by Deborah Hale
Jenny had seen the woman’s sour expression, too. She thought it had more to do with Mr. Pruitt’s lascivious comment on her dress than with the poached pears.
“You were very quiet this evening, I must say, Janet. In future when we entertain, I hope you’ll cultivate a more vivacious humor.”
“I…I’m sorry if I let ye down, R-Roderick.” She could feel tears stinging the back of her eyes. “It’s just so awfully hot and this is the very first time I’ve ever entertained, and with the wedding tomorrow…”
“There, there, Janet.”
For the first time since she’d come to Chatham, Roderick took her in his arms. He’d been so circumspect until now, with only the odd kiss bestowed on her hand or her forehead to bid good-night. Surely a deeper intimacy between them would help quell her memories of Harris.
“I know this is a far grander life than you’re used to,” said Roderick. “I’m prepared to make allowances. You’ll grow into your new role, I feel certain of it. Just heed me and I’ll do my best to mold you into a perfect wife.”
She knew he meant this for reassurance, but his words chilled her. The sensation of his embrace held none of the wonder she had once imagined. None of the wonder she’d experienced with Harris.
He kissed her then, on the lips. Slowly, deeply and with expert precision—as though he’d practiced his technique on many willing women before her. Jenny tried to relax and enjoy it. She failed.
Likewise, when Roderick raised his hand and swiped it across the exposed flesh of her breasts. His mouth released hers, kissing its way across her cheek to her ear. Instead of rousing her, it only made her hackles rise.
“Oh, Janet,” he whispered, his voice hot and husky. “I’ve held myself back from you these past weeks, wanting everything to be right and proper. But tonight, seeing you in that gown and the way those men looked at you, I can’t keep my hands off you a moment longer, my dearest.”
He trailed a string of kisses down her neck and across her collarbone, veering down to the cleft between her breasts. His hands ranged over her, taking triumphant possession of his conquered territory. Did he mean to have her for the very first time, here in the parlor, where Mrs. Lyons or one of the hired girls might walk in at any moment?
“Please, Roderick.” She pulled back from him, turning her face away when he tried to kiss her again. Modesty was only an excuse, Jenny realized. She didn’t want him pawing at her—would she ever? “Can’t we wait until…” Until hell freezes?
Braving a quick glance into his eyes, Jenny shrank from what she saw there. Something intense and remorseless glared back at her. His hand squeezed down on her breast so swiftly and so hard that she gasped in pain.
“Have it your own way.” He spat the words at her. “Traipse around the countryside like a trollop with that oaf of a Chisholm, then act all missish and proper with the man who has an honest claim on you.”
She opened her mouth to protest the injustice of his accusation, but no words would come. It was true. She’d allowed Harris far greater liberties than her fiancé had just tried to claim. Allowed? Why, she’d positively encouraged them.
“I’m sorry, Roderick.” Would she have to spend every day of her marriage apologizing to him for something?
He rose abruptly from the settee, adjusting his clothes. “The hour is late. We both need our sleep.”
“Yes, Roderick.” She rose to accompany him to the door.
He took her face in his hands. Jenny nearly wilted with relief. So he meant to pardon her rebuff after all.
The force of his fingers increased, until Jenny felt as if her head was being squeezed in a vise.
He pressed his nose to hers and gazed deep into her eyes. “Tomorrow night you’ll be mine, Janet. Then you’ll not deny me.”
As suddenly as he had taken her, he released Jenny and strode for the door. She lapsed back onto the settee until her fluttering pulse slowed and her trembling subsided. Then she took herself off to bed.
Seated before the night table, she pulled the brush through her hair again and again, long past her usual fifty strokes. Tomorrow she was going to marry Roderick Douglas. It was the dream of a lifetime finally come true. The sumptuous party fare roiled in her stomach. It was natural for a bride to be nervous on the eve of her wedding, she told herself firmly. She was merely anxious that tomorrow’s ceremony should go off smoothly.
Jenny kept on brushing. If she stopped, she feared her hands would shake again. Surely it was nothing unusual for a maid to anticipate her wedding night with uneasiness…or apprehension or…stark terror?
