The Fictitious Marquis Read online

  It was only when she paused to take a breath that the seemingly frail gentleman snatched up his cane, swinging it so wildly that he barely missed smacking Jamie.

  "What use have I for thirty thousand pounds? Will I purchase women with them? A dandy's wardrobe? A meal so rich that its juice drips down my chin for days after? Poppycock! I have no need for money."

  Julia stammered, "It is only, Your Lordship, that I learned of your lack of heir, and I thought, due to, to your nearness—"

  "Go on then, miss, out with it. Due to my nearness to the where? The tomb? The grave? The great beyond? Let us make a game of it, shall we?" He poked his long-suffering footman with the ubiquitous cane. "Hitch, you keep score, now. Which one among us can conceive of the most synonyms for where it is I am ever so close to. Go on, young man, hop to it."

  Realizing that he was being addressed, Jamie jumped, and gamely offered, "The flesh-eating worms."

  Julia gasped in horror, but the marquis seemed to find Jamie's contribution most amusing.

  He told the footman, as the latter stood rubbing his shin from the blow, "I like this lad, Hitch. Shows some gumption, he does."

  "Aye, Your Lordship, indeed."

  "Almost wish I could make him my heir."

  "You still can," Julia pointed out. "In a fashion."

  The marquis's head bobbed up and down like a puppet on a stick, saliva of delight dripping from one corner of his mouth. Another instant, and Julia expected him to start bouncing in his chair like a fidgety child. Seizing the stick yet again—this time both Jamie and the footman ducked instinctively—the marquis of Martyn held it up like a conductor's baton and announced, "I've got it. Are you a betting man, Mr. Lowell?"

  Lest Jamie answer incorrectly, Julia rushed to reassure, "Of course, he is, Your Grace."

  "Is that true?" He stared at Jamie through a pair of slits for eyes. "I, myself, could never trust a man who lets a lady speak in his stead. Or," he indicated Salome with a toss of a head, "ask for favors in his absence."

  Solemnly, Jamie replied, "I am whoever Miss Highsmith says I am. No more, no less."

  "Then would you care to make a wee bit of a wager?" The marquis beckoned Jamie forward with a hand so bony it appeared to possess more than its adequate share of fingers.

  "What sort of wager?" Jamie snuck an unsure peek over his shoulder, as Julia gestured him to do whatever the old man wanted.

  "A duel," the marquis of Martyn said. "Winner gets to take my family name in vain."

  "A duel, Your Grace?" Jamie wrinkled his brows in confusion.

  "A duel, boy, a duel." The marquis wasn't quick enough to catch Jamie with the cane, but it weren't for lack of trying. "Pistols at dawn, or perhaps some more appropriate hour. I so rarely rise before noon."

  "Be careful, my lord," the footman warned. "I fear you becoming overly excited."

  "Blast it, Hitch, I want to become overexcited. I yearn to become overexcited. I daresay, on several occasions, I even ache to become overexcited." The marquis took a deep breath, feebly tapping his chest as he coughed out, "I told the young lady I have no use for money. But I do have use for some excitement. For some variety. Nay, for some ribaldry, even. Now be a good servant, and fetch my pair of pistols. You spend enough hours in the day polishing them. Might as well see some good come of it all."

  "Now, see here, Your Grace." Jamie stared helplessly at Hitch's swiftly disappearing back. "I have yet to agree—"

  Julia grabbed Jamie by the arm and pulled him back towards her, whispering, "Humor the man. He is old and frail. I don't doubt that just this mere shouting will wear him out."

  He wriggled out of Julia's grasp, chewing nervously on his lower lip and mumbling, "I certainly hope it's important, this cause that you so badly need your inheritance to fund."

  "It is important. It is worth dying for."

  "You mean," he corrected bitterly, "it is worth my dying for."

  Hitch, bearing the silver carved box with the pair of pistols inside, escorted the marquis past the house and onto the estate grounds. Julia, Jamie, and Salome followed along behind.

  Indicating the elderly peer ambling ahead of them, Jamie told Julia, "I have yet to see any signs of his growing weary."

  "He will. Soon." Although even Julia could no longer feel certain of it.

