by M. C. Beaton
But she had played her part well. She could now get some well-earned sleep and gracefully accept his proposal in the morning.
To her irritation, the bed began to creak and groan as Lord Struthers heaved his bulk out of it. He put on his clothes with remarkable speed for such an old man.
“There is no need to rush off,” said Cordelia sleepily. “Where are you going?”
“Back tae ma ain bed,” said his lordship, stuffing his shirt into his breeches.
“But this is your bed now, my love,” cooed Cordelia, “or will be until we are wed.”
He finished dressing, seeming not to hear.
Then he walked toward the bed and threw a heavy bag of gold on the table next to Cordelia’s head.
“What’s this?” asked Cordelia, struggling up from under the blankets.
“I usually pay ma women,” said Lord Struthers with simple pride.
Cordelia could not believe what was happening to her. She tried to laugh.
“But we are to be married!”
“Merrit? Us?” Lord Struthers began to laugh. “Ma dear lassie, we dinna merry the likes o’ you.”
Cordelia seized the bag of gold and threw it at his head.
With surprising speed, Lord Struthers nipped out of the bedroom door and down the stairs.
Cordelia cried long and lustily before she at last crawled from bed and began to pick up the scattered guineas from the floor.
Harriet and her lord spent a long honeymoon in Naples, returning to London to find it in the grip of one of the coldest winters in memory.
“It is so good to be home.” The marquess sighed. Harriet looking around the gloom of St. James’s Square, remembered the sunshine of Naples, shuddered.
“Do you think, my love,” she ventured, “that I could have one room to decorate? A drawing room, perhaps?”
“What is wrong with this one?” asked the marquess, looking about.
“It is so dark,” said Harriet. “And all those paintings of slaughtered animals.”
“Perhaps you are right,” said the marquess vaguely. “Do what you like with it. Do anything you like so long as you come upstairs with me and celebrate our return home.”
“Oh, Arden,” said Harriet dreamily. “I cannot believe you still love me.”
“Please call me John and break with tradition,” he begged. “Let the rest of the ton address one another in bed as if they are in their drawing rooms. I like to hear my name of your lips.”
“John.”
“That’s better. Oh, damn. Here comes Mrs. Hudson. We will not see her.”
“But I can hear her crying,” said Harriet. “Please. She sounds in great distress.”
“Very well.”
Mrs. Hudson presented a dismal sight. She was draped from head to foot in black.
“My poor Mrs. Hudson. Why are you in mourning?” cried Harriet. “Is Bertram…?”
“He must be.” Mrs. Hudson sobbed into a black-edged handkerchief. “Ever since your wedding, he has been missing. He must be dead. He would never abandon me like this. Oh. Arden, you must find him for me. You must!”
“Why should I make any effort to bring that jackanapes back into my life?” asked the marquess. “He is lucky I did not manage to find him, or you would have every reason to be in mourning.”
“Oh, hush,” said Harriet, her kind heart touched. “I am sure we will do all we can.”
But it took all of Harriet’s powers of persuasion to convince the marquess to attempt to find Bertram. “I shall come with you.” said Harriet. “We shall go back to that village where we were married.”
“If we tried before and could not find him, it is unlikely we will be successful after all this time.” grumbled the marquess.
At last, he gave Mrs. Hudson his promise to look for Bertram, and she left, still crying.
The marquess rang for his secretary and asked if there had been any letter from Bertram during their absence.
“No, my lord.” said the secretary. “I opened and read all the mail as you requested. There have been various complaints from her grace, your mother, wondering when she can get rid of Miss Clifton—I beg your pardon, my lady, I was merely using her grace’s very words.”
“I wish we had stayed away,” grumbled the marquess. “Send a carriage to my parents’ home to convey Miss Clifton here, and tell them I shall visit them shortly to arrange a formal wedding ceremony. A plague on all these people!”
