The Harem Bride

by Blair Bancroft

  While she looked forward to the many more to come.

  But in Lisbon, Penny, her Aunt Cass, and the ever-faithful Noreen O’Donnell, transferred to a ship bound for the fledgling United States of America. The young Viscount Lyndon, reviled by Miss Cassandra Pemberton and shattered by what he felt to be his personal failure on his wedding night, returned to England a changed man. He had tried so hard. He had, in fact, risked his life, and look at the result. He had tied himself to a schoolgirl, who had caused him to make a great ass of himself. Miss Pemberton was accusing him of rape . . . and what else could one call it when an experienced man of one and twenty allowed himself to be seduced by . . .

  By Gulbeyaz, the White Rose.

  Never, never again, he vowed, would he be so vulnerable. If he lived to be a hundred, no woman would ever again be allowed to touch his soul, as had the silver-haired, blue-eyed girl with whom he had spent one night in the seraglio.

  ~ * ~

  Chapter Ten

  Shropshire, 1812

  Miss Penelope Blayne threw the book she had been attempting to read halfway across the room, where it fell to the carpet with a most unsatisfactory thud. “How dare he?” she fumed. “I might as well be back in the seraglio. A guard, Noreen. A guard at our door. Infamous! I cannot credit it.”

  “Mr. Deveny says it’s for your protection, Miss. Until his lordship’s guests have all departed.”

  “And what does that say to the nature of his guests?” Penny sniffed. “More like he does not care for me to see his array of Cyprians.”

  “Nor would you wish to, Miss,” the Irish maid reminded her, a bit tartly.

  With an indeterminate noise that sounded suspiciously like a snort, Penny leaned back into the blue-brocaded chaise longue and glowered. “Do you think I will be allowed out for supper?” she mocked, “or is it to be another tray in my room? I swear to you, Noreen, if I had had any idea what awaited me here, I would rather have starved in the street—”

  “You would not, Miss,” declared the Irishwoman who had, through the years, become far more than Penny’s maid. “Indeed you would not. I’ve known you since your aunt found me teetering on the edge of being cast into the streets of Florence. Thirteen you were, and already a wily old lady who’d seen more of the world than a poor girl from Dingle ever thought on. And one thing I know is the grand stiffness of your backbone. Like m’self, Miss, y’r a survivor. You’ll manage his lordship as you have all else, whether it be traipsin’ round the world, a month in a harem, or the long days of poor Miss Pemberton’s last illness. You’ve no cause to be discouraged, child. If his lordship cared not what you thought, he’d parade his doxies before you instead of make sure your eyes were not sullied by their presence.”

  “He knew I was coming. He needn’t have had them here at all.”

  For a moment Noreen O’Donnell looked out the window where darkness was already settling over the winter landscape, though the hour was little past four o’clock. “I think, Miss,” she said slowly, “that your aunt hurt the boy’s feelings when she was so harsh with him. Hurt him enough that her accusations were not forgotten when the boy grew into a man. She herself was sorry, was she not, when you finally spoke of the matter?”

  Dumbly, Penny nodded. “So many years of misunderstanding,” she murmured at last. “By silent agreement we tucked the matter away, never to be spoken of. With each mile our ship sailed from the Levant, I became more and more aware of just how far I had strayed from what was expected of a young Englishwoman. I had been . . . ecstatic about being Jason’s wife. And, gradually—oh-so-gradually, as he clung to his friends and made nothing but polite conversation when we dined with the other passengers—I realized I was a mere incident to him, nothing more.

  “And then I would tell myself he could not talk to me, show any preference, for if his friends knew the whole, I would be ruined. And that fairy tale kept me quite propped up for years, as you recall, until Aunt Cass pointed out how gloriously my so-called husband was enjoying himself without me.”

  “Aye,” Noreen interjected with a spark in her eye, “she went so far as to tell you she assumed an annulment had been arranged.”

  “Yes . . . and I was young enough, and ignorant enough, to believe her,” Penny sighed. “I did, in fact, believe it right up until today when Jason—Lord Rocksley—told me we were still man and wife.”

