Patricia didn’t have an appetite, but she ate that morning because of the child she was carrying. She hadn’t seen Stephen on her way to the dining room. The closer her time came to see him, the more nervous she got.
Lewis kept up a cheerful ramble. As much as she tried to concentrate on what he was saying, her mind kept wandering to what Mr. Bachman was like.
She’d wondered about Ichabod before marrying him, too, but she’d never gotten the chance to know him. All she’d learned was that he had an unreasonable fear of germs. In fact, he avoided any face to face contact with everyone. Hence why she never even saw him or spoke directly to him. Everything had been done through missives the servants would deliver back and forth between them, and even those had been brief, which left her very little to learn about his personality.
“But you don’t need to worry,” Lewis was saying. “I’ll take care of the details.”
Unaware of what he was talking about, she focused in on his next words.
“The matter of getting a special license will be quick,” he continued. “You’ll be married within a few days. It just depends on how busy the vicar is, and fortunately, vicars are easier to get in touch with since we’re close to London.”
She poked the last egg with her fork. “Will I really get to see Mr. Bachman today?”
He sipped his milk then set the cup on the table. “You should call him Stephen. And yes, you’ll get to see him. He’s not afraid of everything like my brother was. He’ll meet you face to face, though, remember, he’ll be wearing a mask. Try not to act surprised when you see it.”
Reassured by the certain tone in his voice, she nodded and ate the egg while he started rambling again.
Just as they were finishing up, the butler came into the room and announced that Stephen was ready. “He said not to hurry but that he’s in the drawing room,” the butler concluded.
Lewis picked up the napkin from his lap and wiped his mouth. “I don’t think I could eat another bite.” He put the napkin on the plate and glanced at her. “Are you done?”
She had a bun left on the plate, but she didn’t think she could eat anything else. She put her own napkin on her plate. “Yes. I’m full.”
To be honest, she was relieved. Now she could find out something about this gentleman she was going to marry.
She and Lewis followed the butler to the drawing room. The drapes were open. She had expected them to be closed since they had been closed last night. The sunlight filtering through the room gave it a surprisingly warm feeling.
“Mr. Cotter and Lady Pruett are here,” the butler told the masked gentleman who was standing behind the desk. Turning to Patricia, he added, “This is Mr. Bachman.”
She took a good look at Stephen. Though the mask hid most of his face, she noticed he was younger than she had expected him to be. She didn’t know why, but she had imagined someone in his forties. Judging by his smooth hands and his stature, she guessed he was in his mid-to-late twenties.
To be fair to Lewis, he hadn’t mentioned Stephen’s age. He’d just said he and Stephen were good friends. She didn’t know why she had assumed he was significantly older than Lewis.
Stephen gestured to the chairs that were in front of the desk. Those hadn’t been in front of the desk last night. Last night, they had been near the settee.
“Please, have a seat,” Stephen said.
Lewis led the way over to the chairs, and she followed, her steps slower than his. As the three sat, the butler closed the doors to give them privacy.
Lewis leaned forward to get a better look at the parchment on the desk. “You’ve been busy. Do you have instructions on what you want to do with one of your investments?”
“I do, but that’s not what I have on the desk,” Stephen replied.
Patricia was shocked by the gentle quality in Stephen’s voice. His tone was softer than most gentlemen’s, as if he was used to whispering.
Stephen settled back in his chair and directed his next statement to her. “I understand you are in need of a husband.”
She made eye contact with him. Even more shocking than the gentleness in his voice was the amazing color of his eyes. They were bright blue. The black mask and black clothes he wore only seemed to emphasize their blueness. She hardly even noticed his dark brown hair.
“Yes, you understood right,” Lewis spoke for her. “You’ll have to forgive her. I think being in an unfamiliar place has made her shy.”
Stephen broke eye contact with her and looked at his friend. “Yes, that’s probably it.”
By the tone in Stephen’s voice, she got the impression he didn’t believe Lewis. She cleared her throat. Perhaps it might do her well to stress how tenuous her situation was. “I was married to Lewis’ brother, but he choked to death while eating dinner. I am carrying his child. I have nowhere else to go.”
“You could have stayed at your deceased husband’s estate,” Stephen said.
She shook her head. No, she couldn’t. Those servants at her first husband’s estate were always quiet, and she rarely ever saw them. It had been bad enough when Ichabod had been alive. At least then, she had his missives, but once he died, she had nothing.
“She and the child need the care and protection of a husband,” Lewis replied. “It will benefit the child to have your name.”
“If she has a boy,” Stephen told Lewis, “then the child will be your brother’s heir. I can’t give my name to him.”
“What if she has a girl?” Lewis asked.
Stephen’s gaze went back to her. “Forgive me for being insensitive about your condition, but is this really Lewis’ brother’s child?”
Cheeks warm, she said, “Yes.”
“I didn’t mean to offend you with the question,” Stephen hurried to assure her. “Personally, I don’t care if the child is his or not. I just want to make sure if there is a boy, then it’s legitimately his. I don’t want to rob Lewis out of a title. The boy would inherit the title instead of him. With you living away from London at the time of conception, no one in London is aware of the child’s existence.”
Lewis chuckled. “Everyone in London was hardly aware of my brother’s existence. He was more of a shadow than a human being.”
“The child is his,” she asserted. “I’m telling the truth.”
