Lynne Connolly: Counterfeit Countess

In answer to his question, she nodded. “I needed time after Waterloo. I came home, and I had nothing.” She paused, glanced away. Was there more to her decision to pose as his widow? Not lying, but concealing something. “If you’d worked that out, why didn’t you repudiate me tonight?”

“Did you expect it?”

Of course she had. He owed her nothing. Why would he want her after that? The answer still eluded him, except her body was soft and welcoming and he wanted more.

“You’ve met the dowager, so you know what I had to face at home,” he said. “They wanted me to marry. When I was in the army the dowager kept writing me letters, and somehow most got to me.

About her daughters and how charming they were. Then a demand to marry one of them.”

“Marriage? Why would they want you to? You were a second cousin.”

“The dowager likes to think everyone and everything is under her control. If she married me to one of her girls it tied up the inheritance neatly. She doesn’t consider people, she thinks dynasties and influence. My lack of the latter was made up for by the former.”

He paused. “Her second son, Vivian, was married, but after two years there was no issue. And I believe she found out about her oldest son.”

“What about him?”

He traced a line from her throat to the dip between her breasts, savouring the smooth, soft skin. So lovely. “He preferred his own sex. You understand?”

Meeting her shocked gaze, he saw she did. “I’ve seen it happen.

Sometimes if a man cannot get a woman...”

He shook his head gently. She had seen far too much. His desire to protect her never surprised him as it did now, with evidence of her deception so evident. “This was not expediency. His mother discovered his preference, and it led to a rift. She could not comprehend why he couldn’t have both. Some men can, some can’t.

Stephen could not.” He watched her take that in, but his Faith was no sheltered maiden. She knew. “Even if he married there wouldn’t have been any issue.

“Vivian’s wife never conceived,” she said. “Poor lady.” Vivian’s wife had died a year ago.

“Vivian mourned his wife truly and wanted time before he remarried. It was why they came all the way to Canada to see me, once they discovered I was alive.”

“How did they find out?”

“I wrote to Vivian after I’d established myself in Halifax as a man of substance. I did write to Stephen after I arrived in Canada, but I didn’t wait for a reply before I went into the depths of the forests, so I had no idea that letter went astray. The one to Vivian, to his posting in Vienna, arrived safely and both brothers came to Canada to entreat me to come home and do my duty by you. To get you with child for the family’s sake.” He paused. “I hadn’t realised I had a wife before then.”

The corner of her mouth twitched, as if she were suppressing a wince. “I’m glad I wasn’t born into that kind of family. I’ve seen enough to know that.” Before he could ask her, she told him. “I’m the daughter of a country vicar. Barely genteel. Twelve children were a strain on the stipend and my father’s small independence.”

“How did you come to marry a soldier?” He wanted to know more about her, to fill in the spaces, to give him a proper assessment of her.

“John and I were from the same small town in Shropshire and when he returned on leave, he courted me. I believed he loved me, at least at first, and I saw I would be useful to him. My parents were only too happy to be rid of me. I’d thought I was destined to become a governess.” She paused. “Three girls in our family, nine boys and most of them went into the army or the navy. Most have done well for themselves. I don’t have a lot to do with them these days. They are strangers to me.”

So after Waterloo she’d been effectively alone. Nobody to turn to, and while her husband had been an officer he had the lowest rank and consequently would have barely anything to leave a widow. She could have been destitute. The similarity of their names must have formed too much of a temptation for her.

“So you had nothing?”

“And no one.”

There, she’d given him total honesty on that point. Relief flooded him. He understood. Not a designing adventuress, then, more a poverty-stricken woman with nobody to help her. He wasn’t mistaken in his assessment of her. She’d taken the step she had from desperation, and the conviction that she was harming no one.

The thought impelled him to draw closer still. He slid his hand over her delightfully trim waist in a gesture more protective than desirous, although he guessed from the way his cock stirred that wouldn’t last long. Her side pressed against him, her breasts plumped by her arms, especially when she raised a hand. He wasn’t sure if she wanted to push him away and he waited, tense, until she relaxed and smoothed her palm down his chest to rest under his ribs. He smiled his encouragement but she did no more. Just as well, he supposed. He hadn’t finished talking to her yet.

He had to make one matter clear. As soon as he’d climbed through the window and seen the carpetbag, he’d known what she’d planned. “You weren’t packing to move to Grosvenor Square, were you?”

She glanced down, then back at him, pretty colour mantling her cheeks again. She couldn’t have missed his state of tumescence.

Their proximity completed what had started a bare minute ago and he hardened for her, his body begging for a repeat performance.

“No.”

He kept his voice soft and unthreatening. “What exactly did you think you would do?”

“I’d disappear. I’m not unemployable, I could make a living.”

She shrugged. “I still can. I left the marriage lines to John Smith and a letter declaring that we were never married. It’s on the table, with the deeds to this house and a promissory note for whatever funds you feel I owe you.”

“Could you get a position with no character references?” He grazed the top of her buttocks with his thumb. Perfectly rounded.

She snorted. “Please. As if I can’t handle that.”

The concept interested him. “How would you do that?”

“I’d reference my mother, who would do anything rather than have me back home and an old friend who married well. She’ll help me, and be discreet about it if I asked her. Or I’d forge something.”

He laughed, a gentle chuckle. “Anyone who thinks women are helpless should consult you.” He wanted to kiss her, but he held off, because he suspected he wouldn’t stop once he’d begun. Already he desired her with a desperation entirely new, an emotion he badly needed to process before he gave into it again. On the first occasion her nearness to him had provoked him into kissing her, and then more followed as day did night. His lack of control worried him, even while he planned to make love to her at least once more tonight. This time with no mercy. “So you’d disappear, live a miserable life as a poorly paid employee. Why did you do it in the first place?” Confirmation. Coming at the question again, so he could watch the way she reacted.

She bit her lip. “I didn’t think I was doing anyone any harm.

Without a wife your army pension would have died with you. My only extravagance was this house. I was harming nobody. But now I know you’re alive, you don’t deserve I should do this to you.”

“Do what? Prevent the dowager from foisting one of her daughters on to me?” He watched her take the piece of information in. Her pretty eyes widened, her body stiffened against him. “If you are not here, she won’t relent. I’ll be married before the year’s out.”

“Charlotte and Louisa are much more agreeable without their mother present. I believe she imposes on them a little too much.