Chapter 4

CHAPTER 4

A series of gasps rippled across the congregation, as Stephen had known it would. Oh, yes. This wedding was going to be so talked about it would even overshadow Henry Stanley and Anna’s disastrous almost-wedding.

He allowed a good, long pause, to let the anticipation build. And, of course, to size up his opponent.

Beatrice looked as though she’d been turned to stone, and not surprisingly. He imagined that she’d thought he had given up on helping her, or was simply not going to find anything.

He had considered sending her a quick note, just to let her know that he was on the case. It hadn’t taken long to decide against it. It was simply too risky—and anyway, where was the fun in that?

The esteemed Marquess of Hampton had turned an interesting shade of puce. No doubt he was already entertaining fantasies of charging down the aisle and smashing his fist into Stephen’s face.

Not in front of all of London, you won’t, Stephen thought, with a satisfied smile. Not that you can land a damned blow on me, anyway.

“Sir, you are supposed to wait until I ask if there are any objections to the wedding,” the vicar chipped in, sounding peeved. “That is the way things are done. Heavens, another moment and I would have asked if anybody knew of any reason these two could not be wed.”

Stephen eyed the man coldly. To his credit, the vicar met Stephen’s gaze unflinchingly.

“My apologies. Would you like to continue? I can wait.”

The vicar heaved a sigh and snapped the heavy Bible shut, the sound echoing through the church. “No, I would not.”

“I want to hear what he has to say.”

That was Beatrice, her voice thin and a little shaky in the heavy silence of the church.

For the first time, Stephen noticed just how pale and ill she looked. Her skin, which had been such a lovely, luminous white when he met her before, had an unhealthy shade. And had she lost weight? Not that the hideous wedding dress would imply that she had. It was truly one of the most awful dresses he had ever seen.

Concentrate, Stephen. The battle is not quite over. Delay too long, and the Marquess might actually succeed in having you thrown out of the church, and the wedding will continue.

He met Beatrice’s eyes, just for a moment. It wouldn’t do to imply that there was anything between them, of course, not even a prior acquaintance. He imagined that Theo was sitting in the crowd right now, wondering what on earth his wretched friend was doing.

You’ll see, Theodore. Just a moment, eh?

“I daresay,” Stephen continued, deliberately meeting the eyes of the Viscount. The man’s face was ashen, and he was leaning forward in his seat. “That you imagined this Marquess here was a virtuous man, suitable as a husband for a most precious daughter. Yes?”

“Yes,” Lord Stanley stuttered. “I… I would not have wanted my daughter to marry a… a rake, or a seducer , not for all the tea in China.”

“What a noble gentleman,” Stephen remarked.

Not noble enough not to marry his daughter off to a man she despises. I mean, really. What father would not have known his daughter’s mind at a time like this? Miss Haversham does not strike me as a particularly subtle woman.

“What do you have to say, Sir? Out with it, please!” Lady Stanley spoke up, rising to her feet. Her husband held her hand, seemingly for his sake rather than hers.

Stephen gave the older woman a neat bow. Grief was written on every line of her face. Stephen heard about everything, eventually, including the tragic demise of the Duchess of Thornbridge, the oldest Haversham child.

He had investigated the Marquess rather thoroughly in anticipation of today, but he had made it a point to investigate the Havershams, too. Miss Haversham in particular.

“I hate to speak so bluntly in polite company,” he continued, meeting Lady Stanley’s eyes, “but I cannot remain silent. This gentleman here…” He pointed at the Marquess. “He is a scoundrel of the worst order. He has conducted an affair with an innocent maid, gotten her with child, and subsequently abandoned her.”

Each statement was met with a louder and more shocked gasp. The Marquess’s face progressively turned a more vibrant shade of red.

He took a step forward, his fists clenched threateningly at his sides. Stephen was fairly sure that the man would try to strike him, sooner or later. With the (admittedly true) accusations that he was about to make, even the mildest man would be enraged.

“That is a filthy lie,” the Marquess spat, his eyes narrowed. “How dare you, Sir? What is your goal here, by the way? What do you hope to achieve? You don’t know me, nor my bride. Why make up such lies?”

“They are not lies, good sir,” Stephen responded smoothly. “And she is not your bride.”

