A Wife Worth Investing In

‘Are you heartbroken?’

She shook her head. ‘I thought I was at first, but I think my pride and my self-esteem were far more damaged than my heart. It’s not possible to be in love with a man who loves only himself. If I loved Pascal, truly loved him, I’d want him back, wouldn’t I? And I don’t.’

‘I’m glad to hear it. Wouldn’t you like to prove him wrong though, Phoebe? Wouldn’t you like the chance to prove yourself right?’

‘I don’t know. Yes, of course I would, but—’

‘Let me help you,’ he interrupted before she could once again denigrate her abilities. ‘There is a way to secure the funds you need to open your restaurant in an entirely respectable and above-board manner.’

‘How?’

‘Marry me. As my wife the marriage settlement I would make would be legitimately yours to do with as you saw fit.’

Her mouth fell open. ‘You are not serious.’

‘I am, deadly serious.’

She looked utterly taken aback. ‘You can’t be.’

‘Hear me out,’ Owen said urgently. There was no time for dissembling any more, for Phoebe was making moves to leave. ‘It would not be charity, you would be doing both Olivia and myself a huge service. Olivia Braidwood,’ he added in response to her blank look. ‘The woman I’m going to be obliged to marry, unless I can find a way out of it.’

‘You are engaged to be married!’

‘I have to find a way out of it Phoebe,’ Owen said fervently. ‘I’ve already destroyed my own life, I won’t destroy hers.’

‘You are engaged to be married,’ Phoebe repeated, sounding stunned. ‘Yet you made no mention of it yesterday. I did wonder if you might have married. That was one of the many possible reasons why you missed our assignation. You are a very attractive man. You are extremely wealthy, you have—I remember when we met in Paris, thinking if it were not for Pascal, because there was something between us, wasn’t there? I wasn’t imagining it?’

Her words brought such a pang of yearning that it took Owen’s breath away. Talk about impossible dreams!

‘I am so sorry,’ Phoebe said, jerking him back to the present. ‘I have embarrassed you. I was simply surprised that you had omitted to mention something of such import.’

‘I am not betrothed, not formally,’ Owen said, regaining his focus. ‘There has been no announcement, though it is well known that Olivia and I have an understanding.’

‘An understanding that you think would destroy this Miss Braidwood’s life? Why on earth would you think such a thing?’

* * *

‘Owen?’ Phoebe eyed him with some concern. This was the second time it had happened, this odd blank stare. ‘Is there something wrong?’

He started, blinked. ‘It’s nothing. Nothing serious. I lose concentration, drift off for a few moments now and then.’

‘Because of your accident?’

‘My doctor told me when I first came back to England that such episodes would pass, given time. I see no point in disillusioning him.’

‘Have you also led him to believe that the pain in your leg has passed?’

He shrugged. ‘I’ve tried everything the doctors have to offer. They can’t do any more for me.’

His words stirred her compassion. ‘Is that why you’ve shut yourself away from the world, because you believe you won’t get any better?’

‘I did not make a conscious decision to shut myself away. I have a world of my own now, this one, right here, and I’m perfectly content with that.’

‘Forgive me, but you don’t look very happy.’

‘I am not unhappy,’ he responded testily. ‘I have simply accepted that this is how I am and how I will be. Which is why my proposal requires you to be my wife in name only.’

‘Good grief!’ Phoebe exclaimed. ‘My aunt’s marriage is just such an arrangement. My sister Eloise’s marriage was also intended to be another such. It seems to run in the family.’

‘And are they happy, your aunt and your sister?’

‘Yes, though Eloise fell in love with her husband after they married. Their marriage has turned out very differently from the one they intended.’

‘But they were happy to sign up to the original agreement?’ Owen persisted.

She pursed her lips, recalling the weeks before Eloise was married and the excitement with which she had embraced her changed circumstances. ‘Yes, even if they had not subsequently fallen in love—yes, I believe it would still have been a successful match.’

‘So are you willing to consider my offer?’

‘I still don’t understand what it is you are offering and why.’

‘But you’ll listen? And you’ll consider what I have to say? I am, as I said, deadly serious.’

Phoebe hesitated. His words sounded sincere but his demeanour was strangely unemotional, almost detached. His accident had changed him radically, that much was certain, and their entire acquaintance consisted of two brief encounters more than two years apart. But it surely couldn’t have changed the essence of him. He was still the honourable man who had come to her rescue at the Procope. A man she could trust. A man now under extreme duress. What on earth had she to lose by listening to him? In fact she’d be a fool not to.

‘I remember,’ she said, ‘when my sister Eloise was considering her now husband’s proposal, we talked about it endlessly. We felt, all of us, including Aunt Kate—and she ought to know—that it was extremely important that Eloise went into the marriage with her eyes wide open.’

‘You mean you want to know exactly what you’d be getting yourself into?’

‘And why. Why do think you would be destroying Miss Braidwood’s life if you did marry her? Why must you marry someone else in order to avoid marrying her? And why me?’

‘These are big questions.’

‘It’s a very big decision.’

‘It’s an outrageous idea, I know, but it is—I truly believe that it could be the answer to both our problems.’ Owen shifted on his chair, wincing as he moved his injured leg from the footstool to the floor. ‘My accident occurred a little over two years ago,’ he said. ‘In Marseilles. Not long after we met in Paris, as a matter of fact.’

‘Just when you were setting out on your travels! Oh, Owen, how awful. What happened?’

He went quite rigid, staring down at his gloves. ‘There was a fire. That’s all I know. I remember almost nothing of it and don’t want to either. My hands were badly burned. Something heavy, a beam I think, fell on top of me. My hip was shattered. I was unconscious for some weeks afterwards. It was three months before I was well enough to face the journey back to London. Six months before I could walk again.’

Though she could see from the way he held himself, completely still, that saying even this much was an immense effort, his tone was oddly cold, as if he was recounting something that had happened to someone else. Phoebe yearned to comfort him, but she couldn’t hug him, and in any case, it was clear the last thing he wanted was sympathy.