“I beg your pardon?”
“Yes,” she said, and her voice sounded strange even to her, a little too hollow, like she was speaking through a tube. “I am looking for a husband. I have to get married.”
There was a silence while Alex digested what she had said. When he finally spoke, his voice was low and calm, almost placating. “I understand most young ladies desire a family of their own, but—”
“I don’t want to get married. I have to, and within a fortnight.”
“A fortnight?” Alex’s voice cracked a little on the word.
Sophie tried to stand up, but Alex caught her by the wrist in a gentle yet unyielding grasp.
“I’m only going to the desk. I have something I want you to see. It will help me to explain.”
He kept hold of her wrist.
“You do still want an explanation, don’t you?”
He seemed to think about that for a moment, scanning her face. When he let go, she walked tiredly to the desk and retrieved the document responsible for all her troubles. Before she could think better of it, she grabbed her list of potential spouses as well. She returned to her seat and handed the former over to Alex.
He was on his feet before he had gotten halfway down the paper. By the time he finished reading, he was pacing and swearing.
Sophie let him fume. Her own reaction to her cousin’s treachery had been similar, although Alex employed several choice words she hadn’t thought of and a few she hadn’t even heard before. She had calmed down eventually, and he would as well.
Only Alex didn’t look ready to calm down. After several minutes his pacing showed no signs of slowing and his list of expletives was growing increasingly creative. He was angry. He was very, very angry.
Sophie couldn’t regret showing him the document. There was something rather flattering at the sight of Alex so outraged on her behalf, or at the very least, at the injustice done to her. And comforting as well, because if Alex were this angry—
“You’ve sought legal counsel, I presume.”
Sophie snapped to attention. He hadn’t ceased his pacing, but at least he had stopped swearing.
“Yes, I went to three different solicitors, none of them connected in any way to my cousin. They all said the same thing. The contract, if one may call it that, may not be entirely legal given the method in which it was obtained, but it’s close enough that it would take years in court to have it overturned. My father and I would be ruined by then. We don’t have the funds to pursue the matter now,” she stated bleakly.
Alex gave her a questioning look, and taking the hint and a deep breath, she told him the entire story—the stolen money, the forged letters, everything but her cousin’s connections to a suspected French conspiracy.
Alex listened without comment, and without visible reaction beyond his grim expression. When she finished, he nodded once and said, “And so you must marry before this contract becomes valid.”
“Yes, before my twenty-fifth birthday. I have a little over a fortnight.”
“To whom?”
There was no point in trying to pretend she didn’t understand him. He’d get the information out of her eventually anyway. She handed him the list.
Twenty-two
Alex couldn’t believe what he was seeing. It wasn’t inconceivable that Sophie might have a list of prospective husbands; under the circumstances it seemed practical, reasonable even. And while a few of the gentlemen listed were far too old for her, they were mostly men Alex knew to be decent catches.
It wasn’t that she had a list that bothered him, and it wasn’t who was on the list.
It was the fact that he wasn’t on the list that made his jaw clench and his stomach drop down to his toes.
He wasn’t on the list.
He’d never been on the list. His eyes scanned the paper a second time. Several names had been written in and then crossed out. His was not among them.
He was not, and never had been, an option.
And his mind emptied save for that one disturbing fact.
He wasn’t on the damnable, bloody, god-awful list.
“Why the devil am I not on this list?”
That question was immediately followed by a silent demand to know where and when, exactly, he had misplaced his dignity.
“Oh, for heaven’s sake,” Sophie grumbled. “If I had known there was any chance anyone else might have seen that list, I would have been sure to include every unmarried gentleman in London and its surrounding counties. Lord knows I wouldn’t want to prick anyone’s vanity.”