Chapter 25

The rain intensified or Marcus could have comfortably remained naked with Selina in that ramshackle old farm cottage. As more and more cold water splashed over their bare skin, they scrambled for the cover of their clothes. Selina's were no longer worth calling clothes, for which Marcus felt somewhat guilty. She instead buttoned her coat over her bare upper body. They nestled together under the last remaining section of roof, the area with the fewest drips. Marcus put his arms around her and relished the feel of her nuzzling into his embrace. Selina lifted her head to bestow soft, loving kisses on his face and neck, barely touching him with her lips.

"Do you still want to marry me?" he asked.

"Yes, but I have a condition," Selina murmured.

"And that is?"

"That it is a marriage in full. Not a pairing of convenience, to avoid a scandal or to polish a reputation," Selina said firmly.

"I am not Arthur. You still wish to enter fully into marriage with me?" Marcus persisted.

"It was you that I agreed to marry, not Arthur," Selina replied, "I know that sounds nonsensical as I believed you were Arthur at the time. But, it was you that I wanted to marry, the man that you are. Whether your name is Arthur or Marcus or George or even Napoleon. It is only a name. I came to know the man that you are. The man who watched over me for two whole days while I was bedridden, and then saved me from scandal and my father's schemes."

Marcus nodded, not wanting to speak while she was teasing him with her butterfly touch kisses. The sensations that came from her lips with each of those precious touches were just too intense to be spoken over.

"The only reason for the subterfuge was that it was the only way to inherit. I wanted to make something of Valebridge. My father had run it into the ground. His reputation was monstrous and he did not care. My family has existed for centuries and we have a proud history. I thought I could be a good Duke."

"What kind of Duke was Arthur?" Selina asked.

"I do not know. My father paints a picture of a demon and I believe that Arthur was the one that had my mother committed to the care of an asylum. That does not seem to me to be a good man. But, I did not know him." Marcus sighed, frustrated at the opaque veils of the past.

"Is there no one you can ask? Someone who knew Arthur and…oh, of course not," Selina pressed her face into Marcus' neck and he could almost feel the heat of her blush.

He chuckled, stroking her hair.

"You see my predicament. Only Beveridge knows the truth because he left Valebridge with me when I was a child. He was barely out of childhood himself at that point, his parents were my father's driver and my mother's maid. He came with me to serve the young lordling in Cumbria and we never saw Valebridge again."

"How awful. He never saw his parents again?"

"No. He never speaks of it and I believe his obsession with documenting everything stems from the way my father managed to completely rip away everything he knew. Now, he makes sure nothing can be forgotten, nothing overlooked."

"Did Arthur keep no diaries?" Selina asked, "he was a keen writer and poet when I knew him. We were young but he was already thinking that he might wish for a career in literature."

"I have found none. That is not to say that they don't exist. My father may have had them destroyed or Arthur may have hidden them well to prevent that, assuming such diaries existed in the first place," Marcus said.

"I am sorry if I am just retreading old ground. This puzzle is new to me, you have probably already thought of everything that I might suggest," Selina said.

She felt slightly despondent at the dead end Marcus, and now herself, seemed to have reached. She would not accept that Arthur had died a degenerate, ruining himself with liquor and opium. But, such things did happen from time to time and it sounded like life in Valebridge under Jeffrey Roy would have been utterly hellish. Who could have blamed Arthur for turning to such substances?

"My father will make trouble for us," she said, her mind moving to her own devil of a parent.

"Let him try. If he tries to slander me, I will pursue him through the courts. This rank I carry like a millstone around my neck will prove useful at some point, even if it is simply to swing around for the sheer weight of it," Marcus replied.

"That will be his approach, I think. The scandal route. He can do little else. I would not be surprised if he tries to poison the ton against us. He and Christleton are respectable enough in those circles," Selina said.

"Far more than I am. I am a novice when it comes to such things and gladly so. If only it were possible to make a name for oneself without having to play the games of courtly intrigue and politics," Marcus sighed.

"It is a new world to me too. Must we engage with it though?" Selina asked.

Marcus pulled away from her to look into her face. She gazed up at him innocently. That innocence was incredibly alluring given what they had been doing not so long ago. He could not look at that sweet, beautiful face and not see the naked, luscious body. Or remember the feel of her hands scratching his back, her legs around his waist. A blossom of color spread through her cheeks as though she'd had the same thought.

"What do you mean?" Marcus asked, stroking a stray lock of hair back from her forehead.

"We have each other. We are intelligent and with no little ambition. Can we not make a name for Valebridge and Roy on our own? Do we need to move in court circles or fraternize with the ton in order to rebuild the family reputation?" Selina said.

Marcus scoffed. "Well, of course we do…" then he trailed off, frowning.

It's an interesting notion, one I had never really considered. I had only ever thought of acceptance by the ton and equated that with a restored reputation.

"As a married man to a woman from a respectable family, you would have standing that you don't currently have. And together we could embark on whatever crusade we wish that will mean a legacy for our family, the Roy family."

Marcus was looking into the distance, seeing this new idea, a slow smile spreading across his face. "It would also preclude having to socialize with people who knew Arthur. Thus, there is less risk of the truth being revealed," Marcus mused.

"Until such time as you can prove your claim to the Dukedom and your identity as a son of Jeffrey Roy," Selina suggested.

Marcus hugged her close and she laughed, delighted and returning the embrace with the same fierceness. After the embrace they looked at each other, smiling as they gazed into each other's eyes.

"This day has transformed. I left London on the horns of blackmail and having discovered that my mother had died in an insane asylum. I found my wife kidnapped and fought with her father. The last couple of hours is certainly an improvement," Marcus said.

Selina offered a sympathetic smile, stroking his cheek. "For me too, actually. I honestly thought that my father was going to have me locked up until I could be forced to marry Christleton. I don't know how they thought to force me to do that, but they clearly planned it all."

"I shudder to think. I suppose now that I am here, I can see your wedding dress that you had written to me about," Marcus suggested, "the modiste is one of the very best. So good that he does not even need to locate himself in London. His clients seek him out. He told me that he could have his premises on the Outer Hebrides and his customers would follow him."

"You may not. Don't you know that it's bad luck!" Selina exclaimed.

"Oh, we don't believe in that, do we?" Marcus asked.

"We do," Selina said firmly, "what's more, we must remain in separate beds until the night of our wedding. I insist. It would not be proper otherwise."

Marcus looked at her with a raised eyebrow. From a woman who wore breeches so that she could ride astride a horse like a man, it seemed odd for her to be so reluctant to break with tradition. She lifted her head to look at him levelly.

"I will not be moved on this," she said with a tone of mock severity that carried genuine determination beneath it.

Marcus nodded gravely. "I understand. Under protest then. Until Saturday, this will not be repeated."

Selina nodded somberly, then added. "I merely said we cannot share a bed… I did not say this could not happen."

Marcus' mouth fell open and Selina's clamped tight shut as she tried to contain laughter. It exploded from her, nonetheless.