She would become accustomed to Roderick’s ways once they’d been married awhile, Jenny tried to reassure herself. She’d work hard to be a good wife. She’d keep their home quiet and serene. Gentle his fierce temper with her womanly influence. Avoid giving him cause to treat her roughly. In time, she’d grow used to his kisses and his touch, ceasing her constant and unfair comparisons with Harris.
The hairbrush dropped from Jenny’s hand, clattering on the floorboards.
Hurriedly she scooped it up again, her heart hammering. What if Mrs. Lyons came to investigate the noise? Jenny anxiously inspected the silver back of the brush for dents. Roderick would not appreciate her careless handling of the fine things he bought for her.
She glanced over at the wide tester bed. She hadn’t slept soundly in it since coming here. By rights, she ought to be a sensible lass and try to get some rest. When she looked at it, though, she could only contemplate the years of nights to come, when she must share it with Roderick Douglas.
Jenny could feel a dull ache in her face and arms and the soft flesh of her breast where his hands had plundered so roughly. When she recalled the hungry light in his eyes and his parting words, her supper threatened to erupt from her seething belly.
Rifling through her wardrobe, she took out the copy of Ivanhoe that had been Harris’s parting gift to her. Perhaps the book would distract her from unwelcome thoughts and lull her to sleep. She settled in the rocking chair, opening the volume not to the first page of text, but to the last.
Softly she paraphrased Scott’s prose to fit her own situation. “She lived long and happily with Roderick, for they were attached to each other by bonds of early affection and loved each other the more for recollection of obstacles which had impeded her union. Yet it would be inquiring too curiously to ask whether the recollection of Harris Chisholm’s courage and magnanimity did not recur in her mind more frequently than the noble descendant of Douglas might altogether have approved.”
The last words escaped in a hoarse whisper. But it was not until she saw the first teardrops splatter on the open page that Jenny realized she was weeping.
The long shadows of that early October evening seemed so much at odds with a heat like mid-July. One final push of the paddles brought Levi’s sea canoe to dock at the Richibucto wharf, astern of a strangely familiar vessel. A small clutch of curious townsfolk had gathered to meet them.
The lofty figure of Robert Jardine detached itself from the others. “Is that you, Chisholm? Did you ever make it to Chatham? We feared the worst when we didn’t hear any news of you. All your gear is safely stored at my house…”
Harris cut him off. None of the rest mattered, except the one question that had been burning in his brain all day. “Robert, by all that’s holy, man, can you tell me what day it is?”
“What day? Why it’s Thursday, of course. The sixth of October. Why do you need to know?”
Thursday. The sixth. By noon tomorrow Jenny’d be wed to Roderick Douglas, and Harris was now powerless to stop it.
Chapter Twenty
Jenny could not remember at what early hour of the morning she’d fallen asleep in the rocking chair. She shook her head to disperse the lingering echoes of a nightmare. In it, she’d been bound to the stake, like Rebecca in Ivanhoe. The Templar, who looked uncomfortably like Roderick, had held a torch to the faggots. In vain, Jenny had scanned the horizon for some sign of Sir
Wilfred riding to save her. Even as she choked on the rising smoke and felt the first lick of flames, he had not come.
She’d wakened, only to realize she had exchanged one nightmare for another. All her experience of Roderick Douglas from the past weeks had merged in her sleeping mind. She now believed Morag McGregor—mad or sane. The altar at St. Mary’s would be her own stake, today. And no sign of a knight in armor galloping to her rescue.
“Mistress?”
Jenny started at the timid tap on the door.
“Just a moment, Marie.”
She clasped the book to her in a desperate embrace, then buried it in the depths of her wardrobe. As soon as possible, she’d have to dispose of it—though it would break her heart. Mrs. Lyons would not be above snooping it out, and Jenny shrank from the prospect of Roderick’s reaction.
“Come in,” she called to the hired girl.
Marie entered with a kettle of steaming water. “Mrs. Lyons said I was to help you prepare for the wedding, mistress. Would you like me to wash your hair?”
