The Wedding

by Edith Layton

  “Because you are alone with her here in the back end of nowhere!” Wrede exclaimed in alarm.

  “Because I have begun to know her,” Crispin replied softly. He patted his friend’s shoulder. “Don’t worry… Now, do you want to rest after your trip down from civilization? Or would you care to come with me? I’ve tenants to see this afternoon.”

  “Work?” Wrede said with a shudder. “Whatever you call it, that is work, is it not? No, thank you. I think I’ll stroll for a while and then rest up for dinner. You are feeding me, aren’t you?”

  “Of course, and well, too. I’ll leave you now,” Crispin said. He started to walk on, then turned and said with as much apology as determination, “Please don’t speak with Dulcie until I return. We’ve had enough tears for one day. All right?”

  “Oh. Certainly,” Wrede said. “Your wish is my command.” He swept Crispin a low bow. But his long face was set in worried lines as he watched his friend walk away.

  CHAPTER 12

  The earl of Wrede spent the rest of the morning acquainting himself with Crispin’s estate. He saw that his valet was comfortable in his rooms. He exchanged pleasantries with the housekeeper and butler, taking care to be sure he was nowhere near the lady of the house. He visited the kitchens to beg a glass of lemonade and left with a pastry, a tart, and a wedge of cheese wrapped in a cloth. He took that outside, and after a few minutes spent joking with a pair of milkmaids near the dairy, he strolled down to the stables and passed some time talking horseflesh with the grooms.

  Then he took his parcel of delicacies, entered the boxwood maze, and without a misplaced step, went straight to the center of it. There was a bench in a clearing in its secret heart. Sighing with contentment, he dusted off the bench with his handkerchief, spread his coattails, and sat down, crossing his long legs. He raised his face to the sun and closed his eyes. Then, although he appeared to be completely alone, he spoke.

  “Skulking is hard work, I’d think. I’ve a lovely luncheon with me. Cook even put in some pickled onions. Would you care to join me?”

  There was only intermittent birdsong for answer. He sighed theatrically. “Oh, come,” he said wearily. “I don’t mind your continuing to hover, but once I begin to dine, the sound of your secret slavering will distress me. Come out, come out, wherever you are,” he said in bored accents. “I suspect you’re behind the hedge on my right. Am I correct?”

  He heard a rustling sound and opened his eyes to see Willie Grab, looking chagrined, standing near him.

  “How’d you know?” Willie asked in disgust.

  “If my friend the viscount can do it, then so can I. But I believe he had the more difficult task,” the earl answered.

  “It’s the leaves,” Willie said with considerable grievance. “They crackle. There’s stones and stuff. How’s a fellow supposed to be sly here in the woods?”

  “Just so,” the earl said calmly, “and your giggling at me in the rose garden didn’t help your cause much, either.”

  There was a sudden silence that the earl appreciated hugely.

  “The next question, of course, is why?” the earl said. “Oh, not why you found me so amusing; I cannot hope to plumb the infant mind, nor do I wish to. I would, however, like to know what you hoped to gain by observing me in secret.” Wrede was suddenly serious, his eyes alert and cold. “Did the viscount ask you to? Or was it Harry Meech? Or some other employer of yours? How many masters do you presently serve, by the by?”

  “Two,” Willie said promptly. “Harry and the viscount. But you knowed that. I was keeping my eye on you for both of them…and ’cause there ain’t much else to do around here.” He looked as disgruntled as he sounded. “I never seen such a place. The house is grand, like a palace. But why build it here, I’d like to know? There’s nobody to see it and nothing to do in it, or outside it. It’s for the birds and bees, and that’s flat all. If I was a vegetable, I could see it. But people should stay where they belong. In London.

  “It’s spring,” he went on. However bored the earl pretended to be, he was giving Willie his complete attention, despite his half-closed eyes. “Now, back home in London there’s so much to do it’s a shame to sleep,” Willie said. “There’s always someone selling things, and twice as many to buy—everything from milk to muffins, fish to fruit, and all in the street. You can buy your dinner and eat your breakfast without going two steps from your bed.”

