Their Marriage 0f Inconvenience (HQR Historical) Page 3

  Pain and passion. An avid mix. He lifted her up and rode her as she had requested, her shouts of delight muted by his fingers hard banded across her lips.

  * * *

  Three hours later he was sitting at the back of a pub in Regent Street, the place filled to the brim with rowdy locals, the smell of smoke and strong drink in the air.

  Tom Brady, one of his oldest friends, was waiting for him, two cold beers on the table. He was an inspector for the Metropolitan Police and a damn useful contact to have.

  ‘I got your note, Sim, and I looked into the fiasco of Worthington’s last few weeks on this earth.’

  ‘And?’

  ‘The Viscount actually died a few days before the family released the news, apparently. On the eighth of July.’

  Simeon counted back the days. If this was true, then the Viscount was dead already when his daughter had come to see him and yet she had hardly looked grief stricken. Why not?

  Tom Brady continued. ‘Lionel Worthington was rumoured to be all but bankrupt and his sole estate is not even in the family’s hands after he made a number of poor investments. There is also talk of his late mistress, Mrs Catherine Rountree, for some say the Viscount had a hand in her death a month ago. He drank a lot by all accounts and a few of the first people on the scene of the carriage accident in the north intimated that he looked demented. An angry drunk, they told the constables who finally arrived, though by that time Worthington was long gone. Skulked off into the shadows in his drunken fury, hiding until he could formulate more lies to make some sense of his disappearance and be exonerated.’

  Fury railed in waves across Simeon’s body.

  ‘A letter, written by you, was found among the Rountree woman’s effects at her house in Camberwell, by the way, Simeon.’ Brady dug around in his pocket. ‘I thought you might like it back before anyone else could use it to point the finger at you, so to speak.’

  Taking it, Simeon held the missive tight while he struggled to work out what to say.

  In the end he stuck with the truth.

  ‘Did you read it?’

  ‘I did.’

  ‘Did anyone else?’

  ‘No. The property of the deceased Mrs Catherine Rountree was still to be sorted. A letter like this, where you threaten the Viscount, might be inflammatory for there were things about the Viscount’s death that did not make sense.’

  ‘Things?’

  ‘One of the Worthington servants, when questioned, said he heard raised voices and a fierce argument well into the evening. He thought perhaps there had been a visitor in the house, for around midnight he found the front door ajar, banging in the wind, and he was certain that it had been secured earlier on, as it always was.’

  ‘Who do you think it was?’

  Tom shrugged. ‘Worthington had his enemies. It could have been any number of people, but our services are stretched and there are other more important cases that will take precedence. You didn’t see him into the next world, did you, Sim? Your missive held threats, after all.’

  Lifting the beer to his lips Simeon drank deeply before replying. ‘Viscount Worthington wouldn’t be worth spending a long time in gaol for.’

  ‘From memory, you knew his mistress, Mrs Catherine Rountree, well, though, did you not? I recall you mentioning her over the years.’

  ‘She grew up in Angel Meadow, too, which is why I have taken full responsibility for her little child.’

  ‘Some say that Lionel Worthington was not kind to the girl, thinking her only a nuisance who took up far too much of Mrs Rountree’s time.’ When Brady spoke again there was hesitation in his words. ‘Did you see the Viscount in the days before his untimely demise, Sim?’

  ‘I did. I felt so strongly on the subject that I followed up my letter with an ultimatum in person the morning before he died. I reiterated that if he ever went near Flora Rountree again I would kill him. I was pleased to hear he went home and saved me the bother of seeing through such a threat.’

  ‘His older daughter found him.’

  ‘I had not heard that.’

  ‘It isn’t common knowledge. He is buried at Athelridge Hall apparently, in the small graveyard to one side of the chapel.’

  ‘Who is the heir to the title?’

  ‘A Mr Cartwright from York. Word has it he has a much bigger estate up north and Athelridge Hall was never part of the entailed property.’

