by M C Beaton
Then he put her away from him and said, “Good night, Fiona. I shall see you tomorrow before you leave.”
She rose shakily from the bed, looking at him with wide dazed eyes.
“Good night,” he said again.
Fiona went out and closed the door. “It will be all right,” she said to herself. “I have nothing to worry about. I am going home.”
But a small niggling thought came into her brain, a thought that kept her awake during the night.
Her husband was a handsome and virile man, and London was full of beautiful women, women who would be only too happy to keep him amused in her absence!
TEN
Fiona sat in the swaying traveling carriage three months later, looking sadly at the empty seat opposite where Christine should have been sitting, and thinking her life would never be quite the same again.
Unlike that last leisurely journey south with her parents, this one was to be completed in the shortest time possible. Fiona and her servants rose early and traveled until night fell.
She ran over in her mind the shocks and disappointments of her visit. First, her home, Strathglass House, had seemed very shabby for the first time. The London servants had complained bitterly of hard cold beds and smoking fires. Battles had raged between them and the Highland servants, for the Highland servants of the lower orders would not observe distinctions of rank.
Gradually, to Fiona’s relief, they seemed to have come to some sort of truce and the stiff English servants had begun to unbend and to adopt the free and easy manners of the Highlanders.
Then Angus had been offered the post of piper to a Highland chieftain in Cromarty. His new job meant he would have a cottage on the estate and be allowed to wed Christine. The job did not involve any work other than piping.
Fiona longed to beg Christine to stay with her and yet fell silent before the happiness on her companion’s face. Also, she knew that although her father was more free and easy in his ways than most, he still disapproved of servants marrying. She traveled to Cromarty to attend Christine and Angus’s wedding and felt very lonely when she returned to Strathglass alone. Her lady’s maid, Mary, was correct, polite and English, and good at her job. But of what use, thought Fiona, were the latest modes and hairstyles when there was no one to see them? It took some time before she realized that by no one she meant her absent husband. The memory of that passionate kiss grew stronger and stronger as the days passed. Still, Fiona clung to her old home.
And then one day, Polly, who had become her faithful shadow, disappeared. The servants said that a band of tinkers, Highland gypsies, had come to the kitchen door, offering to mend pots. Polly had fallen into conversation with their leader, a swarthy, dirty-looking man. The next the servants had known was that Polly was riding off on the back of this man’s horse without even turning back to shout farewell.
Fiona would not believe them. She became convinced Polly had been abducted. She called together her father’s regiment and marched out in search of the tinkers. They found Polly in a gypsy encampment outside Fort Augustus at the end of Loch Ness. She was dirty, happy, and unrepentant. She told Fiona she had gone through a Scotch marriage with the leader—a marriage made by two people simply announcing to the world at large that they are married—and that she had never been so happy—not ever.
There was nothing Fiona could do but ride off and leave her and apologize to her father’s men for having made them go out on such a long and weary search.
She was in no mood to speak to Jamie Grant, whom she found waiting for her on her return, and a very petulant Jamie at that. It appeared that Jamie had considered himself as good as betrothed to Fiona and insisted on acting the part of the jilted lover. He ranted and raged and then demanded, “And who is this Englishman? How can he compare to the likes o’ me?”
And Fiona, looking at Jamie’s sulky, boyish face, at his grubby kilt, at his posturing ways, remembered with an ache at her heart her husband’s elegant bearing and charming manner.
She had left him! And for so long!
After Jamie had stormed his way out, Fiona issued orders for their departure south.
Now, with rain smearing the carriage windows, she thought the journey would never end. Had her sophisticated and elegant husband taken a mistress? So many men did, and shortly after they were married, too. She had wasted part of her precious trial year of marriage by journeying to Scotland.
Fiona wished she had Christine with her to talk to. Christine would have reassured her, would have told her the marquess was not the man to flaunt a mistress. But now there was only silent Mary, the lady’s maid, who would not consider it her place to comfort and advise on any subject.
More weary days of travel passed. Fiona ached in every limb, for although the carriage was well sprung, some of the roads were so rough that she had been thrown from side to side for hours.
And then at last they topped Highgate Hill and the end of the long, weary road was in sight.
Fiona kept pulling out a mirror from her reticule and studying her face anxiously. She wanted to look her best. How would he greet her? Would he kiss her?
By the time the carriage rolled to a stop in front of the elegant house in Curzon Street, Fiona was trembling with anticipation. She did not wait for the groom to let down the carriage steps but jumped down and ran to the door.
The door was opened by Osborne, the butler. “Where is my lord?” cried Fiona, running past him into the hall.
“He is at his club, my lady,” said Osborne, “and not expected home until late.”
