The Marriage Wager

by Ashford, Jane

  “Not remember her?” replied his mother in an outraged voice. “Not remember Lady Mary Dacre?”

  He made an impatient gesture. “No doubt she was one of the many girls you threw at me.”

  The dowager baroness walked over to him and stared belligerently up into his eyes. “Lady Mary Dacre,” she said, emphasizing her words with a forefinger jabbed into his chest, “is one of the girls you pretended to court in order to spite me. You took her driving, sent her flowers, danced with her. You must remember her!”

  Colin backed up a step, looking slightly self-conscious. “I, er, courted a number of them,” he answered.

  “Just to drive me mad,” responded his mother bitterly. “To raise my hopes, and then dash them.”

  “To persuade you to stop meddling in my life,” retorted Colin. “And I think this Lady Mary must be mad. It was obvious I was not serious. None of the other chits thought I was.”

  Balked of her prey, his mother turned to Emma. “And what about you? What did you do to the girl?”

  “Nothing,” said Emma quietly. Everyone’s eyes were on her. “She was outside the house this morning. She accused me of stealing Colin from her, said he was about to offer for her when she had to go out of town.”

  “Ridiculous,” said Colin.

  When Lady Mary had promised to make her sorry, Emma thought, she had not imagined this kind of dramatic, public gesture. Emma realized that she was trembling.

  “Obviously, the girl is unbalanced,” said Colin. “I am sorry for her, but it has nothing to do with us.”

  “Nothing?” sputtered the baroness. “Don’t be an idiot. Half the people who hear this story will believe you jilted her to marry Emma, and that Emma then drove the chit to suicide. The rest will think it must be even worse than that.” Putting her fists to her cheeks, she groaned aloud. “And after the gossip about your marriage. The family will never recover from this.”

  “We will say it isn’t true,” put in Caroline, who had moved close to her husband and looked rather white.

  “Well, of course we will say it,” exploded her mother. “But no one will believe us. On the contrary, the more we deny it, the worse it will be.”

  “We will ignore it,” said Colin. “It is not true, and we will not dignify such a story by speaking about it.”

  His mother groaned again. “The notes went to the daughters of two earls and a viscount. There is no doubt they will believe it. We must do something.”

  Emma was shivering—not with upset, but with anger. She clenched her fists in her lap. How dare the girl do this to Colin? She had claimed to love him. Could she be so self-involved that she did not realize she was ruining him?

  Noticing her distress, Colin pulled her to her feet. “We are going home,” he said. “We can speak of this tomorrow when heads are clearer.”

  “Tomorrow it will be all over London,” protested his mother.

  “I do not see how we can prevent that,” he answered, taking Emma’s arm.

  The sight of his solicitude was too much for the dowager. “It’s all her fault,” she said, glaring at Emma. “None of this would have happened if it weren’t for her.”

  Colin turned instantly, his violet eyes blazing. “Be silent! I do not want to hear that again, Mother. Do you understand me?”

  “If you hadn’t insisted on marrying her, we—”

  “If I hadn’t married Emma, I would probably have throttled you by now,” Colin declared. “Leave it, Mother!”

  She gaped at him. Before she could think of a suitable reply, he had turned away and was escorting Emma down the stairs and out to their carriage, which had been summoned some minutes ago. “You know there was nothing between this chit and me,” he said as they drove away.

  “Yes,” answered Emma, almost absently. She was wondering if there was anything she could have said to prevent this catastrophe.

  “You didn’t tell me she had approached you.”

  “I… it didn’t seem important. If I had realized what she would do!”

  “Clearly, she is a lunatic,” he said curtly. “Perhaps we should suggest that she be shut up in Bedlam.”

  Emma said nothing. But her mind was racing. There had to be something she could do to save this situation.

  “I will not let anyone hurt you,” Colin added. “You may be sure of that.”

