Chapter 25

Simon left Bella safely behind in one of the inn's rooms with a hot tea, a bowl of warm soup, and a dry blanket to wrap about herself after she changed out of her wet things. The innkeeper sent a girl into the village to find a change of clothes for her, and Simon set out back to the riverside as quickly as he could manage.

He did not want to leave Lord Ramsgate unattended for a moment longer than was necessary. He returned to find the pale man awake and struggling fruitlessly against his bonds.

"Untie me, you ruffian!" Lord Ramsgate cried upon seeing him at last. "You shall pay for this. You laid hands on a future duke—with intent for violence, nonetheless! I shall—"

"You shall count yourself blessed if you make it past the London courts without losing your life," Simon said stiffly, untying one end of the cord from the tree and jerking the man to his feet. "As it is, I think it a foregone conclusion that you will have lost your reputation."

The other man glared at him. "I suppose you mean to have her for yourself." A cruel smile twisted his lips. "I've seen you following her around with that lost look of love in your eyes. Well, it is no use. She won't love you back."

"If you're speaking of Lady Isabella," Simon said stiffly, "I warn you that it is best to keep any mention of her out of your mouth. The more you talk, the more I think you would be better served to ride back to London in an unconscious state."

"Then let me be very clear, before you use barbaric force on me again," Lord Ramsgate snapped. "Even if you did find some way to make the girl love you, it would be to no avail. She'll be ruined when she comes back. A friend of mine…" Simon guessed he was speaking of Amelia, "…has taken a disliking to Lady Isabella. She said to be certain of the lady's compliance, she would spread the tale of our little Gretna Green excursion before I returned. If Lady Isabella marries me, there will only be a mild disturbance surrounding an elopement. If she returns unwed…"

Simon knew at once what he was implying. If all of London knew about Lord Ramsgate and Bella's flight to Gretna Green—doubtless Amelia had left out the part where Bella was taken by force—then Bella's reputation would be ruined forever if she returned unwed. The ton, with its relentless gossiping, would assume that Bella's honor had been compromised while in the presence of a rake like Lord Ramsgate without a chaperone for so long.

Simon grit his teeth, fighting the urge to punch the man across from him again. "You are despicable."

"I wish I could take responsibility for the plan," Lord Ramsgate said, looking more relaxed. He clearly felt he was getting the upper hand. "But I'm only a foot soldier. The real mastermind would rather remain unnamed."

I will tend to the real mastermind later, Simon thought grimly. He dragged the bound man behind him into the village green, then across to the small stone shelter in the center where local prisoners spent the night for lesser crimes. "Even foot soldiers deserve justice," he said as they walked.

"You're not listening," Lord Ramsgate growled, growing desperate at the prospect of a night in the cold little cell. "If you don't let me marry her, she'll lose everything the world cares about."

"Well, that puts me in a difficult situation," Simon hissed. "If I make her marry you, she'll lose everything she cares about. The world be damned."

He stopped short of the little stone structure. A man sat outside, leaning into the shade, a pipe dangling from his lips and a set of keys from his belt.

"What's this?" the man asked.

"A man I'm taking to justice in London for the unlawful kidnapping of a fine lady," Simon said. "Do you have room in there?"

"We always have room," the jailer said, still not rising from his seat. "If he don't mind sharing with a few poachers. They're a quiet enough lot, although they haven't washed in three days' time." He grinned around the pipe at Lord Ramsgate's fine attire.

"That will do nicely," Simon said.

As the jailer stood to open the door, Lord Ramsgate jerked as though to free himself. "You would not dare," he said, furious. "I am the son of a duke. I have the title of a marquess. You cannot expect me to spend the night with two stinking thieves."

"I rather expected to drown you at the bottom of the river," Simon responded coldly, "but this is the next best option."

He pushed hard against Lord Ramsgate's back, shoving the man into the confines of the dark little room. Two sets of eyes stared out of the darkness back at him, then the door was shut.

"I'll be back for him in the morning," Simon said to the jailer, tossing him a few coins for his trouble. "I'll have a full payment for his stay, and your trouble, then. If he's gone when I return…"

"He won't be," the jailer grinned. "He will be trying to bribe me, I'm sure, but I've never had his sort in my care before. It is a pleasant thing to have the table's turned."

Simon nodded and made off across the village square back towards the inn. He needed to be able to focus on Bella at present, and checking interminably on Lord Ramsgate's bonds in some inn cellar was not a sustainable option. He would have to trust the jailer.

As he walked, he thought about what the marquess had said about Bella's reputation. Simon could think of nothing worse than watching the woman he loved forced into marriage with a cad like Lord Ramsgate, but he was also sobered by the thought of watching that same woman lose everything at the hands of Amelia's vicious gossip. On that point Lord Ramsgate was correct: the ton would assume the worst and Bella would be a byword at every social event and gathering. She would likely be bundled off into an even worse marriage by her controlling parents, and then what good would all of this have done?

He walked to the second floor of the inn and tapped gingerly on the door of Bella's room. She came and unlocked it at once, letting him in.

She looked a little better, although still pale. Her long, dark-blond hair hung nearly to her waist, combed and damp. The innkeeper's girl must not have brought her clothes yet, for she was bundled up entirely in the large blanket he'd left behind. She padded away from him in bare feet and sat anxiously on the window seat.

"I saw you out of my window," she said softly. "You took him to the little building in the middle of town."

"An overnight jail."

"What if he…" she trailed off, not wanting to say the words aloud.

"He will not escape," Simon said firmly. "Even if he does, I plan to sleep outside your door tonight. You will have every protection."

