Indiscreet

"Of course," Benedict agreed. "A mere trifle."

Lydia smiled at him, pleased by his understanding, and said, "Exactly. I am so glad to hear you say so." She turned to Camilla. "Where did you find him? I don"t understand how you managed to come up with him."

"I paid him," Camilla told her bluntly.

Lydia"s eyes widened. "You mean you can buy a husband?"

"Actually, she only bought a fiance," Benedict stuck in. "Now that I am a husband, perhaps I should charge more. What do you think, Camilla?"

"I think this is scarcely the time for humor." She turned back to her aunt. "I didn"t mean that I purchased a husband, Aunt Lydia. I meant that I am paying him to pretend to be my fiance."

"How odd," Lydia said thoughtfully.

"But that doesn"t matter now. What is important is the fact that Aunt Beryl thinks we are married-and she put us in the same bedroom!"

Lydia moaned. "This is terrible. Your reputation will be ruined! Whatever are we to do? Oh, drat my wretched tongue!"

"It"s all right, Lydia. Don"t worry about it. We will manage to sc.r.a.pe by."

Lydia continued to look distressed. "But, Camilla, that just won"t do. You can"t- I mean- If anyone found out-"

"No, please, my lady," Benedict said suddenly, coming forward and taking Lydia"s hand. "Don"t upset yourself. Camilla, you are taking this jest too far." He smiled down into Lydia"s eyes, exerting a charm that Camilla had heretofore not witnessed. "Lady Marbridge, you must forgive Camilla. She is teasing you because she is a trifle peeved at your stealing her thunder."

Lydia wrinkled her brow, looking confused.

"What are you talking about?" Camilla snapped. "Stealing my thunder?"

"Yes, dear. You see, my lady, Camilla was wanting to surprise you. She thought it would be such a good joke, after all this pretense about a fiance, when she arrived here already married. All I can think is that you must have a sixth sense, my lady, to have thought of it The fact is, Camilla and I really are married."

Camilla gaped at him, momentarily bereft of speech. Lydia"s face, on the other hand, after an instant of confusion, lit up. "But how wonderful!"

She swung toward Camilla. "My dear, this is perfect! Everything is all right. I shan"t have to worry anymore. What a relief! And your reputation is safe now. This is the best news I could have had."

In the face of Lydia"s delight, Camilla found that she could do nothing except give her a sickly smile. "Yes, isn"t it?"

"Do you think I really did sense it? I can"t remember that ever happening before-although, now that I think of it, there was that one time when Anthony had caught a cold, and even though I was in London, I was quite sure that there was something wrong with him. Then the next letter from Mrs. Blakely said that he had been ill, and it was almost exactly when I had been worrying about it."

"Yes, I remember, but I don"t think-"

"But how-" Lydia went on, her mind drawn back to the entertaining topic of her niece"s marriage. "When-and why didn"t you tell me about it?"

"Now, now, Aunt," Benedict said smoothly. "I hope I may call you that now, for I quite feel as if I know you, I have heard Camilla talk about you so often and with such warmth-but may we save the questions for tomorrow? Camilla will love to sit down with you and tell you the whole story."

"I am sure it must be dreadfully romantic," Lydia hazarded.

"Yes, indeed. It is most romantic. But Camilla is very tired right now. It was a long and wearing trip, in truth."

"Yes, of course. I won"t say another word." Lydia gave her niece a roguish smile. "But I won"t be able to sleep a wink for wondering, you sly thing." She hugged Camilla impulsively and planted a kiss on her cheek. "Till tomorrow, sweetheart."

"Good night, Mr.-" Lydia paused, frowning. "But surely you are not really Mr. La.s.siter?"

"No. But for the moment, no doubt, it would be better to pretend it is so."

"Yes, of course." Still beaming, Lydia gave them a playful waggle of her fingers and left the room.

As soon as the door closed behind her, Camilla swung toward Benedict. "What in the world do you think you are doing? Are you mad?"

"No. In fact, I am trying to bring a little order into this mad situation. You are going to have to make up a story for your aunt. I am certain that you can think of one that is suitably romantic. And I suppose you will have to have me die now. One cannot cry off from a marriage."

"You think! You prefer! How can you presume to tell me what to do? Or to change my plans? My story? Mr.-Benedict." Using his first name did not have quite the ring of authority over him that she wanted. However, she found it almost impossible to call him by the pretend surname she had given him. "I think you are forgetting that you are my employee."

"How could I forget that?" he responded dryly. "You remind me of it constantly."

"Well, you certainly do not act as if you are aware of it. / am the one who will make the decisions about what we do, not you. It is, after all, my plan."

"Well, actually, it was Sedgewick"s. You and I, as I remember, merely drank the punch and listened."