  ‘So the Worthington family have returned home?’ Simeon thought of the deeds of ownership to Athelridge Hall sitting in his wall safe and the reality of an eternal resting place for a man he’d hated being right under his nose.

  ‘They left London in a rented hackney and the bills from their lengthy stay here have been left unpaid. Everyone is speaking of it so I doubt Miss Adelia Worthington will have any more suitors arriving on her doorstep now.’

  ‘You know of her?’

  ‘Miss Worthington?’ Tom hesitated, looking at him in a strange way. ‘What man with eyes and ears in London would not? Her beauty is heralded as unsurpassed and if her character has defects, then who would notice them?’

  ‘Defects?’

  ‘Apparently, she is haughty and strong minded and has turned down each and every desperate suitor with barely a reason. As a consequence, we at the Metropolitan Police have been foiling planned duels in her name ever since the end of January, when she arrived in the city.’

  ‘Like a modern-day Helen of Troy; a face that has launched a thousand proposals?’

  Tom laughed, but all Simeon could think of was one proposal. Hers to him. ‘I will allow you anything.’ The very words made his loins ache, a further irritation in a difficult month. His fever had abated, but the heat of their remembered encounter had left him unfathomably and uncomfortably warm.

  ‘Could I ask you to settle the debt the Worthingtons have left behind them in London, Tom? Anonymously.’ He brought out a wad of notes and peeled them off. ‘This should cover it. Speculation and gossip about that family will only harm the small daughter of Mrs Rountree if anyone were to dig deeper. Any investigation into Worthington’s liaisons means the child may be questioned and I’d rather she wasn’t.’

  Taking the money, Tom shoved it into his waistcoat pocket. ‘I’ll do that, though there is something else, too, that I need to speak to you about. Something much more...personal.’

  His tone had Simeon looking up.

  ‘Is Lionel Worthington’s older daughter a particular friend of yours?’

  ‘No. I only met her once a week or so back under difficult circumstances, but I barely know her.’

  ‘Then you might be interested in the fact that Miss Adelia Worthington has told everyone you asked for her hand in marriage and that her father had given his blessing. His last rite as a parent, I think she said, and the first time in a long while that she had seen him happy. A final gift. Something to be treasured.’

  ‘Are you serious?’

  ‘She has the proof, too, for her matrimonial dowry was Athelridge Hall and she has made it known that you accepted the titles for it from the Viscount as surety of your intentions.’

  ‘I recovered the place after Worthington’s bad investments began to impinge on my own portfolio.’

  Tom frowned. ‘Was it a public notice?’

  Simeon did not answer.

  ‘Witnesses would have been useful, but still...’ Tom threw that thought away and began on another. ‘Her beauty must count somewhat in her favour.’

  ‘Favour?’

  The way Tom had said that sentence was somewhat worrying.

  ‘She is a tease, so I’m told, and a woman who provokes gossip. If Miss Worthington’s first months in society were filled with offers from the smitten sons of society, her last one was not. She hit the Honourable Rodney Anstruther over the head with an umbrella in Hyde Park for no good reason whatsoever and
he has made certain everyone knows of it.’

  ‘What does he say of her, then?’

  ‘That Miss Worthington has an icy heart and a cold manner and that she is not to be trusted.’

  The day drew in on him.

  ‘And the others?’

  ‘Have withdrawn their own suits on the death of her father. It seems that the Worthington financial stability is not at all as the Viscount had intimated and society favours the wealthy. Perhaps Adelia Worthington has her own reasons for her interest in your substantial fortune, Sim. A solution, so to speak, to all her woes.’

  Just like all of the others. Just like the newly brought-out debutantes and their desperate mothers. He’d been in society just twice over the past year and had hated it both times. It was why he had stuck with Theodora Wainwright and her ilk. While such women might wish for permanence in his life, they would never expect it.

