Deceived

The old man looked startled, as though Marcus had requested some unacceptable privilege. After a moment, he trotted across to the dingy side chapel, returning with a sheet of rough parchment that he handed over with a look that implied another sum of money would now be in order. Isabella sighed and passed across two shillings, which disappeared into the pocket beneath the dirty surplice.

Marcus dipped the quill in the ink pot and scribbled a few lines, dusting the paper with sand to dry it. He handed it to Isabella.

“Take this. I would not wish there to be any ambiguity.”

Isabella frowned as she scanned the paper. He had written a few curt lines to the effect that he was prepared to take complete responsibility for the debts incurred in his wife’s name. If anything was destined to make Isabella feel even more squalid and money-grubbing than she already did, it was these few lines. They emphasized the commercial soul of the agreement in a manner that left no room for sentiment.

“Witnesses?” Marcus said. There was a clear note of impatience in his voice now.

Isabella’s heart sank still further. That was the one thing she had not considered.

“I had not thought—” she began. She looked over her shoulder. The jailer was standing behind them looking hopeful. No doubt he thought there was another few pounds in it for him, both in acting as witness and in keeping quiet about it afterward. Perhaps he could even rustle up one of his colleagues to be the other signatory to the marriage lines. Hysterical laughter bubbled in Isabella’s throat. Married in the Fleet, with a turnkey as witness and the priest half-drunk on the brandy she had supplied as part of the bribe…how ill-fated could a wedding be? She pressed a hand to her lips to suppress her amusement.

The jailer rubbed his palms on his dirty trousers, whistled up one of the other warders and came forward as the priest beckoned. Marcus took her hand. His touch was impersonal and yet a flicker of awareness ran through Isabella like a flame through tinder, catching in an instant and distracting her thoughts from everything but him. She almost snatched her hand away, so acute was her response to him. She knew that he would be able to feel her trembling, and felt as vulnerable as though she had been stripped naked. This was not how it was meant to be, with her emotions at the mercy of this man.

The service began. It seemed to Isabella that they were racing through it, for a Fleet wedding was never going to be a long and languorously romantic affair. There were no lingering glances of affection between bride and groom or indulgent smiles from the chaplain. There was a tense silence broken only by the mumbled words of the service, Marcus’s decisive tones as he made his responses and Isabella’s own, more hesitant words of commitment. At one point she faltered, engulfed by memories of her first marriage twelve years earlier, and Marcus’s hand tightened on hers as he turned to look at her. She thought that she would read impatience in his eyes, but when she looked up at him, he was watching her with a strangely speculative interest. She drew on the shreds of her courage and straightened, repeating her vows in a stronger tone.

“Do you have the ring?” the priest asked.

Isabella shook her head. She had not remembered that she would need one and since she had pawned all her jewelry to meet some of her debt, she could not have provided one anyway. She heard Marcus sigh with resignation. A moment later he had taken his signet ring off and placed it on the open pages of the priest’s Psalter. Isabella shot him an agonized look.

“You cannot give me your signet ring!”

Marcus looked unimpressed. “This is not the time and place to discuss it.”

“But I—”

Marcus ignored her and turned back to the priest. “Proceed.”

He took the ring and slid it onto her finger, clasping his hand briefly around hers in an oddly protective gesture. The ring felt warm and heavy on Isabella’s hand. It was too big for her—she fidgeted with it, turning it round and round on her finger. It was inscribed very plainly with four entwined letters. M…J…E…S… She traced the lines in the gold.

It felt quite wrong to be taking Marcus’s signet ring, wrong and too personal when she had wanted nothing more than his name on a piece of paper.

The priest folded the Book of Common Prayer away under the sleeve of his dirty surplice. He had already scribbled the marriage certificate and now he thrust it at Isabella and waited for his fee, anxious for the matter to be finished. Isabella’s fingers were shaking as she folded the document carefully and stowed it in her reticule. This was her liberty, the paper that spelled her freedom. Yet when Marcus had let go of her hand at the end of the service, she had felt more alone than ever, free but not comforted.

Marcus was watching her. She thought that there was an element of mocking amusement in his eyes. No doubt he found her predicament comical, the scandalous Princess Di Cassilis obliged to marry a debtor…

“Well?” he said.

“Thank you,” Isabella said, finding herself unable to look at him.

“Do not mention it.” Marcus was smiling but it was not the sort of smile that comforted her. “I do believe that in return you offered me something.”

