by Mary Balogh
They spoke simultaneously, just like a damned Greek chorus. Lord help him! He had just kissed his wife. Or she had kissed him. Whichever.
“I beg your pardon,” he said again. “I'll go up and see if Andrews has finished packing my bags.”
“Will you stay for luncheon?”
No. It was time to be gone. He was starting to wonder about her as a person. He had had a few tantalizing glimpses of a warmhearted, loyal, fun-loving woman, and it was not good for him to think of her as a person. Worse, he had caught himself more than once with lustful thoughts about her, most notably last night after he had gone to bed and realized that he was spending a night under the same roof as his bride for the first and only time in his life. It had been alarming and had felt disloyal. And then that thought had felt disloyal.
“I do not believe—” he began.
The drawing room door opened behind him, and he turned sharply, wondering if Morris had had the temerity to return. But it was Mrs. Pritchard, still dressed for the outdoors, her shoulders damp from the rain.
“Oh, good,” she said, “you are both still here to tell me all about it. I had to get down from the carriage outside the stables and walk all the way to the house. Cecil and all his wagons are blocking the terrace. He would not even look at me though I called a very cheery good afternoon and asked him how he did. Now, do tell me everything.”
Her eyes were sparkling with mischief, Aidan noticed. Both hands were resting on her cane.
“Oh, Aunt Mari,” Eve said, her hands clasped to her bosom, “you ought to have heard Colonel Bedwyn. You really ought. He spoke with such quiet, refined menace that even I was quaking. I almost felt sorry for Cecil.” She laughed—actually it sounded more like a girlish giggle. “Almost, but not quite.”
“He made the mistake,” Aidan said, “of threatening to remove my wife from the house with a whip.”
“Oh, very stupid,” the aunt said with a chuckle. “I wonder how he could have been so brave with you standing here, Colonel.”
“That was the best part,” his wife added. “He did not see Colonel Bedwyn in the shadows. You should have seen his face when he noticed.”
Mrs. Pritchard laughed as she removed her hat and shook the raindrops off it. “I'm glad I caught the two of you together,” she said. “I paid a number of visits this morning. I thought it important that our neighbors know what has happened. All of them have been awfully worried about what was going to happen to Eve. Luckily, because of the rain I found everyone at home. I have wonderful news.”
Aidan felt instant apprehension. The woman had that matchmaking gleam in her eye again.
“Everyone was so delighted,” Mrs. Pritchard said, “to know that you are to remain mistress of Ringwood, Eve, my love, and that it is Colonel Bedwyn you have married that they all agreed that something ought to be done to celebrate. I explained that the colonel must go soon to return from his leave, but that was not going to stop anyone. Even as I speak all is being made ready for an assembly in the rooms above the inn this evening.”
“Aunt Mari—” Eve began, sounding as aghast as Aidan felt.
“Surely,” Mrs. Pritchard said, fixing pleading eyes on Aidan, “you can stay for one more night, Colonel. Surely—”
“Aunt Mari—”
Aidan held up one hand. Aghast he might feel, but there was perhaps some wisdom in the idea.
“I have just recalled,” he said, “that Cecil Morris seemed not to believe in the validity of a marriage by special license. It is conceivable, I suppose, that more of the people in this neighborhood may share his ignorance. My leaving today might give rise to doubts and rumors that would cause unnecessary difficulties. A public appearance together, a wedding celebration, would certainly alleviate those doubts.”
Mrs. Pritchard beamed her satisfaction.
“What do you think?” Aidan asked his wife.
“I think,” she said, frowning, “that we are putting you to far more trouble than you expected, Colonel.”
True enough. It had all seemed so very simple when he first thought of fulfilling his promise by marrying her.
“Besides,” he said, “the rain is pouring down again.”
They all turned as one to watch it stream down the windowpanes.