Jenny nodded. Time to wash, dress and otherwise prepare this sacrificial creature for the altar. Fleetingly she considered running away. It was her speciality, after all, she reflected bitterly. Jenny knew the price Morag McGregor had paid for disappointing her bridegroom, though. And she was too great a coward to risk it.
Only one thought gave her any comfort. At least she’d done the right thing in persistently refusing Harris. He deserved so much better than a woman like her. Sooner or later, she would have brought him great suffering. Fortunately he had escaped her—relatively unscathed.
Mrs. Lyons stalked into the bedroom without bothering to knock. “Cook wants to know if you’ll have a bowl of porritch to stay your stomach until the wedding luncheon. If you mean to, you’d better eat now, before you get into your gown.”
“No, thank ye, Mrs. Lyons. I’m not hungry. Bride’s nerves, ye know.”
The housekeeper sniffed. “Nerves? What’s to be nervous marrying a man in the master’s position? You should be down on your knees thanking the Lord for such an opportunity.”
Jenny knew it was futile, sparring with this woman. Roderick had made it clear that Mrs. Lyons would have the upper hand in their household. Still she could not hold her tongue.
“If I thought the Lord would listen, Mrs. Lyons, I would be down on my knees, ye may be sure.”
The woman shot her a suspicious look, as though she knew what Jenny meant but could find no grounds in those words to challenge her. “You’ll tempt judgment, uttering such blasphemy on your wedding morn. If you thought the Lord would listen, indeed!”
She marched off, muttering darkly to herself about Jenny’s want of appetite, and what a bad breeder she would prove.
The thought of bearing and raising children by a man like Roderick Douglas took the stomach out of Jenny entirely.
“Oh, mistress!” Marie handled the wedding gown as though it was a sacred object. “Elle est belle. Elle est très, très belle!”
Jenny slipped the lavender-gray silk over her head and let Marie fasten the buttons. She caught a glimpse of herself in the mirror above the night table. A pale, haunted creature stared back at her. Sackcloth or a hair shirt would be more appropriate raiment for the undertaking before her.
By the time she descended the stairs and took her seat in Roderick’s carriage for the short drive to St. Mary’s, Jenny could scarcely walk or speak for paralyzing fear.
The day was hot and hazy. Farmers dug potatoes. A tinker’s cart drove past in the opposite direction, metalware jangling. Out in the harbor, a ship sailed in from the Northumberland. Just another ordinary day for everyone else in the world. But for Jenny, the blackest of her life. Even that mightn’t have been so bad had she not envisioned worse days—years of them, to come.
From the prow of the St. Bride, Harris Chisholm watched the Northumberland coast pass by. Pass by far too slowly for his liking. Since the barque had cast off on the daybreak tide, he’d stood here, willing the Atlantic winds to fill the sails and speed them on to the Miramichi.
Involuntarily, his hand went up to the pocket of his waistcoat, to reassure him that the wedding license was still there. After the despair that had crushed him on reaching Richibucto, and believing himself too late, Harris tried to keep his surging hope in check this morning.
It was not easy.
Indeed, it seemed as though the hand of the Almighty had intervened, suddenly flinging open a window where it had firmly slammed a door. When he’d retched out his tale of woe to Robert Jardine, the shipbuilder had replied with impossibly hopeful news.
“You aren’t too late, Harris. The St. Bride is seaworthy, man. She’s set to sail the day after tomorrow, but I’m certain we could persuade the master to go a day sooner.”
“The ship’s just part of it, Robert. I need to get a license for Jenny and me to wed. It’s the only way I can pry her out of Douglas’s foul clutches.”
“I’ll take you along to the magistrate. I hope he hasn’t gone to bed yet.” The shipbuilder shook his head. “I’ll warn you, a wedding license doesn’t come cheap.”
“There should be a little money among the things I left at yer house, Robert. There’s also my books. I’ll…sell them to ye, if ye’ll take them.”
“Never you worry about that. Between us, I reckon we’ll come up with the fee some way or other.”