  He sighed. “The Fleet Street market’s got anything a body could want, too. If that ain’t enough, there’s Bartholomew’s Fair and Southwark Fair, the May Fair—Lor’, I can’t think of them all! With food and games, music and dancing. That’s for us. The gentry don’t care for the pushing and drinking, noise and carrying-on, so they got gardens: Ranelagh and Vauxhall and the like, to visit and sport in.”

  “Yes,” the earl agreed, “so they can do their own pushing and drinking, noise-making and carrying-on. But I perceive your point, and agree, utterly.”

  “Yeah. There’s always fun in town,” Willie went on in dreamy reverie. “Rivermen going up and down the water, cursing and singing, with the barges all decked out for spring. There’s carriages and horses, carts and sedan chairs in the streets. And fun? There’s puppet shows, and the quacks with their medicine shows—all free, unless you’re a fool. It’s like living at a fair year-round. And frolics—footman races, sedan chair races, cockfights, and watching the poor scrubs sitting in the pillory with egg and worse on their faces, waiting to get out.” He chuckled at some fond remembrance.

  “Yes, lovely public sports, and don’t forget the jolly hangings,” the earl said, but paused when he saw Willie’s smile vanish and his face close hard on something like pain.

  “Yeah,” Willie said gruffly, “them, too.” He kicked at a pebble. When he looked up again, his voice was scornful. “But here? The kitchen maids here, they tell me they got fairies at the foot of the garden. They’re supposed to dance in the moonlight. The maids really believe that swill! They even leave out a plate of milk for them sometimes. But they never seen one. You know why? ’Cause, they say, if you look hard at the fairies they disappear! You know why?” he asked the fascinated earl. “’Cause, the poor lasses ain’t got nothing else to do but dream up little green men, that’s why. If they was in London, they’d be cured of that soon enough I can tell you.”

  “Yes, and infected with something else promptly too, no doubt,” the earl said. “But we are agreed: London is far superior to the countryside. So, then, that being the case, my boy, why are you still here? Are you being paid handsomely enough to make such deprivation worth your while?”

  As Willie thought about his answer, the earl could see some of the calculations on his face. It was a young face, lean and sunburned, harder at times than most adult faces the earl had seen. But sometimes, when a happy thought occurred to him or when he was caught off guard, Willie, for all his wisdom and bravado, was just a boy of nine or ten—only Willie and his Maker knew the count of his days. And only those two, the earl suspected, cared. He was a child from the alleys of London, where there were almost as many orphaned children as rats. But the rats at least had mothers to succor them for longer than the street urchin did.

  There were thousands of such boys in London, but few of them, the earl thought, were as clever and calculating as Willie Grab. The fact that he’d survived to this day was astonishing enough. The further fact that he had remained free was proof of his shrewdness. He was not an apprentice or a chimney sweep or a brothel boy or even a lower servant forced to live out his days in the basement of a fine house, nor was he in prison or in the workhouse or subsisting on garbage in a back alley. He was alive and thriving and had reached the age of eight or ten without selling his body in bondage or losing his soul. Yet.

  “They pay me good,” Willie finally said. “The viscount pays better, but I been working for Harry longer. I could stay in London, but I’m staying on here ’cause this is kind of like a story now. I want to see how it comes out. Anyway,
the work is easy, and I’m learning a trade,” he said, puffing out his thin chest. “I might be a coachman someday. Maybe not,” he said, interpreting the earl’s silence as laughter at his presumption, “but it’s a useful thing to learn, anyhow. A man can’t know enough trades, you know.”

  “Do I?” the earl asked quizzically. “I don’t think so. I only know one. Being an earl is not a difficult thing to learn. It requires only breathing in and then breathing out—repeatedly. Sometimes, I’ll grant, it’s a tiresome job, often a fruitless one. But it’s the only one I know. And it pays well.

  “Be that as it may,” he continued quickly, astonished to see something like pity in the boy’s hard blue eyes, when he had only been jesting—or thought he had been, “I have a proposition for you, one that pays well. Would you like to have three employers instead of only two? I, too, would like to know the end of this story, and I can’t think of anyone better than you to keep me informed. All I want to know is what Harry wants to know.”

