The Secret Marriage Pact Read online

  Jasper crushed the thin catalogue between his hands, wanting to thrash his brother with it. ‘You’re a fool, Milton, and growing older has only made it worse.’

  ‘What’s it done for you except bring you back with some tat you’ve been fortunate enough to sell despite the smell of plague clinging to it?’

  Jasper stepped toe to toe with his brother. ‘Shut your mouth before I knock your teeth out.’

  Milton’s smugness drooped like his backbone. Jasper threw the catalogue at his feet and strode off, done with him and the auction. His day and all his plans lay in tatters because of his brother and Jasper’s own stupid mistakes.

  He strode to the wide entrance door where men continued to stream in and out to examine the auction items. He paused on the threshold to take in the street, the stench of dust and filth making him cough. An open-topped caleche passed by filled with ladies smiling and laughing together, their lives like everyone else’s carrying on in the bright sunlight illuminating the street. He should be glad for the activity after the deathly silence of Savannah and heartened to see not every world had collapsed, but after so much death it was difficult to do. Few here understood what he’d been through. Milton certainly didn’t.

  How dare he sneer at the epidemic. The pampered prat didn’t know what it was like to be stalked by death, to have all his money mean nothing because no amount of it could buy food to stave off the gnawing hunger or save those you loved from being carried off. No one around him did, except those unlucky enough to have witnessed it in other places, or those poor souls confined to the deepest slums of St Giles and Seven Dials.

  A dark mood threatened to consume him when a flash of red caught his eye. The Rathbone landau rolled past the auction house, the hood open to take advantage of the fine day. Jane sat across from her brother, her profile sharp as she spoke with him, hands moving with her agitation. The dark brown curls beneath the red ribbon that held the bonnet in place bounced in time to the carriage’s pace. It mesmerised him as much as her full lips. She didn’t notice Jasper, but he couldn’t pull his attention away from her. Seeing her again had been like stepping though the door of his parents’ house after nine years in America and inhaling the familiar scent of cinnamon and brandy, the smell of his childhood.

  He watched her until the vehicle rolled down the street and was finally lost in the crush of traffic. Isolation swathed him when she vanished from sight. Gone was the young girl who used to scamper with him and Milton, her surety in herself and her ideas eternally exasperating her brother and Jasper’s parents. Gone, too, was the boy Jasper had been. An ocean of experience and deception separated him from everyone he’d ever known. Yet in his brief moment with Jane, he’d touched something of the innocent young man he’d once been. He wondered, if he sat with her a while, could he be carefree and blameless again? It wasn’t possible. He couldn’t weigh her down with the awfulness of his past or his present deceits.

  He started down the auction-house steps and made for the jeweller across the street, ready to pay a pound or two for a fine walking stick or something equally expensive. His soul might be in the gutter. It didn’t mean the rest of him needed to wallow there too. He’d escaped death. Now he’d make sure he enjoyed life again.

  * * *

  ‘Mrs Townsend and I trained you to handle your affairs better than this, Jane.’ Philip chided from across the landau before he turned to Justin. ‘You should’ve stopped her.’

  ‘She’s not my sister.’ Justin threw up his hands in protest. ‘Besides, she’d old enough to decide what to do with her money.’

  ‘On that point, we disagree.’

  ‘He’s right. It’s my inheritance and I’ll spend it as I see fit,’ Jane insisted.

  Philip didn’t answer, refusing to be baited into the fight Jane was aching for. Despite gaining control over her money there’d been little she’d been able to do with it except pay the milliner’s bill. Seeing Jasper today had reminded her of the few clever transactions she and the Charton boys had hustled as children. The experiences had given her a taste for commerce, but as her dresses had become longer her world had reduced in size until it nearly choked her. Jasper’s world had expanded and, judging by his fine clothes, he’d done well for himself in America. It made her wonder why he’d decided to return. ‘You knew Jasper Charton was home, didn’t you?’

