Engaged to the Earl

by Lisa Berne

“It feels like an elbow, or a knee, kicking at me. How curious to think there’s a person inside you, Katherine. Do you want a girl or a boy?”

  She smiled at him. “I’ll be happy with either.”

  “That’s how I felt, Katherine dear,” said Mama, who sat nearby with Mr. Studdart’s new wife, Céleste, who had once been his housekeeper. Mrs. Studdart looked at Katherine, smiling a little, and Gwendolyn saw how her gaze went thoughtfully to Percy and Francis, and then to Aunt Verena and Aunt Claudia. Two sets of twins. Gwendolyn stared at Katherine wonderingly, then glanced over at the wide doorway as a movement there caught her eye.

  It was Christopher Beck, coming into the room but only barely; he went directly to the nearby window and stood with his back to them all. He too had gotten taller in the past few years, and his hair was longer than when last she’d seen him, brushing dark and glossy against his white shirt-collar.

  “Christopher didn’t want to be here, you know,” Diana whispered. “Father made him. He only got home today in time for supper, and already they’ve quarreled! Father asked why he couldn’t be more like Francis and Percy and Bertram and do better at school, and then Christopher swore he wouldn’t go back to university, and after that Father said he was slothful and undisciplined—oh, Gwennie, it was dreadful! They were positively shouting at each other. I was crying like anything and I could barely finish my dessert!”

  Diana’s eyes filled with tears and Gwendolyn patted her arm, though a little absentmindedly; she was seeing all at once how Christopher’s shoulders had a rigid set to them, and how very still he stood, as if the subject of a portrait enclosed by the wooden window frame. If she were to sketch him she would use white paper and black charcoal, and the mood of the drawing would be . . . bleak. How lonely he looked!

  Impulsively she got to her feet and went over to Christopher. “Hullo,” she said with a smile. “I haven’t seen you in ages. I’m so glad you could come.”

  He glanced down at her, his dark eyes resting briefly upon her face before turning away his gaze, out into the snowy, inky-black night. “Yes, it’s always nice to have a guest who makes your brothers look yet more saintly in all their many accomplishments.”

  She nearly leaned away from the low, savage-sounding resentment in his tone, but replied stoutly, “Nobody thinks that, at least not in my family.”

  He shrugged. “If you say so.”

  That seemed unanswerable, so Gwendolyn turned her head to look out the window as well. How beautiful it was outside with the snow falling in great lazy flakes. How mysterious. Half-mesmerized, after a little while she said, “Christopher, do you remember the time we nearly ran away together? This would be the perfect sort of night to do it.”

  “In this weather? Don’t be ridiculous.”

  “How odiously practical you are.”

  “More to the point,” he went on, relentless, “even if we’d gone through with it, you still wouldn’t have the money. My birthday’s not for six months yet.”

  Gwendolyn was still watching the flakes descend. Dreamily she said, “I wonder what would have happened if we had? Do you suppose we’d be living in a snug little cottage somewhere up in Scotland?”

  “If by ‘cottage’ you mean ‘hovel,’ then by all means. We’d be poor and unwashed, at each other’s throats, and with two or three babies squalling at our knees. Very romantic,” he said sardonically.

  “Well, what a dreadful husband.”

  “Without a doubt.”

  At this surly reply Gwendolyn almost caught the black tenor of Christopher’s mood, wanted to snap back angrily, but then, looking up at him, saw in his dark eyes a kind of remote desolation. And she realized, with a sudden sharp ache of sympathy in her heart, that he was hurting.

  How could she help him?

  Words wouldn’t do much, she guessed, and might only make things worse. She wished she could brush aside the dark shaggy lock of hair that fell low onto his forehead, or even put her arms comfortingly around him, but instinctively knew that his pride wouldn’t permit it—here in this room filled with other people.

  So instead, she took a slow sideways step closer to Christopher, until her skirts brushed up against him, and using this proximity as a kind of concealment, she slid her hand into his and gripped it tightly. She felt him react with a kind of startled ripple throughout his body, as might a wild animal unused to a kind touch.

  But he didn’t pull his hand away.

