An Ill-Made Match (Vawdrey Brothers Book 3)

by Alice Coldbreath

  **

  Eden spent a very strange second day at the palace. Not long after breaking her fast, she received a missive from her grandmother Lady Dorothea formally requesting a farewell meeting. Queen Armenal, when apprised of it, encouraged her to receive her grandmother in the Queen’s own sitting room. “But yes of course, Eden. You must see your grandmother before she leaves. Send your reply with my page. Jane can sit in the antechamber with a book or some needlework to give you some privacy. As for myself, I am going hawking presently.” She refused to take no for an answer.

  A half hour later, Lady Dorothea was ushered in. She was dressed as if for travel in a somber gown of charcoal gray. After seeing her seated before the fire, Jane tactfully withdrew with her book.

  “You’re going back to Hallam Hall then?” Eden asked nervously. Her grandmother did not answer, and Eden sat in the chair opposite her. “I wrote you a letter,” Eden added, after a moment’s heavy silence. “Actually, I wrote you three.”

  Her grandmother sat very still. When she spoke, her voice was harsh. “I understand you have been fraternizing with the Vawdrey family, despite your own flesh and blood being kept at bay.” She shot an accusatory look at Eden.

  “I have not seen my husband since I arrived here at court,” Eden answered. “Though it is true, I did see my sisters-in-law yester’een.”

  “Yet you did not see fit to send for your own cousin?” Lady Dorothea did not wait for Eden’s answer. “Is it too much to hope you have not been taken in by your new friends?”

  “Fenella has been my very good friend now for many months,” Eden answered quietly.

  “Well, far be it from me to offer any advice to my own granddaughter!” huffed Lady Dorothea. She glared at Eden. “I want to know what happened,” she said distinctly. “And I don’t want any of this rubbish Lenora has seen fit to spout at me. I thought, from you at least I would get plain dealing.” She broke off her words with a gesture of impatience. “Out with it, child! Come, did someone put you up to it?”

  Eden stared. “No.” Such as who? She wondered.

  “You thought you’d set yourself up as some sacrificial lamb then, is that it? To spare your cousin?”

  Eden gave a shocked splutter. “Of course not!” Her cheeks turned red. “My sense of duty never extended that far!”

  Her grandmother narrowed her eyes at her. “Then I cannot understand you.”

  “I would have to have been a complete fool to even think of such an idiotic scheme,” Eden pointed out.

  “You’d rather I thought you out to snare a husband for yourself, would you?” Lady Dorothea’s eyebrows rose. “Was it Leo’s plan? I want to know. How on earth did you of all people, end up in bed with the King’s champion,” snapped Lady Dorothea.

  Eden fell back breathless in her chair. “Stop it grandmother!”

  “It’s no use playing coy, if that’s the story you’re sticking to, my girl!”

  Eden noticed the haggardness about her grandmother’s features and the tension in her tall, thin body. She had not been to court in twenty years, and yet she had dragged herself here to try and demand justice for her granddaughter who she had believed had been wronged. Even if it meant dragging her family name through the mud. “He – I mean, Roland - has been very… good about it,” she said avoiding Lady Dorothea’s pale blue eyes.

  Her grandmother’s thin hands twitched in her lap. “If you’ve nothing else to say on the subject, then I will take my leave of you,” she said coldly.

  Eden’s eyes darted to her face, which was an outraged mask. The older woman swept suddenly to her feet. “Wait!” she said, throwing up a hand. “If I tell you…” she gulped. “You will not… You must not..”

  “If you cannot find it in your heart to trust me, your own kinswoman,” said her grandmother vehemently. “Then…”

  “I walked into it,” said Eden. “You remember my old affliction, when troubled? How I… used to walk. In my sleep.” She covered her face a moment with her hand. Eden heard a rustle and peeped through her fingers. Lady Dorothea had dropped back into her seat, her face white as chalk.

  “No,” she whispered. “Eden, you could not have!”