Fiona was about to demand that a servant be sent to the club to let her lord know of her arrival home, but she was overcome with a wave of shyness and thought he might be annoyed to be so summoned by his wife-in-name-only.
She went upstairs and changed into a modish gown of green silk, one she had not worn before. It had a matching pelisse held at the front with gold frogging. She told her exhausted maid to go to bed but she herself went downstairs to wait for the marquess’s arrival home.
No sooner was she seated than Osborne entered to announce Mrs. Henry Buxtable, Miss Euphemia Perkins, and Miss Letitia Helmsdale.
“How did you know I was back?” exclaimed Fiona as the three ladies were ushered in. “I have but shortly arrived in Town.”
“We were having a council of war over ices at Gunter’s when we saw your carriage drive past,” said Penelope Buxtable, the former Lady Yarwood.
“It is wonderful to see you,” said Fiona, although the unexpected presence of the three who had taken part in the wager made her feel decidedly uncomfortable. She rang for tea and cakes and talked about her journey. The three listened silently and Fiona had a feeling they were waiting for the servants to serve tea and depart before they got down to the real reason for their visit. There was a very determined air about all of them.
And so it was. No sooner had the door closed behind the butler and footmen than Penelope interrupted Fiona’s dissertation on the state of the English roads by saying harshly, “You’ve got to help us.”
“I?” said Fiona. “I shall most certainly help you if I can.”
“You had better,” said Penelope bleakly. “For if you don’t, we shall tell Cleveden of that wager.”
“You would not!” cried Fiona, horrified. Ever afterward, she wondered why she had not spiked their guns by telling them a lie and saying that Cleveden already knew.
“Oh, yes, we would,” said Penelope. “We are all in a pickle. I am in love—”
“But you have only been married such a short time,” said Fiona, distressed.
“I did not then know what love was,” said Penelope. Her harsh features softened. “That was before I met Peregrine Finlay.”
“Who is this…?”
“A very beautiful poet who loves me to distraction. You shall meet him. We are tired of snatching odd moments at balls and theaters. We shall now meet here—in your home. It is well known that Cleveden is always out and about.”
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br /> “And if I do not allow this arrangement, you will tell Cleveden about the bet?”
“Yes.”
Fiona turned to the other two. “And do you also wish to use my home for assignations?” she asked bitterly.
“You are now a marchioness,” said Euphemia, looking distressed but determined. “You are an important member of the ton. My parents are forcing me to marry Mr. George Delisle, who is old and horrible.”
“But your parents are rich,” said Fiona.
“Papa thinks a man of his own age is more suited to be my husband. But I have fallen in love with a certain Captain Peter Gaunt. You must help us.”
Fiona shook her head in bewilderment. “And you?” She asked Letitia Helmsdale.
“I want a husband, any husband,” said Letitia. “I have a good dowry but I am sadly plain. Mama and Papa are older than most parents and their circle of friends is equally old and staid. I do not take at balls and parties and need to be introduced to young men. You will soon know many eligible members of the ton. The Little Season is soon upon us. I wish you to sponsor me, Fiona.”
“I can agree to that,” said Fiona. She turned to the other two. “But what you ask is impossible. Penelope, I cannot allow my husband’s home to be used for your meetings, and you, poor Euphemia, I really don’t see what I can do.”
“You must think of something,” said the normally timid Euphemia mulishly. “I shall call on you early tomorrow, eleven in the morning, say, to discuss the matter further.”
“And I,” said Penelope harshly, “shall call on you at three in the afternoon. Peregrine will call as well. You may entertain us for a few moments and then leave us alone.”
“But what if Cleveden is here!” exclaimed Fiona.
“Then you must get rid of him,” said Penelope sternly.
A carriage rolled to a stop outside. Fiona ran to the window. “It is Cleveden!” she said. She turned and looked pleadingly at her three companions.
Three pairs of eyes as hard as Scottish pebbles stared back.
“Do we tell him, or do you agree to help us?” said Penelope.
“Oh, yes, yes, yes,” said Fiona, quite distracted. She was pushing them toward the door when her husband walked in.
“My love!” he said. “Here you are, newly arrived after an exhausting journey and already fatiguing yourself with entertaining. But do not let me hurry you off, ladies. Do stay, I beg you.”
“No, Cleveden,” said Penelope, drawing on her gloves. “We were on the point of leaving when you arrived.”
“I have not introduced you, Cleveden,” said Fiona. “May I present—”
“I am already acquainted with these ladies,” said the marquess. He made them his best bow, and flashing meaningful glances at Fiona, the ladies took their leave.
Fiona sank into a chair and stared miserably at the fire.
“Well?” he demanded softly. “Is this all the welcome I am to expect?”