  They stood there in a silence that felt oddly easy and companionable. It was interesting, Gwendolyn thought, how merely clasping hands could create an instant connection between two people. Maybe, maybe, she and Christopher could become friends now. For years he had merely been Diana’s aloof, irascible older brother, and then, during that time of the Penhallows’ deep financial distress, someone she’d turned to for help. And he would have, if not for the issue of his age. That alone spoke to an essential kind of goodness within him, didn’t it?

  Gwendolyn didn’t know when he’d have to go back to university—or if he was going back—but now, all at once, she was determined to make the most of his time here. Perhaps they could go riding together, or walk over to the harbor and see Hugo and Mr. Studdart’s newest ship, or simply talk. She wondered if Christopher liked poetry.

  She was just about to ask him when, from behind them, came a loud, long, shrill cackle.

  Their hands came apart as reflexively they both turned to look over toward the perch where the Penhallow parrot sat, comfortably near the hearth and the recipient of its pleasant warmth. Aunt Claudia stood near, talking to him in her vague, amiable way.

  “Do try, Rodrigo. Say ‘I love you.’” Aunt Claudia held out a sweet rolled wafer and Señor Rodrigo only cocked his sleek green head and looked at it with visible contempt in his beady eyes.

  “I love you,” cooed Aunt Claudia.

  Señor Rodrigo gave another loud extended cackle, then said, “Blimey.”

  “I love you.”

  “Blimey.”

  “I love you.”

  “Blimey.”

  Finally Aunt Claudia gave him the wafer, which he accepted in an outstretched claw. Greedily he ate it, scattering crumbs below him with total nonchalance, then fixed her with his gimlet eye. “I love you.”

  Gwendolyn smiled, and glanced up again into Christopher’s face. He might have been looking at Señor Rodrigo but she was quite sure he wasn’t seeing him; his expression was intent, arrested, inwardly focused. She said, curious:

  “What are you thinking about?”

  He didn’t respond and Gwendolyn had to repeat her question. Finally he looked at her and slowly answered, “I hadn’t thought about our silly little plan in years. But now I’m glad you did.”

  “Why?”

  “Because you’ve given me an idea.” He sketched her a rough little bow. “Thank you—and goodbye.”

  Something about this last word caught at her and quickly she said, “Where are you going?”

  “To see an old friend.”

  With that, he was gone. Through the window Gwendolyn watched as his tall dark-coated figure disappeared all too rapidly into the black night, then she went over to Señor Rodrigo and held out her hand; he stepped onto it with the utmost affability and said, “Kiss me, you saucy wench.”

  Gwendolyn laughed, but still she wondered to herself: where exactly had Christopher gone?

  A few years ago, Hugo Penhallow had let him work in his shipbuilding firm in the Whitehaven harbor, and now, with swift steps Christopher went to the house of an acquaintance he’d made during that time, an older, rather disreputable man who ran a collier-boat back and forth to Liverpool (and, possibly, also smuggled French spirits). A good-hearted fellow, Barnabas asked no questions and cheerfully agreed to take Christopher along on his next run which, as luck would have it, was slated for the very next day.

  In the morning Christopher told his father that he was shipping out to Liverpool and from there to parts unknown, then endured with unusu
al forbearance the storm of paternal dismay and wrath which, predictably, broke over his head. When finally Father sat down in a chair, nearly gasping from the violence of his outburst, he said, “Don’t go. Wait until June, and you’ll have your money.”

  “I don’t care about the damned money.”

  Father seemed to grow a shade paler. “You’re a fool.”

  “I’m sure you’re right. Well, goodbye. I’ll write and let you know how I’m getting on.”

  “You needn’t bother,” said Father bitterly.

  Christopher only shrugged, packed a few things in a valise, said a brief and hasty goodbye to Diana who, also predictably, burst into noisy tears, and made his way back to the harbor. He boarded Barnabas’s ship, the grandiosely named Golden Hind, and took his place among the other sailors who, as uncurious as their captain, accepted his sudden presence without comment.

  They sailed away.

