Cecilia made it through dinner, and tea with the ladies afterward, by sheer force of will and good manners. She even managed to participate in the game of Charades someone suggested when the gentlemen joined the ladies in the drawing room. But all the while her mind was spinning, grasping at any possibility that might keep the Earl of Grimsby’s mouth shut.
As soon as was polite, she said goodnight and excused herself to her bedchamber where she could move around freely while she tried to think.
“Very well then, Cecilia,” she said aloud, “what can you do to keep Grimsby from telling Alston about that letter?”
The obvious answer was to pay the five thousand pounds he required and hope that he kept his promise to return the letter to her. It was the quickest, easiest way to put the whole matter to rest. But it was also predicated on a blackmailer keeping his promise.
She began walking around the room, skirting the edge of her bed and heading for the washstand before turning back toward the fireplace. “I don’t like that at all. What’s to stop Grimsby from refusing to turn over the letter, or demanding more money?”
She could always even the score later. Grimsby had a wife and daughter who enjoyed the entertainments of the Season, and Grimsby himself had been known to escort them about Town. With Cecilia’s social position it would be easy keep Lady Grimsby’s name off the guest lists for balls and soirees. A word in the ear of one of the Patronesses and vouchers for Almack’s would be withheld. It would be a miserable year for a husband-hunting girl and the mother watching her flounder.
Yet it wasn’t the Grimsby women that Cecilia wanted to punish, it was the earl himself.
“He might be indirectly affected, but it wouldn’t be enough. And Lady Grimsby has never been anything but kind to me.” Running a hand over the footboard as she passed the bed again, she shook her head and discarded the idea.
What else?
“I suppose I could arrange to have him injured.”
Cecilia halted abruptly as soon as the words were out of her mouth. No, that was clearly unacceptable. She might feel justified in imagining scenarios where his lordship got what he deserved, but to actually cause physical damage would be unconscionable.
Sighing, she resumed her circuit about the chamber at a more somber pace. “I’m just going to have to pay him. My brother’s peace—his very life—is certainly worth five thousand pounds. If I insist on a simultaneous exchange, the chances of getting my letter back are much greater.”
Perhaps her cousin’s cook would have some pastries squirreled away in the kitchen that would make Cecilia’s pride easier to swallow. She strode to the door and opened it, pausing in the hallway to get her bearings. As she located the main staircase, she noticed candlelight spilling out from a partially open door further down. A male voice joined the light.
“And there’s no one else in a position to help, is there?”
It was James. Cecilia crept closer, gathering the material of her skirts in one hand to quiet the rustle. What was this about?
“No. I’m sorry, Fitz. I thought for sure you’d find your patron here.” That was Mr. Eddington, sounding truly sorrowful. Why did James need a patron so badly?
“There has got to be a way to save the farm and keep my father out of debtors’ prison. I will not give over my family’s livelihood to that man, earl or not.”
Keep his father out of prison? Was Mr. Fitzsimmons the relative James had cheekily discussed before dinner? And who was the earl threatening him?
Cecilia’s hand went to her mouth to stifle her gasp, but it couldn’t stifle her words.
“It’s true, then.”
~*~
James turned and found Cecilia standing just outside the partially open door, her eyes widened with surprise. He gestured her inside and closed the door tightly behind her as she entered, mentally kicking himself for not having done so in the first place.
“Yes, it’s true.” There was no point in denying anything now. Cecilia was an intelligent woman and he was a terrible liar—she’d see through any story he tried to concoct.
“Who is it?” Her lips pressed into a firm line and her eyes narrowed. “Wait, it’s Grimsby, isn’t it? He’s at it again.”
James turned sharply. “Why would you think that?”
“How many other blackmailing earls do you know?” she shot back.
“Blackmailing?”
Cecilia nodded. “That is what he’s doing to you, isn’t it?”
“Did you say ‘again’?” Eddington cut in. “He’s done this before?”
“He’s doing it currently. To me.”
The room went quiet and James tried to understand what he’d just heard. Cecilia was being blackmailed by the Earl of Grimsby?
“He has a financial hold over my father,” James explained to her, glancing back at Eddington, then refocusing on Cecilia, “It isn’t blackmail, but a loan was made and now he wants full payment or we lose the farm. No one else can know. Promise me you won’t breathe a word to anyone.”
She nodded slowly and didn’t speak for a moment. The Cecilia he’d known all those years ago would have taken a secret to her grave for him. But would she now?
Then the corners of her eyes crinkled as her mouth formed a cheerful smile. “Oh, I can do better than that—I can help you stop him.”
“What? You’re a woman—what can you do to an earl, a peer of the realm?”
“First of all, I have money to hire solicitors and barristers and private investigators...whatever and whoever is necessary to combat his lordship legally, if such a thing is possible. At the very least, I can pay back your loan.”
