The Proper Wife

by Julia Justiss

  “That was last night, and besides, ’tis only correct that I call and thank you for the invitation.”

  “Excuse me, please,” Sinjin interrupted. “I have a question for Mrs. Cartwright. I believe I shall go in search of her.”

  Miss Motrum looked puzzled, then torn as she realized his odd intention would leave her alone with Mr. Wickham. Obviously unable to decide if she dared countermand his desire, or should merely seek to delay him, she stuttered, “Sh-shall I fetch her for you?”

  “Oh, no, I couldn’t permit you to abandon your hostess duties.” Sinjin moved his gaze to Mr. Wickham, who was staring at him with wary uncertainty. This is your chance—now use it, he silently signaled the surprised young man. Then, with a bow, he strode out.

  He met Mrs. Cartwright on the threshold of the library. “Lord Sandiford! Is anything amiss?”

  “Not at all, ma’am. Indeed, I believe that everything shall soon be put perfectly to rights. I wished to inquire which brand of cigar Mr. Motrum prefers, and from which shop he procures them.”

  “Cigars?” she echoed, a touch of aggravation in her tone. “He obtains his from Wendover on King Street, of course.” Then a pleasanter thought must have occurred, for her face lit. “You wish to speak privately with Mr. Motrum? Excellent! Am I to wish you happy? Oh, I shall be in raptures—”

  “Naturally, I’m delighted by the cordiality the Motrum family—and your gracious self—have always shown me.”

  Mrs. Cartwright’s rapture faded. “Then you and Anne have not…? Well, let us return to the drawing room! Anne can tell you just how Mr. Motrum likes his tobacco blended. Such a clever girl!” Mrs. Cartwright motioned him along.

  Sinjin followed, keeping his steps deliberately slow. “Where on King Street? I must send a servant and don’t wish him to mistake the shop.”

  “If I may be so bold, simply send him to me, dear Lord Sandiford. I should be happy to direct him.”

  As they neared the drawing room, a murmur of voices emanated from behind the half-closed door. Mrs. Cartwright halted, her brow creasing. “My, we must have other guests,” she exclaimed, looking none too pleased. “Anne, dear,” she called as she pushed the door fully open, “who are you—Anne!”

  With a gasp, Mrs. Cartwright went motionless, her hand frozen on the doorknob. Over her shoulder Sinjin could see Miss Motrum locked in Mr. Wicham’s embrace, his fingers twined in her golden hair as he kissed her thoroughly.

  So absorbed were the two it wasn’t until Mrs. Cartwright shrieked her charge’s name a second time that the couple sprang apart. Putting hands to cheeks flushing scarlet, Miss Motrum stepped hastily back, while a grinning Mr. Wickham caught her with an arm about her waist and drew her back beside him.

  “You wicked, wicked girl!” Mrs. Cartwright wailed. “And you, Mr. Wickham, are a…a viper!” Only then did she seem to remember Sinjin standing behind her. “My dear Lord Sandiford,” she cried, whirling to face him, “you mustn’t think…only allow me to explain!”

  “No explanations necessary.” Sinjin smiled at Mr. Wickham, who flashed him a look of bemused gratitude over Miss Motrum’s downcast head. “It’s time I took my leave.”

  With a bow, he turned and walked into the hall.

  Mrs. Cartwright scurried after him and seized his elbow. “Please, my lord, do not hasten off! Let me ring for tea! I’ll deal with you later, missy,” she threw over her shoulder.

  Deftly Sinjin extracted his coat sleeve. “Thank you, ma’am, but I mustn’t tarry.” He accepted the hat and gloves offered by the waiting butler. “A very good day to you, Mrs. Cartwright, and my compliments to Miss Motrum.”

  Silencing the lady’s protests with his sternest colonel’s look, Sinjin bowed once more and strode out the door, his spirits lightened by a wholly irrational sense of deliverance.

  He should be downcast and ashamed, he chastised himself as he took a hackney back to North Audley Street. For the first time in memory, he’d failed to perform his duty.

  Like the greenest cavalry officer caught up in the excitement of the charge, he’d overrun his lines and was now alone, without visible reinforcements, deep in dun territory. Given his failure and the perilous financial state it now left him in, there was no reason whatsoever for the sense of euphoria filling him.