  Emma’s eyes filled with tears at the determination in his voice. Facing the loss of his respected position in society, which was so important to him, he still thought of her and defended her. She would not allow disgrace to fall on him because of their marriage.

  The first shock was wearing off. As they reached home, Emma gathered her wits and began to think. Through the long hours of the night, she went over things again and again, examining every angle. Gradually, she started to form a plan.

  When she finally did fall asleep, near dawn, Emma slept heavily, and she did not wake until well past her usual hour of rising. The slant of light through the partially open curtains told her it was after nine. For a few minutes, she lay in bed, reviewing her thought processes of last night, searching for flaws. Though she acknowledged a number of risks, she could not improve upon the plan she had outlined. It had to work.

  Rising, Emma dressed to go out and left the house on foot with only Ferik to accompany her. Within twenty minutes, they reached the home of Colin’s mother. Ferik knocked, and they were admitted. “My lady has not yet come downstairs,” the butler informed Emma.

  “I will go up,” she replied. “Wait for me here, Ferik.”

  “Yes, mistress.”

  “But you can’t just…” began the butler. Ferik stepped into his path like a human wall as Emma hurried up the stairs. She passed the drawing room and started up another flight. There, a startled housemaid directed her to the dowager baroness’s bedchamber. Emma stepped up to it and knocked briskly on the door.

  “Yes?” came a voice from within.

  Taking a deep breath, Emma opened the door. “Good morning,” she said, sounding more confident than she felt.

  The baroness was sitting up in her bed, wearing a fetching creation of lace and pink silk. A breakfast tray was before her, bearing the remains of coffee and toast, and she was holding a letter from the pile that lay beside her cup. “You?” she said.

  Emma took the stool from the vanity table and placed it close to the bed, then sat down.

  “What are you doing here?” Colin’s mother demanded, putting the letter aside.

  “I have come to talk to you about the situation with Lady Mary Dacre.”

  The baroness groaned. “Such a complete disaster. I don’t want to think about it.”

  “We must.”

  “We?” replied the older woman, with a touch of hostility.

  “You gave her a great deal of encouragement,” Emma pointed out. “She told me of it.”

  “Well, what if I did?” she blustered. “She was perfect for Colin. Breeding, family connections, fortune. And she had some spirit as well. Colin was always complaining that the girls I presented to him were insipid.”

  “That is certainly not the case with Lady Mary.”

  “If you had not—”

  “If you had not encouraged her so markedly, she would not imagine herself in love with him now,” Emma interrupted.

  They glared at each other for a long moment.

  “I know you don’t like me,” continued Emma more temperately then. “But we must work together if we are to spare Colin humiliation.”

  “Oh, it’s Colin you’re worried about, is it?” responded his mother. She sat up straighter and rang the bell beside her bed. When a maid looked in, she said, “Take this tray. Can’t you see that I’m done with it?”

  The girl bustled in and removed the breakfast tray.

  “Yes, it is Colin I’m worried about,” sa
id Emma when she was gone. “I won’t have people believing that he behaved dishonorably.”

  Meeting her dark blue eyes, the baroness found no guile in them. “And what of yourself?” she asked.

  Emma waved the question away as if it were irrelevant. “Here is what I think must be done,” she said. “And I cannot do it without you.”

  As the baroness listened to the plan Emma laid out, her expression slowly shifted from petulance to dawning respect. Her unwanted daughter-in-law had truly thought this out, she realized. She had anticipated the difficult spots and made plans for those as well. For the first time, the baroness really focused her full attention on her son’s new wife. She was beautiful, no question about that. But apparently she was intelligent as well. Unlike Caroline, she had grasped the important points at once. And it seemed that she cared far more for Colin than his mother had understood. To herself, the baroness admitted the possibility—only the possibility—that the marriage had not been a dire mistake.

  “So?” said Emma. She had finished her explanation, but Colin’s mother just continued to stare at her.

  “I don’t like it,” the older woman said slowly.