“That would be helpful,” Eddington said transferring his gaze from Cecilia to James. “Neither you nor I have the funds to do that.”
“I also have connections to powerful lords, not the least of which is my brother.”
“There’s your patron.” Eddington directed his words to James with a slight nod and raised brows.
“That’s assuming I agree to this...this partnership. Eddington is correct in his assessment of our financial situation, but borrowing money from a female is unseemly. And what makes you think that your connections would bother with a lowly farmer you once knew? They certainly aren’t going to stick their necks out because you ask nicely.”
Cecilia laughed a little. “No, they probably wouldn’t. But they would do anything to see justice done for a member of the family.”
“Which I am not.”
“You would be if we married.”
Eddington made an inarticulate noise in his throat and tried to cover it with a cough. “Did you just ask Fitz for his hand?”
Cecilia kept her eyes on James. “You wouldn’t be borrowing money from me, then, either—my dowry is yours as soon as the vows are solemnized.”
Eddington coughed again and James glared at him, prompting the man to excuse himself and hurry out of the room with a mumbled, “I’ll just give you two some privacy.”
“Marriage?” James asked, dropping into a wing chair near the fire. “We haven’t been in contact with each other for seventeen years—after you declined my offer of wedded bliss, might I add. You didn’t even acknowledge that you knew me before dinner today. And now you want to become my wife?”
She followed him to the fire and seated herself in the chair opposite him. “It doesn’t have to be a real marriage. We would not have to live as husband and wife.”
But they would still be husband and wife. The dream of his twenty-year-old self come true...too late. “Would your relations help me if I were just a husband of convenience?”
“Probably not,” she said, clasping her hands together on her knee. “The money and my status would be yours, though, along with whatever I can do personally.” She paused a moment and took a breath as if she were collecting herself. “If we told everyone it was a love match, my family would be more than happy to protect you.”
James felt himself shaking his head in frustration. “Why would you even suggest such a thing? You can’t love me after all these years—you don’t know me anymore, nor do I know you. You can’t be out to spite your relations by marrying so far beneath you, since you offered them up as allies. I’d find it very difficult to believe that you long to give up your ways as a grand lady and settle down on my farm. So what is it?”
“I treated you badly, James. I know it was a long time ago, but it still weighs on my conscience. I led you to believe we could have a life together, then cast you aside when you tried to make that a reality.”
“Did it hurt you to refuse me?” he asked quietly. The pain in her voice was oddly touching, even after all the time that had past.
Her eyes darted to his. “Of course it did. I was wounded deeply when I sent you away. That it was a self-inflicted wound made it even worse.”
“Then why did you?” The words came out with more bitterness than he’d intended. “Why did you refuse me after encouraging me for months? Why did you let me think you loved me when you didn’t?”
“I did love you.” The words were soft, almost lost in the popping of the fire. She glanced down at her lap before meeting his gaze once again. “My niece was thirteen and not so far from thoughts of marriage herself. Marrying you, with your social rank so far below mine, would have harmed Honoria’s prospects of a good match.”
He let out a humorless laugh at that. “You think marrying a farmer would have rendered a duke’s daughter unmarriageable?”
“Not unmarriageable, no. But I wanted her to have every opportunity to find a good husband. The scandal we would have created would have touched my whole family.”
There was the real reason she’d refused him. “And they wouldn’t have approved, would they?”
“No.”
“Then why would they now?”
“Because I’m an old spinster,” she answered flatly. “And Honoria has been safely married for over a year now. If my brother and my cousins believe marrying you makes me happy, they won’t care who you are.”
James stood and walked around to the back of his chair, leaning against it. “So this is your chance to atone, to make yourself feel better all these years later.”
“That’s part of it.”
“What’s the other part?”
“Grimsby also has a hold over me. He has one of the letters I wrote to you when we were together, and has threatened to make it public.”
James felt his face flush with heat. Those letters had been for his eyes only, not for a snake like Grimsby and certainly not for the Society gossips.
“James?”
“I was just thinking about the things you wrote in those letters.”
Pink crept into her cheeks, slowly at first then in a rush of color. “Oh.”
Oh indeed. She’d poured both her heart and her physical desires into those letters.
She pressed her hands to her cheeks for a moment and cleared her throat. “I, erm, suppose I could weather the scandal well enough on my own. But I’m terribly afraid it would put too much strain on Alston’s health.”
“He is unwell again?”
She nodded. “I fear the stress of such humiliation would kill him. And I will not let Grimsby tear my family apart.”
James leaned more heavily against the back of his chair. “I can’t fault you for that. One has to protect one’s family whenever possible.”
“Then you agree to my plan?”
“I don’t know, Cecilia.” He ran a hand over the back of his neck. He didn’t even know how he felt about seeing her again. How was he supposed to handle her offer to wed him?
