The Marriage Wager

by Ashford, Jane

  Robin gritted his teeth.

  “It is very nice as it is,” Emma said absently. She wasn’t in the mood to think of anything as trivial as flowers. Though the day was crisply lovely and the sights new and varied, she was conscious of very little but Colin at her elbow.

  She stole a glance at him, and found he was looking steadily at her. She didn’t understand what was going through his mind lately. His offer to come on this expedition and prove that he was a true partner in their relationship had filled her with hope. Surely it showed he was coming to care for her? It was cruelly unfair that fears of Orsino and the threat of ruin should dominate her thoughts just now, when she desperately wanted to be open with him. This was going to be an extremely difficult day in more ways than one, she thought. She bent her head again and went to take one of the chairs under the awning, behind Lady Mary.

  The boatman drew in the small gangplank and cast off from the dock. As the gap of dark water between them and the shore widened, Robin and Colin sat down as well. The two younger people pulled their chairs closer to the front of the awning, so that they could see better, leaving Emma and Colin side by side at the rear.

  The boatman and his son worked the oars, and the small barge moved out into the busy river traffic of the London basin. They passed a large merchanter, whose masts towered far above them, and drew some lively comments from a sailor on deck. A waterman’s little vessel passed across their bow, taking two passengers across the river. The water swarmed with these floating hacks, which allowed those in a hurry to avoid the congestion of the bridges. Great barges also passed, hauling cargo up and down the Thames. In the distance, they could see another oceangoing ship just coming in, some of its sails still unfurled like clouds against the sky. Their oarsmen moved expertly through this crowd, weaving their way upriver and giving the passengers an excellent view of the London shoreline.

  “There’s the Tower,” said Lady Mary. “That is Traitor’s Gate, where they brought prisoners in from the river to be beheaded.” She gave a happy shiver.

  “Not there,” said Robin. “Farther down. See, those steps.”

  “How would you know? I looked through an illustrated guidebook to the sights of London from my father’s library last night, and I am sure that is—”

  “’Tisn’t,” said Robin, like a much younger lad. “There, see.” Another gate had come into view, arched and barred.

  There was a silence at the front of the awning. The boat narrowly avoided collision with a waterman who was racing across the river as if his life depended on it, and their boatman exchanged some good-natured abuse with the man.

  “Look there,” said Lady Mary, as if the dispute with Robin had never occurred. “That barge is full of chickens.”

  They were indeed passing a large vessel piled with wicker cages from which a chorus of squawking arose.

  “They’ll be at the market tomorrow,” said Robin.

  “Ugh, they stink,” said the girl, wrinkling her nose as the breeze brought the smell of the fowl to them. The oarsmen exerted themselves, and they shot forward out of range.

  “You know,” said Colin, near Emma’s ear. “I believe that chit has completely forgotten me.”

  Emma started, and turned to find that he had shifted his chair closer to hers.

  “A very short time ago, she was claiming I had broken her heart and her life was not worth living,” he commented. “And now I scarcely seem to exist for her.” He smiled wryly at Emma. “It is certainly a cure for excess vanity. Now I know how highly to rate my attractions.”

  “She’s a child,” answered Emma. “She doesn’t know what love means as yet.”

  “You were married at her age,” Colin reminded her.

  “Exactly,” said Emma, her voice vibrating with emotion. “What better evidence could you want?”

  Colin watched her. Her face was half turned away from him. She sat very straight, as if containing a high degree of energy by sheer will. Her slender figure was lovely in a gown of dark blue. “If you had not run away to be married, and I had not run off to war,” he began, then paused, thinking. “Do you think we would have met in some ballroom?” he went on at last. “Danced a set together and parted again, as heedless as those two?” He glanced at Robin and Lady Mary.

  Emma clasped her hands in her lap. She was squeezing them very tightly together, Colin noted.

  “Or might we have fallen madly in love,” he added, “as only the very young can do?”