  “But—”

  The dowager held up a hand. “However, I cannot think of a better solution.”

  Emma sat back.

  “It could work, if they will cooperate.”

  “Surely they will wish to stop the gossip about Lady Mary as well?”

  “One would imagine so.”

  “Then you will help me?” asked Emma.

  There was a short pensive silence. “Yes.”

  Emma let go the breath she had been holding. “I shall see that it works,” she declared fiercely.

  Colin’s mother looked at her once again. Her jaw was tight, her back straight. The look in her eyes was almost intimidating. Yes, she thought, there is far more to Colin’s wife than I had any notion of.

  Emma rose. “This afternoon, then?”

  “No reason to wait,” agreed the baroness.

  “I will come for you in the carriage at two.”

  The older woman nodded. When Emma did not leave at once, as she clearly wanted to do, she looked inquiring.

  “Thank you,” said Emma with some difficulty.

  Her face softening, the baroness smiled.

  ***

  A few minutes before two, Emma came downstairs dressed in a pale green muslin dress sprigged with rose and dark green. She had had her hair dressed rather severely, and it was nearly hidden by a straw bonnet trimmed with rose and green ribbons. Pulling on her gloves, she went through the door that Clinton held open for her and climbed into her barouche, directing the coachman to the home of Colin’s mother. Once there, the vehicle paused only long enough for that lady to climb in, then continued on to a large stone house in Grosvenor Square. “You sent word?” Emma asked.

  “Yes,” answered the baroness. “I had no reply, but I know they are at home.”

  Emma nodded. One of the footmen hopped down from the back of the carriage to knock on the door, while the other handed them down to the pavement. When Colin’s mother’s announced herself, the butler looked doubtful. “I don’t think, my lady, that anyone is—”

  “I must see the duchess,” the baroness replied firmly. “It is a matter of some urgency. You must tell her.”

  With an uneasy sidelong glance at Emma, who had not given her name, the butler said, “I will see whether she is at home.” He ushered them into a parlor to the left of the front door and left them.

  “Will he throw us out?” murmured Emma when the man had gone.

  “I have known Frances Dacre for thirty years. Since she was only Miss Fanny Phelps. She would not dare refuse me.” But her tone was not as confident as her words.

  “Come on,” said Emma.

  “Where?”

  “I think we had better find the duchess and tell her our business ourselves.”

  “Emma! You cannot…” But Emma was already in the hall and starting up the stairs. After a moment’s indecision, the baroness went after her.

  “Where is the drawing room?” she asked as they ascended.

  “There,” said Colin’s mother, pointing right.

  Emma opened the door. “No one there.”

  “Shouldn’t we wait…?” But Emma was already on the next flight of steps. “Frances has a sitting room next to her bedchamber,” the baroness remembered.

  “Good,” said Emma. “We’ll try that. Which way?”

  “Emma, this is not at all the thing. What are we to say to her when we come bursting in?”

  “I won’t sit quietly with folded hands and then be asked to leave,” she replied. “Or wait for Colin to be whispered about and laughed at by all his friends.”

  “Yes, but—”

  “If you do not wish to come with me, just tell me where to go.”

  Something in her tone made the baroness draw herself up. “This way,” she declared, leading.

  They reached a closed door farther down the hall just as the butler came out of it. “What are you doing here?” he exclaimed, profoundly shocked. “I put you in the parlor. You cannot—”

  “What is it, Ellis?” called a voice from inside the room.

  On a deep breath, the baroness pushed past the butler, saying, “It’s me, Frances. I simply must speak to you.”

  Emma slid into the room behind her, quickly taking in the pleasant peach-colored walls and hangings, the comfortable furniture. The Duchess of Morland sat at an exquisite escritoire beside the window in the midst of writing a letter. She was a small, spare woman with blond hair that might once have been as bright as her daughter’s and alert blue eyes. Just now, she looked surprised and annoyed. “Catherine,” she said. “I cannot, really cannot bear to see you just now.”

