Treacherous Temptations(46)

“Not quite,” Hadley’s lips twitched while the reverend and the jarvey exchanged knowing looks.

“What more is there?” she asked.

The jarvey answered with a lecherous grin. “If ye be needin’ a set o’ rooms for the consummatin,’ me brother-in-law has some o’er his coffee house—”

“I thank you for your offer, but your services are no longer required.” Hadley said and handed the driver a guinea. “For your continued discretion.”

The jarvey regarded the coin wide-eyed and then pocketed it as if it would disappear. “As you say, guv!” He tugged a forelock in departure.

“Why did you dismiss him?” Mary asked after they departed the chapel.

“Because it is best that no one who has witnessed this event knows any more than they must.”

“What happens now?” she asked with a look of trepidation.

“Surely you already understand that there is yet a…minor technicality…to be fulfilled.”

“Now?” Mary plucked at her skirts. “Can it not wait?”

“Under English Law a marriage may be voided unless consummated with bodily knowledge.”

“Hadley, please,” she begged. “I cannot bear the thought of a hasty coupling in dingy quarters over some tap room. Can I not have some time to adjust to all of this?”

“As you wish,” he conceded. “I’ll grant you a short reprieve, Mary, but know that this will happen between us. It must happen. But I also swear to you that in the marriage bed you will suffer no regrets.” It was a dark promise that made her stomach flutter.

“I will see you safely returned by sedan chair,” he continued. “But I shan’t accompany you. It would be best to allow them to believe you returned on your own volition. Let Sir Richard think you’ve been frightened into submission after spending a terrorized night in the London streets.”

“What of the Countess? She knows you came after me, surely she will question.”

“Say nothing to her of our marriage. Barbara is an unprincipled schemer. I’ll handle her when the time comes. I trust you have full faith in Jenny?”

“Yes. Unconditionally.”

“Good then. Jenny and James shall be our emissaries. No one else, Mary, must know we were together this night.”

“I understand, Hadley.”

“Now, you must go.”

He flagged a sedan chair for her and her face fell. He wrapped his arms around her. “My dear, you need not fear harm, as you are too valuable a commodity to them. I only need you to buy me some time to do what I must. Go along with Sir Richard for the nonce and I’ll soon come for you.” He handed her into the chair and then took her face between his hands and kissed her.

Oh, how she’d missed his kisses. His scent. The feel of his arms around her. For a long moment, Mary allowed herself to bask in the fantasy that it could be real, that he could love her and they could have a normal life together. But when moved to deepen the kiss, she withdrew, overcome with sudden doubt. “Hadley, you do promise I won’t live to regret this?”

“Have faith, my dear. I ask only for your trust and all will be well.”

“Trust?” she repeated softly. “Is not that a mutual bargain? You seem to have so many secrets, Hadley. I wonder when you will trust me.”

…

With the certificate of marriage safely pocketed, Hadley saw Mary into the sedan chair bound for Hanover Square, and then made his own way to Jonathan’s Coffee House on Exchange Alley. The scene at the haunt of London’s most prominent financiers and moneylenders was smoke-filled chaos, but the man he sought was easily located, for Samson Gideon, a Jew who’d garnered a fortune during the panic of the South Sea crisis, was considered the veritable oracle of finance.

Hadley doffed his hat and presented himself with a bow. “Mr. Gideon, you do not know me sir, but I believe you were well-acquainted with my father. I am come on a matter of personal business. Might we speak?”

Dismissing his present companions, the gentleman regarded Hadley intently with bushy brows raised over his silver-rimmed spectacles. “Was I indeed? And who was your father?”

“Henry, Fourth Earl of Blanchard.”

“Ah.” Gideon nodded in understanding and then shook his head sadly. “I did know him well. ‘Twas a sad end for such a prominent gentleman. Lord Blanchard was regarded by many as a rarity amongst the aristocracy.”

Hadley’s gaze narrowed. “How do you mean, sir?”

“I mean that he was exceedingly sober and fair-minded. It is unfortunate that he lost his head in the speculation frenzy. You have my sincere condolences, young sir.”

“It was a long time ago.”

“Nevertheless, the demise of one’s father is always a painful loss.”

“I ask you candidly, Mr. Gideon, do you believe the charges levied against him?”

“For fraud? No, I do not,” Gideon replied. “I never did, for I knew him too well to believe him capable of such a grand scheme. But there were a number who fell to screen the guilty ones. Those were perilous times indeed,” he sighed.

Hadley breathed his own sigh of relief that the Jew remembered his father in such a favorable light. “I thank you for your kind words. I had hoped that out of former regard for my father, you might be disposed to lend me some small assistance?”