Camilla flushed and tried to remember how many cups of that punch she had drunk. Three? Four? To drink even one was unladylike behavior. The more she thought about it, the more she was inclined to believe that she had been under the influence of the drink when she agreed to this scheme. No wonder they called it demon rum.

"Yes, it was Mr. Sedgewick"s scheme, of course," she said primly, "but it was my story to begin with, and I am the one who hired you. That means that you follow my orders, not tell me what to do."

"If you think that I am going to let a snip of a girl run my life, you are sadly mistaken," Benedict retorted, dropping his teasing manner. He took her chin between his thumb and forefinger and looked straight down into her eyes, saying in a cold voice, "You may be paying me money, and it may be your idiotic little story that we are playing out here. But I am in this thing, like it or not, and as long as I am, I plan to make sure that it goes as smoothly and cleanly as possible. You and your aunt have obviously already created a tissue of lies that everyone, including Mrs. Elliot, could see through. I am sure that the only one who is convinced of the truth of it is your poor sick grandfather, who no doubt chooses to be deluded."

Camilla drew in her breath sharply, but he put his hand over her lips.

"No. Hear me out If you have any sense at all, which is something I rather doubt about your aunt Lydia, then you saw tonight that Mrs. Elliot did not believe your story. The girls look like ninnies, so perhaps they do. I am undecided about the dandy and the other two men-though I cannot believe that anyone could be quite as foolish as that poet fellow appears. The important thing is that your aunt does not believe you. And unless I am gravely in error, she would love nothing more than to prove to your grandfather that you are lying. So it is up to us to make sure that she does not have any opportunity to do so."

"Of course. That is what I intend to do. It is why I hired you. But that has nothing to do with your suddenly acting as if you were in charge."

Benedict released an exasperated sigh. "I don"t intend to be part of a botched operation. If we are going to do this, then we are going to do it right."

"Are you saying that / cannot do it right?" Camilla inquired icily.

He ignored her tone, saying reasonably, "No, not that you can"t. But up until now you have not. I hope that you are capable of doing so, because if you are not, we"re doomed."

Camilla was so flooded with fury that for the moment she could not speak.

Benedict went on as if nothing were wrong, "We cannot continue with you and your aunt saying the first lie that pops into your heads. We have to have a story and stick to it. That is number one." He held up his hand, starting to tick off the numbers.

"I agree. But that does not mean that you are the one to make up the story. And why did you tell Aunt Lydia that whopper about our being married? We don"t need to fool her. She already knew the truth. It just makes one more lie we have to tell."

"No. It means one less opportunity to get tripped up. If she knows the truth, she"s likely to slip up and say something to Mrs. Elliot that will reveal that you are not married. If she thinks we really are married, then she cannot. It"s that simple. And tell her to absolutely not make up any more lies on her own. Tell her that if she does, you will deny what she said, and she will look remarkably foolish."

"I can"t say that to her! She"s like a mother to me! She helped raise me after my parents died, even though she was barely more than a bride herself, with a baby son to raise."

"I am sure she is a wonderful woman," he replied disinterestedly. "She is also featherheaded."

"You don"t even know her!"

"One doesn"t need to know her. It"s obvious. Only a nincomp.o.o.p would have told Mrs. Elliot you were married, knowing that you weren"t even really engaged."

"I thought it was rather clever of her to give us that hint, though, when we first came in the drawing room."

"It would have been more clever to have waylaid you before you reached the room and told you the whole of it. At least that way you wouldn"t have looked like a landed trout when she called me your husband."

"You are the most insulting man I have ever met."

"No doubt. But that has nothing to do with what we"re talking about."

"It certainly does. I don"t want Aunt Lydia to think that I actually married someone as boorish as you."

"Tell her I have lots of money. That always makes up for a great deal of boorishness. Besides, just think how pleasant it will be when you can tell everyone that I have died."

"Perhaps we could arrange an accident tomorrow," Camilla said pointedly.

A smile flashed briefly across his face, surprising her. "At least you have a sense of humor. That will help." He paused. "Well, are you willing to do those things? To tell Lydia to keep quiet and to not inform her about me or the charade we are playing?"

"But what will I tell her? Why wouldn"t I have told her about you before? And why would I have gone through all that pretense about a fiance" if I were planning to marry you?"

"I don"t know. You are the one who is so creative. Maybe it was very sudden. Or tell her you had to keep our love a secret for some reason. We thought there was no hope for us or something. Say I was betrothed to someone else."

"So I kept silent about my feelings, even with Aunt Lydia. Hmm, I suppose it might work. I could say that was why I refused to ever marry, that I wanted no one if I could not have you. But then your fiancee died, and you were free."

"What is this morbid fascination you have with killing people? Just say the poor girl realized what a boor I am."