Lewis turned to her. “No one is saying that you’re lying. We believe you.” He looked expectantly at Stephen. “You believe her, don’t you?”
“I don’t care who the father is,” Stephen replied. “But yes, I believe her…and I’m prepared to treat the child as if the boy or girl were my own. The only thing I care about is whether or not she’ll sign the contract.”
“Contract?” Now she was confused. He was planning to marry her, wasn’t he? Contracts were done between business partners. They weren’t done for marriages. At least she’d never heard of any marriages that were the result of a contract.
“Think of it as a promise to abide by certain rules,” Stephen said.
Lewis stood up so he could get a better look at the parchment on the desk. “You wrote a marriage contract?”
“I had to,” Stephen told him. “You, of all people, should know why.”
“But she’s not Eloise,” Lewis replied.
“I didn’t say she was,” Stephen said. “I’m merely providing a written agreement in which she and I understand the terms of the marriage. This isn’t a love match. It’s a transaction where I vow to provide for her and her unborn child in return for her vow to do three things. I’m not being unreasonable. I just don’t want certain problems to come up later.” He picked up the parchment and held it out to her. “Read it for yourself. If you don’t like the conditions of the contract, then don’t marry me.”
“This isn’t what I had in mind when I brought her here,” Lewis said as she took it.
“If you want to marry her, you can do so under your terms,” Stephen told him.
Ignoring them, she read through the contract. It seemed straightforward enough. Basically, it promised that in exchange for giving her and her child his name and his home, she would do three things for him. One, she would never look at his face. She wouldn’t try to remove his mask to see what was under it, and she would always knock on the door of the room he was in to allow him time to put the mask on. Two, she would keep the mirrors covered. The only mirror she was allowed to uncover was the one in her own bedchamber. All of the other mirrors were to be left alone. And three, she must never, under any circumstance, ask him about his past. She could discuss anything else with him, but that particular topic was to be avoided.
At the bottom of the contract, he had put his signature on one of the lines, and he had dated it. She supposed he expected her to do the same on the second line.
She looked up from the contract and focused in on what the two were arguing about.
“Was the marriage between her and your brother a love match?” Stephen asked Lewis, his gentle voice rising in frustration. “No. It was an arrangement they made for the benefit of both of them. Except in your brother’s case, he wanted an heir. I don’t see how that’s any different from what I’m doing.”
“You’re not paranoid like my brother was,” Lewis said.
“Maybe not, but I have a good reason to make this contract,” he replied. “I’m dismayed that you would even question it.”
“You don’t need to go through all of this. Not with Patricia. She’s a good lady.”
“I don’t mind signing it,” she interrupted.
The two stopped arguing and brought their attention to her, as if they hadn’t expected her to say anything.
She would have laughed if the situation wasn’t so serious. “Can I have the quill?” she asked.
Stephen nodded, dipped the quill into the inkwell, and handed it to her.
She stood so she could sign the contract on the desk. After she dated it, she gave him the contract and quill. When she realized Lewis was staring at her in disbelief, she said, “The terms are reasonable.” Besides, Ichabod had asked her to do something a lot stranger than what Stephen just did.
Holding onto the contract with one hand, Stephen placed the quill back in its holder with the other then rose to his feet. “Thank you, Patricia. Since we are to be married, please address me as Stephen. Lewis, I’ll be ready to marry her as soon as you can get a vicar here. In the meantime, I want both of you to be comfortable. If you need anything, the servants will see to your needs.”
Patricia watched as he left the drawing room. He was probably going to put the contract away in a secure place. Would she see him again before the wedding, or would he stay confined to another room?
Lewis let out a long sigh. “The contract wasn’t necessary.”
“I didn’t mind signing it,” she assured him. “It doesn’t bother me. It shouldn’t bother you, either.”
“He’s afraid you’ll act like his first wife. Ever since he married her, he’s put up these walls to keep people from getting close to him. I think the only reason he hasn’t pushed me away is because I knew him before Eloise came into his life. I don’t know the details of the marriage, but he hasn’t been the same person since.”
“What happened doesn’t matter. That’s all in the past. No one can change it.” God knew if she could change aspects of her past, she would, but no one could go back in time and do anything differently.
“Well,” Lewis began, “I better get a special marriage license and find a vicar to marry you and Stephen. Is there anything you want me to get while I’m in London? Any clothes or hats or boots?”
“No, I have everything I need.” The nice thing about living outside of London was that no one cared if she wore the same clothes all the time, and it didn’t matter how old those clothes were. Also, since no one did see her, she didn’t bother wearing mourning garb. It was hard to mourn someone she didn’t ever truly get to know.
“All right.” He glanced around the drawing room. “I’ll show you around the place before I leave. As Stephen said, all the rooms are free to explore.”
All the rooms except for his bedchamber. Stephen hadn’t come out and said it, but she suspected he didn’t want anyone in there. Since he wore a mask to hide his face, she would go even further to guess that even the servants didn’t go in there, unless it was to clean the room. And in that case, they probably hurried through the task.
Stephen was a private gentleman. Not as private as Ichabod, but private enough. And she would honor that privacy, just as she had honored Ichabod’s.
“Patricia?”
Breaking out of her thoughts, she brought her attention to Lewis.
“Are you ready to see the other rooms?” he asked.
Nodding, she joined him and left the drawing room.