  “I’m afraid I must have,” she replied tonelessly. “I’ve been over it in my head time and again. There can be no other explanation.” She swallowed. “He – he was uppermost in my thoughts at the time. We had discussed him that very afternoon, as you remembered. How we hoped Lenora would come to her senses and not go through with it,” she broke off a moment. “Of course, Uncle Leo always put his most honored guest in the yellow bedchamber, I would have known that instinctively. He was very drunk that night, and would not have woken when I let myself in.” Her grandmother’s face, when she steeled herself to look at it, was horrified. “I could not think straight the next morning. We were discovered, it was all such a living nightmare. I felt so unwell and unlike myself. I was confused, I had no defense or idea at that point what had even happened. When I realized later, well… You can imagine how I felt. Guilty, utterly wretched to find I was in fact, the author of my own undoing.”

  Lady Dorothea rose to her feet and walked to the fire a moment, where she stood staring down at it. “I hardly know what to say, Eden,” she said awkwardly. “I had no idea you still did this childish thing.”

  “I’ve only recently re-started,” said Eden tonelessly.

  “You have done it again, since?”

  “At least twice,” she admitted. “And probably would have done so more than that if it were not for-” she broke off, not wanting to admit that Roland would throw a leg or arm across her to still her unquiet slumbers.

  “What an unhappy start to wedded life,” said Lady Dorothea heavily. She returned to her chair. She sighed heavily. “You say he has been kind to you?” she said after a moment’s pause. “Is it too much for me to hope that is the truth? He must have been exceedingly angry when you confessed, my girl and nothing you can say will convince me otherwise.”

  Eden hesitated. “I – I have not confessed,” she said, raising her chin.

  “I beg your pardon?”

  “I have not confessed,” she reiterated clasped her hands together in her lap. “I tried to have a frank discussion with him on the subject, but somehow… it did not go to plan. We ended up quarrelling. I got extremely emotional. It’s hard to explain.”

  Lady Dorothea tipped her head to one side. “Quarrelling,” she repeated.

  “Oh yes. We quarrel and bicker, and then afterward, well…” she broke off again feebly. “He does not seem to really bear grudges. It’s almost seems as if it clears the air.”

  Lady Dorothea cupped her chin in one hand and regarded Eden thoughtfully. “Your grandfather and I had some lively spats in the early days of our marriage,” she said vaguely.

  “Really?” For some reason, Eden was startled by that information.

  “I hope you don’t think I’m intruding, Eden,” her grandmother said. “But what exactly does Sir Roland imagine motivated you to climb into his bed?”

  Eden sighed. “He thinks I decided to entrap him into marriage,” she said simply. “But for some reason, that did not give him a disgust of me like you’d think. He seems to… rather like the idea that I wanted him that much,” She felt her cheeks turn quite pink at her grandmother’s regard. “He’s ridiculous sometimes, and I’ve given up trying to understand him.”

  Her grandmother gave a short, startled laugh. “Have I been worrying over nothing?” she asked shrewdly.

  Eden looked away. “Possibly. Do you think I ought to discuss the sleepwalking thing with him?” she asked.

  “What do you think?” Her grandmother sounded curious.

  “I think it would make him feel sorry for me,” said Eden abruptly. “And I do not want that.”

  “I see.”

  “Do you?” Somehow Eden doubted it. “The thing Roland admires most in all the world is bravery,” she said suddenly. “I suppose, I would like him to think me br
ave, rather than an object of pity.”

  Her grandmother did not speak for several moments, and when she did, Eden was taken aback.

  “I’m going home,” Lady Dorothea said. “To Hallam Hall. In a month or so, when you have set everything in order here, you and your husband can invite me to stay with you, and I will accept. Then I will get to see these quarrels for myself.”

  “Very well, grandmother.”

  “Come and kiss my cheek and wish me a good journey.” Eden complied. “It seems your in-laws mean to draw a veil over the whole unfortunate business of the betrothal feast,” she said with a sigh. “On reflection, I can see that would be the best thing for all involved.” She tapped Eden lightly on the cheek. “Do not go running away with the idea that Roland Vawdrey is so very philanthropical or chivalrous in his consideration toward you.”

  Eden hesitated. “How do you mean, grandmother?”

  “It stands to reason. If he was not angry to find you in his bed,” she said dryly. “It was because he wanted you there in the first place.”

