Lynne Connolly - Counterfeit Countess

He came back to her, stroked the cloth over her stomach to clean her, brisk and efficient. “Maybe we shouldn’t have done that so soon, but I needed you. It seems I have the right to have you, and you didn’t appear unwilling.”

She shook her head, her curls clinging to the bedcover. “I wasn’t.” The truth, as far as she could give it.

If only he’d rolled over and started snoring! She could have gone about her business then. Her attention strayed to where her carpetbag sat on the table by the door, ready for her to pick up and take with her when she left.

“Now for the talk.” He put the cloth aside, and returned to her, sliding one arm under her body and lifting her as if she weighed nothing, which was far from the case. Untangling the sheets, he laid her down and came to lie beside her, pulling the covers over them both. “Wouldn’t want you to get cold. I prefer my women warm.”

He smiled, but she didn’t.

“It used to get so cold.”

“How long did you follow the drum?”

“Five years.”

He frowned. “Cold for five years.”

“Or too hot. We were in the Peninsula. It could get hot there.”

He nodded. “I remember.” After tucking one arm under his head he watched her with eyes that were far too perceptive. “So when did we marry, exactly?”

Would she lie? He prayed she would not. She had the most glorious body he’d ever had access to, but he could not allow her any leeway just because of that. He mustn’t forget she was an adventuress, taking advantage of the similarity in their names.

Confusion followed battles and one of the greatest skills a leader had was gathering the troops afterwards, talking them down, discovering who was missing and collecting information.

Sometimes the success of the campaign depended on the speed of recovery. Only this time there wasn’t another battle to go to, or a new place to march to. Just the aftermath of the last conflict in the campaign. He hadn’t been present then.

He waited for her to detect the flaw in her argument. She said nothing, only swallowed. He felt he should continue, otherwise she’d draw him in again. Because that lovemaking was—spectacular. Nothing like he’d expected, although he’d known she’d be good. “When did John Smith die exactly?”

“At Waterloo.”

“And you believed I died at Waterloo. There wasn’t time for you to remarry me once widowed, was there? So are we married, or aren’t we?”

She closed her eyes and heaved a great sigh before shaking her head. “No.”

He reached out to take her hand, re-establish physical contact between them. Her warmth seeped through him, reminding him, as if he needed it, that she was a person, a human being. Few people were wholly good or evil. His weakness had driven him to Canada.

Had hers impelled her to this masquerade? He wanted to know.

“Tell me how it was. Tell me, Faith.” He desperately needed honesty from her now. Every step he took depended on it. If she attempted to fool him, he’d use her and then let her go. If not—for once, he didn’t have a plan.

When she opened her eyes he saw her pupils large with apprehension. “All of it?”

“Everything. If we’re to deal together, I need to know.”

“But we don’t have to. Deal together, I mean.”

He rolled on his side, propped himself on one elbow. “What makes you say that?”

Another swallow. “I can leave. Then you can expose me, say I was an impostor, that I used the similarity between my husband’s name and yours to steal your army pension.”

He shrugged, noted the way her attention went to his shoulders.

So she liked his build, eh? Any advantage he had, he’d utilize it. “Is that why you did it?” One of his skills was to spot liars. He’d always been able to do it. He suspected it had something to do with the way a person moved when they told a lie. Not the way they met his eyes. Liars were good at that, but not the rest. He watched her, forcing his mind into assessing her movements instead of just enjoying them, as his body urged him to do.

In answer to his question, she nodded. “I needed time after Waterloo. I came home, and I had nothing.” She paused, glanced away. Was there more to her decision to pose as his widow? Not lying, but concealing something. “If you’d worked that out, why didn’t you repudiate me tonight?”

“Did you expect it?”

Of course she had. He owed her nothing. Why would he want her after that? The answer still eluded him, except her body was soft and welcoming and he wanted more.

“You’ve met the dowager, so you know what I had to face at home,” he said. “They wanted me to marry. When I was in the army the dowager kept writing me letters, and somehow most got to me.

About her daughters and how charming they were. Then a demand to marry one of them.”