  There was no way in hell that Lionel Worthington and his daughter would have the last laugh. No. He would visit his lawyers tomorrow and find out just what could be done to escape these lies.

  With a flourish, he finished his beer and called for another just as Tom began to speak again.

  ‘You’re twenty-seven now, Sim. Some wily female would have caught you sooner or later and you need heirs for that fortune you have accumulated.’

  Simeon shook his head. ‘You are wrong about that. A fortune means nothing to me and one marriage in this lifetime was more than enough.’

  Tom nodded. ‘Hell, I had almost forgotten about Susan Downing. What were you? Nineteen?’

  ‘Led by my lust and eminently stupid is what I was. I regretted marrying her the morning after we had walked up the aisle. With Miss Worthington there wouldn’t even be that twenty-four hours of hopefulness.’

  ‘You could leave England. Disappear for a while?’

  ‘I have a business to run. I’d be as bankrupt as Lionel Worthington if I did that.’

  ‘Then if there is no way to escape marriage, take her to Athelridge Hall and leave her there. There are many other men in London who never see their wives and life goes on as normal.’

  ‘Normal?’ Simeon could hardly get his head around the very idea. ‘A misguided deceitful harlot claiming my name and bearing any rightful heir. How could that ever be normal?’

  The cold he was recovering from suddenly seemed to freshen and he spent the next few moments coughing, sick in mind and body and reeling from the betrayal of a girl who wasn’t even out of her teens. If he handled this crisis badly, he would be the laughingstock of London and his burgeoning investment business would bear the brunt of his ill-thought-out decisions.

  Already his youth in the founding of a railway empire had counted against him and he did not need this sort of a mess in his personal life to add to any conjecture. This industry depended on steadfastness. It needed a cool head and a sound grasp of financial practice. A humiliating and contentious marriage would be the antithesis to all he had worked so hard for and there was no way he would let such a thing happen.

  No. Miss Worthington might not yet realise that she had a tiger by the tail with his claws unsheathed, but she soon would.

  A private battle it might have to become, but he could well deal with that. He swore that she would rue the day she had tricked him into this and the most beautiful visage in all the world would be no protection whatsoever against his unbridled fury.

  * * *

  Fifteen hours later Simeon swept through the gates of Athelridge Hall, outside Barnet, in his carriage with all the speed of a man with the devil on his heels. And in a sense an evil spirit was there in front of him, in the form of Miss Adelia Worthington, a tease, a liar and a hypocrite. He’d had his lawyers look over his alternatives and paying her off seemed like the easiest and least public option.

  Even the thought of parting with some of his hard-earned fortune made him absolutely furious, especially in the face of such baldly executed lies, but marrying her and living a lifetime of deceptions and fabrications again looked a whole lot worse.

  He had dressed in his most sombre suit of clothing, a dark wool that he’d paid too much for from Henry Poole in Brunswick Square. He was glad of the no-nonsense cut of the jacket even as he loosened his necktie a little. He would need all the certitude that he could muster, all the righteousness his career had honed and perfected. His best game without a doubt was called for and the utter disbelief and rage in the face of Miss Worthington’s deceit must be somehow bridled by sense and substance. And also by the cold hard cash of blackmail if it came down to that.

  He could ill afford to show her exactly how incensed her falsehoods had left him feeling because it seemed that Miss Worthington held no compassion or empathy for anyone or anything.

  His lawyers, too, had been most specific. Without witnesses to his acquisition of the family estate the daughter had a clear case of intent of purpose and, in all likelihood, the law would most probably side with a wronged and young female of good birth. Her beauty held some account, as well. It seemed she’d had suitors falling at her feet after only a few seconds in her company and any legal opposition would most probably succumb to such feminine persuasion. She would be absolutely lethal in court.

  A doomed rebuttal. A closed case. Unless he was generous and clever.

  The servant who came to the door was ancient, a wizened octogenarian of indeterminate hearing and sight.