  **

  Eden saw her grandmother out and then returned to the sitting room. A packet of letters awaited her attention, and she untied the ribbon that tied them together without much enthusiasm. The first was from a Mr Childers who was one of the artists she supported. He was a very gentle and earnest man of middle years, who had been employed writing the same ballad for as long as she’d known him. This time he had sent her three verses he had extensively re-written, and had plunged into these without much by way of greeting. Luckily, she recognized his sloping handwriting, before she got to the illegible signature. She set this aside and turned to an irate letter she had to read through twice before she could make head nor tail of it. It seemed that the poet the Dowager Duchess of Rand had agreed to sponsor was very upset at the treatment he had received from her. Other than that, and an obscure charge of ‘wanton theft of intellectual property’, Eden was not sure what else could be drawn from it. The letter was signed R. Lewen. She cudgeled her brain, but could not bring R. Lewen to mind. Casting that aside, she came next to a very agreeable letter from Gunnilde Payne, and lost herself catching up with what her new friend had been up to. Gunnilde’s narrative held a wistful tone, and Eden thought things must have seemed a little flat at her father’s house after the tournament was done and dusted. To Eden’s surprise she only mentioned Arthur Conway once in passing, and Eden guessed that the friendship between their two families had not had any great resurgence since. Eden lowered the letter and thought a moment. In her estimation, her friend deserved considerably better. She wondered what she could do for her, when the Paynes came to stay at court as planned. Could she introduce her, for instance, to one of Roland’s well-connected friends? Before she had pondered too long on the eligibility of his acquaintance, she reminded herself of the uncertainty of her own wedded status. By the time the Paynes arrived at court, there was a very real chance she herself could be unmarried and in disgrace. A sharp knock at the outer door roused her from her glum thoughts, and she heard Jane Cecil conversing with one of the guards out in the corridor.

  Suddenly the door to the sitting room opened, there was a whirl of turquoise silk and blonde ringlets and it shut again. Her cousin Lenora was stood with her back against the door, a determined look on her face.

  “Should we take a walk, do you think?” Lenora suggested brightly. “We could take your oversized hound,” she said looking at Parnell.

  Eden blinked at her. “That might be a good notion,” she agreed cautiously, and glanced at Parnell who was still lying at her feet.

  “Has Grandmother told you she is leaving for Hallam Hall?”

  “Yes, she told me. Will we need cloaks do you think?” Eden asked glancing at the window.

  “No, ‘tis a fine afternoon.”

  “Then I will just go and speak with Jane…”

  “Oh, but we can chaperone each other, surely?” said Lenora hastily.

  Were they to have some frank speech between them? Wondered Eden. She hoped so, however painful it might prove. Jane Cecil voiced no objection to the cousins taking a turn in the gardens, and they slipped out by a side door into the Queen’s rose garden.

  “Does he not need a halter or some reigns?” asked Lenora, eyeing Parnell doubtfully as he bounded joyfully across the neat walkways.

  “He’s not a horse,” Eden pointed out mildly.

  “He’s practically the size of one.”

  “He is rather large,” Eden agreed. Parnell sniffed and rooted in the tidy hedges as Lenora hooked her arm through Eden’s and they walked slowly along the path.

  “Why did you never reply to my letter?” asked Lenora suddenly. “You were no doubt very cross with me, and you had every right to be,” she continued in a rush of words. “Only... I did hope for some word from you.” She turned her head and fixed her eyes Eden in unspoken appeal. “Indeed, I acted in what I believed and still believe to be for the best.” Eden blinked. What? “In truth I don’t blame you for not responding to my letter. It must have been a terrible shock to you and-”

  “What letter?” Eden asked.

  Now it was Lenora’s turn to stare. “The letter I asked Lord Vawdrey to give to you, after you had departed Hallam Hall on your wedding morn.”

  “But… Lenora,” Eden frowned. “I received no letter from you.”

  “What?” No letter?” Her cousin looked stunned. Then another thought struck her, and she seemed more assured. “Of course, your memory of that day will be quite sadly fragmented.”

  Eden nodded, “That is true. I was feeling most unwell,” she agreed, before frowning. “But how do you know that?”

  “Tis a common after-effect,” said Lenora with a wave of her hand. “But Lord Vawdrey assured me there would be no long-term repercussions.”