“No, Cleveden,” said Fiona, springing up and rushing into his arms. “It is only that I am so tired.”
His arms closed about her and he held her close.
Fiona longed to burst into tears and tell him everything. But she dared not. She was afraid of losing him, afraid of losing this man she had married, this man with whom she had suddenly tumbled head over heels in love.
“Entertaining the three witches is enough to exhaust anyone,” he said. “Is there anything you would like to tell me, Fiona?”
She could sense him waiting for her reply, sense his whole body waiting.
But she could not tell him about the wager. “No, Cleveden,” she said sadly.
“No, Charles.”
“No, Charles,” echoed Fiona in a hollow voice.
“Then let us have dinner and you can tell me all about your visit to your home.”
During dinner he studied his wife’s expressive face. She talked quite gaily about the journey, and then cried a little as she told him about Christine’s marriage and about runaway Polly, and then brightened again as she described the beauty of the Highlands, and magnificent sunsets, the purple heather blazing on the flanks of the steep mountains, but from time to time a shadow would cross her eyes and she would fall silent and he would have to prompt her to go on.
After dinner, she looked so weary, he told her to go to bed.
He kissed her on the forehead. Fiona looked up at him, her lips now aching for his kiss. “What of you?” she asked.
“I am not tired,” he said. “I think I shall look for Harry Gore. He is such an amusing rattle and is just recently returned to Town.”
The marquess ran his friend to earth at Mr. Gore’s cramped lodgings in Jermyn Street.
Mr. Gore hailed him with delight and, in his usual way, demanded to know all the gossip of society.
“You know me, Harry,” laughed the marquess, “I rely on you to keep me abreast on what’s going on. I think some slightly dated gossip will suffice. You have only been out of Town for two weeks. Now, tell me what you know about the following three ladies—Mrs. Henry Buxtable, Miss Euphemia Perkins, and Miss Letitia Helmsdale.”
Mr. Gore was busy unpacking one of his trunks, having sent his man out to buy supper from one of the coffee houses. He sat back on his heels and looked up at the marquess.
“Any use my asking you why you are interested in those three.”
“No.”
“I thought not. What a cagey fellow you are! Well, the former Lady Yarwood, now Mrs. Henry Buxtable, thinks she is having a discreet affair with Peregrine Finlay, a tiresome poet. The only person, apart from yourself, who does not seem to know is her excellent husband. Colonel Henry is one of those stern, silent sorts who would call out anyone who dared to malign his wife, so no one tells him. I do not think the guilty couple have gone further than squeezing hands. I do not think Peregrine capable of going further, but he thinks it enhances his reputation as a man about town to appear to have an affair with a married lady. The colonel loves his wife, a fact silly Peregrine has not taken into account. Odd. Mrs. Buxtable looks just like a horse, but then the colonel is fond of horses.”
“Go on, my malicious friend, what of the other two?”
“There is the sad tale of little Miss Perkins. Her parents have forced her to become engaged to George Delisle, who is a horrible man and practically old enough to be her grandfather. But these sort of marriages happen all the time and there is nothing one can do to stop them. Miss Helmsdale—nothing. Not a whisper of gossip. One of the last Season’s failures. Good dowry but no takers. Parents don’t know how to puff her off and don’t do the groundwork. So there you are. Nothing really out of the way. When does your beautiful marchioness return?”
“She is returned. This evening.”
“And you not by her side!”
“My poor wife is exhausted and is already asleep.”
“In that case, stay and share my modest supper—chops and porter.”
“No, I thank you. I dined earlier. I shall share a bottle of wine with you and then return.”
An hour later, the marquess climbed the stairs to his bedroom. He was opening his bedroom door when he had a feeling he was being watched. He swung around and raised his candle. Fiona was standing at the doorway of her room, looking at him sadly.
“What! Still awake, my sweet?” he said.
“I could not sleep,” said Fiona.
“Then come and talk to me.”
Fiona came slowly along the passage as the marquess entered his bedroom and dismissed his valet who was laying out his nightclothes by saying, “No, Gustave, I shall put myself to bed.”
Wearing her nightgown and wrapper, Fiona sat in a chair by the fire. The marquess took off his coat and started to unwind his cravat.
“I had better leave,” said Fiona. “You are undressing.”
“Stay. You are my wife. There is nothing so shocking about me taking off my clothes. I am not deformed.”
Fiona, who had half risen from her seat, sat
down again.
He undressed quickly and then went to the toilet table and splashed water over himself and then scrubbed himself down with a towel. Fiona tried to look away but found her eyes drawn to the play of muscles under the smooth skin of his back. Her breath came quickly and her skin felt hot and prickly under the thin muslin of her gown.
