TWO

Tremayne Castle
December 22

JOSEPH ASHCROFT, the Viscount Tremayne, was puttering around in his—well, he liked to call it his conservatory, even though it really wasn’t one—when he heard the old wooden door rattling, making quite a racket.

A shout forced its way through the cracks. “Please, let me in!”

“You cannot go in there, Mistress,” one of Tremayne’s groundsmen hollered as the door rattled some more—to no avail, since it was barred from the inside. “This wing is unfinished and uninhabited. You must go around the castle and through the gatehouse.”

“I cannot—it’s urgent!”

“That door won’t open from out here. You really must go around, Mistress…?”

“Creath Moore—my name is Creath Moore.” The groundsman must have looked confused, because she added, “Creath—it rhymes with breath. And I must get inside now!”

Joseph was already unbolting the door. When he lifted the bar and pulled it open, Creath fell into his arms.

And immediately began sobbing on his shoulder.

“I’ve got her, thanks,” Joseph told the groundsman, who was standing there looking astonished to find anyone in the roofless building.

A new hire. Otherwise he would have known that Joseph used this half-built wing of the castle for his winter gardening—and the man would also have known Creath. She lived on the nearest estate, and she and Joseph had been friends for nearly ten years, ever since his family had moved here to Tremayne to wait out the Civil War in relative safety. He and Creath had grown up together. All of the old retainers knew her.

In ten years, Joseph couldn’t remember Creath ever sobbing this hard. Not even when her parents and little brother all died of smallpox last year. She wasn’t a short girl, but he was tall, and she felt slight and fragile shuddering against him. He couldn’t imagine what was so wrong, but his heart went out to her.

“Close the door,” she managed through her sobs. “And bar it. Please.”

Joseph disentangled himself from her to do that, shutting the door in the groundsman’s surprised face.

“Will you be all right?” he asked Creath once they were free from prying eyes.

“Yes. No. I don’t know.” Choking back more tears, she staggered over to his potting bench and dropped to one of the stools he kept nearby. Her gaze darted around the huge open space to all the glassless windows, which Joseph had covered in oiled parchment that let in light but blocked any view. “Will you look outside and see if anyone is approaching?”

Joseph blinked. “You just asked me to bar the door. Now you want me to unbar it? No one is there other than the groundsman—who else would be out in this freeze? The way the wind is gusting off the icy Severn, I fear we’re in for a storm—”

“I need to know if Sir Leonard followed me—just look!”

At twenty, Joseph already knew that he’d never understand females. But he could tell that this one was on the edge of hysteria. “Very well.” Hands held up in surrender, he backed away until he hit the door, then turned, opened it, and quickly shut and barred it again. “There’s no one. It’s so damned cold—” He broke off as he turned back to peer at her. “And yet, you wear no cloak. Did you walk here from Moore Manor with no cloak? Over a mile in the freezing cold?”

“There was no time to fetch a cloak. And I didn’t walk here, I ran, which warmed me some.” Although all four fireplaces were lit, and the oiled canvas overhead held in the heat to keep his plants alive, she shivered. “I feel cold now, though. I cannot go through with it, Joseph. I cannot marry Sir Leonard. I just cannot.”

Sir Leonard Moore, the rather distant cousin who had recently inherited her father’s baronetcy, expected to wed her on the second of January, the day before she turned eighteen. He coveted her holdings—acres of valuable land that weren’t included in the baronetcy’s entail, as they’d come from her mother’s family and now belonged to Creath. Unfortunately for her, Cromwell had seen fit to appoint Sir Leonard her guardian, which meant she couldn’t refuse to marry him. As long as she was underage, her marriage rights were his to bestow.

But up until now, she hadn’t objected to the match. When Joseph had questioned her, Creath had claimed she didn’t mind wedding a man more than twice her age. She’d always been destined to be a lady of the manor, and her mother had trained her well. Though she wished Moore Manor weren’t Sir Leonard’s manor, at least it was home. She’d told Joseph she would be content loving her children and caring for her tenants and ancestral lands. And one day, her son would be the next baronet, bringing the title back to her branch of the family where it belonged.

He’d believed her. He’d believed she’d make the best of her passionless marriage and take pleasure in the tasks expected of a lady. Because Creath was the kind of woman who would compromise her very soul in order to avoid conflict. The kind of woman who would square her shoulders, lift her chin, and get on with her life no matter what happened.

Clearly something had changed.

“What on earth happened?” Joseph reached to smooth the straight reddish-blond hairs that had escaped her usually neat bun.

Creath flinched from him, her arms wrapping around her middle. “He tried to bed me,” she stated bluntly. The girl could be honest to a fault. “He said he wanted to make sure I wouldn’t change my mind, make sure no other man would want me if I did change my mind.” Her lower lip quivered. “If you’d seen the look in his eyes, Joseph—I believe he is insane.”

