Scandalous Brides

by Annette Blair

  “Now we know, got to invite us! Don’t he, Pascoe?” Hilary Wraxton assured the Earl with a confiding smile. “Got to be surrounded by friends and family. What!”

  “Most certainly,” agreed Pascoe Church, nonchalantly dangling his quizzing glass by its black riband. “But perhaps our dear friend has his reasons for not wanting his friends in attendance?”

  Hilary Wraxton blew out his cheeks. “Reason? What reason? Not every day a man takes the great plunge; except Pascoe with your sister. Said next Sinclair to walk the matrimonial plank would be Lady Caroline. But if Salt wants to tie the knot before his sister then so be it.”

  At this revelation Salt glanced up at Pascoe Church, a faint rise to his eyebrows.

  “The Lady Caroline walk the plank?” Lord Church said with a light laugh, clearly flustered and fighting hard to keep his cool façade under the Earl’s haughty gaze. He tossed off the quizzing glass so that it fell against his silken chest with a thud. “I have no idea where you get such notions, Hilary.”

  “From you,” Hilary Wraxton replied simply. “Last week, when sitting down to whist with Walpole, you said you’d almost got up the courage to approach Salt about—”

  “Courage?” Pascoe Church snorted. “My dear Hilary, when the time comes for me to approach our dear friend here—”

  “You are destined for disappointment,” Salt interrupted softly, returning to peruse the newssheet.

  Hilary Wraxton sighed deeply. “Guess that settles it, Pascoe. The Lady Caroline ain’t walking any planks, matrimonial or otherwise, with you. When Salt says you’ll be disappointed you’re bound to be.”

  “It settles nothing,” Pascoe Church hissed in Hilary’s ear, and to return the sting of his disappointment at being rejected as a suitable husband for the Lady Caroline Sinclair, said petulantly to the Earl, “Just so you are aware, Salt, the rumor in drawing rooms—”

  “I can hazard a guess which drawing room,” Salt interrupted dryly, with the flicker of a smile.

  “Can you?” Hilary Wraxton asked in surprise and viewed Pascoe Church through his quizzing glass with one hideously magnified eye. “But you said Salt hadn’t the foggiest notion about your frolicking forays with Luscious Lizzie. You said—”

  “Never mind that now!” Pascoe Church demanded and tried to regain his composure and the cool venom to his voice. “This rumor, Salt, says that you’re keen for a quiet wedding because the bride is either plain-faced and pudding shaped with a pedigree worth a gilt frame or, and this will amuse you greatly, the beautiful daughter of a drunkard merchant with upwards of a hundred thousand pounds to add to your coffers.”

  “But Salt don’t need the blunt, Pascoe.”

  “What say you to that, Salt?” persisted Pascoe Church, ignoring his friend. “I’ll hazard it’s the latter. What a pity her great beauty and wealth will never be adequate perfume for the foul odor of trade that must forever linger about her person.”

  “And all the pudding shaped heiresses are taken,” added Hilary Wraxton with a firm nod.

  “God help us when the divine Diana finds out,” Pascoe Church added with a sigh, for good spiteful measure. “What a social plummet for the House of Sinclair!”

  “God help us indeed, Pas,” agreed Hilary Wraxton with a sad shake of his powdered wig.

  “God help you both if you don’t scuttle off under the floorboards from whence you came!” Salt growled as he shot up out of his chair to tower over the two men, and with such a look of suppressed fury that it did not need his hand about Pascoe Church’s beautifully arranged cravat for that gentleman’s throat to constrict alarmingly. But no sooner was Salt on his feet than he regretted his action and was immediately angry with himself for allowing his sister’s rejected suitor and his moronic comrade to prod the raw nerve of his upcoming marriage.

  For want of something to cover the awkward moment Hilary Wraxton made an elaborate display of checking the hour with his gold pocket watch before pronouncing that he was extremely late for an appointment with his wigmaker; Pascoe Church adding that he too was needed elsewhere, although he did not offer up a name or direction. Salt wasn’t sorry to see them depart and watched the two noblemen waddle off in their high heels, huddled together as if in need of mutual propping up. And he was under no illusions about the thin-shouldered nobleman’s ability to be vexatious. Pascoe, Lord Church might have turned frigid with fright and lost his breath at Salt’s angry outburst, but once recovered and at a safe distance he would use his waspish tongue to good effect to ensure Polite Society was fully appraised of the Earl of Salt Hendon’s upcoming marriage.

