Until You

37

Carrying the morning Post in his hand, Thomas Morrison strolled into his cozy dining room and looked cautiously at his new wife, who was toying with her breakfast, staring out the window at the noisy London street. "Charise, what has been bothering you these last few days?"

Charise looked up at the face she'd thought so handsome on the ship, and then at the tiny little dining room in his tiny little house, and she was so furious with him and herself that she didn't deign to reply. On the ship he'd seemed so dashing and romantic in his uniform, and he'd spoken to her so gallantly, but all that had changed as soon as she'd said her vows. After that, he'd wanted her to do that disgusting thing in bed with him, and when she told him she hated it, he'd been cross with her for the first time. Once she made him understand that she was not going to put up with him or that, their brief honeymoon in Devon had been pleasant enough for her. But when he brought her back to London and she saw his house, she'd been dumbstruck. He'd lied to her, misled her into believing he had a fine house and an excellent income, but by her standards, this was near-poverty, and she despised it, and him.

If she'd married Burleton, she would have been a baroness; she could have shopped in the fabulous shops she'd seen in Bond Street and Piccadilly. Right now, right this very minute, she'd be wearing a beautiful ruffled morning gown and paying a morning call on one of her fashionable new friends who lived in those splendid mansions along Brook Street and Pall Mall. As it was, she'd spent all her money on a single gown, and then gone for a stroll in Green Park, where the Quality walked in the afternoon, and they'd ignored her as if she didn't exist! She hadn't realized what a necessity a noble title was until she'd strolled in the park yesterday afternoon and witnessed the sort of tightly knit, closed society that existed here.

Not only that, when her loathsome husband asked the cost of the gown and she told him, the man had looked as if he was going to cry! Instead of being admired and praised for her excellent taste and lovely figure, all he'd thought about was the money.

She was the one who had a right to cry, she thought furiously, glancing contemptuously at him as he read the newspaper. At home in Richmond, she'd been the one whom people envied and imitated. Now she was nothing-less than nothing-and she was consumed by envy every day when she went to the park and watched the ton promenading about, and ignoring her.

The problem with Thomas Morrison was that he didn't realize she was special. Everyone in Richmond had known it, even her papa, but the tall, handsome clod she'd married didn't grasp it. She'd tried to explain that to him, but he'd insulted her by saying she hadn't been behaving as if she were special! Furious, she'd informed him that "people behave as they are treated!" That remark had been so clever that it sounded as if it came straight from Miss Bromleigh herself, and still he didn't respond as he should have.

But then, what could she expect from a man so lacking in refinement and taste that he didn't know the difference in desirability between a paid companion and an heiress?

At first, he'd paid more attention to that Bromleigh woman than Charise herself, and no wonder-Sheridan Bromleigh didn't know her place at all. She read romance novels about governesses who married the lord of the house, and when Charise had mocked that ludicrous idea, she'd boldly said she didn't think titles or wealth would or should matter between two individuals who truly loved each other.

In fact, Charise thought bitterly as she stabbed a slice of ham with her knife, if it hadn't been for Sheridan Bromleigh, she wouldn't be in this heartbreaking mess! She would never have felt compelled to draw Morrison's attention away from her lowly paid companion when the two of them seemed to like each other, would never have eloped with him to show everyone on the ship, especially Miss Bromleigh, that Charise Lancaster could have any gentleman she wanted. Her awful life was the fault of that redheaded witch who'd put all that romantic nonsense in her head about love and fairy-tale marriages where money and titles didn't matter!

"Charise?"

She hadn't spoken to him in two days, but something about the odd note in his voice made her respond by looking up, and when she saw his incredulous; expression, she almost asked him what he was reading that made him look so foolish.

"Was there anyone else aboard our ship whose name happened to be Charise Lancaster? I mean it is not an extraordinarily common name, is it?" '

She glared at him contemptuously. Stupid question. Stupid man. There was nothing common about her, including her unique name.

"According to this newspaper," he said in a dazed voice, looking at her, "Charise Lancaster, who arrived in London three weeks ago aboard the Morning Star, has just become betrothed to the Earl of Langford."

"I don't believe you!" Charise said with blazing scorn, snatching the newspaper out of his hand so she could read the announcement herself. "There was no other Charise Lancaster on the ship."

"Read it for yourself," he said needlessly, because she'd already snatched the newspaper from him.

A moment later, she flung the paper down on the table, her face mottled with fury. "Someone is impersonating me to the earl. Some scheming, vile, evil…"

"Where the deuce are you going?"

"To call upon my 'new fiance.' "