The vicar stepped forward, standing warily between the two men. He cast a quick, assessing glance at the bride-to-be, who was standing at the altar and slightly swaying on her feet. With shock, most people would assume, but Stephen was fairly sure that it was with relief.

“Miss Haversham,” the vicar said gently, “perhaps you should sit down. Here, next to your parents, while we work out this matter. We shall dismiss the congregation, and?—”

“Oh, good luck with that,” Stephen snorted, jerking his head towards the crowd. To a man, they were all on the edges of their seats. “They are not going anywhere. ”

The vicar conceded this point with a sigh and a nod. “Very well. Your Grace, you cannot simply make such accusations. Proof is needed.”

“He has no proof,” the Marquess snarled. “I’ll have you locked up for slander!”

Stephen pursed his lips. “Oh, I think not. Fear not, I have my proof. As my first witness, I present Mary Greenfield.”

He was perfectly placed to see the color drain from the Marquess’s face. With a flourish, Stephen gestured towards the door. The entire congregation—and the vicar—turned to look.

Mary Greenfield was a remarkably small woman, Northern, tentative, but forthright and tough underneath it all. Many women in her position—possessed of a child but no wedding ring—would have given up a long time ago. Not Mary.

It had not been easy to persuade her to come here, but Stephen had managed it. And now, the hate-filled glare that she shot the Marquess made it all worth it.

Mary was clutching the hand of a three-year-old boy at her side, who stared up at the Marquess with interest.

Really, the resemblance was damning.

“Mary, would you be so good as to tell the kind people here exactly what you told me?” Stephen said, raising his voice so that everybody could hear. “Nice and loud, mind you. Tell them what your relationship to the Marquess of Hampton became.”

Mary drew in a breath, glancing around nervously. “I was a housemaid at the Hampton countryseat, in Devon. It was a good enough job. The Marquess here came about four years ago. He flirted with me, Your Grace. Made a dead set at me, he did. I’m not generally a foolish girl, but I did think that he truly liked me. He talked of marriage, and even gave me a ring—a ring with the Hampton crest on it. I still have the ring.”

She fished in her apron pocket, withdrawing the ring in question. There was a ripple of gasps at this.

Stephen quietly congratulated himself on his good luck. Mary was a natural storyteller. It helped, of course, that it was her story she was telling, but she could just as easily have turned out to be a cow-eyed, doleful sort of girl who wouldn’t raise her eyes from the floor and certainly wouldn’t string more than three words together.

“When I found out I was with child,” Mary continued, her voice wobbling. “I told him at once, foolishly thinking that we would be wed. He told me right away that he would never marry me, had never intended to marry me, and that I had been so… so free with my favors that the child was probably not even his!”

More gasps and whispers at this. Some ladies were fanning themselves fervently, torn between shock and a sort of salacious delight at the drama.

“We can all see, ladies and gentlemen, that the child bears a distinct resemblance to the man in question,” Stephen said, injecting just the right note of regret in his voice. “And how does he treat his child and the woman he wronged? Tell us, Mary.”

Mary swallowed hard, steeling herself. “He said that I was trying to catch him, that I was a lying little… Well, never mind what he called me. He said he wouldn’t give me a penny, and if I wanted an end to my troubles, I ought to find a pond to drown myself in.”

The gasps were more angry and less shocked now. Ladies and gentlemen in the audience with daughters grown up or growing up began to look at the Marquess with hard expressions, no doubt imagining their own precious children in Mary’s place.

Glancing around, Mary pressed on. “As you can all see, I didn’t drown myself. I love my boy—Jamie, his name is—and I’m lucky enough to have parents who love me, too, and take care of me. But lots of women aren’t as lucky as me. He is a vile scoundrel, though, and I don’t care who hears it.”

The final sentence was punctuated with an accusatory finger, pointed straight at the Marquess. It was, frankly, damning.

Stephen glanced over at the Marquess again. The color had drained entirely from the man’s face by now, replaced by an ashy paleness.

Good . He deserves it.

“She’s a liar,” the Marquess gasped and swung around to look at Lord and Lady Stanley. Not, Stephen noticed, at his bride-to-be. “This isn’t true. You can’t believe this nonsense.”

“I am not a liar! You are!” Mary shouted.

The Marquess’s temper, already horrifyingly short, frayed further. With a strangled yelp, he turned again and marched down the aisle towards Mary, his fist clenched.

