Dearly Beloved

by Mary Jo Putney

  Hamilton had lost none of his self-possession, even disarmed and with his victim upright and able to look him in the eye. In his harsh, panting voice he said, "Ye'll not get away from me that easily. You've compromised my daughter and there are witnesses to prove it. She's yours."

  Gervase would have given half his inheritance to have a clear head. Glancing at the landlord in the doorway, he said tightly, "For God's sake, get this madman away from me. I don't know what kind of rig he's running, but I'll have none of it."

  Hamilton said with mad cheer, "Aye, Hayes, come in. You and your wife can be witnesses to the marriage."

  The landlord and his wife had been out in the hall, but they stepped in now, their faces stiff and wretched over the disaster befalling their inn. More figures hovered back in the passage, prudently keeping their distance.

  Gervase drew a deep breath, then said in his most aristocratic voice, "We can talk about this in the morning. I can't marry the girl in the middle of the night."

  "Oh, no, my pretty lad, it will be now." The wild eyes were implacable, and carried a mesmerizing air of conviction. Money may have been the motive behind this charade, but the cleric had convinced himself of the virtue of his cause. Perhaps he thought persecuting the ungodly was his duty, or that this was a profitable way to dispose of a daughter he clearly despised.

  "If it's money you want for the injury to your darling daughter's nerves, I'll pay it," Gervase snapped. Much as he loathed being compelled, giving in to blackmail might be the better part of wisdom.

  "Keep your filthy money." Hamilton sneered. "Nothing less than your name will redeem your wickedness." The gaunt face grimaced with vicious satisfaction. "Ye couldn't marry her so soon in England, where the established church is just another name for the Whore of Rome, but this is Scotland. No banns, no archbishop's license required. These God-fearing people know me, and they'll stand witness. They know how hard I've tried to keep her pure. They know it's not my fault I've failed."

  The nightmare was worsening. The ease of getting married in Scotland had made Gretna Green, the southernmost corner of the country, the destination of eloping couples for years. By ancient tradition, a man and woman could wed with a simple declaration in the presence of witnesses, so a ceremony performed by a legitimate clergyman would surely be valid.

  But beyond the legal questions was a devastating realization that tightened the sick knot in Gervase's stomach. A clergyman was by definition a gentleman, and the nubile daughters of the upper classes were sacrosanct. No matter that it was entrapment, Gervase had been caught in bed with the girl, and by the code of his class, there could be only one honorable solution.

  In the struggle between confusion, fury, and his own inflexible sense of duty, duty won.

  The details of the ceremony were never clear in Gervase's mind. Holding a candle, Hamilton recited the words of the marriage rite from memory, pausing only long enough to ascertain the groom's name before beginning. The bride stayed in the bed, held fast by modesty or hysteria, while Gervase stood a dozen feet away, taut and bare-chested, his back to the wall.

  Mary Hamilton mumbled the responses in a halting, almost inaudible voice. The landlord and his wife shifted uneasily in the background, wanting the sordid business done and forgotten before it ruined the good name of their house.

  After the ceremony Hamilton produced pen, ink, and wedding lines so speedily that it confirmed Gervase's furious conviction that he had been entrapped, a rich pigeon for the plucking. As he withdrew, the vicar's eyes glittered with triumph. "I wish you joy of the slut, Brandelin." He licked his lips with his pointed tongue; then, with a last satisfied chuckle, he was gone.

  Before the door closed, Gervase snapped to Hayes, "Get my man up and tell him to prepare the horses and baggage. We're leaving within the hour."

  The landlord stared as if the order confirmed that Gervase was the madman, but nodded obediently before he scuttled away. Then the door closed and Gervase was alone with his bride.

  With angry deliberation he turned the key in the lock, as he should have done when he first came in. If he'd had enough sense to do that before ripping his pantaloons off, perhaps this whole bloody-minded farce could have been avoided. The only light was from the lamp he had brought up earlier, the guttering flame testifying that it was almost out of oil.