  Cursing himself for such lack of restraint, Salt ordered a bottle of claret from a passing soft-footed waiter and resumed his seat only to be on his feet within five minutes to warmly clasp the hand of his closest friend, the younger brother of Lady St. John, Sir Antony Templestowe. A large handsome gentleman held in high regard by all who knew him, Sir Antony was considered by the Foreign Department, where he held a lucrative sinecure, to have a good head on his shoulders, and thus certain to rise to the rank of Ambassador one day. No two siblings could be more opposite in temperament than the diffident Sir Antony and his social butterfly sister, the beautiful and gregarious Diana, Lady St. John.

  “It’s just as well Bedford could spare you from the Peace negotiations for a couple of weeks,” Salt commented, looking Sir Antony up and down. “Paris has added inches to your girth.”

  “A couple of hours running about your tennis court should take care of M’sieur Chef’s fine cream sauces and delectable choux pastries,” Sir Antony replied good-naturedly as they both made themselves comfortable in wing chairs. He unbuttoned two silver buttons of his striped saffron silk waistcoat and accepted the glass of claret from a blank-faced waiter. “But I’m surprised the tournament is to go ahead. I thought it’d be left to Ellis to take your place on the court, what with you on your honeymoon—”

  “There isn’t going to be a honeymoon,” stated Salt, taking out his gold snuffbox but not flicking open the enamel inlaid lid. “Parliament still sits, which means I’ve too much business to attend to here in London to go gallivanting about the countryside, this side of the Channel or that.”

  Sir Antony pulled his chin into his lace cravat and studied his friend a moment. “To say your letter informing me of your immediate intention to enter the matrimonial state knocked me off my chair would be an understatement, dear fellow. But I’m a diplomatist, so understatement is my forte. That you want to keep the occasion hush hush is your affair, and I’ll ask you no questions, if that is your wish, but surely I’m not the only one going to attend the ceremony to, as it were, prop up your elbow?”

  Salt took snuff, frowning into the middle-distance. “The least fuss the better.”

  “What does Diana have to say about your sudden leap into the matrimonial fire?”

  “I haven’t told her.

  Sir Antony hid his astonishment behind a frown. “Haven’t told Diana?” he repeated mildly. “You’re not getting leg-shackled without her approval, surely? God! She’ll have a fit of the sullens that neither of us will manage very well. I wish I was still in Paris. You know what an interest she takes in you—”

  “—and my earldom.”

  Sir Antony pursed his lips and counted to five. “Yes, you can be cynical if you choose,” he commented. “But is it any wonder she takes an interest when she’s the mother of your heir? Little Ron will one day succeed you. Up until four years ago it was her husband who stood to inherit your earldom. St. John’s untimely death affected her greatly, as it did all of us.” Sir Antony shifted uncomfortably on the wingchair adding flatly, “And you know as well as I that she married St. John in a fit of pique because you wouldn’t ask her. And if you ask me, she still holds out a candle in hope that you might still get up the courage. Why do you suppose such a good-looking woman has remained a widow? It’s not from lack of offers, I can tell you!”

  Salt shifted his gaze to the dark red liquid in
his wine glass, a heightened color in his lean cheeks. “Diana was the wife of my best friend and closest cousin, Tony. I have and always will hold her in the highest regard. But that’s all I can—will ever—offer her.”

  “Granted. But Diana will never look on you as a brother,” Sir Antony argued. “As long as you know that.” He gave a halfhearted laugh. “No wonder you don’t want me returning to Paris any day soon if Diana don’t know your news. You’ll need reinforcements when she’s presented with your marriage as a fait accompli. And as for Caroline’s reaction… If you haven’t told your little sister she’s about to gain a sister-in-law, I pray she isn’t coming up to London because we won’t be able to contend with two grief-stricken females—”

  “It’s Jane Despard,” Salt interrupted quietly.