  “I would have liked to say goodbye to Christopher,” Gwendolyn said to Diana, who, still with swollen eyes and a reddened nose, had rushed over to relay the stupendous news. “But I suppose,” she went on thoughtfully, “he did say goodbye, in his own way. Oh, Diana, what a marvelous adventure! I do envy him.”

  “Envy him? Gwennie, how could you? Think of all the dangers! The discomforts!”

  “I am,” said Gwendolyn, a little wistfully, and Diana only stared at her, uncomprehending.

  A week or so later, Katherine got a letter from their relation Henrietta Penhallow, the elderly, indomitable family matriarch in Somerset, who, along with other news, let fall the interesting tidbit that her former companion, Evangeline Markson, and her husband Arthur were planning an extended tour of Europe now that the war was finally over. They were looking forward to taking in the art and culture of France, Spain, Portugal, Italy, the German states, and—because Arthur was a Shakespeare aficionado and wanted to take his Evangeline to Kronborg, to show her the famous castle thought to be the model for the one in Hamlet—Denmark also.

  “Oh, I’d absolutely love to see the castle,” Gwendolyn said with longing in her voice. “Do you suppose it’s a great dark hulk, very brooding and ominous? And I’d love to visit the Louvre—see the Rhine—go into Saint Peter’s Basilica. Everything. Oh, Mama, do you think I might go too? May I write to Mrs. Markson, and ask? I won’t beg, of course, or demand in a stupidly forward way—I’ll just ask very, very politely.”

  Katherine lowered the letter which she had been reading out loud to the family, and looked curiously at Gwendolyn. “But Gwennie, what about London in the spring? You’ve waited so long.”

  “Yes, and I could wait some more,” Gwendolyn answered, her enthusiasm for this new idea sweeping over her. “It’s such an opportunity, Katherine! Only think of the museums—the galleries—the monuments—all the art I’ll be able to see!”

  “You could go another time,” Bertram pointed out. “After your Season.”

  “Yes, that’s true, but war could come again, couldn’t it?”

  “Here’s hoping,” said Percy, the future soldier, with a martial gleam in his eye.

  Gwendolyn paid no heed to this unhelpful divagation. “Katherine, Hugo, you met Mr. and Mrs. Markson, didn’t you, on your honeymoon trip to Surmont Hall? What are they like?”

  “They’re splendid,” answered Hugo, as Katherine nodded agreement. “Very kind, and absolutely stuffed to the brim in the brain-box, both of them. Mr. Markson was at Oxford with Grandpapa, you know.”

  “There, you see?” Triumphantly Gwendolyn turned to Mama. “They’re practically another set of grandparents! Oh, please, Mama, do let me write!”

  There was more discussion, and in the end, her mother agreed, and Mrs. Markson graciously said yes, what a pleasure it would be to have a lively young person accompanying them, and so in the spring, instead of going to London, Gwendolyn—without a single pang of regret for the Season which had launched without her—was on her way to Europe.

  Everywhere she went, she looked, fancifully, for Christopher, but of course wasn’t surprised not to see him—although she would have been astonished to know that at one point, while traveling in Italy, she and the Marksons passed, all unknowingly, within a mere ten miles of him.

  Chapter 2

  Christopher went from Whitehaven to Liverpool, and from there to Greece, where, beneath the bright Mediterranean sun, he found employment in the olive groves, finding the work tedious yet oddly satisfying. But in his heart he was volatile, unsettled, sore. More than once did he begin a letter home, then remember Father saying in an acrid tone, You needn’t bother. Such letters were never finished. Instead Christopher spent his free time and what little money he earned in the tavernas, and on any given evening he might end up in a brawl or, more agreeably, in the arms of one willing woman or another.

  When the picking season was done, he made his way to Naples, then Rome, finding work here and there, learning the language as he went, brawling and wenching as the mood struck him. Always was he disinclined to linger, his restless spirit driving him ever onward.

  It was in the countryside outside Perugia, while he was tramping north along a winding dirt road, that he came across a large open pasture, within it a horse-training ring and a grizzled, middle-aged man gripping the reins of a handsome chestnut gelding in one hand. In his other hand was a long whip.

