by M C Beaton
“Pretty wedding,” said Mrs. Page, “although I must say Sir Charles doesn’t look a bit like his portrait.”
“Well, Fanny don’t look like that miniature you sent. Hey, could it be that the Deveneys are playing the same game?” her husband exclaimed.
“Look at them,” said Mrs. Page comfortably, nodding toward the Deveneys. “Not a brain between the pair of them. All will be well. We’ll stay abroad until we’re sure a child is on the way and then we’ll just move in on them.”
Sir Charles wanted to speak to his father. The squire was across the table from him at the wedding breakfast, but every time he tried to catch his attention, to signal to him that he wished to be private with him, the squire appeared not to see and immediately began to talk to Mrs. Deveney.
Still, no doubt this new wife of his could explain a lot. They were to spend the first night of their marriage at an expensive posting house on the road to London, where they were to stay with Aunt Martha.
He exchanged a few remarks with her about the guests, about the weather, and she answered in monosyllables and picked at her food.
Fanny had lived in her mind for the past weeks with that tall, dark man of the portrait. She was bewildered. She could not adjust to the fact that this fair-haired man who looked younger than his years was her husband. But he looked kind, and certainly not at all threatening. She looked around at the guests. It was surely unusual for her parents to invite so many country folk, farmers, and shopkeepers to grace their table. She did not know her parents had not invited any of the local gentry or aristocracy for fear that they might gossip to the Deveneys about the Pages’ notorious lack of wealth.
There was to be no dancing after the breakfast, no festivities. Fanny, followed by the twittering and excited Miss Partington, went up to her room for the last time, where a housemaid helped Miss Partington remove Fanny’s wedding gown and attire her instead in a modish carriage gown of blue velvet.
Fanny kept looking toward the bedroom door, expecting her mother to arrive for a few last words, but Mrs. Page did not appear.
When she descended to the hall, she could see through the open doors that the light was already beginning to fade. A post chaise waited outside. For some reason neither the Pages nor the Deveneys had wished to part with their traveling carriages. Sir Charles was waiting for her. He smiled and patted her hand in a reassuring way and she smiled tremulously at him.
Her mother stood well back behind the guests as Fanny was helped into the post chaise. A ragged cheer went up and then they were off. Man and wife. Off to an unknown future.
“Well, that went quite well,” said Sir Charles. He had a light, pleasant voice.
“Yes,” said Fanny in a small voice. “I thought—I thought you might have made an effort to—to see me before the wedding.”
“I was told you did not wish it,” he said. “I confess I thought it most odd. I hope, however, you are not disappointed in me.”
She was, terribly, but could not bring herself to say so.
It was all too much. “If you don’t mind,” she said in a little voice, “I would like to sleep.”
“Go ahead,” he said amiably, and Fanny closed her eyes tightly and affected to fall asleep—until the affectation became reality and she slept neatly and soundly until he at last awoke her and told her they had arrived at the posting house, where they were to spend the night.
She walked up the broad staircase with him, behind the landlord, who was singing the praises of his “best room.” She waited while their trunks were carried in, looking all the while at the large four-poster bed as if it were an instrument of torture.
Sir Charles tipped the servants, the landlord bowed and withdrew, and the couple were alone.
Fanny stood very still, staring at the floor. Sir Charles gently removed her hat. She still stood there.
He thought he really ought to begin by kissing her. But she looked so odd, so frozen with fright. He knew that virgins were expected to be frozen with fright, but it did seem, on the other hand, a bit hard to drag a girl off to bed with whom he had only exchanged a few pleasantries. He remembered she had only eaten very little at the breakfast, which, like most wedding breakfasts, had been at three in the afternoon. So he pushed open a door at the side of the bedroom and said, “Look, we have a private parlor. What do you say to a little supper first?”
“Yes,” said Fanny eagerly, anxious to stave off the terrifying moment when she would need to undress in front of this stranger.
He opened the door and shouted for the waiter—and after ordering supper suggested they should wait in the parlor beside the fire.
The little parlor was brightly lit with beeswax candles. It must be a very expensive place to have beeswax candles instead of tallow, thought Fanny, and then was relieved to remember that her parents had arranged all this and had paid the bill in advance.
“Would you like to change out of your carriage dress?” asked Sir Charles, but Fanny, feeling armored in thick blue velvet, shook her head.
“I think we should start by getting to know each other,” said Sir Charles. He looked at the little elfin creature who was sitting on the very edge of the chair opposite him. “You are not at all like your miniature,” he said.
Those huge eyes of hers flew up to meet his. “Oh, the one Mama sent you. I never saw it. She said the artist was most eccentric and took my likeness while studying me covertly from another room.”
“Then the fool must have drawn one of your friends. Here! Let me show it to you.” He fished in his pocket, took out the miniature in its leather case, and passed it to her.
“But this is ridiculous!” she exclaimed. “This is not me! What has happened? Are both our parents mad? It looks as little like me as did that portrait supposed to be of you that your parents showed me.”
“But no one has ever painted my portrait!” “It was of a dark, handsome man on a white charger.”