“We can do it quickly—a marriage by special license can be arranged while we’re here at the house party. Once our vows are solemnized, my letter becomes moot and you have money to save the farm. We both win, and Grimsby doesn’t get to revel in our disgrace.”
“We will be shackled to each other—and our past—for the rest of our lives.”
“We will,” she said slowly. “Though when everything has been settled we could go our separate ways.”
“How very aristocratic,” he returned dryly. That was the second time she’d mentioned separate lives. Perhaps she was just as reluctant to wed him as he was her.
She sat up straighter. “You’d rather go on living together? Pretending that we can be happy together for the next thirty or forty years?” He watched her press her lips together and take another deep breath. “Let’s prioritize. We can marry, safeguarding my brother, and send Grimsby a bank draft, safeguarding your farm. Then once we have that in hand and know your family to be safe, we can re-evaluate our own situation. Does that sound reasonable to you?”
James nodded, hesitant to agree but seeing no other way out of the mess his father had created. “It does.”
“We’ll have to make my family believe we’re in love to secure their protection for you. And it will negate the need to tell them about the blackmail. Will you agree to that?”
He sighed. There really was no other way to save the farm if Grimsby went back on his word. Nor would his father appreciate James telling strangers about his financial situation. “Yes, I will agree to it.”
“Then congratulations, Mr. Fitzsimmons, you and I are betrothed.”
~*~
What had she done?
Cecilia lay sprawled on her bed staring up at the ceiling, wondering how she’d managed to affiance herself to a man who wanted little to do with her.
“It’s for the good of us both,” she told the pillow beside her. “And for our families.”
The pillow was unmoved by her declaration, so she tried again. “Yes, the provision about pretending ours is a love match is necessary. News of my wedding a farmer to give him money would be at least as shocking to my brother as the letter in Grimsby’s possession.”
Still the pillow sat in silent judgment.
“I wasn’t lying when I said our parting weighed on my conscience—I gave James every indication that I would welcome his proposal, then I refused him when the time came.” She rolled onto her side and poked her index finger into the center of the pillow. “The worst part of it was that I wanted to accept him. I loved him and wanted nothing more in the world than to be his wife. But I was scared...”
“Scared of what?”
Cecilia planted her face into the pillow as Margaret closed the chamber door behind her, then flipped onto her back. “Have you forgotten how to knock?”
“I’m sorry. I heard your voice but no one else’s and wanted to be sure you were well. From what I heard, that may not be the case.”
Cecilia sat up and patted the bed beside her, hugging her cousin when Margaret came to sit down. “I am well enough in body, and I may have routed Grimsby. But I fear my heart is in for a turbulent month.”
“What happened?”
“I am going to marry Mr. Fitzsimmons.”
Margaret’s lips parted as if she wanted to speak. When no words came, Cecilia filled her in on the details of the agreement she’d made with James. By the time she was done, Margaret found her voice.
“I thought you weren’t going to even tell him about the letter. Why did you offer to marry him?”
“I did it on impulse. He was there before me, and in such difficulty. But he refused the help I could easily give, and I just blurted it out.”
“He didn’t agree with you so you proposed marriage?”
Cecilia heard the amusement in her cousin’s voice and felt a smile tug at the corners of her mouth. “It sounds silly when you say it like that.”
“What would you say to Honoria if she did such a thing?”
“Honoria’s much more in control of herself than I am,” Cecilia replied, picturing her niece at the last party they’d attended together. “She gets carried away with things from time to time, but I’m the impetuous one in the family.”
“Is that what you’re afraid of?” Margaret asked, taking her cousin’s hand. “That you’re too rash to be a wife?”
“The consequences of my actions would fall upon my husband and his family, too, not just on me. But that wasn’t it.” Cecilia felt her whole body tense, but forced herself to say the words. “I sent James away the first time because I was afraid of the consequences Honoria would face, but I was also afraid to live as a farmer’s wife. What if I couldn’t adjust to his level of income? What if I couldn’t do the things I was expected to do?”
“What if you couldn’t be the woman he needed?”
Cecilia leaned her head against Margaret’s shoulder. “Yes.”
“And now you have a safe way to find out—if it doesn’t work, you go back to being Lady Cecilia without any consequences.”
“And I feel like a coward all over again because of that.”
Margaret put her arms around Cecilia. “Then don’t think of the escape clause. Put your heart and soul into your marriage as if you were planning to live with him forever. If you’re a total failure, you’ll know you did the right thing all those years ago. If you’re a brilliant success, then you’ll vanquish your fears. Either way, you’ve spared your brother a blow to his fragile health and saved the Fitzsimmonses from ruin.”
“Those are terms I think I can live with.”
“But if you fall in love with him again...”
Cecilia shook her head against Margaret’s shoulder. “It won’t matter if I do. He hasn’t forgiven me for the way I treated him when we were young, nor is he inclined to try.”
“Then that’s his loss.”
“I only hope it isn’t mine, too.”