“True,” Edward said simply. “But I know James well enough to goad him into admitting the truth of who I am before the Committee for Privileges.”
None of this was making any sense. She blinked at him, trying to decipher those words. They’d sounded as if…as if…
She must have misheard. “But you’re not his brother. You’re…”
Edward Clark. Who was sent abroad—into a war zone—by a father who had hoped for more from him… Her whole mind froze.
“You’re too old to be him,” she said. “You’re…what, thirty-six?”
“Twenty-seven.” His lips firmed. “It’s the hair; I got all that white in a matter of weeks. I look older than I am.”
No. No.
“It wasn’t really a lie.” He didn’t look at her. “I did mention that you wouldn’t like my younger brother.”
“You’re not Edward Delacey.” Her voice shook.
“I’ve tried my damnedest not to be him. My solicitor says I can keep the name Edward Clark, and I will. But…” He swallowed. “I was him. Once. And I may have misdirected you in some minor fashion in that regard.”
Minor? Her hands were beginning to tremble.
“No,” she said. “No. You’re not.”
And, oh, God. Last night. For all the columns she’d written, all the horrible stories she had heard about what marriage might mean to a woman, she had never imagined that she might end up in one of them.
“For God’s sake.” She swallowed. “Do you know what this means? We’re married. We can’t annul it, we’re unlikely to be granted a divorce, not unless…”
Not unless she was unfaithful to him, a prospect she found even more disgustingly distasteful than having Claridge as a husband.
She shifted away from him.
“Oh my God. James Delacey is now my brother by marriage.” And that wasn’t the part that hurt the most. “You didn’t tell me. You knew, and you didn’t tell me—you with your necromancy and failed logic. Why?” She could feel her eyes begin to sting. But she wasn’t going to cry. She wasn’t.
“I did tell you once that if you knew everything about me, you’d not want me.”
“You’re Claridge,” she said, feeling a little sick to her stomach. “You weren’t some low-level scoundrel out to get revenge for some minor slight. It was your brother scheming against me. You could have stopped this whole thing—quashed their quashing of our permit, silenced your brother for good, taken your place. You could have done all that without marrying me.” She let out a little noise.
“I wasn’t sure I could do it in time.” His lips had gone white. “It might have taken another day—paperwork and all. I wasn’t sure that mere bluster would have worked. If you were going to be arrested, you needed to be a viscountess. They’d have to let you go then as a right of peerage. I couldn’t risk them holding you—not with what James might have had planned.”
She turned away from him. “It wasn’t your risk to take. It was mine.”
He shook his head—and then he shrugged. It hurt, that expression of indifference. As if all her emotion, her care, meant nothing to him. “I have always known you would come to hate me eventually. What’s a little sooner?”
“Why didn’t you tell me?” She was almost desperate. “You could not have kept it from me, and once I found out, I…”
He gave her a wintry smile. “It’s that simple. I’ve never expected that I would be able to keep you with me. All I could do was keep you safe.”
That steadiness in his gaze… She still remembered last night. The way their bodies had joined, the way their hands had intertwined. It had been one of the sweetest, loveliest experiences of her life. If she let him do that again…
No. She slid into the corner of the carriage, her shoulder pressing against the door.
“I’m sorry, Edward,” she said. “I can’t. I can’t do this.”
“I know. I never expected you would.”
Somehow, his acceptance cut her more deeply than if he’d demanded her submission.
“If I stayed…” she started.
But she could not continue on. If she stayed, she’d let herself be seduced. She was being seduced now by the sudden hope that flared in his eyes. God, how he’d smile if she kissed him now. And all she would have to do was…no.
Free slid her hand up the leather of the seat until her fingers met the side of the carriage. She traced a figure eight against the side, and thought about all the reasons she’d married—bad ones, it turned out. And yet not so bad.
“But I can’t,” Free said. “I can’t stay.”
God, she hated that the one person she wanted to comfort her at this moment was…him.
The carriage rumbled on. She had no idea where it was taking her—Claridge House, perhaps? Was there such a thing? The only thing she knew was that she had to get away before she did something foolish. “I can’t stay,” she repeated. Her fingers found the latch on the door.