CHAPTER VIII
EVE LOOKED THROUGH HER WARDROBE FOR A GOWN suitable for evening wear. Everything was woefully out of date. For the past year she had been in mourning, but even for a number of years before that she had spent most of her evenings at home with her father, whose failing health had kept him from the social life of the neighborhood by which he had set so much store. She briefly considered her choices and then settled for her gray, silver-shot silk. It seemed disrespectful to Percy's memory not to wear mourning at all for him despite his own express wish. Edith dressed her hair and suggested her silver chain and earrings to add a festive touch.
This was really too bad of Aunt Mari and Serena among others, Eve thought as she descended to the drawing room, feeling as nervous as a girl about to make her come-out. It was an obvious ploy to detain the colonel in the hope that the marriage would blossom into something more than it had ever been intended to be. It was embarrassing, to say the least. She had been amazed at his consenting to stay, but she guessed that his sense of honor had prompted his decision. She hoped he was not expecting the sort of elegant social event he must be accustomed to as the son of a duke.
He was awaiting her in the drawing room. Aunt Mari and Thelma had left early to help with some of the preparations at the assembly rooms—at least that had been Aunt Mari's explanation for leaving the two of them to travel and arrive at the Three Feathers together.
“I am so sorry about this,” Eve said. “You cannot but be wishing you were well on your way home by now.”
He bowed, and his eyes ran over her, though he made no comment on her choice of gown. He was wearing his dress uniform, but with dancing shoes rather than his cavalry boots.
“I could have refused to stay,” he told her. “The point is, though, that I can leave tomorrow and resume my habitual way of life as if nothing had happened here. For you it will not be so easy. You must continue to live here with neighbors who know very well why you married and why you live alone, without your husband. I would not have them believe that there is no kindness, no . . . respect between us. I was taken aback when Mrs. Pritchard first divulged her scheme this afternoon, I must confess, but it did not take me more than a moment to realize that in fact it is just the thing that is needed.”
His manner was stiffly formal as he spoke. Was it kindness or duty that motivated him? Eve wondered. She had had several teasing glimpses at possible kindness, even humor, but . . . but he never smiled. She nodded, and he took her shawl from her hands, set it about her shoulders, and offered his arm.
The rain had stopped an hour or so before, but the cobbles on the terrace were still damp and the air chill. Eve shivered as she climbed into the carriage. She wondered if the colonel would take the seat beside her or the one opposite. He took the one beside her. She could feel his body heat along her right arm and outer thigh.
“There will be dancing,” she told him, “to music provided by local musicians. There will be card playing and conversation and refreshments. You will find it all very insipid, perhaps downright silly.”
“You do not have to apologize for what will doubtless be perfectly civil, wholesome country entertainment,” he said.
She could remember once telling John about an assembly she had recently attended and enjoyed vastly. He had shuddered theatrically and told her he would rather be hurled into a dungeon full of rats than be forced to attend such a vulgar affair. She had laughed at the time, and he had laughed too and changed the subject. Would John do what the colonel was doing now, just so that she would appear respectable—and not to be pitied—in her neighbors' eyes?
“I cannot forget,” she said, “that you are the son and brother of a duke, that you are Lord Aidan Bedwyn.”
> “And you are Lady Aidan Bedwyn,” he reminded her as the old carriage jerked into motion.
“An impostor.” She laughed.
“No.” He turned his head to look at her. “My wife.”
She shivered again. The reality of it had still not quite sunk home, she guessed. She was married yet not married. She had a husband yet no husband. By this time next week his very existence would seem like a dream. But she would be forever married to him—until death did them part.
“You still wear half mourning,” he said. “Even though your father has been gone for longer than a year.”
“Is it disrespectful to the occasion?” she asked him. “I cannot help remembering that just four days ago all my neighbors and friends were gathered for a memorial service in Percy's honor. Yet this evening they are coming out to celebrate my marriage.”
“That is life,” he said. “It goes on after even the most unspeakable of tragedies.”
“I suppose,” she said, looking at him with a slight frown, “you speak from a great deal of personal experience.”