  He stood over his bride and studied her with coldblooded contempt. The nondescript figure was turned away, the blanket pulled armor-tight against him. Grabbing her shoulder, he pulled the girl around to face him, exposing a pinched face swollen and blotched with tears. Hardly surprising that her father had married her off the way he had; no one else would ever want her. Only a man as obsessed with sex and sin as Hamilton could imagine that this unappealing waif would attract men's admiration.

  Gervase had been played for a fool, and this little bitch had been a party to it or she wouldn't have been in his room. How many other beds had she slithered into during her career in extortion? How many times had she screamed with outraged virtue? Her act was well-polished, and her father's was downright inspired.

  Gervase was doubtless the richest prey to come their way, so he had been awarded the dubious honor of marrying her. Unless this scene had been played identically, before, and little Mary Hamilton was a bigamist?

  The line between anger and passion can be very thin. As he gazed at the girl, Gervase's fury rekindled the appetite that had been suppressed during the bizarre wedding. The whiskey he'd drunk blurred any inconsistencies in his logic while it hardened his desire. He said harshly, "Well, Mary Hamilton, you wanted a rich husband and you've got one. Unless you're a bigamist, someday you'll be the Viscountess St. Aubyn. Was it worth this sordid little game? Or were you just doing your father's bidding?"

  The dark eyes watched him warily from behind the veiled hair but she said nothing. Her silence infuriated him as much as anything else this ghastly night, and Gervase ripped the blanket away, exposing the thin, shift-clad body. She gasped and reached vainly for the bedclothes, and he grabbed her wrist, feeling his wife's sparrow-delicate bones under his fingers.

  It was hard to believe that a girl so young could behave with such duplicity, but she made no attempt to deny the charges, and the flickering light revealed a smirk behind her tangled hair. Her smugness fanned his outrage and contempt, and in a soft menacing voice he said, "Oh, no, my lady, it's too late to play the innocent. You've gotten what you wanted, and a good deal more. You already know how to be a whore. Now I'll show you what it means to be a wife."

  The girl shrank back, her eyes wide and dark, but made no real effort to escape as he joined her on the high bed. Releasing her wrist, Gervase rolled over and covered her slight body with his own hard, muscular frame, pinning her against the mattress while he pulled up her shift.

  Her figure was scarcely more than a child's, quite unlike the lushly feminine type he preferred, but in his present mood of mindless fury Gervase didn't care. She was female, and he was in the mood to take the traditional revenge for a woman's treachery. The bitch would pay for what she and her father had done. She was, after all, his wife, and just this once he would claim a husband's rights.

  At first she was passive, her legs separating easily, the thin body shifting beneath him as she gasped words too muffled for him to understand. Perhaps she was excited. Gervase neither knew nor cared; he had never had less interest in pleasing a partner. All his anger was concentrated into vengeful lust, and with one hard thrust he forced his way inside her.

  Her dry, tight passage resisted, and penetration hurt him, but his pain was minor compared to hers. Mary Hamilton jerked violently and screamed, her shrill anguish assaulting his ears from mere inches away.

  He clamped one hand over her mouth to stop the outcry, his rage pierced by a horrified realization of what was happening. Her teeth tore at his hand, but it was too late to cease what he had begun. His body was out of control and in a dozen furious strokes he finished.

  As his seed spilled into her,
his anger splintered and dissolved. Gervase had never before had sex with a virgin, but he knew enough to recognize what he had done. There was blood on him as he withdrew, and he was sickened by the knowledge that whatever Mary Hamilton's other crimes might be, she had never before lain with a man.

  His wife's blank apathy had been shattered, and she shook with racking sobs as she wrenched herself away from her tormentor, her body convulsing into a tight knot of slender limbs.

  His head whirling with sick vertigo, Gervase rolled onto his back and threw one arm over his eyes as he gasped for breath. In the ashes of fury lay guilt and disgust as reason reasserted itself. He had behaved no better than an animal, abusing a helpless female. The girl had conspired to entrap him and was doubtless a slut at heart, but she did not deserve this kind of revenge.

