Marriage Made in Hope

by Sophia James

  ‘I hope she is not too hurt. The man who tried to take her on the street hit her across the mouth...’

  She did not quite finish as the housekeeper nodded. ‘Anna disappeared from the side of her governess earlier in the afternoon and could not be found. Mrs Billinghurst was most upset.’ Her voice petered out as the physician stood to leave.

  ‘We will put his lordship into bed now with pillows to prop him up. He needs sleep to regather his energy.’ Three manservants carefully lifted him off the chair and across to the bed where the covers had been pulled back so that he could simply slip inside.

  He groaned at the movements and breathed in a rough manner, but once there appeared more comfortable, the blood from a cut on his right hand staining the snowy white coverlet. So much blood, she thought, glad that the Douglas physician had not wanted to bleed him further. His pallor now was as pale as the sheets of the bed he lay in and his breath was shallow.

  Another few moments of flurried activity and then everyone was gone with only silence left as Sephora shut her eyes and held her head in her hands. Today had been a revelation. Francis St Cartmail had a child, a girl child, and she looked neither much cared for nor particularly happy.

  The horror of it struck her anew. What sort of man could be so lax with the needs of a daughter? Her hair stuck out in all directions, her nails were as dirty as her clothes and he had not even asked her to his own wedding?

  She struggled to find some sense in the whole thing. He had gone to save the child without thought for himself and nearly died for it. Surely that must count for something and the girl had stuck like glue to his side in all of the doctoring and aftermath. Her behaviour was not exactly that of a well-raised daughter and the manner in which she had sworn roundly as they had lain in a heap on the side of the road was most surprising.

  Mrs Wilson had appeared wary of the girl, as had the servants. A child who might lash out, Sephora thought, or refuse any direction? An uncivilised and worrisome child.

  Her own head had begun to ache with the direction her thoughts were going in. Francis St Cartmail had wed her today without mentioning that he had been married before and had heirs already. What of the legal documents and the implications for an heir already existing? My goodness, the scandal that followed him had arrived with a hiss and a roar on her very doorstep and not two hours after they had been wed.

  ‘I am not perfect.’ She remembered his words. But there was long distance between the lies and deceit she was suddenly confronted with and the small discrepancies she was imagining.

  A marriage of convenience. A marriage forced upon him. A marriage that had not even begun before it was threatened.

  She swiped at the tears that fell across her cheeks and sat up straighter. She would not cry. She was beyond even allowing such a release. She would wait for the Earl of Douglas to regain consciousness and then she would find out exactly what else he had not told her.

  * * *

  It was late when Francis awoke, a single candle burning on the side table in his room at the Douglas town house in London.

  This was wrong.

  He should be somewhere else. There was a substantial pain across his shoulder and the smell of stale sickness in the air. He wore nothing but a sheet draped over him, and he began to gingerly move pieces of his body to see what functioned still and what did not.

  Sephora. The name made him take in his breath and hold it, the ache of hurt radiating downwards in a sharp and jabbing violence.

  ‘You are awake?’ Her voice was soft in the late-night silence and he looked around. His new wife sat on his other side dressed in different clothes than she had last been in, her hair tied back in a simple knot, small golden curls escaping such confinement on each side of her face. There were deep shadows under her eyes and a bruise across her cheek that had not been there before.

  ‘What happened?’

  ‘You were shot, do you remember?’

  He nodded, the noise and the instant pain coming back.

  ‘Anna?’

  ‘Your daughter is safe.’

  He shook his head. God. He’d not managed to safeguard either of them, but had gone down with only the barest of resistance. ‘Make sure...they...don’t come back.’

  It was all he could do, give such a warning before the dark and pain returned and he was once again floating.

  * * *

  The next time he came awake there was sunlight at the windows and he was glad that it was not night. He felt better, less light-headed. He was also very thirsty.

  ‘Is there something to drink?’

  Sephora was there again, soft and competent, her hands raising his head so that he could take a sip of some lemon concoction and just as gently lowering it down again.

  ‘How long...have I been here?’

  ‘Two days. For the first day the doctor thought you might not live and when you took fever he was certain of it. But you pulled through and now he is pleased with your progress.’

  ‘And Anna?’

  ‘I have not seen her again, though I hear her, of course. Your daughter is remarkably unruly.’

  ‘She is...not my...daughter. I am her guardian and she has only recently come...to me.’

  Sephora looked away from him, her blue eyes filled with pain and a hint of relief.

  ‘No one explained this to me.’

  ‘She is my uncle’s illegitimate child. I have brought in a governess and a tutor for her, but...’

  ‘She is difficult?’

  He nodded. ‘But...getting better, I hope.’ Each word was breathy with the pain he felt and he hated his exhaustion.

  ‘She looks just like you.’

  He smiled. ‘I know.’

  ‘She did not wish to leave your side when you were shot. Perhaps if she was allowed in to see you she might be more inclined to behave?’

  ‘Was she hurt?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Were you?’

  She shook her head, but that was not right for he held a vague memory of someone kicking her whilst she lay across him. When she leaned forward she did so with a good deal of stiffness.

