The Substitute Countess. Lyn Stone

Laurel. Aside from keeping your good name, there are other very important considerations.”

      “Such as?” she asked, frowning.

      He looked into her eyes, holding her gaze with his as he reached for her hand. “You know no one in England. Every female must be under some man’s protection all the while, for that is the law. You could not find employment without proper references. You cannot live alone.”

      She remained silent, taking in his explanation and assessing it, probably trying to think of alternatives.

      He added the clinching argument. “And if your reputation is sullied in any way, as it would already be if we arrived together unmarried, you can never hope to make a decent match or be accepted in society, even at a lower order. So you see, this is the best way, the only way, really.”

      He plowed right ahead. “As for me, I would not be much affected. Some might term me the despoiler of an innocent, but men are seldom ostracized for that. Even so, I would hate the accusation. But you would be considered beyond the pale, quite unsuitable for any man of decent birth, even though nothing inappropriate had ever happened between us.”

      “You said yourself we are cousins. There are laws…”

      “The king himself wed his first cousin. The Regent did likewise. Ours is not a close kinship at all, regardless of the fact that we share a surname. Perfectly legal, I promise you. We won’t even need dispensation.”

      She studied him for long moments before speaking. “And yet your eyes tell me you do not like what you view as the necessity of wedding me, Jack. Is that due to my mother’s… unfortunate past?”

      “No! Absolutely not,” he rushed to assure her. “And I’m fine with a marriage of convenience. Really.” He shrugged and smiled. “One must marry, after all. This sort of union is quite the thing in English society, done all the time.”

      She inclined her head and paused as if considering that. Finally she spoke again. “That’s true in Spain, as well. I’ve led a sheltered life, Jack, however reading materials were never in short supply at the convent and the nuns are a great deal more worldly than one might imagine. Few of the girls schooled there would stay on, so they had to be made aware of what to expect. The ways of the outside world are not completely foreign to me.”

      “Then you must admit, though we aren’t well acquainted yet, this is our best solution.”

      She worried her bottom lip with small white teeth as she frowned. “I never expected to marry for love. In fact, I never expected to marry.” She added after a short hesitation, “Now I suppose I shall wed, after all.”

      “So you do not object?” he asked, almost wishing that she would. He had more arguments prepared. How could she simply accept his suggestion with such calmness and practicality? There should be some fiery debate over the matter, surely.

      “I have no objection on the face of it.” She withdrew her hand and sat back in her chair. “All my life I have dreamed of family, given the absence of one. A husband, children, a home of my own were simply an impossible fantasy I seldom entertained. It seemed so far-fetched, I never even bothered to pray for it. Now here you are, offering all of it on a silver plate.”

      “There’s no need to decide on the instant,” he said as the innkeeper approached with a tray. “And here is our food. For now, let’s get you fed.” He watched as she closed her eyes, moved her lips in a silent grace and crossed herself.

      Would religious differences cause a problem with what he had planned? Perhaps he was borrowing stumbling blocks. Or searching for some. Damn, but he hadn’t expected it to be this easy.

      Instead of pursuing his thoughts on that, he watched her eat. She tucked into the meal like a sailor on shore leave after a long voyage. “Didn’t Orencio feed you?” he asked before thinking how it sounded, that she might think he was criticizing her manners.

      She pulled a wry face. “I had little time to eat in peace while I was there. The lads I tended were prone to food fights.”

      “A handful, eh? Tell me about them.” Women loved to talk about themselves, he knew, so he deliberately provided the opportunity. Calculating, the way he had been doing since they met, seemed unnatural to him, but also necessary.

      She talked between bites, alternately grimacing and laughing softly, pointing for emphasis with her fork. He was glad she felt more at ease in his company, but wondered at it. Perhaps it was only an act, he reasoned, a defense to cover her inner fears.

      When they had finished eating, he escorted her upstairs to the chamber adjacent to his own. “Sleep well, little cousin,” he said and raised her hand to kiss the back of it. “I will call you early come morning.”

      “I probably won’t sleep a wink,” she said, withdrawing her hand and staring down at it as if it were a strange object. Her next words were a near whisper. “No matter what we choose to do next, I am glad you came for me. Thank you, Jack. You are truly a godsend.”

      Well, he had never been called that before. He answered with a brief nod and bade her goodnight. He wondered if he would sleep. Her calm and trusting nature was making it far too effortless for him to take advantage of her, and guilt was nudging him. Not strongly enough to make him cry off the proposal, though. As he saw it, neither of them had another viable choice. Perhaps she simply recognized that, as well.

      The next morning, Jack noted that her mood had not changed overnight. She smiled up at him as if he were the Second Coming. Her quiet acceptance of the impending voyage made him wonder again if she were pretending away any trepidation.

      At any rate, he was glad to see color in her cheeks and a barely subdued sparkle in those pretty brown eyes. Her features were not that remarkable, rather commonplace when taken individually. Her hair was the color of pale honey, her eyebrows and lashes several shades darker. She had an oval face, pert little nose, bright brown heavily lashed eyes and a sweetly curved and quite mobile mouth. All nice-enough attributes, but it was their combination and her ever-changing expression that lent her beauty.

      Though there was nothing static about those expressions, they generally ranged from sweetly accepting to thoughtfully questioning. She obviously avoided excitement, outright anger or anything approaching hysteria. Why that bothered him, he could not say, except that he had seen the fire in her once and wondered how she kept it banked. He should ask her for lessons.

      He had, of course, noted her lithe figure, too. What man would not do that if in the company of a woman he might marry.

      She was small of stature, a head shorter than he, and not greatly endowed at the top, though her tiny waist made her seem so at first glance.

      He could not seem to dismiss his wonder at her composure. It had to be a natural acquisition from the contemplative sisters who had raised her. Yet underneath that calm, he knew there lurked a more passionate streak in her nature. Hadn’t he glimpsed that at Orencio’s? Righteous anger, that had been, and not what Jack wished to stoke. It was the passion in her that he was looking for, of course.

      Pretense or not, she treated him like her liberator now, so perhaps he really was. It gave him a sense of satisfaction to think so. And it almost justified in his mind what he definitely meant to do.

       Chapter Three

      The next afternoon, they stood at the rail of the Minotaur, a trade vessel on which he had purchased their passage to England, and watched the port of La Coruña grow distant.

      Jack appreciated the way Laurel adapted to sea travel, as if it were some great undertaking to be quietly savored. He only hoped mal de mer didn’t claim her if the seas grew rough. At the moment she genuinely seemed to be embracing all that was new to her with an equanimity that amazed him.

      “You love the sea,” she guessed, staring out at the waves.

      “Grew up next to it and then on it,” he said truthfully. “As a child I dreamed of traveling to