Camilla grimaced. "I told you, I cannot have a boor for a husband. You are simply going to have to pretend to be pleasant Anyway, I have a much better idea. I shall say that you lost your fortune, and she, the girl you were betrothed to, cast you off because you were penniless." She paused. "Why are you looking at me that way?"

"What way?" His voice was guarded.

"I don"t know. You just looked...odd."

"I was stunned by your apt.i.tude for embellishing any story with melodrama."

"Well, it makes it much more interesting. I mean, her just deciding that you wouldn"t suit is so... ordinary."

"Ordinary is the most believable," he pointed out "Not to mention the easiest. Why don"t you stick to plain lies? Tell Lydia that you and I were in love, but I was promised to another, and then this fict.i.tious girl broke it off, and you and I were free to marry. Because of your grandfather, we decided to get married without delay, knowing how it would please him."

"All right." Camilla sighed and turned away. For the first time since they had entered the room, she actually became aware of it-the soft light, the intimate setting...the large, postered bed that dominated the room. She swallowed hard. She was going to spend the night alone in this room with a strange man. Not only that, everyone in the house, even Aunt Lydia, thought that he was her husband.

Camilla cast a nervous glance back at Benedict.

"Don"t worry," he said roughly, interpreting her look. "Your reputation will not be damaged, not as long as we convince everyone that we are married. There is nothing wrong with sleeping with your husband, and once you "do away" with me, you will just be a widow, and no one will ever know."

"Except me. And you."

He regarded her for a moment, then said, "Are you suggesting that I might take advantage of the situation?"

"It had occurred to me." She faced him resolutely.

"Don"t worry," he told her bluntly. "I have never yet taken an unwilling woman, and I don"t plan to start now. Least of all with you."

Camilla drew a sharp breath at the casual insult, her eyes flying to his face. He chuckled, his brows going up questioningly. "What? Would you rather think that I will be l.u.s.ting after your lily-white body the entire time we are together here? Well, I am sorry to disillusion you, but I will not. I prefer a woman with more experience. Coy virgins are not for me."

"I see," Camilla said sharply. "Then you prefer a woman who sells herself?"

"All women sell themselves. It is just the price that varies. Personally, I prefer an honest wh.o.r.e to the sort of pristine miss who teases and lures a man, all the while keeping her legs locked, until he"s willing to put a ring on her finger and his goods in her purse."

Camilla stared at him, amazed. "I hate to think how you acquired that view of women."

He gave a small, humorless laugh. "From experience."

Camilla turned away. She went to the window and pushed aside the drapes, gazing down into the moon-washed garden below. "How can you do this?" she asked slowly. "How can you pretend to be married, when you have such a view of women?"

He was silent for a moment, then said, "For money. Don"t you remember?"

"I don"t mean why did you agree. I meant, how could it be possible for you to act like a married man, feeling as you do?"

He looked into her eyes, and there was a long silence. "I can remember." His voice was hoa.r.s.e, and he cleared his throat. "I can remember the fool I was before."

Something about his voice sent a sympathetic pain through Camilla"s chest. "You must have loved her very much."

"There was nothing there to love." His face and tone were as cool and hard as gla.s.s. "I think we are straying from the subject. Our problem is convincing your aunt Beryl that we are married. To do so, we must sleep together in this room. She will not believe that you would risk such scandal if you were not married to me. I give you my word that I will not seduce you or force you."

Camilla"s cheeks pinkened at his blunt words. "But what will you- I mean, where will you sleep?"

He glanced around the room and pointed toward a door. "What is in there?"

"It is the dressing room." Camilla"s face brightened. "Oh! It is rather large. I remember when I was sick, Nurse used to bring a cot down and sleep in there, so that she could hear me if I called."

"Is there a cot in there now?" He opened the door and stepped inside, surveying the room.

"No. She had one of the footmen bring it down. I don"t know where it came from-the attic, perhaps. I could have one brought in."

"No. Too blatant. We must not give Aunt Beryl any reason to doubt the union. Perhaps, after a while, we could have a lovers" spat" and you could kick me out onto the cot." He came back into the room and walked over to the fainting couch that stood against the opposite wall. "But for the moment, I think this would be the best place for me to sleep."

Camilla looked at it doubtfully. "It is too short for you. You wouldn"t be comfortable."

He c.o.c.ked an eyebrow at her. "Perhaps you would rather sleep there? No? I thought not. Just give me a blanket and pillow, and I will be fine. Believe me, I"ve slept in far worse places."

"All right." Camilla started toward the bed to get the pillow, but he caught her wrist as she turned away.

"Wait. That"s not all."

"What do you mean?"

"I mean that we haven"t finished talking."

"Why not?"