After the Wedding (The Worth Saga #2)(28)

CANNOT EXPLAIN VIA TELEGRAM

TASK ABSOLUTELY IMPOSSIBLE

SITUATION DIRE

He looked at the clerk, who would have to convert this entire thing into dots and dashes. The woman no doubt heard far more entertaining stories.

Still… It was with grave hesitation that he committed the next lines to paper.

I HAVE BEEN FORCED INTO MARRIAGE AT GUNPOINT

I DESPERATELY NEED YOUR HELP

There. He could not make matters more clear than that. He handed the material to the clerk and slid over a coin. The woman made change, then read the telegram. Her brow furrowed.

She paused halfway through, frowning. She read it again. “Your pardon. I want to be sure that I have read this correctly. This does say…‘forced into marriage at gunpoint’?”

“Forced into marriage at gunpoint,” Adrian said. “Yes. That’s exactly what it says.”

The woman made a notation above Adrian’s light pencil marks in dark slashes of ink. FORCED INTO MARRIAGE AT GUNPOINT.

“Gunpoint, sir? That word is gunpoint?” Her voice seemed incredibly loud and echoing in the small room. “Are you certain that you intend to say gunpoint?”

“Yes.” Adrian felt his face heat. Good thing nobody else was about to overhear this. “I absolutely intend to say gunpoint.”

“Gunpoint.” She frowned at the page. “Well. Will you be waiting for a reply?”

For God’s sake. His involuntary plunge into matrimony would be the talk of the town.

“Yes.” He put one hand over his face. “Yes, I definitely need a reply.”

She turned from him, a frown on her face, and tapped idly into the machine. She then took the sheet he’d written everything on and slipped it into a folder.

Adrian froze. “Do you have to keep those?”

“No,” she said with a smile, “but sometimes someone bungles things upstream, and it’s a terrible mess if I don’t retain them. I know; I’ve tried. Besides, it does get quite boring in here.”

Well. It was good to know the wreckage of Adrian’s life was providing amusement to someone.

“I hate to be nosy, but…” She paused, raising an eyebrow.

Adrian met her gaze, doing his best to give her no invitation. Hated to be nosy? He suspected she lived for that very thing.

“But the woman you married at gunpoint,” she continued, ignoring Adrian’s distinct lack of interest, “was that Miss Camilla Winters?”

He frowned at her.

“Bishop Lassiter was here earlier,” she said, “sending a telegram about her. I’ve been rather cut up about it, to be quite honest. I saw her a few times with the rector, when he came in, and…I know it’s not right, to talk that way about the clergy, but the way he’s treated her…”

“Mmm?” Adrian bit his lip.

“And the others in that household. He does go through servants. And he said he was paying her half wages right in front of me.”

“I…see.” He wasn’t sure that he did. “It was her, yes.”

“Well.” The woman nodded. “Tell her for me, will you? If she needs anything, anything at all, please have her call on me. It’s Beasley, Mrs. Susanna Rose Beasley, at her service. I wish I’d said something to her earlier.” She sighed. “Too late for that now, I suppose. I’ll fetch you if there’s a reply, then?”

This reply took two hours. Mrs. Beasley took it upon herself to take it to him where he waited with a pint of ale at a nearby pub.

“Here,” she said, handing the envelope over with a solemn look on her face. “Tell me if you need to respond.”

NO REPEAT NO UNDER NO CIRCUMSTANCES

I BELIEVE IN YOU

YOU CAN DO IT

NOTHING IS TRULY IMPOSSIBLE

ALSO COMPLETELY UNABLE TO HELP WITH ANNULMENT UNTIL CURRENT MATTER RESOLVED

CHURCH POLITICS

AM SURE YOU UNDERSTAND

“Son of a bishop,” Adrian muttered.

“What sort of church politics?”

Mrs. Beasley was still standing there, peering over his shoulder. For God’s sake. Adrian looked up at her, considered his ale, and gave up.

“The political kind,” he said. “The kind you keep secret.”

She clapped her hands together. “Ooh, those are my favorite! Here, now. What kind of secret? Perhaps I can help!”

She continued to look at him in slowly dissipating delight before she realized that he didn’t intend to explain.

Adrian thought long and hard on his reply to his uncle. He could try to explain further—but once his uncle claimed it was a matter of church politics, he was unlikely to budge. And when he thought of it…

Well, the response did make sense. In a horrible way. Denmore would have to push Adrian’s case through personally. He’d need to vouch for Adrian’s character. If his uncle wouldn’t reveal the truth of his relationship with Adrian at this moment, he couldn’t actually do much about the annulment. Not yet.

He wouldn’t do anything until Adrian found the evidence of wrongdoing that they both now suspected.

Except now that Adrian was in desperate need of an annulment, he was unable to obtain that evidence.

Damn, damn, damn.

He hated that his uncle had a point. He also hated being stuck in impossible situations.