  Still, he had to chuckle at the neatness of his maneuver, irrational as it may have been. He’d managed to outflank Mrs. Cartwright’s aspirations and bring Mr. Wickham’s big gun to bear in a way that made the outcome of an engagement unavoidable.

  Though Miss Motrum might initially be dismayed at losing her aristocratic suitor, he felt certain the lady herself would end up satisfied by the turn of events. He hoped so, since unlike a certain tempestuous woman he could mention, she had neither the spirit nor the resourcefulness to extract herself from the situation.

  He amused himself another few moments considering how Miss Beaumont might have gotten round the incriminating circumstances. Clever and determined as she was, he had no doubt she’d have managed it somehow.

  Ah, what a woman!

  And then it hit him, like a lance blow from his flank he should have foreseen. He’d not been able to propose to Miss Motrum because he’d already made the only proposal his heart wanted. To Miss Beaumont.

  The realization settled in, deep and satisfying as a well-executed attack, even as his head protested. Miss Beaumont possessed not a single trait he’d professed to seek in a wife. As he knew only too well, she was extravagant, impulsive, short-tempered, sharp-tongued, both ton and town-bred. They couldn’t be in the same room for more than a few minutes without clashing.

  Ah, but some of the battles…

  For a moment the taste, touch and smell of her suffused him. Hunger for her, a need that encompassed soul as well as body, filled him.

  He didn’t want a willing widow. He craved the greedy, heart-stealing innocence of Miss Beaumont’s passionate body. And the fierce, courageous spirit that inhabited it.

  Had Sarah sensed how well they might deal together when she asked Clarissa help him find a bride? He braced himself for the grief that always cut at him when he thought of his lost love, but this time the pain was muted.

  Find another love, and be happy, she’d advised him. Aye, sweet Sarah, so I shall, he promised.

  Giddy, he laughed out loud. “I love you, Clarissa Beaumont,” he whispered, and then said it again, louder. Lud, he wanted to shout it to the treetops.

  His hunting instincts screamed at him to seek her out, now, this instant, to end what they’d begun in the garden and change her answer to his proposal.

  However, he thought, grinning into the darkness of the hackney, one small impediment remained. At the moment, the lady in question despised him.

  Of course, he’d given her every reason, criticizing and insulting her practically from his first breath. But the fire that consumed him burned in her too, he was sure. For a delicious moment he relived the scene in the garden as she held his greedy lips against her bared breast.

  A deeper connectedness linked them as well, one he’d sensed and fled from so many times over these past weeks. She felt that, too. He’d read it in her eyes.

  She’d accused him of using seduction to gain her fortune. He wasn’t above using it to win her heart.

  Like it or not, Clarissa Beaumont, he swore to himself, you’re going to end up marrying me.

  But this time, unless he wished to foolishly mount a suicidal charge against defenses well fortified by anger, hurt, and outrage, he’d better plan his campaign carefully.

  First, he must deliver the final salvo in the drawing room encounter by dispatching a box of Mr. Motrum’s favorite cigars along with a note of gratitude—and a formal notice that he was withdrawing his suit. Mrs. Cartwright’s ambitions notwithstanding, there’d be no further impediments to Mr. Wickam achieving his aims.

  And then, he’d take on the battle for Miss Beaumont.

  Chapter Nineteen

  Leaning back in a wing chair in
her sitting room, Clarissa contemplated the enormous bouquet Timms had just brought up, and smiled. The card from Lieutenant Standish that had accompanied it bore a single phrase, “thank you,” written over and over across the entire surface.

  Apparently the note from Lady Barbara she’d had Maddie deliver to him had done its work. Truly, she was happy for them. When she considered how affronted the Countess of Wetherford would be when she found herself outmaneuvered, her smile widened.

  And then wobbled. She took a deep, painful breath. She wouldn’t think of all the reasons she had not to smile.

  Maddie, her soft brown hair shining under a crisp white cap and her gray uniform buttoned up to the chin, entered after a brief knock. “Yer horses be ready, Mistress.”

  “Thank you, Maddie. Tell Stebbins I’ll be down directly,” she told the girl, who was gazing at her with awe in her eyes. At least someone thought well of her.