  Philip’s jaw tightened, almost imperceptibly, but she caught it. It was one of his few tells. To her surprise, he didn’t deny her accusation. ‘Yes.’

  ‘Why didn’t you or the Chartons tell me?’ It wasn’t like the Chartons not to fête a family member, especially one who’d been gone for so long and endured so much.

  ‘Mr Charton asked me not to. Jasper had a difficult time in Savannah and needed a chance to recover. He was very ill when he came home.’

  ‘I’m sure he was.’ Mrs Charton had shared news of the yellow fever which had ravaged the port city. Jane had worried along with her over Jasper, as eager as his mother was for the letter telling them things were all right. She might not have heard from Jasper for nine years, but it didn’t mean she’d stopped caring about him. Waiting with Mrs Charton had felt too much like when she was six and her own mother had been stricken with the fever. The long days had passed as she’d prayed, hoped and bargained with the Almighty to make her mother better. He hadn’t listened and her mother had passed, and it’d been all her fault. ‘Why did Jasper come back?’

  ‘His cotton-trading business collapsed after the epidemic. He plans to use the money his uncle left him, and the capital he raised from the sale of his Savannah properties and goods, to establish a new business in London. Jasper needs the Fleet Street building you purchased and the opportunity it offers. Since you don’t, we’ll visit the Chartons tomorrow and you’ll offer to sell it to him.’

  ‘I’ll do no such thing. I’ll start my own endeavour with it.’

  Philip flexed his fingers over the handle of his walking stick. ‘Be sensible, Jane.’

  ‘I am being sensible. I need something more to do than tend the rose garden and listen to my niece and nephews tear through the house.’

  ‘And I’ve given you ample opportunities to do so.’

  ‘Yes, always behind you and your reputation, never out in the open where everyone can see it’s me successfully managing things.’

  ‘As well as the merchants of the Fleet regard our family, they won’t countenance a single young woman in trade. It would damage both your reputation and mine and hinder all our future dealings.’

  She twisted her reticule between her hands, the deed to the building crinkling inside, before she let go. Philip was right. Customers and other merchants would recoil from her if she began openly to oversee some venture of her own. Jane dropped back against the squabs, cursing her unmarried state once again. ‘I hate it when you’re practical.’

  ‘It’s nothing but a headache when you aren’t.’

  The landau carried them past the building she now owned in the middle of Fleet Street. The staid façade with its small Ionic columns reaching up to the first floor sat squat between two taller ones. A round outline of dirt above the front door indicated where the sign from the now-defunct tobacconist’s used to hang. She rested her arm on the landau’s edge and tapped the wood. The building was hers and, despite what Philip said, she would not relinquish it; she would use it to make something of her life and escape from this limbo of being an adult while being treated like a mindless child. She needed activity, industry of her own, or she would run mad. Now she needed to decide what she’d do, and how she’d do it, without drawing attention to herself or needing Philip’s help. Her brother might have her best interests at heart, but it didn’t mean she wanted him or anyone else deciding her path.

  She glanced across the landau at Justin who chatted with Philip. Perhaps he could be her secret front. He might help her, if only
because he thought it a lark, but with his wine business and the demands of his wife and family, she doubted he had time to dabble in any endeavour of hers.

  There must be some man willing to be the front for a business. She continued to trill her fingers on the trim, mulling through the people she knew and not finding one likely to support her admittedly odd idea. No one had ever gone along with her schemes except at one time Milton, and Jasper.

  Jasper.

  Jane stilled her fingers. She could become a silent partner with him in whatever plans he had for the building. It would be a perfect arrangement—except for her having to hide her involvement from everyone, including Philip. However, being a silent partner was better than nothing at all, and she would only have to be silent in public.

  Unless I can find a husband, and quickly.

  She rolled her eyes at her own ridiculousness, wondering if she was going mad from boredom and how long it would be until she began collecting small dogs and refusing to leave the house. If landing a gentleman was as simple as selecting a stock, she’d be a wife by now. Besides, all her friends and acquaintances had taken every man worth having in the Fleet, except for Jasper.