  “Only?” echoed Emma in an odd voice.

  Colin examined her face again. It looked strained. Why would she not confide in him? he wondered. Why would she not trust him? “I think so,” he answered. “That kind of madness seems a thing of early youth.”

  “Nothing that could happen to you,” she gibed.

  “No more than you would elope,” he responded, surprising himself a little with the sharpness of his tone.

  Emma caught her breath. She looked a trifle wild, he thought, like a horse shying at a sudden gunshot. “And do you think that is love?” she breathed.

  “What?”

  “That self-absorption, that insistence on getting one’s own way, that… that lunacy?”

  He was somehow losing the thread of the conversation, he thought.

  “You think that is what ‘love’ means?”

  “I suppose there are many kinds of love,” he answered, playing for time.

  “You suppose? But it is not a subject you know from direct experience?” The threat of tears hovered in her voice.

  “Emma, what is the matter?”

  She turned to him, and searched his face.

  “You can rely on me,” he urged. “I am not some hotheaded youth who thinks of nothing but his own gratification. I can stand fast.”

  “Stand fast?” she repeated in a questioning tone.

  “I can be trusted,” he replied, feeling resentful at having to say it aloud. “I know the value of duty and honor and keeping one’s word.”

  “Or one’s bargains?” asked Emma.

  “That is another way of putting it.”

  She turned her head away.

  “So?” he said impatiently after a moment. Surely he had given her every opportunity to tell him what was wrong, every assurance that she could require?

  “What?”

  “Have you nothing you wish to say?” he added.

  “I?”

  “There is no one else taking part in this conversation!”

  Emma glanced at him, then quickly away. “Were we not having a philosophical discussion, my lord? I fear I have exhausted my small store of knowledge.”

  Her face had gone smooth and closed. She had drawn away from him. Colin was overtaken by intense frustration.

  “Emma,” said Lady Mary, turning around in her chair. “Look at the ducks!”

  As his wife leaned forward to follow their guest’s pointing finger, it was all Colin could do not to curse out loud.

  Weaving back and forth through the stream of vessels, their boat passed the congested docks of the city and the more scattered moorings along the outskirts. At last, they left London behind and passed between grassy banks where willows trailed their leaves in the water. Emma doggedly participated in the conversation between Robin and Lady Mary, all the while feeling Colin silent beside her. She felt as if pressure were building deep inside her, and that she would not be able to contain it for very much longer.

  They drifted past grand houses with swaths of lawn and private boathouses and past small huts surrounded by vegetable patches with one leaky dinghy pulled up on the muddy shore. The sunlight sparkled on the moving water, which lapped the sides of their boat with a hypnotic sound.

  After a time, before they could grow bored with the passing scenery, the boatman began to steer in toward shore. Deftly maneuvering, he brought them up beside
a small wooden dock, and his son jumped off to tie up the ropes. “We’ll picnic here,” said Robin, very pleased with his arrangements so far. “Hawkins says there’s a fine spot just over the rise.”

  The boatman threw down the gangplank, and then he and his son gathered up the baskets of provisions and prepared to escort them to shore. “Not that one,” said Robin, taking one from him. “That one’s for you.” He set it on deck again.

  “Thank’ee, sir,” said Hawkins, with a gap-toothed grin.

  They walked up the slope of the bank and into a meadow scattered with flowers. “Here we are,” said Robin.

  “I want to go over there,” demanded Lady Mary, pointing to a small cluster of trees on the other side of the meadow, just past a fence.

  “This is much better,” protested Robin. “It’s sunnier, and closer to the boat.”

  “You’re not carrying anything,” the girl pointed out.

  “I know, but—”

  “I want to go over there,” she repeated, looking thunderous.

  “Oh, very well!” Scowling, Robin started to trudge through the long grass.

  They all followed him. Colin loosened a rail so that the ladies could step over the fence, and the Hawkinses spread a large red blanket out under a tree and placed the food baskets on it before turning back to the river.