  “I’m afraid I don’t quite understand-” Eden began, with a terrible feeling of foreboding. “After-effect of what?”

  “The drug,” said Lenora impatiently.

  “What drug?”

  “The drug I slipped in my wine, you remember? I asked you to drink it for me, as I did not care for it.”

  Eden came to a halt. “Lenora what are you telling me?”

  “Had you not already deduced that you and Sir Roland were drugged?” asked Lenora, her eyes opening very wide. “I felt sure that, even without my letter you would have worked it out. After all, how else did you imagine it happened?”

  Eden stared at her. “Drugged? Are you-? But-?”

  “Both of you were drugged,” said Lenora simply.

  Oh, my gods. “But why?”

  “Oh dear,” said Lenora. “My letter explained it so much better for me. Let us go and fetch it for you.” A certain fire entered her eye. “I mean to ask Lord Vawdrey exactly what he meant by not letting you have it!” She grabbed Eden’s arm and started towing her along the path.

  “Now?” squeaked Eden.

  “He must still have it,” Lenora tossed back over her shoulder. “I want you to read it.”

  Eden looked about for Parnell, who had been distracted by a passing butterfly and was foolishly gamboling in the shrubbery. His massive head swiveled toward her, and he galloped after them.

  “I can scarcely credit it,” Lenora was muttering under breath. “I am most put out!” And indeed, she looked it. Of course, on Lenora, anger showed as a deeper rose in her cheeks and an extra brilliant shine to her eyes like blue topazes.

  “But couldn’t you just tell me what the letter said?” Eden asked breathlessly as they rounded the path that skirted the long gallery. The guard there fell back and they passed through the door unhindered.

  “You don’t understand how long I agonized over writing that note,” said Lenora. “You know how poorly I express myself in general.”

  They were striding along the corridor now toward the Official’s Corridor. Eden supposed Lord Vawdrey must have a large study here. She looked about with interest.

  “Excuse me?” Lenora haile
d a nervous looking clerk. “We are looking for the office of Lord Oswald Vawdrey, Chief Advisor to the King.”

  He directed them to the very end of the corridor and when they reached that room, Lenora rapped loudly on the door. It was answered by a rather chubby young man with pale eyes and thinning hair, who introduced himself as Lord Vawdrey’s private secretary, Bryce. Eden recognized having seen him often in Lord Vawdrey’s wake. His discreet gaze passed over her and he admitted them both to his ante-chamber, directing them to be seated. He stared a moment at Parnell, as though unsure of his own eyes, then clearly decided to ignore him.

  “His lordship is currently in an audience room with the King,” he said tactfully diverting his eyes from Eden.

  “Yes, we know it is day two of the hearing,” said Lenora graciously. “But from our experience yesterday, we know there are breaks for refreshment and such,” she waved a hand. “Could you please have a message taken along to him that Lady Lenora Montmayne wishes to have a word with him about a most pressing matter. And that his sister-in-law Lady Eden Vawdrey, awaits him.”

  Bryce gave a small cough, and then sat at his desk. He thought a moment and then wrote a couple of lines on a small rectangle of paper. Then he rang a bell. A page darted in from another small room. They had a whispered conversation and then the page made off with the paper.

  “Can I offer you ladies anything while you wait?” he asked politely. Eden was impressed that he did not stammer or stare in Lenora’s presence. In truth, he wore a rather monkish air, so perhaps that was not to be wondered at. His office was scrupulously tidy and when they assured him they were not in need of anything, he returned serenely to his work.

  It was some quarter of an hour later, that Oswald Vawdrey showed up at his offices, tall and dark and clad head to toe in unrelenting black. He paused on the threshold, bowed briefly at both ladies, had a quiet word with Bryce and then ushered them into his rather grand inner sanctum. His office was huge with a painted ceiling of the celestial heavens. Parnell padded around it sniffing at furniture until he found a spot under a table that he took a fancy to and curled up under it. In happier times, Eden would have been glad of the opportunity to peruse the extensive bookshelves and the large maps, but not today. “You will I hope, excuse my brevity,” he apologized urbanely. “But the King has only granted me a brief respite.” He gestured them toward chairs and seated himself behind his desk. “Did Bryce offer you some refreshment-?” he began, but Lenora cut him off.