When he remained silent at the end of her story, Judith said tentatively, "Are you angry?"
"I don't know if that's the right word," he said slowly. "But, yes, I suppose I am." Angry and something else, he recognized. He was jealous of Marcus Devlin, who had broken into the tight exclusivity of their relationship. He didn't want to share his sister, Sebastian realized with a shock. He was ten months older than Judith and couldn't remember a time in his life when she had not been there, so close to him that sometimes it seemed as if they inhabited one skin. They shared everything: thoughts, dreams, desires, nightmares. They laughed at the same things and cried at the same things. And now Judith would have someone else to turn to… to share these things with.
"Do you want to marry him?" he asked abruptly. "Or are you doing this because you must?"
Judith bit her lip. "It doesn't really matter how I feel. I created this mess and I have to put it right. This is the only way we have open to us now to do what we must. And it'll be perfect, Sebastian. As Marchioness of Carrington, I'll be perfectly placed to befriend Gracemere, and as my brother, your position in Society will be assured. Nothing could be better, could it?"
"No, I suppose not." He stared, frowning into the darkness. Maybe if he could put it into the context of furthering their plan, it would hurt less. "What if Carrington ever discovers that you've used him?"
Judith shrugged. "Why should he?"
Sebastian ran his hands through his hair, clasping his temples with a distracted frown. "We'll have to make damn sure he doesn't, Ju. I don't know the man, but I'll lay odds he'd be a devilishly uncomfortable adversary."
Judith had formed a similar opinion, but she tried to make light of it. "Oh, the worst I know of him is that he's an autocrat. But I ought to be able to handle that. I'm sure he doesn't have any hideous vices or perversions." She laughed a little nervously. "I'm sure I'd sense something like that after… I mean, when…"
"Yes, I know what you mean," Sebastian interrupted dryly. "And if it's all the same to you, I prefer not to dwell on it."
"Sorry," she said. "I didn't mean to embarrass you."
"Oh, well, I'll get used to it," he said, suddenly all business. "And if you're sure about going through with it, we can certainly turn your position to good use. Besides, you have to get married sometime. I ought to be relieved to see you well established."
Judith was not wholly convinced by her brother's sudden briskness, but chose not to question it. "Let's go and do it, then," she said with matching determination.
Marcus was waiting for them in the little garden of the priest's house. He watched them come down the road, arm in arm, heads together, deep in conversation. What were they discussing - him? How easily he'd been manipulated?
He abruptly dismissed his suspicions. Judith and Sebastian understandably had a great deal to discuss. It was perfectly natural and didn't mean anything sinister. Judith was unconventional and unscrupulous, but that didn't mean she was a designing Delilah.
And despite everything, as he looked at her, at her luminous beauty barely dimmed by the blood and sweat of her day among the wounded, at the lithe frame, still graceful despite her bone-deep weariness, he wanted her now as powerfully as he had wanted her the night before. She would make him no ordinary wife, of that he was certain. She was too mercurial, had as many facets as a polished diamond, and he couldn't imagine tiring of her.
He stepped toward them as they turned into the garden, and held out his hand. "Well, Sebastian, I hope your sister has your permission. I suppose I should have asked for it formally myself."
Sebastian took the offered hand in a firm clasp. "Ju's never needed anyone's permission to do anything. And anyway," he said with a slight smile, "in the circumstances…"
Marcus found himself responding to the infectious, colluding smile, so like Judith's. "Quite so," he agreed. "Shall we go in? Oh, Judith, you'd better give me back the ring."
The cure seemed to consider this duty no more out of the way in the middle of a battle than ministering to the dying, as he'd been doing all day. He was as weary as the rest of them, took in Judith's blood-smeared, bedraggled state with a comprehending nod, summoned an ancient crone from the kitchen to act as the second witness, and escorted them into the ruined church. He mumbled through the service at high speed, his accent so local that even Judith, who had been speaking French from earliest childhood, had difficulty following.
But there amid fallen masonry, before an altar standing open to the sky, in the middle of a battlefield, surrounded by the hideousness of war, Judith Davenport married Marcus Devlin, Marquis of Carrington, in the eyes of the church. He placed his signet ring upon her finger, saying quietly, "We'll find something more suitable when we get to London." Following convention, he laid his lips lightly on hers.
"M'sieur… madame… s 'il vous plait …" The priest appeared from the vestry, carrying a leather-bound tome. "Le registre."
Judith and Marcus signed the book under the scrawled and mostly illegible marks of their predecessors. "Eh, vous aussi, m 'sieur." The priest nodded at Sebastian, who wrote his name beneath his sister's. The crone put a large X.
An awkward silence fell suddenly in the dark, ruined church. Judith cleared her throat just as Sebastian said with an unconvincing heartiness, "Well, that seems to be that. Congratulations." He kissed his sister and shook his brother-in-law's hand. "I've a bottle of cognac in my saddlebag. We should drink a toast."
Marcus nodded. "Why don't you two go outside while I settle up with the cure?"
Judith was staring down at the page on the register, at the three signatures. A curious cold crept up the back of her neck, and her scalp crawled.
"Let's go outside," Sebastian said, taking her arm. Numbly she let him lead her out into the garden.
"It's not legal," she said in a shaky whisper.
He stared down at her. A fine crescent moon was just visible through the cloud and smoke pall. It gave her pallor a waxen hue. "Whatever do you mean?"
"The names," she whispered. "They're not our legal names."
"Sweet Jesus!" Sebastian whistled softly. "We haven't been known by our baptismal names since we were babies. I never even think about it."
"What should we do?"
"Nothing," he said. "No one will ever know. If we go back in there and try to put it right, Marcus will have to know everything."
Judith shivered. "This is absurd. I'm married but I'm not."
"Judith Davenport is married," Sebastian said firmly. "Charlotte Devereux hasn't existed since she was two years old."
"But what about children?" she said almost wildly. "They'll be illegitimate."
"No one knows except the two of us," her brother stated, gripping her hands in a hard clasp. "No one will ever know. We create our own facts… our own truths… We always have."
"Yes," she said, taking herself in hand. "Yes, you're right. What's in a piece of paper?"
The door of the church banged shut, and in startled reflex they jumped guiltily apart. Frowning, Marcus came toward them, his suspicions flaring anew. "Am I intruding on family secrets?" His voice was stiff.
Desperately, Judith sought an answer that was not wholly an untruth. Her smile was strained, but she made an effort to speak naturally. "We were talking about our father. He died last year in Vienna."
"He would have been happy to see Judith married." Sebastian stepped in smoothly. "He didn't have much happiness in his life."
"No," Judith agreed. "Our mother died when we were babies and he never recovered." She passed the back of her hand over her forehead. "If I don't sit down soon, I think I'm going to fall over."