  ‘Philip, did Jasper return with a wife?’ Jane asked, interrupting his and Justin’s conversation.

  ‘No. Why?’

  She shrugged. ‘I was curious.’

  Philip narrowed his eyes in scrutiny before Justin drew him back into conversation.

  So Jasper isn’t married. She rested her elbow on the landau’s edge again and tapped her fingers against her chin. The vehicle vibrated beneath her arm as it crossed over the cobblestones. And he needs money and a building, and I have both. I wonder if he’d like a wife in the bargain, too.

  She and Jasper had been friends once and friendship was an excellent basis for a marriage. After all, she’d tried affection with Milton and look where it had landed her. There was no reason not to try something more practical with Jasper. He might have rebuffed her advances nine years ago, but this wasn’t about romance. It was business. She could present her proposal in rational terms, appeal to his good sense and make him see how perfectly logical, reasonable and completely insane the idea was.

  She dropped her forehead into her palm. I should buy a dog and be done with all pretence to sanity.

  Even if she was foolhardy enough to approach Jasper with such an outlandish plan, he wasn’t likely to go along with it this time any more than he had before. Nor was she thrilled by the prospect of leaving Philip’s influence to surrender her fortune and all legal responsibility to a husband. However, she doubted Jasper would be difficult about it, especially if they came to an agreement beforehand on how she’d manage her affairs. She was certain they could, assuming their discussions even reached the negotiating stage and he didn’t turn her down outright. He probably would and she didn’t relish another Charton rejection. Two was quite enough.

  The landau turned off noisy Fleet Street and on to quiet St Bride’s Lane. The steeple from St Bride’s Church cast a thick shadow over the houses facing it. Behind the high wall encircling the churchyard lay the graves of her parents. Failure whipped around her like the breeze. She’d failed her parents years ago, now she was failing them, and herself, again.

  I won’t be a spinster.

  Another rejection wasn’t an appealing prospect, but neither was the future stretching out in front of her like a dusty dirt road. With each passing year her prospects for making her own life were diminishing. Yes, Jasper might ridicule her for proposing this scheme, but if he accepted...

  She sat up straight and tried not to shift in the seat. She’d have her freedom and a life, home and business of her own at last. It might not be the loving marriage like the one Philip and Laura enjoyed, or the grand passion she used to dream about while reading the scandalous books Mrs Townsend, her sister-in-law’s mother and Jane’s old mentor, tutor and confidant, used to slip her, but one could never be disappointed by something one had never expected. Besides, she didn’t need Jasper’s heart, only his hand in marriage.

  Chapter Two

  ‘You’re undressed! Why are you not up already? It’s past noon!’ Jane waved her hand from the top of Jasper’s head to the rippled and exposed stomach, and the dark line of hair leading her gaze even lower. She was already out of breath from running up the Chartons’ massive front stairs, but catching Jasper in his bedroom without his shirt was suffocating. His toned chest tinged with a honey hint of a tan nearly knocked her away from the closed door. She’d known Jasper Charton and his family her entire life. But she never thought she’d see quite this much of him.

  ‘I wasn’t expecting company.’ Jasper wiped the last of the very musky and, if she was not mistaken by the scent, expensive shaving soap from his face and haphazardly hung the towel on the washstand bar. He made no move to take up the rumpled shirt sagging over the foot of the bed, and perched one fist on his hip as though it was every day an unmarried young lady burst into his bedroom unannounced. ‘What are you doing up here?’

  ‘We must speak about the building.’ She fiddled with the key in the lock of the door but her shaking hand wouldn’t co-operate and she gave up.

  Concentrate! This was no time to be distracted. With her brother and Mr Charton downstairs, and Mrs Charton distracted by one of her grandchildren, Jane had precious little time alone with Jasper. ‘I have a plan for it, but I need your help, as a friend. We’re still friends, aren’t we?’