  “Perfect,” said Lady Mary, sinking down in a pool of skirts. “Listen to the wind in the leaves! It is like the ocean.”

  Robin showed no signs of listening. He was still frowning as he unpacked the provisions he had bought and began to spread them out on the blanket.

  “How lovely it all looks,” said Emma.

  Robin brightened. “We’ve cold chicken and rolls,” he said. “And lobster.” He threw Lady Mary a look. “There’s wine, and these peaches. The woman particularly recommended those. And some pastries as well.”

  “A feast,” responded Emma, winning a smile.

  Robin found the corkscrew and began to open the wine. Emma got out the plates and cutlery and spread them out. Colin carved the chickens, and Lady Mary oversaw them all with benevolent approval.

  They began to eat. Robin and Lady Mary were arguing over whether it was more enjoyable to picnic outdoors or to stop at a rustic inn. The breeze rustled the leaves and carried birdsong across the meadow. It was an idyllic scene, thought Emma. She could almost feel carefree and forget that anything oppressed her.

  Suddenly, Colin stiffened. Emma saw his eyes widen slightly and his jaw harden. She started to turn to see what he could be staring at with such wary intensity. “Everyone sit absolutely still,” he said, in a tone that commanded instant obedience.

  But only for a moment. “Why?” asked Lady Mary, looking around for an explanation.

  “I believe we are sharing this field with a bull,” said Colin. “And from the looks of him, he is not a good-tempered animal.”

  Emma followed his gaze and saw a huge, wickedly horned bull moving slowly toward them. It had a reddish hide with white markings on the face and neck, and it seemed as big as a house. It paused, snorted as if annoyed, and came on.

  “Good God!” cried Robin, leaping up. The bull’s head tossed in an echo of the movement. “Run for it. I’ll distract him.” He hurried to the right, but this put him among the trees, where the bull couldn’t see him.

  “Robin!” cried Emma.

  “Get back over the fence,” said Colin calmly, pulling both women to their feet and beginning to push them toward that barrier. The bull snorted again, sounding closer.

  At the fence he urged them over, and then replaced the rail he had removed earlier. Turning, he saw that Robin had come forward and was waving his handkerchief to attract the bull’s attention. “Come on,” Colin called to him.

  But Robin ignored him. “I’ve heard they do this in Spain,” he said gaily, brandishing his handkerchief in wider arcs. “Ha, bull, come and get me!” He capered around a tree, going closer to the giant animal.

  “Robin!” cried the two women in unison.

  Colin shook his head, briefly closing his eyes in disbelief.

  “I need something larger,” said Robin. His eyes lit on their picnic, and he went and pulled the red blanket from under the food, knocking most of it helter-skelter into the grass. “Just the thing,” he said, turning and waving the cloth in the bull’s direction.

  “Young fool,” muttered Colin. He started toward the boy.

  With a bellow, the bull collected himself and lowered his head so that his horns were in line with the center of the blanket. With another resonant snort, he charged.

  He came much faster than Robin expected, faster than an animal that size ought to be able to move. Watching a ton of enraged flesh thunder down upon him, Robin suddenly froze, the red blanket hanging limp in his hands. Colin started to run.

  “Robin!” screamed Emma. “Get out of the way!”

  “Move, you idiot!” cried Lady Mary.

  Colin leaped. He caught hold of Robin’s waist and propelled the boy forward and onto the ground just as the bull hurtled into the spot where he had been standing. There was a sound of rending cloth, and then the animal was past them, galloping down the field, the red blanket impaled on its horns and waving in the breeze like a victory banner.

  Colin sprang up and yanked Robin to his feet as well. As the bull bellowed and shook its head, trying to get clear of the blanket, he dragged the young man to the fence and practically threw him over. “We’d better be on our way,” he said, his breath coming hard. “I have no faith in this fence.”