It was a week before he and Harriet started their search for Bertram. The vicar, Mr. Bradfield, and his wife were delighted to see them.
“I cannot think too hardly of that actor even though he impersonated me,” said the vicar as his wife served tea. “He appeared most repentant.”
“I thought Bertram might have joined that company of players when I rode after them,” said the marquess. “But they all swore they had not seen hide nor hair of him or that Jasper fellow.”
“I wonder,” said the vicar. “Actors are like children. They often make very good liars because for that moment they believe the lie and they look at you with all the solemn innocence of children.
“I remember one autumn a group of players came to perform at the harvest festival. I saw them stealing apples from my orchard.
“When I accused them of it, they looked at me with hurt expressions and explained that my trees had a certain rare disease and they were trying to help me by applying a certain tree medicine to the bark. Amazing! I almost believed them.
“Now, your cousin was probably not of their company, but it is more than possible this Jasper was. They live on the fringes of the law and are expert at protecting one of their own.”
“Have they been here again?” asked the marquess.
“No. But I did hear they were over at Little Champton.”
“We shall try there,” said the marquess. “Mayhap we might find this Jasper and that will be a start.”
As they drove out in the direction of Little Champton, which was some ten miles away, the marquess told Harriet that it would perhaps be better to attend the performance. If they called beforehand, then Jasper would be warned of their presence.
The performance was called The Feast of Blood and promised “horrors extraordinary.” Ladies were advised to have not only their vinaigrettes handy but also a “strong gentleman” to bear them home when they fainted “from excess of emotion.”
The marquess studied the names on the playbill. There was no Jasper St. Clair listed. The main attraction appeared to be that “Drury Lane actor, beloved by the crown’d heads of Europe and Asia. Lord Peregrine Divine.”
“How these mountebanks do love to elevate themselves to the peerage,” murmured the marquess. “It is a wonder the authorities have not arrested him.”
The performance was held in an old barn outside the town. It was amazingly full and Harriet was surprised to see a number of elegantly dressed ladies and gentlemen in the front benches.
“Lord Peregrine Divine appears to have quite a following,” commented the marquess.
To make up for the paucity of the scenery, the play had a narrator. He was a slim young man, too tall and thin to be Jasper St. Clair.
In gloomy tones, he started to speak.
“The solemn tones of an old cathedral clock have announced midnight….” Someone banged a saucepan lid offstage twelve times, and the audience giggled. The narrator glared at them and went on. “The air is thick and heavy—a strange, deathlike stillness pervades all nature. Like the ominous calm that precedes some more than usually terrific outbreak of the elements, they seemed to have paused even in their ordinary fluctuations, to gather a terrific strength for the great effort. A faint peal of thunder now comes from ‘far off. Like a signal gun for the battle of the winds to begin, it appeared to wake them from their lethargy, and one awful, warring hurricane swept over a whole city, producing more devastation in the four or five minutes it lasted than would half a century of ordinary phenomena.”
The
narrator then knocked over a kitchen chair to illustrate devastation and made a gloomy exit.
And then, all swinging cloak and flashing eyes. Lord Peregrine Divine strode onto the stage and the audience cheered themselves hoarse, while he glared at them with aristocratic contempt before speaking the ringing lines, “What ho, Sylvester, my trusted servant. Art in yon tavern? I need thy help, for my love, the Duchess of Pellegrino, lies buried in yon crumbling ruins.”
“Oh, dear,” said Harriet, round-eyed. For Lord Peregrine Divine was none other than Bertram Hudson.
They sat through the performance as Bertram strode about, ranting and raving and tossing back his hair, which had grown very long.
“What are we going to do?” asked Harriet as they left after the performance.
“Nothing,” said the marquess cheerfully. “We shall return to town and tell his doting mother that her chick is well.”
“But you cannot leave him here!”