  ‘Papa has sent over two men, one as a guard at the front of the house and the other one behind it just in case anyone should have the temerity to try to snatch her again. The place is like a fortress.’

  * * *

  Swallowing, Francis pulled the sheet up about his chin, a small protection of defence against the telltale marks at his throat. No doubt Sephora had seen them already, but still... His hand looked bruised, pointing to the days he had been in this netherworld of pain and semi-consciousness.

  He had to regather strength and the will to decipher all that had happened. His wedding had been ruined. That thought bit into everything with a sharp truth.

  ‘I am sorry, Sephora.’

  She frowned. ‘For what?’

  ‘Your wedding day was...spoilt.’

  ‘I hope I am not so shallow as to think that is more important than your recovery.’

  He smiled, liking her honesty. ‘Thank you for keeping Anna safe.’

  The anger at such an attack on his family consumed him and he was glad for her solid presence. He needed to be better and to be up dealing with things. He needed to find out who had hurt them all and what this meant. When he breathed in, he could smell violets on his wife’s skin and was comforted by the scent. But the blackness reached out again to claim him even as he tried to fight it.

  * * *

  He was asleep again and so suddenly. Sephora could see it in the even rise and fall of his chest. Such a repose needed to heal all the ravages the bullet had wrought upon him. Francis St Cartmail was not the father of Anna but her guardian and she was his cousin. The relief when he had told her that was still gathered inside her, bubbling upwards and making her smile.

  His eyelashes were long and thick and sat against his cheeks in a dark soft swathe, though the old scar held only brutality and pain.

  Contrasts.


  He was an earl of the ton who knew how to use a knife in a way few men of his station did and the whispered secrets of his past were at direct odds with the respectability and solid history imbued in his family title.

  Yet in the disparity Sephora could feel something inside herself shift and grow, a strength and fortitude returning as a life balanced in jeopardy forced her to appreciate all that was still left.

  His ring on her finger caught the light and she turned it so that the face of it came within her palm. When she closed her hand she felt the gold warm inside.

  She’d been living in a vacuum for so long now with Richard that she had forgotten what it felt like to be so vitally aware of both the good and the bad. To feel so deeply had its barbs, but it also held excitement and purpose and possibilities. Her whole world had changed from the utter boredom and ennui of a week ago to one where the terrifying pace of her adventures left her gasping.

  But alive in a way she had never felt before.

  ‘Please, God, let Francis be better soon,’ she prayed, sitting quietly as the day darkened into dusk and a chorus of birdsong was heard.

  Chapter Eleven

  The story of the attack on the earl on the busy London streets was all over the broadsheets and the papers. Other stories had also surfaced about his past, the affair at Hutton’s Landing and a fight he had been involved in in Boston. It seemed as if every man who had once held a gripe against Francis St Cartmail was out in force making his voice heard, and Sephora could do nothing to stop the tide of growing complaints

  Her parents came to see her the next morning, their faces twin countenances of worry and alarm.

  ‘There is still time to get out of this marriage, Sephora,’ her father said. ‘Non-consummation of the vows are enough of a reason for the dissolution of the contracts. Any judge would see to it.’

  ‘It is just so very awful,’ her mother continued where her father left off. ‘You have always been surrounded by beauty and fine living and now...now there is just base rumour and a danger from people who might attack you in the street in broad daylight. We worry for you. We want you to come home and to be with us, to be safe, and back where you belong.’

  Her parents’ heartfelt litanies after nights of sleeplessness were daunting.

  ‘Richard’s mother came up to London the other day, too,’ Elizabeth continued. ‘Josephine says that her son thinks he has made a terrible error in his judgement and wonders if you might meet him again, to talk sensibly over all that has happened. Perhaps you could resolve your silly arguments and—’

  ‘No.’ That word was torn from absolute certainty. ‘I have no wish at all to go back to what I was.’

  ‘Then this is enough? This slander against your name. This uncertainty? It is said that it was Douglas’s illegitimate daughter who was being dragged away on the street. A daughter from an affair he had with some woman of the night.’

  ‘Well I can tell you now that is false. Anna St Cartmail is the earl’s cousin. He is her guardian and has brought in a well-thought-of relative to look after her. It was not his fault that she was in danger on the streets of London and I am certain that he will see to things once he is better...’

  ‘But will he be? I heard he had been shot at point-blank range. How does one survive that, Sephora, and live a full life afterwards?’

  ‘With resolve, Mama.’

  Her mother extracted a handkerchief from her reticule and blew into it. ‘Maria said we should not be able to change your mind, but if you ever find yourself wondering what to do...’

  ‘I shan’t.’

  ‘Do you need money, my dear, to help you through this time?’ Her father’s words were quiet and firm.

  ‘No, Papa. We have more than enough.’

  At that moment a filthy, huge, wet, grey dog tore around the corner of the salon, its matted mangy fur standing up against a bony spine and yellow teeth exposed. Before they could all leap out of their seats, though, the housekeeper was in the room, her clothes soaking and soap on her face.

