“I have no intention of marrying,” he said through clenched teeth, “and I don’t want to encourage Grandmama to think I do.”
“Nonsense!” Sally said. “You will meet your destiny and fall madly in love one of these days, but for now all you must do is pretend your wife exists. Grandmama won’t know the difference, and everything will go along like clockwork.”
“Until she learns the truth,” James said furiously. “Did that never occur to you?”
“You’ve got the same bad temper as three years ago,” Simon remarked. “Being shipped off to America didn’t improve you at all.” He grinned. “Looking for a pond to toss me into?”
“I’ll take care of that later,” James said. He rounded on Sally. “What about the fact that I would rather not lie to her?”
“I didn’t think you would be obliged to,” Sally explained. “We didn’t expect you home for at least another couple of months, and by that time I would have the vouchers, and we could tell Grandmama your wife died in a carriage accident or of a fever.”
“Tragic end, life cut short, problem solved,” added Simon.
James took a deep breath and counted to ten. And ten again. “None of this makes any difference. I shan’t lie to the old lady.”
“But you simply must,” Sally begged. “Grandmama’s been so happy talking about great-grandchildren and carrying on the family line. Life’s been much more bearable since we invented your wife. If she finds out it’s all a lie, she’ll know what a fraud I am, and she’ll never write for the vouchers, and I’ll never get to Almack’s and meet my destiny.”
The chit’s head was still stuffed with fairy tales. “No one destined to cope with you would frequent that deadly dull place,” he said wearily, but put up a hand to fend off her protests. “I know. I know. You simply must go there anyway.”
“It might kill the old bird if you tell her the truth now,” Simon warned helpfully.
Sally clasped her hands together in an attitude of prayer. “Darling James, please say you will. It’s not just for my sake. Think of the embarrassment to my poor friend, when she’s been so manfully cooperative in spite of not wanting to at all.”
With an all-too-familiar feeling of being sucked into a bog from which there was no escape, James asked, “Not wanting to what?”
“To pretend to be your wife.”
An honourable woman would have opted for the hedgerow.
Pompeia Grant stabbed her needle through the linen stretched across her tambour frame. Sally had left her in the drawing room while she went upstairs to fetch more yarn for the Dowager Lady Carling, who had completed her fifth pair of stockings in two days. The old tartar was an indefatigable knitter for the poor, and her hapless daughter-in-law, to put it mildly, wasn’t. Not that Pompeia minded being an intermediary between one combatant and the other, but she wished the Dowager would stop holding her up as an example of what a Carling wife should be. Pompeia might be able to knit stockings with the best of them, but she was unsuited to being anyone’s wife, and was proving it now by perpetrating a fraud.
“Mary, dear,” Lady Carling the younger said with a dismal sigh, “I’ve ruined the heel again.” For the purposes of the deception, they were using her governessing name, Mary, since Pompeia was so unusual, with (according to Simon) a distinctly improper ring to it. Naturally Simon, like the husbands, sons, friends, and neighbours of her erstwhile employers, had homed in instantly on her sensual nature. All men did, no matter how much she tried to suppress what she had come to call her Wanton Within.
When she’d trudged up the drive of Carling Manor two days earlier, wet, weary and footsore, Pompeia had meant only to beg a night’s lodging and a ride to the stagecoach the following day. The daunting prospect of presenting her soggy self at the door with a battered valise and an outright lie had been outweighed by the alternative of curling up under a hedgerow in the rain. She’d been standing under the eaves of the stable, tidying her dripping hair and screwing up her courage, when Sally had darted out of the house to intercept Simon as he’d returned from a ride and bumped into Pompeia instead.
If she had remembered that long-ago time when she’d met Sally’s other brother, James, Pompeia would have made some enquiries before venturing near the house. She hadn’t made the connection until it was too late, and she knew why: she’d forgotten it on purpose. The past was done and gone, and although James Carling—now Sir James—had played only a small part in it, he probably knew about her disgrace. She didn’t want another door shut in her face. She’d already suffered that particular humiliation once that day.
But Sir James wasn’t here, and it seemed she would do almost anything in return for a few days of experiencing a warm bedchamber, ample food and no scolds. Soon enough, she would be back to answering advertisements, hiring herself out as a governess and then being summarily dismissed. Why shouldn’t she enjoy a few days of comfort and ease?
The dowager snorted disdainfully. “What my poor sainted son was thinking when he married you, Clarabelle, I shall never understand. Bring it here to me, and I’ll—”
Taking her cue, Pompeia intercepted deftly. “Please don’t disturb yourself, ma’am,” she said, setting down her embroidery. She gave Sally’s mother a surreptitious eye roll and moved to sit beside her on the sofa. “I used to be a governess, so I don’t mind demonstrating it again.”
“And again and again,” the dowager grumped. “I commend your patience, Mary.”
Pompeia took the mangled stocking, ripped out several rows, and recaptured a dropped stitch or two. She poised the free needle next to the one carrying the stitches for the heel. “Now, let’s try–”
“What in hell’s name were you thinking?”
At this furious bellow all the ladies froze, then gaped. “Whatever do you suppose that’s about?” Clarabelle faltered.
The dowager frowned. “I shall give Simon a severe reprimand for using such improper language.”
“That didn’t sound quite like Simon,” his mother said slowly.
“It wasn’t Simon,” Pompeia whispered, rising in horror. She would know that enraged shout anywhere. She had heard it only once before, and she would never forget it.
But this time it was surely directed at her.
Footsteps hammered on the staircase, and her heart abandoned itself to terror. She had to run. She had to flee.
No! She had to do something.
“James, wait!” That was Sally. “Please, just let me—”
“Too late for that,” came Simon’s drawl, and meanwhile the footsteps pounded down the passage.
“James wasn’t supposed to be home yet,” his mother moaned.
Think, think! There must be some way to avert disaster. Not to Pompeia herself—that was impossible—but to Sally, to whom the vouchers for Almack’s meant so much. But there wasn’t time, because it would mean convincing Sir James to talk to her privately before exposing the deception. It would mean making him want to. Inexorably, the footsteps approached the drawing-room doorway.
I know how to make a man want to, said the Wanton Within.
Not that! Pompeia’s rational mind screamed. Not now! But after a second’s furious pause, she realized that for once the wanton might be right. She got her feet moving and went straight for the door.
Too late.
He came into the room like a thunderstorm. It was James indeed, older, broader and even more beautiful than four years ago, from his dark, wavy hair and grey eyes to his well-worn leathers. The Wanton Within applauded, but mostly, Pompeia cringed. She closed