“That is exactly what I intend to do. He is no harm to us or society while he is enjoying himself, strutting about the stage and having the time of his life. Poor Jasper St. Clair. I wonder if Bertram took his job. Come along, my sweeting. We have this night all to ourselves. No Aunt Rebecca, no Bertram, and no Cordelia.”
The landlord of the posting house was waiting for them in the courtyard.
“Fine evening, Mr. Hoskins,” said the marquess cheerfully. He jumped down and lifted Harriet from the carriage.
“I have a bit o’ trouble, my lord. All my private parlors are taken by gentlemen, and I could not put a duchess like her in the common dining room. So when she says she’s an old friend o’ yourn, I said she could share your parlor for supper, but I don’t know as how I’ve done the right thing.”
“Duchess?” said the marquess crossly. “Which duchess?”
“If you wait a bit, I have it wrote down in my book.”
“Oh, if our evening is ruined, it’s ruined,” said the marquess. “Is this mysterious lady ready to dine? I confess to being sharp set myself.”
“Above and waiting for you, my lord. I’m that sorry. I wish I hadn’t a done it.”
“Never mind, Hoskins,” said the marquess, relenting. “Come, Harriet. Let us see who we have to keep us company.”
The marquess opened the door of the private parlor and stood still on the threshold. Harriet peeped over his arm.
The Dowager Duchess of Macham sat at the table, her bright monkey eyes sparkling with malice.
“Took your time getting here,” she grumbled. “Never think of anyone but yourselves, you young people. Don’t expect me to pay for this supper. Told ‘em to charge it to you. If you hadn’t been so tardy in your famous rescue, I might have been able to rescue more of my goods. But selfish. That’s what this generation is.”
“I cannot stand this,” muttered the marquess. “Are we never to be alone again?”
“We have the rest of our lives together,” murmured Harriet.
“So we have!” said the marquess, brightening. “So we have!”
So he took his place at the table, smiled lovingly at the old duchess, and said mildly, “I should have let you burn, you horrible woman. Pass the salt.”
Part V
A Marriage of Inconvenience
Contents
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 1
MRS. CHADBURY WAS wondering whether she ought to go into a decline. She felt she could not cope with her daughter, Isabella, any longer.
Another London Season had just drawn to its weary close; another round of turtle dinners, subscription balls at Almack’s assembly rooms, plays and operas and concerts. And Isabella was still unwed. Mrs. Chadbury, seated at her toilet table, studied her reflection in the glass. She decided she looked unfashionably healthy, from her plump figure to her rosy cheeks and her shining brown hair, which held not a trace of gray. No one would believe her if she said she was going into a decline.
But, oh, to escape from responsibility for Isabella!
The wretched girl had been the belle of this Season as much as she had of the last. She was possessed of a beautiful face and a handsome dowry. Suitors had come in droves, and Isabella had turned them all down flat, in a finicky way, as if turning down bonnets that she thought would not suit her. This one was too showy, that one too boring, the other too loud.
Isabella, reflected Mrs. Chadbury, was thoroughly spoiled. But how could either she or her husband have guessed the damage they were doing when they indulged her every whim? For she had hitherto been sweet natured and kind. She had been born to Mrs. Chadbury after that lady had suffered a series of unfortunate miscarriages. To be blessed with such an exquisite, such a beautiful daughter had seemed to them like a gift from the gods. They were very rich and so could give her the best of everything; the best jewels to sparkle at her throat and in her hair, the finest silks to adorn her perfect figure.
The trouble had started at the first Season and had carried on into the second. She had become, almost instantly, wantonly flirtatious, encouraging suitors only to send them away.
From being the envy of other society matrons, Mrs. Chadbury knew she had become an object of pity.
The door opened and her husband, Mr. Charles Chadbury, walked in. He was a tall, thin man, elegantly dressed, with white hair cropped in the latest Brutus cut. He was not handsome, nor had he ever been, but he had kind eyes and a diffident manner, both of which had won Mrs. Chadbury’s heart all those years ago.