Old Justice Weldon had muttered his disapproval of the irregularity of issuing the document. “You know, young fellow, the license is meant to be issued by me at the time I perform the ceremony—not for some wedding to take place in another county. How can I even be certain you have the lady’s consent?”
Harris placed his hand on the judge’s Bible. “I swear before God, sir, I have her promise.”
“I have her promise,” he repeated to himself twelve hours later, drawing in a deep breath of sea air.
He hadn’t lied…exactly.
On the quayside at Kirkcudbright, Jenny had vowed to grant him any favor within her power, provided he saw her safe to the Miramichi. He’d kept his part of the bargain. Now he meant to hold Jenny to hers. He knew she’d intended nothing like this when she’d made the compact. And he recalled something else she’d once said. If ye do anything to queer my marriage to Roderick, Harris Chisholm, I won’t marry ye, supposing ye’re the last he-creature in North America.
Harris could only pray for wind to drive the St. Bride, and pray that Jenny had changed her mind.
The vicar of St. Mary’s bestowed a benign smile on the bridal couple. If he noticed the stricken look on Jenny’s face or the stiff way she held herself apart from Roderick, he gave no sign. Opening his Book of Common Prayer, he proceeded with the liturgy of the wedding service.
Jenny let the words wash over her. If she heeded their meaning, she might not be able to keep her distress in check. For all the bloody conflict between the Church of England and the Free Kirk over the years, their offices of marriage were not all that different.
“Dearly beloved, we are gathered together in the sight of God to join this man and this woman in holy matrimony…”
Time seemed to stop and Jenny’s every sense heightened. Simultaneously she was aware of the dust motes shimmering in a shaft of sunlight, the stale air within the sanctuary, and the faint creak of door hinges from the vestibule.
“I require and charge thee both,” intoned the vicar gravely, “as ye will at the dreadful day of judgment when the secrets of all hearts shall be disclosed, that if either of ye know any impediment why ye may not be lawfully joined together in matrimony, ye do now confess it.”
“Likewise, if there be any man present,” he continued after pausing for only a beat, “who can show just cause why these persons should not be joined in matrimony, let him now speak or else hereafter forever hold his peace.”
He scarcely drew breath before moving on with the service. “Wilt thou, Rod—”
A voice rang out from the back of the sanctuary. A
voice Jenny had never expected to hear again. A voice she now realized she had missed to the core of her being.
“Give a body a chance to get a word in, Reverend.”
Jenny could not bring herself to turn around, in case she might be mistaken and it might not be Harris after all. The vicar wore the dumbstruck look of a flayed mackerel.
Roderick’s dark visage blackened further. “Pay no mind, Vicar. Get on with the ceremony.”
“But…the…this is highly irregular. Young man, do you wish to speak against this union?”
“I do.”
“Come forward then, by all means and have your say.”
Jenny heard footsteps making their way to the altar. Footsteps with a pronounced limp. She spun around to see Harris hobbling down the aisle.
What had happened to him?
A messy-looking wound on his forehead appeared to be healing. A black eye was fading to mottled brown and green. One side of his lower lip was slightly swollen. He was the dearest, most welcome sight Jenny had ever beheld. She could scarcely keep from bolting into his arms.
“Well?” the vicar prompted Harris.
“This wedding can’t go forward.” Coming to a halt beside Jenny, he cast her a furtive look that might have been an apology. “Because I have a prior claim on the bride and I’ve come here today to wed her, myself.”
“Nonsense!” thundered Roderick. “I warn you, Chisholm, get out now before I…”
“Before ye have Sweeney and McBean beat me to a bloody pulp? They had their fun with me once. Can’t ye come up with a more original threat?”
Jenny wrenched her hand from Roderick’s. “Oh, Harris!” She should have known how he’d come by his injuries. Rather than have him suffer like that for her, she would have taken every blow herself.
“This is ridiculous!” insisted Roderick. “I’ll be damned if I’ll let you barge in and turn my wedding into a free-for-all with your baseless accusations.”
“Now, now, Mr. Douglas,” pleaded the vicar. “Remember your language. This is a house of God.”