  The horse was clearly nervous, shaking its head against the pull of the reins and trying to back away. But the man stood his ground and jerked at the reins, saying in a loud, rough voice, “Stai fermo, bastardo! Stai fermo!”

  Stay still, you bastard! Stay still!

  Christopher saw another man, old and frail-looking, leaning on the pasture fence, watching, watching, without saying a word.

  Inside the ring, the man jerked again at the reins and when the gelding pawed nervously at the dirt, sending a cloud of dust swirling up and into the man’s face, he struck hard at the horse’s side with the whip and Christopher—who for all his life could never bear to see an animal mistreated, who hated bullies, and who had more than once recklessly plunged himself into misadventure because of it—felt a red haze of fury consume him like a flame to dry tinder.

  Dropping his battered valise he bolted to the pasture fence and in a single fluid movement was up and over it, into the training ring and on to the other man before he had time to do anything but release the horse’s reins and bring up his whip.

  It should have been more than a fair fight, as the other man was bigger and stronger, but within minutes it was over, Christopher, in his fiery rage impervious to injury or pain, bringing the older man down with a sudden sharp blow to the jaw that had him sprawling, groaning, on the ground.

  Christopher snatched up the whip. “Sei il bastardo, dannazione a te! Alzarsi. Vai fuori di qui.”

  You’re the bastard, damn you! Get up. Get out of here.

  The man did, struggling to his feet, casting over his shoulder black looks as he went to the road and walked away, limping. Christopher gave him back look for look until he was gone from view, then turned and with a massive heave threw the whip outside the pasture, deliberately sending it sailing within only a few feet of the elderly man still leaning on the fence. Useless old sod.

  Christopher looked around the pasture and saw the gelding in a far corner, reins dangling on the ground. He took a few steps toward the gelding but paused when the old man said from behind him:

  “Cosa pensi di star facendo?”

  What do you think you’re doing?

  Half-turning, Christopher answered, “Vedendo quel cavallo, vecchio pazzo.”

  Seeing to that horse, you old fool.

  The old man cackled. “Sei il pazzo, giovanotto. Quel cavallo ha il diavolo in lui.”

  You’re the fool, young man. That horse has the devil in him.

  “Anche io,” Christopher said.

  So do I.

  He turned his back on the old man and without hurry, as if he had all the time in the world, slowly approached the gelding wh
o lifted his great head, ears pricked suspiciously, legs gone rigid.

  Christopher saw, now, the ribs showing beneath the red-brown flanks and wondered if deprivation was another training technique of that damned bastard—who himself had looked all too well-fed. Now he wished he’d gone after him and had the pleasure of sinking his boot into that broad arse and helping him on his way just a little bit faster.

  With a long breath in and out Christopher tamped down the anger that wanted to flare up again, and instead fished into his coat pocket and pulled out the apple he had stowed there, plucked from an orchard a few miles back.

  He was ten or twelve feet from the horse but stopped when it tossed its head and began to sidle away. So he took a knife from his pocket and, paying no attention to the horse, sliced the apple into four quarters. He bit into one of the quarters and slowly, slowly, ate it, and when he was done he looked up to see that the horse was watching him, still with ears suspiciously pricked.

  He put one of the quarters onto his palm and held it out. “Want it?” he said. “Here. It’s yours.”

  It took nearly an hour for the horse to cautiously come close. Christopher remained entirely still, holding his arm extended, determined to stand like a statue all day if that was what it took. With pity in his heart he watched the horse, with its wild, wary eyes, and murmured:

  “Ciao, c’è un bravo ragazzo. Esatto, vieni a prendere la tua mela, è molto buona.”

  Hullo, there’s a good boy. That’s right, come get your apple, it’s very good.

  “Non ti farò del male, lo giuro.”

  I won’t harm you, I swear it.

  Finally the horse inched its way close enough to take the apple piece from Christopher’s palm.

  “Good boy,” said Christopher softly. “Want some more?” With slow, casual movements he put another apple quarter onto his palm and the horse, which had retreated, carefully came forward again. He took the apple, and after that Christopher offered him the last quarter. He was close enough now to see that the bit was too large and had to be painful to the horse’s sensitive mouth.