  ‘Miss Anna and I are giving him a bath, my lady. Lord Douglas said to bring him in and feed him, but he was just so very unclean...’ She stopped as she saw Sephora’s parents and swallowed, but the dog leapt past her again, its paws skidding on the shining parquet floor into the direction of the kitchen, Sephora thought, and the answering shout from Anna St Cartmail told her that the guess had been correct.

  ‘Well, I think we have probably seen enough.’ Her mother was on her feet and her father beside her. ‘I can’t imagine what might happen next and I hope, Sephora, if you are honest with yourself, you may not be able to either.’ She sounded breathless and her words were tight, but at least she was no longer crying. Her father joined her and then they were gone, the silence of the room broken only by the howls of a dog who had obviously been dumped into a tub of water and was being cleaned spotless to within an inch of its life.

  Francis was awake when Sephora looked into his room a few moments later. He was sitting on the side of his bed and had a shirt on, the thick wedge of bandage showing through the linen.

  Several drawings of dogs were stacked on the bedside table. They were well executed, although the animal in pencil looked a lot more regal in bearing than the one she had just seen in the flesh.

  ‘Anna drew them for me. She came in to see me very early and when the dog howled close by I asked her to see it was given something to eat. It is the first conversation that has been pleasant between us since she came.’

  ‘She would be thankful you saved her, no doubt, and mindful of the fact that you nearly gave your life to do so. You seem better today?’

  He gestured to a bottle of medicine. ‘The doctor left me something stronger for the pain and combined with the brandy Daniel brought in, it must be working.’ His humour was comforting.

  ‘And these?’ More drawings were in a pile on the coverlet, giving the impression that he had been shuffling through them.

  ‘My ward is doing her best to convince me the animal appears more attractive than I imagine he is. I said that she could feed it a bone from the kitchen, but I gather from the noise I just heard it has made its way into the house already and Mrs Wilson has seen it.’

  ‘It is being given a bath as we speak.’

  ‘What sort of dog is it?’

  ‘A large grey mangy one with yellow teeth and an old ill-healed wound right along its back.’

  He smiled. ‘I don’t think you are convincing me to keep it.’

  ‘Mama and Papa arrived just as it came indoors, a wet and soaking pile of smelly fur. They left as soon as they could.’

  ‘Because of the dog or because of me?’

  She could not lie. ‘Stories are swirling around London about your involvement in things that are...’

  ‘Dubious. Questionable. Suspect.’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘And your parents are worrying how the “angel of the ton” has managed to get herself caught up in the less-than-salubrious affairs of a disreputable earl?’

  Sephora smiled. ‘I doubt people call me that any more and I am glad for it.’

  ‘Glad?’

  ‘The pressure of being always good is probably as stultifying as the one you bear of being always wicked.’

  He laughed and a hand went to his injured side, his breathing rough and quick.

  ‘There are always two sides to every story, Sephora.’

  ‘Then who was Ralph Kennings?’ She watched with a growing disquiet as a flush of anger crossed over his humour, cancelling it out.

  ‘Who told you about him?’

  ‘Maria. She said you were with Adam Stevenage’s cousin out at Hutton’s Landing and that Kennings tried to murder you.’

  * * *

  Hell, he had not expected Sephora to know that name and the shock of it made his heart beat so fast Francis could feel the blood throb around the bullet hole in his shoulder.

  ‘Ralph Kennings is a man I killed. I shot him three times, once through
each knee and then a third time through the heart. He had not drawn a weapon.’ Better to say it with nothing missing. Better to let her understand just how much he had lost of himself out there in the canyons above Hutton’s Landing.

  ‘Why?’

  The face of Seth Greenwood came to mind, gasping his last in the mud below the ruined platform, a bullet deep inside him and his blood turning the water scarlet. But it was not that death that Francis dwelt on.

  ‘He’d killed two children and their mother before he came upon us. He wanted gold.’

  ‘Who were these people? These children?’

  ‘Seth’s family. He had twin boys. They were babies, for God’s sake, barely walking.’

  He could not tell her it all. He did not tell her what had been done to him that evening after the platform had collapsed, but the rope burn at his throat tightened about the little there was left of his breath. He could see the horror in her eyes, the brittle shocked blue even as he wondered what was reflected in his own.

  This was the truth of him, the brutality and the tragedy. Thinking of Hutton’s Landing negated any softness or goodness that he might have nurtured had he walked the finer line of gentility.

  ‘Your parents want you home, no doubt? They want you safe and well away from me? Perhaps they are right.’

  But she shook her head and drew in breath, holding it until she spoke again. ‘Life would be different, then, in the Americas? Wilder. Savage, even.’ He could hear the hope of it in her voice.

  ‘Honour is honour, Sephora, and mine was lost there in those three easy shots. I was a marksman in the army and damn good at my job. I knew I would not miss.’

  ‘Why are you telling me this? Why do you not defend yourself when you can only suffer from the consequences?’ She stood and her hands were shaking, wound around each other in front of her, every nail bitten back to the quick.

  ‘Because I should have told you of it before we were married. Because I am not the safe harbour you imagine me to be and your sins in the eyes of the ton are nowhere near as dark as the guilt I hold. I ought to have given you a choice, to have me or to not, and I didn’t and for that I am sorry.’