  Sir Antony’s gaze never wavered from the Earl’s handsome angular face but his mouth hovered between an absurdly stupid grin and blank amazement so that he looked stunned, as if someone or something had smacked him across the back of the head. Mute stupefaction made him drink his wine in one gulp, realizing now why his elder sister and the Lady Caroline had been kept in ignorance of the Earl’s imminent marriage. The bride was so far off the social register, indeed being disowned by her father was as nothing when compared to her depraved lifestyle living unmarried under the roof of an old Bristol merchant, that if the truth was ever revealed to family and friends they would wonder at the Head of the Family’s mental stability, and if it ever got out to the world, well, the Sinclair family would be forever ridiculed and thus socially ruined.

  Not one to shirk responsibilities and being genuinely fond of Salt, Sir Antony was glad he had been recalled home early from the finalization of the Paris peace negotiations to stand shoulder to shoulder with the Earl at this difficult time.

  “I thought… given the circumstances surrounding the offer… That she broke off the previous engagement…”

  “Miss Despard informs me she must marry me.”

  Sir Antony’s jaw swung open. “What? After thumbing her nose at your previous offer? The barefaced cheek of the little cat!” and then suddenly realized he was describing his friend’s future wife. “I thought Miss Despard might have a shred of decency left and refuse you,” he added, much subdued.

  Salt’s features were rigid and pale. It was an effort for him to speak. “God help me, Tony, so did I.”

  FOUR

  WHEN ARTHUR ELLIS returned upstairs to the drawing room he found Jane alone, seated by the fire, face turned to the flames as they crackled with new life amongst the blackened logs. For one heart stopping moment the secretary thought she had tossed into the fire the sheaf of papers he had labored over for hours, and his shoulders slumped at the thought of having to rewrite all four pages of closely written script. But it said much about his own gentle nature that when he realized the Earl’s betrothed had been crying, he was of the opinion that she really couldn’t be blamed for destroying a document that clearly set out to humiliate and imprison her.

  He offered her his plain white handkerchief saying solemnly, “Should I call for Lady Despard?”

  Jane shook her head and patted dry her cheeks before turning to the secretary with a bright smile. “No, Mr. Ellis. Thank you. I am quite all right. In fact I feel less apprehensive about tomorrow than I have in weeks. It was something he said… If he believes what the physicians advised, and that was ten years ago, then… It stands to reason that the locket never reached him. And if the locket never reached him… He can’t have known what happened to me… But forgive me, Mr. Ellis, you must think me cotton-headed. I am raving on at you about matters you cannot know the first thing about.”

  “Less apprehensive? You are not troubled by the contents of Lord Salt’s document?” Uninvited, the secretary sat opposite Jane and unconsciously took back his handkerchief. “You feel better about tomorrow, Miss Despard?”

  Jane smiled behind her hand at his look of total confusion.

  “Mr. Ellis, I do believe your loyalty should be with his lordship and his sad predicament in being forced into a marriage he does not want in the least. Forgive me. I have disconcerted you, again. Have you been ordered to collect that document with my signature upon it or face dire consequences? Oh! Mr. Ellis,” she added when he glanced swiftly over at the little escritoire and a huge relief showed itself on his freckled face, “did you think I had burned it? For shame. When you have undoubtedly spent many hours deliberating over every word, and your handwriting so immaculate.”

  “I am only sorry that it was I who had to read it out loud,” the secretary confessed, gaze riveted to her lovely face. “If there had been any other way, if it had not been necessary for me to be present, to save you the embarrassment, but unfortunately—”

  Jane touched the young man’s hand. “—Lord Salt cannot read the printed page without the aid of his eyeglasses. If he reads unaided for any length of time, particularly the newsprint, he suffers from the most unbearable megrims. He should wear his rims, but refuses to do so in public because his pride and vanity prevent him. Obstinate man. But I have said too much and you are looking at me as if I have sprouted a second head!”