  "By the by," Jamie added, as Hitch handed him the dueling weapon, "did I neglect to mention that I never learned to shoot?"

  Stunned by his confession, Julia could only stare blankly at Jamie, finally managing to suggest, "Well. He is old. How fine of a shot could he be?"

  "Oh, no," the marquis sounded as enthusiastic as a school boy. Even his previously sallow cheeks had acquired just a touch of color. "You will not be dueling me, Mr. Lowell. My eyesight is hardly what it used to be."

  "Then whom shall I shoot at?"

  "Why, Hitch, of course."

  Jamie and Julia both pivoted to stare at the footman. He returned their curious gaze with one of frustrating neutrality.

  "Now see here," Jamie objected. "I've no quarrel with Hitch."

  "Oh, that's quite all right." Even the old man's eyes were dancing. "He holds none with you."

  Jamie turned to Julia. "Any ideas for pulling me from this fiasco would be most welcome right about now."

  But she could think of nothing to do but shrug in reply.

  Stiffly, Hitch inquired, "Would you care to take your position, Mr. Lowell?"

  "Truthfully?"

  Julia knew that she had the power to stop this catastrophe from taking place. It was only proper. Surely, she had not the right to risk the lives of both Jamie and Hitch, all in the name of a purpose only she understood and cared about.

  And yet, she recalled the anguished words in Miriam's letter, begging for a salvation that could only come through the rather tangled path of Jamie becoming a temporary marquis so that they could marry and so that her Uncle Collin might release Julia's inheritance. When she thought of the way Miriam had pleaded for Julia to save her, the choice no longer became as clear.

  Jamie and Hitch stood back to back, pistols raised to their chests, ready to march ahead forty paces. Jamie glared at Julia, noting stiffly, "This was hardly part and parcel of our agreement, Miss Highsmith. I daresay such a breech of conditions qualifies me to turn tail and flee."

  "Don't you dare."

  If Hitch was bothered by their shouting in the middle of his duel, he didn't show it. He just continued counting paces, voice growing progressively louder in an attempt to be heard over Jamie and Julia's quarrel. "Seventeen, eighteen, nineteen."

  Jamie said, "If I had wished a speedy death, I could have happily remained on the gallows."

  "There you had no options. Here, at least, there is a half chance of survival."

  "Twenty-four, twenty-five, twenty-six."

  "If I decide to drop this pistol and head for the woods, that half chance grows proportionally greater."

  "If you head for the woods, I will see to it that every Bow Street runner in England is on the lookout for you come nightfall. By morning you will be back at Newgate. And your chance of survival will once again shrink down to none."

  "Thirty-three, thirty-four, thirty-five."

  Julia couldn't believe the harshness with which she was pushing Jamie to his potential death. Yet, what choice did she really have in the matter? It was imperative that he acquire a title, and this was the only way she could conceive of doing it.

  Watching him march the requisite number of steps, Julia felt her heart starting to beat all the faster. Momentarily forgetting Miriam and Alexia, and the lie Lady Emma had forced Julia to offer Gavin, Julia thought, But it doesn't matter. None of it matters. I just don't want Jamie to die.

  She opened her mouth to scream for them to stop, resigned at that moment to sacrificing anything and anyone she had to if only to prevent Jamie's being harmed in any way.

  But it was too late.

  "Forty." Hitch's final shout was nearly obscured by the explosion o
f gun powder from his pistol, and the sickly sound of Jamie crumpling and crashing to the ground.

  6

  He hit the dirt, face down, feeling the familiar, suffocating sting of earth clogging up his eyes, mouth, and nose. But Jamie's ears remained clear enough to hear Julia's undisguised gasp of horror, and the scream she managed to stifle by covering her mouth with both hands. His pistol lay beneath him, digging into his stomach at a most uncomfortable angle. Yet, he didn't dare reposition it. He didn't dare move, or so much as breathe.

  With cheek pressed to the ground, he caught the echo of Hitch's boots moving closer. His heart hammered so madly against his throat that Jamie feared it would escape out his mouth. Yet he forced every muscle in his body to remain limp and lifeless.

  With one mammoth hand, Hitch grabbed Jamie by the shoulder, yanking him a good foot and a half off the ground, and turning the body over, before carelessly dropping Jamie on his back.