  “Our lunch,” protested Robin.

  “A fine time to think of that,” accused Lady Mary, “after you dumped it all on the ground playing your stupid tricks.”

  “You hellcat,” gasped Robin. “When I was trying to save your skin!”

  “Go!” said Colin, seeing that the bull was free again and rumbling toward them.

  “I’ll have to pay for the dishes,” Robin began to protest, but Colin pushed him along in front of him as the ladies hurried back to the boat.

  The boatman looked surprised to see them, and when he had heard their story, he seemed to have a good deal of difficulty hiding a smile. He offered to retrieve the lost luncheon, but when he had gone and returned, he told them that the bull was trampling it into the earth with what seemed to be deep satisfaction. “Pertickly the peaches,” he told them with twitching lips. “Seems to like the feel of them under his hooves.”

  “So we are to have no lunch at all?” complained Lady Mary.

  Robin turned on her savagely. “It’s your fault,” he said. “If we had stayed where I wanted, this would not have happened. But no, you always have to have your own way. Everyone must do as you wish. You will never listen to anyone else’s opinion.”

  Eyeing the two youngsters, Colin gave the boatman a discreet signal to cast off and start home. Taking Emma’s elbow, he guided her to the chairs they had occupied before and seated her. “Thank you,” she said shakily. “You saved his life.”

  Colin shrugged. “A serious goring, perhaps,” he corrected.

  Emma was so beset by conflicting feelings that she could not speak.

  “He has a good deal of courage,” commented Colin, watching Robin shake his finger at Lady Mary as if she were a naughty child and he her governess. He turned to smile at Emma. “Though he could benefit from a bit of military training. He needs to learn to retreat in good order from an enemy with superior armament.”

  “You risked yourself for…” murmured Emma almost inaudibly.

  “You know, I think I misjudged the lad,” Colin continued, not hearing. “There’s more to him than I realized. Most youngsters would have simply taken to their heels and…” He smiled again. “And bull take the hindmost.”

  “What he did was foolhardy and horribly dangerous,” protested Emma.

 
“Oh, yes. He should never have attempted any such thing. But it showed a great deal of pluck, you know.”

  She would never understand men, Emma thought. “And would pluck matter if he had been killed by that bull?” she asked tartly.

  Colin looked surprised. “Of course,” he replied, as if it went without saying. “Naturally it is better to be both wise and brave, but a man’s honor is always of vital importance.”

  Emma swallowed, her annoyance dampened. He had been so long a soldier. His own, and his family’s, honor mattered so deeply to him. What would he do if Orsino began to sully it? Call him out? Orsino cheated at everything; if they faced one another with pistols, the count might well find a way to kill Colin. And even if he didn’t, her husband would never look at her with any sort of affection again.

  “They seem to enjoy it, don’t they?” Colin commented, nodding toward the younger couple in the front of the barge.

  “Hmm?” murmured Emma, trying to recover her equilibrium.

  “Continually bickering with one another.”

  “Oh.” She looked at the youngsters. “Yes, I suppose they do.”

  “I’ve seen long-married pairs who were the same, but I can’t say I understand the attraction of it myself.”

  Emma shook her head.

  “It shows the wisdom of basing a marriage on common interests and shared experiences.”

  Common interests, Emma thought—a cold phrase. She looked over at him. Though she had moments of hope, at other times, like this, she wondered if he ever felt more than a sedate satisfaction with the arrangement they had made. He saw love as an affliction of youth, and himself as beyond or above it. Would he even want love, should it ever descend upon him, as it had, so very definitely, on her?

  ***

  The following day, Colin Wareham was strolling through the reading room at White’s, on the lookout for a friend with whom he was engaged to lunch. He was rather early, so it didn’t concern him when he saw no sign of James in any of the comfortable armchairs. He took a newspaper from the table where all the popular periodicals were laid out in crisp rows and went in search of an unoccupied chair where he could settle and read it.