  “Well,” Willie said, considering, “that could be arranged, my lord, but there’s a thing I got to tell you before I take a penny: I may have three masters now, but I always got one—myself—and I do what suits that one best—first and always.”

  The earl considered Willie from opaque eyes. “You’ve discovered the secret of successful men, God help you,” he finally said, unfurling himself to stand towering over the boy. “Very well,” he said. “Consider yourself in my employ.”

  “Done!” Willie said, not backing a step away from the gentleman who loomed over him, “but I got to see some gold afore I do that, my lord.” He braced himself for a blow, and tensed to run.

  The earl paused, and then laughed. “You’ll end up ruling all England,” he said, opening his purse, “and that may be the best thing for this kingdom.”

  And Willie, for once, wasn’t sure if he was hearing a jest or not.

  * * *

  She looked every inch a fine lady, the earl of Wrede thought as Dulcie took her seat at the table. Her skirts were spread out like a fan, twice as wide from side to side as from front to back. The gown was cut low, the neck embellished with lace and furbelows. It was slouched in back in the popular bagged shape, but her lissome figure couldn’t be disguised by that. Her skin was clear, her features fine. Her topaz eyes were alert, showing her to be clever as well as alluring, and she had the most plump, kissable mouth he’d seen in a long while. In all, he thought, eyeing her, she was an enticing woman, and thus a formidable enemy.

  Wrede had no doubt that she was that. She’d landed on Crispin’s doorstep in London, and now seemed to be here to stay. In London Crispin had been ready to wring her neck, but now he looked as though he yearned to kiss it. But Crispin had worked long and hard to rebuild his fortune, and the earl couldn’t bear to see an adventuress sharing it with him through no choice of his own. Crispin was no fool, but he was kind. He was also deeply sensual. A homeless waif with such a face and form, and with his name, and sharing his house—she’d share his bed in no time, and then his fortune.

  Well, not if his friend had anything to say about it. It wasn’t fair that she had so easily achieved her goal of trapping a man into an indecent legal marriage.

  “You look very lovely, my dear viscountess,” the earl said, and Dulcie turned to him, her face aglow with happiness.

  She’d been so afraid of his reaction to her. When she’d last seen him in London, he’d been charming to her. The next time she’d seen him she was locked in Crispin’s arms and so thrilled with what she’d found there that she wouldn’t have heard the earl if he’d come down the garden path blowing a trumpet. He hadn’t been very charming then. She wondered if he was as appalled at her reckless submission to Crispin’s kiss as she herself had been. But now he was complimenting her, and when she dared look at him she saw his admiration.

  “Thank you,” she said, breathlessly.

  “Astonishing what money can do, is it not?” the earl said lazily.

  Crispin’s eyes blazed, and he clenched his fists. Wrede was too clever to be so tactless. Crispin had often found his sly cruelty amusing in the past, but now it was like skewering a baby rabbit, for Dulcie’s hurt was clear to see. It was worse when she lifted her chin and smiled as though she thought it was nothing but a pleasantry. Her courage hurt Crispin even more than the insult to her did.

  “It’s astonishing if you’re considering only gowns,” Crispin drawled, “but the lady in them remains constantly beautiful.”

  Dulcie shot him a look of surprised gratitude. Crispin was delighted to see a relieved smile light up her face again.

  Wrede’s eyes narrowed. “And she sets a tolerable table,” he said, gazing at the dishes before him. “Not the usual mutton, but creamed soups, fresh produce, and tender spring meats. I’m in for a treat. Did you direct the kitchens to produce this, viscountess?”

  Dulcie scarcely knew how to find the kitchens, much less assert herself enough to order up anything for dinner, and she was sure the earl knew it.

  “She doesn’t know your jaded appetites,” Crispin snapped before Dulcie could stammer an answer, “but I do. So I instructed the cook as to your care and feeding, my friend,” he said in a less than friendly way.

  Wrede saw the look Crispin bent upon Dulcie, and her shy answering smile. It seemed that his every cruelty drew the two closer. He managed a smile himself and decided to retreat for the time being.

