered Moreton remembered. “You have a good memory, my lord. It was indeed the spring and summer of 1811.”

Wroxton turned to her, arrested, his lips parted in surprise, a flush darkening his cheekbones.

Any pleasure Jo felt at taunting him was crushed beneath humiliation. She had only suspected he had no memory of her; now he’d confirmed it.

The vicar cleared his throat. “Your Grace? Shall we proceed?”

“I am ready,” Wroxton said, his expression that of a condemned man on his walk to the gallows.

He will never love you, Jo, never! Run! Run!

Jo ignored the shrill warning and stared up into blue eyes that were as beautiful as the sky, and just as unreachable.

Even his cold, obvious disregard couldn’t quench her burning desire to possess him. Jo didn’t care that he would never love her, or even like her. All that mattered was that he would finally be hers.

“Yes,” she said, “I am ready.”

I’ve been ready for five years.