“Holy Hades.” Something had changed, all right: The man had proved himself an animal. “He…he didn’t succeed, though?”

She shook her head, biting her lip to stop the quivering. “I begged, and then I fought, and he was hurting me. I grabbed one of Father’s heavy bronze statues and brought it down on his head. He dropped like a sack of flour…and I ran.”

It wrenched at his guts, watching her struggle for control. She clearly wanted to act like her normal, levelheaded self. But she didn’t seem to know how.

The bastard had really shaken her. Joseph wasn’t a violent man, but right then, he’d never felt more capable of murder.

“May I hide here?” she asked.

“Of course you can,” he told her, though he knew that was his father’s decision to make.

Joseph’s title was just a courtesy title. Someday he’d be the Earl of Trentingham, but until then his father was the lord and head of the family. Still, he knew his parents would agree to give Creath safe harbor. They loved her like a daughter.

“We’ll keep you safe,” he promised, hoping they could. “I think we can assume Sir Leonard didn’t follow you, since he would have arrived by now.”

“I hope he’s still knocked out,” she said darkly.

“Do you think he’ll guess where you’ve gone?”

“Maybe. I’m not sure. He doesn’t know me very well.” It had taken quite some time for the authorities to trace the Moore lineage back far enough to find and verify her father’s heir—Sir Leonard had arrived only last month. “I’m hoping he doesn’t know which neighbors are my friends. If I can hide for ten days, I’ll turn eighteen, and he won’t be my guardian anymore. He won’t be able to make me marry him then.”

“I’m not so sure, Creath. He’s a Justice of the Peace.” That appointment was another reward from Cromwell—Sir Leonard claimed to have fought beside him in the war. “Marriage is a civil matter now, no longer any business of God’s. If a Justice of the Peace can marry others, who’s to say he can’t also marry himself? He just has to write your two names in his register. The old ways are gone…”

“Oh, God, they’re all corrupt, aren’t they?”

“Not all. But certainly some.” Probably most. And he strongly suspected Sir Leonard was among the corrupt ones.

“I cannot marry him. I cannot.” Creath had always been a lovely pale English beauty, but now she looked positively white. “I’ve seen his true colors. He came from nothing, and he’s not a nice man. He’s a baronet now and has a government post, a solid position in society. But he wants more. He’ll always want more. He thinks marrying me will satisfy him, but it won’t, because he will never be satisfied with anything. He will grow to hate me and torment me till the end of my days.”

By the end of her speech, her pretty green eyes were leaking steadily.

Joseph plopped onto the stool beside her, and they both sat silent for a long time. The wind howled outside, making the canvas billow overhead. The weather was kicking up. Grasping for a solution that seemed just out of his mental reach, Joseph heaved a frustrated sigh.

“Well, there’s nothing for it,” he said lightly. “You’ll just have to spend the rest of your days in hiding.” If he couldn’t solve her problems, perhaps he could at least revive her good humor. “Remember the priest hole?”

It was hidden beneath the false bottom of a wardrobe cabinet—they’d played in it as children. She gave him a wan smile. “Alas, I’m not sure I could last even one day in there, let alone the rest of my days.”

“Oh, you wouldn’t have that many,” he quipped. “You’d die of starvation quick enough.” In Queen Elizabeth’s time, more than one priest had starved to death in a priest hole. The secret rooms were originally built to hide fugitive Catholics, who’d sometimes languished in them for days or weeks when the priest-hunters came around.

Creath’s little smile turned lopsided. “I’d wager I’d succumb to madness first. It’s pitch-black in there, and I loathe the dark.”

“I’ll take that wager—and see you well supplied with candles.”

He thought she almost chuckled. “You’re too—” Her smile faltered.

He waited. “Creath?”

“I’m sorry.” Her red-rimmed eyes seemed to focus on something far away. “Thanks for trying,” she whispered.

They fell into another silence. The canvas continued flapping, and a few snowflakes found their way inside. Joseph rose and took his time adding another log to each of the four fires, considering all the aspects of her dreadful dilemma. Examining the problem from every angle. Wracking his brain for any possible way out.

At last, it was Creath’s turn to heave a sigh. “Maybe he’s not as corrupt as we fear. Maybe he’ll give up once I’m eighteen.”

“And if he doesn’t?” he said, returning to her. “If your name ends up in his marriage register?”

“I don’t know what I’d do.” Her lip was trembling again, her face paler than a ghost’s. “I cannot be bound to a man who tried to rape me. I…I think I’d rather not live at all.”

“Don’t say that!” Joseph wanted to take her in his arms, but he wasn’t sure she was ready to be touched. What if he frightened her again and made everything worse?