  Dinner went well after that. Wrede was a wonderful storyteller, and Crispin knew how to encourage him. Dulcie was too wary of Wrede now to try, although he was completely charming again, as though he’d never been anything else to her. By the time they groaned at the size of the desserts being brought out, Dulcie had forgotten to be afraid of the earl.

  “No solitary gentlemen’s brandy for us tonight,” Wrede said as Dulcie rose. He stood as well. “Please allow an old bachelor the pleasure of a lady’s company instead. Shall we?” he asked, crooking an arm and offering it to her.

  She gave him an honest smile of pleasure and let him lead her to the salon, thinking he must be regretting his earlier cruelty.

  “May I offer you some brandy?” Wrede asked, once they had reached the salon.

  “Dulcie doesn’t indulge,” Crispin said. He crossed the room and perched on the edge of the settee on which Dulcie sat. He put his hand on her shoulder. Without thinking, she raised her own to cover it and hold it there. “She doesn’t indulge in anything but cider, that is,” he added, with a smile down at her, as he squeezed her shoulder comfortingly.

  “I see,” Wrede said, his voice troubled, because he’d seen too much.

  “Gads! Look at the time!” Crispin said with an exaggerated yawn.

  “It’s an infant of an evening!” Wrede protested. “We’ve started out on the town at this hour in London.”

  “It’s the country air,” Crispin said with determination. “I’m to bed. Do you want to stay here?” he asked Dulcie, who was looking from one to the other of them as they argued.

  “Oh, no, no,” she said, hopping to her feet. “I’m so tired I can hardly think straight, or I’d have said so immediately. I can’t imagine what made me so stupid with weariness—the food, the fire… ”

  “The company,” Wrede said in annoyance. “Don’t worry, I quite understand. No, no, don’t fret about me. I’m not tired, but I scarcely wish to impose myself on such sleepyheads. No, you go off to bed. I’ll just go to my room and write a novel or two during what’s left of the night,” he said. He bowed and, with barely concealed bad temper, left for his room. Crispin didn’t notice. He was watching Dulcie with a thoughtful expression. When he rose, it was with a new determination in his eyes.

  He had seen and felt enough, and he was tired of defending her, and himself. He was a grown man with control to equal his desires, but his desires were paramount tonight. Wrede was here, but even he seemed alien, misplaced. London and everything and everyone in it seemed a long way off. Dulcie was here. He couldn’t sto
p wanting her just because it wasn’t wise to want her.

  Crispin saw Dulcie up the long stair, holding a brace of candles to light their way down the hall to her room. It was an eerie reprise of the other night he’d accompanied her to her room, and once again he stopped with her at her door and waited expectantly.

  “May I come in?” he asked.

  She stared at him in disbelief. She couldn’t gauge his expression in the dancing light, but his gleaming gaze was intent.

  “Why?” she asked, hardly believing he would just come straight out and ask to share her bed.

  “To do this,” he said, and dipped his head and kissed her lips, which had parted in surprise. He didn’t touch her in any other way. “And this,” he breathed when he drew back to see her stunned expression, before he used his free arm to clasp her closer.

  “I have to put these candles down,” he muttered against her neck after releasing her mouth long enough to speak, “because any more of this and I’ll forget them. You’re too pretty to go up in flames like a moth,” he whispered as he brushed tiny kisses down her throat. “I want you to catch fire for me and only me.”

  “No,” she said distractedly, as shivers coursed up and down her body. “No,” she said again in a tremulous voice when she heard herself. And “No!” she said at last, pushing him away.

  “Why not?” he asked gently, as he put the candles down. He caught her hands in his and held them apart, looking down at her searchingly. “You can’t deny you want me. You know I want you. I can’t—won’t—fight you, or myself, anymore. Ah, Dulcie, I’ve done with the battle. You win. Or shall I say, ‘we win’? We’re adults, and this is needless suffering. Why go to our separate lonely beds? We’re such good companions in the daylight, let us try to find pleasure with each other tonight.”

  “Pleasure is not enough,” she said, closing her eyes to the look in his, wanting to believe what she had to say.