  Indeed, Maddie seemed to be always in the hallway when Clarissa passed, alert for any small service she might do, though running her mistress’s errands was not part of a parlor maid’s duties.

  Not that the girl neglected her other chores—quite the contrary. To Clarissa’s delight, Maddie worked so hard at whatever task the housekeeper set her to that within the week she’d turned Mrs. Woburn from unwilling sponsor to warm advocate. The housekeeper had praised her to Clarissa on several occasions, even adding a gruff apology for her initial reluctance to take the girl on.

  Maddie’s pretty face and slender figure hadn’t gone unnoticed by the male staff either. Though now she shrank from any contact with men, Clarissa had reason to hope that perhaps in time, the happy future of courtship and marriage her brutal abduction had initially stolen from Maddie might become a reality after all.

  Another success. Would that her part of the adventure could have had so happy an ending. Her momentarily buoyed spirits sank once more.

  “Be there anything else, Mistress?”

  She must rally herself out of the dismals into which she’d sunken when Colonel Sandiford stalked out of her parlor.

  Oh, she’d mouthed brave words to herself at the time, but the truth was that same evening, faced with the prospect of dancing, smiling, and chatting her way through Lady Carleton’s ball, she’d pleaded a headache—no invention, that—and stayed home. The next night, though she forced herself to attend Mrs. Wendfrow’s musicale, she left directly after the music, waving off her hostess’s plea that she stay for refreshments and card play. She’d skipped her normal at-home this afternoon, and now, although Alastair and Mountclare both expected her to drive her phaeton to the Park for the promenade hour, she couldn’t bring herself to go.

  She was still too distracted, she told herself. Driving a high-perch phaeton with a pair as spirited as hers required absolute concentration.

  Missing so many social events was bound to cause talk, but just now she simply didn’t care. Let them gossip. Only one person knew the reason for her sudden reticence, and despite her hateful words to the contrary, she knew the colonel would say nothing.

  At the mere thought of him, her heart contracted painfully and tears stung her eyes.

  Botheration! No, she would not hide herself away in her chamber and weep like some weak, spineless watering-pot. Clarissa Beaumont would wrap up the splintered pieces of her heart, hide them away, and present to the world a bold face.

  “Mistress? Be ye all right?”

  Maddie’s concerned voice cut through her abstraction. She swiped the moisture from the corners of her eyes and straightened. “F-fine, Maddie, thank you.”

  She would go out, but not to parade among that simpering, posturing, gossiping gaggle of fashionables gathering at the park. As she recalled, the Mail Coach arrived about five.

  “Maddie, tell Stebbins I’ll not need the phaeton after all. Have Timms summon a hackney. And would you tell me how to get to the coaching inn where you were, um, taken?”

  Maddie’s face paled. “Oh, no, Mistress! I cannot go with ye there!”

  “Calm yourself, Maddie. I’ve no intention of forcing you to return to a place that must bring back painful memories. I need the direction only—I’ll take a footman.”

  Maddie ran over to throw herself at Clarissa’s feet and seize the hem of her gown. “Nay, Mistress, ye must not go! ’Tis much too dangerous.”

  “Nonsense. In a heavy cloak and bonnet, I’ll look like any other traveler, and the footman will be standing by. I spoke with Mr. Beemis, the runner, two days ago, and you’ll be happy to know he was able to forestall what he suspected was an attempt to entice a young girl from the Mail coach that arrived that afternoon. Mr. Beemis should be at the inn as well, so I shall be perfectly safe.”

  Maddie, her fingers still tugging Clarissa’s hem, looked up, tear-filled eyes imploring. “Please, please, Mistress, ye must not go!”

  In spite of herself, Clarissa was touched. She had a house full of servants, a wide circle of friends, but who other than Sarah—and this damaged girl—had ever seemed to care for her welfare?

  She bent down and gently pulled Maddie to her feet. “You mustn’t worry. I won’t be all alone, as you were, and I know what’s about. I will be fine.”

  “Ye cannot know…” Maddie shuddered, clutching Clarissa’s fingers.

  A sharp memory returned—rough hands holding her close, foul breath panting into her face.

  “I know more than you may think,” she said softly. And pulled her fingers free. “Now, go have Timms summon that hackney. If I arrive too late, the runner will have already gone and I won’t be able to consult with him.”