She blushed deeply. It brought a bit of color back into her pale cheeks. "You don't have to do that. There is a settee here in the room."

"I would not compromise you in any way, Bella." The words reminded Simon of the unpleasant news he had for her. "Although, I must speak to you of something unsavory. Are you in a place to talk? Do you need more rest?"

She shook her head, drawing the blanket closer around frail shoulders. "What is it?"

"Lord Ramsgate has an accomplice in London that spread news of your little adventure." He saw her eyes widened and clarified, "I imagine he left out the bit about you being taken by force, and London is expecting you to return from Gretna Green with the marquess as your husband."

She frowned at first, and then in a flash he saw the full meaning of the lie settle on her. "And if I don't come back a married woman?"

Simon sighed, and nodded. "They will assume the worst."

Bella's fingers tightened on the blanket. "I will be ruined. My family will be ruined." She looked desperate. "I will just tell everyone the truth. I will tell them I was taken by force…" she trailed off, reading the truth in Simon's eyes. "It will not matter. They will still assume my honor has been compromised."

Suddenly, the solution came to Simon like a lightning bolt. It was so clear, so simple, and so beautiful. Yet, he could not bring himself to say it. It seemed presumptuous. Bella did not appear to notice his hesitation and curled into an even smaller ball as she spoke.

"I did everything they asked me to do, and this still happened." Tears filled her eyes.

Simon was not sure he understood. "Are you speaking of Lord Ramsgate?"

"No, my parents." Bella shook her head. "I followed the rules and learned to be the woman they wanted me to be. I put aside all the embarrassing bits of my personality that they despised, and I tried to play their game." Now her tone was hardening into something like anger. "And do you see what all that got me in the end? A villain nearly managed to force me into matrimony against my will." She scoffed. "He says I would have married him in the end; that he was just moving the date up a little…"

"Is that true?" Simon asked gently.

She bit her lip. "No. I mean… I don't know. My parents wanted it desperately. Looking back with all I now know, I wish I could say that I would never have agreed to marry such a ruffian, but that is not precisely true. I considered his proposal seriously because I wanted—"

"To be what your parents needed," he finished for her.

"They only have me left," she said, her voice so low he almost couldn't hear her. "With James gone, I am the only one who can carry on their legacy. I wanted to prove to them that they did not have a failure for a daughter."

He wanted desperately to reach out and hug her but knew that that would be improper. Instead, he simply looked at her with compassion. "You are not a failure." They might be failures as parents, on the other hand…

"I will be now. No matter what actually happened here in Gretna Green, they will assume, along with the rest of the ton, that their daughter is despoiled." She began to weep softly.

It was the opening Simon needed, but even as he broached the subject at last, he felt his heart pounding with the affrontery of his suggestion. "I did think of one way we could defeat Lord Ramsgate's falsehood," he said slowly.

She sniffed and looked up, wiping a tear away from her eye. "How?"

He swallowed hard. "Please, do not think this is an impertinence for me to suggest…"

"Go on," she said firmly, sitting up a little straighter. "Anything would be better than marrying that man."

"I hope you mean that." He took a shaking breath. "If you returned from Gretna Green married to a different man—a man other than Lord Ramsgate of course—you could simply say that the rumors were a little mistaken. You did elope, and you did go across the border to do so, but it was not Lord Ramsgate who was your groom."

A frown wrinkled Bella's brow. "That would dispel the scandal, to be sure, but where am I to find a husband on such short notice? Am I not in danger of ending up with someone just as desperate and conniving as the one I escaped?"

He could not bring himself to say the words: Marry me. Instead, he just looked at her, meeting her gaze directly. She read the truth in his eyes.

"Oh," she said softly. "You."

"Me."

He let the word sit between them for a long moment. She blushed and dropped her gaze to the ground. The silence deepened.

"I know it is not the husband you were hoping for," Simon went on at last, "but I would be good to you. You would want for nothing, even if you were marrying below your station."

She bit her lip, her eyes still lowered. "It seems rather unfair that you should come all this way to rescue me and be saddled with a wife you did not choose at the end of your mission."

It was Simon's chance to pour his heart out at her feet at last. A thousand thoughts streamed through his mind, all of them some version of the declaration of love he had harbored for so long: I would choose you every day, Bella. I choose you over every woman in the world. I choose you to love until the day we die. I cannot go on without you.

But he could not do that to her. If she did not feel the same way, she would suddenly feel obligated to return his affection. Better for her to believe this was a marriage of necessity and to live on in freedom.

Simon never wanted to ask anything of her. He never wanted to force her into feeling or behaving in a way that was inconsistent with her nature. He had watched her family do that to her all her life, and he would not join in their controlling ways.

Instead, he shoved his feelings of love deep down and tried to answer in a calm tone. "You are not an ogre, Bella, to be saddled with. We would make an… amiable… match."

"Amiable, yes…" she mused, a smile touching the corners of her mouth for the first time. She raised her eyes to his at last. They were careful and guarded as always. "I do not see that I have another choice, and I am grateful that you would set your own goals aside to see to my reputation."

He nodded and stood. "Good. I'll handle the preparations. There is a priest I met earlier who would be happy to add a willing marriage to his registry, I think. When the innkeeper's girl brings up your change of clothes, we can make the matter official."

She blinked and nodded silent agreement.

He could see that she needed more reassurance but was not certain how to extend it. He was saving her reputation, but in the same breath stealing her chances at a more advantageous match. He settled for walking across the room and laying a hand ever so lightly on her shoulder.

"All will be well, Bella," he said. Then he took his leave.