“There’s more to this than just the murder. Did you forget that?”
Cay was well aware that Alex hadn’t answered her question about Nate and had changed the subject. She knew what Alex meant. She fell back onto the pillow. “Marriage. If she’s alive, then you’re still married.”
“Exactly. Nate and I think that if a judge is told what Lilith did to me, he’ll declare the marriage invalid right there.”
“An annulment.”
“Aye, a legal decree that says the marriage never existed. The whole country knows it wasn’t consummated.”
She turned to look at him. “I am going with you.”
“No, you’re not! You’re going back to Edilean with Adam and Tally. It’s already been settled.”
“And who did the ‘settling’?”
“Don’t look at me like that. Nate and I talked about everything all night long, and we decided that this is the best way. You’re to go to Virginia and wait for me there.”
“Wait, am I?” Her voice was rising. “I guess I’m supposed to strap on a corset, put on a pretty dress, get into a carriage, and go back to my mother in Virginia.”
“That’s exactly what you’re going to do,” Alex said firmly. “And I’m not going to argue with you about this. You cannot go with me to Charleston.”
“‘Her eyes met mine, and I was hers,’” she quoted.
“What?”
“That’s what you said. I asked you if you loved her and you said, ‘With all my heart and soul.’ Then you said that you loved her in the first moment you saw her, and that when your eyes met, you were hers.”
Alex snorted. “I’m sure I never said such a ridiculous thing in my life. A man doesn’t talk that way. It’s too . . . too flowery. Now, if I had jasmine in my hair . . .” His eyes darkened and he rolled toward her, obviously meaning to kiss her.
She put her hands on his chest and pushed. “If you think you’re going to distract me, Alexander McDowell, you have another think coming. So help me, if you don’t answer my questions, I’ll scream, and you can bet my brother will come through that door—or through the wall if he has to.”
With a sigh, Alex lay back on the pillow and looked at the ceiling. “I’m not going to fall back in love with her, if that’s what you’re worried about. This is about justice and trying to make myself whole again. I’ll never get rid of the stench of that prison from my mind, but I’m going to do the best I can. Did I tell you that they threw rocks at me on the way to the courtroom?”
“At least fifty times. What I want to know about is your stupid plan of going back to Charleston and living with a woman you are madly in love with.”
“I’m not going to live with her, and I’m no longer in love with her.” Turning, he looked at Cay. “I’m in love with someone else.”
She glared at him. “Don’t even consider saying what I think you’re about to. You’re a married man.”
Alex sat up in bed and glared down at her. “That’s what I’ve been saying! It’s what I’m trying to explain to you! I have to get myself cleared of murder charges, and I have to get out of being married to her. Are you daft, girl, that you can’t hear the simplest thing?”
“I can hear you and so can half the people in this hotel.”
Alex fell back onto the pillow, shaking his head in frustration. “If any man in the world actually knew what it was like to be married, he’d never do it.” Turning, he looked at her, his eyes pleading with her to understand. “You can’t go with me because I don’t want your name tainted. If I show up in Charleston with you on one arm and Lilith on the other, no matter what the truth is, people will say that you are the reason she had to fake her own death. People will look for something to prove that they weren’t the fools and morons that they were. When they find out that they condemned an innocent man to death, they’re going to search for a reason to forgive themselves. If they see another woman with me they’ll blame her—you.”
“But I didn’t meet you until after the verdict came in.”
“Do you think they’re going to believe that? You were in Charleston and your godfather was my only visitor. And are you forgetting that you were seen helping me escape? I know your family cleared your name legally, but no one will believe that anyone was innocently gullible enough to agree to help an escaped convict who she’d never even met. That’s more than enough ammunition for them to make up stories about my having another woman. They said that the only reason I married Lilith was for the money she was supposed to inherit. They even wrote that in the newspapers. Nate has proof that Lilith isn’t old lady Underwood’s niece, but do you think people will believe that?”
“They’ll see you had no ulterior motive for marrying her. Besides, I am the rich one,” Cay said. “She’s poor, but I’m rich, so if you were after any woman for her money, it would be me.”
Alex lifted his hands in frustration. “That’s perfect. They’ll say that when I found out Lilith wasn’t rich, I looked for a woman who was. They’ll say that I made Lilith’s life so miserable she had to fake her own death to get away from me.”
Cay frowned. “And no doubt people will look at that woman and at me, and they’ll decide that the only possible reason you’d chosen me was because of my family’s money.”
“Aye, they will,” Alex said. “They’ll take one look at that dirty hair of yours, and your face, which is usually streaked with swamp mud, and they’ll never understand why I prefer you over a renown beauty like Lilith.”
“Is that supposed to make me feel better?”