  ‘I need to see Miss Adelia Worthington immediately.’

  ‘Pardon, sir. Speak up a little so that I might hear you better.’

  At this the man took a step to his left and lifted up a piece of paper rolled into the shape of a cone and proceeded to apply the small end to his left ear.

  ‘Talk into this if you will, sir.’

  ‘Miss Adelia Worthington.’ Simeon shortened his sentence and waited.

  ‘You wish to see her?’

  Instead of answering, he simply nodded and watched as the man shuffled off.

  The place was tatty and worn, the wallpaper to the left of the door peeling away into long unfurling strands. No one had seen to it in years, he surmised, as he spotted small parts of the detritus all over the cracked tiled floor. In fact, nothing looked cared for or well-tended.

  Wrath warred with disbelief, the two emotions producing a third feeling of sheer puzzlement until he felt as if he might well burst with the mix.

  Fisting his fingers, he tried to pull himself together. He’d survived a childhood of sharp edges and was now a bulwark of sound English business practice. He’d become a man who was frequently held up as a shining example of wisdom and astuteness, yet within a moment of coming anywhere near to the person of Miss Adelia Worthington he seemed to have lost all good judgement and prudence.

  She arrived as he took in a sharp breath, an old cloak wrapped around her body and a look on her face that held only horror. Simeon did not give her the chance to speak first.

  ‘I will not marry you, Miss Worthington, and if you have the temerity to think your mean-spirited trick might actually work and imagine that I should bow down to such treachery, then you do not know me at all.’

  The old servant stood beside her, watching his lips as he spoke, a heavy frown forming on his lined face. Another elderly woman of the same ilk had come to observe them from the head of a dark passageway and she looked just as concerned.

  Adelia Worthington remained speechless, the startling beauty of her face like a red rag to a particularly temperamental bull. Her hair was largely down and undone and she had smudges on both cheeks. Even dirty and unkempt she was an Incomparable and he thought she must know it for she had the gall to actually smile at him.

  ‘If you would step into the sitting room, we could continue our discussion there, Mr Morgan...’

  ‘Discussion?’ He heard the anger in the word as he responded.

  ‘Argument, then,’ sh
e gave back with a quiet reserve, ‘and an argument I would prefer was for our ears only.’ She stated this as he simply stared.

  Good Lord, he had seriously underestimated her. She was as proficient as a high court judge in trying to defuse a difficult situation. She was even now ordering a pot of tea to be brought in.

  ‘I think absinthe might be more my drink of choice, Miss Worthington. An elixir associated with social malaise and personal violence seems to be in order.’

  She ignored that and added sweet biscuits to her list of wants, the old woman waiting by the door scurrying off to fetch them, the even older man at her heels.

  Left alone, Simeon saw the utter ridiculousness in this whole situation. Why the hell did he not simply state his refusal to marry her and leave or, failing that, threaten her with the exposure of her unwise visit alone to his town house? It was the look in her eyes, he was to think later, an injured desperation that made him hesitate. The secrets were back, too, and the fear. He knew full well what people looked like when they had very little left to lose.

  ‘Please...’ She gestured, her arm visibly shaking, and because of this he followed her into a room, situated on one side of the entrance hall, that was small but tidy.

  Shutting the door behind him, she leant against the portal, reminding him forcibly of their first encounter.

  ‘I am sorry, Mr Morgan.’

  Her voice was soft, uncertain, and he suddenly fancied her on the edge of tears.

  ‘Sorry for all your lies and treachery?’ He waited until she nodded. ‘Take them back, then. Renounce your ridiculous inaccuracies and we shall both go our separate ways. We will never need to see each other again.’

  ‘I can’t.’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘Athelridge Hall is my family home. We cannot be without it.’

  ‘I will gift it back to you, then. As soon as I return to town.’

  ‘No.’ This was said in a different tone. One far more strident. ‘It is permanence I want.’