  His eyebrows rose in surprise. ‘Even after what Milton did to you?’

  ‘You had nothing to do with it, and he isn’t pertinent to the matter I wish to discuss today.’ Actually, proving to everyone, including herself, she could catch a husband was very much a part of this, but he didn’t need to know it.

  He cocked one eyebrow. ‘You want to talk business, in my room, alone?’

  She picked up one of the pair of diamond cufflinks in the dish on the table beside her, then put it down. It did seem foolish when he pointed it out, but speaking here was better than trying to whisper downstairs and risking someone overhearing their negotiations. For this to work, everyone, including Philip, must believe they were marrying for the right reason. ‘Of course. We have privacy.’

  ‘Which makes me wonder if business is really all you want?’ With a wicked smile he slipped the top button of his fall through its hole. He was teasing her as he used to do and the easy familiarity of their old friendship slid between them. It was more potent than the pulling of her pigtails and she adjusted the top of her spencer, breathless once more as she stared at his long fingers on the button, waiting to see what he might reveal. Offering him her innocence wasn’t an unpleasant bargaining chip, especially since she was dying to finally experience the deed she’d heard Jasper’s sister whispering about at so many parties. If she got with child it would certainly force the matter.

  When the fall slightly opened she snapped out of her stupor. This wasn’t how this was supposed to go. He wasn’t supposed to undress or suggest more than business, even if what she was about to propose involved exactly that. ‘Yes! Well, sort of.’

  ‘Sort of?’ He let go of the button, but failed to fasten the one he’d already undone. It revealed more of the dark hair leading from his navel to places unknown.

  ‘I have a building and you need one for your new enterprise. We can become...partners in your endeavour.’

  The word ‘marriage’ twisted her tongue. She still couldn’t believe she was doing this. One would think she’d learned her lesson nine years ago. Apparently, she hadn’t.

  ‘Your brother won’t be happy about you wading so openly into business. Or being up here.’

  ‘I don’t care what Philip thinks and I wouldn’t be single when I share in the trade.’ Jane took a deep breath, the portion of the negotiation she’d spent the better part of the night and this morning contemplat
ing, and dreading at last upon her. ‘I would be your wife.’

  Jasper’s smug amusement dropped like the towel off the rail of his washstand. ‘My wife?’

  ‘It’s perfect, don’t you see?’ She hurried up to him, drawing close enough to feel the heat radiating off his skin. She took a cautious step back, acutely aware of how much taller and wider he’d grown since he’d left. She tried not to be distracted by the more intimate terms of marriage, but with the sunlight caressing the angles and sinew of his shoulders it was difficult. ‘You want the building and I want my freedom. There’s only one way for us to get both. We’ll get married.’

  ‘Married?’

  ‘We’ll work together to build up your whatever-it-is.’

  ‘A club for merchants.’

  ‘Excellent.’ She had no idea what that meant, but they could discuss the details later. ‘You’ve been gone from London for so long, you lack connections. My connections through Philip, combined with my keen managerial sense, the property I purchased—the one you wanted—along with your particular expertise in this kind of venture will make us quite a force. And you know how good I am with negotiation.’

  He smothered a laugh. ‘Yes, I remember.’

  But he wasn’t rushing to agree. The same tightness in the pit of her stomach as when she was thirteen and begging him to offer her some promise of a future together knotted her insides again. Anger began to creep along the edges of her confidence. ‘You remember what good friends we were, though you never troubled to write me a single letter the entire time you were in Savannah. Do you know how much I could’ve used your friendship, even from across the ocean?’ She winced at this slip. What in Heaven’s name was she thinking saying such a thing?

  ‘I do.’ Regret flickered in his eyes and he raised his hand as if to graze her cheek, the ruby on his small finger glinting in the sun before he lowered it again. ‘But marriage is different from children scampering through the Fleet in search of a shilling or eavesdropping on the adults.’