“We have a problem, Mrs. Chadbury,” he said, sitting down in an upright chair next to her.
“Isabella again?” asked his wife faintly. “What has she done?”
“It is not what she has done. Rather it is what she is about to do. Lord Rupert Fitzjohn is calling this afternoon, having gained my permission to pay his addresses to Isabella.”
“Lord Rupert?” Mrs. Chadbury wrenched her memory. “Of course,” she said, her face clearing. “Very suitable. Handsome, rich, young … about twenty-three, is he not?”
“When did suitability count with Isabella?” Her husband sighed. “I have told Isabella to put on one of her best gowns and make herself ready. To which she said, as usual, ‘Yes, Papa.’ I asked her if she would entertain his suit, to which she said, as usual, ‘I will consider the matter very carefully, Papa.’ ”
Mrs. Chadbury dabbed some rice powder on her nose and said wistfully, “If only she would accept him. Perhaps she is simply being flighty because of her youth.”
“Youth? She is nineteen, Mrs. Chadbury. A grown woman and shortly to be an old maid, an ape leader, if she continues so.”
“We shall be leaving for the country on the morrow,” said his wife, “and we will both feel better when we have shaken the dust of London from our heels. I shall talk to Isabella … again. Mayhap this time I can talk some sense into her pretty head.” She rang the bell and ordered a servant to tell Miss Isabella to attend her mother.
Mr. Chadbury rose and deposited a kiss on his wife’s cheek. “I will leave you alone with her,” he said.
Isabella entered her mother’s boudoir shortly after her father had left. She was indeed extraordinarily beautiful. She had thick, chestnut hair with a natural curl, a clear skin, a short straight nose, and large hazel eyes fringed with thick black lashes. All her movements were graceful. She was wearing a high-waisted morning gown of white muslin ornamented with a pink sprig.
“I am come in answer to your summons,” said Isabella. “You are no doubt going to lecture me on the merits of Lord Rupert Fitzjohn.”
“No, I am going to remind you again of your duty to your parents,” said Mrs. Chadbury. “We have endured two Seasons in London on your behalf, only to see you break hearts and remain unwed. You will give Lord Rupert’s offer your full consideration. You canno
t be looking for love in marriage as, so far, you seem to be incapable of that emotion. It is time you thought of setting up your own household and having your own nursery.”
“Yes, Mama. Believe me, I will really think very hard about Lord Rupert’s offer.”
“Do that. If you reject him, then when we return to Cornwall, your father and I must begin to think very seriously of arranging a marriage for you.”
Isabella gave a rippling laugh. “You would not do that. Never fear, Mama, Lord Rupert will find me the soul of courtesy.”
Lord Rupert Fitzjohn strolled into Malmbrooke Square in London’s fashionable West End and approached the Chadburys’ town house. He was a tall young man with thick brown hair, a tanned face, fine black eyes, and full sensual lips. His waist was a trifle too thick to please sticklers for high fashion, as were his ankles, but his shoulders were broad and his long feet were fashionably narrow.
He had never proposed marriage to any woman before and, up until he had seen Isabella Chadbury, had not intended to. Why saddle oneself with one woman when there were so many delights to be enjoyed in London and for only a little money? The fact that he had never before gone courting and had always paid for the delights of the flesh meant that he had never met with a rebuff and so fancied himself as a veritable Adonis. But now he longed to make Isabella Chadbury his, to crush all that cool beauty in his arms, to be an object of envy.
He was not surprised that Mr. Chadbury had given him permission to court Isabella. Lord Rupert knew his own worth. He was rich and handsome, and he knew he was privately listed as one of the best catches on the marriage market.
That the Chadburys were extremely rich as well was a bonus, the icing on the cake.
A correct butler ushered him into the hall of the Chadburys’ town house and took his hat and cane, murmuring that he would conduct Lord Rupert straight upstairs to the drawing room.