  Noreen O’Donnell placed her hands on her sturdy hips and regarded her charge with stern eye. “And have you thought about what changed your aunt’s mind, child? About why, in her final days, she did her best to throw you into his lordship’s arms?”

  “Oh, yes,” Penny said. “I’ve had plenty of time to think about that since the will was read. It was the talks we had while she was ill, when, for the very first time, we discussed what actually happened in Constantinople. When she was willing to listen to how truly noble Jason was. How he spared my virginity . . . in spite of great provocation.”

  “Aye, that was it,” the Irishwoman agreed. “It was a blow, Miss, indeed it was. To learn how wrongly she had judged him. I could see how sorely she took it. Within a week she’d sent for Mr. Farley.”

  “And never said a word to me,” Penny whispered. “Not a word of warning about what she planned.”

  “She was ill, Miss, her head not as wise as it should have been. But she did try to make things right.”

  “How can it ever be right?” Penny asked, her voice little above a whisper. “It’s too late, Noreen. Far too late.”

  A soft scratching at the door proved to be Hutton with word that all the guests, except for Mr. Deveny, had departed, and his lordship would be pleased if her ladyship would join him for dinner at seven.

  “Ask him if the guard is to be taken from our door,” Penny called to Noreen, who was standing face-to-face with the butler.

  A jerk of Hutton’s head and the poor footman who had spent the day outside the door of the Countess of Rocksley was seen to lope off down the corridor as fast as his long legs could carry him.

  Penny, still speaking only to Noreen O’Donnell, said: “You may inform that sorry excuse for a butler that the countess is so overcome by his lordship’s generosity in allowing her out of her prison that she is even willing to dine with him.”

  After the door was firmly closed in Hutton’s face, Noreen turned on her mistress. “Ah, child, it’s a fool you are if you toss this opportunity away. He was a stout lad who didn’t shirk his duty, and he’s grown into a fine man, for all his rakish ways. Lord Lyndon offered his life for you once. Don’t let the sad mistakes made since that terrible time keep you from seeing what’s right under your nose.”

  Penny hung her head, feeling once again the thirteen years she was when she first met Noreen O’Donnell. Was she childish—or at the best, mistaken—to think her hurt greater than Jason’s? Was she a hopeless romantic to wish it were possible to re-capture those moments of joy when she had truly thought he cared for her?

  She was a few months short of six and twenty. Long past the age to put away childish things.

  With great dignity, Penny raised her head and said, “I have not been a child for a very long time, O’Donnell. I survived the seraglio, I survived abandonment by my husband. I will do what I must to survive this very strange reunion. Though . . . in truth, I am not at all certain what that will be. Come,” she added briskly, “let us see if there is a gown suitable for the Countess of Rocksley to wear while dining with a lord of the realm.”

  The Earl of Rocksley sampled a slice of roast beef, his thoughts wandering from the conversation Gant Deveny was attempting to have with Penelope Blayne. Penelope Lisbourne, Countess of Rocksley. His countess. He was getting old, Jason decided. He must be, or he would not be reveling in the quiet serenity of a table set for three. With his wife on his right, his most trusted friend to his left, what more could a man want? Only a day earlier he had thought he was enjoying himself to the tune of shrieks of laughter, raucous guffaws, and vulgar behavior from those who
had spent days sampling his wine cellar and each other. In the twinkling of an eye that reality now seemed as distant as those long-ago days in the Levant.

  More so. For here was little Penny, his wife, all grown up . . . and looking as if she faced the hangman on the morrow instead of the vicar.

  But of course she did not know about the vicar, so it must be the awkwardness of their situation that made her look so dour. As if she were Hannah More, by God, passing judgment on his household. Miss Prim and Proper, portrayed by a female who once crawled into his bed wearing nothing but two transparent pieces of silk, while he was arrayed only in the skin the Good Lord had given him.

