After the Wedding (The Worth Saga 2)

He took a step forward. “This has been enough. I was here, too; it happened precisely as she said. She’s in tears. Have a little human kindness.”

A silence swirled through the room.

“So,” the rector said. There was a pregnant expectancy in the way he drew out the syllables. “You’re willing to make it right?”

“Your pardon?” Adrian said in further confusion. “Make what right?”

“We’ll discuss this in my office,” the rector said. “Kitty, conduct Camilla upstairs and lock her in the servants’ quarters until her future is decided. As for you…”

He gestured at Adrian. None of this made sense. Everything was off. Adrian knew Camilla hadn’t locked the door, that he hadn’t been in this room for the hour that they claimed.

What on earth was happening?

Then, behind the rector, he saw Bishop Lassiter. Adrian had been sent here to spy on the man for his uncle; that small, self-satisfied smile that touched the bishop’s lips froze Adrian’s blood.

It was the only explanation he could think of: The bishop knew what Adrian was trying to do.

He had tried to be careful; he hadn’t contacted his uncle at all. But Adrian was a terrible liar. Somehow, Lassiter must have found out that Adrian was working on his uncle’s behalf. The two bishops hated one another. His uncle was willing to spy on Lassiter. Why had he not realized that Lassiter would retaliate?

It made perfect sense. Lassiter had planned this whole bloody thing just to discredit Adrian and any testimony he dredged up. Now, if necessary, he could provide witnesses showing that Adrian was an immoral fellow.

A second thought slotted into Adrian’s head.

He should have listened to Miss Winters. She lived in this household; she knew what it was like. She had told him it was time to panic, and she had been right.

Unless…

It was possible that she was a part of this whole play. Somehow. Maybe not likely, but it was possible. She was either a very good actor, or he’d just watched them try to ruin her life simply to hurt him.

“Come,” Rector Miles said, gesturing, and Adrian followed. Bishop Lassiter didn’t quite smirk as Adrian went past. Maybe it was his imagination, but he still felt a certain self-satisfied air to the man.

Adrian had come here at his uncle’s behest to try to bring Lassiter down. He’d hated the idea. He’d hated being in service. He’d hated the very underhandedness of the scheme. He’d been reluctant, to say the least.

Now?

Adrian knew he should be angry. Likely he would be, when he had a moment to think matters through.

But as he left Bishop Lassiter behind, what he actually felt was pity. If Lassiter thought a farce of this magnitude was necessary to cover up whatever it was he was hiding?

He’d done something wrong.

He was going to be ruined. Adrian felt sorry for the man.

Chapter Six

The conversation that followed had played out precisely as Adrian had expected—farcically. He sat in the rector’s office, in a high-backed wooden chair, bracketed between the bishop and the rector, refusing to perform the part they’d assigned to him.

His uncle had taught him how men like this thought. They expected him to be overawed by them.

The fact that he wasn’t? It left them baffled and a little angry.

Of course he had been sacked. Good; hopefully the bishop would have all the joy of his mustard-stained linen without Adrian.

He’d just met the bishop’s eyes. “Just as well.” He had shrugged. “I could not work for you, knowing what you are.”

The man had reacted in surprise. “What am I?”

Information was currency, and talking needlessly would erode any advantage Adrian held. Lassiter no doubt thought him some hired pawn. They had no idea who Adrian really was or what he wanted, and he’d best keep it that way.

“You’re beneath me,” Adrian said. “Both of you—you’re liars and undeserving of your offices.”

He watched the men color at the insult.

“You’ll get no letter of reference from me,” the bishop hissed.

“No harm in that.” Adrian folded his arms. “A reference from a man with no character would be meaningless.”

They gave up trying to make him feel ashamed.

“Of course you’ll marry the girl,” Rector Miles said.

“Of course I would, if I felt honor bound to do so. As I did nothing that requires such an act, I won’t.”

“Have you no thought for her reputation?”

They were trying to appeal to his emotion, to distract him from the logic of the situation. Adrian just gave the two men a scornful look. “Don’t pretend that either of you care about that. If you did, you’d have believed her the moment the door opened. You’d have apologized already. If you had insisted there was no problem from the beginning, she wouldn’t be facing repercussions. My actions haven’t hurt her. Yours have.”

Two hours of resistance on his part, and the men were flummoxed.

They had expected him to bow and scrape and apologize and give in, and his refusal to do so when he should have been begging for mercy was outside their comprehension.

Eventually, they withdrew to a corner of a room and held a whispered conference.

“We’ll leave you to consider the ramifications of your decisions,” they said, before conducting him to a basement cellar. The door was locked behind him; the high window was barred, preventing escape.

Adrian passed the time thinking of the sketches Mr. Alabi had sent from Harvil. Bears, ornate buildings, and bright designs. It was less than a week now until he had said he would be back. He had no time to be locked in basements. He thought of those sketches. He imagined possibilities for the plates that seemed impossibly far away and watched the shadows lengthen across the floor. The room was full dark by the time they came for him.

“Come along.”

“Where are we going?”

“There’s no more argument,” Lassiter said. “We’re going to your wedding.”

Nothing fit together. If they had wanted an excuse to sack him because he was getting close, they could have just used the mustard.

Forcing him to marry served no purpose that he could see…except spite, perhaps?

Spite was a real purpose.

Or maybe…

“There will be no wedding,” he said, because he insisted on being a person even if they didn’t see him as one.

“On the contrary. There will be no more arguments,” the rector replied, lifting a pistol.

Adrian’s mouth went dry and rational thought fled. Looking down the barrel of a gun did something to his logical ability, choking it into nothing but the tarnished glint of moonlight on metal.

For a moment, he floundered.

“We can’t marry,” he finally remembered. “There were no banns read. We’d need a special license.”

“We’ve had one sent up.”

It didn’t make sense. None of it made sense. But Adrian had never had a gun held on him before and it did something to his brain. All that he could think was that he couldn’t die by pistol. Not now. His mother had lost three sons to war and gunshot. Grayson had watched at least one of his brothers die in his arms.

They could not lose Adrian, too. Not this way. He could not do this to his family.

Adrian tried to gather his thoughts on the way to the church. They didn’t know who Adrian really was. They couldn’t; they’d never treat him with such cavalier disregard if they knew his uncle was Bishop Denmore, that he was the grandson of a duke. They thought him a valet, a servant—ignorant of all proper church procedures. They no doubt thought him a hired mercenary.

But he’d served as his uncle’s amanuensis on and off for years. He’d read ecclesiastical texts; he still had some in his library.

Lassiter and Miles didn’t know the truth, but Adrian did. They could hold a pistol to his head and make him say yes, but it wouldn’t be real. W

ith a gun held on him, it wouldn’t count as consent.

He was brought into the nave of the church, then conducted to the front. The way was lit only by flickering candlelight.

Miss Winters followed shortly. Her breathing was shallow and shaky. Her hands stretched and clenched, stretched and clenched. She seemed particularly pale, still in the gown she’d been wearing that afternoon.

It occurred to Adrian to wonder what Grayson would say of the affair.

You see? I told you’re too trusting.

Well. With a pistol trained on him, now might be a good time to admit that was true.

He’d trusted that a bishop of the Church of England wouldn’t force him to marry at gunpoint. That had seemed a perfectly reasonable supposition, honestly. He’d never heard of it happening before. And of course there was a first time for everything, he supposed, but why did he have to be the one to demonstrate the maxim?

He’d trusted that his uncle wouldn’t let him get into such a situation.