Page 13 of Wed By Proxy

“Aye, I sent Roger, but he’s not returned yet.”

“Well, when he does, I want it sent straight up to her.” He hesitated a moment. “She’s in my bedchamber,” he added, throwing a challenging look their way.

“Your bedchamber?” repeated Firmin in stunned tones. The three of them exchanged uneasy glances which Guy ignored.

“Waldon, Temur, you’re dismissed,” said Guy in clipped tones. “Firmin, you stay.”

The other two did not look best pleased to be sent away, but Firmin was his most trusted man, and Guy wanted to keep his cards close to his chest on this one. Temur sent him a dark look over his shoulder as he disappeared out the door.

“She didn’t look that sort,” mumbled Waldon unhappily, as he pulled the door closed behind him, and for some reason Guy felt the tips of his ears turn red.

“What’s going on Guy?” asked Firmin in troubled tones. “This isn’t like you.” Guy waved toward a chair and Firmin grabbed one and dragged it over to the desk.

He took a deep breath. “She says she’s my wife,” he said heavily.

Firmin sat up abruptly “Your wife?” he echoed hoarsely.

“Aye.”

Guy watched Firmin’s eyes widen with shock. He sat stock still for a moment or two, then seemed galvanized into action. “Nay, that she cannot be,” his steward said firmly, shaking his head. “Not after the manner she arrived in last night. No gently-born lady would ever have borne such treatment.”

Guy shrugged. “It’s what she claims.”

“A horse thief? Marchioness of Martindale?” Firmin sounded appalled.

“She said she paid for that horse,” Guy found himself saying. What the hells? He gave a quick shake of his head. Clearly, his thoughts were still addled from earlier. Luckily, Firmin didn’t seem to notice his slip.

“She’s lying through her pretty little teeth,” his steward answered confidently.

Guy clenched his fist. “Thought her pretty, did you?” he asked in an odd tone.

Firmin looked pained. “Nay! Her teeth only I noticed,” he hastened to explain. “She had them all,” he added lamely. “And they were white and straight and even.” Guy breathed out again. “You need to have a care, Guy,” his friend was saying earnestly. “Who knows what this wench is up to? She clearly moves in criminal circles and could even have been sent by your enemies…”

Guy looked up with a frown. “What enemies?”

“The enemies of the north, of course,” said Firmin. “The Argent King himself!”

Oh. “To what end?” asked Guy listlessly. The truth was, he had grown heartily sick of such talk in the last few years. In all honesty, the so-called southern king was now King of all Karadok. The north had surrendered and the last of the northern royal bloodline had been taken. There were endless rumblings and treasonous toasts drunk to the lost princess, the so-called rightful heir.

As for Guy, he had renounced all thoughts of plots and daring rescues after one fateful night five years ago when he had actually met the Princess Una. Nothing had prepared him for the pale girl with tired eyes, who had begged only to be left in peace. Far from chafing under the yoke of King Wymer’s imprisonment, she seemed to view her would-be deliverers with actual dismay.

“You see, unlike my father, I do not believe in the divine right of kings,” she had murmured apologetically. “I never have.” He had been profoundly shocked as every tenet his father had instilled in him from childhood had crumbled around his ears. The last of the Blechmarshes did not even believe the northern cause.

“It could be lots of things,” Firmin was waxing lyrical now on the subject. “Those southerners are equal to anything. They may want to cheat you somehow. To send a false bride and then accuse you of breaking your marriage vows.”

That seemed a little far-fetched to Guy, but he just nodded absently. After all, what did he know of the woman he’d married? Precious little. Maybe she wanted to remarry? By all accounts, old men were her preferred quarry. She certainly wouldn’t get her hands on any more of Guy’s fortune now. Maybe she’d already spent her way through the gold he’d been forced to relinquish? His mouth twisted bitterly. That would mean the female upstairs was some creature of hers, which might make more sense. He’d expected his thrice-married bitch of a wife to be some conniving harridan, not some waif with big eyes and an exquisite little body. So maybe she was an imposter? He leaned back in his chair, trying the thought out and rolling it around in his mind. There was something to be said for it. He ignored the faint bitter aftertaste it left him with. Luckily, he was far too jaded to have allowed himself to seriously believe that little temptress upstairs was his true marchioness and fate. If his thirty-one years of experience had taught him anything, it was that he was just not that lucky.

“What will you do?” asked Firmin.

Guy hesitated. “I’m not sure,” he said slowly. “Bide my time, I suppose.”

Firmin huffed and shifted in his seat unhappily. “And nurture a viper in your bosom, until you can be

certain?” he asked with disapproval. Guy shrugged. It was hard to think of her as a viper. He judged it best not to say this aloud in case Firmin got the impression she had already ensnared him. “I had heard,” Firmin started cautiously, with a look back over his shoulder at the closed study door. “That Kerslake is back.”

Guy shrugged a shoulder. “He generally turns up every few months.”

Firmin hesitated, and threw a quick look over his shoulder. “You know what they say…”