“What is going on?” He looked at her in bewilderment. Then his face grew grim. “I am beginning to fear that my parents may have done everything to trap you into marriage with me.”
“But why?” wailed Fanny. “What is wrong with you? With all that prize money you could marry anyone you wanted.”
“I have no prize money. I have only my army pay.”
Fanny looked at him, stricken. “I thought you knew that,” he said. “My dear, I am afraid my parents were after your money.”
She looked at him, bewildered. “But I have no money. Your parents said you were returning home with a shipload of loot … and your mama was bedecked in diamonds when I saw her.”
“My mother does not possess diamonds. You have no money?”
“No, I doubt if I even have a dowry.”
“Gulled like the veriest flat,” he said bitterly. “Now, what are we going to do?”
At that moment the waiters entered with their supper. Both ate and drank silently until the covers were removed and the servants left.
He leaned back in his chair and surveyed her. “We can live on my pay,” he said, “but it will be difficult, especially if there are children.”
Tears welled up in Fanny’s eyes. “I thought I was going to have some fun at last,” she said. “I thought we would go to balls and parties. I have never been to London.”
“If only we could put the clock back,” he said. “If only we had found out any of this before we got married. Don’t cry. I’m damned if I’ll let them get away with this. You’re so young. You should have had a Season and lots of fellows to choose from.”
Fanny cried quietly over her glass of unaccustomed wine. She had never been allowed anything stronger than lemonade before and had even drunk the toasts at her wedding in lemonade.
“Look here,” he said gently, “this will not do at all. I shall go downstairs and get a horse and ride home. Our parents must not be allowed to get away with this. Give me a few moments to change into my riding clothes and then you can go to bed.”
After
he had gone into the bedroom, Fanny dried her tears and blew her nose firmly. It was every bit as bad for him as it was for her. He was not a brute or a monster.
When he returned, she gave him a watery smile. “I am behaving like the veriest weakling,” she said.
“Never mind. Wait for me. Thank goodness I do not have very far to ride.”
When he reached his home, he hammered on the door until he heard a faint answering shout, then a window on the ground floor opened and the elderly footman looked out.
“I wish to see my parents,” said Sir Charles.
“They’ve gone, sir. Wait a bit. I’ll unbolt the door.”
Sir Charles heard his shuffling footsteps approach the door, saw the candle that he carried bobbing along the line of windows.
The footman opened the door and he stepped into the hall. “Gone? What do you mean, gone?”
“It’s as much a surprise to me, sir, as it was to you. We thought all those trunks was your treasure. Gone to Yorkshire or somewheres like that and strangers coming here next week to rent the house.”
“What about Mr. Hawkes?”
“Reckon he was surprised as anyone else, sir. Went off to London.”
“I had best go and see my in-laws,” said Sir Charles grimly. “They have a lot of explaining to do.”
But at the Pages, he roused Mrs. Friendly, who told him that the Pages had gone abroad, gone just like that, and had rented their house, servants and all, to a Mr. Robinson, due to arrive to take up residence in two weeks’ time.
“Is Lady Charles well?” asked the cook, still bewildered at all the changes—and at the sight of the bridegroom on his wedding night, standing glaring at her as if he could not believe his ears.
“Yes, very well,” he said abruptly. “Why was nothing of this told to me? My parents have gone as well.”
“I am sure I don’t know, sir. Have you come far? Would you care for a glass of wine?”
“No. On second thoughts, yes. I must think.”
Soon he was seated in the drawing room with a decanter of port. He turned the facts over in his mind. It was all very plain. His parents thought they were tricking the Pages and getting him an heiress. The Pages had thought they were tricking the Deveneys and that he really did have prize money. So they had seen to it that he had married Fanny—and then had left to avoid any repercussions.
How could he have been such a fool? Fanny’s predicament was understandable. She had thought she was gaining a rich and handsome husband. But after the wars and the carnage, he had thought naively he was returning to the innocence of home. He had believed his parents when they had told him that this marriage of his was necessary to save them from the debtors’ prison and that Fanny’s dowry would be their salvation. He could cope with it, as he had coped with so much already in his life. He liked Fanny. She was an endearing little thing. She should have been giggling at balls and parties and dreaming of beaux. Was Aunt Martha part of this plot? He had not seen her in years, but remembered her as being a rather grim and upright spinster. No, Aunt Martha would know nothing of this, and then with a sinking heart, he remembered her strong disapproval of his parents. He was beginning to think his aunt knew nothing of their impending arrival.
And then the words of Tommy Hawkes drifted into his worried mind. Tommy was fond of saying that to cut a dash in London society, one had to have a great deal of money, or, failing that, persuade society that one actually had a great deal of money. “If society thinks you are very rich,” Tommy had said, “then you can dine at other people’s houses and have endless credit.”
The marriage had not been announced in the newspapers. Only the locals knew of it, the servants and the vicar. London society would not. He thought of the weary years of living within his army pay, envying such men as Bohun their wealth. He began to feel that same reckless, heady sensation he had just before going into battle. He was accounted rich, was he? Then let London society think so. He would outdo his parents by living on credit, present Fanny as his cousin, and give her all the balls and parties she desired. It should be easy to get an annullment if the marriage were not consummated.