His dark, inscrutable eyes turned totally blank. It was worse than any emotion would have been. She felt chilled. For several moments there was silence between them.
“You mourn now for your brother?” he said. “Despite his wish that you not do so?”
“How can I not?” She sighed. “There were only the two of us. We were always close, even after he had quarreled with Papa and went to live with my great-uncle. And then he . . . but I must not bore you.” She turned her head to look out at the trees in the gathering dusk.
“Tell me,” he said.
“My great-uncle was a wealthy shopkeeper and merchant,” she said. “He was almost as rich as Papa, but he had no similar ambition to move up the social scale and break into the ranks of the landed gentry. He was happy with his life and achievements. When he died everything went to his son, except for a sum large enough to purchase Percy's dream—a commission in a cavalry regiment. Papa was furious, but there was nothing he could do to prevent it. He did change his will, however.”
“The son did not object?” the colonel asked.
“Joshua? No.” She shook her head. “He and Percy were good friends. He wanted to marry me.” She probably ought not to have added that unnecessary detail.
“Joshua?” he said.
She turned to smile a little sheepishly at him. “I was nineteen,” she said, “and he was eight and twenty. He was prosperous, confident, handsome, a relative, Percy's friend. I was lonely on my own here. I thought I might like to go back—closer to my roots, so to speak. To my own country, my own people—though my mother's family was English by birth.”
“Your father would not allow the match?” he asked.
“Oh, by no means,” she said. “Joshua was bourgeois. Determinedly so, even down to the thick accent. No, Papa would not allow the marriage. I was heartbroken and forgot him within a month. He married six months after I refused him and now has three children. He is still prospering.”
“But you do not wear the willow for him?”
“No.” She laughed softly. “It was foolish to expect that I could go back and be happy. I had lived too long here to go back—most of my life, in fact. I know that now. I prefer my life as it is.” Or as it was until a week ago, anyway, she amended silently.
“Where does Cecil Morris fit into the family picture?” he asked.
“His father and mine were brothers,” she explained. “When Papa left Wales and bought Ringwood, my uncle came too and leased the largest tenant farm from him. He worked hard and it prospered and eventually he purchased it. But Cecil was always foolishly jealous of Percy and me. He wanted desperately to rise above his origins and be a gentleman—a rich, idle gentleman. They put a great deal of emphasis upon idleness as a mark of gentility, Papa and Cecil. I have often thought that he should have been Papa's son. Indeed, he very nearly did inherit. It is only thanks to you that he did not.”
She had done too much talking, she thought as the carriage rumbled over the bridge and rolled along the main street of Heybridge in the direction of the Three Feathers. What interest could he possibly have in her family?
“I do not know if I ought to dance,” she said. “I am, after all, still in mourning.”
“But against your brother's express wishes,” he reminded her. “Dancing is the principal form of entertainment at an assembly, I believe, and this assembly is in our honor. You would disappoint if you were to sit soberly in a corner with the chaperones. Is that your wish—to hurt your friends?”
He was quite right, of course. Aunt Mari would be disappointed. So would everyone else. And so would she. She was seized suddenly, as she had been in London two days ago, with a sudden rush of exuberance, with a need to grasp every moment of near happiness before she was alone to brood upon what she had quite deliberately given up.
“Can you dance?” she asked. It was hard to imagine.
“Ma'am,” he said as the carriage swayed to a halt and they waited for the steps to be put down, “before a gentleman learns to recite his ABCs without stumbling, he has already mastered the graceful art of tripping the light fantastic.”
Eve laughed. There it was again—that dry and elusive suggestion of humor.
She was, she admitted to herself finally, looking forward to the evening.