  When his dizziness subsided he sat up, swinging his legs over the side of the bed and burying his face in his hands as he shuddered with self-contempt. Feeling unutterably tired, he raised his head and contemplated the girl he had married.

  Though inexperienced with virgins, he saw that action was necessary, so he stood and picked up a linen towel from the washstand. After folding it, he handed it to her and said curtly, "Put this between your legs and press your thighs together." She stared through her tangled hair, then took the towel in a trembling hand and did as he bade her.

  Drawing the blankets over the girl, he realized how very young she was, perhaps only fourteen. When her father put her to this scheme, had she known what marriage meant? Or did she think this just a game that would get her jewels and fine clothes?

  "Look at me." Though Gervase's voice was neutral and free of inflection, she cringed away. He reached down for her chin and turned her face toward him. The girl was completely broken, without even the spirit to close her eyes against him.

  Wearily he said, "Stop crying, I'm not going to do anything more to you. Listen carefully, because I will say it only once. I don't ever want to see you again. My lawyer is John Barnstable and you can write to him at the Inner Temple in London. I will inform him of this hell-born 'marriage' and he will arrange for you to receive an allowance. It will be a generous one, and you and your father can live in comfort on my money for the rest of your life. But there is a condition."

  The girl's dark eyes were still dull. Exasperated, he asked, "Do you understand what I am saying? Surely you speak English." Many of the island Scots spoke only Gaelic, though he would expect the daughter of a clergyman to have some education.

  When her head nodded, he continued with icy precision. "I never want to see or hear from you again in my life. If you ever come near London or any of the St. Aubyn properties, I will cut off your allowance. Am I making myself clear?"

  Again she nodded faintly, but as Gervase studied her with narrowed eyes, he realized with shock just how strange her face was. The girl wasn't normal; there was a slackness in her expression, and something indefinably wrong about the eyes.

  The child he had raped was simple, too crippled in mind to understand what her father had arranged for her.

  Releasing her chin as if it were a hot coal, he stood up, lifting down nausea as he grasped the extent of the crime he had committed. To force a scheming young virgin was despicable, even though she was legally his wife. To rape a creature too afflicted to know why she had been abused was a sin as unforgivable as the one he had committed when he was thirteen.

  With cold, shaking hands he dragged his clothes on, wanting only to escape this hellish place. The girl had curled into a tight little ball on the bed, the only sign of life her strange, unfocused eyes.

  Since an incompetent was hardly likely to remember his words, Gervase reached for the ink and pen that had been used for the marriage lines. On the back of one of his cards he printed his lawyer's name and address, then wrote, Hamilton: Don't ever bring her near me again. She may not use my name. After a moment's pause he added, Take care of her well. When she is dead, you will receive nothing more from me.

  That should ensure the girl decent treatment from her father, since it would be in the man's best interest to keep her safe and healthy. She had smelled clean; perhaps her father already had some kind of keeper for her. A full-time nursemaid must cost almost nothing in this godforsaken part of the world.

  Gervase stood, placing the card on the table. The girl was shivering, so he took a moment to rummage in the wardrobe for a blanket. She cowered fearfully away as he spread the blanket over her. His mouth tightened at the sight; it was no more than he deserved.

  Her dark unfocused gaze followed him to the doorway, where he paused. His legal wife was like a frightened woodland creature frozen in panic as a predator waited. His throat tight with guilt, he whispered, "I'm sorry."

  The words were more for his benefit than hers, since she seemed to have no idea what was happening. Though he had never had grounds to believe in a benevolent Deity, Gervase prayed she would soon forget what had happened. He knew better than to hope that he would do the same.

  * * *

  Five hours later Gervase and his servant Bonner were in a fishing boat carrying them toward the mainland. Bonner was a tight-lipped former military batman who nodded without comment when ordered to discuss the events of the night with no one, ever, and he had efficiently taken charge of packing his master's gear. Gervase had waited outside, unwilling to be in the same room with his bride a moment longer than necessary.