“Marriage? Why would they want you to? You were a second cousin.”

“The dowager likes to think everyone and everything is under her control. If she married me to one of her girls it tied up the inheritance neatly. She doesn’t consider people, she thinks dynasties and influence. My lack of the latter was made up for by the former.”

He paused. “Her second son, Vivian, was married, but after two years there was no issue. And I believe she found out about her oldest son.”

“What about him?”

He traced a line from her throat to the dip between her breasts, savouring the smooth, soft skin. So lovely. “He preferred his own sex. You understand?”

Meeting her shocked gaze, he saw she did. “I’ve seen it happen.

Sometimes if a man cannot get a woman...”

He shook his head gently. She had seen far too much. His desire to protect her never surprised him as it did now, with evidence of her deception so evident. “This was not expediency. His mother discovered his preference, and it led to a rift. She could not comprehend why he couldn’t have both. Some men can, some can’t.

Stephen could not.” He watched her take that in, but his Faith was no sheltered maiden. She knew. “Even if he married there wouldn’t have been any issue.

“Vivian’s wife never conceived,” she said. “Poor lady.” Vivian’s wife had died a year ago.

“Vivian mourned his wife truly and wanted time before he remarried. It was why they came all the way to Canada to see me, once they discovered I was alive.”

“How did they find out?”

“I wrote to Vivian after I’d established myself in Halifax as a man of substance. I did write to Stephen after I arrived in Canada, but I didn’t wait for a reply before I went into the depths of the forests, so I had no idea that letter went astray. The one to Vivian, to his posting in Vienna, arrived safely and both brothers came to Canada to entreat me to come home and do my duty by you. To get you with child for the family’s sake.” He paused. “I hadn’t realised I had a wife before then.”

The corner of her mouth twitched, as if she were suppressing a wince. “I’m glad I wasn’t born into that kind of family. I’ve seen enough to know that.” Before he could ask her, she told him. “I’m the daughter of a country vicar. Barely genteel. Twelve children were a strain on the stipend and my father’s small independence.”

“How did you come to marry a soldier?” He wanted to know more about her, to fill in the spaces, to give him a proper assessment of her.

“John and I were from the same small town in Shropshire and when he returned on leave, he courted me. I believed he loved me, at least at first, and I saw I would be useful to him. My parents were only too happy to be rid of me. I’d thought I was destined to become a governess.” She paused. “Three girls in our family, nine boys and most of them went into the army or the navy. Most have done well for themselves. I don’t have a lot to do with them these days. They are strangers to me.”

So after Waterloo she’d been effectively alone. Nobody to turn to, and while her husband had been an officer he had the lowest rank and consequently would have barely anything to leave a widow. She could have been destitute. The similarity of their names must have formed too much of a temptation for her.

“So you had nothing?”

“And no one.”

There, she’d given him total honesty on that point. Relief flooded him. He understood. Not a designing adventuress, then, more a poverty-stricken woman with nobody to help her. He wasn’t mistaken in his assessment of her. She’d taken the step she had from desperation, and the conviction that she was harming no one.

The thought impelled him to draw closer still. He slid his hand over her delightfully trim waist in a gesture more protective than desirous, although he guessed from the way his cock stirred that wouldn’t last long. Her side pressed against him, her breasts plumped by her arms, especially when she raised a hand. He wasn’t sure if she wanted to push him away and he waited, tense, until she relaxed and smoothed her palm down his chest to rest under his ribs. He smiled his encouragement but she did no more. Just as well, he supposed. He hadn’t finished talking to her yet.

He had to make one matter clear. As soon as he’d climbed through the window and seen the carpetbag, he’d known what she’d planned. “You weren’t packing to move to Grosvenor Square, were you?”

She glanced down, then back at him, pretty colour mantling her cheeks again. She couldn’t have missed his state of tumescence.

Their proximity completed what had started a bare minute ago and he hardened for her, his body begging for a repeat performance.

“No.”

He kept his voice soft and unthreatening. “What exactly did you think you would do?”