The first thing was to erase any record of that marriage from the parish register. The local church was small but accounted very fine. It often had visitors. He tossed off his glass of wine and let himself out of the house. He swung himself into the saddle and rode off toward the church. He seemed to have left all his ideas of thrift and moral rectitude behind. Had he not found a window in the vestry unlatched, then he knew he would have shot the lock in the door and stolen something from the church to hide the real intention of his visit.
The moon was striking down into the vestry, which smelled of damp hassocks, oil heaters, and incense. He swung open the heavy register. There was his name and signature and that of Fanny’s on top of a fresh page. He took out a penknife and sliced out the page, carefully slitting it as far in as he could manage so that there would not be immediate visible evidence of his crime.
A small voice of reason somewhere in the back of his head was telling him that he was behaving ridiculously, that he could not expect to get away with his outrageous plan, that should Fanny find the man of her dreams in London, it was going to be hard to keep a marriage quiet until they got an annullment. The normally sensible Sir Charles was revolted by his parents’ behavior.
He crumpled up the page of the register and put it in his pocket before riding back to the posting house. The bedroom was in darkness. He lit a candle, drew back the bed curtains, and looked down at his sleeping wife. There were marks of tears on her cheeks. He gave a little sigh. He was suddenly very tired and did not want to sleep in the one hard chair before the fire.
He undressed quickly and slipped into bed beside her. She yawned and murmured something in her sleep and snuggled up against him. Sudden desire coursed through his body and he edged away. He had not had a woman in too long a time. But he could not spoil the chance of an annullment by taking her virginity.
Fanny awoke and stared up at the bed canopy, wondering for a brief second where she was. Then memory came flooding back. Soft breathing on the pillow next to her own made her stiffen. She twisted her head and looked into the sleeping features of her husband. His nightcap had fallen off and his thick, fair hair was ruffled, making him look young and vulnerable. He had more lace on his nightgown than she had on her own: a new nightgown, one obviously bought for his wedding night. Misery at her own situation was alleviated by a sudden sharp concern for his. He should have been lying next to a loving wife.
As if conscious of her gaze, he opened his eyes, looked at her for a long moment, and then smiled. She stiffened again, expecting him to reach for her, but he yawned and stretched and said, “Goodness, I’m hungry. Couldn’t eat much of that supper last night with all this worry. We’ll have breakfast and I’ll tell you my plans.”
He swung his legs out of bed, stood up, and pulled his nightgown over his head, revealing a well-muscled back marred by a long, puckered scar. After one brief, shy look, she turned away from him and lay with her eyes tight shut—until he said in an amused voice, “Are you going to lie there all day, Fanny?”
“No, Sir Charles,” she said in a small voice. “But I have never been in a bedroom with a gentleman before.”
“I should hope not. Call me Charles, Fanny. You get dressed and I’ll go and order breakfast.”
She got up when he had closed the door behind him. Great waves of relief were flooding her. He had not tried to make love to her, he had not shouted or cursed her as he had every reason to do. She dressed quickly and then joined him in the parlor.
He waited until they both had eaten and the servants had retired, then said, “We have indeed both been sadly tricked. Your parents and my parents, having gulled us, have both headed off for different points of the compass and left us destitute. I am not going to let them get away with this. You should marry the man of your choice. In fact, if I can pull this off, you shall.
�
��Now, no one knows we are married, no one in the gentry or aristocracy, that is. The marriage was not announced. I tore the page recording the marriage out of the register. We will go to London as cousins. If I can catch Tommy Hawkes before he starts talking about our wedding, I will get him to put about the fiction that we are both fabulously wealthy. We will be invited everywhere. You will have all the balls and parties you desire. As soon as you meet the man of your dreams, we will set about getting the marriage annulled.”
Fanny looked at him round-eyed. “But the man of my dreams—as you call him—will promptly shy off.”
“Not if he loves you.”
“And if I don’t meet anyone?”
“Well, I’ll think of something. Why should we not have a bit of fun?”
She wrinkled her brow and looked at him doubtfully. “But what if someone from your regiment knows you, or their families? You cannot then maintain the fiction of prize money.”
“That’s true. Lord Bohun has sold out and he hates me—and he certainly would explode any tale of prize money.”
Fanny smiled at him, suddenly liking him immensely and thinking he was very much like the brother she always wanted to have.
“I have it!” she cried. “Say you have a relative, a nabob, left all his wealth to you. As for me, I will put it about that some merchant who owed Papa a favor left me all his moneybags.”
“That’s my girl. And if it doesn’t work out, we’ll just need to put up with each other!”
Chapter Three
SIR CHARLES AND FANNY waited anxiously beside their trunks in the hall of Miss Martha Grimes’s residence in Hanover Square. They had already been kept waiting half an hour.
“It’s as I thought,” said Sir Charles gloomily. “She was not even informed we were to visit her. And the fact that your parents had not paid the posting house bill is an insult. Don’t look so depressed, Fanny. If she doesn’t want us, we’ll go and look for Tommy Hawkes and see if he can find us a place to stay.”