  He then saw his presumed shooting victim unexpectedly open his eyes, grab at his pistol, and, smiling so sweetly he might have been offering the footman another scone with his tea, remark, "I do believe that it's my shot."

  To his credit, Hitch's sole show of surprise consisted of a brief, bewildered blink of his eyes, and a swift, guilty glance over his shoulder at the marquis of Martyn who was no longer quite so delighted. The old man's pupils had grown as round as his ears. He stared, perplexed, from Hitch, to Jamie, and back again. He tried to speak, but found a few specks of dry spittle easier to produce than saliva, and finally settled for a cock of his head, and a helpless shrug of both shoulders in lieu of a verbal apology. Hitch took a deep breath, swallowing so hard that his Adam's apple ballooned to the size of a melon, and, straightening his uniform, prepared to accept his fate.

  Except his assassin-to-be was no longer looking in Hitch's direction. Because Jamie couldn't tear his gaze away from Julia.

  She had gone absolutely pale, her skin blanching so white that it had turned a deathly shade of greenish gray. She had chewed the nail on her thumb down to the quick, drawing a drop of blood.

  It was the most vulnerable Jamie had ever seen Miss Julia Highsmith. He felt certain that, if he wanted, Jamie could finally seize the upper hand over her with an ease equal to none other.

  At the very least, he now possessed the perfect opportunity to hurl a series of barbs in Julia's direction, in justifiable compensation for all the insults and patronizing remarks she'd sent his way in the past week.

  Except that, for a reason Jamie could barely identify, much less admit to, he found himself unable to do it.

  Watching Julia so obviously frightened—and over his welfare, no less—Jamie felt his initial urge to exploit the situation completely overshadowed by another very different emotion. He wanted to protect her. To take her in his arms and stroke her hair until her terrified shaking finally stopped for good. He wanted to kiss her injured finger, wrap his palm around the wound until the warmth from his hands magically healed every ache, every hurt that plagued Julia not only today, but throughout her entire life.

  This, Jamie decided, was not a positive development.

  Bad enough he was in debt to the woman for his clothes, his meals, his life. If he allowed her dominance over anything else, Jamie might as well roll over right then and there, and offer Hitch another shot at the target. He couldn't risk handing Julia such an advantage. And yet, deep down, there remained a part of Jamie that wondered whether capitulation might not have its pleasant side.

  "I say, sir," Hitch said while he uncomfortably cleared his throat, and waved one hand in front of Jamie's face, hoping to recapture his attention. "If you do not mind, I would prefer you, well, getting on with things, as it were. This anticipation, it truly is the most uncomfortable of all. Do shoot, now. I am waiting."

  Forcibly ripping his eyes from Julia's gradually calming figure, Jamie stared down at the pistol in his hands. He turned it this way and that, studying the barrel and the trigger with near childlike curiosity. Finally, he confessed, "The truth is, I've never fired a pistol before."

  Hitch closed both eyes, pained. "Marvelous." Sighing, he told Jamie, "You line up the target—in this case, that would be me—along the sight."

  "That's this little bump on the end?"

  "Precisely." He raised Jamie's arms to chest level. "Line up the target, aim, and pull the trigger. It would be a great help if you were facing me at the time."

  Jamie did as Hitch instructed, holding the pistol at arm's length, but already half turning away and squirming, face wrinkled in reluctance, as his finger rubbed the trigger.

  "Please, sir." Despite his radically changing fortunes during the course of the last quarter hour, Hitch had yet to alter his tone. "I would prefer to die from a single bullet to the heart, rather than from a prolonged, agonizing, infected, not to mention messy, hemorrhage to another area. Do aim carefully, Mr. Lowell. You are at point-blank range. I would hate for you to miss."

  Jamie nodded thoughtfully, reassuring Hitch that he understood his point completely. Then, as if the thought just came to him, he turned to the marquis and inquired, "Have I won yet?"

  The old man's quickly fading brows both burrowed together to form a single eyebrow of average length and width. He sputtered, "What? What did you say, boy? Won? Won what?"

  "Our wager. May I go about London proclaiming myself the future marquis of Martyn, with no fear of your denying the fact?"