  Maddie looked as if she’d like to protest further, but after a moment, she curtsied. “As you wish, Mistress.”

  After the girl left, Clarissa rummaged in her wardrobe for her thickest, plainest cloak and a bonnet that fully covered her flaming hair. Not that she expected to meet anyone she knew in so unfashionable a locale, but best to appear as unobtrusive as possible. Some might call her reckless, she thought, lifting her chin, but she wasn’t such a looby that she thought to take a hand in the business herself, nor did she wish to upset any plans Mr. Beemis might have. She just wanted to see for herself the machinery she had set in motion.

  Whistling, Sinjin sprinted up the stairs into White’s, a spring in his step. He’d order some celebratory wine, contemplate his plans for the subjugation of Miss Beaumont, and hope to find Hal Waterman and Englemere. After all they had done on his behalf, he wanted them to learn straightaway of the wreckage of their initial plans and from him, rather than from a possibly displeased Mr. Motrum or some other source.

  He was therefore happy to discover Hal sitting alone in the card room, flipping cards over in a desultory manner, an expression of infinite boredom on his face.

  Hal brightened immediately when he saw Sinjin approach. “Join me!” the big man invited. “Cards dashed dull,” he added as Sinjin brought up a chair. “Nothing for it. Reception.” He rolled his eyes and shuddered.

  Sinjin stared at Hal thoughtfully for a moment, trying to knit together the pieces. “Your mama is entertaining?” he hazarded as last.

  Hal nodded. “Cronies…daughters…marriages. Had to escape.”

  Sinjin considered this new information. “Your mama and her friends are discussing the possible nuptials of their daughters?”

  “Dreadful business,” he pronounced, then took a long swallow from his wineglass. “Poor men.”

  Intrigued despite himself, Sinjin asked, “Who?”

  “Dunno yet. Still planning.”

  The waiter arrived with Sinjin’s champagne and a pair of glasses. Hal said nothing as the man uncorked the vintage and poured out two frothing glasses. Once the waiter had departed, he raised his glass to Sinjin.

  “Wish you happy?”

  “Not exactly, though I’m certainly exalted at the moment. You and Englemere may be less than happy after I confess that I…well, I just couldn’t bring myself to propose. In any event, unless I miss my guess
Mr. Motrum’s assistant Mr. Wickham is about to do so.”

  Hal nodded sagely. “Good choice.”

  Not sure whether his friend meant Mr. Wickham’s boldness or his own reticence, Sinjin felt moved to add, “You must not think I do not value all the efforts you and Englemere expended on my behalf. I’m fully cognizant—”

  Hal waved him to silence. “Happy to help. Think naught of it.”

  Sinjin chose to believe Hal meant not to worry over his inability to claim the heiress. For a moment, the two drank in companionable silence.

  Then something seemed to strike Hal, for he straightened and looked directly at Sinjin. “Not Miss Motrum.” He lifted his glass to toast. “Why champagne?”

  Sinjin chuckled. “Deliverance from an unwanted fate. And,” he swirled the bubbly wine in his own glass, “hope for the future.”

  Hal studied his face for a long moment, then grinned. “Another lady. Congratulations! Declared yet?”

  “Is it declarations we’re celebrating?” Englemere asked as he walked over to join them. “By all means, pour me a glass!”

  “Not Miss Motrum,” Hal inserted helpfully.

  Englemere raised his eyebrows. “Not Miss Motrum? Now that’s a surprise. Who, then?”

  Sinjin flushed. “As I told Hal—”

  Mr. Waterman waved him to silence. “Nicky’s fair. Had your choice. Didn’t choose her. No harm done.”

  “It’s a bit more complex than that,” Sinjin said. “I fully intended—”

  Englemere, too, made a deprecating gesture. “No need to explain, Colonel. We made the introductions only. Whether the matter progressed further was always entirely between you and Miss Motrum.” He paused to take a sip. “Which brings me back to my first question. What declaration are we toasting?”

  Sinjin felt his flush deepen. “In view of my earlier preferences, I imagine you will find this rather surprising, but actually I’ve determined to wed a lady of the ton after all.”

  Englemere raised his class in tribute. “I always felt that would be a more comfortable choice. Who is the lady?”