The Wedding Game(40)

Thank God, she was not here to distract him from what he must do. He had seen both Summoner girls turning their horses into Hyde Park as he had driven by it that morning. He’d offered a polite greeting to the pair of them. Amy had ignored him and Belle had smiled and waved, but he saw no evidence that she favoured him over any of the other people she acknowledged, nor remembered that they were to be married in less than a month.

It was just as well. He meant to put a stop to the engagement immediately. The announcement had not yet reached The Times. If he cried off now, the whole thing might end with very little embarrassment on either side. Then he had but to explain it to Amy.

She would most likely be angry. She would not want her sister to be jilted, even by a man she wanted for herself. And she did want him. After the incident on the divan, she could not deny there was a mutual attraction. But did she love him?

It did not matter. It would not be the first time he’d developed feelings for a woman who had no heart. Perhaps, this time, passion would be enough. It made no sense at all to fight against something that they could happily succumb to once he had ended his engagement to Belle and offered for Amy instead. It was unorthodox, but it was the only course of action that made sense.

‘Lord Summoner will see you now.’ The same footman who had led him to the office two days ago was back again to take him on the same short journey down the hall. The great man had the same stack of diversionary papers in front of him to put guests in their place. But Ben had no intention of being put off so easily.

Summoner glanced up with a polite smile. ‘Lovell, I did not expect to see you again so soon.’ He made a vague gesture to the chair by the desk.

‘My lord.’ Ben gave him a shallow bow and took the offered seat.

‘You have not come to pester me about your future, I trust. The election is not for some time, you know. We can settle the details after the wedding.’ His smile, which had seemed wise before, now seemed merely sly.

‘It is the wedding that I have come to talk to you about,’ Ben replied, his tone and smile free of hesitation or apology.

‘You wish a special licence? It can be easily arranged, you know. I have friends at the Inns of Court. We can have the whole matter settled by evening.’ To prove its importance, Lord Summoner put down his papers, as if ready to handle the matter immediately.

Why had he not wondered at the man’s haste, when last he’d been here? It had been stupid of him to be flattered by the man’s attention and sure of his own merit. The boy he had once been would have known that there was nothing more dangerous to a common man than a smiling and helpful lord.

‘I am not here to seek a special licence,’ he said. ‘I saw no need to rush a matter as important as marriage and do not wish to do so now.’ He took a deep breath and said what he had come to say. ‘In fact, I wish to call a halt to the engagement.’

The smile on Summoner’s face disappeared. ‘And I assume I can guess the reason for it.’

‘I do not think...’

‘You have met my daughter and realise that she is simple minded.’

Ben held his hands up in protest. ‘That is not my reason.’

Summoner’s eyes narrowed. ‘What other reason can there possibly be?’

‘The best reason that there is. I do not love her.’

At this, Summoner laughed. ‘You are telling me you cannot marry because you do not love? It did not bother you when last we spoke, nor should it have. Do me the credit of finding a better lie than your sudden need for a love match.’

A week ago, Ben would have agreed with the man that love was the last thing to consider when choosing a mate. He had been in love before, or so he’d thought. It had been a disaster from start to finish and an emotion he had hoped he would never feel again.

Then he’d met Amy. And now he was not sure what he felt. He only knew it could not be ignored.

‘It is not a lie,’ he said, embarrassed by his own earnestness. ‘It is the truth. My heart belongs to another. I thought it was still my own when I agreed to offer for Arabella. But...things changed.’ It would gain him nothing to explain his confusion on the day he’d sworn, or where he’d been when he had made his decision. ‘It would be unfair of me to give myself in marriage if I cannot commit my whole person to the woman I wed. And as a gentleman...’

‘If you were truly a gentleman,’ Summoner interrupted, ‘you would know that marriage in the upper classes rarely has anything to do with love.’

‘If I were a gentleman?’ If he was a gentleman, he’d have been angry at the slight and not feeling the tangle of emotions that rose at those words.

‘We both know who your father is,’ Summoner said.

So it was just the matter of his supposed illegitimacy. He opened his mouth to give the usual equivocations that stopped just short of an outright lie.

‘We know who he is not, as well,’ Summoner finished before he could answer, his smile becoming a sneer. ‘I give you credit for being sensible enough not to claim aloud that it is Cottsmoor. You allow people to assume it, but I find no evidence that the story can be traced back to you.’

In the face of such potentially damning evidence, Ben offered a guarded nod.

Summoner continued. ‘However, if one bothers to send a man to the village on the Cottsmoor property, one finds Andrew Lovell. From there, it is not all that difficult to discover the truth.’