  Unfortunately, very little of his lordship’s sense of misuse had dissipated by the time he was finally closeted alone with his wife in the small intimate study adjacent to Rockbourne Crest’s impressive bookroom. The gentlemen had not lingered over port, and Gant Deveny had been quick to heed his friend’s scowl, taking himself off to the billiard room with alacrity, almost as if he were a gleeful conspirator in giving the earl and his countess ample time to spar with each other.

  The earl stood, hands behind his back, while his wife took her time arranging the skirt of her lavender gown over the buff leather of the bergère chair. When she had composed herself, folding her hands in her lap like some innocent child—which annoyed him still further—Jason announced, “I fear matters have not proceeded as I had planned.” Ah, that caused a flicker in those cold blue eyes. “I had thought we might be married, as if we were bound by a long-standing betrothal, without reference to our–ah–past association. Unfortunately, my incautious words in the hall last night—”

  “Incautious?” Penny huffed. “You were foxed!”

  “Regrettably.” Jason spun round, poured out a dollop of brandy. Then, after staring at the snifter for some time, he left it lying atop the marquetry cabinet. “Even then,” he said as he paced back to his wife, “I thought we might carry it off, but one of my–ah–guests came upon Mr. Deveny and myself while we were discussing the matter. I fear she is not a woman noted for her discretion. There has been considerable talk, below stairs as well as above. I have sent for the vicar. To avoid further questions about where we married or how it came about, he will renew the ceremony here tomorrow. Hopefully, that will put an end to any rampant speculations. My guests have gone, undoubtedly to spread news of my marriage throughout the ton. But at least I control my own servants. They will be content to witness our marriage and attest the matter is properly settled. And they will not dare ask about the past.”

  “Others will,” declared his wife, unhelpfully.

  Jason eyed her sharply. “You are saying we must be in agreement about what we tell of our past.”

  “If we go through with this,” Penny said. “Although I concede you have a legal right to decide my fate, my lord, I do not grant you the moral right to do so. Earlier today, you asked me to consider making our marriage a reality. Now, without a moment’s discussion, you are telling me we are to be wed tomorrow. Surely, you cannot expect me to approve this abrupt manipulation.”

  Jason strode back to the marquetry cabinet, downed the brandy in one swallow. He stood with his back to her, looking toward the crackling fire, avoiding his wife’s penetrating gaze. “I should have emulated the sultans and dropped you overboard on that long trip through the Mediterranean,” he pronounced, still gazing at the flames licking upward from the glowing red logs. “But, no, I was King Arthur, Lancelot, and all the Knights of the Round Table rolled into one. I had rescued the fair maiden, and she was mine. I had only to wait for her to grow up.”

  So it was true, Penny thought. It was not only she who thought him a hero. He had been as starry eyed as herself. Of course, she reminded herself sternly, it had not been personal. It was the romance of it all that had tickled his boyish fancy.

  “I have been full grown a long time, Jason.”

  Wearily, as if well aware of his guilt, the earl walked back across the room and finally sat in the matching chair opposite Penny. “You were the child, Penelope; Cassandra Pemberton and I, the adults. Therefore, the fault is ours. I acknowledge it. I was young and foolish, and all too easily put off. I cannot blame you for being hurt and angry. But what I am making such a mull of saying is that matters have gone even more awry since we spoke earlier today. We must renew our vows and make a marriage of it—”

  “Or we must apply to the court for a formal separation,” Penny interjected.

  The earl, his cobalt eyes gone to winter ice, leaned in close. “Penelope, you cannot possibly wish to live alone for the rest of your life. I knew a girl in the seraglio one night, and I am absolutely certain that girl was never destined to live her life without love.”

  “Love? You dare to speak to me of love when I wasted so many years adoring you, waiting for you—”

  “Enough!” the earl roared. “I’ll not have a woman like you wither away on the vine. Look at you! You’re already nothing but a shadow of that glorious child. Is she gone, Penelope? Have I lost her? If so, then it must be a divorce, for I wish to have a real wife, children—all that posterity implies. A separation will not do at all. Is that what you want then? Divorce? To be ruined forever, while I make a wholly new life for myself? For that is the way of the world. No matter who is at fault, the wife is ruined, shunned, forever damned in the eyes of the ton.” Abruptly, the earl straightened, leaned back in his chair, regarding her with piercing, patently angry, eyes. “Well, tell me, my dear countess, which is it to be?”

