Bianca squirmed at having her own angry words turned back at her. “Cathy, don’t...”
“Coerced!” blustered Papa indignantly. “Hardly that!”
“Papa. I know you, and I know Bianca,” said Cathy with a severe look. “You told her Perusia would be lost to her, didn’t you—Perusia, the only thing she’s ever truly loved.”
Bianca jerked in astonishment. That was not true. Good heavens, is that what her sister thought?
But Cathy rolled on in a passion. “You were angry, Papa, and you madeherangry, and she agreed to it in a fury—I know you both, please don’t argue,” she said, flinging up her hand as both opened their mouths to do just that. “And in that fit of anger, neither of you willing to back down and lose face, Bianca was wed to a stranger whose main interest is Perusia. Papa, don’t you see it?” She swiveled to Bianca as their father turned red in the face. “And Bee—I know you did it for me. I never wanted you to pay such a price! No, I never would have gone if I’d thought this would happen! I would have stayed, and refused to speak in the church.” Tears welled in her eyes for a moment. “But don’t worry. We will make it right for you. Richard has spoken to everyone, and they are all united in their opinions. The marriage is invalid, and can be wiped away as if it never existed.”
In the sudden, frozen silence after this speech, Bianca’s reeling senses still caught the sound of a quiet footstep. Then another and another, retreating from the door, and with a sinking heart she knew that it was Max, and that he had heard.
She wrenched free of her sister’s grip. “You’re wrong, Cathy,all wrong,” she managed to say, and then she was running after her husband, her heart like lead in her chest.
Chapter Thirty-Three
Max climbed the hill with a spring in his step. John and Bobby had produced a run of teapots that were precisely what he wanted: simple, clean, and perfect. By now he knew what flaws would catch Tate’s eye, and he had satisfied himself there were none. Tate had been impressed by his plans today, but had warned that he still needed proof the workers could produce wares of high enough quality to put his name on them. Only if Max could demonstrate that the less experienced workers could produce wares of high enough quality would Samuel approve.
John’s and Bobby’s pots meant Fortuna wares would get a start.
Hickson met him at the door and informed him that Mr. Tate and Mrs. St. James were in the parlor, with Mr. and Mrs. Mayne. “Ah,” said Max in pleasure. He knew Bianca had missed her sister, and everyone had been expecting them any day now. He headed toward the parlor, where the door had been left open.
“...not a legal marriage,” said a man’s voice.
Max paused.
“What?” exclaimed Tate.
“It’s not a legal marriage between Bianca and Maximilian St. James,” repeated the unknown fellow.
Max’s feet rooted to the floor as the man—presumably Catherine Tate’s curate—explained the fault in the license, the requirements of the law, the grounds for invalidating Max’s marriage.
He couldn’t find a flaw in the fellow’s argument. But even worse, he didn’t hear Bianca protesting that itwasvalid, that she didn’t give a damn about the license, that she wanted to be wed to him now, no matter what she’d thought and said weeks ago.
You damned fool, he thought to himself. He’d been cynically amused at the time about Tate bribing the visiting vicar to amend the license; he hadn’t realized it would be the trap door to release Bianca from her vows.
There—that was it, his fevered brain thought. Tate bribed the vicar, making both of them complicit in any wrongdoing. Surely neither would want to stir up trouble now...
But still he listened for Bianca’s outburst, and heard nothing but confused questions from her, testing the argument.
Slowly he backed away, not wanting to hear any more but unable to close his ears to it.I remember how you scorned him... a man who is everything you despise... Perusia, the only thing you’ve ever truly loved... The marriage is invalid, and can be wiped away as if it never existed.
Finally he turned and slipped out the garden door. He was halfway home before the full impact hit him.
Poplar House, standing before him with its welcoming blue door, wasn’thome; it wasn’t his. The marriage contract had been signed after the wedding, properly amended with Bianca’s name in the right places. But if Samuel Tate meant to invalidate the marriage itself, the contract—complete with possession of Poplar House and his stake in Perusia—would be next.
Max would be penniless again, homeless and discarded. And this time with his heart in broken shards too small to put back together.
He had lost everything before, when he had little enough to lose. He had laughed it off, cursed at Fate, charged belligerently back to the tables the next night, intent on swinging his luck around. This time... this time he was numb. He’d had everything he ever wanted—no, far more—and he’d lost it, through some stupid error that hadn’t even been his doing. How did a man come back from this?
He went inside and dismissed Lawrence. Leave it for tomorrow to tell the man he was being turned off again, let go by another employer who’d risked what he could not afford to lose, and lost everything.
He was standing in his bedchamber—which had beentheirbedchamber—staring out the window when Bianca finally came home. Her voice echoed in the stairwell, and then her footsteps pounded up. Was she coming to throw him out? Fortune hunter, liar, lunatic... which would she call him?
“Max!” She flung open the door and let out a gusty breath. “Thank goodness. There you are.”
“Yes.” Thin puffs of smoke rose over the hill, white against the twilit sky. It was the kilns, firing the first pieces of Wimbourne’s order. He wondered if Bianca would deliver it to the duke herself. Wimbourne would enjoy that. “Here I am.”
“I thought you’d gone to Greta—Hickson said he thought you’d gone that way, but he was wrong...” She was gasping for breath between words. “I ran all the way to Ivy Cottage, and then all the way here...”
