Page 23 of A Rogues & Gentlemen Christmas

“Still, it seems out of character for Blackdown to act in such an odd manner. Demanding you turn up with barely a moment’s notice. No information about the girl, her family. Rum,” Will said, shaking his head in consternation. “Very rum indeed.”

“Perhaps it is the money,” Odette offered.

“Money?” Will repeated, looking between them.

Chance nodded. “It seems Odette is an heiress. Though I don’t see that swaying father to act so out of character as you say. It’s not like he needs it.”

“Oh, I don’t know,” Odette continued as Chance took a sip of his tea. “One ’undred thousand pounds could make even a rich man a little mad, I think.”

Chance choked.

Odette sprang to her feet and patted his back. “Oh, Chance! Are you all right?”

“P-Perfectly,” he spluttered, still feeling somewhat dazed. “Did… Did you say…?”

She nodded, her expression grave.

“One ’undred thousand pounds. My parents left me everything when they died. You see now why my uncle is so….” She sighed and sat down again. “After André died, I think he went a little mad. I do not think it was all about the money. He did love André, though he never understood ’im, but losing the fortune he had counted on too…. It unbalanced his mind.”

Chance stared at Odette for a long moment, a little dazed and not entirely certain what he felt. “You told me you were ruined, worthless.”

She smiled, a sad expression that he hated to see. “I did not know you, did not know what you would say or do. So much money is a lure, it makes men do foolish things, and I was still ruined. No amount of money would make me acceptable to the ton once my reputation was so badly damaged, you know this, Chance, but now… I know you. I know you are a good man who would marry me not knowing who I was or whether I had a penny to my name. I know I can trust you, with my heart, and my fortune.”

Chance swallowed down a sudden surge of emotion that caught him off balance. He reached out and took Odette’s hand, holding it tightly as she smiled at him. Clearing his throat to move the pebble that seemed to have lodged there, he turned back to his uncle to see the man had gone all misty-eyed.

“Ah, young love,” he said wistfully. “I remember it well.”

“Well enough to help us?” Chance asked him. “We must be married at once if we are to have a chance of killing the scandal before it spreads.”

Will looked from Chance to Odette and back again. He sighed and ran a hand through his dark hair. “Ah, well, Blackdown isn’t speaking to me, anyway. I don’t suppose it will change anything. Give me a few moments and I’ll sort out the licence.”

By four in the afternoon, they were married. Chance guided Odette back outside, blinking a little under the glare of a white sky. Married. Good heavens.

“No regrets?”

Chance looked down to see Odette’s dark eyes staring up at him, she looked pale and worried. His heart squeezed in his chest and he smiled.

“Not one, Lady Debdon,” he said, before leaning down and kissing her, a quick press of lips. It was all he dared here, in case anyone saw.

“Lady Debdon,” she repeated with a little laugh of surprise. “Oh, I like that, c’est très joli.”

“Not as pretty as you, wife.”

She blushed and Chance was relieved to see the colour return to her cheeks.

“Well, that was the easy bit,” he said lightly, wishing his stomach hadn’t tied itself in a knot over what came next. “Now we go home and face our relations.”

Chance was not certain if it was luck or misfortune that gave them a bright moon to travel by, as the usually simple journey became an arduous crawl over poor roads, thick with mud and slush. If not for the moon they’d have given up when it grew dark and stopped for the night. For their wedding night. The temptation to stop was so damned tantalising, and yet he did not dare. They both knew yet another night away from home would only increase the likelihood of the scandal growing too big to manage, so they pushed on.

It was close to nine in the evening by the time they finally arrived at Blackdown House, though the impressive medieval fortified manor was less a house and much more a castle. In daylight it loomed over the surrounding areas, severe and forbidding to visitors, rather like the man who owned it. Set in a deer park that stretched as far as the eye could see in all directions, there was a feeling of time having been suspended. The earls of Blackdown had been here since the fourteenth century, a fact his father would beat Chance over the head with at every opportunity. Now, in the moonlight, and with the countryside still cloaked in white, the castle appeared like a villain in a melodrama, waiting to bring down the hero. Chance gave himself a mental shake and told himself to buck up and not be so bloody stupid. He had a wife now, and she was relying on him to make this right. So he would.

Chance handed a weary Odette down from the carriage, too aware of the terror in her eyes as she stared up at the unwelcoming edifice of his home. Though she had seen it before, it couldn’t have looked welcoming at any point, but certainly not now in the eerie moonlight. In truth, he loved the castle with his whole heart, every last mouldering stone. It was rather like a cantankerous aged relative; less than pretty, often bad–tempered, and yet beloved and familiar, with ties that ran deep into your soul.

“Don’t be frightened,” he said, taking her hand. “I know it looks like the scene for every gory Gothic novel you’ve ever read, but it’s actually rather splendid when you get to know it and understand it.”

Odette tore her gaze from the dark shape of the walls that towered over them and looked back at him, searching his face.

“You love it here,” she said, the surprise in her voice audible.