THE ASSEMBLY REALLY WAS A RATHER UNDISTINGUISHED, even insipid event. Bewcastle would have called it vulgar. There was a large number of very young ladies, who could not possibly be “out,” yet they danced and giggled and ogled the very young men, who blushed and tried to appear blasé and looked merely gauche. There were numerous older ladies, who gushed and laughed and talked too loudly, and older men, who conversed at great and tedious length on such topics as the wars, to please Aidan, and farming and hunting, to please themselves. There was an orchestra—two violins, a bass, and a flute—which scraped away with more enthusiasm than musical sense. There were tables almost buckling beneath fine, fattening delicacies and enough drink to intoxicate a hardened infantry battalion.
Aidan had never been much of a one for assemblies or social gatherings of even the most refined. But he had understood the importance of attending this one, and he recognized the good-heartedness behind all the merrymaking. Her neighbors were fond of Eve—there was no doubt about that. They really had been concerned about her fate. It was obviously an enormous relief to them to know that she was safely married and could continue living among them as the mistress of Ringwood. But they wished her better than just that. They needed to see her with her bridegroom, to assure themselves that it really was a marriage, even if it had been conceived in haste and was not a love match—and even if circumstances dictated that he leave on the morrow.
He set himself to playing his part in giving them what they wanted.
He led off the opening set of country dances with his wife, standing at the head of the line of men while she stood at the head of the ladies' line, facing him. It was a vigorous set, which soon brought color to her cheeks and a sparkle to her eyes. She must not have danced for at least the past year, he realized, but she danced now with grace and energy and obvious enjoyment. She was smiling, even laughing before the set ended. He did not take his eyes off her. Partly it was deliberate, for the sake of her friends and neighbors, who were watching them with fond attention. Partly it was because she was good to look at—tall, slender, pretty whenever she was animated, as she was now. And partly because he knew that after tomorrow he would try to remember what she looked like and not always succeed. Yet she would always be his wife.
He danced three more sets with her in the course of the evening, this being a country assembly in which the rules of society etiquette did not strictly apply. Between sets he kept her hand on his arm while they conversed in turn with almost everyone present. Once or twice when she danced with other men he stood and watched her. A few times he danced with other women—with Mrs. Robson and Miss Rice among others. If Bewcastle
could see him now, he thought wryly as he danced and conversed with the governess. Bewcastle would have an apoplexy—especially if he knew the history of the woman. Aidan almost grinned at the thought—but he sobered immediately at another quite unwilling thought. What if Miss Knapp could see him now?
In addition to all the refreshments with which they were tempted all evening, there was a sit-down supper in an adjoining room at half past eleven. How it could all have been accomplished with only half a day's notice, Aidan could not imagine. The meal was a veritable banquet. It was followed by speeches and toasts—one from James Robson, one from the Reverend Thomas Puddle. Aidan, to his intense embarrassment, was forced to make an impromptu reply.
“My wife and I both wish to thank you all for your generous kindness in organizing this assembly in our honor at such short notice,” he began. There seemed to be nothing else to say. He looked down at Eve. She was studying the back of her hand, which lay flat on the tablecloth between them. “Captain Percival Morris was my friend,” he continued, not quite truthfully. “His sister was therefore my friend too, even before I knew her in person. It was a distinct honor to be able to rescue her from some difficulty by marrying her. But it was only the haste of the marriage that was dictated by those circumstances. I daresay it would have taken place at some time in the future anyway, with more grandeur, perhaps, with larger numbers of our families and friends in attendance, but with no more precious memories to carry into the future with us than those provided by our very private nuptials in London.”
There was hearty applause and one self-conscious attempt to raise a cheer. The fingers spread on the tablecloth curled into her palm.
“I must leave tomorrow,” Aidan said. “I have business to attend to before returning to my battalion. I leave my bride with reluctance, but I leave her in the care of the aunt and the friends and neighbors who love her. Until my return.”
There was more applause—a few of the ladies, including Mrs. Pritchard, were mopping at their eyes. Aidan reached down, took his wife's clenched hand in his own, slipping his fingers beneath hers, and raised it to his lips. She looked up at him, and their eyes met and held for a long moment. And the devil of it was, he thought, it did not all feel like a pack of lies. He had had no idea just four days ago that he was getting himself into something so deep.