Isabella met his eyes. Her errant heart skittered nervously. Her throat felt suddenly dry. Images of those long-lost evenings mingled in her mind; the tender touch of his lips against her damp skin, the dry salty scent of the sea mingled with old roses, the blazing heat of that summer…but the flames of that passion were long dead after many winters.

“Some bottles of wine, the means to purchase some proper food and a few items to make life more tolerable?” Marcus prompted when she did not speak.

“Oh, of course.” Isabella could feel herself blushing at the vastly different direction her own thoughts had taken. She paused. Her purse was almost empty, but it was not that that held her back. To repeat the offer of such a crude inducement had seemed unthinkable after Marcus’s angry rejection of it earlier.

“I was intending to pay you,” she admitted, “but I thought you had dismissed my suggestion.”

Marcus smiled again, with more genuine humor this time. “I am not so proud, I assure you. Besides, I thought that we had agreed that this is a business venture? We made a bargain.”

“So we did,” Isabella said. She fumbled for the coins and pressed them into his hand. He tucked them away in his waistcoat pocket.

“And you must take your ring back,” she added hastily, making to draw the gold signet ring from her finger where it had rested for such a short time.

Marcus shook his head, taking her hand and holding the ring in place. “Keep it,” he said. “Until we meet again.”

Isabella felt a pang of disquiet. “Will that happen?”

“Assuredly.”

“But not until we are safely unwed.”

Marcus’s smile deepened. “Of course.”

They stood looking at each other for a moment. Isabella felt strangely at a loss.

“I suppose that I should go?” she said uncertainly.

Marcus’s voice took a mocking edge at her obvious discomfort. “I suppose that you should. It is, however, customary to kiss the bride on the wedding day.”

Isabella’s nerves jumped. She took two steps backward until her skirt brushed the wooden upright of the front pew. This time when she withdrew from him, he followed her. She put out a hand to ward him off.

“As you have reminded me, this is a business arrangement, sir, and that was not part of the bargain.”

Marcus smiled at her again. It was a lazy smile, full of intimate challenge. She was not sure whether he was doing this out of revenge or devilry or simply to amuse himself, but his proximity was enough to shatter her composure. She wanted to escape but she could not move.

The jailer was becoming restive and fidgeting behind them, anxious to get his man back to the cells. Marcus ignored him. He took a single stride forward, caught Isabella’s arm and drew her to him, bringing the tips of her breasts up against the rough material of his jacket. He bent his head. His grip tightened on her arm. Then he was kissing her.

The pressure of his lips was no more than a whisper against hers. Even so, it was enough to cast Isabella back into the past, where the memory of his kiss had been locked away along with all the other tumbling images of passion. She had hidden those feelings from herself and from others for so long and now they were stirring, threatening to break out. So much for dust and ashes. Any tenderness there had been between them might be long gone, but the attraction still flared as hot as ever. It terrified her.

She made a small, incoherent sound and tried to put some space between them, but suddenly Marcus’s arms were about her and his mouth moved over hers with an expert thoroughness that stripped away every vestige of defense. The sensual heat washed through her, burning her up, scorching her to the tips of her toes.

No one had ever kissed her the way Marcus had. Ernest had indulged in a few cursory embraces before getting down to the consummation of their marriage but his lovemaking had lacked any tenderness. In all honesty, it could hardly be dignified with the word lovemaking. A less appropriate description would be difficult to find.

Ernest had not courted her; he had bought her. Bought her, taken what he wanted, tried to mold her to his tastes. And when she had proved less than satisfactory, he’d claimed that she had reneged on their bargain, and they had continued in a hollow sham of a marriage until he died. No indeed, there had been precious little romance and no true passion in Isabella’s life. Until now.

She trembled in Marcus’s arms. The touch, taste and desire mingled as he kissed her, then released her a little only to reclaim her mouth once again. Isabella’s body roused from what felt like a long sleep as she felt the hardness of him, his strength and control. Then it was all over and he let her go with an abruptness that plunged her back into darkness.

The atmosphere between them was blistering. Marcus’s face was shadowed but in his eyes burned a flame that seared her.

“You should not have—” she began.

His expression was hard. “It needed to be done.”

“Time to go,” the jailer said from behind them. He fingered the money in his pocket suggestively. “Unless you would prefer to stay a while longer, madam? A cozy cell for the two of you to celebrate wedlock?”