He didn’t know what to do for her, this Creath who was so unlike his Creath. The girl he’d grown up with was steady and resourceful, relentlessly good-natured, always thinking of others. There weren’t a lot of people of his age and social status so far out in the countryside, but that had never mattered, because Creath was so easy to get along with. Though three years lay between them, they’d been the best of friends very nearly since the day they’d met.

He sat beside her again. There had to be an answer. He was smart. He was logical. He knew how to think things through.

And his best friend needed him.

How could he save her from that brute without hiding her in a priest hole forever?

“I’ll marry you,” he said quite suddenly.

“What?”

“I’ll marry you. We’ll go to Bristol and find a Justice of the Peace. The weather is worsening now, but we’ll go as soon as it’s better.” Bristol was only twelve miles away—unless the weather was absolutely awful, they could get there. “We’ll go well ahead of your planned wedding day for sure. Sir Leonard won’t be able to force you to marry him if you’re already wed to me.”

She looked horrified. Not desolate like she had at the prospect of wedding Sir Leonard, but truly horrified. “I cannot marry you, Joseph!”

“Why not? It’s the perfect solution.” And once Joseph Ashcroft found a solution, he stuck with it…even if he found the idea a tad bit horrifying himself.

She shook her head. “It isn’t the perfect solution!”

“I think it is. We won’t want to wait too long—we won’t want to give Sir Leonard too much time to find you, but—”

“Joseph! You’re not listening! I cannot marry you. It wouldn’t be fair to you. I—I love you, but not like that.”

“Why on earth should that matter?” He pinned her with the most persuasive gaze he could muster. “You don’t love Sir Leonard like that either. In fact, you don’t love him at all. Yet until today you were prepared to marry him.”

“That was different. He wasn’t giving me a choice, and he wasn’t foolishly sacrificing his own happiness to secure mine.”

“Marrying you won’t mean sacrificing my happiness,” Joseph said, wondering if he was sacrificing his happiness.

But of course he wasn’t. He’d thought this through, hadn’t he? He always thought things through before making decisions.

It was true that he hadn’t expected to marry at twenty. Hell, he hadn’t expected to marry before thirty. But what did that matter?

Father didn’t want to be anywhere within Cromwell’s easy reach while he was in power, which was why they were here at Tremayne. Now that the war had ended and the wrong side had won, Joseph figured he’d be stuck here the rest of his life. And the only suitable girl close to his age here was Creath, so why not marry her? He might not love her like that, but he liked her a lot. And it wasn’t as though he would find anyone else. There was no one else to find.

“Maybe we’ll fall in love like that after being married a while,” he said, although he didn’t think it likely. They’d known each other ten years already and hadn’t fallen in love. But it was possible.

Wasn’t it?

Did it matter?

He had to save Creath.

“I’m not going to fall in love with you, Joseph. Which doesn’t signify, because your idea won’t work.” Apparently she had decided to change tacks. “I’m still seventeen. I won’t be able to marry without Sir Leonard’s permission while he’s still my guardian.”

“Most of the justices are corrupt, remember? There are at least a dozen of them in this county. And more than a few respect my father. Those who were appointed before the regicide remember when the Earl of Trentingham was a very powerful man.” Though he felt a little sick to his stomach, he forced a confident smile. “I’m sure Father can direct me to a justice who will happily write our names in his register even though you’re a few days shy of eighteen. I’ll give him money, and he’ll conveniently forget to ask your age. And it will be done. And you will be safe.”

“And you will be miserable.”

“I will not. You’re my friend. My best friend. I’ve always suspected that marriage to a friend might be the best sort of marriage anyhow.”

That wasn’t true—he’d never suspected anything of the kind. But it sounded good, didn’t it? He’d said it so earnestly that it sounded good to him.

“I don’t know…” She was weakening.

“Come here.” He rose and brought her up with him, moving slowly so as not to startle her. Holding her hands, he felt nothing special, nothing exciting, nothing new. Not even the spark of desire he felt with other girls, with the villagers’ daughters who’d tumbled him in his youth, and the ones he’d later tumbled himself. Being near them had been thrilling. Being near Creath was…pleasant.

He was planning to marry her, but she was still just Creath Moore, his childhood friend.

He tilted her face up and pressed a chaste kiss to her lips, and still he felt nothing special.

But kissing her didn’t feel bad, either. It felt nice. Comfortable. And he couldn’t abandon her to her cousin Sir Leonard, a man who made her shiver with cold in a conservatory heated by four fireplaces.

She was sweet and kindhearted, and she didn’t deserve such a fate. “Will you marry me, Creath?”

“I suppose so.”

“Pray try to contain your excitement,” he said with a forced laugh. “Let’s go tell my parents.”