  As the boat threaded its way between the islands, Gervase's face was set in granite lines, his attention focused on rebuilding the mental walls that prevented his self-hatred from overwhelming him. Logically he knew that the events of the previous night were of no real importance. The thousand pounds a year he would settle on the girl would keep her and her appalling father in luxury without making a significant dent in his own fortune. Though most men would curse the loss of their freedom to marry whom they chose, it made no difference to him. He had known for the last ten years that he could never marry.

  But no logic could dispel his implacable guilt when he thought of the hapless child he had abused. No amount of legitimate anger or whiskey was great enough to justify those moments of violence.

  The incident was one more cross he must learn to bear. His remorse taunted him, mocking the resolution he had made to become his own man in India, to free himself from the past by building a new life. Perhaps Hamilton was right, and men were damned before they were even born.

  Gervase had always distrusted intuition, but as he watched the dark shore of Mull fall away behind him in the misty dawn, he could not escape a heavy sense of doom. Somewhere, sometime in the future, he would pay a price for last night's disastrous stupidity, and for his own unforgivable loss of control.

  Chapter 1

  Yorkshire, January 1806

  The wind blows without ceasing on the high Yorkshire moors, in the spring bright with promise, in the summer soft as a lover's caress, in the autumn haunted with regret. Now, in the depths of winter, the wind was ice-edged and bleak, teasing the shutters, threatening the doors, taunting the impermanence of all manmade structures. But High Tor Cottage had held firm against the wind for hundreds of seasons, and its thick stone walls were a warm haven for those sheltered within.

  As her son's lashes fluttered over his dazed lapis-blue eyes, Diana Lindsay gently touched his dark hair, feeling the spun-silk texture before settling in the bedside chair to wait until he was soundly asleep. Most days, as she dealt with the demands and occasional irritations of an active five-year-old, her love for Geoffrey was not on the surface of her mind, but at times like this, when he had suffered a bad seizure, she was so filled with tenderness that she ached with knowing how precious life was, and how fragile. For all the worry and occasional despair it occasioned, her son's disorder gave Diana a greater appreciation of the wonder that was a child.

  When Geoffrey's breathing was steady, Diana rose to leave the room. She could have spent all night quietly watching him, yet to do so would be mere indulgence on
her part. Even now, years before he would leave her to make his own way in the world, Diana knew how hard it would be to release him when the time came. Walking out this night was just one more of a thousand small disciplines she performed in preparation for the day when Geoffrey would belong to himself more than to her.

  As she walked from her son's small bedchamber into the hall, she heard the wind beginning to gust, the windows rattling to protest the oncoming storm. Though it was only four in the afternoon, the light was almost gone and she could not see the small farm shed across the yard when she looked out.

  Usually Diana enjoyed the winter storms, loving the solitude and peace of the high moors when the weather was too harsh for trips to the village. It made her feel safe, for if the inhabitants of the cottage could not get out, surely no dangers could get in. Security was a fair compensation for the lonely simplicity of life in this remote corner of Yorkshire.

  Diana brewed herself a cup of tea and sat down to savor the solitude. The third member of the household, Edith Brown, was suffering from a heavy winter cold and Diana had packed her off to bed for a rest before supper.

  Edith was officially housekeeper, but she was equally friend and teacher. The women shared all the tasks of the household, from cooking and milking to child-rearing.

  There was no need for Diana to rush to the milking. Apart from that and a little mending, there were no other chores and she would be free to spend the evening reading or quietly playing the piano.

  The prospect should have pleased her, but tonight she felt restless without understanding why. The solid gray stone walls had stood firm against the wind for over two hundred years, and there was food and fuel enough for weeks if need be.

  Yet still she found herself crossing to the window to gaze out, seeing only whirling snowflakes. Absently brushing strands of dark chestnut hair from her face, she tried to analyze her deep sense of unease. Over the years she had learned that such feelings could be ignored only at her peril. The last time she had felt a warning this strong, Geoffrey had been two years old. Diana had thought he was napping, and then blind panic had driven her frantically from the house barely in time to pull her son from the stream where he had crept out to play, and where he had slipped into a drowning pool.