To her credit, the woman did not turn around and flee. She pushed her son into the crowd, away from danger—a detail which would likely be remarked upon in several gossip columns, no doubt—and braced herself.

There was, of course, no need.

Stephen stepped neatly between them and casually drove his fist into the Marquess’s face.

There were a few screams from the crowd, and somebody may have swooned. The Marquess skidded across the stone floor, and Stephen was on him in a moment. Hoisting him up by the collar, he glanced over his shoulder at the vicar.

“I think the authorities should be summoned,” he suggested. “Since this man is becoming rather violent.”

And then he marched himself and the Marquess out of the church without a backward glance, ignoring the chaos behind him.

“Here you are, Mary. As we agreed.”

Stephen handed over a heavy purse of coins. Mary Greenfield took it, albeit reluctantly.

She was pale and shaking. Her little boy clutched at her skirts, visibly terrified.

“I shouldn’t have brought Jamie,” she murmured. “It scared him.”

“Perhaps so, but Jamie’s resemblance to his father turned the tide in our favor,” Stephen pointed out.

The congregation was now filing out of the church, talking loudly. The disbelief would be powerful, and every gossip column in London would report on this event.

The Marquess was gone, and Stephen didn’t much care where he’d gone to. Mary was leaving London directly and had already received several offers of help and employment from sympathetic members of the congregation.

“I didn’t do it for this, you know,” Mary remarked, lifting the pouch of coins. “I did it because I want him to be exposed for what he did.”

“I know, Mary. Sincerity cannot be faked, and that was why your testimony went down so well. Thank you for helping me in this matter.”

She gave him a brief smile, slipping the pouch into her pocket. He hoped the money would help her build a better life, for herself and her son.

Mary glanced over her shoulder and sucked in a breath. “Uh-oh. That’s her, the woman he was going to marry. Poor thing. Do you think she’s very broken-hearted?”

Stephen followed her gaze, spotting Beatrice Haversham in her hideous wedding dress, striding purposefully towards them.

“I fancy she’ll recover very quickly.”

“I hope you’re right, Your Grace,” Mary mumbled. “Goodbye.”

With that brusque parting word, Mary and her little boy departed, never once looking back.

Stephen turned to face Miss Haversham. Miss Haversham still .

“You did it,” she said, as soon as she was close enough. “I can’t believe… I didn’t think… Well, I…”

“You did not think I was coming,” he finished. “Yes, I can see why you would believe that. But here I am, and you are free.”

“Yes, free.” She gave a small smile. “Thank you, Your Grace.”

Stephen fiddled with his cuffs. He hadn’t meant to have this conversation quite so soon, but then, there was no time like the present.

“There is no need to thank me,” he said carefully. “My service is to be paid for with a favor, yes? A favor which I am about to call in.”

Her smile wavered. “Oh. Well, that would be ideal. Best to get it out of the way at once, yes? That way, we don’t have to see each other again.”

He tilted his head, regarding her. Was it his imagination, or did she seem almost crestfallen at the idea of not seeing him again?

Certainly my imagination. The woman must hate the sight of me. Which is rather unfortunate, I must admit.

Seeing her was pleasant enough. She was not the sort of woman he would usually admire. He preferred statuesque beauties, tall, imposing women who knew what they wanted and how to get it. Miss Haversham, while remarkably pretty, was something else.

Not that her bosom was not magnificent, of course. And her face was pretty. And he would rather have a woman with shapely curves than the waifish, stick-thin beauties that were so fashionable these days.

This was, of course, irrelevant.

“You must be relieved to be free, Miss Haversham,” he said, mostly to distract himself from ungentlemanly thoughts. “Do you plan to spend your life as a spinster?”

She blinked up at him. “Well, I don’t know. I never imagined spending my whole life alone. Now that Anna is married, and Henry is busy with G—” she cut herself off, swallowing the end of the sentence.

As if I don’t already know that Henry is in love with George the painter.

Stephen didn’t say it, though. Such rumors could be dangerous.

“I don’t know,” she repeated when she’d composed herself. “I haven’t thought about it. What favor did you want, then, Your Grace?”

Stephen let out a long sigh, glancing around. The stream of people leaving the church had begun to thin out, and none of them had glanced their way, too busy chattering about the shocking event. It was an event to remember.

“The thing is, Miss Haversham, I want a bride.”