  “I’ve come to help,” insisted the baroness.

  “There’s nothing to be done,” was the reply. “I’m taking Mary into the country until this—”

  “You mustn’t do that,” interrupted Emma.

  The duchess turned to stare at her, suddenly haughty.

  “My son’s wife,” murmured the dowager baroness, and the duchess’s expression hardened.

  “Please listen to me,” begged Emma. “You mustn’t run away. We can set this right, if we go about it correctly and work together.”

  The duchess looked at Colin’s mother, who nodded. “She has a good idea,” she confirmed.

  Their hostess drummed her fingers on the top of the desk as she carefully examined Emma. “Very well,” she said crisply. “Tell me.”

  Eight

  “It was in that wretched little village on the mountainside,” said Major Laurence Graham. “You know the one. Don’t recall whether it was in Portugal or Spain. I’d lost track by that time. But the streets were damned precipices and bumpy as washboards.”

  “The place where we sat out the winter storms?” inquired Captain Sir Richard Clarke from across the dining table.

  “That’s it. Remember we had the big snow, and Snodgrass got hold of one of those tin baking sheets from the cook tent and went sliding down the main street sitting on it. Nearly rattled his teeth out of his head, and broke his fool arm, too, when he couldn’t stop at the bottom.”

  “He was going so fast he killed a chicken that ran into his path,” recalled Colin.

  Graham, who had been drinking deeply from his wineglass, sputtered and nearly choked. “That’s right. We ate the bird that very night. Gave him a final salute before we carved. Casualty of war.”

  “We paid five times what it was worth for that stringy old rooster,” complained Sir Richard.

  “Aye,” agreed Graham. “But it was a bargain for the laugh Snodgrass gave us.”

  A shadow seemed to pass over the convivial table. All three men lost their smiles for a moment, and
looked suddenly older and tireder. The remains of the roast, the crumpled napkins, the half-empty bottle of claret lost their festive air and became scattered detritus ready for the trash heap. The bustle and hum of Colin Wareham’s elegant club dining room—the rich draperies, the warmth, the glow of candlelight—faded into the background. And the bone-chilling cold and endless fatigue of the battlefield extended icy tendrils into the group.

  “Dead these three years,” said Sir Richard quietly.

  Major Graham, who had had quite a bit of the hearty red wine, thrust out his glass. “Here’s to Jimmy Snodgrass,” he declared thickly. “And all the others, too. Every man jack of them, who ought to be here with us now.”

  In silence, they drank. Colin gazed at his former companions, taking in the changes that time and hardship had made in their faces since he met them six or so years ago. They were far from old, yet compared to the men who surrounded them in this room, they looked hard and grim and weather-beaten.

  When Graham had suggested this reunion dinner, Colin had been a little reluctant. As he had noticed at the wedding, seeing old comrades from the army was a sharp reminder of the bad times as well as the good. But he knew these men better than anyone else in his life, and he could not refuse the invitation. It was a strange bond, he thought now. He had never met their families, or learned much of their early years. But the things they had been through together knit them closer than an entire shared childhood could have done. He remembered a battlefield where he and Graham had both lost their mounts in heavy fighting. They had stood back-to-back in the bloody mud and wielded their sabers through an endless carnage, until the lines had at last drawn apart and they had been able to stagger back into camp, supporting one another, and collapse, exhausted, on the cold earth by the fire. Nothing could erase that sort of connection.

  Still, it was damned difficult to see his own bleakness mirrored in their faces, to watch their mouths draw into thin lines when certain words were used. It made the melancholy even more palpable. It was like the nightmares, he thought—insistent reminders of a past that would never go away. And yet, in the last few weeks, the power of the dreams seemed to be diminishing a bit. “I heard Jennings’s wife had a son,” he said, willing the mood to lift.