  The secretary was so taken aback that the Earl’s betrothed knew about his employer’s debilitating eyesight that he nodded his agreement and stood up when she rose from the chair. Very few people knew that it was an exceptional retentive memory that enabled the Earl to hide his disability upon most occasions, particularly when delivering speeches in the Lords or serving on committees where papers had been distributed beforehand. As for seeing his lordship wearing his gold-rimmed spectacles across the bridge of his long, bony nose, Arthur Ellis was quite certain the number of persons granted this privilege amounted to less than half a dozen. It was only when he was shut away in his bookroom with only Arthur in attendance, would the Earl sit hunched over a document reading with the aid of his magnified lenses. It begged the question how Miss Despard could know such an intimate detail about her future husband, but instead of asking he said diffidently,

  “His lordship has instructed me to offer you my assistance with the sorting of your belongings; those that are to remain with the Allenbys and those requiring removal to your new home in Grosvenor Square.”

  “Thank you for the offer, Mr. Ellis,” Jane replied, picking up the document off the escritoire, “but I anticipated his lordship’s directive and have only brought with me one portmanteau and two hat boxes. My petticoats and shoes, such as I had, I left in Wiltshire to be distributed amongst the wives and daughters of the parish poor.” She handed the unsigned document to the secretary with an apologetic smile. “I’m afraid I have no intention of signing this hateful epistle, Mr. Ellis. I’m only sorry you must deliver the news to his lordship. Hopefully his misdirected wrath will be of a short duration and he can bottle the rest until he has the opportunity to vent it on me.”

  Arthur Ellis gave an involuntary laugh and shook his head. He couldn’t blame her but he was surprised that this delicate beauty had the strength of character not to be frightened to stand her ground with his strong-willed employer. Arthur predicted interesting times ahead for the Earl once married to Miss Jane Despard. The anticipation of the upcoming nuptials put a decided spring in his step as he went about his usual business the next day, despite an anteroom full of petitioners and the day’s appointments already substantially delayed with the arrival of Lady St. John with her two children in tow.

  The secretary did not approve of Lady St. John and her mischievous offspring but it was not his place or right to say so. Nor did it surprise him that she always chose to visit on the only day in the week when the Earl received petitioners, and thus his busiest at-home day.

  Tuesdays were open house day at Lord Salt’s Grosvenor Square mansion, providing an opportunity to anyone who wished to put his case to the Earl of Salt Hendon, be it on a matter regarding a sinecure, patronage for a literary work or some such artistic endeavor, a hawker representing the wares of his manufacturer, or pers
ons with some minor connection to the Sinclair family or the Earl’s estates seeking assistance in some way. Petitioners rarely managed to make it to interview on the first Tuesday of their petitioning and waited all day in the freezing and cavernous anteroom with its marble floor and no fire in the grate. There were never enough chairs to go round and people stood for hours only to be told to return the following Tuesday to wait all over again. The more persistent returned three or four Tuesdays in a row all for the privilege of stating their case in the fifteen minutes allotted to them for an audience with the Earl.

  None of this meant anything to Lady St. John. She sailed into the Earl’s bookroom in a billow of exquisitely embroidered Italian olive velvet petticoats, her retinue behind her and without a single glance at the nameless silent and shivering crowd queued up either side of the double doors, guarded over by two footmen regaled in the Sinclair blue and gold livery.

  Arthur tried to continue on with his work as if she was not there, but of course this was an impossible task when she immediately draped herself on a corner of the Earl’s massive mahogany desk, with no regard for the piles of important papers her petticoats swept to the floor in the process. As for her two children, the boy and girl clambered up onto Uncle Salt’s lap and demanded his attention. And of course Lady St. John’s visits invariably required the involvement of most of the household staff to provide for her and her children’s care and nourishment. The kitchen was sent into a whirlwind of activity to make and bake the little almond biscuits she liked so much and the particular Bohea tea at the strength her palate would approve; the butler was called upon to provide his undivided attention to her ladyship’s whims and at least four liveried footmen were dispatched to keep an eye on the children to ensure there was minimal disruption to carpets, leather bound volumes lining the walls, mahogany furniture and soft furnishings. All this despite Lady St. John arriving with her own lady-in-waiting, the children’s tutor, a governess and a Negro pageboy whose arduous task it was to go before her ladyship carrying a silk cushion which had upon it her ladyship’s fan.