  The present marquis waved his question away with an indifferent toss of one hand. "If you wish. I, personally, have grown rather tired of the moniker."

  Jamie snuck a peek at Julia over his shoulder. He expected her to be ecstatic at the news. Finally, she would get exactly what she wanted. And it hadn't cost her a farthing.

  He thought she would be leaping for joy, throwing her bonnet in the air, or whatever it was the upper classes did to express happiness. But she hardly appeared to have heard the marquis' approval. Instead, Julia remained where she was, blinking furiously to keep back what, if Jamie didn't know better, he could have sworn were tears. But hardly ones of joy.

  Her eyes met Jamie's, and for that instant, he was once again awash with the same sensations that, only a moment earlier, Jamie had personally decreed thoroughly inappropriate.

  "I am sorry." The quiet tone was so unfamiliar, he could hardly believe it to be coming from Julia. "I am so sorry. I did not want anyone hurt because of me."

  He didn't know how to respond. Neither did Hitch nor the marquis, so they merely swiveled their heads to stare at Jamie, looking for some clue on how to proceed.

  In response, he stood up straighter, squaring his shoulders, until his posture was that of the silly dragoon Jamie had acted out for Julia on a previous occasion. He turned his back, tossing the pistol over his shoulder and into the hands of a most unprepared Hitch, who had to fumble to catch it. "Lovely meeting all of you, I'm sure. But the fictitious Marquis would like to go home now."

  For part of the carriage ride homeward, Julia sat still and silent, neither agreeing nor disagreeing with her aunt, who, for the first time since Jamie intruded upon her life, actually deigned to speak to him, rather than at him. He supposed the fact that Jamie were now sitting between the two ladies, as opposed to at their feet, may have had something to do with it.

  At the first words out of Salome's mouth, Jamie instantly recognized where Julia had learned that imperious tone she so liked to toss in his direction. Salome lectured, "If we meet someone along the way, you are to introduce yourself as the marquis of Martyn's nephew. His heir, and my godson. Your mother left England many years ago to marry a wealthy foreigner."

  "Now would that need be a citizen of a particular country, or will any foreigner do?" Jamie, who did not appreciate being treated like a fool either by young ladies or their dowager aunts, snapped irritably. The bulk of his attention, anyhow, lay focused on Julia and her uncharacteristic silence. Jamie wished that he might lean over and ask Julia what was wrong. But he doubted her aunt wou
ld approve of such forward behavior.

  "New Zealand," Salome announced. "We shall tell people that you were raised in New Zealand."

  "Australia is better," Jamie said, because he simply felt like annoying her. "Larger continent. Easier to have remained anonymous."

  She allowed his suggestion a moment's thought, then finally conceded. "You are visiting your uncle. But, since the Marquis lives so far out in the country, he feared you might grow bored, and so he asked me, a family friend, if you might spend some weeks with us, closer to the London social scene."

  "I am sorry, Mrs. Weiss," Jamie said with mock formality, over-enunciating each word, "but you are certainly no friend of mine. I would have thought, your being on such good terms with the marquis, you might at least have voiced the tiniest of objections whilst he were making plans to mount my head in his trophy case."

  "It were you who agreed to it. You are a grown man, surely, you are fit to make your own decisions."

  Unexpectedly, Julia turned to face Jamie, her eyes wide. As if only now waking from a deep sleep, she whispered, "That was a dreadful chance you took. He might have killed you."

  Jamie reminded, "Despite what your aunt asserts, I wasn't given a lot of choice in the matter, m'lady. From somewhere in the deep recesses of my mind—or maybe it were from a few feet behind me—I heard a voice, female, as a matter of fact it was, telling me that if I did not accept the challenge, I would be quite dead by morning, either way."

  "Did you really believe I would do that to you?" Julia rested her hand on Jamie's arm, reaching across Salome's lap to do so.

  Through the layers of fabric, he could feel the warmth of her fingers against his skin. And so much softer than he ever could have imagined. He wanted to rest his cheek against her palm, and hear her say his name in anything but a command. But, instead, Jamie merely answered, "I've known a great many desperate people in my day, Miss Highsmith. Desperate people often do desperate things. And only regret them later."