  She hated, absolutely hated to allow him his triumph, but she had discovered the meaning of ruined nine and a half years earlier when she had strayed away from Aunt Cass and her bodyguards in the Grand Bazaar. She had spent the intervening years striving to become a pattern card of the proper young English gentlewoman. A life of ostracism, as was guaranteed by the dread decree of divorce, was not to be borne. She would not, however, give him the satisfaction of actually voicing her capitulation.

  “I believe,” said the Countess of Rocksley to her husband, outwardly perfectly composed, “you spoke of creating a past upon which we could agree.”

  Only by the slightest curl of his lips did Jason indicate the surge of satisfaction that swept through him at his wife’s oblique reply. His sangfroid was not, alas, as much to spare his wife’s feelings as his own. After all, he too had his pride.

  On the morrow—Penelope’s second wedding day—she woke to the sound of sniffles interspersed with outright sobs. It took her several moments to identify these most unusual noises, and another moment or two to discover the source, a young housemaid who was in the process of stoking up the fire.

  Penny, after shoving the heavy velvet bed hangings further aside, stared in consternation at the sobbing maid. “Whatever is the matter?” she asked.

  Eyes wide, the young maid clapped a hand over her mouth, stifling a wail of surprise. She was, in fact, so startled, she teetered on her heels, then sat down hard upon the wooden floorboards.

  “Well?” Penny persisted, as the housemaid sat before the fire, mob cap askew, her black skirt tumbled up to reveal the white petticoat beneath and the tall black stockings on the thin legs stretched out in front of her.

  “Oo-o, Miss—m’lady,” the girl gasped, “I never meant to wake ye. Mrs. Wilton be ’aving my head, she will.”

  Since the little housemaid, who couldn’t be a day over fifteen, now had a streak of charcoal across half her face, Penny’s lips twitched before she once again asked the girl to tell her what was wrong. It took a bit more persuasion, but in the end the chambermaid’s tale came tumbling out.

  After wiping her tears with her apron, the girl sobbed, “I be in the family way, m’lady, and Mrs. Wilton, she says I has to go, and my pa won’t have me back, and it’s the workhouse for sure—”

  “Merciful heavens, how old are you?” Penny asked.

  “Sixteen, m’lady. Sixteen on All-Saint’s Day, I was. I’m fully growed.”

  Sixteen. And lo
oked a babe. No wonder Jason had once thought her a child.

  “And your young man? Will he not help you?” Penny asked.

  “Oh, m’lady, poor as a churchmouse, he is. And his pa’ll skin ’im alive if’n he finds out.”

  Oh, dear. “Is he gentry?” Penny inquired carefully.

  “Ah, no, ma’am, a farmer he is, but his pa wants him to marry sumthin’ better’n me. Says he’ll cut my Ned off without a penny if’n he marries me.”

  “And your–ah–Ned will marry you if a way can be found for him to make a living?”

  The young housemaid left off wringing her apron, her eyes taking on a glow of hope. “Oh, yes, my lady. In a minute, he would.” She clasped her hands in front of her, as if in prayer. “My lady, if you could help, I’d be grateful fer all of me life.”

  “And what is your name?”

  “Blossom, ma’am–Miss–m’lady.”

  Penny had been handling crises for so many years that it was only now that the oddity of the situation struck her. “Blossom,” she inquired carefully, “may I ask why you seem to think I might be able to help?”

  “But you’re the mistress, m’lady. Everyone says so. And you’re in the mistress’s rooms, now ain’t you? And that Mrs. Coleraine, she threw one of them fancy China vases against the wall o’ her room yesterday. Smashed to smithereens, it was. Kept screamin’, ‘Married!’, she did. Tossed the basin and pitcher too, m’lady. Took two ’o us an hour just to brush up all the pieces. And she put a silver candlestick through a window too. His lordship wasn’t half pleased, I can tell you.”